Here we sit Blue Jacket Fans. 0-2 with Vancouver looming. The twittersphere has erupted blaming everything…from our power play to (yeah, guess who) Mason. And, while I agree – so far – that 0-3 seems fairly likely, and that our power play needs Wiz back in a MAJOR way, I would like to encourage Blue Jackets fans to allow some patience. If we as fans regress to thinking this year will be like the last, how can we expect more from our team? A few things to remember and consider…
- last year, mid November – guess who was #1 +/- in the entire NHL – Rusty Klesla
- last year, guess which team had a kick ass October and November only to be demolished in December – Blue Jackets
- last year, which team kept the roster fairly – and uncomfortably – unchanged – Blue Jackets
- last year, which team did not make the playoffs – well, you know THAT
While I agree that a win by now sure would have been nice, I would care to point out that we’ve overhauled our roster, coaching staff (somewhat) and that quite frankly, pre-season has little to do with real-game preparedness (NHL, NFL…all the same), nor does a first 5 game start have little to do with where we end up (at least in Blue Jackets land).
Its for these reasons that I’m not screaming harey carey yet. YET! This team needs time to gel (and no I don’t know how long is too long) But we’ve got a lot of new guys who are trying to break habits from long ago. And honestly, I will go on record as saying that right now, Mason is honestly not even in the top five of things I’m concerned about for this team. His improvement is noticeable, even to me.
But – my point is (see what I did there, Dan?) that the team may know that its going to take a bit of time too. Noone can argue that this team isn’t bending over backwards to keep current fans on board and grow the fan base to include folks who left and/or who were never here before, so did they send us a message on Friday? As a big fan of the importance of music – both in tone an lyrics – check out again the two songs that the Jackets chose for their 2011 intro.
First up – Walk by Foo Fighters. Sample lyrics:
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