Christmas arrived before Memorial Day this year, with the Penguins unceremoniously departing the Stanley Cup playoffs in the first round — again.
Cue the fireworks.
You say you’re confused as to how a resident of Western Pennsylvania and a hockey fan to boot, possibly could take pleasure in the Penguins being laid low.
Let me explain. Ever since retiring from sports writing and becoming a mere fan, I can indulge in personal prejudices. As a sports writer I just watched the games and wrote about them, a detached sort of thing the late sportswriter Jerome Holtzman chronicled in his classic book “No Cheering In The Press Box.”
That was the traditional way of sports journalism – observe and report. But these days too many members of the sweaty literati, much like journalists in general, have turned to a reporting style that is a mixture of propaganda, boosterism and outright hero worship.
Check how many times you hear “we” references to a team of which they are not members.
Along that line, think of the way CNN, MSNBC, major television network news and national print outlets such as The New York Times and The Washington Post, covered Team Biden in the most recent election. They might as well have been wearing Sleepy Joe jerseys.
I expect a sporting team’s radio and television announcers to be biased. But, if you’ve ever had the opportunity to follow broadcasts with other home team announcers via a platform such as NHL Center Ice, you would find that Penguins announcers are over-the-top in terms of their homerism.
By happenstance I listened to a radio broadcast of a Penguins loss to open this series, with the Penguins ahead after two periods, and the one studio guy was particularly condescending in the second intermission. His tone came off as especially patronizing toward the New York Islanders, as in hey, they’re gutty and trying hard, but . . . we’re the Penguins!
Well, the Islanders were gritty, tried hard, and sent the Penguins to the offseason golf course in just six games of a possible seven-game series.
When the late Bob Prince performed the home-viewpoint style of broadcasting for the Pirates, it was an engaging kind of bias, replete with amusing anecdotes, engaging nicknames and pet expressions.
This is different. It’s not particularly entertaining and seldom is credit given to the opposition.
Instead it’s orgies of self-congratulation if the Penguins are winning, and, if the Penguins are behind, laments about cheap play or luck on the part of the opposition, or even critiques of the obviously blind referees.
Similarly, too many media members issue reports on games that read like they sleep in Penguins jammies.
When you see this sort of thing close up through the years, as I did, you develop a bit of a distaste for it. Throw in that my son decided on his own to grow up a Detroit Red Wings fan, mostly because he enjoyed former Wings star Steve Yzerman’s production on video games, and you have a family that doesn’t exactly bleed Penguins black and gold.
Along that line, by definition, fans like to think they can influence the outcome of games with their rooting. The NBC Sports Network broadcast of the clinching series win for the Islanders Wednesday night even gave the third star to the team’s rabid home fans.
I’ve found another way, if not to affect the winner or loser, at least to be able to enjoy whatever outcome transpires.
As something of a jinx and a decidedly unlucky individual, I find myself engaging in small sports bets on my DraftKings account that make me happy regardless of which team wins. Simply put, I bet on the team I actually want to lose.
I’m not claiming to be a practitioner of voodoo, sticking pins in dolls of Penguins players. But I did make a parlay bet for the Penguins to win the series before it started, and individual bets on the Penguins to win the past two games, all of which ended up being won by the Islanders.
If the Penguins had won, I’d have had a few extra bucks to ease the pain.
Suffice it to say I won’t miss the money now that the Penguins have lost the games and the series. It was all worth it just for the smile brought to my face by the thought of all those Penguins fans – media and otherwise – dealing with this latest cold dose of reality.
Sam Ross Jr's site 