Let Her Sing

Everyone already has the Penguins in the 2nd round.
The analysts have made their decrees.
The Penguins have it in their blogs.
Even the Philly papers have printed the obits.

It's over -- the results are in.
RIP - Flyers in Game 5
2009 Done.

In all honesty even I've given up (I never give up -- I'm a non-realist)
But this is just too much to handle.
Book it ladies and gentlemen.

And yet...

The Flyers haven't.

? Of course they say "Oh, we're still in this," and go through all the motions, when really, clearly, utterly you can already tell when a team knows they're done. But according to reports today at practice the Flyers were loose. The Flyers were confident. The Flyers were savoring the moment. Did they just stop caring? Are they insane?

?

I don't know what to make of it.

Maybe they are crazy. Maybe that's just what we need here in Flyerdom. This team has looked horrible, horrible, horrible before. They were losing 5-1 to Carolina early in the year and came out in the 3rd and my drunk ass was yelling "If you're gonna lose, rip someone's HEAD OFF" from the 200 level. But the Flyers didn't lose. They came out and won. It was insane. There's something about this team. You just can't keep them down. You just can't count them out. It got me thinking -- what's the point?

What's the point of giving up? What's the point of being a realist? What's the point of probabilities and statistics and numbers and words? This is the '09 Flyers team. This is the '09 Pens team. This series has never happened before. These two individual teams have never met in a best of seven. Throw everything out the window. And honestly -- who gives a fuck?

Let the Fat Lady Sing.

Let all the doubters, all the realists, all the normals come out and say their peace. This is our night. This is the '09 Flyers baby! We can lose 14-0 and I'm still gonna yell. I'm still gonna scream. I'm still gonna go nuts. So why not hold out hope?

Let the fat lady sing, I say.

We're going to stuff her mouth so full of high sticks, flying elbows, and Claude Giroux dangles it won't matter. We are going to Mike-Richards-destroy,
Simon-Gagne-snipe, and Carcillo bang that bitch until it doesn't matter. We're gonna skate, check and deke our fist right into her bloodied mouth over and over.

And maybe, just maybe, we shut her up just long enough to get to Monday night. We shut her up until Game 7. And maybe, just maybe, because, let's admit it, this is crazy, maybe it'll be OUR fat lady singing Monday night. Maybe Kate Smith's 'God Bless America' will rock apart the Wach for Game 6 and echo all the way into Monday night and it'll be the Penguins standing in there in utter shock.

It's delusional, it's a longshot, it's a snowball's chance in hell -- and call me crazy -- but I like our odds.