What I'm about to write might seem somewhat odd considering that the two ominous portents I'm about to discuss are, in theory, really good news. Really, they are. But I'm having difficulty coping, and considering there are bizarre occurrences aplenty popping up all over the globe, I'm inclined to believe that we're just days away from frogs dropping from the skies.
I mean, seriously. It's a statue of Michael Jackson at a Premier League soccer stadium. A goddamn scare one at that.
So yeah, that's the first incident of late that can really make you think, but in my life the more immediate things to notice are not so much colored by a diamond-studded glove as they are colored by, well, blue and orange. I refer of course to those two apples of my eye -- and by apples of my eye I mean, "those kids who disappoint you because they develop a drug addiction but you love them anyway".
Ah, curiosity, the name is the Mets ... or Knicks.
So what is my point here? Well, I'll get to it. After the Mets dropped their first game of the 2011 season in uproariously bad fashion, they somehow crafted a comeback Saturday night in an eventual 10-inning win over the Marlins to even the record at 1-1. Today with the rubber match looming, the Amazins didn't have to worry about making things close as they completely smacked around Javier Vazquez in a 9-2 romp. So what we have here is a Mets team that, despite its expectations for being utterly terrible this season, actually has a winning record three games into the season.
I know. I know. There are 159 left for them to lose disastrously, but for the time being, New York is on pace to go 108-54, and I'm perfectly fine touting that. Granted, this would hardly be the first time I've decided to relish in a flukish early-season run -- if three games could even be called a run -- but lease, let me enjoy it while I can.
So where do the Knicks fit in? Well, not only did they finally get over the bizarre hump tonight of actually defeating the Cleveland Cavaliers, but in doing so the Knicks sealed their first playoff berth since 2004. Ah yes, the heady days of 2004. When men were men, women were women, Barack Obama was a little-known state senator in Illinois, the Boston Red Sox were still eight and a half decades removed from their last World Series and I was but a freshman in college who thought it was ridiculous to assume the Knicks would go seven more years before reaching the postseason.
So, you know, it's been a while. But what might be more bizarre to wonder is just how long it's been since these both happened at the same time.
That would be the first time since 1991 that the 'Bockers failed to get out of the first round, but surely, I thought, that was just a blip. Ever since the Knicks had seduced me with their wild run to the 1999 NBA Finals, I had assumed sustained success would be the norm. Even with the uneven trade of Patrick Ewing, Kurt Thomas, Latrell Sprewell, Allan Houston and Marcus Camby formed a core that would continue contending much like the Knicks of Ewing, John Starks and Anthony Mason.
Good one, right?
But see, I had generally assumed that things would always go well for me because I was in the midst of the best stretches of sports fandom my life has known. The Knicks' run to the 1999 Finals was a precursor. First the Devils won the 2000 Stanley Cup and then a 10 month stretch starting in October of 2000 saw three of my favorite teams reach their respective championship rounds.
At the time I didn't even realize it, perhaps because all three of them lost, but the Mets reaching the 2000 World Series foreshadowed the Giants surprising run to Super Bowl XXXV, which begat the Devils once again getting to the Stanley Cup Final in June 2001 before falling in Game 7.
Yes, they lost, but this was an unprecedented run of success for me that I foolishly took for granted at the time. I won't go so far as to assume this is a sign of sustained success. After all, only a fool would expect the Mets to finish this season with a winning record, but it is nice to dream. This is, as far as my life is concerned, a rare time. And it gets even rarer when I take note of the fact that the Devils, who I was desperately pushing for the comeback to end all comebacks on, were officially knocked out of the playoff hunt with a loss to Montreal Saturday night.
Clearly, that's not a positive thrown into this, but two teams doing well is better than just one. The last time New Jersey missed the playoffs was 1996, but they weren't eliminated until the last day of the season when former-Devil Tom Chorske capped a surprising win by the Ottawa Senators, but that wasn't until April 13, at which point the 1996 New York Mets had already fallen below the .500 mark ne'er to return. That means the last time this particular troika occurred was in 1989, and since I was not even at my fourth birthday in April of 1989, it may as well have never have happened as far as I'm concerned.
In fact, it was so long ago that this guy hadn't even been drafted yet.
Of course, I'm not too worried about the Devils making it back next season. Anyone who watched how they played in the second half can clearly note that the abysmal first 33 games were a bizarre fluke.
The Mets and Knicks both being on the upside of things, however, that is a much rarer thing to note. It is so rare, that it may just not last the week once New York makes its first visit to Philadelphia for the season. Hopefully that isn't a case, but I'm a realist. My only real hope is that the next time that rare combo of the Knicks making the playoffs and the Mets having a winning record occurs isn't 10 years from now.
Some of you are probably wondering why it's been a while since I've mentioned hockey. A whole week in fact. Well, I've mentioned it in my past few posts, albeit only in passing, and I could tell you about how thrilling nearly every series is so far or how nearly a third of the games have gone to sudden death overtime, but, you see, there is one series that isn't very close.
And it happens to be my series.
