bitter bowl, tasty cup.

kaepernicking
It’s called ‘Kaepernicking‘.

I know it’s only a fucking game.

I get that, ok? But it’s my game.

I started watching the San Francisco 49ers play football at the perfect moment: early in the 1981 season. I got to see a team that had langusied at the bottom of the stats for some while rise, phoenix-like, from the ashes of a terrible season, and rise to the peak of football success.

I was there when it started; watching the start of what would be the most successful run of championships in football history.

Sometime in the 90’s, I lucked into a season ticket. I was there for the last years of the Steve Young era; I was there in the stands for Jerry Rice’s last game as a niner. I was there for the Jeff Garcia era. I was there for the last flirtation with greatness in the mid ninties, and I was there when it all sort of collapsed around our ears.

I regrets now that I had to give up my tickets; this year, I wanted them back, so badly. This year, it felt like 1981 over again.

But it wasn’t. Not quite. Because in the last seconds of super bowl XLVII, for the first time ever, it didn’t go our way, and we lost a superbowl.

I point no fingers; yes, the officiating sucked; yes, at times, we sucked. Coaching mistakes were made (on both sides). For whatever reason, that day, they did better than we did.

It feels fucking personal. Not like any other loss I can remember. And I think I’m going to be angry about this one for a while; maybe ’til Sepctember and we’re back on the field, maybe ’til the playoffs end. Hell, maybe until we get to our seventh super bowl; I don’t know. But I’m pissed off.

On the other hand, I posted the above picture (of me ‘Kaepernicking‘) partly because there’s another team I’m now following passionately – the San Jose Sharks NHL hockey team. It’s not the same – football is in the blood, I grew up watching college  with my father and my aunt, and have been following the niners now for thirty-plus years. But the Sharks have me as much as the niners did back in the days of our second and third superbowls. Hockey is a different thing, a different game.

I didn’t get the above tattoo for my hockey team – but it still represents it to me now. And god dammit, after the crushing disappointment of Super Bowl XLVII, one thing will make it better; lord fucking Stanley’s mug.

Go Sharks.

 

 

Season’s End

God, i hate it when hockey season ends. Used to be, I was a football guy. BAseball I didn’t care about either way; I’d watch it, I liked a good game live, but it didn’t matter. Basketball bored me to tears, and soccer more so. Hockey was one of those games I wanted to like, […]

God, i hate it when hockey season ends.

Used to be, I was a football guy. BAseball I didn’t care about either way; I’d watch it, I liked a good game live, but it didn’t matter. Basketball bored me to tears, and soccer more so.

Hockey was one of those games I wanted to like, very much. Back in Gretzky’s day, when my brother was glued to the games, I’d try, and try, and never get it.

in 1991 when Hockey came back to the bay area (thanks to George Gund) ,I started thinking I should go to a game. And I said that off and on for years afterwards. I tried, again, to get into in on TV, but it’s not an accessible game on a small screen.

It wasn’t until my first game, somewhere in the early ’00s, that I finally got it. From the first play of that first game live in person, I was a dedicated San Jose Sharks fan.

The Sharks have had some good, great, and not great seasons, but I didn’t care; I was hooked.

The first year, I went to several games before I was able to easily track the action on tv. But once I got what was going on, I found i was getting almost as much as I did live.

Football is a game made for TV. Deliberate pacing, setup, play, stop, setup. It’s geometric, strategic, reasonably predictable. Live, the game is thrilling, but often difficult to track at stadium distances. On TV, you can see everything you need to see to understand the game completely. Truly, you get far more out of a football game on TV than you do in the stands (aside from the sheer energy of being there).

Hockey is the opposite. A TV screen – no matter how big and how clear – cannot catch all the action on every part of the ice. Hockey’s too fast, too frantic, too unpredictable. Also, obviously, a three inch puck becomes about a pixel wide on a TV screen, so it’s rarely visible for more than seconds at a time.

Live, though, the incredibly complex interplay, the constant change of strategy, the timing with who’s where on the ice at any time. More, you get the changing on and off the ice – an absolutely crucial detail of coaching – that on tv is never visible.

