| 20 November 2011
I wrote just a few weeks ago, that one of the hardest things about being a Pirates fan in Alabama was that there was no one around to talk Pirates with. This season I'm feeling like maybe one of the best things about being a Pirates fan in Alabama was that there was no one around to talk Pirates with. I'll try to explain, but I admit so far it's made more sense in my head than it has when I've tried to put it into words.
There are awesome things about living in the midst of Sabres fans, OBVIOUSLY. It's nice to roll into my Educational Psychology class and spend five or ten minutes talking to my professor and a few other students about the Sabres and the last few games. It's fun to relive the highlights and complain about the lowlights. When the Sabres are really humming, there's definitely an energy across the area that's palpable and hard to resist. It's genuinely exciting.
But the energy seems... off this season. I'm not sure exactly what it is. I mean, the team definitely has weaknesses. I'm not denying that at all. But they're in second place in the Eastern Conference and tied for fifth place overall. They're in a much better place than they were at this point last season, and there are still pieces of the puzzle that haven't quite come together, pairings and lines that might gel more, players who might produce more. When I looked at the standings a couple of weeks ago and realized where the Sabres were, I reloaded the page and looked again. The conversation around the team has just not reflected that at all. And this was before the Bruins game which obviously just amped the conversation up to a whole new level of shrillness.
After a couple of interesting conversations with Mike Harrington and Kate (of The Willful Caboose, of course), I do think part of it is the raised expectations around the Sabres. Terry Pegula, someone who cares about hockey, bought the team. He loudly and forcefully stated that his goal was to win a Stanley Cup. More than one Stanley Cup actually. He poured all kinds of money into the arena in the offseason and he freed up the purse strings and let Darcy Regier and team bring in some different talent. And then the team started really well in Europe and a lot of us got excited, maybe carried away. I did. I fully admit that. But now that the team has come down to earth some and some weaknesses are showing and some players are struggling, the attitude has turned hard. Really, really hard.
The worst thing about being a Pirates fan the last oh, 19 years, has been going into the season knowing that there was no way - zero, nada, nothing, zilch - the Pirates were going to win a championship. There was no reason to even look at the big picture of a season. The big picture was beyond reach. But the best thing about being a Pirates fan has been learning how to appreciate the small picture. Sometimes the picture was very, very small - an amazing diving catch in centerfield for example - but sometimes it was a little bigger. A string of great starts from a slapdash rotation. The sudden appearance of genuinely good, young talent. Upsetting a team trying to get into the playoffs. A solid winning streak deep in the season. A player finally putting everything together and becoming really fun to watch. You know those fans who aren't happy with anything short of a championship? I think we all do. Well, I hate those guys. I do not want to be that fan. The bulk of a professional sports season is the regular season. Yes, the playoffs are more important. Yes, championships are validating in a number of ways. But a sports fan who is so focused on the end game that he stops being able to enjoy the steps along the way is going to spend most of his life being a pretty darn unhappy sports fan.
We seem really, really unhappy. I guess that's the bottom line. I think sports are a fantastic release for real emotions. Sometimes when fans boo, it's just because it feels good to boo. I can't boo my boss or my professor or my husband, but dang it, I can boo the Sabres. But there's still kind of a silliness to sports unhappiness if that makes sense. What the Sabres do ultimately doesn't REALLY matter. If they suck, they suck. Pirates fan here, right? I mean, life goes on. But this season, this is something different and it's not for me. I don't want to be personally affronted that Paul Gaustad didn't want to get his ass kicked by Milan Lucic. I don't want to say mean things about Ryan Miller's wife. I don't want to have a long, serious conversation about what moved Ryan or Lindy Ruff to swear in a press conference. I don't want to get up in the morning, cranky and pissy, because the Sabres lost the night before, and I don't want to come to the next game cranky and pissy because they lost the previous one. I don't want any of that. That's not fun and if it's not fun, really, what is the point? Sports are supposed to be fun. Hockey is supposed to be fun.
And while there is a lot wrong with this season so far, there's some good stuff too and I don't want to be so focused on the big picture that I lose sight of the small picture. I don't want to be so upset that Jason Pominville didn't beat up Lucic (seriously?) that I miss the fact that he's playing probably the best hockey of his career. I don't want to be so focused on Ville Leino's struggles that I overlook Thomas Vanek continuing his growth into a really special player. I don't want to be so pissed off at Ryan Miller that I don't enjoy how fun Jhonas Enroth is to watch scurrying across the crease. I don't want to be so frustrated with Tyler Myers that I can't enjoy it when he suddenly springs for two goals. I want to take pleasure in how fun Derek Roy can be when he's playing like he cares, I want to admire the steadiness and maturity of Robyn Regehr, I want to appreciate the mostly underappreciated play of Andrej Sekera. I want to shrug off a bad game like it doesn't really matter, and I want to come to the next game fresh and with the belief that hey, you never know, especially with a team that does have a lot of talent.
