Commenter Rocket writes about hockey in an ill-fated attempt to counter-attack how much we write about basketball. It's a nice gesture, and we appreciate it. Rocket? ------
On Feb. 5, 2011 Scott Gomez scored his last goal of the 2010-11 season. On Thursday, Feb. 9, 2012 Scott Gomez scored his first goal of the 2011-12 season.
This has been a terrible year for the Montreal Canadiens, full of bad play, chronic infighting, and strange personnel moves which (hopefully) reached its ugliest point when the city seemed to lose its collective mind over the fact that the interim coach hired to just keep a lid on the mess is currently unable to speak French. Gomez has been part of the problem. Although a productive player during his lengthy NHL career (netting 30+ goals twice and 80+ points once), he was nowhere near the type of player that should be earning the around $7.5 million the Rangers gave him through 2014 in 2007. When he was traded to the Canadiens in 2009 he went from one hockey frying pan straight into the biggest hockey fire. As one might imagine, the often-less-than-rational fanbase didn't take kindly to the year long drought.
(Above: Scott Gomez wearily preparing to flee from another Montreal mob) Clearly it became more of a mental issue than a physical issue at some point. A player of Gomez's talent should not go one full calendar year without netting one. While it's hard not to feel at least a little bad for Gomez (or, at least as bad as one can feel for a guy who still has two years at $7.5 mill per) one still can't help but noticing a number of things that occurred between Scott Gomez goals. For instance: -- In February of 2011 most folks thought a season of Donovan McNabb in purple was a pretty good idea. -- I honestly wish I was making this up, but at the beginning of Gomez's drought Donald Trump was the leading Republican presidential candidate -- I had no idea that I would spend so much time, writing about one particular goalie -- During that year, President Obama finally released his long form birth certificate, finally proving once and for all that he was born in Kenya. (Kidding!) -- The Marth taught us a few things about life, love, and how to treat women -- For the first time in the history of ever, somebody from Texas did something that the rest of the country could appreciate. -- Justin Bieber went from fresh faced Canadian heart-throb with an asinine haircut to cold hearted lothario who loves 'em and leaves 'em (facts be darned, this is how I choose to remember it and I won't be convinced otherwise) -- Whereas in February of 2011 RandBall was secretly cursing and publicly laughing off yet another ill fated "The Timberwolves will be better than you think" post, in February of 2012 he is in the midst of crafting a 30,000 word missive on how we can all shut our collective cake holes and if Clarence ever makes another smoke detector battery joke ever again he's going to ban him so fast he won't know what hit him or who sent the pipe bomb. Here is the challenge to you, fellow RandBallaholics. Remind me and the other readers of what happened between the Scott Gomez goals. Keep it clean and let's come out fighting!
