So, my novella, Fifteen Shots, is now available for the Barnes & Noble NOOK. No foolin’. Click here.
(I know I could just write “Nook,” but Barnes & Noble always lists it as “NOOK,” so I usually always go along with that. Just like the exclamation point in “Yahoo!” The actions of a journalist, an editor or someone with random occurrences of extremely mild OCD? Perhaps all three.)
If you’re wondering why I didn’t make the e-book available on the other major book reader earlier, well, once I fought through the tedious process of formatting the book for the Kindle, I didn’t feel like doing that sort of thing all over again. Little did I know about Calibre, which made the conversion process easy. I mean, embarrassingly easy. Like, “I can’t believe how easy that was, why didn’t you do that earlier, you ignorant, lazy fool?” sort of easy.
So, I guess it boils down to laziness. Sorry. Lesson learned. But the book is there now! And still just $2.99!
Pittsburgh Penguins vs. Washington Capitals, Mellon Arena, Pittsburgh – 11/22/2005
The very first Crosby vs. Ovechkin game. There was a lot of hype, of course. It was obvious that greatness was already in reach for both of these guys. But even more importantly at the time, everybody WANTED them to be great. You couldn’t get much more anticipation for a regular season hockey game, and justifiably so.
The Pens have a program called Student Rush, where your student ID gets you a decent ticket at a reasonable price. ($25 now, but I believe it was $20 at the time.) The Penguins don’t need to do this — especially now, when every game sells out — but they keep doing it anyway, even though fewer tickets are available these days. Why? Well, the Pens are a class organization. But that’s not all. Student Rush is a great idea, because it continues to build a fan base. Young folks, some who have never been to a hockey game before, get to see sold-out games for cheap. You may lose a few bucks on ticket prices, but you might be adding new fans for life. And it adds to the game atmosphere. Because, hey, you know those college kids. Not afraid to get loud and rowdy. It’s really a great idea, and I don’t understand why more teams don’t have similar programs.
Student Rush. That was the path we took that night. It was just me and my friend, Allan. The line was long and the air was cold, but the tickets were cheap. Crosby and Ovechkin waited inside. And the rest of the Pens and Caps, of course. Those Pens included some guy named Lemieux. And…Ziggy Palffy! Sergei Gonchar! John LeClair, who could hardly skate at that point! Steve Poapst! LASSE PIRJETA!
So, we waited in line. And waited. And it was colder than we thought. I was just wearing my Lemieux jersey over a t-shirt, and after a while, that just wasn’t cutting it. God, it was freezing. We were out there for at least an hour, probably longer.
Finally, the line started moving. It was a very long line, and they could have run out of tickets at any second, but we had faith, and hey, we had waited too long to leave. We got closer. And closer. The gate was in sight. That’s when it happened.
It wasn’t quite what you’d see in a cartoon, with the two of us bounding happily to the ticket window, only to see a metal SOLD OUT gate slammed in our faces. But it wasn’t far off. We were only a few people away from the final tickets to be sold that night.
So, that was it. The game had already started. But we weren’t about to get this far and not get in. A quick decision was made: Find a scalper and pay up. We found a guy with $75 tickets. Pretty good seats. The game had already started by now, so it wasn’t tough to talk him down. I think we got to $60 or so (could have been less), and we were finally in. Ah, the (relative) waiting warmth of Mellon Arena.
By the time we got to our seats, it was 4-0 Pens, and getting near the end of the first period. I knew we’d be lucky to see another Pens goal. (We saw one, from Palffy, with Crosby picking up an assist.)
The Caps came back, but ended up falling short, 5-4. I don’t remember much about Crosby from the game, other than getting ready to catch my breath every time he touched the puck. The Kid was great. We all knew it.
Ovechkin, however, was the most noticeable player on the ice. I didn’t say he was the best player on the ice, though. He was out of control. Whereas Crosby seemed to take the game in stride, you could tell Ovechkin knew the hockey world was watching that night, so he cranked it up. He was trying to stick handle through three guys at once, throwing his body around, taking wild shots. I specifically remember a whiff and a wipe out at some point from Ovechkin, much to the delight of the crowd. He was TOO amped up.
It didn’t help that the crowd was already booing him every time he touched the puck. The booing got louder as the game went on, though, and that had everything to do with Ovechkin playing like he was on speed. He single-handedly wanted to bring his team back that night. He wanted to be the star of the show. He and the crowd pushed each other all game long.
