Re: Wisconsin Hockey Part 3: Just win, baby!
There's no chip. Turns out I was right and the effort was in fact much better on Saturday.
How is your arm chair analysis any more valid than anyone else's? You weren't even watching the game on Saturday. In addition, you weren't just stating your opinion, you were telling several of us that we were wrong and somehow amateurish in our thoughts.
Sometimes a team plays their best and gets beat. You can see it happening and you can sometimes pin that on a goalie as standing on his head.
That wasn't the case against St. Cloud just as it wasn't the case many times this season. This is an acknowledged and known flaw of this current Badger team and has been all year.
Hopefully they will find a way to bring it in the next however many or they will live with regret.
You seem to be engaged in the idea that there is a right opinion and a wrong opinion. I don't know why you'd think that - you are certainly entitled to your opinion.
My
original comments were in reference to the uber-subjective fan message board comments about 'effort' or 'playing with a chip on your shoulder' and a whole host of others that you see in just about every sport - whether it's playing with 'swagger' or whatever the word of the day happens to be. The pattern amongst fans is all too obvious - team wins, and they played hard. Team loses and they didn't put in the 'effort.'
The entirety of this line of thinking is subjective. I would further argue (as I did by calling 99% of it bull****) that it's not usually an assessment of the team's actual play, but rather an analysis that correlates with the results on the scoreboard rather than a qualitative analysis of the play on the ice/field/court.
You ask how my armchair analysis is better than anyone else's - it's not, nor did I ever assert that it was. What I am saying is that when people make comments about nebulous and subjective issues like 'effort' or 'heart,' I'm sure not likely to be convinced by those arguments.
So, I present my opinion, obviously in disagreement with several posters on the board, and just because I disagree you think I'm asserting my superiority? Obviously I like my own opinion - otherwise I wouldn't have expressed it. That's what boards like this are for.
I personally don't like comments that rely on 'effort' as the explaining factor. I don't like them because I think they are overused and usually wrong. That's why I posited the hypothetical about popping a few past Lee early on in the game. It's also interesting that you mention this is a long term pattern with this team, because I would agree - except that I've seen the same pattern of analysis with this year's Badger basketball team, too - and the football team - and just about every other sports team out there.
So, instead we have a discussion about human nature and sports - both on the part of the players out there competing and the fans in the stands offering their analysis.
If you want to convince me, tell me where the players messed up in their execution. You can demonstrate that to me. However, if you're going to give me some subjective crap about 'effort' or 'swagger' or 'playing with a chip on your shoulder,' I'm not likely to be convinced.
Hell, I remember watching Georgetown get beat in the basketball tournament this past weekend, marveling at the obvious effort they were putting out there. Their execution stunk, however, and that was the reason for the loss. But they were trying hard.
Missed the 1990 Championship Game, I was driving back from Kansas with my girlfriend (now wife) and her parents. I tried like heck to find the game on the radio in Northern Iowa.