Saturday, April 2, 2011

What's Up? My Fantasy Hockey Season Revisited

Wow. I was really looking forward to the 2010-11 NHL season. Being the upbeat, carefree fellow I am, I have never felt so much unbridled enthusiasm going into my ultra, high-mega stakes fantasy league. After all, how could I not have the utmost optimism after heeding the advice of gurus such as Barry Melrose and the rest of the sagacious ESPN staff.

Forget about the caveats of the Fantasy Hockey Scouts stressing the high risks of drafting Marc Savard, Sheldon Souray, Sergei Gonchar, and Matthew Lombardi, or their major concerns about the Florida Panthers Shawn Matthias and Rostislav Olesz. And why their worries about selecting Michael Leighton as a number one goalie? No, armed and ready to go with the profound wisdom of the omnipotent ESPN pundits, I insouciantly, but confidently, select not only one, but all of the above in the first ten rounds of my draft. Drafting Zach Parise and Mark Streit not only further cements my lock on a league championship, it also secures a huge return on investment on the ten thousand dollars I put up to enter my team.........

Only two weeks into the season, my wife started to question me about my irascibility and the physical ailments she had never seen before. She demanded that I find the root cause of these problems and resolve them immediately.

Star-divide

It took little time to realize that Streit's season ending injury was the cause of my dyspepsia. When Parise was lost for the year after playing only 12 games, the problem was only further exacerbated. Knowing that Leighton and Souray were unlikely to see the ice at all this season precipitated a serious wave of migraine headaches. The other failed draft choices have certainly contributed to my recent bouts of tremors, irritability, and anxiety. I am now desperately seeking for an elixir to ameliorate these symptoms

With my marriage on the rocks and addled with these debilitating maladies, I contemplate my physician’s recommendation to prescribe an antidepressant. But being afraid of any potential side effects, I have decided to take a more holistic approach. I follow producer and song writer Linda Perry’s cue:

And so I cry sometimes when I’m lying in bed, just to get it all out

What’s in my head, but I’m feeling a little peculiar

And so I wake in the morning and I

Step outside and I take a deep breath and get real high

And I scream from the top of my lungs, what’s going on?

Let's hope I don't wake the neighbors.