Hockey is an absurdly fast game. The skaters are fast, the puck is fast, the changes in pace and direction are fast. Scoring can happen any time by any member of either team. In football, you know a touchdown is coming – or may come – for a long time as teams march down the field. You know when you go get a beer, when things won’t be happening for a while. In hockey, you don’t, ever, know when the game changing moment is going to happen. Live, there are moments when one can’t even catch breath, when the tension tightens and tightens and tightens until you’re ready to explode. You can’t get this when you’re not there, hearing skate hit skate, stick crack off puck, players crashing into each other or the boards. The SOUND of hockey is an integral part of the experience.

More than any sport I’ve seen, Hockey is made to see live.

Yet, I’ve seen enough now that I can assemble what’s happening from TV; I can make up the difference now. We’re lucky to have one of the best broadcasting teams in any pro sport I can think of in San Jose; Drew Remenda and Randy Hahn, on Comcast SportsNet California. I can’t over-state the difference it makes to have top broadcasters calling the game; particularly with Hockey. It makes watching games immensely entertaining. When the games are on other networks (usually Versus), my enjoyment is radically less (though I’ll still, always watch).

I’m a committed fan; I’ve reached that point where I plan around Hockey. I plan my weekday evenings, I plan when I’ll leave work early and when I’ll leave late, I plan my drinking. I try to catch every game. A hockey season is long. 82 games, plus playoffs. That means 41 home games. This is one of the reasons I don’t have season tickets; I simply can’t make the commitment of time and money. And of course, I can’t realistically even watch that many on TV. But I try. Knowing a hockey game will be on when I get home on weeknights makes me happier.

From the beginning of October ’til the season ends (In April if you’re not lucky, or into May or even June, depending on how long one’s team survives the playoffs), it’s a constant in a hockey fan’s life; something that has a significant impact on mood.

The letdown when the season ends is significant. Even when we’re having a bad year, when we’re not in the playoffs, or when we exit them early and ugly, I look at the calendar and think, how many months until I can buy tickets for another game.

A year like this one – wow.

The last three years, the sharks have played incredibly well all season. They’ve set records – points, games won. Franchise records, player records, league records. They’ve been on a major roll; playing absolutely amazing hockey all year. But the previous two, they went out hard and early in the playoffs (in 08, in the most brutal overtime marathon I’ve ever seen, and in ’09, they were smacked down with ridiculous ease in the first round by the hated Anaheim Ducks).

Brutal endings, both, for a team that had ‘stanley cup’ written all over them. Truly, both years, they looked unbeatable early on.

This year was different. This year we played hard, played well, but we didn’t have the look of a team peaking too hard and too early. We had firepower from all over the team, we had discipline, we had a powerful physically game. We had top players like Marleau and Heatly playing at the top of their games and scoring at will. It looked like a cup run.

And when we came into the playoffs, it still looked like a cup run. We stumbled a bit in the first round, making it look harder than it should have been. But it wasn’t that hard. The second round, against Detroit, we made look pretty easy.

So coming into the final, against a strong but extremely beatable Chicago Black Hawks, we all sort of felt like this was just the walk up to a Stanley Cups we’d already won.

Turned out, not.

I was at game one of that series, and walked out with a couple of clear impressions. One was that this is some incredibly good hockey; possibly the best hockey I’ve ever seen live. One was that this Chicago team was fast, strong, and incredibly good. And the third was that we are just about dead even it abilities, so the series would be decided by small details and tiny increments of advantage.

We lost that game, but only just; we were in it til the ending. It was about as good a game as a loss can be.

The second game, they caught us out. They exposed a couple of weaknesses, and lined up their own strengths against them; playing spectacular defense and using speed to disrupt the sharks normal puck movement strategies.

three and four played out more like one; incredibly close games, were two teams stood head to head and measured up; one was a tiny bit better, and dominated.

The Sharks could have one that series; but they couldn’t win it right now. They don’t have the right game, and maybe they’re one or two key players off the right lines. Personally I think it was one of those ‘who’s hot this week’ cases; I think a month ago or a month from now, the series would have been different if the peaks and valleys lined up different. Because Hockey’s like that; teams go on amazing streaks where they can’t lose, and then they do lose, and have amazing streaks where everything goes wrong for them for a week, or a month, before they put it together.

