Stupid Sexy Flanders

Well, maybe replace "Flanders" with "Blackhawks", and "Sexy" with "Fucking". That pretty much sums up how I feel today. Mercifully, with 20 Cent's goal, the 2009-2010 NHL season comes to a close. I forced myself to watch that game last night, and although the team I dreaded winning did, at least I didn't have to hear that fucking "Chelsea Dagger" song. So ends the longest Stanley Cup drought in the NHL: Toronto Maple Leafs, come on down!

So let's see: the Chicago Blackhawks are Stanley Cup Champions. Oy. Since I live here, that means a whole summer of brand new "Champions" shirts and hats to replace the brand new Hawks shirts most of these brand new fans purchased in April when they realized they were Hawk fans. My Facebook page exploded, and I've received 4 emails this morning (it's about 7:30) confirming what I thought was a bad dream.

What a weird series. I think someone said this was the worst series ever for goaltending. Well, I thought about that, and here are the stats for each goalie, courtesy of NHL.COM:
Michael Leighton - 2-4, 20 GA (in 6 games), .876 SV%, 3.96 GAA
Antti Niemi - 4-2, 21 GA (again, in 6 games), .882 SV%, 3.41 GAA.

Folks, those are your Stanley Cup goaltenders. Just awful, eh? You know who is the happiest about these numbers? Stan Bowman. Niemi is an RFA, and usually Stanley Cup-winning goalies get a bit of a raise in the off-season. However, goalies that actually hinder their team's chances of winning tend to have that raise reduced significantly. Niemi didn't exactly play himself into huge money just yet. I think the torch was just passed for "Worst Goalie to Win A Cup". Oh, and to any Red Wing fan who isn't mad enough yet, consider this: Tomas Kopecky now has his name on the Cup more times than Henrik Zetterberg. And to make matters worse, no longer can we make jokes about Marian Hossa not winning. This is the world we live in, folks.

Before OT started, on Twitter, I posted a message to the Hockey Gods. The message was that if the Blackhawks were going to win, I wanted anyone except Kane or Byfuglien to score the winner. Obviously, I have done something to piss off the Gods, because not 2 minutes later, Kane head faked enough times that I thought he was having a seizure, went down the wing and scored a goal that (surprise, surprise) Leighton should have had. What made this moment magical for me is that it touched off the worst Stanley Cup celebration in history. No one knew where the puck was, Kane is racing down the ice (did you see Niemi? He must have thought he was a cab driver that owed Kane some money the way Kane was coming after him), and the announcers were all probably saying "What the fuck is going on?" Then, there's a review, but one replay was all it took to confim it went in. It was like Jason Biggs in American Pie when Shannon Elizabeth is in his room and he blows his wad too early. I really stopped watching after that, because I had better things to do, like scoop the dog poo out of the backyard.

Speaking of 20 Cent, why oh why did it have to be him? Let me get this straight; in the same year that Sidney Crosby scores the GWG in OT in the Olympics, Patrick Kane scores the GWG in OT in the Stanley Cup Finals. I think I am going to start punching babies in the face and kicking puppies, because being a douchebag is obviously paying off. He scored the worst Stanley Cup winning goal ever (and that includes Zetterberg's off-Fleury's-butt goal in Game 6 in 2008), and then after the game, when talking with ESPN, he says something like "I hope the girls like me more now". You know what Kane? Fuck you, you fucking cocky twat-bag. He is the kind of dipshit that starts a band because he wants to get laid, but his music sucks and he doesn't care (for JJ from Kansas, if you read this: his band name is "Pronger's Beard Elbows"). And we've seen the kind of chicks you hang out with. There is no justice in the world. Basically, every fuck-stick in the NHL (Pronger, Perry, Crosby, Kane) has now won a Cup. I don't want to live in a world where Patrick Kane is anyone's hero.

There are some people for whom this Cup win doesn't make me seethe with rage. I'm on record as saying I like Jonathan Toews and Duncan Keith, and if the team had more players like those two on there, I might not hate the Hawks with the fervour that I do. I see Toews as an Yzerman-type leader, and he has won everything there is to win so far. I wonder if there is any way we could trade for him? I'm happy for fans like my old boss and my current boss; both of these women were fans before it was cool to be fans. I'm somewhat happy for the 12-13000 people who actually went to the games 5 years ago and can tell me that Jocelyn Thibault was the Hawks' goalie before the lockout. I am not happy with the 2 million new "fans" that are going to use the parade on Friday as an excuse to get out of work and will buy lots of new merchandise proclaiming the Hawks as champs, but will be using those same shirts as dust rags in 5 years when the Hawks suck again.

Well, if there's anything that makes me happy about this, it's knowing that this is not a dynasty in the making. This isn't the Penguins winning next year with most of their team locked up, creating what could have been a big run. This is a team that is in salary cap hell, and will very likely have to blow up their roster just to sign enough players to ice a whole team next year. So, Hawks, fans, say bye bye to guys like Patrick Sharp, Dustin Byfuglien, Kris Versteeg, Adam Burish and Antti Niemi. I hope you enjoyed seeing Cristobal Huet sit on the bench and get his name on the Cup for doing nothing except take up about 10% of your cap space, because that albatross you call his contract is not going anywhere. It must have been nice to see Hossa score 3 whole goals all post-season - good thing he's locked up for the next millenium. I didn't bother to check to see how Rockford did this year, but if I'm a Hawks fan, I hope it's good, because half of the roster are going to be AHL-ers. The Wings came within a whisker of winning the division last year with all of their injuries and call-ups; it will be interesting to see how the Hawks do without half of their depth players in the lineup (or as I call them, the Reason the Hawks won the Cup). Plus, as was pointed out on Twitter last night, the Hawks have won as many Cups in 84 years as the Wings have won in the last 13. So congrats on that.

To the Blackhawks, congratulations. You have shown that you are probably going to go down as the best One-And-Done Stanley Cup winning team in NHL history. I hope you enjoy being relegated to your rightful place of 2nd-best in the division next year. You see, that shiny silver trophy you have right now actually belongs to us; we're just lending it out to the rest of the league so they can get a taste for what it feels like to win before we take back what's ours. I'm looking forward to next year when the Hawks are the prey and the Wings their predator. It should make for a very interesting season. The only person happy last night in my house last night was my wife; no doors were punched or harmed in any way this year. At least that's something, right?