For the better part of two and one half years, my wife Emily has feared what she poignantly describes as “the DOOM scenario.” Emily defines “DOOM” as a Stanley Cup match-up between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Chicago Blackhawks.
In actuality my girlfriend Emily started preaching this in the spring of 2009. My fiancée Emily continued it with exasperated vigor in the spring of 2010, and my wife Emily maintains this fear today. And in point of fact, the doom scenario as narrowly defined has been avoided, given that the two teams avoid said confrontation on the weekend of our wedding.
Thankfully, or perhaps I should say "making the best of a potentially awkward situation," Jaroslav Halak and the Orange and Black Goon Squad conspired to quash this fear in 2010. It’s a practical impossibility for me to be happy with a Penguin playoff loss so I’ll just say this; if Sid, Geno and the Boys had to have a bad spring, May 2010 was not the worst time for it.
Emily and I maintain what most people would classify as a “mixed marriage.” We have navigated a significant cultural divide in our relationship that many couples could not overcome. In short, my hockey allegiances fall first and foremost to all things Penguins; hers are to the Hawks. Flip it around and we both cheer for the other team, on a secondary basis.
We have navigated this relationship obstacle through fortuitous conference alignments, scheduling, timing, and the good graces of Cristobal Huet. In short, the teams play in opposite conferences meaning that other than perhaps one regular season battle, they can meet only in the Stanley Cup finals. The Pens development towards Stanley Cup contenders started one or two years earlier than the Hawks. And any chance the Hawks had of getting to the finals in 2009 went were quashed by Hawks GM Dale Tallon’s post all night drinking binge signing of Huet as his goaltender.
Ok, that’s not exactly fair given that Huet was not even the starting goaltender in the 2009 playoffs. In reality, I knew the Hawks were not quite ready to beat Detroit that year, just as the Pens were not ready the year earlier. Let’s just say that feeling was “Cristolized” when Huet replaced (go figure) an injured Nikolai Khabibulin in game 4.
I assume that 450 words in to this blog the question my readers are asking is, why do I bring this up now? After all, Emily and I are happily married and our wedding went off without a hockey related hitch. In fact, I would offer that we got the opposite effect with my beautiful wife taunting my Philly friends to Chelsea Dagger the day after the Hawks game 1 victory. All is well, and life begins again.
So why, to quote my wife, am I fearing once again that “ALL ROADS LEAD TO DOOM”? Let me explain. No, is too much…let me sum up.
Emily and I are off to St’Louis this weekend. We could not believe when we looked at the schedule and saw this nugget, Blackhawks at St’Louis Friday night; Penguins at St’Louis Saturday night. Beyond the unparalleled joy of a two night reunion with Jaroslav Halak, I was astounded that our two favorite teams could be in the same city on back to back nights? It seemed nothing less than a miracle of scheduling, especially given that the Pens play in the Eastern Conference.
In retrospect that’s not the miraculous part. The miraculous part is that the Pens and Hawks are actually NOT playing on the same night. Given what’s transpired this season, I’m shocked the NHL did not schedule a doubleheader at whatever they call the arena in St’Louis.
To wit, we are 12 days in to the NHL season and the Pittsburgh Penguins and Chicago Blackhawks have played on the same night for all seven of their games. And here is the really, really scary part, they have the same result EVERY NIGHT.
Yes I know their records are slightly different because one Hawks loss came in overtime. That being said, let’s take a real cash flow approach to this rather than the NHL’s adjusted analysis which includes points for overtime losses. In short, the Pens and Hawks are both 4 and 3. Both got off to shockingly sluggish starts, both are looking better just as we get the oil changed for our trip west. The result…
Date-------------Result------ Pens/Score------ Hawks/Score
Thursday October 7th-----Loss---Philly 2-3----Colorado 3-4
Saturday October 9th-----Loss---Montreal 2-3----Detroit 2-3
Monday October 11th------Win---New Jersey 2-1----Buffalo 4-3
Wednesday October 13th---Loss---Toronto 3-4----Nashville 2-3
Friday October 15th-------Win---NY Islanders 3-2----Columbus 5-2
Saturday October 16th-----Win---Philly 5-2----Buffalo 4-3
Monday October 18th------Win---Ottawa 5-2----St’Louis 3-2
So maybe I’m going off the deep end here but this is just a tad too freaky.
