Contrariwise

(Completely random note having nothing to do with the rest of this post: can ANYone out there PLEASE tell me what the real name is for the piece of music that goes along with the doubtless spurious lyrics of, "Do your ears hang low?/ Do they wobble to and fro? / Can you tie them in a knot?/ Can you tie them in a bow?/ Can you throw them o'er your shoulder like a continental soldier?/ Do your ears hang low?" (Or, insert your own filthier lyrics here.)

Why? Because around my neighborhood, there's an ice cream truck that, when it is not playing a bad MIDI version of "The Entertainer", is playing a bad MIDI version of the above tune. Over and over and over, GRINDINGLY. It makes me kind of insane. And I would really like to know what the hell that piece of music is called. Not that I think that would make me any less insane. I'd just like to know.)


Moving on...

Oh, and the Canucks were eliminated from the playoffs on Thursday. (By the Ducks.) I'm sad about this, although it has to be said that making it past the first round was a good achievement for the team this year. (In the years I've been following them, I haven't seen them make it past the first round, if they made the playoffs at all.) And they weren't swept; always important.

Luongo was Really Good, as he ought to have been, but he didn't give such a completely stonewalling performance that you felt sure he was going to be this year's Playoffs Story. Still, it was his very first post-season ever, and I feel that he acquitted himself well. He got in, he got into the second round, and you can't say that he was the reason they lost. I hope that this translates into confidence for him and the rest. His feet got wet. The big story about him is no longer that he's a superlative goalie who's *never* made it to the post-season because he was on crappy teams. Of course, it's not "once he got there, he was perfect", either. But I tend to feel that perfection is too much to expect.

If I had to name one thing that I think sunk them, it would be: lack of offense (which goes along with crappy power-play). They just couldn't seem to get enough goals. With one or two exceptions, all of the games were fairly low-scoring, and that means that *if* they had managed to put in 2 more goals a game, they probably would not have had to play a gruelling 7 game first round (really, 9 games in terms of total periods of hockey played), and they probably would not have lost the 2nd round, because what Luongo did in goal would have been enough.

*shrug* How to address the offense problem? Dunno. Will be interesting to see. It was a problem for them *all year*. In the first half of the regular season, it dogged them. In the second half, they solved it *just* enough to go on a spectacular winning streak to win the division and make it to the playoffs. But like everyone says -- the playoffs are like starting a new season. And thus, in the first half of the new season, lack of scoring dogged them again.

So pretty much, I feel a little disappointed, but not really despondent. I'm bummed that I won't be watching them truly contend for the Cup this year. But it's not a "oh god, everything's wrong, the sky is falling" feeling. They could do it next year; they don't need a complete overhaul. They need some tweaks.

As an addendum to my post yesterday reviewing all of the 2007 SuperBowl ads -- I was watching the Oscars last night, and the GM "suicidal robot" ad came on... and it had a different ending! That is, it no longer had the "commits suicide by jumping off a bridge" ending.

Instead, the ad was slightly longer, and the end featured what looked to me like the depressed robot, after failing at a string of unappealing jobs, passing by a junkyard and watching a big crane dropping a crushed car on top of a junk-heap, from which the car came tumbling down. That was the thing that made the robot "gasp" and wake up from its "nightmare".

See my comment to ravenhbh at the end of my previous post, for an over-thinking analysis of what this change might signal about the "reading" of the commercial. (Overall, I still don't think it's very positive; it's just no longer *as* gobsmackingly insensitive as it was.)

And while we're on the subject of the SuperBowl ads -- elishavah commented, "Except for the huge viewing audience, the good SB commercials aren't really different from the great ones we get throughout the year now." And I basically agreed with that. I was reminded of it as I was watching the Oscars, during which I saw a number of ads (many of them with movie/film themes) that, honestly, I felt were the equal or better of the SuperBowl ads, and indeed with a much-decreased "people acting dumb" quotient.

Anyway...

Continuing in the vein of advertising, I wanted to share with folks some of the recent funny commercials that the NHL has been making. This is also sort of a survey -- because I'd love to know if anyone out there has SEEN these commercials on regular TV. I personally have only seen them during hockey games, which... *headdesk*, NHL.

