Vox Populi, Vox Waddell

There's some kind of townhall meeting scheduled before the game this evening, a forum where season ticket-holders can express whatever they want to express and ask whatever they want to ask of Don Waddell. The Blueland Chronicle's finest reporters will be present, so all salacious and significant details will find their way onto this blog.

For my part, I'm a bit nervous. I fear for Mr. Waddell's safety, or at least the cleanliness of his suit. I expect some people will turn up with vegetables to throw. There's no denying that the past eight games have been dismal; as much as some might love to wallow in blame, there's really no one person or aspect of the team to blame. MANY things are wrong with the Thrashers franchise; Craig Custance does a fine job of enumerating them here.

Good reformist that I am, though, I think nothing is going to change for the Thrashers until either a) the ownership gets it act together, or b) the ownership itself is changed. As of right now there are a ton of problems with the players and their lack of chemistry (again, read Custance), but I find it hard to believe that this team will progress without a drastic re-structuring of the priorities and financial agreements of our feckless, mediocre, and predatory owners. Some of them, and feel free to pass this along, know as much about hockey as I do about molecular biology, and care even less. I could elaborate on their too-numerous-to-recite-them-all idiocies, but I'll save that for a post in the near future. Right now it should suffice to say that nothing is going to improve until the owners improve (by either improving themselves or making themselves ex-owners).

Another thought on our epic failure/suggestion for folks wondering why we suck: Our team is too damn OLD! I love Recchi and Holik and company, and there are sound arguments for keeping them, but let me venture a modest proposal by way of comparison. Look at the Pittsburgh Penguins. Look at the Minnesota Wild. Think historically and look at the 1980s Edmonton Oilers. These are/were young teams that built a camaraderie and a common purpose by playing and growing together over several years, from draft to Stanley Cup (I'm thinking more of the Oilers there; we'll see how things turn out for the Penguins and the Wild this year).

Speaking of the Wild, we're playing them tonight. Perhaps we'll destroy them and everything I say here will look like donkey-wank.