The sports explosion of the last ten or fifteen years has given birth to an interesting phenomenon, the sports talk guy. They come in all shapes and sizes, from all backgrounds: former players, coaches, professional broadcasters, recent graduates from the local college communications program, truck drivers, whomever; as long as you have an opinion on sports your qualified. They can be loud, arrogant, narrow minded and sometimes bordering on illiterate. They seem to have basically the same opinion on most subjects, or at least pull their opinions from the same repository of clichéd responses. Yet all that being said, the funny thing is just I can’t get enough of this stuff! I’m an addict. During hockey season my daily routine revolves around hockey talk. My wife thinks I’m nuts. “Isn’t that the same thing those guys were talking about this morning” she’ll ask at dinner. She rolls her eyes. She just doesn’t get it!
So you can imagine my excitement this morning at the prospects for the day. My beloved Senators are fresh off a humiliating defeat at home to Toronto and are in Montreal tonight to face the Canadiens in a must have if the Sens have any hope of turning things around and winning the division. I’m a Senators season ticket holder and huge fan but the one bright side to seeing them struggle like this is that it provides plenty of fodder for the hockey talk community. As if this town needed any more ammo. The fact is this community is losing it, big time! We’ve gone from record setting team to bums in just four months. No one can really pinpoint why but all hell is breaking loose and people are looking for answers.
On the ride to work I listen to the local sports radio morning guys, a rather juvenile show filled with sexual innuendo and high school banter. To be honest not really my cup of tea but every morning at 8am they talk hockey with “guru” Pierre Maguire. On this day Maguire doesn’t offer anything earth shattering…like everyone else he continues to pile on the Senators, in particular their defense corps. He explains how important it is for the Leafs to beat teams below them in the standings and also the importance of beating the teams ahead of them. Now that’s the type of riveting analysis I’m looking for! He also manages to take a gratuitous shot at those who dared challenge him on his year long campaign of Carey Price over Christobal Huet for the number one spot in Montreal, chastising those who criticized him in their “little blogs”. I used to really admire Maguire and enjoy his commentary but I find he has become increasingly arrogant over the years. It could be that his significant success has gone to his head or maybe I’m just jealous that this guy gets paid handsomely to talk hockey while I sit in my cubicle day after day debugging Java code. Stupid guidance counselor!
One of the hosts on the morning show is a Leaf fan who decides to have a little fun at Sens’ fans expense. He takes advantage of our fragile psyche by branding Alfredsson a sore loser for his involvement in a scuffle at the end of Saturday night’s loss to the Leafs. He also sights Alfie’s infamous slap shot at Neidermeir in the cup finals last spring as evidence. His usually quick witted co-host offers little pushback. It seems Sens fans have become as lethargic as their team. Hard to blame him in this case. As much as I admire Alfredsson for what he’s done for the community there’s just no defense for the Neidermeir affair. No matter what slant you try to put on it, frustration, temporary insanity, it was a bush league move by Alfredsson…and it pains me to say that.
The late morning show introduces what is to become the theme of the day, “flipping the switch” as in: “they can’t just expect to flip the switch once the playoffs start”. They use the term about 50 times in one form or another. I think the point has been made; the playoffs are coming and this team is running out of time.
I head out to the hospital at lunch to visit my 89 year old uncle who’s suffered a mild heart attack. While visiting, a close friend of my uncle’s pops in for a visit. The topic quickly turns to the Sens. His friend goes on a 50 second rant about Spezza’s loose defensive play. He finishes off with this beauty: ”I wish I was a young lad again so I could play against him…and beat him up!” When 85 year old men are threatening to put the boots to your star centerman you know the train is coming off the rails. Crazy thing is, if Spezza were wearing that cheesy black turtleneck that he wears in those jewellery ads I’d probably put my money on the old guy to take him out!
I listen to the afternoon show and into the pre game show as I prepare dinner for the family. The flipping the switch theory is reinforced again, about a thousand times. Everyone is putting on a brave face, looking for something to cling to but it’s obvious that most are losing hope.
Game time! And it’s not long before it’s evident that this will be another debacle….correct that, a huge debacle. Sens fall behind 3-0 after the first them proceed to get shelled for four more in the second. Seven to one after two and at this point I consider “flipping the switch” on my TV. But I hang in there and thankfully the Sens show some sign of life in the third. I give them credit for not rolling over. It may not lead to much long term but at least they’ve shown that they’re not quitters, for tonight anyway. Good work Sens, I still believe! Well, sort of.
To wrap up the day I’m tuned in to my favorite hockey talk show of all, 110%, a nightly French language roundtable out of Montreal. On this night the boys can hardly contain themselves. They’re gushing, In a world of hyperbole in sports commentary, where a player can go from hero to goat in a matter of minutes, these guys set the standard. As usual they’re all talking at once so it’s sort of difficult to make out what they’re saying but I think one guy just compared Kovalev to Gretzky; might be the same guy who wanted Kovalev chased out of town last year. Thankfully the Patrick Roy incident attracts their attention and they spend the rest of the show discussing that. Wait a minute, the Habs beat the Sens for first place and these homers only gloat for five minutes? Is that how insignificant the Senators have become? Very sad. Very sad indeed.
Time for bed. Big day tomorrow; analyze tonight’s loss, preview the Buffalo game, lots of flipping the switch talk I’m sure. And I still haven’t got that Java code working!
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