I really think that, for me, the amount of noise surrounding the Sabres has become a detriment to my personal enjoyment. It was hard being a Pirates fan before the advent of satellite dishes and the Internet because I really was an island. I didn't know anything outside of the very basics of a season. I didn't hear what the players and coaches were saying all the time and I certainly didn't see media and fan response to those interviews. Sometimes that was no fun. But now, with the Sabres, things are so far the other way. I'm bombarded with quotes and interviews and the reaction is endless and nitpicky. Media and fans - and I'm including myself here, just to be clear - rush to examine everything in the smallest detail, looking for the deeper meaning in everything, desperate to say something that someone hasn't already said. And if there's not really anything to discuss, well, dang it, we'll find something to discuss. Because God forbid we go 24 hours without a new topic to dissect and to pontificate about. The news cycle is out of control. Between talk radio, and the Internet, and Twitter, I think we feel like we have to be talking about something new all the time. I know I've felt that pressure as a blogger and that's not even a real job for me. It's just... it's exhausting. I can feel myself sinking into it, my own opinions changing or getting drowned out with everyone else's, my own enjoyment of the team or a game deflating with other's sometimes deserved but seemingly endless criticism.
After discussing this with Kate during and after the Devils game last week, I came to a realization. I can turn off the noise. Not all of it but a lot of it. So I'm going to make some changes. I wasn't going to do this until December 1st, but I've decided that for the sake of my sanity, it might be best to take action before the Boston game on Wednesday. Starting on Monday 11/21, I'll be doing the following things through the end of 2011:
1) I will not be reading the Buffalo News sport section or listening to WGR. This one's pretty easy. I actually don't do a lot of either thing to begin with. I would limit it to not reading the columnists since that's really where my angst usually comes from, but I know me, if I look at the paper at all, I'll wander over that way. For the record, this will include all TBN coverage related to the Sabres so no Sabres Edge, no videos, no chats.
2) I will not be watching any Sabres TV coverage except what's contained in the actual game broadcasts. Again, not that hard since I rarely watch the local news or ESPN. I will continue to watch On the Fly since it's mostly not Sabres and doesn't really include any kind of editorializing, just highlights. I'll also probably leave Sabres.com interviews available. I don't watch them very much, but I can watch them and take away what I want which is really what I'm concerned with.
3) I will unfollow all Sabres-related journalists on Twitter. Sorry, guys this is where a lot of the noise comes from. So Mike Harrington, Jerry Sullivan, John Vogl, Bill Hoppe, Sabres Dot Com folks, various WGR guys? For a month at least, you're gone.
4) On game days, starting two hours before puck drop and continuing until the following morning, I will stay off Twitter. This is the biggie. I really debated a full-on Twitter ban but I get too much non-Sabres related stuff via Twitter to do that. Plus, I like Twitter. I think trying to commit myself to a full 30 day or so ban would be setting myself up for failure.
And finally:
5) I will unfollow anyone who consistently stresses me out about the Sabres. I really put in #4 for this reason - because let's face it, Twitter is a disaster post-loss with half my timeline overreacting and the other half overreacting to the first half's overreaction - so I think avoiding that stretch of time will eliminate the need for this step. But it's here if I need it.
I really have no idea what will come of this, but I'm not going to lie, I'm kind of looking forward to just having my thoughts about the Sabres even if they are more surface thoughts than in the past which they might be considering how little time I have in my schedule for actually watching hockey right now. Some of you probably consider this kind of like burying one's head in the sand and avoiding the negative and to you I'd say, well, yeah. Totally. Right now I'm not concerned with being an informed fan so much as being a happy fan. And if being a happy fan means blocking out the stuff that makes me feel bad, even when it's true, that's what I'm going to do. I just don't see the need to stress out as much as some of us are about a bunch of adults skating around after a rubber puck. I think one of the reasons that kids are the happiest fans is because they really don't give a crap about all the surrounding stuff that adults get stuck on, you know? I want to continue to love hockey and if that means taking a few steps back, I'm cool with that.
I also have no idea what this will mean for blogging. If I don't see the game AND I don't participate in much conversation about it, that's probably going to leave me without much to say. Or maybe I'll find that not feeling so drained by participating in everyone's conversation will leave me with more to say. I don't know. All I know is that I want hockey and the Sabres to be more fun than it is right now and there's really no reason that they shouldn't be. This is my small effort to take back the fun. We'll see what happens.
