The Two-Line Pass

The Lead

Well now that the Red Wings went into Glendale and kicked the living christ out of the Phoenix Coyotes, the time has come for me to apologize.

You see, as it turns out the team loaded with cagey veteran, hardened by years of deep and trying forays into postseason after immensely successful postseason were just too much for a team with a youthful spark and strong goaltender. Detroit had seen any possible combination of youth and speed and skill and veterans and defense and goaltending and coaching you care to throw at them, and as such it takes a lot to get by them.

Tonight, and ultimately in the series, the Coyotes just didn’t have enough.

And so, after being chirped on Twitter and email and on the Puck Daddy Game 7 chat by numerous Detroit fans, I guess I owe a lot of people an apology.

For those unfamiliar, in Monday’s Puck Daddy column, I pointed out that people hate Red Wings fans because one blogger posted that the Red Wings would win tonight’s game, adding the word, “Period,” as though it was an absolute certainty. This is the kind of obnoxious, intolerable bravado all Detroit fans seem to have installed standard at birth (see that’s an car manufacturing joke for the locals haw haw haw).

But give credit to the Wings, they did their best Ric Flair circa 1978 impression, lying, cheating and stealing at every turn and successfully getting away with it. Diving whenever possible? You better believe they did that. Pushing the net off? For sure. Committing little penalties behind the play? Take it to the bank.

And I don’t say that in terms of condemnation. In fact, I applaud it. Jesse Ventura often espoused his personal motto, “Win if you can, lose if you must, but ALWAYS cheat,” and the Red Wings did just that. They know how to win games in the playoffs, and if you’re going to come up with a gameplan, then “frustrate the other team into stupid penalties and then score on the ensuing power play” is a hell of a good jumping-off point.

Once the game unraveled, Detroit started skating circles around the gassed Coyotes that were clearly resigned to their fate, peppering a beleaguered Ilya Bryzgalov with 50 shots on goal, of which six made their way past him.

The Red Wings did win. Period.

So as to that apology: I don’t like giving them, but here goes…

I would like to say that I’m sorry to everyone that hates Detroit as much as I do for picking “Wings in 7.” Now we have to deal with these complete, blithering morons for at least another week and a half.

Being right all the time has its burdens. I’m still trying to accept that.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 28th, 2010 at 12:48 am and is filed under Good night. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.