The Highlight of my Hockey Season

I was off Wednesday w the Mister. We were planning a lunch date somewhere in the East End & then a trip to Construction Junction to try to find a new front door then dinner & Game 7 to finish the night. (Penguins Hockey in case you dont know what Game 7 means but if you dont know what Game 7 is GET OFF MY BLOG! jk...maybe...)

So after perusing some menus online we made our lunch choice - Park Bruges in Highland Park. Had some amazing mussels, frites, poutine and crusty bread. It was a lunch full of delicious win. I got the white wine and Mister got the sausage mussels.  Shockingly it was packed at 1:30-2:00 on a Wednesday, but that always makes me happy to see any really good small local place doing great sales on a week day. Service was sketchy timing wise, but it also looked like the 2 girls & the owner or manager that was working got their asses handed to them through lunch, and seeing as I am VERY familiar with how awful that can be I forgive them. Well that and it was terrific food & our server was super nice regardless of the timing issues. We will definitely be back.

We are sitting at lunch and Bossman calls me, which is rare when Im off unless something is horridly wrong, asks me if I want his tickets to Game 7. HELL YES I DO!! But I was much cooler when I answered him. I tell Mister & I think he might have actually screamed a little. See, a few months ago Bossman took all the GMs to see a game in a luxury box on a Sunday. One of my manger's girlfriends went into labor, so obviously he couldnt come into work, my GM for that place was just returning from vacation & was going to the game so I didnt want to ask her to do it and yes, I could have pulled rank and made one of my guys do it but that isnt my style either...so I worked it myself & figured I'd just hold that card until a later date when I wanted to use it. Bossman said that since I took that one for the team I could have the 2 tickets he scored (not his season tickets, other ones). Moral of that story? Sometimes when you just suck it up karma rewards you with awesome gifts!

So I got to go my first real live playoff hockey game. And it was a Game 7. And they lost. But I dont care now & didnt care then. It was amazing. It was a real bummer they were shut out so they never scored a goal...but aside from that it was incredible. The energy was off the hook, the noise made my ears ring, the white out was unreal to look at. It was almost sensory overload. I. LOVED. IT.

I got slightly pissy when our own fans began to boo our power play. Ok, I will admit our power play sucked this series. BUT it wasnt totally the Pens fault. Tampa figured out early on, maybe even during regular season, our PP was a dead spot. They then figured out how to collapse on it, block us from even getting into their end after clearing the puck and overall how to shut down our PP. It was already limping along, we had no serious scorers with all the injuries so yeah, thats a problem. It just didnt help at all that Tampa executed a defense that rendered what little PP we have totally useless. All that aside - what kind of fucked up "fan" kicks their own team when they are down?!? What kind of asshole boos their own team in a Game 7 when they are obviously struggling?!? Thankfully there were far more real fans in the stands so when that crap started it was drowned out by "LETS GO PENS" chants. If you were there and you booed any of our guys for any reason SHAME ON YOU. *angry eyebrows & finger wagging in your general direction* You are NOT a fan. You are an asshole.

I was sad to see our season end. I will miss hockey until October. I cannot wait to see all of our guys healthy and back on the ice. Part of me is wicked happy that we were eliminated now. The very idea of having to listen to some of the douchiest fans in the NHL rag on us for being eliminated by them in the 2nd round was kind of nauseating (looking at you Caps fans) and lets be real, there was no way in hell we were making it out of the 2nd round alive barring a hockey miracle. I love my Penguins, but you just cannot suffer the kind of blows they did this year and make a solid Cup run.

Another note to anyone who was bitching Sid wasnt sent out to "save" us...Are you fucking insane?!?! So in order to win 1 freaking series that we stand little to no chance of turning into a legit Cup run you want them to send him out there to potentially incur further injury? Yeah. Not fucking worth his long-term viability. Have you met Eric Lindros? Have you seen what happens to good players (may be stretching the word good there but you get my point) when they try to play through head injuries? Do you really think that if they HAD sent him out there Tampa wouldnt have done everything they could to send him off on a stretcher? Puh-lease. I dont see the Pens staff or team doctors telling us how to do our jobs so hows about all the arm-chair hockey coaches & neurologists just shut their whore mouths and let them do what they do? 

Im proud of the boys & how far they made it even with all the set backs. I want to punch every person who is already talking contracts & who we are getting rid of and who they think was useless during the playoffs right in the mouth because with few exceptions I think they all played their hearts out to give us a great season whether we keep them all or not. Related: I often wonder when I hear all these self proclaimed "experts", both professional & amateur,  spouting off about the players, coaches & management decisions what the basis of their opinions is. Im pretty sure all they need is a TV & a mouth/keyboard as qualifications to be a sports talking head, the brain is even optional ~ look at Mark Madden. Whats that old saying? Opinions are like assholes - everyone has them and they all smell like shit. This seems especially true with self proclaimed sports authorities :-) Im going to let Shero & Disco Dan figure out whats best for their team since, ya know, thats what they do for a living and just assume that if they ever come into one of my restaurants they wont tell me how to pick & choose my staff....seems reasonable, huh?

And anyone who bashes Fleury needs smacked. If you cant identify defensive holes versus goalie errors you shouldnt be allowed to talk about hockey to anyone anyway. No, hes not perfect, but he's also not superhuman. When a goalie is hung out to dry with bad defensive decisions what's he supposed to do? He's a goalie, a very important part of our defense, but definitely not the ONLY part of it.

I hope I get to go to another playoff hockey game, maybe next time it will be a win. But win or loose, thank you Pens for another great season and this fan will be cheering for you again in October no matter what the team looks like or who's on it :-)