If we buy into hockey's code of manhood, we should accept what happened tonight. Bear with me for a moment. This is what happens when you humiliate someone. The Bruins (and Lucic to be more precise) humiliated the Sabres by running Miller. The Sabres allowed the humiliation to pass without response --at first. But Lindy Ruff, for one, isn't one to take that and just forget about it. So tonight Scott pounds Thornton and Stafford elbows Hamilton. I hate to say it, but it's really just karma coming back to us. Now of course it's the B's turn to stew on their hurt pride for a while. But now what?
A friend of mine recently referred to hockey fanhood as "outsourced masculinity". We get all worked up and pissed off and want the other team's players beat up but it's not us going out there and getting our heads pounded in. That used to be fun, in the old days of innocence, when we didn't know jack about brain damage. We don't have that innocence anymore, and every time a player takes a bare-knuckled shot to the head I cringe a little. I try to enjoy it, but I'm having trouble compartmentalizing the revenge-thirsty barbarian from the empathetic human being in me. I think of Boogard and Seau, and find that I'm getting less good at the bloodlust each day.
On the game itself: it was as fabulous an offensive game for the B's as it was terrible defensively. Marchand & Peverley were magnificent, of course. On the other end, Chara was way off (and I wonder if that was in part b/c Thornton vs Scott weighed on his mind), and Hamilton had some shaky moments. That said, I find myself thinking that Hamilton will ultimately be the greater player than Seguin. I feel that Dougie's hockey IQ is higher. Seguin has tremendous agility, speed, and skill with the stick, but he continues to skate himself into dead ends. Contrast him Krejci for example- who doesn't have nearly the same physical gifts - but who, if anything, finds the exit signs in the dead ends. Contrast him with Marchand, even, who quick though he is, knows when to put on the brakes upon crossing the blue line to find support. I still believe Seguin can learn these things, but I expected to see more signs of it by now.
Well, that's all for now. Needed to get some things off my chest. Hope I didn't bum anyone out with these comments.
So true.
