Oh mend my deeply wounded heart
Fuck, this makes so incredibly angry and unabashedly forlorn, and mostly because he speaks the truth. The NHL season, as much as I want to cling to hope, is lost and the most infuriating and heart wrenching thing about it is that no one cares. Well, that's not true…I know of at least two people, me and Trinity, who both care a great deal that the season is slipping away and I'm quite certain that there are others. I'm sure others can ignore hockey by submerging themselves into football, basketball, NASCAR and golf, for us there is just in no consoling, no substitutes. We've had no dekes, no screaming slap shots or five holes collapsing, no hip checks or line changes, no wicked wristers or five minute majors and, so it appears, we shan't get it.
I just felt so bad after reading that article, I can't really describe it. This next one didn't help much either. For those of you who where there, you'll understand, if you weren't then I don't know what I could say to help you understand. Those were magic times, when Carbo, Luds, Beeker, Mo, Newy, Lehts, Langs, Syds, Zubie, Hatch, Hullie, Matty and Eddie, who stood on his head and kept pucks out like a god, brought the Cup to Dallas! After that I was hooked on the stuff.
This article brought that season back and, on top of making Dimebag's death more tragic (at least to me personally), it made me miss hockey even more. I had forgotten the "song" and that Pantera had made that for the Stars that year. I remembered how great it was to watch our boys fight through all the injuries, the pain and agony that is the NHL post-season and watch them win. I remember staying up well past midnight, on multiple occasions as they went through overtime after overtime; including the one where Hullie, with two blown groin muscles, whacked one past a sprawled out Hasek to win the Cup. Woof, fuck me, I'm getting all emotional and I digressed, sorry.
Bottom line is, Mr. article writer, you may be right on some shallow level, but you miss the real picture. Because I know there are a lot us out there who absolutely hate that the NHL isn't playing, and while some may satiate themselves with other sports, I know deep down they aren't satisfied. There is no other sport that compares to Hockey, no other league that has such fan accessible and humble players, no other trophy is as hard to win, and no other sport that combines beauty, grace, with sheer tenacity and violence as this one does.
That, my filthy readers, is my two bits.