Run It Back

Games like tonight afford journalists the opportunity to over-hype. Brief, spine-tingling inducing quips like "do or die", "fight or flight", or, "now or never" litter the headlines. It's the garage sale of pump-up. It's also very apt. Tonight at 9:00 pm, the Red Army will play the Shockers. The winner of the game caps off three hardworking months of the year with a championship. The loser joins seven other teams on a list of clubs that ultimately failed in their quest for glory.

Oh, was that more than three words?

For the Red Army, they've created and established a culture of winning. In their first championship, they wowed everyone with a miracle run to the finals and an even more impressive sweep of the #1 ranked Puck Ewes. The following season they proved many doubters wrong when they repeated as champions despite a shaky season. This season they squeaked by into the finals again and find themselves three periods of hockey away from a third banner. At a certain point, one which could occur tonight, even the most skeptical of critics would have to have the enlightening epiphany that, "Hey, these guys aren't lucky...they're good."

But let's not focus on championships, parades, and parties. Let's focus on what the Comrades have seemed so intently focused on the past three seasons: not being eliminated. Let me hit you with some knowledge. In the past three seasons, the Red Army has faced elimination nine times. Their record in those nine games? 9-0. The Cryptic Stench have had the most opportunities with three, but lost all three games by slim margins (two were one goal affairs). The Shockers and Grenades have each had a pair of chances to knock off the Soviets but failed as well. The other two teams, Hogstachio Pistachio and Prestige Worldwide, also had a crack at the Russians in the playoffs, but, and stop me if you've heard this before, both fell short by one goal. What more can you say? These guys have a severe allergy to death.

Of course, we're not going to pump too much air into the Soviet tires because for all we know, tonight could be the let down. The Shockers could exorcise past demons and annihilate the Red Army 25-3. Fans, coaches, and players alike could chalk it up to the aggregate fatigue that accumulates from playing so many games over the course of a year, and they could still hold their heads high and raise their glasses even higher, laughing as they toast each other, saying things like, "Well, the run was nice, but we can't win 'em all." Because you can't.

But this team, the team that is on the verge of making it three consecutive championship seasons, doesn't get to chalk anything up. They don't get to because they've shown everyone what they're capable of doing, and anything less than a win tonight is a failure. It is do or die. It is now or never.

Tonight, it is time to run it back.