The build-up

Chris Pronger was on Jim Rome's radio show, and amazingly, he used a few multisyllabic words. He even used the word "adept" at one point, which made my head fall off.

The interview was a rather ho hum adventure in nothingness because elbowing doesn't translate to radio. But even though it was Rome and the world's most disgusting land mammal trying to out-monotone each other, at least hockey talk was getting out to the masses. And say what you want about Rome, at least he acknowledges hockey's awesomeness on rare occasion. The altogether not-at-all-noteworthy conversation was posted at the OC Register. Nothing major.

“They play a very sound defensive game,” Pronger said. “I said this last year to somebody: They play so well defensively that a lot of times it gets overlooked because they control the puck, they control the play. They’re a very skilled team, but their defensive play gets overlooked because they score a lot of goals.

“You very rarely see Detroit give up a 2-on-1 or a 3-on-2. They’re very adept at playing defense, and because of that they’re able to turn the puck over and they have a great transition.”

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The true stars of the show can be found past the end of Pronger's mumbling. There's the typical jarring and jabbering Daniel says, "The Ducks taking the series in 4 games isn’t going to be all that exciting. I think they may just prolong it to 6 to let the Wings think they have a shot." WINGS-FAN comes back with, "You must be delusional if you think for a second that the Ducklets will beat the wings let alone think they have a choice on how many games they want the wings to hang around." This is all in good fun.

Then the plight of the unemployed started to become funny.


Twirvca adds, "Maybe with their free time while waiting in the unemployment line, the Detroit fans should check the history books for the last time these two teams met in a playoff series."

CK couldn't resist either: "I am so tired of other teams’ fans coming to our boards and telling us we don’t know hockey. But the replies are hilarious. I’d rather have a job than know everything about hockey. Of course, I have both. ;)"

But the best one of the bunch, an aborted fetus by the name of Your Mom says, "Ha!!! Two comments by two DeadThing fans; I see a common thread here? Detroit and unemployed!!!"


Wait a minute -- "DeadThings"? Dead Things, really? He actually used Dead Things. He could've added a knock-knock joke and "Show me the Money" and that comment wouldn't have been as dated.

This series is still more than two full days away, and it already feels skull-fuckingly intense. I love it. But at the same time, even though I thought nothing on this planet could possibly offend me, the unemployment stuff kind of blurs a line. It's not so much an indictment on Duck fans as it is on people who use the Internet like it's some sort of anonymity glory hole. One of the only drawbacks to being a fan in the 21st century is that you have to put up with people who think they can stick their comments wherever they please without regard, no matter the content, because there isn't a face attached to it. There's still somebody on the other side of that wall slobbing your knob reading it and interpreting it. People who don't understand that (or worse, don't give a shit) put a slight damper on the whole Internet/sports thing for me.

Mr. Quack Quack had a good follow up to these comments with this, however:

We have just as much unemployment in California - I’m thankfull that I’m not standing in that line and am ashamed of my fellow fans who want to make light of the Detroit unemployed.

That's cool.

*****

I think that's enough soap box to last me a lifetime. Let's start this damn thing already.

Go Wings.