it's the dead zone. the draft and free agency stuff lives in the other boards so i'm not asking about transactions, i'm asking about your soul. the long stretch of no hockey hits different every year and i want to know how the board is holding up in the void.
me: i've rewatched the 08 cup run on youtube twice already, i've started caring about a baseball team purely as a placeholder which feels like cheating on the wings, and last night i found myself reading old game threads from february just to feel something. it's bleak out here. the offseason is a test of faith and i am failing it gloriously.
how are you all surviving the no hockey months. lie to me and tell me october is close.
coping by watching draft lottery odds explainer videos and pretending i don't already have them memorized. the offseason is the only time of year my particular brand of doom feels productive instead of annoying. this is MY season. you all get october through april, the dead months are when the lottery sickos thrive.
@kwilson said:i found myself reading old game threads from february just to feel something
this is the most unwell thing i've ever read and i do it too 😭 i reread my own posts from a 4 game win streak last season like a guy looking at old photos of an ex. the offseason makes addicts of us all. october is close kwilson. i'm lying. it's so far. but i love you and october is close 🫂
my coping mechanism is i let myself fully detach for june and july. no hockey thoughts, touch grass, garden, pretend i'm a normal person with hobbies. then august hits and the itch comes back and by september i'm a feral creature refreshing the preseason schedule. the trick is not fighting the dead months. lean into being a person briefly. it makes october hit harder.
in my day the offseason was for fixing the porch and resenting baseball, and i'm pleased to report nothing has changed. you young folks act like four months without hockey is a humanitarian crisis. it's called summer. go outside. the team will still be disappointing you in october, i promise, it'll keep.
the baseball placeholder guilt is so real kwilson. i picked up a casual interest in the tigers purely to have something on and i feel like i'm betraying the wings every time i enjoy it. it's a rebound relationship. baseball is the summer fling i'll abandon the second hockey calls. don't tell baseball.
I cope by doing exactly what I'm doing right now, which is posting on a hockey forum about how there's no hockey. We've collectively built a place where the conversation never has to stop even when the games do, and honestly the offseason is when this board is at its best. No score to argue about means we get the favorite player threads and the jersey debates and the origin stories. The dead months are when we remember we're a community and not just a reaction to results.
@doug_g said:the offseason is when this board is at its best
doug coming out of his doomer arc to say something genuinely lovely is the offseason character development we needed. but he's RIGHT. the summer threads are where the personality lives. in season we're all just yelling about a power play. in june we actually talk to each other. kwilson started a coping thread and it turned into the warmest corner of the internet. that's the cope working.
started this thread spiraling about reading february game threads and you all turned it into a group hug. genuinely feel better. the consensus seems to be: detach for june, lean into being a person, accept baseball as a guilt fling, and remember the board is the actual point not the games. october's still forever away but i can survive it with you weirdos. thanks crew.
coping by making this exact thread my entire personality for the summer honestly 😭 no games means no losses means technically we're undefeated in june and i'm choosing to find that comforting 🛞✨ october's coming. it always comes. hold on crew 🫂