The NHL has had two major ad campaigns since the start of the 2006-07 season. The first was "Game On!", which was designed to "remind" people that the new season was starting/had started. I found the spots a little surreal, and mildly funny. They were at least trying to take advantage of some of the most recognizable/popular faces in the NHL today, both new and old. One ad, which I can't find, featured new wunderkind Sidney Crosby. Another featured famous veteran Peter Forsberg:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsQchEt8fqY


So, more recently, the NHL's newest campaign is "my NHL: Hockey players are just like you and me". With one exception, I've found these ads to be cute, and fairly funny. Again, they're trying to take advantage of popular names and faces that folks (who watch hockey, at least) know, and via the commercials, I think, they are trying to impart a "personality" to the guys who are basically known for their feats on-ice.

Here is an example featuring Alex Ovechkin, who plays with the Washington Capitals. Ovechkin was a rookie last year, he's from Russia, he's enthusiastic and personable, and he's a stupidly talented goal-scorer. Last season was enlivened by the "rivalry" between him and fellow rookie Sidney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins, who was another stupidly-talented goal-scorer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2dlS47aync


And here is a more recent example, featuring the Sedin twins of the Vancouver Canucks. The Sedins are known for... well, for being identical twins (who annoyingly wear the same hairstyle and even facial hair; presumably because they like messing with people), for having played their entire hockey lives together, for being eerily in sync with each other (as you might expect identical twins to be), and thus for being very good (if not "superlative") goal-scorers and who are almost invariably in on each other's goals, and who tend to make anyone who plays on a line with them look good. Neither of them is a Wayne Gretsky or a Mario Lemieux, but they get notoriety anyway because hey, how many identical twins who've been line-mates since about age 6 does the NHL have?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdXPcGCCUjQ

As telepresence commented after I sent this to him: "Okay, that was fucking hilarious. Although obviously gender and sexuality are contributing factors to how the comedy works in the ad, it's not offensive and homophobic like the Snickers ad."


Finally, the latest entry in this campaign features 18 players who went to the NHL All-Star game. Now, I grant you -- I'm a hockey *fan*, and I could only recognize a few of the guys by face, although I did know all of their names. Still, I think it's a cute and funny ad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cp1DMQ-x33k

The guy on the phone is Alex Ovechkin, as described above. His "rivalry" with Sidney Crosby comes into play in the commercial. Some of the other notable cameos: the guy stuffing his face from the dessert trolley is Joe Thornton (now of the San Diego Sharks, formerly captain of the Boston Bruins); the guy asleep on the couch is Dallas Stars goalie Marty Turco (who's a funny, laid-back kind of guy from everything I've seen); the guy tickling Turco's nose with the feather is rival Vancouver Canucks goalie Roberto Luongo (who despite the name is French-Canadian). (I think the guy standing next to him, from the Buffalo Sabres, is another goalie, but he's one of those whom I don't recognize by face.)


Thus, my survey. It's not like I watch a LOT of TV, except on certain channels. But I have only ever seen any of these commercials play during actual hockey games, which seems really stupid to me because, hello? We're already watching, NHL.

It has certainly been remarked that at least one of the things that hurts the NHL (marketing-wise) is the lack of recognizable, compelling personalities in the sport. And it's kind of a vicious cycle, too. Right now, though, the NHL really does have any number of guys who are exciting to watch. They play the game very well, and they are personable, too. The NHL has practically been wetting itself over the debut of Crosby and Ovechkin, "the future of hockey", because both are personable, willing to be in the spotlight, aren't jerks, and they are unusually talented and flashy and fun to watch.

These commercials *feel* to me like the first step towards *creating* identifiable personalities within the sport. But unless the commercials are actually getting airplay outside of hockey games... how is it going to do any good?

... Happy birthday, _minxy_!!! Hope it was filled with wonderful things!

and

... Happy birthday to CANADA!


...Which I now appreciate ever so much more after (this week) finishing my TOME OF CANADIAN HISTORY, so that now I know stuff like what Confederation actually *is* and when it actually *happened* and all. Also? I can now name about 3 times as many prime ministers of Canada as I could before. Although now that I think about it... before, I could have named Trudeau, Chretien, and Harper (but I think Harper probably doesn't count, in the sense that he's such recent news that if I couldn't remember him I'd need to have my head examined), and I'm afraid that I don't think I could name 9 now. Hmm.... While I had heard of Lester Pearson, I was not actually aware that he had been PM, per se. And I started watching "due South" only *after* starting the TOME, so no, I wasn't precisely aware that Diefenbaker had been PM, before, either. So!

