We lost in a 7-0 blowout to Boston, last night, of all teams. The head-hanging, the hair-pulling, the band-wagon jumping, the embarrassment, the shame...all of it by Habs fans. Imagine how the team is feeling?! Imagine how they'd feel if they saw the negativity by their own fans bombarding Twitter feeds and Facebook groups everywhere!
So my friend Mike posted to a Facebook group and I was just about ready to leave that group because more negativity is not what this 100-percent-forever-Habs-fan will abide right now.
But he has a point...and so I had to listen and decide whether I would stay in the group...
Mike wrote:
You can tell we’re totally screwed for the playoffs and won't do anything… This season, think of all the blowouts we’ve suffered! We lost to the Sabres 8-2! We lost to the Rangers 10-5! Double digits! Not only that, we lose 6-2 to the Islanders and 8-3 to the Sabres AGAIN!!!??? There’s no way we’re doing anything in the playoffs, NO WAY!
(If these games don't sound immediately familiar, these results are all from the 1992-93 NHL season in which the Canadiens completely sucked in the playoffs, right?)
So chill, people. If you want to come back to the fold after the next win, we'll probably welcome you back - but know that your band-wagoneering days are numbered if you keep hopping on and off at warp speeds. One of these days, the bandwagon might just leave without you.
And then which team will you support?
1 comment:
There's some validity to that to be sure, but I'm always skeptical of selecting carefully chosen stats as evidence of future success. That Canadiens team also had their share of blow out games, as evidenced by their +46 goal differential. They were also a 102 point team, so there's things to consider from both sides.
The reason why this loss hurts more than any other is because of the terrible effort under the circumstances. They had a chance to plant a serious seed of doubt in the Bruins' mind; the seed of doubt that the Canadiens will always beat the Bruins in a hockey game, that the playoffs will be as usual - Habs win the day, and that the Bruins may lose their hold on the division. Instead, their loss allowed the Bruins to reestablish themselves as the boss. The 4-2 record holds much less water today as the Bruins smacked up the Habs by the score of 15-6 in the last 2 games in Boston...which is possibly where 4 of 7 games will be hosted come playoff time.
I haven't seen anybody declare that they aren't a Habs fan anymore, and I haven't heard the typical "trade everyone / fire everyone" talk. This team WILL bounce back and make us forget last night ever happened. Should they meet up again, it likely will be a tough, long series. But the Canadiens can use any edge that they can, and in losing last night, they squandered any chance to gain more of an edge, and in fact let the Bruins steal the serve, to borrow a tennis metaphor.
I'll never give up on the team, and I'll always hope they can win and exceed expectations. But I won't blindly proclaim that there's nothing to be concerned about, either.
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