Sens at Land’s End

Hello, readers. Can you believe we’re past the All-Star Break already? Another NHL season, more than half done. Time flies when you’re having … um … watching hockey. I know I haven’t been posting much lately; that is part school-related busyness and part lack of things to say other than “I was wrong. A puck-moving defenceman really should have been the number one priority.”

Perhaps you recall that just before the season started, I made a post looking at the other teams I intended to keep an eye on this season. Well, it hasn’t exactly worked out as I planned — while I have been watching quite a lot of hockey, I have not been following most of those other teams with any regularity. The Coyotes? Turns out I’m not really interested. The Oilers? I give them a look once in a while. The Blackhawks? I’ve somehow lost track of most of their games. The Canucks? They’re definitely just as inevitable as I thought they’d be. They’re also bringing back some unpleasant memories I’ve been trying to repress.

But there is one team (other than the Sens) I’ve been following pretty closely. I try to watch their games whenever they don’t conflict with Ottawa’s. I read news stories and blogs about them. I even went to see them in person when they visited the Canucks earlier this month, and took an unreasonable number of photos of them while they warmed up.

Yes, it’s the Columbus Blue Jackets. My good friend and fellow Sens blogger Free Willig, upon learning of my unexpected devotion to the Jackets, was moved to ask me why. Why would I want to watch a boring Ken Hitchcock team? Putting aside the irony of Willig asking me that while being a Minnesota Wild season ticket holder, it is probably a question worth considering. The answer may be that, as much as I love watching flashy offensive hockey … I hate it when my team gives up a lot of goals. Hate it. I appreciate good team defence, and the Jackets have that.

More importantly, the Jackets have my favourite non-Sens player in the NHL in the person of Rick Nash, whose name I always kind of want to put an exclamation point after. Rick Nash! Nash is a player whose style of play I enjoy immensely. He is himself also immense, and uses his size to skate over or through other players, pushing them aside as though they were nothing more than the strings of bead curtains. Despite his size, he’s a fast skater. If he can’t go over someone, he wll go around him: there isn’t too much a person can do to stop him once he gets going. This combination of size and speed makes it easier for him to make use of puck skills that I believe the kids today would describe as “sick.” As Pierre McGuire would say, Nash is a monster.

In addition to their captain and franchise player, the CBJ have a few good rookie stories going this season. First there was Derick Brassard, who was likely the frontrunner for the Calder Trophy when he went down for the season with a shoulder injury. No fear: teammate Steve Mason has more than adequately stepped into Brassard’s rookie of the year candidate shoes. Mason’s season has been remarkable so far, and I’m really happy to have been following it. Perhaps the greatest “rookie” story of all is the team’s quest to make the playoffs for the first time. If the playoffs started today, well, they wouldn’t be there. But I have faith that they will be at season’s end, and come 2009-2010 other teams’ commentators will no longer be able to say that Columbus is the only team in the league never to have played a postseason game.

So yes, the Jackets. I’ve adopted them as my Western team. More than that, I have started thinking of them as my Other Men, much as Schnookie and Pookie of Interchangeable Parts fame have designated their secondary teams their “Tranny Brides” and “Tranny Gentlemen Callers.” The Sens are and will always be the ones I’ve committed to, while the Jackets are the boys on the side who pop in to show me a good time when my number one guys are not around. Rick Nash! is The Other Man, in that he is the chief of the Other Men. (He is also The Other Man to Heatzza’s The Man, in the sense of “You da man!”)

There is a certain excitement that comes with finding a shiny new team. I almost feel the Jackets are wooing me with their excellent play. So far this season, the Sens certainly haven’t appeared to feel the need to do much to make sure I stick around (although I give them credit for spicing things up these last few weeks). I have been lucky enough to see both my suitors teams in person when they’ve visited me (and the Canucks) here at Land’s End. Let us review the results of those games:

• Sens visit Vancouver and lose 3-0. They can’t even be bothered so score a flippin’ goal for me. The “goaltender” who shall not be named and is no longer with us (hallelujah!) lets in one of his specialty weak goals at a crippling moment. Wearing my Heatley jersey, I am subjected to mock sympathy by a drunk Canucks fan after the game.
• Jackets visit Vancouver and win 6-5 after treating me not only to regulation time, but also to overtime and a shootout. Jared Boll takes on Darcy Hordichuk in a thrilling fight right below where I’m sitting. Rick Nash! shows off for me, with two assists and a goal that demonstrates his bull-like tendencies during the game, as well as a lovely goal to end the shootout. My favourite Canuck, Ryan Kesler, does his best to make the case that I should give his team a spot in my affections, doing some pushing and shoving with Nash and getting into a fight with R.J. Umberger. But Nash will have none of it, and he totally pwns Kesler on his goal as if to drive home what I already knew: that the Canucks are no CBJ. No one can mock me for wearing my Jackets t-shirt on this night.

Oh, I think it’s clear which team is making the bigger effort here.

I’m bringing this up today because tomorrow is the day when the battle for supremacy between the Sens and the Jackets — a battle which, until now, has probably mattered only to me — comes to a head, as in a head-to-head matchup. There is very little doubt in my mind about who will triumph in the game (the Jackets), or who will ultimately prevail in the contest for my heart (the Sens). The question is: who will I be rooting for tomorrow? Can I really cheer for the team that is playing the Sens? Given that the Jackets need all the points they can get to secure a playoff spot while the Sens are basically out of it … yes, I probably can. But what I’d really like is for the Sens to play well enough that I don’t want to.