The Rant Was Due pt. 1

Cross-posted from a Twitter rant I did this morning while waiting at the eye doctor’s office.

This is part one of a #TheRantIsDue and #TheRantWasDue series of essays and, well, rants that needed to be said.

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The Penguins, despite the results and sometimes lopsided scores, have actually been playing – relatively – well and are due for a little luck and a win. They have been a woefully unlucky team and are due for a few breaks. I suspect tonight will be one of those nights where one or two bounces go the right way and they gut out a win. Maybe 4-2 or 3-2. Something like that. And they’ll do so with Crosby out which will feed a million disassociated narratives about his leadership and how the team should get rid of him. Correlation is not causation. Crosby being out != Penguins success (if/when they win).

It doesn’t excuse Crosby’s play. That has been abysmal. And not just by Crosby standards. But him being out and, God help us, the Pens winning a game will be a whole new nightmare of stupidity from an already shortsighted, incomprehensible fan base of dunces.

Johnston got canned. Scuderi got traded. Somehow Rutherford is the next scapegoat…but Crosby is right on the heels.

I said before that there is something fundamentally broken about this team and I can’t put my finger on it. I said that Johnston was definitely in over his head and he became intractable in his approach, which was ultimately his undoing, but he wasn’t a bad coach.

Shortsighted, easily manipulated assclappers, however, were quick to jump on the bandwagon of “Johnston is the woorrrsssstttttt” because the equally shitty media were pushing a narrative because it generates traffic.

I don’t even entirely disagree with Johnston getting the chop because it clearly had become an issue, but I don’t think anything is magically going to change because of a new bench boss. I said it under MJ, now I say it under MS – this is entirely on the players. They’re the fuck ups.

There were so many people who literally fell for the propaganda being shoved into their faces about Johnston and the team. It’s amazing how quickly people were led to believe things about MJ simply by ROOT Sports cutting to him after a goal or during a moment of contention. It’s not as though there was any type of editorializing being done there.

After Yohe made his report about Rutherford being unhappy with MJ and player usage, I said the reason that came out was entirely, 100% to provide context to dismiss a coach who had been relatively successful in a short stretch of time.

Certain propagandists and general douchebags have made it a point to die on the hill that it was Rutherford being a senile old man who is grossly unprofessional in saying this. And this is because it fits a narrative they want pushed because they didn’t like the hiring in the first place. And, in their eyes, it all leads back to David Morehouse. And that’s crafting a narrative to fit the ends you want to see.

MJ became a sacrificial lamb of sorts (I say of sorts because he wasn’t exactly doing the best in the job and it wasn’t a wholly undeserved firing) and now people are coming at Rutherford.

Maybe it begins with you. You need to see the thing you love for what it is instead of what you imagine it to be. Enjoy the thing you love because you love it, not because it’s the lost successful or prettiest thing.

You don’t love the Penguins or hockey. You love what the Penguins represent – status, prestige, success. They don’t meet those expectations and somehow you need to point a figure at an exact, precise thing for blame.

The Penguins are an underachieving team and there’s no easy fix. It is what it is. All you can do is hope to see things get better. If they don’t, that’s life. Ups and downs. Can’t win ’em all. Luck’s gotta run out some time.

And now, God help us all, if the Pens win without Crosby tonight, there will be no rest among the vocal rabbles in the fan base until Crosby has been traded or retires. He will shoot to number one with a bullet on the public enemy chart if they win without him.

And we’re seeing the groundwork again – Malkin being “ready to lead” type articles. Now we get a hundred think pieces on Crosby’s leadership (or lack thereof) and how Malkin should be wearing the C and blah blah.

It frightens me to see just how easily manipulated people are. And then I look at who is leading the Republican field for President and remind myself just how weak-willed, weak minded, shortsighted, and how severely lacking in critical thinking skills the average citizen is. There’s a reason Trump is leading and why his brand of fascism is succeeding.

It’s going to get worse before it gets better. Strap in, motherfuckers.