Sojourn

I'm sure it's something that they considered. The thing is... Anaheim is a team that thrives on the physical game. They have, all season long. The opinion of most analysts is that when you try to beat Anaheim physically it only benefits them. This is what they say. It's not what I'm saying. I will say that you would be hard-pressed to find a more physical team in the regular season than Anaheim. I see a lot of you talking about Anaheim fans, and press, saying the same thing as Calgary and San Jose. Did it ever occur to you that similar (albeit different) things were said about Anaheim by Vancouver and Minnesota? They thought their goaltending was better. They thought they could handle the physical edge of Anaheim, and even give it back to them. They thought they could expose their 3rd line defensemen. They said that they were being underrated, and were much better than the press was suggesting. Does any of this sound familiar? I don't like making predictions. I hope this is a really good series, and that my team shows up for it. The most disappointing losses are the ones in which you really genuinely think you could have won, except that your boys didn't show up.

At least you would feel like your team beat the best to get the job done. How often have we seen it where the team that wins the Cup seems to get the good draws, and never really faces off against the best?

That claim is highly debatable. San Jose lost the season series against Anaheim. Anaheim is a much faster team than San Jose. Anaheim has a far more substantial presence on the blue line. Anaheim has much better leadership than San Jose. I wont say Anaheim has better goaltending, though I do believe they do.

Anaheim and Los Angeles are very different places. From the people, to the atmosphere, to the attitude... it's a night and day difference.

Fans are fans. There are a lot of Anaheim fans who are going into this series a little anxious. We all know that Detroit is a tough team, with a lot of depth throughout their team. Unfortunately, for you guys, you've suffered some injuries on the back end which has hurt your depth on the blue line. That being said, you still have Lidstrom and Hasek, and it's really difficult to underrate the contributions they can bring to a team. More than that, and probably most important to us, some of us realize that Anaheim didn't play their best against Vancouver. Game 1 and 5 were exceptions, but I truly believe that if Anaheim doesn't bring their A game they will not make it out of this series. We, and I, believe that if Anaheim brings their A game, they will win. We have a tremendous amount of faith in your team, and can you blame us? This has been, unquestionably, the best Anaheim Ducks team to ever take the ice. They started the season as a contender, and nothing they did in the regular season suggests that this belief is unjustified. With the exception of the span of time where we got hit really hard with injuries, losing Pronger, Giguere, Marchant, Beauchemin, and having to play Niedermayer on a fractured foot, this team was one of the best all season long. A lot of us are proud of that fact. People may laugh at the name, and the team's past roots, but the actual team itself is among the best in the league. There are always going to be obnoxious kids who are over-confident and cocky, and in some ways disgustingly so. They exist in every fanbase. In Anaheim's case, you might find a few more than usual, simply because there just aren't as many hockey fanatics in the area as you'll find in Michigan. So you wind up with bandwagon fans. Don't look down on the fanbase as a whole because of this. There are a lot of very passionate and very knowledgable fans in Southern California who love the sport, and the team. They just don't have quite the numbers that, say, Detroit has.