In the end, it wasn’t enough. I wonder if that night showed me something about Ovechkin that I didn’t realize at the time. His blessing is his curse. Yes, he’ll usually be the most noticeable player on the ice, and he can always wow you with his ability. But maybe, he still doesn’t know when to let off the gas a little bit, when to make the smarter play, when to make the right pass, or how to let his talent work in more subtle ways.
When you show a hockey fan Ovechkin and Crosby for the first time, all team biases aside, chances are, that fan will gravitate toward Ovechkin. (Casual fans or non-hockey fans will likely choose Ovechkin by a wide margin, I’m assuming. At least, Ovechkin circa 2005-2009. But that’s a point for another time.) But during the course of a few more games, or a season — maybe during the course of a career — that’s when you really notice the genius of Crosby.
Now, it’s not like Crosby’s a boring player. Nothing could be further from the truth. He’s the best. He’s got oodles of sick plays in his oeuvre, but his skating style is strong and smooth. Ovechkin is wild and choppy, like all of his energy is going to burst right through his skin.
Ovechkin took the third star that night, with one assist. With one goal and one assist, Crosby got the first star. (Though Ziggy Palffy probably should have gotten the first star that night, with two goals and one assist.)
I never got a program when I walked through the door, but as I was leaving the arena that night, I saw one on the floor. The cover was ripped and partially stained.
“Are you sure you want to keep that?” Allan asked me.
Of the most excellent people who have bought my novella for the Amazon Kindle thus far — still for sale, very cheap! — a few have asked about the book cover. The most common question being: “Who designed the cover?” Well, it was me.
I’m no Chip Kidd or anything, but I think it’s decent enough. It works for a literary novella. At the very least, it doesn’t strike me as hopelessly amateurish or cheesy, like most self-published books I’ve seen. It’s simple, but it’s clean. For someone who isn’t a graphic designer by trade, I decided that trying to do too much would be a big mistake.
The main image was in my head for a while. Two teenage girls are at the center of the action in Fifteen Shots. Something happens which alters their lives greatly. That’s all I need to say, right? I could say more, but you’d be better off just reading the book.
First, I hand-cut the girl’s figure into a piece of cardboard. I wanted the cover image to appear feminine, of course, and somewhat fragile, but I also wanted an element of toughness. My first thought was to fill the cutout with black pepper. But after scattering some pepper across a sheet of white paper, it was clear that wouldn’t give me the effect I wanted. It was too fine. I wanted fragility, yes, but not someone who would be completely decimated by a light breeze. After rooting around in my cupboards, I found the answer. Black sugar. I filled in the cutout with black sugar, then scattered the “top half” grains across the paper in various patterns until I found an image that struck me just right.
After that, it was photo time. I’m not a professional photographer, so I can’t tell you exactly what I was doing, nor did I really know at the time. I took a bunch of pictures of my black sugar figure and picked the best one. I popped that shot into a photo editing program and messed with the color, shading, and so on.
Finally, it was text time. Again, the credo was “simple and clean.” Oh, and professional. The very least I could do was pick a good-looking font. I went through every font in the photo editing program — most of them looked awful — until I finally convinced myself that I chose wisely. If I were to nitpick the cover today, I’d probably question the text. But I’d rather not drive myself crazy. It’s fine.
And there it was. It’s all in the eye of the beholder, of course. It’s quite possible that to others, the cover looks as cheap as I feared. But for me, it works. Maybe I can get Kidd to do the next one.
“I feel the pain of everyone. And then I feel nothing.”
- Dinosaur Jr., “Feel The Pain”
I didn’t write much about the Steelers this season, though there was plenty to write about. And I certainly haven’t written anything since the Super Bowl.
Your favorite team losing the Super Bowl … it’s a strange feeling. It took me a few days to get over it. Different moments played back in my mind. The penalties. The turnovers. So many what-ifs.
But what-ifs are just that. Sports fans grow old with their what-ifs. They hold onto them for their entire lives.
“What if he caught that ball?”
“What if he makes that tackle?”
This line of thinking quickly gets you to the “if only” stage. “If only he would have caught that ball … we probably would have won.”
But in the end, the what-ifs and if-onlys only matter in our minds. The record books will read Green Bay 31 – Pittsburgh 25. And yes, I winced a bit when I wrote that.