I personally celebrated by hitting REFRESH eight skillion times on the Canucks board I'm on, while watching the first day of free agency in the NHL 'splode all over the place. (Summary: Jovo signed with the COYOTES? WTF? and Yay! Mitchell!)

To top it off, I think I shall watch some "due South". Yes, that will do nicely.

Yes, I'm a Canucks fan, but I'm in Boston, so I've never been to a Canucks home game. So there I am, watching my TiVo of Wed's game, and the feed that Center Ice is getting is from the Wild's broadcast. And they do something that I haven't really seen a broadcast do: during the intermission, instead of going away to a studio or interviews and stuff for the whole time, they come back and show what's going on in the stadium as they do voice-overs talking about stuff. I'm FFing through this, but suddenly I spy the above, in motion, tootling around above the perimeter of the rink. "Whoa!" I say. "Back that up..."

I can think of few things that could charm me more than the fact that the Canucks have a life-size orca blimp that flies around inside the rink, dropping swag onto the crowd below (t-shirts and stuff). I am further charmed by the fact that it is wearing a Canucks jersey. (There are other pics where you can see the logo on its belly; these shots show it wearing the old jersey design, but the blimp I saw on TV was painted in what look like the Vintage Jersey colors, although I couldn't get an angle to see the logo, to confirm.) I think I have identified a new Job I Wish I Had: Orca Blimp Wrangler.

Also, of course, I wish *I* had me an orca blimp. My brain starts asking logical questions, such as: do you think an orca blimp would be sufficient to lift the weight of a single person? OMG, how great would THAT be?

For more pics of Obie the Orca in his [sic]* natural habitat, go here: http://norburnrc.com/flyingwhales.htm

(The site refers to Obie as a "he". Um, dude. Look at the dorsal fin. That's clearly a girl orca. All the orcas in the Orca Bay Sports & Entertainment Inc.'s logo are girl orcas. The orca on the Canucks *jersey* is a boy orca.)

Speaking of the Canucks.... all I really need to tell you is that as of yesterday, it was entirely, mathematically possible that as of the end of tonight, there would be a FOUR-WAY TIE for first-place in the Northwest Division. (Games in hand are the tiebreaker, though.) As of today, that's no longer true, since the two top teams are playing each other, which means that after tonight, there could merely be a 3-way tie for second place. Still. Madness.

Canada announced its mens Olympic hockey team today. The two Canucks who were in the running both made it on the team. I have pictures. All I have to say about the pictures is... You're very cute, boys. But you shouldn't make the RPS *that* easy...

( Bert & Jovo make the team... )

( What is the photographer suggesting here? )

( Sure... that works...  )

( It's a manly sport. Very, very manly.  )


(And hey! I learned how to use LJ Scrapbook! Yay, me!)

The "technical glitch" that led to the Canucks/Coyotes game not coming on until 20 minutes after it was supposed to start (and thus almost midway through the first period) was not, in fact, the fault of Center Ice... It was because the game feed was from the Toronto Sports Network, which chose to stay with the Senators/Leafs game, which went into overtime and resulted in the Very First NHL Shootout decision (no more tie games in the NHL -- new rule; the Sens won). This ticked off a lot of western Canadians, who -- not unreasonably, I feel -- would have rather watched the puck-drop for the Canucks game, instead of the shootout. (As it happened, the entire first period of the game was scoreless, so at least the delay in switching to it in the broadcast didn't hurt too much.)

The problem for me was that Center Ice was showing the Sens/Leafs game on a different channel anyway... so there was no way to tell that the reason we were getting a blank screen on channel 2 waiting for the Canucks game was due to the network not having switched over to that game yet. Here's a tip for Center Ice -- if this happens (and there are indeed sometimes double-headers like this on Canadian broadcast networks), it would be nice for your viewers if you put up a little notice about it. That's all I'm saying. It would be a vast improvement over just showing us that day's Center Ice schedule (which taunts you by confirming that yes, indeed, there ought to be a game on that channel right then), and playing the perky Center Ice theme "music" over and over and over and over and OVER again. After the 15th repeat, believe me, that is music to axe-murder by. (Additional note to Center Ice: commission new theme music; at least, commission something that plays for longer than 30 seconds before it loops.)

So finally, we joined the game! Midway through the first period! But whatever!

