Home for the Holidays

Kings @ Sharks, Dec 27, 2010

Both teams start the game on winning streaks.  The Sharks could make it five, the King are looking for four wins in a row.  I think too much is made of streaks.

I suffer from an overwhelming desire to post “Nemo!” on FB.  I resist.  I feel strangely superstitious about this game.  I thought it seemed very greedy and overambitious to ask for a fifth win in a row.  I asked anyway, because I didn’t want to jinx anything by NOT asking.  Still, after 2 scoreless periods (scoreless mostly thanks to Nemo- SOG 30-14 in favor of the Kings.)  The second period was significantly better.  No score still and Nemo still doing a good job.

Trying to dwell on happy thoughts, like three games in three days coming up for me in So Cal.  2 Flyers games and then a Sharks game.

It will be my first time rooting for the visiting teams.  I’ll get some practice and then come home to be with my people again.

It seems strange to go to a game alone Stateside.  It did not feel strange in Russia.  I do not understand why I feel this way.  Maybe a lack of language makes you feel insulated, partially invisible.  The impossibility of communicating with people eliminates the pressure to do so.  Perhaps I could pretend to not speak English.  Not sure I could pull it off, unless I try French.  But the odds that someone in LA would speak French, someone at a hockey game, are actually pretty good. So the experiment would fail.  I would still feel weird.  Also, people hardly ever come to the US without speaking any English.  So again, the experiment would fail.

Maybe I need a puck to the head to revert me to the 45 word Czech vocabulary.  Unfortunately, that might also erase the hockey knowledge I have accumulated.  I might not even know which team to root for.  Wearing orange would help.  That might be another experiment- would I be inclined to root for the Flyers even if I remembered nothing about last season?  Hm.

Wow, I wish this game would get going again.  The waiting is a torment.

Today I pondered the ways in which pro sports are like religion.  I am a little out of my depth, being uninitiated in the ways of religious people.  But the pageantry, the emotion, the faith, the blind allegiance, the rules, the ritual, the way it helps you mark the days and celebrate the intervals of the year… like I said, I have a pretty superficial understanding of the religious experience.

The Kings just scored, and the Sharks suddenly wake up.  Nemo loses his shut out but his save percentage got a boost anyway.  I guess that is the only benefit of having your team outshot like crazy.  And just like that the Kings score again.

Ugh.  Less than 17 minutes left and the Sharks are down by 2.

Come on guys, you came back against the Flyers when you were down by 3.  You can do this for heaven’s sake, speaking of religious faith.

And another goal for LA as soon as they come back from the ad break. 3-0 Kings.

I really have to stop saying things like that.  Jumpin’ Jehosaphat!  Can I say that?

Now the Sharks get to kill a penalty. Paddy gets a breakaway, can’t score but he does draw a penalty so they get to go four on four.  Well, that’s better than nuthin’.  Way to go Paddy!

Nothing comes of that.  Just about everyone is giving the puck away, no one can get a shot off, well, none of the Sharks anyway.

I keep thinking of how Pollak reported that the team did not do many break out drills yesterday.  They did something else, not break out drills.  Something to do with getting back into it after the holiday break.

Hm.  They have to play in Minnesota Wednesday.  I wonder if they have time for some breakout drills tomorrow morning?

Evidently Jehosaphat was a poor choice of words- he was a fourth king.  The Kings score a fourth.  Sorry guys.

Maybe the Sharks needed this loss so that when they play in LA they will feel more urgency.  Maybe I can listen to the Minny game on the way to LA.  I wonder if the radio coverage even goes that far south?  Oh dear me.  I’ll end up having to check scores on dial up or something.

They just interviewed Clowe.  He mumbles a lot.  Now they are interviewing Boyle.  This would be the cathartic aspect of the religious experience, the confession, the publicly broadcast variety.

Now the dog Marleau chimes in with a mournful low growl, the sound he makes when he is dissatisfied with something.  I agree.  Flyers play tomorrow, I need to get packed for LA.

Get it together guys.