Our Season Is Over: A gallery of sad pet faces

We’ve all felt a little sad since Wednesday night.

Our food doesn’t interest us, after Wednesday night. Our favourite toys don’t do much for us, either.

Lethargy and hollow hearts seem to be the order of the day.

Why all the sadness and ennui? Alas, our beloved Detroit Red Wings left the Stanley Cup Playoffs after an OT Game 7 goal. To Chicago, of all teams.

It’s a small thing, really, in the grand play of the world, but sometimes it’s nice to have little things to fuss over, in a way. Preparing to watch the game last night, I realized that it has been nearly seven months since Grandpa passed away. He loved the Wings, too; sometimes I was able to pop over to his place and we’d enjoy a game together. We even talked about the Wings during our last conversation, which will seem banal to a lot of you, I’m sure. I don’t care for many sports—there are really just two for me, but I’m passionate about both—and hockey is one of them. Seems I was born to it, eh?

I got a little choked up thinking how proud Grandpa would have been of the Wings this year—losing so many big players to retirement or injury, bringing up a bunch of new kids, and a rocky season—to see them in a Game 7 against the number one team in the league, the underdog Wings (not a common phrase!) forcing Chicago to play 7 hard-fought games when all of the pundits insisted the Wings would be swept (HA! Not a chance). He’d have been tickled! And loss or no, the Wings played a terrific game last night. I’m proud (not that it matters, I don’t know any of the players!), and Grandpa would have been, too.

Well, after ejecting a few angry colourful metaphors after the OT loss. (He was a Navy man, after all!)

“Blue language?!”

The pets can’t cuss (or I’d wash their mouths out with Sriracha). They can only look sad and overburdened.

Buckley can’t believe we lost. In Game 7. In OT! Oh, the agony of defeat!

This year’s playoff run was quite exciting, and we enjoyed it all the way through.

No matter what Ben’s face tells you The Morning After. And the Morning After That.

I truly hate it when the hockey season ends for my team, but of course still love them and am looking forward to next year in a big way (as always—I was raised on hockey, particularly Red Wings hockey—heck, I share my birthday with the great Gordie Howe! You expect differently?). We have some excellent young players on the roster and moving up in the ranks (Nyquist and Brunner, wow!), and some of the fellows who’ve been around for a while are gaining confidence, shaking the wobbliness out of their legs without pillars like Nick Lidstrom and Tomas Holmstrom around. And even with all that…we gave the #1 seed a run for their money. Big time. Not bad for the “underdogs”! (Never count Hockeytown out, my friends, never.)

Thanks for an edge-of-the-sofa season, Red Wings. We will see you in October!

We get the ‘kids’ started on Red Wings hockey early! It might be bad for me to try this shot with Ben nowadays…