So, it looks like the Devils won the cup. Thus depriving me of the opportunity to post the rant I had been preparing all night.
Damn, I was all reading to walk into the pit, guns ablaze, and start firing away, mouth foaming and all. But I guess that won’t be happening.
No siree, because of you, hell-bound Devils, I won’t get to vent my now-virtual rage. I won’t get to make a fuss over the fact that a fucking team named after a fucking piece of shit fucking Disney movie should never, ever get to have their name engraved onto the most holy of chalices. No matter who’s playing for them.
My wife’s high school was called the Devils Lake Satans (Devils Lake, ND). It was the only cool thing about that town. There was something kind of spooky and righteous about hearing a bunch of teenagers at football game chanting “Satans, Satans, Satans!!” It was bitchin’.
A bunch of anal retentive fundies made them change the name last year. Fucking wankers.
I don’t know that I would call it an “urban legend.” We use the term “urban legend” to refer to modern folklore. The story of the Jersey Devil is far too old and established to be called an “urban” legend. (But thanks for the neat link. I like how it included the X-Files treatment of the legend, which I really enjoyed.)
I’m glad you brought it up, Brutus. It’s surprising how many people, even people who live in New Jersey, don’t know that “the Jersey Devils” isn’t just some random made-up team name and actually has local significance.
Okay, then folk legend. I think of it as a UL rather than folk because I lived near the Pine Barrens as a young 'un, and there were people in my community who tried to convince outsiders that the JD was actively rampaging around, menacing hikers and the like.
Maybe someday they can start enforcing the rules - especially the one about “Holding,” did you know there’s actually a rule against that? - and hockey will become exciting again.
so RickJay, I’m assuming you like the high-flying gloryboy European style?
<hick-voice>Ey boy, if you don’t like American-style hockey, then you can just GET OUT!!!</hick voice>
Mike Rupp is my dad. Scott Stevens is now your God (although Daneyko’s comment that he’s the best ever is a little off-mark, unless he had an acute mental lapse and forgot about a guy named Orr).
I have to agree with the OP.
I was cheering for the BORING BORING BORING Devils, just because I couldn’t stand the thought of the words “Mighty Ducks” being engraved on the Stanley Cup.
I mean, how would the Americans feel if a company bought a football team and named it “The Sponge-Bob Square Pants of Palooka-ville”???
And i’m glad the Wild lost, because they beat the Canucks out of the play-offs, so fuck them.
The last thing the sporting world needed was another fucking team from Anaheim winning a major trophy. Those bastards in Orange County are already developing delusions of adequacy after the last year’s World Series.
Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Bobby Orr, Phil Esposito, Guy Lafleur - no sir, you don’t need to be European to play hockey the way the good Lord meant for it to be played. If The Great One played a speed-and-passing game, then by God, that is the way hockey was supposed to be played.
Good physical hockey means HITTING. Not holding. The NHL is getting really, really boring.
I spent a night outdoors in the Pine Barrens once. <cue creepy music> I had to go water a tree. So I peeked out of my tent…and there he was! Well, no, there was nothing there, but the Pine Barrens sure are cree-pee at night!
Repeated play stoppage is infinitely more boring than allowing a few hooks and holds and interferences to slide by (and when the entire nation is watching on basic cable during prime time hours, boring is not what they’re going for). I wouldn’t have minded a few of the more blatant offenses, from both sides, to have been called but if the refs call every single hook and interference the game would last 5 hours and would be mostly a 3v3 or 4v2 affair. In a sport that requires so much physical contact, there are going to be holds and the like, it’s natural and it’s part of the game. The players expect it and adapt to it.
If they called every penalty in hockey, what’d be next, calling travelling in basketball?
Well, the thing is, if they called holding (and hooking and interference) consistently, it wouldn’t happen nearly as much. Just at the start of the preseason, announce the change in officiating policy, and penalize the bejesus out of everyone in exhibition games, and by the time the season started, players faced with an opponent who has a step on them would refrain from merely hooking the guy back so they can keep up and would instead dig deep for a few strides to pull even, and then lay their body into the guy - which is how hockey is meant to be played.
The analogy with travelling just doesn’t work, since arguably basketball is more entertaining with players allowed the extra step or two. Hockey, on the other hand, is demonstrably more entertaining without all the hooking and grabbing. If you don’t believe me, find a videotape of the '87 Canada Cup finals and see for yourself.
