Bring on the Devils?

Here comes Brodeur and he's seeking to equal Patrick Roy's record tonight. In in the spirit of being totally pessimistic, I'll say that he's going to get it one way or another today. Probably the easy way. The irony that he will get it here in Montreal against the same team that Patrick Roy did most of his interesting stuff with, is well... ironic. He couldn't have been shooting for that record the other night or in their next game. No. It just had to be here and it had to be TONIGHT.

Read this here at Eyes on the Prize if you want to not feel totally awful when Brodeur gets that record...not that I'm really interested in defending Roy and his record or anything....

Anyway.....

Before the Battle

It was a bright and sunny day. Spring was in the air. Birds were tweeting. And the people were twittering too. But over the town of Habsland, it felt as though the darkest day of winter had just arrived. After a long battle away in which their headcoach had fallen, the troops had returned only to be confronted with another huge challenge. Awaiting them at the gates of their town was King Martin with his army known simply as "the Devils". They had come from the evil land of New Jersey where they did evil things like implement the horridly boring "trap system" into their battles. Tonight, they had come to make the lives of the poor townsfolk of Habsland miserable.

For you see, King Martin was considered to be "special". Over his long career he had downed many poor unsuspecting armies and everyone thought he was fantastic (well, everyone in the evil land of New Jersey anyway). But two records had always alluded him. One was the record for total decimation of aforementioned unsuspecting people in which they were, well, totally decimated without putting up a fight. And the second was the all time of smashing people who did sort of put up a fight.

That second record belonged to Saint Patrick who really wasn't a saint, but saints are never saints anyway. Every child in Habsland knew that Saint Patrick was great (except for the ones who thought he was a moron for running away to the mountain region called Denver where the lost people of the Quebec Nordique had relocated). He had won many very important battles for the Habs. He had brought them their last huge triumph. He may have had a mixed legacy with the Habs but at the end of the day, he was still one of them. And now big bad King Martin was here to take that record away. He was here to take all the glory and cool stuff for himself.

The battle weary Habs could only stare at the army waiting for them in despair. Since their coach had fallen, King Bob had taken over. With him, Bob had brought with him some foreigner named Don Lever who spoke in some alien language called English. Nobody knew anything about the guy and nobody wanted to know about him either. But anyway... King Bob was nothing like Coach Carbo and the troops were still in slight disarray as they tried to adjust to the new battle plans. But could they really stave off the inevitable? Could King Bob really make his troops do what seemed like the impossible?

That question that was on the minds of the people of Habsland. Could their troops really stand up to King Martin and the Devils? Thrice already they had been beaten down by King Martin's armies this year. And that was when Protector Clemmensen of the Land Where People Have Too Many Consonants in Their Names was in charge. Now that the real king was back, could the Habs really beat him?

Hope was not exactly restored when the people of Habsland got word that their king was going to put Sir Halak the Slovak into the action tonight instead of Prince Price. Nor were they happy to hear that the aging knight Breezer was going to be flung into the fray as well instead of Squire O'Byrne. So they were saving Prince Price from total humiliation at best and total destruction at worst, and were sending in Sir Halak as sacrifice material? How could they do that? The people cried out. Sir Halak had arrived from a far flung land but he had been embraced by the people as one of their own. He was a Hab! How could they just send him off to his doom like that? The Devils would take him and sacrifice him to their gods for sure! At least he could die knowing that he had done the right thing for the people of Habsland.

As for Sir Breezer, well, at least he could die knowing that he had lived through a 1000 battles. It was high time for Sir Breezer to do the honorable thing which was to go off and die while grabbing a pile glory on the way out. Squire O'Byrne would be a suitable replacement when that time came.

The people of Habsland wrung their lands and waited.... They trusted Bob, but they didn't necessarily trust their troops to deliver them from the depths of despair. All they could do was wait... And pray to the gods of the powerplay... and the gods of defense.... and the gods of goal scoring.... and the gods of just about everything else....

(blame Number31 for this one. She started it!)