6 games and out
The Wings are out, and Calgary advances. A hundred sportswriters and a thousand armchair pundits will all be writing articles today on how they were outplayed, they were too old, too injured, and any number of other reasons why. Personally, I don’t care why. They played a better team, gave a good fight, and were beaten.
Now I almost know how Blues fans feel.
Almost.
Truth is, we had a good year. We had good talent, but we lacked a critical element: hunger. We lacked it last year, and in 2001 as well. Hunger drives a team to excel, not talent and skill. It’ll be an interesting summer to watch the team rebuild. I expect that a lot of familiar faces from the last 10 years will be gone. A team pays for talent up front, but doesn’t reward a lack of performance. Winning the President’s Cup doesn’t get you a parade down Woodward.
But looking back, we did win 3 Cups in the last 7 years. We back-to-back’d, which hasn’t happened since. They gave us memories to ease the painful “Dead Wings” of the ’70s and ’80s. They’ll be back, if in different form. New faces, new talent, new hopes.
I still believe.
