Got this in an email from a friend this week....
I am finding it hard to be patient with this team. I know that the stats
show they are doing good things, they just aren't consistently winning.
However, things like the short-handed goal last night where the puck falls
to Nabokov's feet after the save and nobody but Dustin Brown seemed to
notice are so aggravating. Maybe I didn't see the play, but it seemed like a
slo-motion train wreck.
I guess the good news is that I saw both wins in Vancouver.
Anyway, just venting. You haven't written a lot specifically about the
Sharks on "Two for Elbowing" lately.
Yeah, I haven't written much about hockey this season. Partially because of the new job, where I've had a lot of new stuff to soak up quickly, and a lot of work that needed done yesterday, and partially because I've simply been really busy elsewhere (for instance, http://www.siliconvalleybirders.org, and my photography).
But I also found myself somewhat -- disinterested -- in hockey this year. You'd think from listening to some of the fans and media that the Sharks were the worst team in the league, not in the top half dozen or so. The reality is, though, that this team's played very inconsitently and without fire and rarely been putting in a full 60 minutes, and their success in the standings is irrelevant, because this isn't a top 8 team, this is a top 3 team, at least in theory. it's not even that they're phoning games in, that might be somewhat easier to deal with -- they're simply unable to focus for a full three periods. They work hard; they don't work smart.
Three key spark plugs are misfiring;
Marleau, who simply seems distracted at home (he's a new dad, and either he's not getting enough sleep, or he's a little too "into being daddy" -- either way, as he adjusts, I expect this'll work itself out, and people who want him traded or removed as Captain should just sit back and be a bit patient. not that they will...)
Carle, who simply seems lost out there many nights. Wilson tried switching him to the other side one game to make him think his game through a bit more, and THAT was an unmitigated disaster. I'm still really high on Carle, but he's having a rough season. He's still a kid, this stuff happens.
Cheechoo, who's not healthy. Serious double hernia surgery offseason -- it's not fully healed yet. Even if it was, I wouldn't blame him for not being fully confident about it being healed. he doesn't have the jump, he's not using his upper body as much as he needs to, and the reality is, we need to understand that these kind of injuries take more time than just the time needed for the incisions to seal and the sutures to dissolve. He'll be fine, you just can't hurry these things (without risking more injury).
On the plus side, there's Roenick, who's been a wonder and joy to watch. For me, totally unexpected, but wow. Well done, JR. And my big surprise of the season, Doug Murray. The knock on him in previous years was that he was slow; this year, he's looking less for the big hit and trying to play a more solid, shut down game, and he's making me not miss Scott Hannan one bit. And he still gets his hits in.
the Sharks seem to be putting it together. They played a nice game against Phoenix tonight, and Nabokov had a hell of a game to win it 1-0 (so did Bryzgalov, there really was a lot more energy and offense than the score indicates). Here's hoping, and that it comes home.
The other thing that I realized was bothering me was that I was reading too much of the rampant negativity that exists around the league these days. If you listen to some of the bloggers and print/TV pundits out there, this league's dead and buried -- and frankly, it'd got me into a bit of a "why bother?" mood. Then I realized it was like no other place when the trolls move in and start stirring up the crap; if you let them get to you, they can screw up a pretty good thing.
So I made a decision a couple of weeks ago to stop reading some of the people I felt were simply being negative about everything -- I'm not suggesting there be no criticism (or god forbid, that nothing needs to be criticized), but there's a distinct lack of balance from some folks. And if they can get me in a "this league sucks" mood, one can only imagine how it affects other. And since so much of what they write is frankly bullshit anyway, why waste the oxygen and electrons on them?
No, not naming names (well, no, I'll name two: Al Strachan and Larry Brooks. But no naming bloggers). But if you're the kind of blogger who mistakes juvenile name games (like, say, comparing Gary Bettman to a Sesame Street character) or thinks that inserting random pictures of ice girls makes your hockey commentary more insightful, then you've probably lost a reader. And for me, the hockey world has become a much more interesting and intelligent place through subtraction...
It's not that the league is perfect, or even in great shape. it's just that it's not nearly as bad off as some of them want you to believe -- because by pushing the "it sucks" button, it garners them attention and notoriety.
I thought at one point about putting out a challenge -- challenge the various hockey bloggers out there to spend some time talking about what's right about the league, just to see what came out. But I realized that the ones that were most negative would either blow it off, or turn it into yet another juvenile stunt to ridicule things -- so what the heck, why bother?
Instead, I'm just going to stop wasting oxygen and electrons on people who's opinion's I've come to realize are a waste of time... And hopefully, my own attitude will improve enough that I feel like spending more time in the mosh pit again.
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