To me, a ‘typical Minnesota sports fan’ is someone who staunchly defends a hometown team no matter the circumstances.
And this is a TOTALLY different situation than the Gophers. The Gophers have been a DOORMAT my entire lifetime. They had a great season but even more so it’s about what direction the program is headed. The right direction.
Contrast that to the Wild, who have underachieved at almost every opportunity. Most recently brought in the best coach money could buy, and they still can’t put it together. Years and years of mediocrity even with the owner willing to spend. Excuse after excuse. No puck luck. Some other goalie got hot in the playoffs. Sure, the GM has a large chunk of blame. But so do the players especially when you can watch their lethargic attitude and play. State of Hockey………
Rather than define what the TMSF is, you’ve stated almost exactly what the TMSF is NOT.
The TMSF Manifesto:
1. The TMSF loathes the hometown team. Until, of course, they win it all, then the TMSF loved them all along. Until then NOTHING is good enough for the TMSF, because everything is a failure unless the team wins it ALL.
Win a tight game? Fail! They lost to that team last month. Make it to the playoffs? FAIL! They didn’t win the Cup. Sign the big free agent. FAIL. He wasn’t “good enough”, he got overpaid, he had a bad attitude, he didn’t hold his mouth right during faceoffs, etc.
2. The TMSF loves to complain about “underachieving”. Underachieving, of course, can only be defined as “not winning it all”. Because nothing else counts as a “real” achievement to the self-loathing TMSF.
Well, let’s take a look at the Wild and this “underachieving” myth. The Wild, before last season, made the playoffs 6 years running, which in those years automatically puts them in the TOP half of the league. 6 years of running playoff appearances makes the Wild second only to Detroit in the last quarter-century as far as consecutive playoff appearances, I believe. But this is “underachieving” to the TMSF.
But wait, there are more holes to poke in the “underachieving” myth. The Wild have produced this record with NO top 3 or even top 5 draft picks in a coon’s age. IF of course, the Wild even HAD an R1 pick at all in a given year, which due to terrible GM mismanagement, we did often didn’t. The Wild also have ZERO players who could be considered anywhere near the superstar status. In fact, if you think the Wild have has any player who qualifies for even MINOR star status since Gaborik or Burns departed, I’d love to hear who it is.
All the while, this “underachieving” Wild franchise that the TMSFers love to complain about have made the playoffs over and over again while teams like Edmonton who are loaded with #1 OA and top 3 OA picks sat on barstools and watched the playoff games.
In fact, by any measure, the Wild have overachieved. The problem is that in hockey the league rewards failure in order to encourage parity, so the Wild have suffered not from underachieving, but from overachieving and failing to follow the “suck your way to success” formula that worked so well for teams like the Blackhawks.
3. “Yeah, but… the Wild always lose in the first round. So they suck.”
See points 1 and 2 above. Hmmmm, losing in Round 1. Let’s see, who do we know who lost in R1 last year? Oh yes, the Caps and the Bolts, two teams absolutely loaded with superstar power. The two best teams in the freaking league. And yet the TMSF prattles on about the little ol’ Wild being underachievers…
The Gophers were the victims of the TMSFers who wanted to make the whole season about the last 3 games. See point #1. The TMSF, instead of praising the success and the change in direction of the team, says it’s just more of the same because the Gophers lost when it counted so where’s the success? The whole Gopher season to the TMSF is a failure.
Also, as an observation, the TMSFs seem to go to very few actual games or ever attend an open practice despite their claims to be able to sense things like “bad attitudes” and “locker room cancers”. It must somehow resonate through the TV.
Grouse
