Well, damn.
It’s going to be hard to stay civilized in this, and I’ll do my absolute best to refrain from ranting. After all, I don’t want to lower myself to the level of the dunderhead baboons who are the fans of the Canucks. Before I elaborate, a couple quick observations.
Game 2 was terrible. Not only did Calgary lose, they gave Vancouver all the momentum heading into Calgary, and planted a seed of doubt within their own heads. Too many chances were given off odd-man rushes. The Sedins could not be contained. And while they did show some signs of life, there simply was not enough compete throughout the whole game to merit a victory. That has to change if the Flames want any success this year.
Now, as for the third period shenanigans, which were capped by over 100 penalty minutes, numerous game misconducts and a $50 000 fine levied on coach Bob Hartley: it’s all one massive, pathetic joke.
Where to even begin. How about with a general observation that Vancouver is, as we already knew, a classless group of cowardly cheapskates. None of the rough stuff in the third period from the Canucks was on any level clean. They hit players who were down, they double teamed players in individual fights, they took numerous sucker punches, they initiated fights when they saw they had an obvious upper hand instead of answering the bell when challenged, and they acted like victims when instead they were the agressors, which is highly ironic, because they were nothing more than a bunch of cravens in the battle. What really gets me is that they still complained after all this. And if you disagree with any of what I’m writing, take a look for yourself, and tell me I’m wrong.
How Calgary ended up with more penalty minutes is beyond me. How Hartley ended up with a fine baffles me. This truly is a bush league, one with the most subjective officiating in the world. No one likes refs, but the degree of their incompetence is astounding, and frankly, more than a little sickening. It was objectively clear that the refs pinned the whole event as being the responsibility of the Flames, when the Canucks were equally involved, and at that, were much, much more dirty.
I’m disgusted by the Canucks, their fans, the refs and the league. It’s always been widely regarded as a joke, but when it happens against your own team at a high stakes level, you feel it a lot worse. It’s absolutely pathetic. And that’s all I feel safe writing, before I descend into the hate-filled rage rant I want to (which, incidentally, can be summed up with three words, the latter two being “the canucks”). I think I successfully kept it classy here, considering what the Canucks did, what the Flames got, and how I, and all of Calgary, really feels.
Game 3 will be interesting, won’t it?