It’s weird enough that one team would open the season with 7 games in 12 nights, let alone two. I’m not sure I’ve seen that other than the '95 lockout season. The fact that both teams would have the same result on each night is…well there is no other way to interpret this but, POTENTIAL DOOM!
I covered the issue last year about dual citizenship in the sports world. I’ve lived happily as a Pittsburgh fan in Chicago for 15 years. Chicagoans have overlooked my less than subtle support for the Steelers and Pens, with the notable exception of when our teams come to town. It’s an uneasy coexistence but it works, for now.
Clearly such a relationship would be strained if the Pens were to defeat the Hawks in the Stanley Cup final (or I guess in theory if the opposite scenario occurred though I can not fathom that).
That being said, our marriage clearly adds a new element to this. We’ve gone beyond just whether or not I can walk the streets of Chicago safely in my Fleury jersey (or Brent Johnson jersey if things keep going the way they are). We are now at the point of questioning whether I will come home from a business trip and find my wife has changed the locks.
To be clear, Emily is a Penguin fan. She loves the Flightless Waterfowl and has a particular affinity for the Superstar, Max Talbot. Hers is not that painful, pit in your stomach fear of a world where Chris Pronger, Michael Leighton and the Orange and Black Goon Squad carry the cup.
Her issue is one of split loyalties, driven primarily by the never ending conversion attempts of her husband. She would be thrilled if the Hawks won the cup but sad for the Penguins. And as a truly caring person, her issues are compounded by the understanding that I would not deal well with seeing the Penguins back in the Marian Hossa position after a Stanley Cup loss.
We’ve been fortunate that during the length of our relationship the Pens and Hawks have played only one time, a brilliant battle last December. In spite of the loss, I actually enjoyed the game. As for my wife, I will charitably say she appeared “uncomfortable” for close to three hours. Let’s keep in mind that as great as the game was, this was a fairly meaningless regular season event. I don’t relish the idea of experiencing her “discomfort” level if the Pens and Hawks are playing in June for Lord Stanley’s Cup.
Compounding my concerns is that Emily possesses a level of self control and human decency on this issue that tragically eludes me. No matter how torn she was, no matter what she was thinking during that game, she sat stoically throughout it. In contrast, I screamed and nearly jumped through the ceiling when Jordan Staal tied it late in regulation.
I like to think I’m mature enough to temper my reactions in a series. My days of screaming at goaltenders on TV, a la Andy Moog in the early 90s are, for the most part, behind me. Alas, I don’t think I can keep my emotions in check during the Stanley Cup finals. Let me rephrase that, I know I can not.
The boundless optimists, the Christopher Disque’s of the world say this is a good problem to have. There are worse things than your two favorite teams playing for a championship. When you consider how bad the Pens looked in their first four games, I should be happy that we are once again discussing this as a realistic possibility.
Alas, as happy as I was for the Hawks success last year, I’m not one of these, “I’m just happy if one of my team’s wins guys.” When you are born black and gold, you are black and gold for life. Plus I genuinely like the Hawks and their players and I do have a tendency to develop shall we say, adversarial relationships, with Penguin opponents. I’d just assume stay on good terms with Kaner, Toews, and Keith (if not that Slovakian winger who used to play in Detroit).
So for now I’ll simply follow the advice I gave Emily last year. Don’t panic, let things play out as they will. It’s a long season and the odds of any two teams playing in June are slim, even two of the best in the league. I will hope that the first two weeks of the season were nothing more than a freaky convergence of Gary Betteman scheduling and some inexplicable bit of hockey karma and coincidence.
In short, I will hope we can somehow avoid “DOOM” for another year.
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