Mood: Gloating.
Music: Soundtrack to Gladiator, Zimmer and Gerrard
It's finally happened. Jim Caple, in the face of overwhelming reality, finally capitulated. I guess watching the Yankees tar and feather the Red Sox to the tune of 19-8 last night finally snapped him out of that bias-induced denial, and finally cried "uncle."
Oh, he's still a bit snarky about it all...but he couldn't, at all, come up with any excuses. It wasn't "The Red Sox still have a chance," or "The Yankees haven't seen the best of the Red Sox..." it was plain and simple "You can't stop the Yankees. They are doing nothing wrong, and they are crushing the best team in baseball during the regular season." Caple is finally coming to his senses: The Yankees, like all great teams, simply raise their game during the playoffs. When you were indisputably in 2nd place all season, raising your game means crushing your opponents in brutal style. Witness the carnage.
And now, back to hockey.
The Rangers were to have opened their season last Friday against the Penguins. I think it's safe to say that they didn't...and I certainly wasn't sitting in one of the two seats I paid for.
For those of you who have never owned season tickets to anything, I'll explain how it all works. Basically, you purchase seats for the entire season all at once. For the Rangers, they're the same seats. In my case, they're in section 341, where I've sat since coming back to the US from Hong Kong. I love the view, the people in the section are the best, and it's like being home...my seats. So anyway, some time in July, they send you an invoice, and you pay for all the tickets. I have two seats, at the $40 seat level. You pay for all 41 home games, and 5 pre-season games. You can do the math if you like...it's $40*2*46. In short, it's a fair amount of cash for a guy who doesn't have all that much cash to begin with.
But I LOVE going to the games. For a while there, while I was really down after getting back from Hong Kong, it was one of very few things that made me happy. And after I got my head straight again, I didn't just get happy at the games...I was ecstatic. I love live hockey. That's all there is to it. There's very little I'd rather do that doesn't (necessarily) include my fookus.
And now, these fuckers, who clearly don't give a fuck, have taken one of the most important parts of my fall, winter, and spring away. I loved telling my boss "Nope, sorry. Gotta go. Got a game tonight..." And no one ever stopped me. Because they knew that it wasn't a discussion. There were times that I probably would have quit if someone said "Sorry, you have to stay tonight." I'd have just shrugged and said "I'll work it out tomorrow with you. Call me if you don't want me to come in."
In any case, I imagine that I'm still just one fan in a huge sea of hardcore hockey fans who are experiencing this themselves. And these morons are just pissing us all off. We are not interested that the owners are not making money. We're not. If you can't take a game as great as hockey, if you can't run that business into the black, with guys like us, who will pay serious cash every year, REGARDLESS of how much the team sucks, the problem is with YOU. YOU can't run a business! Don't blame the players! It's YOU.
God I hate people sometimes.
Oh, and if you know of a good broker in Park Slope, or know of a good apartment for rent, let me know. Turns out I have to move at the end of November...not October. Duh. Teach me to read my lease, huh?