A Week of Stretched Emotions

In my last post, I said the two people to blame for the Flyers slow start were Ken Hitchcock and Bob Clarke. The next day, both were out, Hitchcock fired and Clarke retired. I went to the first Flyers game of the new era on Thursday night. This was my first trip to the FU Center for a Flyers game since November 2003, and it was a much different experience. Three things I did not notice while watching the new NHL on TV:
1. The evolution of the long pass: I kept calling it the "Quarterback Pass", from behind one's own blue line through the red line and sometimes into the opposing zone. The elimination of the 2-line pass rule has to be the biggest change to the game, along with calling the obstruction/intereference penalties. At first I wasn't sure I liked it, but then I realized that I had no choice in the matter and the "cherry-picking" nature of the long pass did not always result in a scoring chance.
2. The crowd was dead: Everytime that I have been to the FU Center, I think about how much noisier the FU Spectrum was for Flyers games. I think this is a combination of three factors: 1) Fond recollections of OT winners and playoff wins, 2) Smaller building gets louder faster, 3) Outrageous ticket prices drive louder, less wealthy fans away (I'm not judging this practice, just noting it as a trend)
3. The new scoreboard: Amazing. Not a surprise, either, in this day where anyone buying a new TV can afford a theater-like HDTV, a multi-million dollar corporation can afford a fancy new scoreboard. It is really nice, and the direction throughout the game was great as always at the FU Center.

The Flyers themselves played well on Thursday, a great game to watch, goals by Forsberg and Gange in a shootout, Kovalchuk (where is my spelling today?) scores on a breakaway but is stopped in the shootout to end it. Very exciting. I told the missus after the game that while we watched a great game, the Flyers were still struggling to get it going offensively, and while talent on defense will be a problem throughout the season, making it harder on the goaltenders, the team does have more than enough capable talent to make it to the playoffs, and it falls on John Stevens and his staff to get the offense working together to put more goals on the board and therefore more wins. All of that put together, I told her, means that "we're going to get smoked on Saturday night."(against Pittsburgh) So it came to pass, 8-2 Penguins last night. Pittsburgh looked like an all-star team against a mediocre veteran team. I cite the lack of offensive chances, and the inability to put anyone in front of the net to work rebounds, that buried the Flyers last night. A couple of the Penguin goals were fluky, but Crosby's all came off of hard work. I don't like Crosby, because he has made the Flyers his rivals, and it's cool, but we have to beat him sometime. Overall, a work in progress, and I am going to give Stevens 10 games before I rush to judgement.

The St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series this week, and while the national attention was predictably low for the two small market teams, it was a pretty good series, although the Tigers' defensive mistakes made them look more like the team that got swept by Kansas City at the end of the season. I was rooting for the Cardinals, and not sure why? I didn't want the Mets to win, and I didn't want the Tigers to win because last year the White Sox won as an AL Central team that struggled at the end of the regular season. Possibly the fact that the Phillies had more wins than the Cardinals, which rubs it in just a little more that the Phils didn't make the playoffs and brought in 3 old losing coaches to replace "problems" like Gary Varsho.

I want the Phillies to spend on Alfonso Soriano, although I would rather have a third baseman. I havent seen an available 3B that I would stand behind, while I think that Soriano could protect Howard in the order, as well as hit 50 home runs. If they sign Soriano, I will go to 5-10 home games next season. I promise.

The hurt hasn't worn off of the Eagles loss last week. 62 yard field goals at the end of a game to win could only happen to 4 teams, the Eagles, Detroit, Arizona, and Cleveland. The back to back gut wrenching losses have made today's game against Jacksonville a must win.

Finally, and briefly, the expectations for the Sixers are so low, and they seem so prepared for failure, the impending sale of the team and fire sale of talent forthcoming, I can't even get excited for the start of the season this week. I will, it will just take time. I am for trading the talent, except for Iverson. The problem with not trading Iverson is that the Sixers will not hit rock bottom fast enough. It seems silly to put it that way, but the last time the Sixers turned it around was when they had the number one pick (Iverson). Not the #2 (Van Horn, Bradley), not the #3 (Stackhouse), certainly not #6 (Sharone Wright). What I mean is just lottery is not good enough, with a draft this deep coming up (Greg Oden), the best recipe for the shortest turnaround to return to the second round of the playoffs requires an infusion of young players and a cornerstone lottery pick (Oden, possibly Noah). Also, at some point in time, the Sixers need a point guard. Like a good passer, hopefully under 30 years old, who can shoot it a little. Yes, Marcus Williams would have fit the bill, although I was happy with the Carney pick.