Lowlights of Lowlights

Well, Fuck. There's a game on my Tivo right now. Apparently the score of the game is: one team 7, the other team 1. One time when I was 10, I was wrestling with my Dad and he accidentally hit me in the balls. I cried for about 20 minutes. I wish I was as strong as that boy right now.

I Tivo'd the game while I was at work and looked forward to watching it all day, and why not? 2 game win streak...and a good two game win streak, not the bad kind. Wait, is there a bad kind of win streak? Whatever. Two great games played by a team finding itself after a rough start and some shitty injuries.

I didn't watch it right away, I got home and ate dinner first, not wanting to be distracted with petty things like basic human sustenance. Upon finishing, I began to get ready to have some fun. Leafs game. Yes! But seconds from starting, my phone rang and I had to take it so I went into my office. While on the phone I mindlessly clicked around on the internet. One of the clicks was a hockey news site I look at. The second it opened, this headline hit me in the eyeballs:

Caps cautiously optimistic after thrashing

My mind raced. Panic in my brain: What?! Who?! Thrashing?!

I realized that I had just read something about the Leaf game I was about to watch. Not wanting to ruin the game for myself, I of course read the first line of the article:

There's nothing like a 7-1 victory to turn a season around - at least, that's what the Washington Capitals are hoping.

At first I was pissed that I now knew even more about the game. My mind tried to take that piss and turn it into lemonade by reasoning that:

• a) The Capitals had gotten thrashed by the Leafs, yet were strangely optimistic about it.
• b) That the Capitals were going to take this unbelievable road beating as a positive, and were going to use that as the turning point for the season.

Christ, those Tony Robbins cassettes have really paid off for Glen Hanlon. He's such a ray of sunshine! He's the type of person you see on daytime talk shows saying that getting a terminal disease was the best thing that ever happened to them because now they see what life's all about! Wow, inspirational!

I went into the other room and told my girlfriend that I was pissed off because I knew the outcome of the Leaf game: that they'd murdered the Capitals 7-1. She thought I'd be happy. I wasn't. How many times do you get to see that many goals? Not many. There were lots of games I'd seen the opposite happen to the Leafs, and I had to be surprised live by every single one of them. But now? Thanks a lot asshole Universe!

An hour later I was over it and put the game on. A bad omen was presented to me when the wizards who run NHL Center Ice decided that the Leafs TV broadcast of the game would be too entertaining, insightful and professional to carry, so instead they play the local Washington Comcast Sportsnet broadcast. Oh yay, that means I get to watch a pre-game package about Steve Eminger! Did you know that his game day meal is chicken and pasta, and that his favorite color is brown?!

The puck drops and I wait for the Leafs to begin padding their stats the action to start. The Capitals score first on a Leafs give away up the middle to the slot that would shame someone in MY league, and the Caps instantly put it behind Vesa Toskala. Alright, no problem. The article said 7-1, that's their 1. Now, on to the 7!
31 seconds later Jason Blake and the King of Kings Mats Sundin get together and allow Ponikarovsky to score. Nice. Fists pumped, I am digging it! Jesus, 6 more of this feeling? Who am I, Johnny Depp? I laugh at Olaf Kolzig and command him to take his 43 year old ass back to New Zealand or wherever the fuck he's from. This is the ACC, Kolzilla, it's going to be a long ni oh no the Caps just scored again.

I instantly realize what has happened. I press pause, and go into my office. I click on the link again and read the rest of the first paragraph:

"...we've played like that for the past four or five games," said Capitals coach Glen Hanlon after his team dominated the Maple Leafs 7-1 in Toronto on Monday night. "But the pucks just weren't going in."

Oh. Oh I see. It was the Leafs who...who uh, got thrashed. By the Washington Capitals. Right, right. I understand now. The Universe has taught me an important lesson. I feel like Alanis Morissette.

And here I have sat since that time. I'm going to bed soon. I have to work in the morning. I've just ordered some Tony Robbins cassettes for the car, so that'll be good. And tomorrow I'm going to call the New Zealand consulate, and see what it's like down there this time of year.