Rooting for laundry

Just some brief thoughts while I watch Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals.  A couple things in the last few weeks have sparked some thoughts about sports fandom.

My formative years were in Boston.  In particular, the Boston of the 1970s, which featured very competitive teams in hockey and basketball, a couple noteworthy Patriots' seasons (albeit without any playoff victories), and of course some fear and loathing at Fenway.  If I had to rate my fan intensity at the time, it would have been 1) Red Sox, 2) Bruins, 3) Celtics, 4) Patriots.

That order changed in 1979 for two reasons: a) my family moved to Connecticut, and b) Larry Bird.
Hartford had its own new NHL team, the Whalers featuring Gordie Howe and, briefly, Bobby Hull.  The Whale was interesting for a few season, but their management in the late 80s and early 90s seemed to function more as a feeder system for the Penguins (Ron Francis!) than a respectable team.  In terms of my perspective, this meant a lot less local coverage of the Bruins.  On the other hand, Larry Bird made the Celtics an extremely exciting team, one which played a few games per season in Hartford.

So what I'm saying is that the Bruins dropped off the radar.  I did follow them in their Finals apperances in 1988 and 1990, but the Gretzky-era Oilers completely smoked them.

So over the years I followed basketball more and more and hockey less and less.  And then I moved to the DC area.  Now if anything could cure a person of NBA fandom, it might be the local presence of the Wizards.  So when I started watching the Capitals at Landru's, I saw an interesting team, esp. Mr. Alex Ovechkin, an exciting, charismatic player.  We saw this goal live:

But then I found that when the Caps played the Bruins, even though I'd completely lost touch with the team, I couldn't root against my favorite from childhood.  And I starting following Chara, Krecji, Lucic and the boys as they ran to a Stanley Cup title.  Yay!

Point is that I felt strongly about the logo, about the big B inside the spokes that makes the Bruins' logo.

My second point is different.  It relates to the murder investigation that has enmeshed one of the Patriots' star TE's, Aaron Hernandez.  I won't relate the details here.  Let's just that it looks very bad.  It looks like he was somehow involved in the murder of a guy who had been involved with his girlfriend's sister and that he actively tried to cover it up.  Some facts are indisputable, including that he brought in cleaners to clean the house, and that he destroyed his cell phone and his security system (presumably to get rid of incriminating evidence).

So this is a guy that all Patriots' fans loved just a few weeks ago.  He's a key part of their two TE offense, which has created all sorts of matchup problems for defenses.  But really, we don't know anything about the guy.  And it's depressing to feel that it's likely that he's just an overprivileged gangster, a jock who's never had to learn how to be a decent human being. And where the NFL (and most sports leagues) hold up their star players to be role models, the truth is that the ability to play football is no guarantee that a person is not a scumbag.  We've seen that with Ray Lewis, Mike Vick, Rae Carruth, etc., etc.

So here the point is that we need to be careful when we walk down the path of fandom, of rooting for laundry.  Because it may well be that the people being exalted don't really deserve it.

City of Champions

This championship surprised me about as much as the first Patriots' Super Bowl win. I still don't think the Bruins are the best team in the NHL. But that doesn't matter - the best team is not always the champion. (See, for example, Super Bowl XLII.)

In the regular season, I thought the Bruins were clearly behind the Caps and the Penguins - well, at least the Penguins before they got all their injuries. And the there are so many elite Western Conference teams that look great: not only the Canucks but the Sharks, Red Wings, Ducks, and Preds are all arguably serious Stanley Cup contenders. And that doesn't include the defending champs in Chicago.

And then the Bs lost their first two games in the playoffs. Home games. To the despised Habs. At the time this meant a 6-game playoff losing streak to the two most despised teams (including the collapse to Philly last year). It really felt like another Spring of nothing for the Bs.

But then, remarkably, the Bs went to Montreal and improbably won two road games! And there was the series of incredible OT wins, and suddenly they've got the Flyers in Round 2. Which the Flyers never showed up for.

Once the Penguins collapsed under the weight of their injuries I thought the Caps were the clear favorites in the East. I still don't know what happened to them in their series against Tampa. I refer the interested reader to Minions.

And then the Bs were embarrassed in Game 1 by the red-hot Lightning, at which point Landru predicted a Tampa sweep. Again, the Bs dug deep and recovered. In retrospect, the series against the Lightning was tougher than the Finals. I can see why Landru hates those guys. They are pesky, but I'll give them credit: they all showed up to play, ever game.

By the time the Finals rolled around, Thomas was so hot I thought he could beat anybody. Luongo kept up the pace on his home ice, and the Canucks went up 2-0, at which point the usual crowd of idiots started saying things like "Is this this series over?" Um, well, didn't you just see the Bruins keep things essentially even for two road games?

When I saw Luongo flounder in Game 3, I knew the Bruins could win this series. I don't think I've ever seen a champion team play as poorly as the Canucks did in Game 3. Also, the Sedin brothers remained absent. Meanwhile, Thomas was lights out and the D was solid with Chara and Seidenberg leading the way. Guys like Brad Marchand I didn't know from Adam three months ago were suddenly playing like all-stars. (OK, who thought Marchand would be the rookie who led the Bruins, not Seguin? Seguin had one great game against Tampa, but Marchand was playing like a veteran by the time the Finals finished. )

So, the make a long story short, Luongo collapsed and Thomas never did, even when he easily could have after the Bruins went down 0-2 on a dreadful overtime goal. There are many recipes for winning the Cup, and Boston took one of the tried and true paths: ride the coattails of a hot goalie.

Does this bode well for next year? I don't know and don't really care. Thomas is 37 and already had a down year in 2009-10 when he lost the starting job to Tuuka Rask. Aside from Mark Recchi, the team should be sticking together for a while, and Marchand and Seguin can only get better.

It's time to just enjoy the moment. Boston's first cup since '72, when I was barely sentient and G. Gordon Liddy was considering an invasion of a suite of rooms at the Watergate Hotel.

a post-mortem for the Caps

After Game 1, I texted Landru the question "Why do the Caps suck in the playoffs?" Having just seen them be the first #1 seed in NHL history to blow a 3-1 lead and lose a 7-game series, this is a question the Caps need to address in a serious fashion.

The Caps simply do not consistently bring their best game. That is part of the problem. Another part is that they are a poor team defensively (at least when considered top elite teams) and even their excellent offense can be stopped by a hot goalie.

Clearly Halak is the hottest goalie around right now. But somehow the Caps have a knack of making a lot of goalies look goal.

I said before the season started that the Caps needed to improve their defense or they would not make a serious Stanley Cup wrong. After they won the President's Trophy for best record in the NHL, I thought that perhaps I was wrong. But after this debacle, I think it's a concept that has to be reconsidered.

But that wasn't the real problem. In at least two of the four losses, the Caps made a poor showing effort-wise. That was particularly inexcusable in Game 5.

What does a championship team do when it has just won three games in a row and has a chance to clinch at home? Well, they go and give a half-assed effort in Game 5.

The Caps have to figure out how to stay motivated and play hard to win all the time. Right now they look like a team built to prosper against weak teams, which cannot bear up under scrutiny in a 7-game series against a better team. Caps fans have to ask: if they couldn't beat the Canadiens, how could we think that they could beat the Penguins, Sharks, or Black Hawks? Is this a coaching problem? I don't know.