My Future Son

Whoever saw the Oilers game last night also saw what I can safely say is the cutest little boy I have ever seen. This is vastly more important than the actual game, which I'll get to in a moment. They interviewed the boy during the feature where they have little kids play in Rexall Place. Here's a rough script of his cuteness.
Interviewer: So how do you think your team played?
Boy: (with wide-eyed terror) Good.
Interviewer: So, how did the other team play?
Boy: ...yeah.
Interviewer. Who is your favorite Edmonton Oiler?
Boy: Wyan Smyth.
You have no idea what kind of reaction this got out of me. I absolutely melted, frightening my little sister Mary a bit. If I ever have a son, he will be exactly like this little boy. (A warning to this kid's parents- I might actually try to steal him. Watch out for that.)

Beyond the kid, it was a good game for the Oil with a 5-1 win over the somehow 4th seeded Atlanta Thrashers. The Thrashers went ahead 1-0 then proceeded to get dominated. Despite having a 4-goal lead and a pretty assured win, I was still nervous at the end of the game. I don't know if it's been just the Oilers or if the Bruins have contributed to this as well, but I have absolutely no trust in leads anymore. It's not that I expected the Oilers to lose, but I didn't have any confidence that they could hold the Thrashers to one goal. Thinking about it now, it probably does have a lot to do with the Bruins. Seeing the 2-minute meltdown of the Carolina game in person was a scarring event, though it was really just the cherry on top of the last two seasons. The Bruins didn't start out badly, if anyone remembers. At the beginning of this season I was confident in them. I was talking to my friend back then about the difference between this year and last. What I said was that last year, if we for some reason lost a lead, we were emotionally broken and unable to take it back. But at the beginning of this year, you got the feeling that they could recover and get themselves back into any game. After that they completely fell off a cliff. They might be worse than last year.

I always end up going to the worst Bruins games possible. Whitney's hat trick was painful (even more so after a Carolina fan near me threw his hat on the ice mockingly). Last year I went to two games: a 6-0 loss to the LA Kings and a 5-2 loss against Ottawa that made me realize, for the first time, that we didn't have a very good team. This year I've seen one win (against Washington) and losses to Buffalo and Carolina. I really haven't ever seen them play well. The opposite is true of the Red Sox. Not only did I have great seats for Orlando Cabrera's return and seats 8 rows back of the Sox dugout for a Big Papi walkoff, but I went to the July 24, 2004 game against the Yankees that Bill Mueller won with a walkoff against Mariano Rivera. People say that it changed their season, and that that game was the point where they made their run for the World Series. I've never seen the Bruins go near that. I hope one of these days the B's can play a great game in front of me, though not tomorrow. Tomorrow goes to the Oilers.

I missed the Avs game because I had practice, but I don't think I'd enjoy a 5-7 loss to Dallas anyway. I hate those guys. It seems like the more teams I like, the more teams I hate. I legitimately hate Dallas, Montreal, Calgary, Detroit, Vancouver, and Buffalo. Actually, when I evaluate the whole league, I find that I like 7 teams and dislike 15, to varying degrees (the other 8 I just don't care about). When we first got the CenterIce package last year I could watch any game that was on- I would just pick a side and enjoy. Now I flip through the games and find myself saying stuff like, "Oh, Ottawa vs. Atlanta, that should be a good game...except that I really don't like either team." The longer I follow teams, the more animosity springs up, and I have a hard time letting stuff go (i.e. my undying, ferocious, almost irrational hatred for Daniel Briere because of one game).

When my teams are playing well I hate for them to face each other, because one of them has to lose. Right now, though, I'm excited for the B's facing the Oilers. At least someone will win! Ugh, I hate to be pessimistic and everything but no one is showing any consistency. I miss Jarret Stoll.