You see, seven of eight series are either tied or at 2-1 split so far, but the one series that isn't is between my beloved New Jersey Devils and the hated Philadelphia Flyers. After two rough games in Philadelphia marred by some iffy officiating, frustrating opposition goaltending and a bizarre decision to not play offense, you know, at all, the Devils suddenly find themselves coming home for Game 5 in a 3-1 deficit and on the brink of elimination.
What makes it so frustrating? Well for one, Martin Brodeur is quietly having one of his better postseasons in recent years. New Jersey's Game 3 overtime loss featured one of the best performances Brodeur has put on in his entire career, while Game 4 featured several spectacular saves, including one that could be on highlight reels for years to come. The other frustration is that Philadelphia has, in net, the immortally forgettable Brian Boucher, a man who has spent the past decade being a journeyman who, aside from one outrageously remarkable shutout streak while with Phoenix, has been thoroughly mediocre for most of his career.
And here he is making remarkable stop after remarkable stop. Of course, he hasn't had to make too many considering the Devils' offense hasn't felt like generating many chances. Perhaps what makes this all most bothersome is that I knew before the postseason began that of the Devils' first-round options, the Flyers were the one I was least interested in playing. And here we are.
Essentially, it feels like my clearly inferior nemesis is beating the shit out of me with the help of his prepubescent brother.
Then again, there are probably more embarrassing ways to lose in the postseason.
Fortunately, Tuesday night provided a distraction from the pain of this year's first round in the form of one of the many days football fans across the country wait months for. No, I'm not talking about that "Super Bowl" nonsense. I'm talking about a day when everyone still has hope for the coming season. I talk, of course, about the release of the 2010 NFL Schedule.
Now, for some of you, this merely gives you the excitement of knowing when your team is playing whom, but for me, the intrigue lies also in potential road games I will try to hit this year. In the case of 2010, likely targets are the Giants visit to Indianapolis on September 19, their visit to Houston on October 10 and their trip down the turnpike to Philadelphia on November 21. There is also some potential for a return trip to Lambeau on December 26, as well as a trip to Chicago that same day to see the Jets visit the Bears. Unfortunately, my hopes that Minnesota would be home during my potential visit to Minneapolis in October weren't fulfilled. The Vikings will be on the bye that weekend.
For those of you wondering how your team's slate looks, NFL.com has a very cool breakdown of each schedule, replete with expected difficulty and total miles traveled, as well as a virtual map laying it all out. While I've had my misgivings about the Giants' schedule this year -- December is a brutal stretch with three division games surrounding trips to Green Bay and Minnesota, and it's the seventh toughest schedule in the League -- as Matt Mosley points out in his superb NFC East blog on ESPN.com, New York has back-to-back road games only once, the bye week doesn't come until Week 8 and the bye also comes before the Giants make that brutal cross-country trip to Seattle, which will provide some timely rest. That trip also happens to be the only one that will take them further west than Dallas.
Of course, it's too soon to really know how these schedules are going to break out. The NFL is as unpredictable as it comes when taking into account who will and won't be in the mix come November. And with the Giants not playing within the division until Week 7, there's plenty of time for them to build a cushion while the Eagles, Cowboys and Redskins bludgeon each other senseless.
Well, maybe not senseless, but once or twice anyway.
Of course, the NFL Schedule only lasts as a distraction for so long, and the NFL Draft, which starts on Thursday night -- the first time that's ever happened -- won't have quite as much staying power either. If the Devils don't turn it around soon, my only diversion will likely be the Mets, but, surprise surprise, the Mets have actually won two straight. (And three of their last four!) I know, small solace, really, but with a team that is expected to be among the dregs of the Majors, I'm taking what I can get for now, particularly since I think, when healthy, the Mets will actually be a fairly competitive team.
Don't worry, there's plenty of time for them to prove me wrong.
This gets more exciting when I point out that tonight I will be going to my first Mets game of the year, which is important for two reasons. A) I'll get to see the immortal Ike Davis for the first time. Davis shined in his debut on Monday, though his second outing was somewhat forgettable, but he is still considered the first baseman of the future, so I'm excited for my peak at what's to come. B) I'll finally get my first look at the completely revamped Citi Field, most notably its new Mets Hall of Fame and Museum.
If any of you are at the game, don't be afraid to say hi, and if the Mets can keep the winning ways up, maybe it'll actually provide a distraction from the fact that my Devils will be teetering on the edge of their season the next night. Of course, a 3-1 rally isn't impossible to come back from, as these two teams should know. And if you're looking for some sort of parallel between 2000 and 2010, look at who was in net both times. Martin Brodeur has been the Devils' mainstay for nearly two decades, but Philadelphia's crease has been a revolving door of names like Roman Cechmanek, Robert Esche and Antero Niittymaki. Bizarrely, however, the Flyer between the pipes for that collapse ten years ago?
Brian Boucher.
He may have been around the League and back since, but here's hoping history repeats itself.
Well if that happened we'd probably all be a bit frustrated because it would be just about the least satisfying ending to a great movie we could possibly imagine -- short of the two of them just hugging for a few minutes. No Keyser Soze, no Kobayashi, no Dean Keaton. The Usual Suspects is just a big fat dud at the end.
