Tuesday, April 22, 2008

All Done

The Bruins season is over. I haven't said much to anyone about it since I sort of needed a few days to think about it. I know I must sound completely ridiculous to some people. I'm sure some of you don't care even a little bit. It's just sports, right? But I do care. I've cared for over thirty years now, and I don't see that stopping any time soon.

I'm going to do my very best to avoid the inevitable landslide of news that will accompany this loss. I don't want to hear the excuses or the attacks. I will not wander down the road of "what if." What if Bergeron hadn't gotten hurt? What if we had seen Manny Fernandez this year? What if Phil Kessel didn't end up on the bench for three games? What if Glen Murray could have played all of game seven? What if the officiating went our way? None of that matters. It didn't matter a few months ago and it doesn't matter now.

I'm going to go outside of all of this and give my Bruins some love. I'm not going to say that I'm not really disappointed. I am. I couldn't watch most of that game. I knew the odds were still kind of against them, but I wanted to believe that it might be different this year.

They gave us a better season than anyone expected and now that I've had a bit of time to be realistic about things, I'm very pleased about that. I have a truly positive feeling about this team now and I hope that it continues. I'm almost on the verge of saying that maybe Bruins management finally have a clue and may actually have the wherewithal to give us a team worthy of their ardent fans. I enjoyed watching this season. Almost. Ask me again next season.

At least now I can console myself with the evidence that even in victory, Montreal fans are classless idiots. I'd be ashamed to be a fan of the Habs right now. Shop windows were smashed, five businesses were ransacked, people rioted in the streets and three of the dozen police cars destroyed were set on fire. Can you imagine what it would have been like if they had lost?

1 comment:

ccr in MA said...

Oh, I know. I know. When the game was over Monday night, I was wishing that people wouldn't even commiserate, so I could just not have to think about it.

On the one hand, I'm proud of them for accomplishing so much more than most people predicted they would ... but on the other hand, it would have so rocked if they could have given Montreal a little dose of humility. Hopefully they can build on this next year and get a little farther.