The San Jose Sharks were, until very recently, your editor's 2nd favorite team. The reasons for this are many. Just to name some: ties to the Bay Area, Jeremy Roenick in his baroque period, Joe Thornton's passing, Patrick Marleau's speed and skating, Evgeni Nabokov's heroics in goal, the stellar two-way play of Milan Michalek and Joe Pavelski, the fact that Jonathan Cheechoo always seemed like a such a nice guy, Ron Wilson's suits, and then Todd McLellan's hobo-stumbled-on-some-fine-clothes look, and many more.
As you may have heard, despite their overwhelming talent, they've had a hard time getting it done in the post-season. GM Doug Wilson seems to think the remedy for this is Dany Heatley. I'm not so sure.
I won't deny that I'll be interested to see how things turn out with one of the best snipers in the league playing alongside one of the best playmakers, but...I just don't like Dany Heatley. In fact, I really dislike him. Not directly because of the Snyder tragedy, but because of just about everything he's done post-Thrashers. Requesting trades, throwing tantrums when he's offered a spot on a team he doesn't want to go to, his general petulance, forcing Cheechoo and Michalek to leave the Sharks, etc.
So, for me, the San Jose Sharks no longer exist. I think of them as having passed into history already, while the team we're playing tonight is an entirely different team called "the San Jose Sharks + Dany Heatley." During the Communist period, Milan Kundera and Czeslaw Milosz wrote about their respective countries as if they no longer existed; during Pinochet's rule in Chile, Gabriel Garcia-Marquez said he wouldn't write a single book until the dictator fell. That's sort of how I feel about the Sharks: they're occupied by an oppressive foreign power, and I won't return to them until he's gone. In other words, I'm boycotting the Heatley-era Sharks.
That comparison is in appallingly bad taste, but there it is.
I still read the finest Sharks blogs, though! If you're interested in some of the best writing in the hockey blogosphere I strongly urge you to check out the great Mike Chen, the Battle of California, Couch Tarts, and Fear the Fin.
Meanwhile, the Thrashers have GOT to win. It won't be easy, of course, as San Jose is stacked with dangerous forwards and offensive d-men AND mightily pissed off about losing to the Tampa Bay Lightning the other day. I reckon the only way for Pavelec get his confidence back is by throwing him in tonight. Haw haw, throwing him to the Sharks, as it were, HAW!
One more thing. The Chronicle's own Razor Catch Prey went to a bloggers' rendezvous at today's morning skate and interviewed an actual Thrashers player! His report should be mighty juicy.
The game-day song is one that, we've all just learned, Sean Avery really, really likes. Whatever else you may about the guy, he has good taste in music, clothes, and women. Surely that counts for something?
Anyway, don't take your eye off the puck again, boys. We know you can win it.
Radiohead - 15 Step (Grammys 2009)
When the hell did this happen? I should consider watching the Grammy's.
Go Thrashers.
2 comments:
I think you need to mention something about my awesome taste in music, too. ;)
Dude. It's a real thing of failure that I didn't. I've mentioned it before, of course, but I figure by now the entire world takes it for granted. It hardly needs to be said out loud!
Good luck tonight, but not really.
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