That would totally suck.
I bring this up because that's pretty much what we got last night with Duke's victory in the NCAA National Championship Game. Don't get me wrong. The game was phenomenal the whole way through, and Butler proved they belonged on the national stage, but after one of the greatest tournaments in recent memory, the team that wound up cutting down the nets was the one team that absolutely no one wanted to see win. And that leaves a profoundly unsatisfying taste in the mouths of just about everyone who doesn't live in Durham, North Carolina.
And it's quite a shame that we lost what could have been the most appropriate ending to such a wild month of basketball when Gordon Hayward heaved up a potential game-winner three-pointer from half court and it clanged off the rim at the buzzer. We were this close to getting what we wanted -- a moment in college basketball that would have been talked about and replayed for decades -- a small school in its home town knocking off mighty Duke University for the National Championship with a buzzer-beater.
Alas, it was not meant to be, and all we have to remember it by is an incredibly lame game story by whomever was writing it for the AP. He actually writes "What a game!" in the story. Good lord.
It is difficult to know that Butler had not one but two chances to take the lead in the final 30 seconds, but in the end, a great game at the end of a phenomenal tournament isn't all that bad. And with the impending expansion of the tournament to 96 teams next year, this isn't the only shining moment college basketball has had, but it may be the last.
In other news, some of you might have noticed that the Mets opened the season yesterday with a solid 7-1 victory over Florida. The game was actually quite taut most of the way until three errors by the defensively inept Marlins opened the floodgates in a four-run sixth inning for New York. Prior to that, Johan Santana and Josh Johnson had been locked up in a tight pitchers duel, with David Wright's first-inning home run providing the only difference. Eventually the Mets would pull away for the comfortable win, continuing their remarkable record of winning on Opening Day.
Now comes the hard part. Playing the other 161 games. With that pitching staff it won't be easy.
As one of my favorite teams begins its season another's regular season is ending. New Jersey is hardly done. Even if they get eliminated in the first round of the playoffs they'll still be playing until late April. Hopefully they'll be around until June. Either way, the next step in the Devils' close race for the Atlantic Division title with Pittsburgh comes tonight in Atlanta, where Ilya Kovalchuk will make his first appearance since the Thrashers dealt him to New Jersey in February.
While that is the big story, however, what may eventually be the biggest is that a win for Martin Brodeur will make him the first ever member of the 600 win club.
A few years ago, when Brodeur had won his 400th game, I did a brief extrapolation to examine how many wins he would wind up with at his current pace. I assumed some things would slow him down, age and perhaps his triceps injury last year among them. But I had found Brodeur could wind up with as many as 700 wins. I never expected that to happen, but with 600 on the horizon, and Brodeur still winning 40 games a year, with perhaps three seasons left in him, well, it doesn't seem quite so far-fetched.
And given that the most anyone else has ever won is 551 games, well, it's mighty impressive. Here's hoping he crosses that next milestone tonight.
I know that hockey talk is a bizarre choice when I can be talking about Opening Day for my beloved Mets today, but it has occurred to me that if I simply post a chapter of my book every Monday, well, I'm likely to be tapped out of material within three years or so.
And we can't have that.
So I will try, on Mondays, as a bit of a temporary experiment, to write about other sporting experiences that won't necessarily make the book. Unless, of course, the Eagles and Redskins happen to make the most bizarre trade ever, in which case, I might get distracted. But that isn't happening today (though for the record I don't think either team wins the deal, but slight edge to Washington), so instead I'm going to regale with you my venture out to the Devils-Blackhawks game this past Friday night.
The peculiar thing about going to Devils games, is that the crowds are not always great. Perhaps this is skewed by the fact that my work schedule doesn't allow me many weekend nights off -- my Devils games often come on Tuesdays and Wednesdays when the crowds are sparse -- but this was a different case. By luck of the schedule I was given the night off, but as the Devils, my lifelong favorite team, were facing the Blackhawks, a team which I have had a soft sport for ever since I worked for them in college, I would have made it a point to be at this particular showdown.
Remarkably, a number of other New Jerseyans did the same thing. In fact, the crowd was not only large, but also vocal, and you could sense it as you walked in. People were gathered all around the outside of the arena, crowds were drinking and kids were playing hockey in a makeshift rink in the plaza next to Prudential Center. It was an unusual, but welcome sight for a Devils fan always wary of his fan base's meager reputation.
Once inside the arena, not only was the crowd a sea of red jerseys -- no not because there were also Hawks fans -- but the chants and cheers were loud and in unison. For possibly the first time since watching the team at Brendan Byrne Arena, I didn't just feel like I was at a hockey game. I felt like I was at a Devils game.
On this particular night I had lucked into getting my company's suite tickets, which meant feeling like I was a big shot for the next two and a half hours. I waited for Nomaan, a cohort at the Daily Northwestern who is working in New York, in part of my desperate bid to convert more hockey fans. Nomaan, you see, grew up outside Chicago, and with the Blackhawks in the midst of a turnaround from their previous levels of mediocre, now was the time to strike. Fortunately, it just may be starting to work.
