A Night to Forget

Pat is back for a recap of last night’s season opener. Let’s just say he is kinder than I would have been. Maybe it’s best to let him talk about it.

With all the hype, with all the emotion, with all the expectations the 2007-08 Cleveland Cavaliers barely showed up at Quicken Loans Arena last night. As the Wine and Gold opened their conference defense LeBron James opened up his fifth season a lot worse than he opened his first. The only bright spot in the game was Zydrunas Ilgauskas, who had 17 points and 18 rebounds.

With the town still abuzz about the resigning of swing man Sasha Pavlovic, the Wine and Gold proved that a lot of help was still needed. I heard an absurd assumption this morning on ESPN’s First Take by Skip Bayless. Bayless was saying that LeBron was no superstar, he brings down the Cavs team. What an idiot!!! As long as Cleveland has LeBron, they are a contender, however last night they were just bad. Why is it whenever an athlete has one bad game everyone wants to write them off? To quote Coach Herman Boone (Remember the Titans) “Let them play, let the boys play.” Don’t focus too long on this opening game Wine and Gold diehards.

Great game last night

Last night I watched a team with energy and hustle. I watched a team play good defense and attack every scoring opportunity. They played as a team and willed themselves to victory. Obviously I’m not talking about the Cavs, who were terrible. Pathetic even. And I’m not talking about the Mavericks, who simply played better than the Cavs. I’m talking about the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Now before you stop reading the article, let me say this. I am not a hockey fan. I have never been a hockey fan. I know nothing about the game. But I have watched a few games this year, and I have to say this Blue Jackets team is fun to watch. Last night they played the Kings, and won 4-1. I don’t think it was because they have that much better talent, but rather because they seemed to want to win more. And they played as a team. Each line contributed something last night, whether it was penalty killing or attacking the net. In fact, with only 5 minutes left in the game and the Jackets up 3-1 you would expect Columbus to stay in their zone and play defense to cling to the lead. This team was on the attack for a solid 2 or 3 minutes in that time.