Ouch

Did this:
"I'm still legitimately terrified that because I've talked about him he's going to get hurt."
cause the injury to Marek Svatos? It's a direct quote from my post on Tuesday, and some pretty damning evidence that I really am a bottomless pit of bad luck. However, the true reason that Marek now has a groin injury is this, uttered right before the above quote:
"The Real Marek Svatos has been around for a few games now and, in the one redeemable event in the past few days, is developing some chemistry with Tyler Arnason."
When it rains, it pours, and right now there's a goddamn storm. All I've done for the past few entries is complain, but that's because there haven't been many redeemable events, and when there have been, they've gotten groin injuries. After a while it's kind of funny in a way.

Talking to Paula, I noted that the Bruins, though sucking, were still only 8 points behind the Canadiens with 4 games in hand. We play each other on Saturday, and with us playing Philadelphia before then and them playing Buffalo, it wasn't far-fetched to think that we could rise to 4 points behind with 4 in hand by the end of the weekend. I convinced myself that this would happen, despite my Bruin senses telling me otherwise. Tonight the only reason the Bruins lost in overtime to the Flyers was because Tim Thomas stopped 48 of 51 shots in regulation. You know a game is ugly when the Flyers get a shorthanded goal and immediately get another quality 2-on-1 chance on the same penalty kill, Savard sucks while Chara scores the game-tying goal, and I fleetingly wonder if we traded Brad Boyes for the Ontarian MAB. In games like these it doesn't make me happy that Tim Thomas plays incredibly- it makes me sad. Why should he stand on his head if his teammates can't stop or score on the Flyers? With the recent trades, the Bruins should at least be able to do the former. They added to their pretty solid core of Chara, Ference, and Alberts with Wideman and Ward. How does a group like that let in 55 shots in one game? If anything it's a little comforting that they did so terribly. That's probably as bad as they can do, and I imagine they'll improve soon. And if Montreal loses...ugh. This team is impossible.

I caught some of the Islanders game against St. Louis. There was an awkward moment when the Islanders announcers kept saying that Smytty was coming onto the ice, but each time another string of people would come out with no Smytty in sight. It was really funny until he finally did come out. I was shocked at how disturbing it was to see him in another uniform and how sad it made me to see him celebrating after Sillinger's goal with people on another team. Still, Smytty made a wonderful play to get Sillinger the goal, and the crowd cheered him wildly when he did something good or even sometimes when he was just on the ice. At least they're excited to have him. I switched away from the game when MAB scored, because it was a little too much to handle. With Brad Boyes playing on the St. Louis side, the whole thing just freaked me out.

Even when they're not winning, the Avs are kind of comforting to watch. I think it's because they score a lot of goals, and a goal under any circumstances is a reason to celebrate. Even if they let in goals just as much as they score them, there have still been 214 reasons to celebrate this season. They're just not a stressful team to watch, at least in relation to the other two. They don't ever give me the feeling that they're one really long, well-timed hot streak away from making the playoffs, but they also don't play so badly that it's painful. When they went down 1-0 tonight and then announced that Marek Svatos was hurt, I considered turning off the TV and pretending that my teams weren't crumbling to pieces (which is big, because usually I force myself to watch games unless I have a legitimate excuse). But they kept playing, drew me back in, and ended up winning 6-1 with a feel-good list of goal scorers. Seasons like this aren't comforting if they come in strings of four or five years, but every so often it's good to have something go a little right when I expected it to crash and burn.

Quick notes

• Jeff Woywitka has been a part of a lot of dark moments in Oiler history. They got him for Mike Comrie, gave him up for Chris Pronger, and tonight he played for the Blues in Smytty's first game as an Islander. It's either a really weird coincidence or he's the spawn of Satan. Either way we might want to kill him.
• I was happy to see Smid back, so naturally he got run at by Derek Boogaard all night long.
• At the end of the Avs game, the announcers were sympathizing with Ian Laperriere, who had an empty net but couldn't settle the puck down. This led to one of them joking, "If he had a gun he would have shot the puck- put it out of its misery right then. 'You're going to stay down!'" Maybe the weirdest thing I've heard someone say during a hockey broadcast.

Smytty

It's been a tough couple of days, almost to the point where this trade doesn't faze me. It does. I just don't think it really hit me until a second ago. Ryan Smyth was one of the reasons that the Oilers drew me in. He's my favorite player, not just on the Oilers but out of all my teams. For me, one of the worst parts about this trade is that he was partly to blame. With the situation between him and the Oilers the way it was, there wasn't much else to do. I don't know. I hate it. Actually I'm pretty upset now. I just feel bad for people on the team, like a Shawn Horcoff or something, who are going to miss him. I guess this stuff happens a lot but I still feel bad. I'm trying to stay rational. The last trade I blindly hated was Nomar.

The Bruins traded Brad Boyes for Dennis Wideman, and Paul Mara for Aaron Ward. I like the second trade and don't know enough about Wideman to tell on the first one. With two losses in a row they needed something. I was at the game last night with Liz and Paula. We moved down to seats directly next to the Bruins' bench, three rows from the glass. When they fell apart in the third period, Andrew Ference had a look on his face that I'm all too familiar with. He looked like he wanted to single-handedly carry his team to a win and that, if he had anything to say about it, there was no way they were going to lose. He's just one player, though, and no matter what he did they still lost. I appreciated the effort and he's on his way to making me like that trade. At least he's trying.

The Avs traded Brad May for a goaltending prospect. I'm pretty sure May is useless so this is fine. The Real Marek Svatos has been around for a few games now and, in the one redeemable event in the past few days, is developing some chemistry with Tyler Arnason. I'm still legitimately terrified that because I've talked about him he's going to get hurt. You can call it paranoia, but I see the Bruins sucking, Smid getting hurt, and Smytty being sent away as evidence that I really am a death curse.

That English teacher, Skinder, has spent the first couple days of this week trying to make me miserable for no reason. He's an ass to everyone, but he's been targeting me so much lately that even other teachers are wondering what the hell he's doing. At first I didn't know what to do, because I've never had someone treat me like this before, but now I know that I just have to deal. I only have to deal with him for a few more months, then I'm free to get the hell out of that school. He's stuck here. Like it tends to do, hockey reflects life. The Bruins have a shot at making the playoffs, but it's not anywhere near guaranteed. The Avs only have a very dim chance, if any, and the Oilers are officially rebuilding. This isn't a great time, but it's not going to be like this forever. Things are going to pick up for all of my teams- maybe not this year, but at some point. To enjoy those times I have to suck it up and get through these. We're all going to miss Smytty, but just remember that someday things will be better.