At Wit's End

After coming home from last night's debacle, I was too upset to write. Too upset to do much of anything, in fact. My wife said to me, "You sound so upset." I couldn't explain to her the way I felt. I had tried once before; it didn't work then, either.

It was September 30, 2007. I had just come home from a Mets-Marlins game at Shea Stadium. It is now better known as the day the final nail was hammered into the coffin that was the Mets' season. I had just spent the previous three hours with 57,000 other diehards watching Tom Glavine blow any chance the Mets had of avoiding a historic collapse. However, the difference between myself and many of them was that while they maintained hope, I was assured that the Mets would fail. I came home after that game and hugged my wife, who responded with a derisive chant of "Jose! Jose! Jose!".

Fast forward to last night. It wasn't nearly the same situation, but the game stirred up similar feelings. Except this time, before the opposition took the wind out of the crowd's sails, I had total faith in my team. I believed Wade Dubielewicz would steal another game, that the Islanders would take it to their rivals one more time. Instead, all I saw was a sea of red, white, and blue celebrate each Rangers goal, effectively taking over the Coliseum without much of a fight. It was a truly embarrassing evening, and I wanted so badly to take it out on the Rangers fans who filled the Coliseum.

But the truth is, they weren't to blame. As much as I want to hate Rangers fans, I just can't do it. These people came out to our building, rocked the place, and stayed for autographs. These were the people who gave their team a standing ovation after losing to Buffalo in last year's playoffs; meanwhile, Islanders fans littered the ice with garbage after each of their losses. These Ranger fans sell out their building every night, while the Islanders have to resort to promotions like "Kids Day" and "Hockey And Heels Night" to bring the attendance over 10,000. No question, I hate the Rangers... and yet, I totally envy them.

As I left the Coliseum last night, I wished so badly that we could have that same support, that same hope that the Rangers bring with them. But it's not going to happen until the Islanders put forth a real team on the ice. And by a "real team", I mean a team that doesn't consist of 18 grinders and two goalies. At the end of last night's game, Brendan Shanahan was pushing around one of the Islanders, pretty much just because he could. And why was that? Because no Islanders would take him to task for it. Just like there are no scorers on this team, there are no fighters, no enforcers. There's nobody to stand up for each other, and that's necessary. People say you can't have an enforcer in the new NHL, but despite all their star power, the Rangers have two. Meanwhile, the Islanders have four lines of third-liners; guys who work hard but can't do much else. That's not the core of a winning team; hell, that's not even the core of a mediocre team.

The moral of the story is that until the Islanders get some personnel, we're going to have many nights like last night, where a "home" game turns out to be anything but. That means I'm going to have quite a few more depressing nights where even Neil Smith referring to Rob Davison as Tom Poti on NHL On The Fly can't cheer me up. I'm sick of the inferiority complex with the Rangers. I'm sick of having a team that has no chance of getting past the first round of the playoffs, if they're even lucky enough to get there. And, no matter what the results of the Hummer Metro Ice Challenge or the head-to-head series are, I'm sick of being on the losing end of this rivalry.