Game 22: Flyers 4, Sens ...Who Cares?? I'm Hopped Up On Goofballs!!

Last Saturday afternoon, I came down with the mother of all head colds, contracted, I can only assume, from some rather foolish outdoor activity undertaken earlier that week (next time Ma, get yourself off the damn roof). And so, I did what all men do in that situation, bitch and complain about it until the woman does something to make us feel better. Thus it came to pass that, as Beloved abandoned my phlegmy and mucus ridden corpse for a previously scheduled social engagement, I settled in to watch the Sens/Flyers game wrapped in the twin cocoons of a thick blanket and the soothing narcotic effects of a certain night-time cold medication (I don’t want to name names here, for fear of having my comment box deluged with badly spelled spam…but NyQuil ROCKS!) And I discovered that, under those effects, what I was witnessing on my television wasn’t nearly as infuriating as it normally would have been.

Swiss Pastry’s (no more Darth Gerber for you) three weak, weak goals were met with a series of shrugs. I actually giggled a bit at Briere’s winner, mostly because he looked like a giant bobblehead to my drug addled eyes. No really, an actual bobblehead. In pink, no less. So this got me thinking a little bit. Well, it got me thinking Sunday morning. Saturday night, I was too distracted by Jim Hughson’s repeated attempts during the late game to eat the giant marshmallow that had suddenly replaced his headset.

So Sunday I thought to myself that we, as Sens fans, should embrace this slump. And let’s not gild any lilies; it is a full-blown slump. Why? Let us count the ways:

· It’s November, not March: Historically, the Senators play their best hockey after Christmas (and I’ll pre-empt the witless wags here and say “until the second week of May”). So, we get the shitting-our-pants phase out of the way early, and we’re home free for the rest of the year.

· A bad Sens game, makes a great drinking game!: The rules are simple. You divide the number of players on the ice between the participants. You then drink every time one of “your” players fucks up. For each nervous pass fanned in the offensive zone, one shot. Defensive zone? Two shots. A fanned shot gets 2 drinks and a drop pass resulting in an odd man rush the other way (a.k.a.: The Spezza Surprise), means the owner of that player picks another participant, who then has to drink three shots. Did I mention I was alone Saturday? My dog really didn’t like this rule very much.

· I’ll put $10 on Rayzor: Office pools, Super Bowl style, on which of Ottawa’s goalies is going to suck the most over a given stretch of time. Bonus money to anyone who can pinpoint the exact moment Gerb’s confidence hops a flight to Geneva, or Ray snaps and goes Rambo on the asses of his fellow commuters.

So there you are, fellow Legionnaires. Enjoy it. Have fun with it. And always remember, things could be worse. We could be Leaf fans.

At Least We're Not The Leafs [Four Habs Fans]

p.s.: The picture is from a site called Subversive Cross Stitch. Seriously. As stitching is one of Beloved's many many creative talents, I include it here for her benefit. And I totally want "Don't Make Me Cut You" for my cubicle wall.