Small dogs, big hearts
Maybe nobody thought the Pictou County Junior Scotians would be up 2-0 in their playoff series against the Glace Bay Miners, but that is where they sit as the series resumes with two games this weekend (Sunday in Trenton 7 p.m.).
Somebody probably believed it would happen, but I didn’t, to be perfectly honest about it (as long as the players believe, it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks).
The Scotians were under .500 over the course of the season and barely scraped into the playoffs, needing a strong push in January and a win in the final game of the regular season to get in.
The Miners were in first place in their division since, well, forever, but they’re suddenly dealing with a young, scrappy Scotians team brimming with confidence.
They don’t come right out and say it – at least not publicly – but you get the sense the Scotians actually believe they can win the whole thing: this series, and the next one, too. They certainly look like a team playing with a high confidence level, and that kind of self-belief is a powerful thing.
These bold words from captain Brendon Duff: “We all know how we have to play to win, so it’s a matter of just doing it now,” he said in a text message on Friday.
“I think everybody is excited, if we (play) the way we have been playing, we will win this series.”
There are many compelling storylines to playoff hockey in Pictou County now that mid-March is here: the Crushers and their attempt at a second straight league title; the Major Midgets, a team that keeps staring down the gun barrel but refuses to blink; the AAA Midget females, who entering Friday night were a win away from a trip to Atlantics; and all the minor hockey post-season adventures going on right now.
It’s just a personal observation, but none of them right now are more compelling than the upstart Scotians and, if they get past the Miners – there’s still a lot of of work to be done before that happens – Pictou County would be four wins away from the first title in the franchise’s 20-plus year history.
“We just take each game a period at a time,” coach Al Whidden said, which is the smart approach.
We all love the underdog – there’s nothing like it in sports when a team or athlete upsets the applecart. There’s truth to the theory that we admire underdogs because we see ourselves as underdogs, deep down inside.
That, and sometimes it’s just nice to see the little dog beat the big dog.
If the fictionalized Cleveland Indians of the ‘Major League’ film series hadn’t been a bunch of washed-up has-beens and never-were ballplayers, would we have cheered for them?
If Rocky Balboa hadn’t been a nobody, a small-time, going nowhere fighter from the dead end streets of Philadelphia, would anybody have even cared about him?
The answers are not very likely and not very likely.