The Length of a Season

It could be the same, sure.

But if I let it be, if I let my (in theory) maturing perspective see the game, see the team’s narrative from different points of view; perhaps points of view along a sloping grade, I find that different things are important and I find that the signposts and milestones along the way look different. I focus on them from further away.

It isn’t next shift or this shift. There is an awareness of this game and its context within the season, there is an awareness of this season and its context within other seasons.

I decided long ago (well, to me eighteen years is long ago) that even if it is “just a game” that if it matters, if anything matters, it is worth knowing in detail… it is worth knowing the why… what I learn here can be transposed there…

In a season of heightened expectation in a city of already heightened expectation, there was nowhere to go but down and down hard. It’s not over yet and the confluence of personalities, variables, puck-bounces, skill-sets all make anything possible … from the flame-out to the flame-up.

I wonder how we should feel … has this happened before? And if it has, should we feel the same?

We … the fans … the observers… the players …. the media…. anyone who cares… maybe those who traditionally don’t, either; how up and down can it be? Must it be?

Daily columns fluctuate like serpents, like sugar-sacs ….the fan base struggles to remain objective, to remain sane … the Francos rage and the Anglos seethe… or vice-versa. The cola companies wish they were better placed… the beer always sells.

There is no Battle of Quebec but like Reggie Miller, this province needs an enemy and sometimes this team is it.

I heard the boos near the end of the game today. Heard them before. Nothing new. Wondered if I would for the first time want to join in. Decided no.

But there is something inevitable about grand proclamations and majestic journeys… so often they end up in our sons spending the savings in the first week of a ten-month trek … and holing up in a hotel with questionable company for as long as they can remain sequestered. This story had a grail-like significance to begin but has been wholly human ever since.

We’re all free to switch teams, sporting allegiances, drop our subscriptions. This has happened before.

Why must it happen again?

Maybe it’s time for me to activate the comments section

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3. Rink Vim Venom
4. Vulcan Discs
5. New York Islanders – Musings and In-Game Scribbles
6. Arena