Hooray for needles and Sharks' malaise

This is one of my favorite hockey cards, showing Owen Nolan and Ray Whitney back when both played for San Jose.

The good news is … I finally got my rhizotomy on my back! It’s not every day someone cheers about getting an IV started in a painful place and then six pokes in the back (which I of course didn’t feel, gorked out on Versed and Fentanyl and God-knows what else [there were three different meds]), but when I came to I knew the original pain was gone. The day I had the procedure, Monday March 2, was a miserable rainy day chock full of treacherous traffic in heavy rain. Naturally the rain wasn’t helping the pain one bit, but that’s what made this whole thing so remarkable—I walked out of the facility better than I walked in!

I’ve been sort of sore all week, but the pain is different than before, and getting more my “normal” kind of pain. The next thing I have to fight for with the comp carrier is for it to continue to pay for my pain medication. The comp carrier’s brilliant utilization review physician, who of course I’ve never met, thinks I shouldn’t need pain medication 20 years after the injury! WTF, he should try living through a two-level fusion and then say there is no reason to have pain! But I have faith in my back surgeon, he knows how to work the system well enough to get things done.

So the Sharks are starting their end-of-the-year slump. I had to laugh. I especially enjoy losses where one of the main characters on the opposing team are former Sharks, and that was the case with the Minnesota Wild and Owen Nolan. Owen is another of my favorite players, though I am scared to death of him. When I was writing for Hockeycorp and doing features with players like Teemu Selanne, Scott Hannan and Marco Sturm (my three all-time favorite players to interview!), Owen was still around, but had a notoriously bad attitude. After practices, media were allowed into the players’ locker room to do interviews. By the time we were let in, Owen’s gear was swinging in the breeze, and he was long gone. Hockeycorp wanted me to get Owen to sit down and do a feature on hunting, but Owen wouldn’t talk to anyone. No fun features with him!

Still, I do recall how much fun it was to go to a game when the Sharks were struggling, when a win was something to hoot and holler about, and being a female fanwank, cheering on what us girls called the “fine line,” which consisted of Owen, Ray Whitney and Jeff Friesen. Eye candy on the ice!

I guess we’ll see if Sharks coach Todd McLellan rights the ship tomorrow night against Vancouver. It’s just so much fun to read Sharks’ fan boards and how they blame the refs, blame the ice, but fail to blame the players who have obviously been reading too much positive press about how the Sharks are the team to beat. Calgary made huge moves at the trade deadline. I’m thinking they are the team to beat …

Hockey musings…

I’m watching the Sharks-Hurricanes game, and I’m reminded why I stated watching hockey in the first place—because of current Carolina player Ray Whitney.

Ray was the first player I chose to pay attention to when I attended my first NHL game in 1994, Sharks versus Winnipeg. Ray was all over the place that night, and oh he was so very cute! I always felt the Sharks gave him a raw deal during the 1996–97 season. At the time they had a horrible coach named Al Sims who, for whatever reason, decided Ray was “too small” and undermined his confidence.

During the summer of 1997, on the day we were getting ready to go to a swim meet, the San Jose paper announced Ray’s contract had been bought out. My daughter and I were just devastated; that's what happens when you get attached to a player.

I did not watch SJ games for about two years, and made it a point to attend games when the opponent was Ray’s current team. So I’ve sat through Edmonton, Florida, Columbus and Detroit games just to see Ray play. I’ve not seen Ray play since the ‘Caines won the Stanley Cup in 2006 though.

I don’t tend to buy hockey memorabilia, but the one game-worn jersey I do own is one of Ray’s from the 1995 season, when he wore #14 with the Sharks. I do wear it occasionally, too. I also have a bunch of Ray's cards, including a one-of-a-kind card from when he was with the Florida Panthers, a card I got at a shop in Toronto. Back in 2000, that card was worth $80. I got it for a whole lot less by trading tennis memorabilia with the store owner.

The next player I want to have win the Cup is Owen Nolan, who plays for the Minnesota Wild, and then Scott Hannan, who plays for Colorado.

I seldom watch the Sharks since they let Scott leave two summers ago as a free agent, when SJ would not fire their coach as a condition of Scott staying and providing a hometown discount. A season too late, then-coach Ron Wilson was fired, but Scott was long gone to the Avs for a big fat $4 million+ contract. He hasn't played very well since he left San Jose.

There is no one on the team whose personality interests me. Guess their marketing department isn't doing such a great job.