Can we please calm down?

Look. I know that the last 36 hours have been insane for all of us crazies. It's enough to make anyone's head explode. Including mine. But can we please just take a pill and chill out?

This is precisely why people think we're an insane bunch of whackos here. Because we go over board at the slightest bit of news. Everything little thing gets blown up into a huge news item when it really isn't.

O'Byrne and Sergei Kostitsyn get sent back to Hamilton? Time to freak out because O'Byrne totally does not deserve to go back to Hamilton this time around even if we were all screaming for his head earlier in the year. And clearly Sergei has been partying too much and doesn't listen at all to anyone so that's why he's out of here.

Schneider gets traded to Montreal? Time to complain because what's this guy who's a gazillion years old and has a huge contract going to do?

Unflattering pictures of a certain goalie that are a YEAR old? Time to moan and crab because he is SO clearly walking around the streets drunk now and that's why he's not performing well.

Kovalev stays home? Major freak out time. He's going to be traded. His days with the Habs are finished. He's clearly the source of all of our woes. Axing Kovy is like, da best thing eva!

This all must mean that there's no discipline going on whatsoever and it's all the Europeans fault! And the goalies suck too! And Gainey clearly has no clue what he's doing! Run for the hills! Man the life boats! It's the end of the world!

........Come on............

O'Byrne and Sergei went down because they're two of the few guys who could be sent down. Sergei has not been playing very stellar hockey lately so in all honesty and if it had to come down to either him or D'Agostini, I'd keep D'Agostini right now. I don't know anything about his personal life so I refuse to comment one or the other on the partying issue.

I'm also reserving judgment on Schneider until after he plays a few games. I'm not a huge fan of the idea of getting another ancient player with a huge contract but we'll see what he can do. Maybe he'll be the best thing to get this powerplay back on track. Maybe not.

You know my feelings about Price.

I really doubt that Kovalev is the sole source of all of this mess. It remains to be seen what the Habs will do next.

And you know how I feel about the whole European thing.

In all honesty, it's a real wonder that anyone wants to work for this organization at all. I can't blame guys for wanting to play somewhere else because they know that if they come here everything they do will be looked at, picked apart, analyized and scrutinized to death and then spun into some major and devastating story.

I'm not saying that what hasn't happened isn't news. Yeah. It's news. But everyone is taking this and turning it into something huge thing while adding their own spin to it. I'm not saying "don't talk about all of this" either, I'm saying stop fueling all the spin out there. It's not fair to the players and people involved. The upsetting bit is people claim to care about the team and yet at the first sign of something going wrong they freak out and jump on the next bandwagon that comes along. First it was the "powerplay sucks and that's why the Habs suck" bandwagon, then it was the "Kovalev can't score and that's why the Habs suck" bandwagon, next came the "Blame the Euros because they obviously suck" bandwagon which was followed by the "The goalies suck and Price parties too much" bandwagon. And that's leaving out the trade rumors bandwagon which rolls around quite frequently. Enough is enough.

There's only so far that we can blame the media because the media is only doing their job: They're giving people what they want. It's just really sad that what everyone wants to hear is a bunch of unfounded rumors and bits of news spun so out of control that it's not even funny.

There's really no need to go nuts. Have fun, discuss it, but please don't treat this like the future of world peace depends on the outcome.

Now if you all excuse me, I'm off to find out why Roger Federer has gone MIA......my tennis happiness depends entirely on his success this year *g*