Pathetic, underwhelming and wretched. This team is downright terrible. The shame of it is that they are loaded with talent and have no one to put it together.
There is so much to say I don't know where to start. So, let's start with the utterly ridiculous and work our way up the inane.
First, when the River Rats are ahead 7 - 1 the sound guy should NOT play "Rock You Like A Hurricane". I can't be the only one who knows that the Hurricanes are the parent club for the River Rats (especially since they announce it before the game!). Dumb, dumb, dumb.
Second, the games in the intermissions just keep getting worse. To have kids shoot on net is a great idea, to have Dave call one of them cocky and then has them shoot from farther away is terrible. This one only gets two "Dumb"s.
Third, it's about time that they start giving "Fan of the Game" awards to the people who have been around supporting the team. To see Andy Gardecki get it was truly one of the smarter moves. Giving it to people in the past like "J-Tizzle" who walked around slurring expletives was sending a terrible message. Now, on to the game:
The first thing that comes to my mind is "Where were we?" Although Mole cannot be blamed for the entire range of scores by the other team, one has to wonder why Thompson was never put in? Did Marshall give up and just tell Mole that he has to grin and bear it? Kind of odd coming from the guy who pulled Thompson after 3 goals a few games ago.
The Tigers were outshot 38 - 23. This has become a standard. The thing that is not a standard was that at one point in the game the Rats were scoring once for every three shots taken. Only two people on the Tigers were in the plus side of the plus/minus ranking: Regier and Boguniecki. The scorers were Boguniecki, Fraser (which looked very good...note to the Islanders - keep Rourke, Fraser did more in one game than Rourke did all season) and Tambellini (no surprise there). To the contrary, there were only two people on the River Rats in the minus and I think the waterboy was the only person who didn't get a point.
I was fortunate enough to read "The Lifeboat" blog, which is fantastic, and saw some quotes from Regier "You're going to see a whole new team in 2007" (We should be so lucky) and Wotton "The passion to work, it needs to be there, and it obviously wasn't today" (I can't reall the last time I saw him play and entire game with passion) And, of course, my favorite, Dan Marshall "The little things are building" (what team is he watching?).
Section 105 started the "Marshall must go" chant and I was glad to hear that it caught on (with any luck it will continue to drown out that blasted cowbell). It is time for some new leadership for the team. It's time for Dan to open his eyes and see that the team is terrible and there are hundreds of do-or-die fans, such as myself, who are tired of seeing it. What I think quite a number of fans would love to hear is some honesty. For someone to come out and say, "Listen, we screwed up and what we are doing isn't working. We will do our best to make changes and to go in a new direction. Not "the little things are coming along". Stop spitting in my hair and calling it rain.
My understanding is that the team had a knock-down drag-out meeting after the game the other night and, according to Regier, it cleared the air. Stevie-boy, if you think that a conversation after the game is gonna spark a winning streak you got another thing coming. I know that Garth Snow gave them a verbal thrashing, I know that Ted Nolan came to watch the game against the Bears and I realize that people feel its about the 'passion'. Wake up guys. Passion without viable plans and plays has never won games.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again hoping for different results. Does that sound familiar Dan? Look at who these people were and what their stats were under different coaches, now look what they are under you. See a difference? You need look no further than the Islanders to see that anything is possible under the right coach.
I am a die-hard fan and will never give up on rooting for the Tigers, but they also have to help themselves. Bite the bullet, change coaches and show everyone how you are serious about making this team better.
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2 comments:
Amen. Marshall has been a pox on this organization and needs to be replaced.
Keep up the good work Hockey Monkey!
Hey Monkey,
You are correct, DAN MUST GO!! I have never seen such an apathetic coach in my life. He does nothing to fire up his players on the bench when they are down, he doesn't even fight for them when the refs. make an awful call (unlike other coaches), he shows no emotion whatsoever to anything that happens even when the crowd calls for his resignation. There is no passion or fire in him and that is not good for the home team. Charles Wang if you are reading this, the only thing that is going to pull them out of the hole and make them a play-off quality team at this point is a coach with some fire and passion, that will schedule extra practices, extra workouts, make the non-workers sit out a couple of games like Baseggio did last year. Get out there and make them gel and meld as a team, a brotherhood. It's not a question of inexperience with these players, it's lack of spirit in their coach. Players look to their leader for direction and I don't see that there is the learership,tenacity, passion and heart to look to in Dan Marshall. It's time to give Dan is walking papers....he still has a music career to fall back on.
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