Calling all bandwagon-jumpers…

We have had four messages from buddies/readers that basically say, “WHOA, you can actually see the bandwagon start to fill up on the Nation right now can’t you? It happened in like a day! Bet you don’t want to fire MacT now do you Wanye, you wanker?”

Originally we thought, “Yeah WTF? We hate bandwagon jumpers more than we hate people from Norman Wells. And we hate people from Norman Wells.”

But after some re-reading of comments we realize that the bulk of bandwagon climber-onners are Citizens of the Nation who are die-hard fans who comment all the time. In our mind they have earned the right to be unreasonably optimistic if they so choose. It’s the folks that altogether ignore the Oil — or even worse diss them continually when they are in the toilet only to climb aboard the wagon when the team inevitably catches fire each spring — that we really hate. These bandwagon-jumping idiots can just go back to Norman Wells and spend their days combing their moustaches and watching Season 3 of Magnum PI for all we care.

Losers.

Now we have these bandwagon-jumping clowns saying, “But Wanye you wanted to see MacT fired and thrown into the street by the same RX1 ushers who throw out anyone who has more than half a beer in their possession. Now, you’re sending him daily boxes of toenails to show him your love. You’re a bandwagon jumper too just like us.”

Here’s the thing. We look at MacT like we look at any other appliance with a specific function. For the sake of argument let’s call him a hot plate.

If we have a hot plate and it’s working, life is good. We can heat up our beans, or some nice soup, or whatever we need to be hot at any given moment. We love the hot plate. But the instant that thing doesn’t bring our creamed corn to a piping hot temperature what do we do?

We throw out the hot plate.

Why? Because it no longer works. We don’t sit and try and convince the hot plate to do a better job. We don’t think to ourselves, “Maybe it’s the corn’s fault for not heating up,” or “Maybe it will work better in a few months.” We don’t blame it on the toaster or decide that tepid corn is an acceptable alternative. No. When the hot plate stops working we go and get ourselves a new hot plate.

Same with the coaching staff. You certainly don’t want a revolving door of coaches who are canned the instant the Oil fall behind in the first period of a game. Long-term coaching stability is good for a franchise — assuming they’re doing a good job. But at the same time if you have a coaching staff that is incapable of heating up the team beyond a tepid temperature in the long run, it’s time to get new coaching staff. All the people that say “Eight years of mediocrity ain’t it” are correct in our mind. Sometimes the old hot plate fires up for a few days and all is well again, but it doesn’t mean we won’t be price shopping for a new one and waiting for it to finally pack it in.

It’s not rocket science. We like our hockey like we like our cream corn. Hotter than a $3 pistol.

So going into the all star game we love all the excitement up in this piece because that old hot plate seems to be working again. But we still have one eye on the door in case we need to go to the store.

I think this is one of our most analytical articles to date. Ever call MacT a hot plate, Professor Willis?

Thought not.

Now if you will excuse us, we have a war to prepare for.

PS: four days till Gretzmas.