After coming through the turnstyles and finding that we had our own special entrance, we made our way up to the suite level, through the "Goal Bar" and to our box in the Devils attacking zone. I had been in a luxury box at Madison Square Garden, a sort of disappointing angle at which to sit, but being in a box at the Rock was a new experience, and the modern architecture shows. The views were remarkable, the seats roomy and comfortable and the design, you know, tasteful.
The only thing missing was food. I did happen to snag an order form that allows you to buy food for the entire box, but the prices seemed a bit on the robust side. I'm sure the $135 Crisp-Crusted Chicken Breast Strips and the $40 Home-Style Coleslaw are delicious, but that ran a bit steep for my wallet, even if it would be enough for the entire box. A $112 bottle of Glenlivet 12 also would be a bit of a setback.
Nomaan and I decided to spend the first intermission instead looking for food elsewhere, and while there was a little trafficked concession stand in the Goal Bar right near our suite, we decided to search around and see if there was free food to poach. Or at least fancier food. Luxury sections on the bottom bowl have access to All-You-Can-Eat bars, and we thought the suites, even more exclusive, might lead you to the same perks.
Evidently this is not true.
During our cruise around the suite level I did enjoy taking in the decor, which was covered with paintings of various major players and moments in Devils history. While we found no free food, we did happen upon the intermission report where Mr. Devil Ken Danyko was interviewing owner Jeff Vanderbeek. Eventually we happened upon a restaurant with a sprawling fancy buffet and a sign claiming it was reserved for a private function.
As we passed through with little attention being paid, it occurred to Nomaan and myself that we could probably start taking food and no one would notice. And so we did just that. We helped ourselves to potatoes au gratin, carved pork, brisket, stuffed sole and any other foods available. No one questioned it. We fit in. We were going to get a fancy free meal.
And then Nomaan noticed there was no silverware.
We saw an employee walking around, who looked conspicuously like a waitress, and asked her where we could get some, to which she said, "Your server should have given you place settings. Did your waitress not come by?"
"Um, no. We haven't seen a waitress yet?"
At this point she said to us, "You do know this buffet is $45 a plate, right?"
"No, we did not know that."
And then, she looked at us as if to say, 'Are you fucking stupid?' and told us, "You can't just come up here and take free food."
We sheepishly put our plates down and left only to hear that the second period was starting and we had missed our opportunity to eat without missing any of the game. I had barely eaten that day and the hunger was distracting me from the fact that we were actually seeing quite a phenomenal game between two potential Cup contenders. Martin Brodeur and Antti Niemi were both standing on their heads, while Ilya Kovalchuk's power-play goal provided the lead for the Devils and New Jersey and Chicago were so crisp in their play that the outing would be the first NHL game without a penalty being called in nine years.
After the second period, we finally got food at the nearby concession stand -- I got a cheeseburger and left the bun behind because it was passover -- and after a third period of more remarkable scoring chances and even more remarkable saves. With Brodeur on the cusp of the 109th shutout of his career, however, Chicago's Kris Versteeg would score an ugly goal to force overtime and, eventually, a shootout.
In my years of hockey games, I had never actually seen a shootout in person -- at least not as a fan. The last time I did see one was as an intern for the Hawks four years ago, and my memory is hazy. Shootouts are awfully exciting. Even more so when your team wins. Unfortunately, that wasn't exactly the case this time, but Nomaan did leave the arena quite satisfied.
Instead of sole possession of first place in the Atlantic, the Devils found themselves in a tie with Pittsburgh with just five games remaining, but it's ok. I'll survive. And if I'm lucky, I'll get to watch the Devils again from the same luxurious vantage point.
I wasn't used to walking out of the arena with so many people, nor was I used to doing so from the suite level, so I had significantly lost my bearings -- not a great combination when you're already disappointed about the outcome. But as Nomaan and I waded through the crowd to the exits, I did look around and happen to notice Millburn High School's jersey among the plethora of New Jersey High School hockey programs that get recognized around the arena. It was a different jersey from previous years and they had shuffled them around from the prior season, but it was still pretty cool to see the Blue "M" hanging on the wall.
Go Millers.
Nomaan asked me where my Millburn hockey jersey was. Alas, it's one of the few I don't own, and I disappointed him with the information that I did not, in fact, play hockey in high school. Frankly, I'm not sure I was in shape to play anything, but I did let him know that I was on the football team. Of course, telling people that might give them the impression that I was actually good. And that would be a bald lie.
Despite the loss, I couldn't complain about seeing a great game between two contenders. Given that the regular season is winding down and my life during the playoffs gets a little hectic, it may be a while before I'm back, though I obviously will look forward to it. Next time, however, I will figure out what to do for food beforehand.
Or at the very least, I'll try not to look like a fool in front of the Arena staff.
For all you people who claim hockey is boring and that you don't know how it could be entertaining, the whole lot of you got smacked in the face tonight with the United States' upset win over Canada at the Vancouver Olympics, its first victory against its northern neighbors at an Olympic Games in 50 years. This was an exciting, taut matchup between two geographic rivals that played with the same effort and tension you'd see in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals. Both teams viewed it as a key stepping stone to a medal, and what followed with tons of great saves, great goals and wild end-to-end rushes was great theater. America's victory has set them up for a fantastic shot at the medal rounds, while dealing a startling blow to Canadian national pride.