That being said, right after the Super Bowl … I was OK. I was almost too OK for someone whose team just lost the Super Bowl. The Steelers had a great year. They were beaten by a better team, or at least, a team that was better on that final day. I don’t subscribe to the view of many NFL fans — that fans of 31 teams have virtually no reason to feel good about the season. After everything the Steelers went through this past season … if you tell me they have one last drive to win the Super Bowl, in the last two minutes? Again? Somehow? With that O-line? I take it every time.
Yeah, I was OK. But not great. Far from it. I didn’t get much sleep that night. I kept thinking about all the mistakes. The missed 52-yard field goal. The interception for a TD. Keyaron Fox’s asinine penalty. And most of all, Mendenhall’s fumble. The momentum had turned at that point. The Steeler running game was starting to look unstoppable. The Steeler fans in the crowd started to believe. You could hear the “Here We Go” chant fill Jerry Jones Stadium. And then…
So why wasn’t I depressed for weeks, or longer? Two main factors, as best as I can tell, and both are fairly obvious.
***
1. A recent championship.
Bill Simmons writes about a five-year “grace period” after your team wins a championship. No complaining. I don’t know if there’s an actual time limit for it, but that period does exist. It’s probably different for everyone. As a fan, you know the players should want to win it all every year. But you also know that’s not a realistic expectation. And it’s a bit greedy. (Yankee fans cannot comprehend these last two sentences.)
The Steelers have won two Super Bowls in the past six years. Throw in all the Roethlisberger stuff, and no one other than Steeler fans wanted to see them win a third in that time frame. (And you know what? That was fine with us.)
Same reason why the Penguins’ exit to Montreal wasn’t nearly as painful as it should have been. If we did feel like crying, we still had the Stanley Cup waiting to collect our tears.
I don’t, however, think this extends to other sports teams in the same city. Non-Pittsburgh fans tell me the Pirates are our penance for all the winning. I disagree. Because as things stand now, the Pirates have no chance to compete for a championship. Every baseball season is a guaranteed L. The Steelers and the Pens could both have poor years, and the Pirates would not be lifting our spirits. Call me greedy, but I just want the Bucs to have a fighting chance.
And what about the people who are just Pirate fans, or the folks who are Pirate fans above all? Whither fellow one-time Beaver County Times sports correspondent, Doc Emrick?
2. Age.
Again, obvious. As you get older, it’s not necessarily that you care about sports less … it’s that you start to care (and worry) about other things more. Family. Career. House. Money. Et cetera. My nonna always said she never understood why people cared so much about their favorite teams. After all, “They don’t care about you.”
Maybe this is an Italian thing. Chazz Palminteri’s character said the same thing about Mickey Mantle in “A Bronx Tale.”
All right, here’s one more…
3. Expectations.
It’s human nature. If you don’t expect much, you’re happier with each extra game. If you expect the world, you can end up fearing defeat more than you’re anticipating victory.
Even though Pats fans were spoiled from three recent championships, those titles couldn’t have been much consolation after the Super Bowl loss against the Giants.
***
I’m one of those people who believes that sports fans connect with each other — and their teams — more through losing than through winning. Anyone can support a winner. The pain binds us. And after all, losing allows you to play the what-if game. Conversations about winning teams often turn into:
“That was awesome, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, they were a great team.”
“Yeah.”
It’s easy for me to say, of course, because my teams have won titles. I live in Buffalo, and trust me, these folks don’t want to hear that. And why would they? Buffalo fans don’t want to hear about my pain. They’ve got more than enough of their own. They treat me like I’m some young, bright-eyed man who fancies himself a real blues singer. And I just walked into the oldest, smokiest, bluesiest club in town.
“The blues? What do you know about the blues?”
But I will press on. The following are my most painful moments as a sports fan — one for each Pittsburgh sports team. These are dictated by my own personal feelings. Yours might differ drastically. Nevertheless, Pittsburgh fans … prepare for heartbreak.
Steelers
The Steeler list would be the longest. Not because I care about the Steelers so much more than the other teams — it’s just the nature of football. There are relatively few games, so the moments always feel that much more important. This is especially true with the Steelers, who, despite their success, often seem incapable of winning (or losing) a game handily.
Non-playoff moments are immediately out. Neil O’Donnell’s second interception in Super Bowl XXX would be a great candidate, but I was 13 years old at the time, and my memories of that game are a bit hazy. Thankfully.
