Hello friends,
You may not know me, and I most definitely do not know you, but my name is Stace. I am resident of the warm and beautiful state that is California. I am a San Jose Sharks fan, mostly because I hate myself but then mostly because I love Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau. If you are unaware of the geography of my great state, San Jose is located in Northern California. I am, in actuality, a resident of Southern California, specifically, Orange County.
I moved to Orange County when I was five years old, and in that same year, the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim were born. Founded by the Walt Disney Company, the Mighty Ducks were seemingly perfect for someone like me (reminder I was a five year old), a huge fan of Disney, cartoons and of course, the Mighty Ducks film. The early 1990's was also home to some of the greatest merchandise the NHL had ever seen, especially from their newest expansion teams.
Ain’t she a beaut?
Anyway, the marketing of the Ducks was perfect for any kid who grew up during the 90’s, but eventually, 10 days after they had their inaugural game, Southern California residents did what they do best–lost interest and did not care anymore. The Ducks can be closely compared to a store bought tanning lotion: it seemed like a good idea at the time but now everything is orange and not even a million showers can take the shame away.
The Ducks are that red wine stain that you let set because you were too drunk to clean it and now you are going to spend the rest of your days pretending that it is not there.
Anaheim hockey is widely ignored in the hockey community because the hockey community is filled with mostly smart, beautiful people. They have been fighting to be relevant for the past 22 years and guess what? They still aren’t. They consistently sold out games for one year following their Stanley Cup run and even with being at the top of the Pacific Division three years in a row with an excellent home record, they can’t even crack the top 15 in attendance, in fact, even the seasons between their cup win and their division titles, they were in the bottom five in attendance.
The league has been picking on teams like your beloved Thrashers, the real Winnipeg Jets, the Stars, and the Panthers for having absymal attendance and Anaheim hasn’t even been able to get attention for that. Nobody cares. You may or may not be familiar, but Alfred Adler is one of the fathers of Psychology and Adlerian psychology was made famous because of his work in exploring birth order. Birth order can also be used to describe the National Hockey League.
For example, the Original Six is held to unreachable standards because they are the first born of the NHL, they are frequently used as The Example. A NHL team like the real Winnipeg Jets are treated like the youngest child because they are Bettman’s baby–they are frequently spoiled by the league and can get away with anything, including having poor attendance. The Ducks are the middle child of the NHL; they have trouble finding a place in the league because they don’t really fall anywhere, and frequently feel like they are squeezed out of a position of privilege and significance.
Typically, like most middle children tend to do, they feel as if the only way they can be noticed is by seeking out attention in a negative way. This is literally the only way the Anaheim Ducks can get attention.
The person who is most upset about the Anaheim Ducks being a completely irrelevant middle child is their color commentator, Brian Hayward. He’s known as being the biggest homer outside of Philadelphia. You’re probably not familiar with them because why would you ever watch an Anaheim broadcast? Anyway, he is a firm believer that The League is Against the Ducks and his less than brilliant ideologies has caused a severely simple minded fan base to hang on every single word that he says. It makes sense that Ducks fans would believe anything that Hayward says considering that when the Ducks aren’t playing, they are watching Fox News ’round the clock.
Now I wouldn’t say by any means that you need to worry about the Ducks. No matter how much they want to try and be the Kings, they aren’t nearly as dirty as them. Sure, they may spear your players in the nuts, squirt them with water, and break their sticks in the midst of a temper tantrum, but they rarely do any physical damage because they can’t back up their piss baby antics. They throw fits and completely fall apart at the seams, especially in the playoffs.
I know it may seem intimidating as they are one of the top teams in the league in terms of points, but it is all smoke and mirrors, my Atlanta friends. Their goaltending is extremely less than mediocre and their top defenseman is Cam Fowler. They have to score a lot of goals in order to win hockey games because they aren’t winning with their blue line and goalies, that’s for sure. All it takes is one questionable call against Anaheim and the game is yours.
The Ducks have slowly turned into the San Jose Sharks of playoff hockey. On top of the world for the regular season, only to experience sheer and utter disappointment in the postseason, except when they do it, nobody cares. Anaheim can’t even get attention for choking smh. Blow a three game lead, Anaheim, and then maybe someone will give a shit about you.
Thrashers in 5.