Now, unfortunately, I'm going to have to break down to all of you in a few minutes why this might not have been the hallmark moment you thought it was -- to say nothing of the fact that Canada is still very much alive for the gold medal -- but don't worry, if you want to relish in it for a few seconds, I'll let you have your moment.
...
There you go. Now, I'm not going to be one of those self-congratulatory hockey fans who begins to criticize the vast majority of you for not caring about hockey until tonight -- it seems Gawker already did it for me. I don't mind people jumping on the bandwagon when the Olympics come around. Swells of patriotism and the joy of national triumph are what the Olympics are all about, even if douchebag extraordinaire Christopher Hitchens doesn't seem to agree. Furthermore, without it we wouldn't get gems of comments by Canadians such as this one.
No, I'm glad you're all watching, and I'm glad you're all pissed off that the game was relegated to MSNBC rather than NBC's national telecast. If the U.S. team can make a stirring run to the medal round, rally the country behind it and convert some of you out there into real hockey fans who keep watching come the Stanley Cup playoffs this year, tonight's game will have been a victory not just in the Olympics but for hockey as a whole. This is Canada's game, but making it healthier in the U.S. can only better the sport for everyone.
And how exactly did we get here? Well it's very clear that this game started and ended with Ryan Miller's play between the pipes. Miller has been stellar this season for the Buffalo Sabres in what has already been a fine career to this point, but tonight was a level I have never seen him at before. In a tense, pressurized rivalry game in front of an opposition crowd and on an international stage, Miller was unconscious throughout and made several huge stops en route to a 42-save night.
Meanwhile, you can call it a stretch if you want, but with my hero Martin Brodeur in goal, the following players factored heavily into every U.S. goal, with the exception of Ryan Kesler's empty-netter: Zach Parise, Jamie Langenbrunner, Brian Rafalski and Chris Drury. The fact that I was forced to cheer for Drury in what was essentially a Rangers jersey against a red-bedecked Brodeur was oustandingly uncomfortable, but their is a certain national pride that conquers all. Regardless, Drury, as a Ranger, faces Brodeur several times a year, while Rafalski played with Marty on two Stanley Cup-winning squads and Parise and Langenbrunner currently share a locker room with the NHL's All-time wins leader. All of them were familiar with Brodeur. All of them have known him for years and had to have had some idea of how to play him. That edge alone was invaluable.
No, Brodeur was not at his best. Three of those goals were direct results of errors he made playing the puck, and he may very well have played himself out of the starting job, but he still made several outstanding saves in the second period, which was the only period during which the U.S. really controlled play. As Marty said, Miller was the difference -- and he was -- but the fact that three current or former Devils and a Ranger were involved in every scored on Brodeur cannot be overlooked.
As for that last goal by Kesler, it was particularly interesting since it may have sealed his fate of never being able to show his face in Vancouver again. Kesler's upset-sealing tally came on the heels of comments that must have caused a stir north of the border, when he said of the Canadians, "I hate them." That may seem a bit brash, but it's unlikely Kesler will really have to hear from Vancouverites too often since he plays for ... the Vancouver Canucks.
Oops.
Well, with those comments in tow and that diving empty-net score, it might be a safe bet Kesler has punched his ticket out of Vancouver, but at least he looked good doing it, because yes, I'm a total sucker for those totally sweet 1960 Squaw Valley throwbacks the U.S. was wearing tonight. The 1980 jerseys will always have a special spot in my heart -- the U.S. should wear them at every tournament -- but these come a close second. Still, while Kesler stoked some flames, he didn't do anything completely stupid, like, say, mark Alex Ovechkin's colossal hit on Jaromir Jagr with a clearly inappropriate caption on his heavily trafficked website.
So what exactly does this all mean? Well, not as much as you'd think. On MSNBC after the game the following statements were uttered: "The biggest U.S. hockey victory since 1980," "Huge upset" and "Just a bunch of Americans playing a team of future hall of famers." All of these statements are, well, a little over the top.
Let's calm down a little bit people.
First of all, to put this win on par with The Miracle on Ice in 1980 is just plain silly. No upset, no not even the greatest football gameeverplayed, will ever carry the symbolism, political weight and shock of the U.S.'s win over the Soviets in Lake Placid. Besides, the U.S.'s shocking victory at hockey's 1994 World Cup and it's arrival in the Gold Medal Game in Salt Lake City in 2002 were all bigger moments. As for "huge upset", well, these are all NHL players on both sides, and the U.S. and Canada both had a number of star players. Were the Canadians the more talented lot? By quite a margin the answer is yes. But during an NHL season, weak teams with more diluted talent than this still win against the big dogs once in a while. Gretzky's Oilers didn't go undefeated each season. Lastly, "Just a bunch of Americans playing a team of future hall of famers" gives the U.S. team too little credit and the Canadians too much. The Americans are young, and Kesler isn't likely to wind up in the hall, but a number of players on the team, Parise, who was profiled in Sports Illustrated this week, Miller, Patrick Kane to name a few, could very well have long, hall-worthy careers. Of course, it's much too early to make that kind of declaration, but it's hardly out of the realm of possibility. As for the Canadians, Brodeur, Sidney Crosby and more than one or two others on the roster are likely to be honored in Toronto some day. But is Corey Perry? Is Patrice Bergeron?
