Devils Get By and More On the Leather Coat Thing.

By gallagher

I hate Grant Marshall.

The guy scores a crappy goal, which he barely got enough of to go in, and he celebrates like he just won the Cup in OT of Game 7. Jackass.

My editorial tonight made the point that even if this is the worst team in the league, the're still better (from a fan's perspective) than the Penguins because they are at least trying to win every game. The Pens, meanwhile, look listless and uninterested. That Crosby kid is the only one who looks like he cares, but he's getting pretty bitter-looking, too. Maybe that's why the rest of the team doesn't care. Maybe they're sick of The Kid and his show. I don't know, and I'm drifting from my point.

The Blues tried to win tonight. They were doing everything they could to beat a clearly more-talented team. And they were close. They had the Devils back on their heels, outshooting them 13-3 at one point. And then Grant Marshall scored the Cup-winning knock-in and went bonkers. What a jackass. You got lucky, you didn't just score an Ovechkin-style goal.

Now, as the Note goes back on the road for two before coming home for Vancouver, it looks like they might be in line for another one of those monster losing streaks. So, stock up the fridge, because these next games might not be pretty either. But at least they'll be working their asses off on every shift and trying to win.

The Leather Jacket Thing

OK, I need to clear up a couple things. For one, I don't have a full-blown Leather Jacket Theory. Yet. I also don't think that everyone wearing a leather jacket is a dick.

I merely wonder if it's true.

I'll start at the start and try to explain. After one game this year, I mentioned on this site that I was starting to profile the fans as to who were potential GT people and who was not. Some of the NOT categories are obvious:

~20-somethings. Of course. They are spending every dollar they have on beers and buying a program is just asking to come up short at the end of the night. This I can understand.
~Any girl not wearing a jersey. This isn't iron-clad, but it doesn't happen much. If they are wearing high-heels, well, then it's a lock they aren't buying. But the girls in jerseys sometimes come up and grab a copy. No jersey, no copy. Girls in jerseys are possible GameTimers.
~Obvious newbies. The guys who don't know where the ticket office is. The guys who aren't sure who's playing. The guys who don't know what the scalpers are saying and ask them to repeat themselves (pretty simple, actually: "yo, you need tickets, you got any extra? Later it becomes just, yo, you need tickets? I got center ice!). The guys who are all wearing suits, carrying note-taking gear and clearly 'entertaining' a client. These people wouldn't know what the hell we're talking about anyway. (As an aside, I saw four people walking in tonight who were wearing matching Notre Dame hats. What the hell? Notre Dame isn't playing. Why were they matching? What message were those four trying to send? All of 'em wearing suits/business dress. I have no idea what the hell that was about.)

But the one subset that emerged that I didn't understand was the Leather Jacket Guy. For some reason, I have never sold a copy to a guy wearing a leather jacket. Bomber, black leather, shiny, dull, whatever. Never sold one to a guy in a leather jacket. And I have NO idea why. I see a Leather Coat Guy coming and I know he's not going to buy a paper. Hell, I saw a guy tonight wearing a full-length shiny black jacket with a leather belt around it. That particular model belongs on some guy holding up a stagecoach. Apparently they didn't stop making them in the 1880's though, because this one was very black and shiny, so it must be fairly new. I did know, however, that he wasn't going to buy a copy.

Part of the confusion I've created is that in the initial post, I postulated that maybe there is some sort of leather coat/dick corrolary that I'd never noticed before. Now, I didn't say there WAS a leather coat/dick corrolary, I'm just leaving the door open for the possibility.

I was thinking about this tonight as wave after wave of Leather Coat Guys crushed past me. It was horribly cold and windy tonight and I'm guessing that's what brought Leather Coat Guy out in force. Maybe cowhide cuts the wind. I don't know, but I assume it must, because they were everywhere. In fact, there were so many that I was starting to wonder if there was some sort of Leather Coat Convention over at the Dome this week or a new "Leather Coats Must Enter At Clark Street Entrance" rule or something. It got to such a ridiculous point that I actually heard a Leather Coat Guy telling a story to two other LC Guys that included the phrase, "and there were three huge piles of leather coats...."

I swear this is true. I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't heard it myself, but what the fizzuck is that? Three huge piles of leather coats? Where? When? Why? What is this story? Where could it possibly be going? How is it that this is happening right in front of me?

So, basically, my Leather Coat Corrolary and/or Leather Coat Theory is under construction. There is something going on here, and I have no idea what it is. I don't know if I'll ever get to the bottom of it, but if I do, I hope to figure out what this giant piles of leather coats thing is all about.

I do know one thing: when I do sell a copy to a guy in a leather coat, I'm going to be studying that guy like he's from another planet.