Okay. I admit it. I’m a Thrashers fan.
This may not go over well, as I’m supposed to be a Guy Who Knows Something About Hockey—and I DO know enough to be a little bit ashamed—but doggone it, I like the Thrashers. They were my home team for the three miserable years I spent in that horrible, humid, shitpile the world calls Atlanta, and now, in retrospect, with my NHL Centre Ice, and the more cosmopolitan worldview that comes from being able to cheer on anyone who stomps the Leafs or Wings, I STILL like to watch the world’s most defensively irresponsible team score pretty goal after pretty goal and get crushed anyway.
When I got the message from jefcanuck this morning that Atlanta Spirit, LLC had gone and fired coach Bob, I was of two minds about the whole thing. On one hand, my guys are in the basement—deep in the basement. On the other hand, they were much worse before Coach Bob rolled into town.
Could be that it wasn’t entirely Hartley’s fault?
Yeah, we rolled over in the first round and got raped by the Rangers, and played for shit along the way—but Hartley won us the Division title, and gave us a season over .500 with little-to-no goaltending, a half-decent defensive corps, and just one center worth his weight in used Tampax. That’s gotta count for something—especially when you take into consideration that the Thrasher’s megalomaniacal GM was dragging his dick through the sand all season, just waiting to fuck our guys for the foreseeable future.
Which brings us to the crux of the problem. Don Waddell is a hate criminal.
… and Hartley’s replacement as “interim coach” until they can find another sucker willing to take on a charity case. “Interim coach”. My ass.
Don Waddell is the idiot who let Marc Savard go cheap after a 98-point season, rested all of our goaltending hopes on an untested and fragile young goaltending prospect, sold the future of the Thrash for the short-lived and ill-fated rental of an (arguably) over-the-hill Keith Tkatchuk, built a solid foundation of nothing out of god-knows-what bullshit scouting reports to guarantee that there is Absolutely No Talent in the Thrashers system, and fired the coach that tried for five long years to pull his fat, flabby chestnuts out of the fire.
Hartley will survive. There’s another team out there for a cup-winning coach who almost managed to transform the Atlanta Thrashers from a trailer-park-escort-agency-on-ice into a cup contender.
If Waddell had a decent bone in his body, he’d be turning in his resignation 10 minutes ago—and if I wasn’t so goddamned lazy, I’d be burning his double-crossing ass in effigy.
So Fuck Him—I hope the Thrashers lose every game from now until he swallows a double-fistful of pills and joins Bill Wirtz on the Hale-Bopp Comet to hell.
Keep your head up.
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Instead of firing Hartley, how about just giving Hossa a cup of coffee and a pep talk. “Look, I know you’ve been hurt, and we obviously don’t expect you to score from the trainer’s room. But that’s over now. Maybe you can give us a little wake the fuck up, now?” Something to that effect.
For what it’s worth, cheers to Wirtz on the fuckin’ Hale-Bopp comet. The mag has an article on how televised hockey gets crap viewing & they don’t mention his name, but the specter of Wirtz is there the whole time, whispering “You will not build up any fan momentum. Either come to the game or watch the ‘Everyone Loves Raymond’ that you deserve.” Yeah, that’s why I hate Wirtz. He wanted us to watch “Everyone Loves Raymond”. Anyone with such an agenda is clearly an emissary of the devil (or the New Jersey hockey team that plays for him).
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