Top 5: Now that summer's over...

On Wednesday evening, we sat down to the first Canadiens game in months, hoping to forget all of our offseason boredom by finally seeing our Habs again. Instead, we were forced into another few hours of booing and negativity towards Carey Price, and a slow start on the part of our skaters. And what we're hoping isn't another Latendresse story with the premature canonization of Louis Leblanc. (What? Someone had to say it.)

All it did was remind me of everything I didn't like about the summer.

Top 5 Things That Sucked About The 2010 Offseason

1. Free agents. I know that discussing who should stay and who should go is supposed to be fun, but it's not always. We lost Halak. And Metro. And Moore. And Sergei. And Mara. And Mara's beard. They've all moved on to interesting new teams, but I valued them as Habs and it sucks to let them go. I'm still trying to move on, much in the same way that I've advised others to do... but what's going to happen to Mara's beard in sunny Anaheim?


2. Not enough summer love. I feel like last year, after the Penguins won the Cup, NHL fans were subjected treated to The Summer Of Crosby. Kid was all over the news: we saw him take the Cup all over the Eastern Seaboard, we watched him blow out his birthday candles, we asked him about the Olympics... heck, even his mom got her time in the sun, and I had almost forgot he even had a mom. This summer? Sure, the Blackhawks won the Cup, but 2010 felt like a weak sequel to the Summer Of Crosby. I was hoping it would be the Summer Of Toews, but apparently naming a lake after him was a cardinal sin and the wedding is off. Maybe the Summer Of Keith, what with his Stanley Cup, Norris Trophy, and gold medal, but I still know nothing new about Duncan Keith. And then most of the Blackhawks got traded and the world was confused. Sorry, everyone hoping for a new boy of summer.

3. Not enough shocking controversy. I'm sorry, but if you think causing a stir on Twitter is interesting enough to make you headline news, you're mistaken. Paul Bissonette's inappropriate first run at Twitter and Dan Ellis' spoiled whining just weren't as illuminating as, say, a tell-all book or an arrest. (I guess that's why we have Khabibulin?) Okay, yes, the whole Toews Lake thing, but even that wasn't particularly offensive or shocking. Since no summer scandal was big enough for me this year, can I keep making jokes about Patrick Kane and taxis?

4. Some stories never end. I've been told that the Ilya Kovalchuk contract story is over, but I'm having trouble believing it. And we all know how long it took to sign Carey Price. It feels like endless contract negotiations were the biggest story of the summer, probably contributing to the lack of Toews excess/general controversy. Because of that, I'm just a tad less interested in seeing Kovalchuk play, and as we saw on Wednesday, the Price haters are still singing the same song.

5. No hockey. Yeah, I know, that was an obvious one. But completely true, right? It got to the point that I even missed players and teams that weren't the Canadiens. My visit to the Staples Center last year made me miss the Kings. I woke up one morning a few weeks ago wondering when I'd see Drew Doughty play again. It was strange.

Anyway, Game 2 is on, so my offseason woes are no more.