I seem to have worked out the losing streak, in that I can watch the Wild now and they can win. But I don’t seem to be able to see it through to the end. Three games in a row now–Boston, Montreal, and Dallas–have had quirks of one kind or another. In the middle of the first period against Boston, the screen suddenly blazed like full sunlight on a glacial field of snow.
This condition persisted through the commercials, although I could make out the brand names and logos. I got disgusted and did not watch the end of the game, which was a loss. This same televisual malady occurred during the Montreal game, this time in the third period. It was a win that I could not enjoy. And last night, the Dallas Stars. It was a delightful and much deserved and long overdue win–a win I missed because my TiVo ended the game on time, whereas the game did not end on time. The reason for the divergence was the apparently unscheduled announcement, at the head of the game, of the 2006 U.S. Olympic hockey team. All of the players on the national team are now pro hockey players who come from Michigan, which I find vaguely depressing. Being the site of the announcement of the roster for the Feb Olympics in Italy is a mild honor, I suppose, but not worth confounding the TiVo, in my view. But one notable fact is that Mike Modano, longtime Star, was named yet again to the team, for like the fifth time. Modano back in the day never struck me as a franchise player of any kind. He was skilled and young and seemed to get himself, Phil Esposito style, in the right place at the right time, but struck me as the kind of guy who would follow a dislocated franchise rather than honor any kind of loyalty to the trunk community that had established and supported that franchise. In other words, a sort of mercenary player whose loyalty to management has certainly endured the test of time, though he has never been all that lovable to fans, it seems to me. And, to be charitable, I have to say that he has aged gracefully–which in modern sports is more or less the equivalent of aging without serious injury, and thus winning the war of accretion in a contact sport. But he was given a moment to speak publicly on the PA, after beiong named to the olympic squad, and made a pleasant and gracious though kinda clumsy thankee to the good local folks of Minnesota whose memory might run back all those years to the ruddy-faced rookie that defacto became the sole survivor of the Minnesota North Stars in its next lifetime as a formidible but irritating sun-belt franchise in a city that wouldn’t know a Zamboni from a salt lick. Plus, Modano has grown into his uniform, and he wears a light beard and his nose has filled out, undoubtedly thanks to the elbows and forearms of the league’s defensemen, and the prcocious poise he had on the ice has become such a habit that it looks like it actually belongs to him and was not borrowed. Nothing against the guy, but frankly nothing for him either–which, being a goddam Dallas Star, puts him slightly to the side of the good, even though he is now the enemy, and he earns his keep with elegant assists and venomous top-o-the-circle wrist-rockets. So it was triply awesome that the Wild were able to hammer home the win, at home, in the third, against a team with such an ugly origin, and an ugly uniform to match, the shame of Norm Greene. I count the Stars very near the bottom for bad taste in unis, in the running with the godawful Ducks and that team from Florida, the whosie-whatsits. (Incidentally, the best hockey uniforms are almost always red–Detroit, the CCCP, Chicago, Wisconsin, Boston College. Or maybe it’s because those teams cling to classic stylings. I’ve always hated the Wild logo–what is it, a rabid hamster?–but like the color palette. As I mentioned last week, I think the Wild’s retro sweater is one for the ages, if it ever loses the whiff of faux.)
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