Issue #51 – Aesthetic Of Victory
“For when the One Great Scorer comes, to write against your name, he marks – not that you won or lost – but how you played the Game.” -Grantland Rice
Vancouver won on Thursday night in only the insipid way a professional sporting team from Vancouver knows how to win – they won the loss.
Heading into Los Angeles with over 1/3 of their roster in the infirmary it was up to Coach Vee to pull a rabbit out of this conundrum.
Fortunately he had this proverbial hare – in the form of a game plan – grown and nurtured in the Franco-hockey heartland of Jacques Lemaire’s brain.
I speak of the one and only trap. As in steel.
Mitigated oh so often in the career of Vignault in order to squeeze a win out of a roster barely built for two (wins), it dawned on affable Bam-Bam that the only real reason to play the game, is to win. However the result that may materialize is immaterial.
The truth is, when the Canucks lose, it is way more fodder for the tabloid cannon.
And we lap it up just like the people of Jonestown drank the Kool-Aid. We love our heroes, but we love their miscues even more. We are lured by celebrities and so we punish them for our humiliation at being duped.
It’s human nature, we are drawn to the fuck ups of others. When perfection creeps in, we stand even more guarded, waiting in attack mode for any slip.
Right now the Canucks aren’t fuckin up by losing, their doing it by winning.
Next Up – Anaheim