I miss two games and all hell breaks loose.
Well the first one sounded good. Rumour has it, that if I had had time to post a Grinder Girl that game the 3 stars woulda went something like this:
1st Star - Peter with a well-deserved shutout and Jacques-Plante-esque saves.
2nd Star - Harry! (breaking the no-stars to spares barrier) with stellar performance on D
3rd Star - Troy with the game’s only goal (nice assist Rob)
But then, game two happened: A loss, Lots of penalties and copious amounts of bench bitchin’.
We’re ahead of schedule girls. This usually doesn’t happen until Mid-January, early February. Are we losing sight of the reason we come out to play already?! You senile old bastards are getting harder and harder to appease every year. Remember:
- It’s for fun.
- We claim to our wives it’s for exercise and that we earned that last beer.
- It’s to be able to tell our co-workers that we belong to a team.
But if you guys can’t play nice with each other (or with the other team for that matter) then we’re gonna have to do something drastic, like join the 35+ league, or (don’t tell Bob I said this or he wont shut up about it) start our own league.
So let’s strip our game down to the basics, gentlemen. Lets go out to be competitive, and to win, but drop the “at all costs” notion. Respect your fellow team-mates, and respect the other team. Too often we accuse ourselves as dropping to their level and yes we do have to learn to skate away once in a while, but admit it, take a close look at yourself, we start a lot of the shit as well.
Play the game hard, play to win, but cut out the crap and listen to your teammates when they tell you to relax. Perhaps you ARE cross checking in front of the net (Santa) , Perhaps you ARE too critical (Gord) , Perhaps you ARE taking long shifts (Dave), Perhaps you ARE taking it too personally (Andy), Perhaps you ARE too skilled for this division and should ease up on the competition (Glen).
Anyways, until morale improves all you get is naked men:
