Seriously. You admit to realize you overreact, yet you do it which just annoys the rest of us?
Really getting fed up with this board the past week or so.
I think he is agreeing with me rather than WHF.
And for the record, you're not the only one who's tired of this crap. An example: I spent good part of 20 minutes writing a post with a lot of thoughts and input in it: No replies. That's fine and dandy, I'm not expecting it and I don't write or communicate to promote my opinions and thoughts. I do it to exchange them, and contribute to a discussion.
Meanwhile, some guy comes into our boards just to post into a thread about a highly-rated Finnish prospect, has explosive diarrhea all over the thread and instead of apologizing, he wipes it in our face. And we're here acting all polite and shy, and clean up the god damn mess.
Honestly, the big issue here is not that we're losing. It's how we lose, and why we're losing. We have lost a couple of perfectly winnable hockey games this season, and we're a .500 team only barely. Coming into the season with two big free agents and overall upgrades all over the roster, it's not acceptable. But it's not the end of the world yet, and things can change. So I don't think that's the biggest reason.
The biggest reason is that we've showed no signs of changing ways. The dump-and-chase was fine when we had a roster full of scrubs. It was fine last year, when our respectable roster spent their time on IR. But this year, with a healthy roster (barring Spurgeon), a good mix of skilled forwards, fast grinders and good scorers with a decent D to go with it? Nah, we should be better, but most importantly, we should LOOK better.
I, personally, don't care how we win, and we saw a couple of very good carries into the zone tonight. However, when we continue to make simple mistakes and lose a team that's playing with OUR GAMEPLAN, something has to change.
Above all, it's frustration rather than despair. Avder said last year, when asked about his reasoning to spend time and effort on tremendously good GDT:s, "I feel that we deserve good things". I couldn't have put it any better. Then, over the summer, we got the said good things. Two, in fact, plus a good complimentary piece in Mitchell and a brilliant character in Konopka. On paper then, we should be happy. In part it was about - you guessed it - managing expectations. We finally had the prospect of seeing a competitive team on the ice and expected at least a playoff appearance. While that is still certainly possible, even likely, the expectations so far haven't been met. Another part of it is losing trust.
Last year, Mike Yeo received a demigod status among the Wild fans for exceeding expectations night after night, and Chuck Fletcher damn near got himself a statue in front of the X for his heroics over the summer. Now we are crumbling and hitting our head against a brick wall, and - as usual - the coach is held responsible. And GM, too, for possibly choosing the wrong coach for the 2nd time in a row. Granlund has not lived up to the expectations after we spent the good part of two years pumping his tires, and Suter hasn't been that great either. And this wasn't supposed to happen.
Not again.
And I can get behind the idea there, sort of. I mean, I'm a Wild fan (in case you haven't noticed), and I have a short temper (in case you haven't noticed by the lack of an avatar). I've been ****ing diagnosed with depression, yet I'm not drowning in self-pity and sorrow after a string of bad hockey games. And I wake up at night just to watch the said games. Because I believe - and always will - that there is a better tomorrow. However, I'm getting a bit impatient, and I'm certainly not the only one.
How long do we have to wait for the rise of our team? Can they live up to expectations for once? Will the Stanley Cup hear the call of the Wild?
**** if I know. All I know is that barring a loss of vision or untimely (although not entirely surprising) death for the author, I'll watch them try to the bitter - or sweet - end. Because I know that we have tremendous potential, now it's about completing the puzzle and finding the missing pieces. And if we can do that, we will win a lot of hockey games.
We, as a fanbase, have grown over the last two years that I've been here. I know that there are guys who've been here longer than me, or posted more than me, or both. But I've grown to like this community. That's why I'm sad to see that instead of being unified in support and discussing the moves and possible changes, we're spending our time on bickering to each other and starting wars over disagreements. We're all people. People are different. Nobody is perfect, and there will be times when you want to punch another human in the face just because you don't like his opinions. But please, can we at least TRY to tolerate each other?
I mean, we're in two camps right now: The ones who panic and want to fire everyone and the ones who laugh at the others. Not cool.
I really want something snappy to end this rant with, but I can't think of anything that hasn't been said already. With that, back to the studio.
TL;DR: NO. Read it. I spent half an hour writing this, and I'm not about to summarize it just because someone is too lazy to spend a minute reading a post that concerns, as far as I can work out, everyone on HF Wild.
