Friday, October 24, 2014

All's Well That Ends Well

So, there I was... watching the Beloved Wings play the Hated Flightless Birds last evening with about four minutes left in the game and the Wings down, 3-1.  I was THIS close (imagine my thumb and forefinger about a millimeter apart) to switching off the teevee and doing something more interesting... like the dinner dishes... but I decide to hang in there.  Why?  I dunno.  But The Deity At Hand had plans; watch below.



SN1 rings me up after The Captain put it in the net with a lil over two minutes left to get the Wings within one.  "Well," sez I (speaking about the Zetterberg goal), "at least we'll go out on a minor high."  And then, wonder of wonders, Number 55 TIES the game with 39 seconds left, so it's off to OT we go.  You know the outcome if you watched the highlights above... Justin Abdelkader put it in the net with less than a minute left in OT for the win.

I would have been SERIOUSLY pissed if I'd read the score this morning after switching the game off.  Or, to put it another way: O, me of little faith!

8 comments:

  1. I know you like it, but I just can't get into hockey... sorry... :-)

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  2. LOL. I've almost done that to my beloved Tiger football team over the years when they pulled it out at LITERALLY the last second (e.g., google "The Bluegrass Miracle.") OTOH, about 50% of the time I wished I hadn't as they still went down to ignominious defeat, lol.

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    1. OTOH, about 50% of the time I wished I hadn't as they still went down to ignominious defeat, lol.

      That's usually the case with any hockey team that pulls its goalie to try and get even in the last minute or two. But when it works... wow!

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    2. Or for another one-second LSU win google "The Night The Clock Stopped" for LSU's win over Ole Miss in 1972 in Tiger Stadium (I was present that night, btw. Tho in grad school at SW Louisiana in Lafayette I snuck into the Press box, lol (A story all in itself)....well, hell, see below.

      HOW I GOT TO SEE FOOTBALL GAMES IN TIGER STADIUM FOR FREE 1971-1972

      When I left the Air Force and landed at Univ of Southwestern Louisiana 90mi from Baton Rouge I wondered how I was going to get to see my beloved Tigers play during football season as all games weren't televised like they are now and, as I was no longer a student, and season tickets sold out annually, even scalped tickets were hard to come by. SOooo...like any good ex-military guy, I devised a plan..

      It so happens that those years were the years when the student culture was changing and in flux(not to mention the nat. one) Whereas in the early 60s all students and adults wore a suit & tie to Tiger games and women their best dress,, the culture was changing to casual wear. The only people who wore suits were news/sports reporters and LSU Admin officials. So I devised a plan to blend in in order to sneak into the press box.

      First, I dressed in a suit, with a set of binocs hanging around my neck and carried a clip-board to fake the sports-writer bit. Then I would head to the check-in point where the sports reporters got their credentials. In those days Tiger stadium was a one-story oval seating 68, ooo before they added the upper deck slabs and the southern end-zone curved 2nd deck. It was a far simpler time. Usually two guys sat at a folding card table just outside the perimeter gate with a couple of shoe-boxes full of 3X5 cards used to verify reporters, and the double gates were hugely wide (to allow for trucks, etc.)

      What I would do is hang back until I saw a gaggle of around 10 or more reporters gathered around the officials and otherwise occupying their attention. I would sidle up to the back of the crowd as if to get my Press Pass, then slide to the side when attention was diverted and walk right by thru the gates and on up to the elevator door to the Press Box as if I belonged and up I would go. Once there where I sat depended. If the games were against teams that were not trad. opponents and from far away so that there was little fan interest (like, say, Wisc) there would be few out-of-town reporters and so I could sit right at the reporters desk row and watch the entire game from the 50 yard line! Of course when trad opponents like Ole Miss, Alabama or Auburn came calling the Press Box would be packed with legit reporters. What then? Well, PLAN B was to take the back stairs/fire-escape from the Press Box down the elevator tower to the point where it opened as a one-way door out onto the top rung of the stadium seats beneath the Press Box. All seats usually being occupied, I usually then sat on the top step underneath the Press Box on the 50 yard line. Again, a great vantage point even if the seating was a bit "hard." LOL I did this for every home game for two years!

      Special Note: On the night of the Ole-Miss-LSU "one second" game I arrived a little early., sooo, being early there was still room in the Press Box proper, so I thought I'd take in a bit of pre-game warm-ups, ceremonies, etc, before heading down-stairs and out into the stadium. Unfortunately, I had had too much to drink at the fraternity house before hand, so passed out face down. A security guard eventually tapped me on the shoulder and said' Nice try, son," and escorted me down and out of the stadium. Not to be deterred, however, I planned a "re-attack" in the best Air Force tradition by repeating my performance (what are the odds?) a second time only heading directly for the stadium exit door before anyone could detect me and thus was there to watch a very thrilling and historic last-second come-back win for my Bayou Bengals!

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  3. I didn't watch the game, but still. . . wasn't that just the most amazing thing you ever saw? I mean, scoring TWO goals with the goalie pulled, to go to OT, then scoring the winner 30 seconds before the penalties were set to commence? Who does that? Really?!?

    And doin' it to Cindy Crosby & the Pens. . . pure gold. . . I did hear a bit of the radio broadcast, while the crowd was chanting 'Crosby Sucks!"; one of the announcers was saying ". . . and the crowd is doing the 'Let's Go Red Wings' chant", and the other one says, "I, uh, don't think that's what they're chanting. . ."

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    1. but still. . . wasn't that just the most amazing thing you ever saw?

      In a word, yes. It took me one helluva long time to come down off THAT high! Yer point about Rosby and his crew is well-taken, as well. NO ONE in Dee-troit will ever forget 2009.

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