In any event, this was exciting, but it is probably not the major moment NBC wants you to believe it was. Of course, like I said, if it gets more hockey fans, I'm fine with the outcome, but we ought to see what this really does to the tournament as it stands.
Depending on the outcome of Finland and Sweden, the U.S. seems like it will wind up with the top overall seed in the elimination rounds of what is a very confusing tournament structure -- a surprise to say the least. This means, the Americans will get a bye to the quarterfinals where they will face the winner of Belarus and Switzerland. While Swiss goaltender Jonas Hiller could easily steal a game -- he single-handedly eliminated the Presidents' Trophy-winning San Jose Sharks in the opening round of the postseason last year -- beyond Hiller neither team has a threatening lineup. This means the U.S. could very possibly find its way into the semifinals, which could have them facing a stiffer challenge in the likes of Finland or the Czech Republic.
As for the Canadians, the path gets far more ornery. Canada will face the Germans in the first elimination round, which, frankly, may as well be a day off, but if all the favorites hold and win through the first round of elimination games, Canada will face off with Russia in the quarterfinals, a matchup that insures one of the two pre-tournament gold medal favorites will leave the Olympics with nothing to show for it. If the Canadians are to get past Alex Ovechkin and company -- and I think they would -- they find themselves in the semifinals where their challenges are on the same level as any other team team that gets to that point. In fact, it's very possible that Canada and the U.S. could meet again next Sunday for the gold, and in that situation I don't like the Americans' chances, but that potential matchup with the Russians looms large as the key stumbling block.
Canada has put a lot of pressure on itself to take home what some say is the only medal that matters. As Sports Illustrated put it, without top honors in hockey the Games as a whole will be considered a failure. Being on the magazine's cover may not have helped the team's case, but either way, for Sidney Crosby and the Canadians, the clock is starting to tick.
Originally written on April 19, 2009. Statistics updated on February 9, 2010.
For whatever reason, I had a poster growing up of the 1991-92 New Jersey Devils in my room. I’m pretty sure my sister got it as a free giveaway when she attended a Devils game with her girl scout troop, but I couldn’t swear to it. All I remember about it in certainty is that the photos were all in black and white and that New Jersey’s goalie at the time was a journeyman named Craig Billington. He and Sean Burke, who I believe was also on the poster would soon be supplanted by Martin Brodeur, who has maintained the post for 16 years, taken dozens of records and won three Stanley Cups.
To call Brodeur my hero is putting it mildly.
Regardless of owning the poster, I didn’t really watch hockey as a six or seven year old. In fact, I didn’t come across a hockey game until I, an eight-year-old up well past his bedtime one Saturday, happened upon MSG Network’s replay of a Rangers-Stars game at two in the morning. I watched and found it entertaining, and for some reason developed a strong fascination with the name of Dallas goaltender Andy Moog, but I remember clearest of all that I knew absolutely nothing about the game. This has since become painfully obvious to me because I remember watching the clock tick down on a Rangers power play and I assumed it was a countdown until the Rangers power play started, rather than ended. How the Rangers could have exacted the timing of an offensive scheme so incredible that it would be called a “power play” in a game of such unpredictable action and fluid motion is beyond me now, but the thought didn’t enter my head at the time.
I also recall another late night viewing of an overtime Rangers loss to the Ottawa Senators, and I became more and more interested in hockey as the season wore on. Interestingly, the Rangers, readily available because MSG Network was a basic cable channel, did not get my support. The Devils were on Sports Channel at the time, a premium network that my parents chose not to purchase. Despite the fact that I grew up watching the Rangers far more, a Rangers team that won the Stanley Cup in my first year as a hockey fan no less, I clung to the Devils. In retrospect, I have no idea why.
The only reason I can come up with is the poster. For some unknown, strange reason, I really liked that poster. That was that. The Devils were my team. This was something that became difficult to handle as the first year I watched the Devils lost to the rival Rangers in the Eastern Conference Finals. It was a seven-game series that I still consider the best I ever saw for multiple reasons. For one, the Rangers and Devils hated each other. For another, the Rangers and Devils finished one-two in the league that season. For yet another, the series also featured Mark Messier’s famed guarantee, when he declared the Rangers would force a Game 7 despite trailing 3-2 with Game 6 in New Jersey and then backed up that claim with a hat trick in the third period. Lastly, three games in the series, including Game 7, went into double overtime. Game 7 ended on a wraparound goal by Stephane Matteau, which is still a cherished memory for Ranger fans who saw the Blueshirts lift their first cup in 54 years that season, and a particularly bitter one for me.