The Sharks came in off pace; we knew that when they struggled against an infinitely weaker Colorado team. They came in vulnerable, with an awareness of fallibility and a history a failing hard, early. Chicago were on the opposite end of the curve, surging when they needed to surge, and playing up to peak rather than down to valley.

Yes, it was a sweep; but every game was close, and every game was within reach.

The heartbreak last year was that our team let us down. The heartbreak this year was that they didn’t; they just were not quite great enough, not as great as they needed to be this week.

The end of the season happens in that one second when a puck goes over the line, and then in that 60 seconds when the time trickles away on the clock, and you know, finally, that hope’s over and the season ends. right. here.

Stanley cup? Who cares. The real battle was here, in San Jose, and in Chicago, and it ended wrong. Who gets that big silver mug in a couple weeks time doesn’t matter at all, it’s an afterthought, for bragging rights between two teams who mean nothing but payback targets next year.

The season’s ever when my team get on a plane and fly home.

I look at the calendar – summer beginning, weather warming. I think about bbq and swim parties, about warm vacations and lazy (or busy) weekends, about hot, sweaty nights. But I also look past that to fall, because the only thing that makes it feel better is football season. And this year, for the first time in a decade, I’m seeing the 49ers look like they may be worthy of hope. It’s been a long, ugly road for them, and they’ve made a great show of wildly, obviously bad choices everywhere in the organization, from owner to coach to general manager to drafts to free-agents, all the way to where to build new stadiums. But it’s hit a point where the pieces seem to be falling into some sort of line, and where the players we have signed all look like the right players to fit what’s been wrong. We have a coach who seems to understand how to lead. MAybe, just maybe, we’re finally starting to do it right.

That doesn’t mean they’re looking to a super bowl; but it means they just might be looking at a winner of a season, and if we’re very lucky, more. And that, for a long, long time fan, is a little glow out on the horizon that makes it seem better.

That doesn’t stop me from being bummed. When I put my new, personalized “playoffs” hockey jerseys away today, I though “i need more of these, I don’t have a Nabokov one yet”. And then I remembered how long i’d be before I can wear it to a game.

But this sharks team will be back here, and past here. Of that I’m completely sure. And meanwhile, there’s that summer, and that fall of red and gold. And hopefully, there are drunken, sweaty pursuits that will get me out of the house and get sports the hell out of my head; god knows that’ll be good for me.

elvis13.jpg

Bill Walsh

Bill Walsh – Football’s greatest mind, and the man who trained the two greatest quarterbacks to ever play the game, is dead at the age of 76. If heaven has a football team, they’re switching to a new kind of offense. Walsh is one of my few real heros. Here’s to ya, Bill.

Bill Walsh – Football’s greatest mind, and the man who trained the two greatest quarterbacks to ever play the game, is dead at the age of 76.

If heaven has a football team, they’re switching to a new kind of offense.

Walsh is one of my few real heros. Here’s to ya, Bill.

…and a hocky game broke out

This right here is why i love hockey. What other sport would let this go on? We get a bunch of testosterone-laden, over-muscles goons get out on a playing field, work into a competitive frenzy, they we act like they’re suppose to just walk like it’s nothing when some joker makes a cheap shot. The […]

This right here is why i love hockey. What other sport would let this go on? We get a bunch of testosterone-laden, over-muscles goons get out on a playing field, work into a competitive frenzy, they we act like they’re suppose to just walk like it’s nothing when some joker makes a cheap shot.

The modern NFL won’t even let players celebrate great plays anymore.

Not so the NHL. They let ’em work it out the old-fashioned way.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1-25s4uwFQ]

The thing that’s cool about this isn’t just that they’re all fighting. What’s cool is that the refs only stop the fights when it looks like the guy on th e bottom is beaten. If the combatants work it out and break up, the refs just let ’em go.

Here come the playoffs.

blood on the ice

You know i tell you, any time i’m feeling stressed, i need to go to a hockey game. There’s nothing that gets it out quite like screaming and yelling, seeing guys absolutely hammering each other into the boards, and then watching the rink repair guys scrape blood off the ice before the zamboni comes out. […]

You know i tell you, any time i’m feeling stressed, i need to go to a hockey game.

