The Air is Thin in Colorado

While Rockit and I were sitting in Panera’s yesterday, working on my new computer and designing a new blogspot page for me (Ok, he was working, I was drinking coffee looking over his shoulder), the topic of air quality in Denver and how it effects the players came up. (Is it "A"ffect or "E"ffect? I never get that one right!) Remembering all the games that I watched Blake spend a good amount of time doubled over, pale and panting made me wonder if HE just had a harder time adjusting (you know, ‘cause he is so much lower to the ground than everyone else.) or if it is more of a universal problem. I had posed the question earlier in the day to one of my media contacts and received just a one word answer. “Yes.” Since I actually had three questions in my email, one of which was ‘Am I over thinking things again?’, I figured it was just me reading into things too much once more.

Imagine my surprise when Deb Kaufman’s first intermission interview with Bruno Gervais related to ... How the altitude effected the team. I guess I wasn’t the only one wondering. During her next segment Deb went into red blood cell count and the need for water. This was far too much of a science lesson for me, so I continued to search the net while I watched the game from the comfort of my couch. There I found Corey Witt’s entry for the day in his NYI Media Blog with his second paragraph beginning with the sentence “The big talk of the morning skate was the altitude…”

AH HA!!!! So my attention to detail is correct! However one word responses can always be misconstrued, as it was, and I am vindicated.

Ricky and his bright white pads squeezed out one point but couldn’t capture the other. Sean had some great opportunities, but still remains with just that single goal on his stats. Jackman has a point for himself as the Islanders only goal scorer of the evening. And lastly, Jiggs calling the game just sounded so sweet. By the time B.A.M had returned from his higher calling at the Fire Department, they were already in the second period. He sat working with his laptop but listening to the game.

“No one calls a game like Jiggs. You don’t even have to watch. Everything is clear when he calls it. He was always the best. I miss him.” He thought for a moment. “Who’s missing?”

“Howie.” I told him. He obviously wasn’t looking at the TV because you could SEE Jiggs with Jaffe.

“I wish they could keep him. He’s the best there is.” And he’s right, as usual.

Ryan Smyth played “keep-away” with the media before last night’s game even basically dodging our own workhorse of a beat reporter. Certainly the questions that remain are hard, and the answers for the Islander faithful would be hard to swallow, but I look at it this way…. All Ryan’s answers were presented when he did his post game interview show with King and Mears in Dolan’s pub all those months ago. You can probably still catch it on ITV and see for yourself. The body language was unmistakable. While the crowd chanted wildly “Come Back Next YEAR!”, Ryan could not look at the crowd. Instead, he clutched his two children sitting on his lap as if it were a hostage situation and he was using them as human shields.

For him, I’m pretty sure it felt like a hostage situation. Edmonton, the place he loved and thought they loved him, had shipped him off unceremoniously. Unbefitting a play-through-anything hockey player, he wept openly for the cameras upon his airport departure. He did manage to pull himself together and be the professional he is throughout the balance of his tenure on the Island. But you could see it in his eyes and his face; he had only one thought ... Sticking it to Edmonton any way he possibly could. The Islanders were never part of his game plan, no matter how large a part he was in Garth’s game plan.

Sometimes you gamble and lose, but you have to be willing to take that gamble in the first place. I give Garth credit for that. Leave Smyth alone, his brief stay here will be just a footnote in Islander history. We’ve got bigger fish to fry. Problem is they may take a few years to cook.