Monday, January 01, 2007

I'm Blue...

I've just returned from the Caps-Coyotes game (and free dinner with the parental units, always a bonus) and I'm feeling a bit depressed. So I figured I'd wander over here and beg for some sympathetic ears as I whine about my team.

First of all, my boys lost. Again. They're not supposed to lose on January 1. The rest of the year, absolutely - but the New Year's Day game is a longstanding tradition here in DC. 16 years straight they've played a home game on January 1, and they've traditionally done pretty well in those games. But they've now lost the last two and frankly I'm starting to get a little annoyed.

The frustration over losing today, however, is nothing compared to the frustration at the ugly turn things have taken over the past week. For a while there my boys were doing some good stuff, stringing together 4 straight against very tough teams and going 7-1-1. They were getting some nice press and a little respect, they were sitting happily in 6th place...

...and then the you-know-what hit the fan.

First Richard Zednik, who has battled injury all season but has been producing offense in between boo-boos, hurts his special area and has to have surgery.

Then Matt Bradley gets into a fight, hurts his hand, and he has to have surgery.

Then John Erskine and Bryan Muir, two of the Caps' d-men, each break a bone in their foot and they're out indefinitely.

Defenseman Shaone Morrisonn then contracts a mystery illness, later revealed to be mono, and is also out. Suddenly a blue line that was shaky to begin with is completely decimated.

And then, of course, la piece de resistance...

Someone (*cough* Ben Clymer *cough*) comes back from the holidays with a vicious stomach flu and is nice enough to pass it along to all his buddies. I bet that's a present no one had on their list. Just like that the backup goalie, 2 forwards and another defenseman are sleeping it off at the hotel, at least 3 more play while being sick (which then causes some of them to miss the next game), and the roster now more closely resembles the AHL affiliate than the Caps.

And to make this whole thing even more fun, this little rash of bad luck comes during the toughest scheduling stretch of the season - 6 games in 9 nights including one little patch of 4 games in 4 cities over 5 nights. Awesome.

Now I'm not one to blame a loss on injury, because every team gets hurt and your better teams can fight through it. I know everyone is fighting the injury bug right now and a lot of key guys on a lot of teams are out. But you have to admit, this is a bit ridiculous.

They've now dropped 5 straight including today's 3-2 loss to
Phoenix. I haven't seen a win or even a good solid game live in weeks. Guys who usually score aren't scoring as much. AAARRRGGGHHHH!! I don't know how, but I'm going to find a way to blame this all on Jaromir Jagr.

There's a light at the end of the tunnel, though. I hope. The Caps kicked off a 4-game home stretch today, albeit badly, and will have two days off before their next game. They don't play back to back games until the end of January, a home and home against the Hurricanes that comes after 5 days off (and I predict some smack talk upcoming between myself and Acid Queen...all in good fun, of course!)

Okay, I'm done being a baby now. I feel much better. Hopefully the germ boys will get back to 100%, the injured guys will return...and I can stop throwing things at my TV set.

5 comments:

Miss. Scarlett said...

Sorry your new years day didn't have a happy ending. My boys lost too but I'm quite pleased with their effort at least.

I noticed you changed your layout already but if you need me to help you out I'd be glad to. Just shoot me off an e-mail [link can be found at my blog] and let me know what you'd like...although I will warn you I can't do anything particularly fancy, haha.

aquietgirl said...

Spelling Shaone Morrisonn's name is the acid-test for a lot of hockey fans. The extra vowel, the extra 'n', uncertainty as to how many 'r's there are ...

Fedorov's name also serves the same purpose. If someone spells it Federov, you can tell they haven't followed the sport for too long.

Oh, and everyone seems to want to make Fishie European and call him Mike Fischer, but he's just an ol' Canadian farm boy from Peteborough.

Also, isn't mono the kissing disease?

The Acid Queen said...

Could be worse, CapsChick--you could have had to work through New Year's Eve like I did.

Now that sucked. I don't care that the 'Canes lost--I just wanted to be able to celebrate the turn of the year instead of dealing with drunks and underage kids.

CapsChick said...

Sherry: thanks for the offer - I was going to wait for help last night but I got bored and decided to teach myself something. I may still want to change it a bit so I'm going to try and learn how in the next few days (and hope that my sanity holds out long enough to do so).

AQG: Mo's name is really tricky, it took me forever to learn the spelling. And how to pronounce his first name, which if anyone cares sounds like "Sean".

AQ: Working on New Year's...that does suck. I'm not really a big fan of New Year's Eve, but I still don't think I'd want to work.

DCSportsChick said...

It's still Jagr's fault, somehow, some way. I firmly believe that. :-)