One of my very best friends, Shaan, introduced me to the game of hockey when we were in 6th grade. I joined the roller hockey team and from that moment on, hockey was my game. We went on a field trip to an Atlanta Knights game...my first-ever professional hockey game. It was a night, many years later, that I'll never forget. Earlier in the day, I had won Pearl Jam's Vitalogy on 99X (it may have still been Power 99 at the time, I don't remember)... and that night ...or should I say Knight...ened up with a puck from the game! I still vividly remember diving in a crowd of kids under some seats and I was the lucky one who grabbed it. Most of my memories of the old Omni are blurry but that is one I'll never forget. From that day forward, I knew that I would be spending a good poriton of my life at hockey games. Growing up, I never got to play, the Thrashers were not around, so playing hockey was just never something us 80's kids grew up doing in Atlanta. If I could go back in time and tell my parents to let me play hockey, I would do it in a second.
Fast forward to 1997...we learn the NHL is expanding to Atlanta...and that there would be a new area. Fast forward to 1999...Inaugural Game...still have my ticket. Fast Forward through many years of Thrashers games, let's go way past getting swept in our first playoff series by the Rangers and land to where we are now. Although recently the Thrashers have been a lot of fun to watch, we all knew it was way, way too little, way too late. There have been so few memories this season...Opening Night was great....but after that, until just recently, there's been little to be excited about. Loss after loss after loss. In previous seasons, I took it seriously. Hard core seriously. A loss felt like the end of the world, I got pissed off and depressed. A win felt like winning the lottery and the drive home was full of happiness and blasting music, windows down. This season, there just wasn't any of that. With so many losses, I simply became numb to the feeling. It's not that I didn't care, I just had no choice BUT to become apathetic. We had lost so many games, you kinda just got used to it. For a long time, the feeling of what it felt like to go home after a win had felt like a distant memory. Win or lose, I just became apathetic. It was so hard to watch. Putting it very nicely, it has been incredibly hard to be a Thrashers fan. In all past seasons, I didn't miss a single game, except maybe if a game happened to fall on a Jewish high holiday or if it was during the Georgia-Georgia Tech football game. This season, well, my track record has been pretty bad. I haven't missed THAT many games, but a lot more than I'd like to. But I am sitll planning on reupping for next season with high hopes for turning things around.
So here we are, another lost season, out of the playoffs, and even with games to go, we are already saying "there's always next season." But I've invested way too much time, too many nights, too many beers (way, waaaaaaaaaay too many beers), too much money and so much social life sacrifice....all for sake of the the love of the game. Would I change a damn thing? Hell no. I have way too many fond memories of Thrashers hockey. I've been going since day one and I'm not about to stop. I love football, baseball, basketball....soccer bores the ever living shit out of me, but hockey...hockey stands about them all....there just is no better sport.
I just wish the way the Thrashers have been playing recently was how we've been playing all season....insert totally random sex scene on ABC...not even sure what show it is but it's a bit of a distraction at the moment...gigggdy! Gotta love network TV sex scenes...ok and now the bitch is pointing a gun at the guy....instant horniness death. Oh well. Back to hockey....With just a few games left, I'll try to make the ones I can...but it goes without saying...this season has been nothing short of, well, an epic failure....but towards the end, things have gotten better and hopefully they can and will continue this into next season...dunno about you but I'd really like to get back to Philips Arena for a playoff game...and maybe, this time, actually win one. I had always felt that had we lost to Tampa in that last regular season game, and had played them in the first round of the playoffs, I don't know if we would have won the series, but I am confident we'd at least have a playoff win or two under our belts...but nope, we had to play the Rangers. FML!
Next season we'll be hearing a LOT about Kovy...will he stay, will he go....what will happen with the AS lawsuit? Why does this crap have to keep going on and on and on...they are worse than little kids fighting, it's so sad. At least one team at Philips Arena will be in the post-season....I hope the Hawks will go far this season.
Well, this is my first article on YB...I don't know who will read it, but there'll be plenty more where this came from.
// end rant.
Fast forward to 1997...we learn the NHL is expanding to Atlanta...and that there would be a new area. Fast forward to 1999...Inaugural Game...still have my ticket. Fast Forward through many years of Thrashers games, let's go way past getting swept in our first playoff series by the Rangers and land to where we are now. Although recently the Thrashers have been a lot of fun to watch, we all knew it was way, way too little, way too late. There have been so few memories this season...Opening Night was great....but after that, until just recently, there's been little to be excited about. Loss after loss after loss. In previous seasons, I took it seriously. Hard core seriously. A loss felt like the end of the world, I got pissed off and depressed. A win felt like winning the lottery and the drive home was full of happiness and blasting music, windows down. This season, there just wasn't any of that. With so many losses, I simply became numb to the feeling. It's not that I didn't care, I just had no choice BUT to become apathetic. We had lost so many games, you kinda just got used to it. For a long time, the feeling of what it felt like to go home after a win had felt like a distant memory. Win or lose, I just became apathetic. It was so hard to watch. Putting it very nicely, it has been incredibly hard to be a Thrashers fan. In all past seasons, I didn't miss a single game, except maybe if a game happened to fall on a Jewish high holiday or if it was during the Georgia-Georgia Tech football game. This season, well, my track record has been pretty bad. I haven't missed THAT many games, but a lot more than I'd like to. But I am sitll planning on reupping for next season with high hopes for turning things around.
So here we are, another lost season, out of the playoffs, and even with games to go, we are already saying "there's always next season." But I've invested way too much time, too many nights, too many beers (way, waaaaaaaaaay too many beers), too much money and so much social life sacrifice....all for sake of the the love of the game. Would I change a damn thing? Hell no. I have way too many fond memories of Thrashers hockey. I've been going since day one and I'm not about to stop. I love football, baseball, basketball....soccer bores the ever living shit out of me, but hockey...hockey stands about them all....there just is no better sport.
I just wish the way the Thrashers have been playing recently was how we've been playing all season....insert totally random sex scene on ABC...not even sure what show it is but it's a bit of a distraction at the moment...gigggdy! Gotta love network TV sex scenes...ok and now the bitch is pointing a gun at the guy....instant horniness death. Oh well. Back to hockey....With just a few games left, I'll try to make the ones I can...but it goes without saying...this season has been nothing short of, well, an epic failure....but towards the end, things have gotten better and hopefully they can and will continue this into next season...dunno about you but I'd really like to get back to Philips Arena for a playoff game...and maybe, this time, actually win one. I had always felt that had we lost to Tampa in that last regular season game, and had played them in the first round of the playoffs, I don't know if we would have won the series, but I am confident we'd at least have a playoff win or two under our belts...but nope, we had to play the Rangers. FML!
Next season we'll be hearing a LOT about Kovy...will he stay, will he go....what will happen with the AS lawsuit? Why does this crap have to keep going on and on and on...they are worse than little kids fighting, it's so sad. At least one team at Philips Arena will be in the post-season....I hope the Hawks will go far this season.
Well, this is my first article on YB...I don't know who will read it, but there'll be plenty more where this came from.
// end rant.
