well, you might as well know off the top - i like sports. and hockey, in particular. and the red wings, in further particular. so, if you're reading this page with any kind of regularity, you should expect to see some hockey, with an emphasis on the wings. yes, i bleed red - and white, with a little winged wheel in the centre. this is by way of disclaimer, which is to say, don't be a-complainin' if you're finding i haven't been giving equal time to your thrashers. and if you're a fan of the (goddamn) ducks, well...hope you're okay with profanity.
being a red wings fan in the heart of leafs nation is not easy, believe me. i continue to be reminded of nikolai borschevsky's game 7 overtime winner for the leafs in 1993, knocking the wings out of the playoffs. (yeah, leafs fans have to live in the past, even if that past is not especially great). 1993 was back when the wings were bad and the leafs hadn't yet achieved their current level of badness. i am not a vengeful person, though, so i let them crow, and then i gather up my three stanley cups and take my leave. to the detroit eatery, where wings fans are not only welcome but feted in style.
http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/438286
http://www.blogto.com/restaurants/detroiteatery
the great thing about being a red wings fan is the size and scope of hockeytown, which is not defined so much by the metes and bounds of wayne county, as by an intense loyalty to and affinity for this storied franchise and little caesars pizza.
and hockeytown exists everywhere, as i found out to my pleasure last year in the run up to teh cup. last spring, despite having lurked for years, i joined a fan forum (on the detroit free press) for the first time. as every single-celled organism who calls into talk radio says, 'long time listener, first time caller'. anyway, it was wonderful. heady, intense and a feeling of community, of being among friends. friends i've never met and most of whom i know only by their online moniker, to be sure, but friends nonetheless. some of the posters are clearly nuts, and not in a good way. you know, the ones who insist there's a canadian conspiracy against the wings (most referees are canadian, after all), an NHL conspiracy against the wings...oh wait, that might be me...and the ones who litter the board with needless insults and rudeness. but most are lovely, polite people with something interesting to say. long live the freep forum.
which brings me to this...i should also say up front that a lot of the red wings arcana you will see reproduced here can likely be attributed to my witty friend in chicago, scotty (no, not bowman) and his new-fangled technology which goes by the acronymistic, 'PVR'. if you see trenchant, incisive and error-free analysis...well, that's scott's. the hysterical, unsupported and simplistic pap...sorry, that's mine.
so, here we are, 12 games into the season, and even though they're a respectable 8-2-2, the wings have only just started playing like the team we know. could be the stanley cup target on their sweaters when they come to town. could be the horrendously unfair schedule which took them on a 10-day western swing, playing back-to-back games on the road against the (goddamn) ducks and the sharks. or, it could be brett lebda, dragging everyone down. he's replaced by meech in last night's game, and bingo, wings are back to their winning ways. it may be the proverbial chicken and egg conundrum, though. scott has astutely noted that lebda thrives when the wings thrive. which is to say, when the wings are playing their game, lebda's speed and fast break are an asset. however, when the play is in the defensive end, pinned down, he is a stark liability. like scott says, it's not like he's not fast any more, or joining the rush, it's just that in the defensive end, he's not seeing as much open ice, and not as frequently. all this says to me that lebda's skills are limited, and if meech continues to play as well as he did last night, i say lebda's out for the foreseeable future.
the wings are now off for 6 days, and no games in 6 days can be just as damaging as 5 games in 7. (to me, really, more than the team.) so, with no hockey for a few days, you'll have to make do with my other interests: books, music, law, advocacy, scotch, getting through november, and trying to avoid annoying man, trying to convince my niece she's not the most beautiful little girl in the world, and even if she is, what of it, if she can't yet spell 'precocious'?
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