It was a very good game, from a Canucks fan's viewpoint. The various new NHL rules seemed to be working and seemed to be enforced, with a noticeable improvement in the flow of the game, as intended. I'd say that the boys looked a bit rusty out there, but given it's the first real game in 17 months for many of them, that's to be expected. Rusty or not, they did manage to pull off some outstanding plays. The Canucks won 3-2, no overtime or shootout; and in the "new NHL", that was a somewhat low score. (Thanks to "opening up" the game, games are now apparently averaging 4.9 goals, which is up something like 1.5 from the start of 03-04.) Two of those goals came from the WCE (the Canucks' "big line"), off the stick of Marcus Naslund (team captain), and they were *extremely* pretty and just, really, really good hockey.

(ETA: my figures here are off. So far this season, average goals per game is 6.27, as opposed to 5.14 over all of the last season. Not a huge increase, but every little bit helps, etc. And the season is young.)

The other big news of the night was that, in playing the Phoenix Coyotes, we were seeing the debut of Wayne Gretzky as a head coach. This garnered some attention, as you might expect. Yes, Gretz is going the Larry Bird route. Everybody thinks he's nuts. For those not in the know, he is a part-owner of the team, too, but this is his first time taking an active role behind the bench. His attitude appears to be, "Why not?" More to the point -- it allows him to be more involved in the game, and while nobody would make the mistake of thinking that the Great One doesn't care whether he loses or not (oh, he cares), the point seems to be that he isn't so afraid of losing that he isn't willing to take the chance and give it a try.

Looking at his team last night, I'd say he has his work cut out for him. They aren't inept, but they didn't truly look like they were at the Canucks' level, either. So, in his first game as a head coach, Gretz did not get the win. Still, they acquitted themselves well -- it also was not a blow-out. And I tell you what -- there is no bad to having Gretzky behind the bench for games, because that means you get a lot of shots of him, and man, is he easy on the eyes. He would appear to be one of those guys who is ageing insanely well -- I'd say that he looks better now, at 44, than he did 10 years ago. Damn.

It is incumbent upon me to mention...

The NHL season. Hockey. Starts. Tonight.

whee! Let the sleep-deprivation begin! (My boys aren't playing until 10:30pm EST; good thing I'm a night owl anyway.)

Last night, I finally clued in enough to watch the ESPN broadcast of the World Cup of Hockey final, between Canada and Finland. (Note: Jeremy Roenick is interesting as a color commentator, and I am wondering whether this is indicative of his edging towards that as a post-pro career.) It was a really, really great game. Canada won, but that wasn't a foregone conclusion. And it was plastered all over with all kinds of bittersweetness because of the impending NHL lock-out, meaning -- would this be the last live hockey at this level that everyone was likely to see, perhaps for a long time?

As of 2:30 this afternoon, when much-loathed NHL commissioner Gary Bettman held his press conference, the answer is: yes. The lock-out is on. Meaning: the old collective bargaining agreement between the Players Association and the NHL/owners expires at midnight tonight. The negotiations are deadlocked. Let's be clear: the players are not striking. The owners are locking the players out. The upshot of this is *STILL* no pro ice hockey for the foreseeable future. (Will we get a half-season, if they wrap things up by January? Will we lose an entire year? Who knows?)

Everybody saw this coming, of course. It's not a real shocker, if you've been paying attention. But it still makes us sad. There's not a hell of a lot of goodwill towards either side, on the part of the fans, in this. There was a lock-out in 1994/95, too, the last time this came up; that resulted in a half-season. So, like MLB around the same time, the NHL used up their reserves of fan goodwill. It seems pretty stupid to have a repeat at this time, especially since it sounds like both sides are only more entrenched in their positions now (i.e. the owners feel that they allowed themselves to be scared into capitulating last time, and they've had to deal with 10 years' worth of economic hardship because of it, so they're bound and determined not to give in this time, blah blah, yadda yadda). (For the record: I can see the points that both sides have; I'm a teeny bit more on the players' side than on the owners'; and I think Gary Bettman should burn in hell.)

So now I'm sitting here, eyeing the Harvard Crimson schedule (season starts 10/23; ticket prices haven't been posted yet). And it'll be kind of cool to go to some of those games, yes -- and loads cheaper than figuring out what's enough within striking distance for me to travel to in order to see the Canucks (Boston; Long Island; NYC; maybe Columbus). But the thing is that while I'll get out to some games, I like bringing hockey into my own living room. Gotta figure out what, if anything, the sports channels will broadcast in place of NHL hockey, for the foreseeable future.

...at least, not for the half of the protagonists that you care about.

