Naïve To Believe/Too Naïve To Believe?

I don’t need to explain what that picture is of. As long as you see one Bill Guerin celebrating over by Braydon Coburn, and the puck behind the line, I’m pretty sure you know when it was taken. Fortunately for you, you don’t have to read another statically in-depth look at last night’s lamentable (read: unfavorably abrupt) loss. Fortunately for me, I don’t have to write about it anymore after this paragraph. I don’t want to think about Game 2 anymore, and you shouldn’t either. Pretty much, I’ll be reffering to it, but not much more than that. I’m trying to look forward by looking back. Like adding by subtraction. (A.K.A.: Carcillo getting suspended, then putting an energized rookie with a chance to gain play-off experience in his place.)

If I was going to explain the series thus far to some one who hasn’t heard anything about it, but still understands hockey, I would just tell them that the Penguins lead it 2-0, and the next game is in Philadelphia (as is the one after that) at 3:00pm EST on NBC in HD, where available. That’s it, and nothing more. They don’t need to hear about the god-awful effort that was Game 1 or the heartbreaking OT loss that was last night. They only need to recognize that Flyers are back home at the Wach. for the next couple of nights and if the Flyers have any chance at all of moving on to face the ‘ins/’iens they need to win the next two contests at home. Sure, the Flyers could lose tomorrow night, and sure, they could comeback from a 3-0 Pittsburgh hole and move onto the second round, but both of those things are not likely, especially the latter.

All of which, brings me to the title of this very blog post. Some people would tell you it’s not stupid to think the Flyers could dig themselves out of this 2-0 hole and and end up winning the series. Even more people would tell you it’s foolish to believe the Flyers could come back to advance to round two. Which state of mind is right/better? It comes down to the eternal optimist vs. eternal pessimist. I’m not going to go all ‘American Psychological Association’ on you, but I can say the players mind-set and the fans mind-set have to be completely different, in most cases. Almost always, the fan in this situation will take the more negative road, not because they want to believe what they’re saying will happen, but because if they convince themselves of the worst possible outcome, they can’t be disappointed. And after the two games played so far, that doesn’t seem unreasonable. Both were big let-downs, but for two totally different reasons. One was lack of playing the all elusive “60 minutes of hockey”, the other, just lack of outcome.

The players mindset needs to be the positive one, because they still have to play. Both the fans and the players want the team to win.

Game 3 tomorrow.
Go. Flyers.