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Hopefully the Hawks will tell him to go fuck himself.

Most of the people at Allstate Arena last night were cheering Chelios. I can only take comfort in the fact that most of them were not Wolves season ticket holders and were clearly casual hockey fans at best.

I'm happy the Wolves won, but now more than ever wish the AHL employed a 2 referee system like the NHL. Early in the 2nd period, when the score was 2-0 Wolves, Chelios clearly gave a guy an elbow right in front of me. But it was well off the puck and, of course, the 1 referee didn't see it. But Chelios should have been in the sinbin at that point, and I would have absolutely relished the opportunity to point out to all the Chelios fans sitting around me that he just cost his team a goal with a stupid penalty.

The opposing goalie could be most closely compared to a block of swiss cheese, so it probably wouldn't have made much of a difference in a game where the final score was 7-1. But you never know. I've seen power play goals off of stupid penalties completely change the momentum of a game. Chelios has made a career out of that kind of crap.

These same fans sitting around me characterized Chelios as "the best US born player to ever play the game". Now, disregarding the fact that that is a VERY debatable statement, even if it's true, it's not saying much. There's a LONG list of Canadians and Europeans who are / were ten times the player Chelios could ever hope to be, and Chelios now is more suited to being in a wheelchair than on hockey skates.

Another one said something to the effect of "you can't argue with success". Uh, yeah, I can. What success? Chelios won the Norris Trophy 3 times in 25 seasons (playing with the likes of Vezina Trophy winners Patrick Roy and Ed Belfour behind him). Nik Lidstrom won it 6 times over 7 seasons, and Bobby Orr won it, what, 7 or 8 years in a row? And let's not forget that the very same system that gave Chelios those Norris Trophies also awarded it to Paul Coffey TWO YEARS IN A ROW WHEN HE WAS THE LEADING SCORER AMONG DEFENSEMAN. He played on the Oilers with Gretzky, Messier, et al, and had Grant Fuhr in net behind him. He did not have to play defense those years, and frankly, I'm not sure Coffey actually knows what the "defensive zone" is. The absurity of him winning the Norris Trophy knows absolutely no bounds, so I'm not at all convinced Chelios was deserving of any of those Norris Trophies.

The people sitting around me could not counter any of these arguments. They had no arguments in favor of rooting for Chelios, other than the fact that he's played professionally for 25 years and won 3 Norris Trophies and is from Chicago (don't even get me started on how he turned his back on the city and stabbed Hawks fans in the back). No argument from me that he's kept himself in great shape - but he's now playing against guys half his age. How much does he really have to offer?

Seriously - casual fans just need to stay the fuck away. (And what's really sad is, some of these people were wearing Blackhawks shirts and hats. They may show up at the UC sometime this year - and will probably fawn all over Tommy Hawk.)

Oh good, a picture for the center of my dartboard!