I will admit I’m glad I saw that game as an eight-year-old rather than a full adult. As a child, I couldn’t process the drama and I since have realized that I would have been far more deeply affected – and depressed – by seeing a loss like that in my 20s. The Devils would bring order to my universe the next year when they won their first Stanley Cup in a shocking sweep of the Detroit Red Wings, but that season was also notable to me because it was the first one in which I would see a hockey game. After nagging my father, he got tickets through business to a Rangers-Islanders tilt at the Garden on April 7, 1995.
Dad took me, my sister and my friend Matt Nedostup. It was my first time at the World’s Most Famous Arena, and while my memories are hazy, I distinctly remember being overwhelmed by the grandeur. The circular shape and the walls on the outside give it an appearance of importance when you see it poke out from between the buildings in midtown Manhattan. This particular Garden was the fourth building in Manhattan to bear that name when it opened in 1968. The previous three had long since been torn down, and given the tradition of its two main tenants, the Garden had seen fairly little postseason success. The Knicks had won two titles in its early years, but none since, and the Rangers’ Cup win in 1994, was their first since 1940. The previous incarnation of Madison Square Garden had seen the Rangers win three in a 12 year span. Of course, that building was shared by another, older hockey team called the New York Americans, who would eventually fold due to an inability to compete with the on-ice success of the newer Rangers, leading some to theorize this was the root of “The Curse of 1940.”
I think the inability to win might have come from an inferiority complex in the organization that developed after the Rangers were often forced to reschedule Stanley Cup Finals games as a result of the third Garden also being booked for the circus. The Rangers won the Stanley Cup in 1928 despite having to play all their games on the road because of Ringling Brothers.
The current Garden allows the teams to take center stage, but it is also one of the busiest buildings in the world, hosting not just the Rangers and Knicks, but concerts, conventions, boxing matches and traveling theater – not to mention my brother’s college graduation.
The concourses on the inside aren’t as small as the ones in Yankee Stadium or Shea, but they aren’t large either. The seating area is where the action is. You walk in and find yourself intimidated by its massive and yet intimate feeling. The seats from the higher sections feel as though they are almost on top of the lower sections, and the ceiling has structurally necessitated lines that lead towards the scoreboard in the center. It’s almost as if the building’s feng shui leads you to the focal point. When you sit in it, there are many aspects of it that make you feel as though it deserves its status.
Those, however, were the lenses of my youth. I have since become less enchanted with the grandeur, as I’ve found the Garden to be an impressive place to watch a game for its ability to create energy and make you feel like you’re somewhere special, but it is, on the whole, really not a great arena. The sightlines are not all that spectacular, the seats are outrageously expensive, and the fact that the chairs have leather on them more or less blinded me to it all.
Of course, it is silly to disregard the Garden for these reasons. All arenas are expensive and the energy the crowd brings makes the experience. This game, given the Rangers longtime rival in the Islanders, was no exception. I specifically recall a loud unattractive woman in a Campbell Conference All-Star Game jersey who was particularly vocal, lending much of her ire to referee Don Koharski, a man both legendary for his decades of service to the game, and notorious for being told to “Go eat another donut!” by former Devils coach Jim Schoenfeld during a confrontation after a 1988 playoff game.
“Koharski you suck!”
Those were her words after one penalty. I was only nine at the time, but that was the moment when one of the most obvious truths of sports dawned on me.
You hear the word “suck”. A lot.
It’s a pretty damn important word at sporting events. I would venture to say you’ll probably hear it at least 100 times when you take the kids to a game. Some might have a problem with this. It doesn’t particularly irritate me as a general term, but it does bother me in that I know there has to be something people can say which is more intelligent. Or clever. Or at least mildly less crass. Perhaps my reason for this is that I don’t see a plausible way to quantify suckiness, or rules dictating the nature of suckdom. If determining sucktitude is such an inexact science, it hardly seems like a reasonable way to measure someone’s worth as an athlete or an official.
I’m sure we can come up with something better, but a lot of us don’t really go to sporting events to think hard. Generally, we aim for the opposite. In a sense, that is what makes them great, but at the same time I hope for a greater sign of human intelligence than this. Then again, in the years since, it has become very apparent to me that hoping for that is entirely futile.
This particular game was the night of the NHL trade deadline and the Islanders had been involved in the biggest move of the day, picking up Montreal Canadiens captain Kirk Muller and defenseman Mathieu Schneider. While Muller did not immediately report because he was upset to have been traded from Montreal, Schneider would assist on the Islanders’ first goal that night, as they rallied from a 2-0 deficit to pull out a 4-3 win, prompting loud booing from a sellout crowd at the Garden, which was rather unsettled with their defending Stanley Cup-champion Rangers. Just a year earlier, the Rangers had ended the longest drought in the history of the sport. The night I was there, the defending Champs played nothing like one, dropping their fourth straight game at home.
I remember most clearly that night that my father decided we were all hungry and needed to stop off at a Pizza Hut on the drive back to New Jersey afterwards, ordering a stuffed crust pizza – it was new at the time – and indulging in it while The Doors’ Greatest Hits played on the juke box. “Touch Me” was the song I recall being played multiple times and as I far more thoroughly understand the song now than I did then, it seems just a little inappropriate.
