Congratulations to the Chicago Blackhawks for winning the Stanley Cup. To paraphrase one Pittsburgh fan, "Thanks for volunteering to take care of the Cup for us till next year." So again, congrats to the Hawks and especially to Marian Hossa.
Yep. Got that right. I am over the Hossa hate that gripped so many Burghers after he sold us out to join the Red Wings. A lot of us have not made the transition, hoping that he would lose forever, in everything he did. Some went so far as to (gasp!) cheer...for...the...Flyers. Even my cousin, who is normally very cool (she's from Pittsburgh; she can't help it) wanted the Flyers to win game six. Not me. I would even consider rooting for the Crapitals against Philly. Another very cool relative (somehow I managed to score all the cool relatives) wanted to congratulate all of the Blackhawks except Hossa. You're my hero, Sabman, but I have to disagree. When I became a temporary life-long Blackhawks fan, I knew that Hossa could raise Lord Stanley.
Really bad aside: in the buildup for the game when the Steelers played the Cardinals in the Greatest Superbowl Ever, the media interviewed one doof Cardinals fan who said he had been a lifelong Cardinals fan for five years. I've been using the line ever since.
I can hold a grudge for decades. There are people who ticked me off when I was eight that I still have not forgiven, so I get it. But Hossa? I can't hate the guy. What did he do that was so bad? He went to another team, in search of Lord Stanley. He made a bad choice and we had a lot of fun rubbing that in his face but the guy paid his dues. It's not like he jumped at the money like, oh...I don't know...Barry Bonds? Hossa took a cut in pay to get a shot at the Cup with a perennial contender. I have to respect that. Bonds went where the money was best and we forgave him. Sure, it took fifteen years, but the point is that we forgave him. Personally, I never understood the Barry hate and got over it after only ten years. Look at the circumstances: San Fran offers twice as much money as the Bucs, keys to the city and, apparently, keys to the pharmacueticals locker. Who in his right mind would turn down DOUBLING HIS SALARY for the love of the game? I guarantee that, if you doubled my salary, I could love the game a whole lot in my new city.
Hossa did not badmouth his former team. Taken in the correct context, he did kind of call the Penguins losers by saying he wanted a better chance at the Cup. We have to keep in mind that the man is from Czechoslovakia. Poor word choices in translation are to be expected. It's not like he hired a speech writer so cut the guy some slack. We can't forgive a player who openly talks bad about his former team after he leaves Pittsburgh. If Yancey Thigpen had a career after he left the Steelers, we would still be pissed about the comments he made. Instead, he went to the Titans and disappeared. That'll teach him not to criticize his oldteam! Even the great Terry Bradshaw had to apologize to the city before we would show him some love.
So the hockey season ends but the blog must go on. Baseball playoffs are only a couple months away. Bwaaahaaahaaa! I almost typed that with a straight face. The Pirates are fifteen games below .500 and it is only June! I wasn't even sure it was mathematically possible to lose more games than you played, then the Buccos come to town. OMG! (Sorry, had to put that in for the younger readers. For us older guys, it means Oh My God! Just doing my part to keep you current.) Anyway, it's close enough to the football season to start getting nuts about the Steelers. If it works right, I'll carry my football playoff beard right into the hockey finals. Another year with Lombardi and Stanley in the same city would be uber-sweet. (Umm, that means having both football and hockey championship trophies in the city would be one heck of a lot of fun. Try to keep up) Check back now and then to say hello.
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