Although the entire explosive event took less than a minute, one scientist, who happened to be on hand, had a handle on how it happened.
“Whenever you combine very potent and efficient Canadian firepower with MSG ice, sloppy defensive play and too many new player combinations, there is always a small chance of having this kind of freakish result,” said Korean chemical engineer Yu B. Sik.
Fortunately, since the fireworks finished so fast, the fire department never had to be called. Although Ranger head coach, Tom Renney, was unavailable for comment, Brendan Shanahan took “a shot” at giving the players’ explanation for the Manhattan Meltdown. Unfortunately, like all of his other shots this year, Shanahan was off target with his comments—missing the microphone by a good two feet.
Amazingly, despite the horrific happenstance, all 19* players survived and are expected to be in the lineup Thursday against Atlanta.
*I gave backup goalie, Stephen Valiquette, an exemption because he didn’t play. However, this is only an honorary exemption, because had Valiquette been in net, things might have gotten worse yet.
Humorist’s Hindsight: Let’s face it. Even if the Rangers hadn’t self-imploded by giving up 3 goals in that minute of misery, they had no chance against the vastly superior Senators. Ottawa was so clearly the better team in every phase of the game. This includes being bigger, faster, more skilled, quicker to the puck, more physical, having a better transition game, etc.
At this point Ottawa is like a well-oiled, fine-tuned industrial machine, while the Rangers are like a rich kid’s rendition of an out-of-sync gadget thrown together for a science class project. It seems hard to believe that in the next 6 months the Rangers are going to be able to catch up with their Canadian counterparts.
It also doesn’t help that the Rangers have next to nothing left in the salary cap kitty with which to purchase any meaningful machine parts before the trade deadline.
At the moment, I can only think of 2 funny aspects to the Rangers slow start to the season:
- That anyone could have seriously believed the Rangers were Stanley Cup contenders, given that they will almost certainly have to get past Ottawa in the playoffs, and
- That Glen Sather shelled out over $5 million to Brendan Shanahan this season, believing that he was still a formidable goal scorer—despite all the contrary evidence over Shanahan’s last 38 regular season games of 2006-2007. Details of Shanahan's "sinking ship of a scoring shot" from last season are found in the middle of this August 3rd article.
With 5 more goalless games to start this season, Shanny’s Fanny is going to get an “old” fashioned, verbal butt kicking by the Hockey Humorist in posts that will appear sometime before Thursday’s game in Atlanta.
8 comments:
Yu B. Sik is not a particularly assertive chemical engineer from what I've heard.
In fact, he also has a history of arriving at his projects a half hour late or more -- which is apparently what the Rangers themselves did last night.
Actually, they arrived on time. It was after about 30 minutes of playing time that they took a very costly one minute break.
From what I've heard, Yu B. Sik is quite punctual and assertive. After all he did grant an interview. His problem at work is that he takes too many sik days.
consulting physician, Sik Mo Fo, says that your assessment of Shanny's condition is premature, recommend use of Oriental massage therapy to raise that sinking shot
I said "sinking ship of a shot", which figuratively means that his shot has been going down hill in terms of effectivness.
It doesn't suggest that his shot is actually sinking. Since he isn't physically injured, no therapy is going to help his problem. He is simply too old and past his prime, never again to be the scoring threat he once was.
Well, anyway, just to put matters in their proper perspective, the 1977 New York Yankees lost 4 of their first 5 games.
Newly-acquired slugger Reggie Jackson who had been signed as a free agent specifically for the purpose of bringing the Yankees a world championship (after they had just tanked to the Reds in the 1976 World Series) remarked sarcastically in response to the inevitable criticism.
"Yeah, there's only 157 games to go. I guess we're finished, all right."
In fact, the Yankees would go on to lose another 4 out of 5, and they were 2-8 and in last place at the end of the day on April 19, 1977.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/games/standings.cgi?select=1977&year=1977&month=4&day=19&submit=Find+Games
But we all know what happened after that. The Yankees continued to fade into oblivion and neither they nor Reggie Jackson were ever heard from again.
Humorist,
After witnessing that pathetic excuse of a hockey game on Saturday, I couldn't bear reading about it until tonight.
Every article I read about it just made me relive the one minute horror show. So did yours, but at least it made me laugh too.
Thanks for being the only silver lining in that grey clouded game.
I wish that my TV blew up before the Rangers did. But I'm glad my computer didnt.
Great post!!
HH,..I forgot to comment as I am still therapeutically attempting to understand those 52 seconds the other night. I must say your post was the redeeming thing about that entire night. A+
tdr
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