There’s nothing that gets it out quite like screaming and yelling, seeing guys absolutely hammering each other into the boards, and then watching the rink repair guys scrape blood off the ice before the zamboni comes out.

Last night i watched the Sharks go ’round with the Minnesota Wild (who have a really stupid name and an ugly uniform, what are those, xmas badgers or something?) The game included the return of Sharks enforcer Scott “The Sheriff” Parker (Who my daughter thinks looks like me, so I’m pretty happy about that), and a whole lot of hitting.

I have to say – as much as I’m a life-long football fan, hockey is simply the best life sport i’ve ever seen. It just puts me in a good mood. Particularly when there’s blood.

I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out

(Wrote this a couple days ago but could not post it due to some server trouble) Mmm, i love me some hockey. My first game of the season – solid success, close enough to be thrilling, but never close enough that i was worried. Final score, Sharks 2, Dallas 0. I love a good shutout. […]

(Wrote this a couple days ago but could not post it due to some server trouble)

Mmm, i love me some hockey.

My first game of the season – solid success, close enough to be thrilling, but never close enough that i was worried. Final score, Sharks 2, Dallas 0. I love a good shutout. I love a good hockey game. I love it best when they fight.

And the Sharks are off to their best start ever, in the whole history of the franchise.

Damn, I wish I could get season tickets, and, you know, a cool jersey:

Moronosharks-2

season over

Hockey season is officially over. Forget the cup. The Sharks are out, thus no no hockey from here matters. When’s football season start? *sigh*

Hockey season is officially over. Forget the cup. The Sharks are out, thus no no hockey from here matters.

When’s football season start?

*sigh*

When mountains choose sides

Evidently, even Mount St. Helens is rooting for the Sharks to win the stanley cup. http://www.katu.com/news/story.asp?ID=85601 If we win, stand back. That could be some party, man.

Evidently, even Mount St. Helens is rooting for the Sharks to win the stanley cup.

http://www.katu.com/news/story.asp?ID=85601

If we win, stand back. That could be some party, man.

Big Sports Weekends

This is where a different geek-side (Geekseid?) shows. This is where I go all sports geek. This weekend is the NFL draft. And I hate to admit how much I care. I’ve been known to watch at least part of the first round on teevee, and I always track progress throughout the draft weekend. I […]

This is where a different geek-side (Geekseid?) shows. This is where I go all sports geek.

This weekend is the NFL draft. And I hate to admit how much I care. I’ve been known to watch at least part of the first round on teevee, and I always track progress throughout the draft weekend.

I care who my teams (49ers, raiders, pittsburgh) take, I care who my friends teams take (miami, philly). I care who gets taken by rival teams (seattle, st louis).

I care who gets taken first, who falls in the rankings. I care about the last minute trades to jockey for position.

My team, the 49ers, have made a lot of bone-head draft moves in the last few years. Jim Drukenmiller chosen over Jake the Snake Plummer stands out as a particularly stupid one, but I look at our number one and two drafts – Mike Rumph, Kwame Harris, Israel Ifeanyi, J.J. Stokes, Reggie McGrew, Justin Smiley – and I don’t see a lotta spectatular talent. Our last year’s top pick, the highly paid Alex Smith, has yet to prove out and actually do a damned thing and to my mind he’s got expensive failure written all over him.

So the draft is, to me, both exciting and scary. I watch my team draft the way to watch a train wreck.


Then there’s Hockey. The sharks are up 3-1 vs Nashville in the first round of the stanley cup playoffs. They played a hard, thrilling game thursday, a physical game that they won, but didn’t dominate. They play in Nashville tomorrow (Sunday), and can put this to bed; or they can choke, and be back in San Jose next week. My boss has tickets to that next round, so I think he’s hoping for a choke, but I’d like to see this series over. This sharks team has the players to think Stanley Cup, but they have to play a lotta good hockey between now and then to have that happen.


I’m thinking about taking the top off my jeep. But you know what that means, every year. It means more rain. So, you know, maybe not quite yet.