Sunday Potpourri: Hater Edition

I hate watching the team lose. Yup, a good long sleep and a bit of time hasn't really moderated that feeling. Is it a big deal? Not really. Life goes on. The things that must be done still must be done (gawd, I hate dirty dishes!). The reality for this fan is that I'll look forward to watching the guys beat UAF in a couple of weeks and then optimistically expect them to put together an improved second half so that I get to sit in my (poached but broken seat) in section 213 for a WCHA home playoff series. That goal is something I've been looking forward to since the team joined the league. A home playoff series certainly isn't the highest possible goal when there are McNaughton Cups, Broadmoor Trophies and National Championships but it'd be enough to make me happy. One step at a time eh? Home playoff series, Final Five placement, NCAA appearances and then hope for a championship. Hoping for anything above hosting that home playoff series would be a recipe for disappointment at this point. Such things only happen AFTER you host a home playoff series. So I'll keep my expectations on that level for now since I hate being disappointed.

It's useful to note here that in most past seasons I'd be satisfied with seeing the team play good hockey and not worry too much about accomplishments. But for whatever reasons that isn't going to be the case this year. I know this years team has as much talent throughout the lineup as any Seawolf team I've ever seen hit the ice and I'll hate it if they are denied the fruits of that potential. I'll hate it as a fan. I'll hate it for the players sake. I'll hate it because it'll make all the people that hate what I write here happy.

Now onto some more hating. About a month or so ago a USCHO fan forum thread about hating popped up. Apparently, they'd done a poll on the front page querying readers which team they hated the most. No big surprise that the Gophers "won" the poll. The thread was asking for comments from forum participants that writer Scott Weighart could use in this piece he was writing. I followed the thread for a few days and was gleefully amazed that not only were gopher fans the primary respondents (110 of 227 replies from gopher faithful) but that overwhelmingly they were defining other fan's hatred of their program as a product of jealousy or envy. My level of incredulity at the ridiculousness of that defense was off-the-scale.

Did gopher fans really think they could accurately define why others hated their program? Incredibly they did. So I kept reading hoping that someone would express some reasons that would ring true for me. And when nobody really did I hopped into email and 'splained it to Mr. Weighart myself. I hoped to give him another perspective but surprisingly he actually used bits of my missive in his article. It's a good article for one primary reason ... Lucia used exactly the same reasoning as his fanbase. LOL. He thinks people hate his program because they're jealous! OMG that is absolutely hilarious! Go read the article if it interests you. I'll give credit to anyone from USCHO that uses something from me on their site considering how much they hate me. The complete text of my email to Scott is below:

Living inside Gopher Nation makes it pretty much impossible for Gopher fans to begin to understand the hatred of their program. Evidence for this lack of understanding is their #1 explanation always involves jealousy. That nice little rationalization makes them feel better while at the same time belittling outsiders opinions. Hatred of the Gopher program doesn't come from jealousy or envy. The success of the Gophers isn't the issue in the least to fans that dislike them.

The "hatred" (I'd say here that hatred is the wrong adjective; we don't hate them ... we are sickened by them) instead comes from the swagger and the chest thumping following their success. The few that act like they've been there before are simply outnumbered by the jersey popping crowing bandwaggoners that show up when success seems evident. These people (like Jeff Dubay) are all about proclaiming dominance and decrying everyone else as inferior when the Gophers win; but they are also the first "fans" to express that the sky is falling when their team slips up. While many other Minnesota sports programs have experienced the pain and humiliation of the bottom; the Gophers never have. Fans from virtually every other program have experienced the bottom and we just wish that UMTC would get a taste of that and thus gain the perspective that we have. We know sometimes our program will make us happy; we know sometimes it will make us sad. But only Gopher fans have the sort of hand-wringing lamentations that sicken observers.

Billy Mays is the most ignorant bombastic asshole that has ever been foisted on TV watchers since the medium was invented. If you don't know who I mean then you've never seen a commericial for "Orange Glow" or "OxiClean" or "Simoniz Scratch Remover" or "Awesome Auger" or "Zorbees" or any one of dozens of other products that I'll NEVER BUY simply because this loudmouth asshole is yelling at me about them. Hate is too nice a word to use regarding my feelings for this douchebag. If I came across the idiot in real life (and luckily I never will since he lives in shithole Florida) I'd give him a 120 decibel shout-down that he'd never forget. I'd like to shove Matthew Lisko (Free Money!!! Free Money!!! Free Money from Govt. programs) right up Billy Mays fat ass. Matthew's a skinny little bitch so it's probably doable. I love watching the Science Channel but because their ratings are so low these two idiots and their low-rent direct marketing pitches seem to inundate the place. There is an interesting dichotomy to one minute be watching a program examining where the missing mass of the universe could be or how bio-quantum computing might be in our future only to then be aurally pummeled by an insipid side-show hawker brow-beating you to buy some horseshit product that you don't really need.