It is with a heavy, heavy heart (and equally heavy eyelids) that I must report that, although it went down to the very wire, last night the Canucks lost the quarter-finals in the playoffs to the Calgary Flames.

After the hectic ups and Stygian troughs of downs that the team went through in the last month of the season, they really managed to put together an extraordinary comeback to win their Division. They started off the playoffs well, too, against Calgary -- a scrappy, determined team that was itself outperforming expectations, and had managed to fight their way into seventh place in the Conference for their first shot in the playoffs in 10 years. Although Vancouver was heavily favored (by, it seemed, just about everyone except wary Vancouver fans), the Flames weren't going down without a fight.

Things took a turn for the sucky for the Canucks when their starting goaltender went down badly in game 3. Nobody's fault, except perhaps the guys who do the ice conditioning at Calgary's Saddledome, but Cloutier's leg got turned under his body awkwardly at one point (and he still managed to get back in his net and make two more saves, even though he couldn't stand on that leg). Originally it looked like a deeply screwed-up knee; it was later announced as a sprained ankle. No matter, Cloutier was out for the series, and possibly the entire playoffs. His #1 backup was, to be fair, a guy who'd had playoff success in the past (with the Penguins, of all teams), but although he came in and played out the remainder of that first game well, Hedberg dropped the next one pretty badly (I think that was the 4-0 loss), and clearly the coach lost confidence in him, because from then on out, the Canucks were playing with their THIRD-string goalie, Alex Auld.

All due respect to Auld -- with a few exceptions, he played amazingly well for a guy who had never played in the pressure-cooker of the NHL playoffs before. Including the unbelievably nail-biting sixth game -- in Calgary, with the Flames leading the series 3-2. The Flames could have won it then. Vancouver went up on them 4-0 in the 2nd...and then pissed away their lead and allowed the Flames to TIE it, for gods sake. The two teams had to go into TRIPLE OVERTIME (42 extra minutes of hockey, on top of the 60 they'd just played) before the punchy Flames made the first mistake and Vancouver put together a good rush and scored. Jubilation. A forced Game 7, back in Vancouver.

Sadly, if you have been following the team, you would know that Vancouver generally doesn't play as well at home as on the road. No, nobody understands why, it's just a fact.

Last night was do-or-die for both teams. Appropriately, the action see-sawed back and forth. Calgary went up by one, then Vancouver came back. No sooner was everyone breathing a sigh of relief, than the Canucks took a penalty, and Calgary scored. Then, with less than 2 minutes to go in the game, Calgary took a penalty, putting the desperate Canucks on the powerplay. With their goalie pulled for the extra attacker, the Canucks then took a penalty with 20 seconds to go. Calgary's captain (the estimable Jarome Iginla, their highest scorer) then missed the empty Canucks' net by *INCHES*. And the Canucks' captain, Naslund, swept down the length of the ice, battled the puck off the boards to the front of the net, and his linemate Matt Cooke batted it in for the tying goal with 5.7 seconds left on the clock.

After a story like that, you'd think the only dramatic outcome would have to be a triumphant Canucks victory, in front of their standing, screaming home crowd. But -- oh god -- no. They started OT with their player still in the penalty box for another 1:33. And the Flames managed to score at 1:25.

I've been saying all along that watching sports, for me, is all about the stories that give it depth. Once you learn the stories, that's why you care, even if you may also enjoy the game for other reasons.

To be fair, Calgary was putting together their own great storyline all throughout this series -- one, obviously, at odds with the one that the Canucks wished to fulfill. Calgary hadn't been in a playoffs series since 1994 -- when, coincidentally, they were eliminated by the Canucks (on Vancouver's way to their last appearence in the Stanley Cup finals). The Flames hadn't *won* any playoffs series since 1989 (when, again, if I'm not mistaken, they beat the Canucks in the first round). Calgary had a somewhat uneven season this year, so their getting into the playoffs at all took a great deal of effort, for which they are to be commended. They don't play boring hockey -- they're not one of those teams (like, sadly, the Wild; or last year's Cup champions, the New Jersey Devils -- who have already been eliminated this year, too) who have decided to ride a smothering defensive style to success. I respect Calgary, I respect most of their guys, especially their captain. I respect what they did to get into the playoffs, and what they did to win. This series was, at all times, great to watch -- dramatic, exciting, balanced.

