The Sharks fired coach Ron Wilson today, and I'm all atwitter because I don't know how to feel about it. Over the last four years, the Sharks have won more regular season games than any team in hockey. In 2004, they lost in the conference finals, and over the last three years, they lost in the 2nd round, each time in six games when they were favored to win. Hell, Avery Johnson just got fired, and he won a billion regular season games. Expectations become everything, but what if you think your team is better than it is? You could argue that the Giants lost the 2002 World Series because Dusty Baker pulled Russ Ortiz with a five-run lead in the 7th before Ortiz had given up a run. Keep Ortiz in and maybe the Giants cruise to victory and everything is different over the past five years. If Patrick Rismiller clears a puck off the boards instead of up the middle, maybe the Sharks beat the Red Wings last year and, well, you know how it goes. How much is the coach to blame? Should regular season count for everything because, as Billy Beane says, the playoffs are a crapshoot, or is that just baseball where fewer teams get in and the season is longer? Do we show up for months in front of the tv because we only care about virtually holding the trophy at the end, with failure to get that thing hoisted grounds for unemployment? I enjoyed the Warriors this season, and not watching them get crushed by the Lakers in the playoffs didn't take away from the enjoyment I had watching them beat many great teams over the course of the season. Is it all expectations?
I don't fucking know. All I do know is that the last time one of my teams won a championship, they were playing in Los Angeles, so the asterisk is bigger than god. I was a teenager when the Raiders beat the Eagles in the Super Bowl and at that point I felt surely that winning was my birthright. In everything.
Life has proved otherwise.
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