Don't buy into the media

All yesterday morning on ESPN Pittsburgh radio, they were playing bits of Kris Letang's interview from the previous day (off-day). In the afternoon, talk shifted to a possible Letang benching. The refs aren't calling penalties. Letang hasn't been that great on PPs anyway. Boucher saw a lot of ice time during morning skate. Kris shot the puck once in game two and it hit the glass (pretty far off from the goal which is where he obviously wanted it to go... or maybe, just maybe, he just wanted to get something going, people). He forced an icing call and the Wings ended up scoring on the ensuing faceoff. So why not bench Letang? If we don't need him for the power plays because we're not getting them, why not play Boucher, a more defensively minded dman, instead? I get home from work and have to listen to my husband agree with all of that nonsense. Listen. They're saying all these words and all I hear is that Kris is going to score on a power play. Call it hearing what I want to hear or whatever you want to call it. I call it faith in my boy's play. There is a reason I have faith in him. There is a reason he is my favorite player and it's not because he's dropdeadgorg. Well, maybe that doesn't hurt but it's not the reason. Quite simply, he is my favorite because he is incredible. He gets people talking about him by... hmmm... I guess people start talking about him when he does something that maybe isn't so brilliant. Everybody makes mistakes, right? Of course. But. Apparently he isn't allowed to have a bad game or make one error. So then doesn't that mean that he is an integral part of our system? That makes him a necessary part of this team.

"Come congratulate me, bitches." (You must read this to yourself in a sexy French Canadian accent.)

Some people tend to not have as much faith in our team winning this as I do. Do they want our magnificent team to win this? Of course. They just don't tend to feel as sure about it as I do. Is that the word I'm needing here? "sure"? Maybe. I guess, yes, it is. My faith in our team is not blind. My faith in our team comes from being witness to some of what they can do. And I have only seen some of it. Maybe that's what it is. Maybe it is because I blew this sport off for so long. Maybe that's why I can come in here and say that they are the better team. I haven't seen them not be the best team on the ice. I would watch bits of play here and there. I would let it play in the background while I did other things. (Right now I can't for the life of me remember what those things were.) I heard them suck by way of the commentators and the media. Mind you, that would be the same media who told me that Kris Letang was going to be a healthy scratch for last night's game. So for all I know, this team has always been this magnificent and I just wasn't seeing it. Maybe I could have helped try to build up my people's faith a long time ago. I had zero doubt that we were winning last night. Zero. And I had an equal amount of doubt that Kris would play. Kris scoring on a pp held a bit of doubt because who could know that? heh. I hope the media talks about Tyler Kennedy, Jordan Staal, and Matt Cooke a lot tomorrow because that line is a little bit of heaven to watch and all anybody ever wants to talk about is how they don't score a lot of goals... even though scoring goals is not their job. It's because of them, Craig Adams and our CRIMINALLY UNDERRATED dmen that the other team doesn't get 300 shots on goal. Really. I hate the media and it hurts me to know that people buy into what they say. The people who don't watch hockey, and that used to (please forgive me) include me, have NO idea how amazing some of these guys are. Probably everybody thinks Jordan Staal is garbage because he doesn't score goals but they know his name and they assume he is supposed to. People only care about the stats and the score sheets. I am here to tell you all that Jordan Staal and all of these other guys are worth what we put into them. Some of them are worth more than we give them monetarily. It is up to us, the fans, the community, to believe in them.

It is our job to give them our faith. They certainly have mine.

Vindication is more satisfying when you can Blingee it.

This also feels really good: “He was great, not only offensively but also defensively,” Gonchar said. “It seems like he is playing good all over the ice. He has all of the skills in the world and his shot is great, so offensively it is not surprising but the way he held them defensively, you can see the progress that he made from last year.”

I suppose I should mention that Mad Max Clutch Talbot scored two goals last night... the first on a stunning Letang assist.

The first goal was Max, the second was Letang's PP, the third was a Gonchar PP goal, and the fourth was a Max empty netter. So much for our Power Play being shitty. AND! if I'm not mistaking (I'm not) our only goal in Game 2 was a Malkin PP goal (assisted by Letang).

Needless to say, I am listening to all music all day today. None of that bullshit sports radio that makes me want to vomit.