Here at Top Comments we welcome longtime as well as brand new Daily Kos readers to join us at 10pm Eastern. We strive to nourish community by rounding up some of the site's best, funniest, most mojo'd & most informative commentary, and we depend on your help!! If you see a comment by another Kossack that deserves wider recognition, please send it either to topcomments at gmail or to the Top Comments group mailbox by 9:30pm Eastern. Please please please include a few words about why you sent it in as well as your user name (even if you think we know it already :-)), so we can credit you with the find!
I haven’t written a good rant diary in a while and now seems to be the perfect time to so. The Islanders finally won a playoff series for the first time in 23 years last May. The future for the team was bright. Fans were coming back, a new ownership group had stepped taken over in July getting us out from under the latest in a long line of bad owners and there seemed to be joy in Mudville. Well, wouldn’t you know it, but things have come crashing down less than 6 months later.
It all started very early in free agency when two of our top three players signed with other teams when one of them wasn’t given even one offer and the other was only given an offer 3 days before the opening of free agency because our GM thought he could sign the mirage that was in front of him. What was brought was older and worse than what left with the exception of a RW signing that had previously been a member of the team during the early years of the rebuild.
If that wasn’t enough, going into the season, the GM had already decided to continue to have 3 goalies on the team. Few teams ever have three healthy goalies at a time let alone for longer than one season. (We are now in the third month of this season and nothing has changed.) Because of the three-head goalie monster (as we call it), the one good signing the GM was waived right before the start of the season thinking he could slip past and be held onto for a call up later. Well our cross-river rivals, the Devils, picked him and he has a decent season so far.
We began the season with two 19 year old prospects on the team. Not a bad thing because they both looked good during the preseason, but they were both jerked around by the coach. One prospect was kept on the team for over a month and only played 2 games before being sent back to his junior team in Seattle. To this day no one knows what the hell happened there. The other has been in and out of the line-up and has yet to play with the same linemates for more than a few shifts at a time. Our big free agent signing, who signed a 7 year $38 mill contract, has 6 points in the first 25 games. The other signing still with the team hasn’t been any better.
The biggest problem still is the coach. Most of my friends, me included, have been calling for the coach to be fired for over a season. Most of our top players, including the ones that left, for the past few seasons have trended downward in terms of points and just general play. Even our franchise player has looked like a shell of his former self over the last two seasons. You’d think this alone would get a coach fired, but our GM refuses to do so.
About a week ago, we fans received some good news when it began to be reported one of the new owners has spent the past couple of years and especially since July talking with all sorts of people in the hockey world including many former Islanders alumni in search of at least a President of Hockey Ops. (Our Gm currently also fills that role.) This plus a small win streak had many people coming in off the ledge that things were likely to change sooner rather than later or at least provide that the current group wouldn’t last past next June. However, on Friday, the team announced it had re-signed a 4th line forward to a 5 year, $16.5 million contract killing any good vibes a driving pretty much everyone I know off the cliff. The hockey media world universally condemned the move as it saddles the team with another over-priced player receiving too much money for the scoring production you get from him. (I should point out almost everyone loves the guy as a player, but no one feels he deserves that much money for that length of time when he essentially replaceable with any number of other players who earn at most half of what he will next year.) Most of my season ticket holding friends are extremely unlikely to renew next season. Truthfully, I am feeling the same way.
It sucks in this year with so many other things going badly I cannot find solace in the one sport I watch religiously.
Diarist reserves all rights to his original writing only. Community material is not covered by this ©
On to Tops
TOP COMMENTS for 12/14/16
Brillig's ObDisclaimer: The decision to publish each nomination lies with the evening's Diarist and/or Comment Formatter. My evenings at the helm, I try reeeeallllyy hard to publish everything without regard to content. I really do, even when I disagree personally with any given nomination. "TopCommentness" lies in the eyes of the nominator and of you, the reader - I leave the decision to you. I do not publish self-nominations (ie your own comments) and if I ruled the world, we'd all build community, supporting and uplifting instead of tearing our fellow Kossacks down. Please remember that comment inclusion in Top Comments does not constitute support or endorsement by diarist, formatter, Top Comments writers or DailyKos. Questions, complaints or comments? Contact brillig.
From Jon Sitaman via elenacarlena:
Please see this thread in Jon Sitzman's excellent diary trying to bring peace to Daily Kos, "What did Kos actually say about coal miners?" www.dailykos.com/...
I sort of thread jacked (it needed a kitten), but Jon liked the response so much he asked me to send it to TC (as if I know what I'm doing, which I haven't since DK5)! Here's the comment in question,
www.dailykos.com/...
From ccotenj:
this is keeping it 100.
www.dailykos.com/...
[comment by missLotus]
TOP MOJO
Top Mojo for yesterday, 12/13/16, first comments and tip jars excluded. Thank you mik for the mojo magic! For those of you interested in How Top Mojo Works, please see his diary on FAQing Top Mojo.
TOP PICTURES
Top Pictures for yesterday, 12/13/16 Click any picture to be taken to the full comment or picture. Thank you jotter!