It's very rare that you can clearly see your lot in life. Tonight, I was fortunate enough to see mine.
I don't just back underdogs. I'm a glutton for punishment.
The Jets are more than a cursed team that will never win a Super Bowl. They're a franchise that seems to truly relish breaking the hearts of Jets fans every year. The Mets just completed a historic collapse and will surely find a new way to disappoint us this coming season. The Knicks are an embarrassment to everybody who grew up idolizing John Starks, Charles Oakley, and the rest of the Riley-era Knicks. Even my newest love, Newcastle United of the English Premier League, is fighting just to avoid being relegated to the second-tier league of English football.
And the Islanders? Well, odds are good I don't need to tell you of their plight.
Simply put, I have no idea why someone would become an Islander fan unless they were born into it. I've said the same thing about the Rangers, but at least they've been successful since the lockout. The Islanders have exactly four claims to fame since the dynasty years...
- The Easter Epic
- The Miracle Of '93
- Trading away an entire team worth of blue-chip prospects for pennies on the dollar
- Playing the Maple Leafs in one of the most brutal series of the modern era
Of course, the Isles lost the series immediately following both the Easter Epic and the Penguins series in '93, they never would have developed those prospects as effectively on the Island, and they didn't get it done against Toronto. The shame of it is, the Islanders easily could have reached the Finals in either '93 or '02 with a little luck (there was no way they were beating the Flyers in '87), and God knows how well they could have done with even half the guys they traded away.
In a nutshell, that's the past quarter-century of Islanders hockey - what might have been.
Ironically enough, it was those Maple Leafs that opened my eyes tonight. The same team that had to injure two of the Isles' best players to beat them in 2002 embarrassed the Islanders tonight. Obviously, both teams have taken major turns for the worse since then, with the Isles fighting scoring woes for much of the season and the Leafs languishing in a lottery spot until very recently. Still, in a game where the Coliseum faithful got their first glimpse at the future, the Islanders should have had this one.
It's never a good thing when your only goal tops the list for flukiest goals in a given season, but that's the Islanders for you. Toronto woke up after that, finally turned it on in the third period, and kept the Islanders' scoring chances to mostly weak attempts from bad angles. It happens, I guess. It's just hard to take when you're sitting in a half-empty Coliseum, with a team consisting largely of unrecognizable faces playing before you, and your team can't buy a break. And as much as I tried to cheer myself up by thinking about our improved draft position, or contemplating the popular Leafs fan prediction of making a playoff run that's destined to fall just short and ruin their shot at a premium draft pick, it didn't work. Especially when contrasted with the scenario that occurred across town.
My friends Tom and Kristine attended tonight's Rangers-Penguins game at the Garden. They got to sit in a sold-out building and watch the Rangers make short work of a legitimate Cup contender. They got to see Sean Avery score two goals, Henrik Lundqvist shut the door, and the Rangers move one step closer to potentially gaining home-ice advantage in the first round. Not bad, eh? Meanwhile, all Islanders fans got was another disappointing finish to what has quickly become a forgettable season.
Believe me when I say that I'm not giving up on my team. I can't stress this enough. We've been through far, far worse before. This isn't the Fishstick era, or the John Spano era, or even the Steve Stirling era. I just wish that, for once, I could be on the other side of this rivalry. I wish I could be the one supporting the winning team. I wish I could dream of Stanley Cups and marquee players. I wish I had the confidence that my team could make a playoff run and maybe, just maybe, win this thing. Is that too much to ask?
Apparently so.
Again, I'm not giving up. I just wish my faith wasn't tested so often.
I don't just back underdogs. I'm a glutton for punishment.
The Jets are more than a cursed team that will never win a Super Bowl. They're a franchise that seems to truly relish breaking the hearts of Jets fans every year. The Mets just completed a historic collapse and will surely find a new way to disappoint us this coming season. The Knicks are an embarrassment to everybody who grew up idolizing John Starks, Charles Oakley, and the rest of the Riley-era Knicks. Even my newest love, Newcastle United of the English Premier League, is fighting just to avoid being relegated to the second-tier league of English football.
And the Islanders? Well, odds are good I don't need to tell you of their plight.
Simply put, I have no idea why someone would become an Islander fan unless they were born into it. I've said the same thing about the Rangers, but at least they've been successful since the lockout. The Islanders have exactly four claims to fame since the dynasty years...
- The Easter Epic
- The Miracle Of '93
- Trading away an entire team worth of blue-chip prospects for pennies on the dollar
- Playing the Maple Leafs in one of the most brutal series of the modern era
Of course, the Isles lost the series immediately following both the Easter Epic and the Penguins series in '93, they never would have developed those prospects as effectively on the Island, and they didn't get it done against Toronto. The shame of it is, the Islanders easily could have reached the Finals in either '93 or '02 with a little luck (there was no way they were beating the Flyers in '87), and God knows how well they could have done with even half the guys they traded away.
In a nutshell, that's the past quarter-century of Islanders hockey - what might have been.
Ironically enough, it was those Maple Leafs that opened my eyes tonight. The same team that had to injure two of the Isles' best players to beat them in 2002 embarrassed the Islanders tonight. Obviously, both teams have taken major turns for the worse since then, with the Isles fighting scoring woes for much of the season and the Leafs languishing in a lottery spot until very recently. Still, in a game where the Coliseum faithful got their first glimpse at the future, the Islanders should have had this one.
It's never a good thing when your only goal tops the list for flukiest goals in a given season, but that's the Islanders for you. Toronto woke up after that, finally turned it on in the third period, and kept the Islanders' scoring chances to mostly weak attempts from bad angles. It happens, I guess. It's just hard to take when you're sitting in a half-empty Coliseum, with a team consisting largely of unrecognizable faces playing before you, and your team can't buy a break. And as much as I tried to cheer myself up by thinking about our improved draft position, or contemplating the popular Leafs fan prediction of making a playoff run that's destined to fall just short and ruin their shot at a premium draft pick, it didn't work. Especially when contrasted with the scenario that occurred across town.
My friends Tom and Kristine attended tonight's Rangers-Penguins game at the Garden. They got to sit in a sold-out building and watch the Rangers make short work of a legitimate Cup contender. They got to see Sean Avery score two goals, Henrik Lundqvist shut the door, and the Rangers move one step closer to potentially gaining home-ice advantage in the first round. Not bad, eh? Meanwhile, all Islanders fans got was another disappointing finish to what has quickly become a forgettable season.
Believe me when I say that I'm not giving up on my team. I can't stress this enough. We've been through far, far worse before. This isn't the Fishstick era, or the John Spano era, or even the Steve Stirling era. I just wish that, for once, I could be on the other side of this rivalry. I wish I could be the one supporting the winning team. I wish I could dream of Stanley Cups and marquee players. I wish I had the confidence that my team could make a playoff run and maybe, just maybe, win this thing. Is that too much to ask?
Apparently so.
Again, I'm not giving up. I just wish my faith wasn't tested so often.
No comments:
Post a Comment