This is the world we live in. A team loses in Game 7 of Lord Stanley's Cup and their fans must find ways in which to relieve the pain from a head on collision with reality. "Fans" will spew obscenities about opposing players, coaches, fans, and even the League. As if only the NHL itself could keep down our Kingly Wings. Bandwagoners cannot live with the fact that they hitched a ride on a trail that ended up plummeting over a cliff instead of to "them thar mountains" with a giant silver cup filled with gold, and possibly Crosby's pubic-like beard hair. Casual fans who don't know who the Wings third line Center is or our second line defenseman are cannot believe that such a great team could possibly have gotten so screwed. Even some of the die-hard fans out there believe all of this was some sort of mirage or chirade for Bettman to get "Cindy" (his?) Cup. Listen good all you deficient, incendiary provocateurs. We simply got beat.

I love conspiracy theories. Especially the ones like the government caused 9/11 to rally the American people against Muslims, or that they created the AIDS virus to rid the world of "undesireable" people and their habits, or maybe that our government had plenty of advance knowledge of Pearl Harbor and did nothing. Oh, and let's not forget Princess Diana, UFOs, and JFK, to name a few. H.L. Mencken once said, "The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true desserts. He ascribes all his failure to get on in the world, all of his congenital incapacity and damfoolishness, to the machinations of werewolves assembled in Wall Street, or some other such den of infamy." Whatever helps you sleep at night eh? If you want to delve deeply into paranoia and the absence of logic or probable thought, that's your business. But Bettman's business is trying to expand his product. Yes, he's made mistakes in hyping Crosby too much, but he is looking to increase the viewership of the NHL and has made the biggest contracts in NHL history with TV and radio sponsors. He even brought the NHL back from the Lockout. Unfortunately, Bettman is a smart businessman, and smart businessmen do not put their careers on the line for a Tim Donaghy-ian type backlash. If you must believe that Bettman screwed the Wings out of a Championship, just realize that most people around the world would consider you clinically insane.

I will grant that the national media does not consider Detroit one of their darlings. It's no surprise that Bettman would prefer the Cup go elsewhere, just like Selig loves Subway Series' or BoSox vs. Dodgers. Don't you think Stern was leaping for joy that LA won the NBA championship? Michigan as a whole and Detroit as a microcosm are considered the beaten stepchild of New York, LA, and Chicago among others. They regard our victories as anomalies and sound like a loving mother talking to her handicapped child, "Aww! You did so good honey!" And while we may have an inferiority complex that has a foundation in legitimacy, our destiny is our own. Selig did not force every Detroit Tigers pitcher to not know how to throw to first base in '06, Roger Goodell did not send down a mandate for a t-shirt that had "Built Ford Tough" written on it with a Lions logo, David Stern did not tell Joe D. he had to trade Chauncey (still a good trade), and Gary effen Bettman DID NOT lose this series for the Wings.

Gary Bettman did not give us a 2-0 series lead, only to squander it. Gary Bettman did not give us a 3-2 lead, only to squander it. Hell, it almost seemed like he was on the Wings side there for awhile didn't it? Except the Wings were OFFsides so much it didn't matter. The Wings were worse closers than I was in college, and that's saying something. And Gary Bettman surely doesn't have the mind boggling power to make sure we played with no sense of urgency at the Joe in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals. He didn't get the Pens so geeked up for the game that they chased the puck harder than a teen boy on viagra. No, that was Coach Dan Bylsma, who graduated from my high school; and if he brings the Cup to Muskegon I will seriously jump off their new high rise building. . . I digress. . .

In essence, it would have been better for the Winged Wheels to lose indefinitely. Yes this sounds putrid to us all, including me who relished in our 7-0 thumping of Patrick Roy and the Avs in Game 7. But knowing we had another gear that was out of commission until 5 minutes were left in the third period? That is unconscionable. No one should have to tell a veteran team what the stakes are. That's like telling Dane Cook he's not funny, he should already know. And to show that they had more so late in the game after they had been thoroughly outplayed is bush league. It was almost as if we've seen the Pistons reincarnated. Winning a championship . . . coming back to the Finals . . . and being too comfortable for the last 60 minutes of play possible in a season for a chance at immortality and the words Legacy, Legendary, Dominant, and Storied. It's almost too hard to write about.

It's obvious that the Wings had more talent on their roster than the Pens. The Pens coach, players, and media even said as much multiple times throughout the course of the series. But as the Wings have found out many times over the past decade of 100 point seasons, the best team doesn't always take home the Cup. Yes, injuries took a toll with the likes of Lidstrom, Datsyuk, Draper, Kopecky, and Lilja missing multiple games if not series'. But that is only a testament to the Wings depth, not an excuse for the way that they finished out by losing 4 of 5 games to an inferior team. Basically it looked to me as if they got caught staring at all the bling on their fingers instead of playing with the heart and desire to match the hungry, upstart Penguins who expunged their inferiority complex. . . Sidenote: The parents of the Baileys should take notes on how to expunge inferiority complexes from the Penguins. Boss and Champ? Really?? . . . Zetterberg said it best afterwards when he pronounced that the Wings "needed this" and that it "wasn't fun, but will bring us back stronger." Fans would hope that the team wouldn't have to go through such a crushing loss to gain back the fire to win, but everyone is human. There is an innate sense of complacency and an entitlement mentality among players who are used to winning, which helps explain why repeating as Champions is always so difficult.

And yet they are not the "Dead Wings" or "Dead Things" or any of the other horrible things they've been called by friend and foe alike. This team is still very talented and no matter what roster changes happen during the summer to stay under the cap, they will once again be a favorite to win Stanley's preferred drinking mug. In fact, they were the last ones to win incredible back to back championships in '97 and '98, then again in '02 and '08. They have the pedigree and talent to be a force for the next decade, so this is no memorial, epitaph, or eulogy (pronounced ya-goo-ga-ly). Are the Wings guaranteed to hoist the Cup next season? No, of course not. But year in and year out, they are the alpha dog of opportunity for that chance. At least Hossa got that part right.

Seguir leyendo...