As sports fans, we tend to get a little panicky when our team is expected to do well and they have some bad games early in the season.
They were supposed to be awesome but they lost two games in a row and now they suck and they won't make the playoffs and...
There's a lot of negativity floating around after the Estevan Bruins' start to the season.
They laid an egg in back-to-back games, first in their final preseason tune-up against Notre Dame on Sept. 17, then in the one that counts, the season opener in Melville on Thursday.
They had a much better game in their home opener against the Millionaires on Friday, but still couldn't pull off a win.
There was a lot more to be encouraged about on that night, but as a fan, when your team gets smacked around 10-2 in its season opener, nothing short of a decisive win in the next game will erase the uneasiness.
Let's not sugar-coat anything: for the last 35 minutes of that debacle, the Bruins looked like nothing more than a last-place Junior B club. That might be a generous assessment.
Although they weren't terrible for the first period and part of the second, the rest of the game was an embarrassment.
Melville's offence has a ton of firepower, but let's not kid ourselves for a second and pretend that it generated 10 goals on its own.
Bad goaltending and an incredibly porous defence were major contributors as well.
You never see season openers like that. You know why? They're easy to get amped up for. Your first game in months that means something.
It didn't take long for the Bruins to fold on that night, though.
Friday's effort was much better. The Bruins outshot the Mils and had their share of scoring chances, but seemed to be just a touch out of sync all night. Passes just missed their mark, and for awhile the home side had trouble getting across the red line.
That's something that usually gets better as the season moves along, as teams pare down their roster to a reasonable size and players get more comfortable on the ice with each other.
The Bruins were 0-2 heading into last night's home game against the Melfort Mustangs. It's a long season, even after being cut down to 54 games, and unlike with a football schedule, this start is not likely to affect anything come playoff time.
I still look at the Bruins' roster and see a team that should contend. To change that opinion based on two games would be silly.
***
I've never officiated a sporting event, much less a football game, so I've refrained from chiming in on the NFL's replacement officials until now.
The shenanigans at the end of Monday's game between the Green Bay Packers and Seattle Seahawks took this mess to a whole new low.
Some of the most respected people in the sport are calling this one of the great embarrassments of the league's history. That is when the powers that be need to wake up.
When you have NFL players like Packers guard T.J. Lang sending tweets like "F*** it NFL... Fine me and use the money to pay the regular refs," the problem has gotten out of control.
How about when up to $250 million (according to one report) in gambling money changes hands when the Packers went from covering the spread to losing in one cringe-worthy call that decided the game?
Money talks. And maybe that is the only thing NFL commissioner Roger Goodell will understand in this situation.
Look, I understand that the replacement refs aren't really to blame here. They are being asked to perform at a level that they aren't qualified to perform at. They are doing it in front of national TV audiences with diehard team allegiances.
When people vent at the replacement officials, they're venting at the NFL.
A league that brought in $9 billion in revenue last season would rather see its reputation irrevocably tarnished, its integrity sacrificed, its players and fans livid, than hand over a bit more money to its regular, qualified refs?
All I know is this: those regular refs have more and more leverage with every week that passes.
Get a deal done now, NFL.
Josh Lewis can be reached by phone at 634-2654, by e-mail at sports@estevanmercury.ca, on Twitter at twitter.com/joshlewis306, or on his Bruins blog at estevanmercury.ca/bruinsbanter. The new Tim Hortons literally cannot get here fast enough.