If the Canucks had to lose (and I still wish they hadn't, of course), I feel a tiny bit consoled that their loss allows Calgary to advance. It's not one of those cases where not only do you want your team to win, but you desperately wish the other team to lose. All I can say now is, if Calgary had to oust the Canucks, then let them make it count. I hope they ride this wave of success for a long way. That would make me feel better.

But meanwhile, my guys are out. I'm not the kind of fan who can get angry at a team that has disappointed its fans (and in Vancouver, the Canucks lately are regarded similarly to the way Boston regards the Red Sox -- a very good team who will achieve just so much success, and then fail in the clutch). I'm too busy feeling badly *for* them. I spent almost 80 games getting to know these guys -- their stories and their personalities. The camera panned down the bench right after the final goal last night, and those poor men just looked stunned. For a fan, it's a feeling of terrible finality -- how much worse must it be for the players (who had expectations of themselves, and who knew exactly how high their fans' expectations of them were)? No more second chances, until next year (if there *is* a Next Year, next year -- what with a possible work-stoppage looming.)

I've remarked to people throughout the year that this has been like watching an 82-episode dramatic series, for which it is absolutely impossible to obtain any spoilers for how it will all come out. Now it feels as if the show has been cancelled, abrubtly, without a satisfying resolution -- not even on a cliffhanger.

Am very, very sad. And now, the Bruins are out of it, too. I'll still keep an eye on the playoffs, and of course watch the finals, but.... Bummer.

I had a vivid dream this morning that I was the back-up goaltender for the Vancouver Canucks. By which I mean, I did not dream that I was Johann Hedberg or Alex Auld (the actual back-up goalies), or even some other random guy, but rather that I, personally, was filling in as the back-up.

Now, I grant you -- a certain snarky type of fan would at this point say, "a 35-year-old woman from Boston with no skating experience could hardly be worse than the Canucks' two regular goalies have been this month". But I'm actually not the kind of fan who rags on the goalies alone when the team is in a slump. Yes, the goalies have been atrocious, and apparently they could not stop a beach-ball, let alone the puck; but the abysmal D bears some of the blame for letting the good scoring chances get through, and if the offense was actually able to score, then the games might still be saved. But the upshot is that the Canucks are a sad little demoralized hockey club as we hit the final stretch before the play-offs.

However (and how's this for ironic?), I also was not very good as a goalie. Which is to be expected, I think. In that way of dreams, we were playing on an open, grassy field. I think it was actually a soccer field, because the net behind me certainly felt as big as a soccer net. And yet I was moving around on skates, as if on ice (and thinking to myself, hey, I'm not doing too badly at this, considering the last time I was on ice-skate was when I was about 11; and the last and only time I was on rollerblades, I broke my damned arm). Dream, right, check.

Despite the fact that there was a game going on, there were a lot of other people who felt free to wander around the field and do their own thing. I had taken over for Hedberg (he's #1 at the moment because the actual #1 is out with a day-to-day injury), who was still lurking around for some reason. And I almost immediately let a puck dribble past me. I swear to god, I turned around and just sort of watched as it arced past, knowing even at the time that it was a save that even I should have easily made. And the first thing to pop into my head was, "Well, there goes my shut-out."

At the end of the first period, I called everyone on the field over and announced that I was very sorry, but for the rest of the game I was going to have to enforce the rule that nobody should be in my goal-crease, because clearly I needed less distraction. The goal-crease was as big as a typical soccer crease, and there were people wandering around and picnicking in it. I stressed, though, that it wasn't that I was blaming the first goal on their distracting me -- I admitted it was simply an awful collapse on my part. But I was thinking ahead to trying to prevent any goals from being scored in the second and third periods, and I'd realized I was going to need all the help I could get.

I never did find out how it all turned out. I woke up while we were still between periods, and it had started to rain, and I was wondering how that was going to affect the game. I'm not even sure who we were playing. And isn't it sad that a fan of a team that is in a slump, who is obviously concerned about the way the team is playing, can't do any better than to dream up something that even in the dream doesn't do the team any good? Wouldn't it make more sense for me to dream about being some awesome star goalie? (Actually, even in the dream, I remember thinking to myself, "Why do I want to be a goalie? I don't want to be a goalie! Who in their right mind would want to be a goalie?")

Final note: for all those of you who have suffered through two essay-length posts from me in the past two days, I apologize. What you need to do is email me and tell me how I can do that thing where you write a single line on the main entries page and it links to a longer essay on the comments page. And while you're at it, help me figure out how to create links out of words within the text of a post.