The Rangers would squeak into the playoffs that year and surprise the No. 1-seeded Quebec Nordiques who were in their last year at the Colisee before pulling up stakes and moving west to Colorado, where they would win the Cup a year later in 1996. The Rangers would be out a round later in 1995, meeting their fate at the hands of the Philadelphia Flyers who swept them in four games. That year, though, it would be my team, the New Jersey Devils, who would surprise the hockey world as a five-seed to breeze through the Boston Bruins and Pittsburgh Penguins before knocking off Philadelphia in six games and then sweeping the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Detroit Red Wings for their first Stanley Cup in franchise history.
My first venture to see my favorite team wouldn’t come until six months later, when family friend Sally Bregman gave my father two tickets on December 7, 1995 for that night’s game against the Toronto Maple Leafs. For the first 25 seasons the Devils spent in New Jersey they played at what was called, for most of its existence, Brendan Byrne Arena, or as I referred to it – and I’m pretty sure I was the only one – “The Byrne.” Brendan Byrne was a New Jersey governor who helped push for the creation of the Meadowlands Sports Complex that would come to house the Devils, the New Jersey Nets and the New York Giants and Jets.
As a thank you gesture, Byrne was honored by having his name grace one of the most lifeless and uninteresting buildings the NHL has ever known. It was probably more fitting for the building to have its uninteresting corporate sponsor name of Continental Airlines Arena starting in 1996. The building would later change its name again to The Izod Center in 2007, but by then the Devils had moved on to the Prudential Center in downtown Newark.
While I would share a number of memories with the building, namely Game 5 of the 2003 Eastern Conference Semifinals and Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals that same season, the Byrne was a beige, boxy home that was plain and uninspired on the outside and felt like a mall as you walked around inside. The concourses were brightly lit and white all the way around. The arena itself wasn’t a terrible place to watch a game. The sightlines were decent and the capacity, 19,040, was likely an early stab at stoking a rivalry with the Rangers, who were in the midst of their drought when the Byrne opened in 1982. Bizarrely, the top bowl of the arena was surrounded by pale blue walls that seemed like an appropriate place to film a blue screen sequence in a movie.
The Devils’ fan base does not always come out in force. My first night at a game the announced crowd was 12,374, downright shameful for the defending Stanley Cup champions. But the fans that do show up are a passionate lot, devoted to their team and not afraid to vocalize their disdain of the Rangers. One tradition in the building is to hum aloud a generic arena pump up song and then yell “Rangers Suck!” Sometimes this is followed by less of the crowd with the all too tasteful “Islanders Swallow!” Another tradition follows that the fans yell out “Sucks!” whenever a member of the visiting team is announced during the starting lineups.
Clearly we Devils fans do little to separate ourselves from the vast majority.
The Devils would lose to the Leafs by a 2-1 count, their third loss in a row, dropping them below the .500-mark. The game was sealed on a cross-checking penalty against longtime Devil Ken Daneyko, who I vividly remember slamming the door of the penalty box and yelling at referee Paul Devorski as he was sent to the sin bin with less than two minutes remaining. The game-winner came at the hands of Toronto’s Benoit Hogue, and the first goal I ever saw scored by a Devil was potted by rookie Petr Sykora, who would go on to be a crucial part of the Devils’ 2000 Stanley Cup Championship team and play in the NHL for 15 more years, including two more Finals appearances with the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim and the Pittsburgh Penguins.
That loss, which caused a great deal of booing from the home crowd – apparently I had that kind of effect on teams when I was younger – led many to question the toughness of a still young Martin Brodeur. Despite winning it all the year before, the Devils were struggling and would wind up missing the postseason that year, unable to defend their Cup. As of today, Marty, as we Devils fans affectionately call him, has since accumulated three Cups, four Vezina Trophies and an NHL record 590 career wins and 108 career shutouts. To say that Brodeur assuaged those fears in the years since would be putting it lightly. Instead of being considered immature, he is now remembered as one of the greatest netminders to ever play the game.
Interestingly, the Devils were suffering from a number of injuries among their wingers at the time I attended my first game. This forced a number of minor league call ups including a young left wing named Patrik Elias. My first Devils game would be the NHL debut for Elias, who did not reach the scoresheet that night. Elias would score a number of important goals as a Devil, however, including the winner late in Game 7 of the 2000 Conference Finals against Philadelphia.
On March 17, 2009, Marty would break Patrick Roy’s record for most career regular season wins in a 3-2 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks. Elias would play a role, assisting on the game-winner by Brian Gionta. That assist would be the 702nd regular season point of his career, making him the leading scorer in Devils history. I didn’t realize until years later that I had been there for the start of Elias’ career. Of course, being all of 10 years old at the time, it’s foolish to assume I played any sort of role. But it’s still a fun thought.
Marty, despite an early fascination with Claude Lemieux, has permanently established himself as my favorite player of all time. At times I think that is a bit unfair, however. After all, it was Brodeur’s predecessor Craig Billington, who got me to make that deal with the Devils in the first place.
As far as sports go, it’s one of the best I’ve made.
