Blog for January 23, 2010

I finally see that my beloved, but often reviled and justly so, Red Wings have now played two stellar games in a row, both losses mind you. It is the first time this year that they have done so. Is it too much to ask them to perform at such a lofty level for three games in a row? We’ll know tomorrow night (January 21) when they travel to St. Paul for a game against the Minnesota Wild.
It has been a most unusual year to watch my team play so badly at times, many times actually. I never tire of telling my many friends who, for reasons known only to themselves, cheer wildly, recklessly even, for the inept Toronto Maple Leafs, that I now know what it’s been like for them for the past 43 years to watch a team play with such utter futility and only occasionally reach the upper levels of mediocrity. Enough anyway to give them the eternal hope they treasure for each and every one of those 43 years.
I’ve witnessed the Red Wings over the first three plus months of the season like I’ve never seen them play in almost 20 years. That’s how good they’ve been; that’s how spoiled I’ve become in those wonderful years of Stanley Cups, never missing the playoffs in any year since 1990; I could go on and on, but enough. Now they play like the Toronto Maple Leafs: some times they are good, very good even, and then they can be God-awful. I’m not sure why. I wonder at times if Mike Babcock, the head coach, is losing the room. But I seriously doubt that.
If we can keep up our recent play, a big if, then we will make the playoffs, but everyone, and I mean everyone has to play his hardest on every shift. They must compete for the puck like they used to do every season; they do that and some of them will be rewarded with a demotion to the minors when Holmstrom, Williams, Franzen, and Kronwall return from injuries. If they continue to improve and we avoid any more serious injuries, then we will have to worry only about the goaltending.
Ah, yes, the goaltending the perennial problem that plagues the mighty Wings. We have never been blessed with a goalie so good that he can win games on his own. You would have to go back to the days of Terry Sawchuk to find a goalie of such skill and artistry to complement the might the Wings have shown on defense and the forward lines. Alas, Jimmy Howard, who, even when he wins makes me nervous, very nervous. He often is awkward in moving from side to side and he has this sickening flopping motion as he lunges out toward pucks. He looks no better than a junior B goalie at times. Chris Osgood is too inconsistent to be counted on to take us to another Stanley Cup.
In fact, Osgood was rather petulant at the end of last night’s loss to the Washington Capitols, complaining that he hadn’t played in a month and what can you expect when you are so rusty. He went on to say that he needed more work if he was to be a contributing part of the Wings’ future success.
I’m about to settle in to watch the Wings/Wild game in St. Paul in about 4 minutes. Both teams are fighting for a playoff position from the outside looking in. It should be a good game. Minnesota has won 4 in a row at home; I like when we’re up against it; it brings out the best in us or, as has happened way too often this year, the not so good. In a few hours we’ll know what Detroit team shows up.
Perhaps I’ll live blog the game to make up my final fifty words or so. So far not much has happened in the first few minutes. Neither team has had a stellar scoring chance. Larry Murphy is doing the colour with Ken Daniels; I guess Mickey Redmond is not available. Detroit just got their first penalty. I’ve said enough.

Blogging for January 16, 2010

I really have to get out more. I was at my nephew Scott’s Winter Classic hockey party on New Year’s Day and there was quite a range of ages there: from me the oldest to another nephew who is 24. The average would have been around 40. Everyone had cell phones and throughout the game and long after they were either talking or texting almost continuously, at least for the 24-year-old. What does this mean about where our society is going when we feel compelled for some reason to be communicating nonstop with other people who could not possible be interested in what we are doing at a ‘sausage’ party where ten guys, three of whom did not have cell phones were watching an NHL hockey game being played outdoors.
If I was on the other end of a text or a phone call I think I know what my reaction would be. Do I really have to know how many beer you’ve had, or who is at the party and who isn’t? I would imagine this is only going to get worse. The day is coming, I suppose, when everyone from nine to thirty-nine will be constantly in touch electronically with someone or other. Is this the beginning of the end of conversations; you know, face-to-face conversations where you actually look someone in the eye when you are talking to him?
If I was a little nosier, I would have asked anyone of the many people there if he minded sharing with me what he had texted. I’m just guessing now mind you, but I will assume that spelling, grammar, punctuation, and capitalization do not exist when you text or twitter. Can you twitter from your cell phone? I wouldn’t be surprised. Heard a great commercial the other day about a cell phone that was also a weed wacker. Loved it. But I digress.
As with any of these sea changes in technology and how it has such an immediate and profound, often, impact on our lives, especially if you are young, it makes me wonder what is just around the corner that will make it even more difficult, more stressful to teachers and parents to get their children to work on their writing skills and their people skills. How far away are we from a society that increasingly becomes more distant, more inclined to be indifferent to what happens to our fellow human beings? How far away are we from ignoring, at our own peril, the tell tale signs of a society that has become more and more robotic and less and less human?
It would seem we are becoming more tethered to our toys, our electronic toys that give us an added layer of indifference or distance from our fellow man. We use these devices to help us keep our distance from relationships and family contact too. We often use these intermediary devices to keep us in contact with our parents, our siblings, and our friends in a world that is increasingly becoming more and more remote. Will the time come when we are in a face-to-face conversation or confrontation and we will be at a loss for words? It wouldn’t surprise me at all if the intimates in this conversation/confrontation resorted to texting each other as they faced one another, less than a meter apart.
Have I seen the future for my two-week old grandson? Is this what his life will be like, only much worse? Will people in twenty years even be talking to each other in what we consider today to be normal? Will the electronic age be so much a fundamental part of our lives that we will be unwilling, or perhaps, unable to carry on a conversation with anyone unless there is some form of electronic device to act as an intermediary between us? Will Kaeden grow up doing more texting than talking? How will the grandparents ever be able to be a part of his world, a world that increasingly has become more remote and less human?
I’m not sure I want to tarry too long pondering the answers to these vexing questions. I think I would rather just talk with my grandson about what he is up to, etc.