Guitar Hero

Sometimes life provides little distractions to redirect our minds from painful experiences. This time, facing an insurmountable deficit against the Red Wings the universe provided my house with a PS3 and Guitar Hero. Yes folks, the de-evolution of music hit soon after the Avalanche comeback fell short, and lasted until the wee hours of this morning.

The revolution will not be televised; it will be clicked into a miniature plastic guitar.

You’ll pardon me if my rockin’ prevents me from typing fast today. I think I may have carpal tunnel syndrome and a surprising respect for the works of Slayer.

Oh what to do…what to do about these Avalanche. The best team in the state can’t beat the best team from another country (Sweden).

This Red Wings dominance was not unexpected. They were the best team in the regular season, and they are the best team in the playoffs. Detroit never had a post-lockout swoon like the Avalanche did, and by the looks of it they may never have any kind of swoon any time soon.

Meanwhile the Avalanche are stuck in neutral.

In a series in which the Avs are hurt and penalized Detroit has made hockey look surprisingly easy. Analysts said that the European game would never play well on the small ice of North America…yet Team Sweden just keeps on rolling.

Does Detroit have a transfer agreement with Henrik Lundqvist set up for when the Rangers are finally eliminated?

At least T.J. Hensick got to play. The little engine that could…he needs to play more, and will.

I guess we can forget about re-igniting the rivalry. How unfortunate. Few events have drawn the common fan to hockey quite like a punch-up between the Wings and the Avs. These days the only punch-ups seem to come from the message board on Abel to Yzerman on Kukla’s Korner. That is the truly sad part. That two cities and states that despise one another won’t be going toe to toe on the front page of the ESPN’s of the world, relegated instead to idiotic faceless banter in the backwaters of the internet.

What to do…what to do…

At this point there is little to say about what the Avalanche are doing, and more about where they might be going. Is it possible for this mobile intensive care unit from Colorado to exit this series without losing even more of their future in the process? Can we just have that?

Oh for the days when this team was up and coming and the future was looking bright…and Paul Stastny still had both knees intact.

Maybe a sweep by the Red Wings might not be a bad thing after all. It would save the rest of us emotion that could be wasted elsewhere. Like impressing friends by ripping out “My Name is Jonas” on the plastic guitar:

“The building's not going as he planned.
The foreman has injured his hand.
The dozer will not clear a path.
The driver swears he learned his math.

The workers are going home…”