That leaves us with a number of brutal playoff losses, most of them home AFC championship games. The one that hit me hardest — and I think this will be a popular choice among Steeler fans — is the 2001-02 loss to the Patriots.
Unlike the 2004-05 loss to the Pats, I felt like the Steelers were the superior team in ’01-’02. The Pats took an early lead on a Troy Brown punt return TD. Drew Bledsoe then took over for an injured Tom Brady, and promptly threw a TD. It was 14-3 at the half and we had to listen to Sheryl Crow sing “Soak Up The Sun” live. Nobody was in the mood for that.
Especially me. I was watching the game with my girlfriend at the time, who was from Massachusetts. That wasn’t the issue, though. She claimed to be a Patriots fan, but she wasn’t really. As I watched the first half in horror, it became clear that she’d rather see the Steelers win, because it was causing me such grief. Most people — myself included — thought that it would be the Steelers and the Rams.
Still in a state of disbelief, I slowly began to pull out of it. The Steelers were setting up for a gimme field goal, which would at least cut the deficit to one score.
The moment:
Kris Brown’s field goal attempt was blocked. It was recovered by Troy Brown — who else? — who lateraled to some guy (Antwan Harris), who ran it back for a touchdown. 21-3. If I was still in the state of denial as the ball was snapped, I went through the rest of the grief stages in the time it took to score that touchdown. The internet has spared me … I can’t find a video clip.
It was over. On a blocked field goal return, of all things. The second spectacular special teams failure in the game. (The Pats only scored one offensive touchdown in the game, a 24-17 final.) There was of course, a comeback, because these are the Steelers. But the inevitable Kordell Stewart interceptions notwithstanding, the blocked field goal was the true killer. And a lesson. Nothing is guaranteed. Especially in the NFL.
Pirates
The moment:
Duh. Francisco Cabrera. Sid Bream. I was 10 years old. And I haven’t seen a Pirate playoff game since.
Sid Bream never gets any faster, does he? If Bonds’ throw is accurate, he’s out by 10 feet.
But as bad as that was, the moment is much worse in hindsight because of what’s happened to Pirate baseball since. We couldn’t have known then what would happen in the following decades.
It still doesn’t compare to my most painful moment of being a Pittsburgh sports fan.
Penguins
A number of possibilities exist, from the David Volek OT goal to Tom Fitzgerald’s slapshot from Polish Hill. (That Eastern Conference Finals against the Panthers will probably always be the most frustrating series to me. What if the Panthers weren’t allowed to hold onto Lemieux and Jagr for seven straight games? Someone needs to make a “History Will Be Made” parody for that.) But nothing compares to…
It was the 1998-99 season. The Penguins were bankrupt. Relocation rumors were swirling. The future of the team in Pittsburgh was completely uncertain. There was a chance the playoff run was only delaying the inevitable.
The run wasn’t long, but it was memorable. The Pens were the eighth seed. Not a great squad, but they had the league MVP, and the world’s best player. Jaromir Jagr put the team on his back and the Pens defeated top-seeded New Jersey in seven games. This series is exhibit A when someone tries to tell you Jagr’s not a winner, or that he’s not clutch. His heroics in game six of that series — tying the game late, then winning it in overtime — are legendary.
Jags and the boys chugged along admirably, until they found themselves in an elimination game. Game six, at home against the Leafs. Enter former nondescript Penguin Garry Valk.
The moment:
Valk’s OT goal to eliminate the Pens in the 1998-99 Eastern Conference Semifinals was the goal that really could have ended a franchise. It could have been the last on-ice moment in Penguins history. No other loss could top the feeling of what could have been the last loss. Ever. I felt like crying, but I couldn’t. I was just numb. Completely numb.
I don’t know how I, or anyone, would choose to watch their favorite team play its last game. There’s no good way, really. But Garry Valk? In sudden death? Please. Not like this.
I have an excellent memory. But somehow, I’d completely forgotten what Valk’s goal looked like. I haven’t watched a replay in years. But this is all about embracing the pain. I know what I’ve got to do.
I don’t know how hundreds of Pittsburghers weren’t arrested for pummeling the Leaf fans that night. They either exhibited an amazing amount of self-control, or they were just as numb as I was.
***
When it comes to sports, the worst losses make the great wins feel even better. It’s true. To my Buffalo friends, I know that sounds like something people say to make you feel better. But for now, you’re just going to have trust me on this one.
