It’s time.

So I’m just sitting here minding my own business, right? Reading for class tomorrow, but mostly getting distracted on the internets with things here and there. All of a sudden, I mouse over the time on my laptop, and WHAT! It’s October. October 1. Obviously I was well aware that yesterday was September 30, making today October 1, but it wasn’t until I saw the date that I realized exactly how that felt.

That inspired me to go on YouTube, and two and a half hours later, I don’t think I can sleep.

It’s time.

Say what you want about that video I posted, I can’t get enough of it. I don’t particularly like the band, or really most of that type of genre of music, but Holy Helm does that video get me JACKED or what? Maybe it has something to do with the Wings in it. Maybe it has something to do with it being roughly 38,000 times better than any other year the Wings had a pre-game pump up thing. Remember some of the stupid marketing things they’ve come up with, like “Let ‘em see Red!” and “Ride the Red Wave?” Maybe it has something to do with the fact that it the song sounds mind-blowingly awesome blaring out of the speakers at the Joe surrounded by 20,000 plus screaming and yelling fans with freaking fire coming out of the scoreboard. I’m not naturally a very excitable person. But, wow, I’ll never forget being able to see that in person three times this spring. You lose yourself. Watching it for me is a way to take me back there. Oh, how I want to go back there.

We all know how last season ended. We all know who is no longer a Red Wing. We all know the Chicago Blackhawks are supposed to unseat us this season. Best of all, we all know that doesn’t matter.

We’re the Red Wings. How great is that? We’re awesome. We’re spoiled. We’re the rich kids everyone hated growing up. Everyone’s gunning for us. Is this the year that the Detroit Red Wings fall? Everyone’s wondering, and I couldn’t care less. It’s not. You look at the roster, and you look at what these people are saying, and you laugh. We’ve lost several components from a 2008 Cup team, guys that weren’t a huge part to begin with. No one outside Detroit gave a damn about these guys before they left. Hudler? “He’s skilled, but he’s too small and too slow.” Samuelsson? “Guy looks like a damn house cat, how’s he going to burn us?” Kopecky.. “That big Slovak guy gets ice time?” Drake and Hasek.. “they still play?”

But now that they’re gone, they were the driving force behind a dominant team. Meanwhile we’ve picked up a slew of other damaged players who no one gives a damn about. Williams? Lazy. Bertuzzi? Lazy and broken. Eaves? Bust. Don’t they learn? These guys don’t have to be great for us. They can’t be terrible for us, but the roles they’re filling are not that big. They’re simply short-term options. They’re in the mix with Ville Leino, Darren Helm, Jonathan Ericsson, Justin Abdelkader. Players that people are so familiar with now from playoff action, they don’t even realize none of these guys were on the team last year. They were on the playoff team because they were so freakishly good. With the exception of Helm, who’s freakishly good compared to a group of freakishly good players, these guys barely saw ice time in the playoffs because they’re still new to the system. They’re all growing into it. They’ll probably all have setbacks. But the talent brought onto this roster this summer is scary. On paper, this lineup beats 2008’s any day, and it might just give 2009 a closer run for it’s money than some would like to admit.

But apparently we lost a lot of experience. At the same time, we’re too old. This porridge is too hot, this porridge is too cold, but I think this roster is just right. We’ve got the most veteran blend of rookies you could possibly imagine. Some of our old guys keep getting better with age, like Lidstrom and Osgood. Sure, Holmstrom’s a question mark. Nobody expects much from Draper and Maltby, either, it’ll be Helm and Eaves’ checking line before the year is over. Those names just aren’t the core of Detroit anymore. They’re the veteran leaders that drive through the rough patches and spit in the face of adversity. They’ve been through every situation you can imagine, and they’re not happy that they’ve been written off. Because they know, outside of them, you’ve got a team that is in it’s prime. Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Franzen, Kronwall, Stuart, Filppula, Cleary. All of these guys are smack dab in the middle of their playing days, with Cup experience, but no signs of breaking down.

It’s amusing. But alas, the team with the French “goalie,” a completely and entirely mediocre head coach, a cab-punching superstar, a slew of heavy contracts they need to get rid of to keep the team together, a front office member/ex-GM that alienated a star player and can’t operate a fax machine, and a Brian Campbell, who added a media-proclaimed playoff choke artist, his tennis buddy, and this guy, are apparently about to dethrone us. Are you starting to see why this is funny to me?

We know what we’re doing. We know what we’re playing for. We’re going to get back, because we’re mad as hell. Of all the season preview junk I’ve had to wade through, there is one media member that really gained a lot of respect in my book. Elliotte Friedman. His interview with Mike Babcock is a must see. But while he was making it, he talked to a few players and he felt the anger. I point you in the direction of his tweet:

“Was in Detroit yesterday, taping a piece with Mike Babcock and talking to some players. One of the best quotes ever given me, from a player:  ‘I hate Pittsburgh. I hate the Pirates. I hate the Steelers. I hate the Penguins. Don’t get me wrong….I respect them. But I hate them.’”

Ah, yes, me too. Iffy on the respect bit, I try, depends on my mood.

He had a few more anonymous gems in his Western Conference preview:

“We’re pissed off,” one player said when I visited Detroit last week. “I still don’t know how we lost,” added another. The Red Wings are motivated and angry. What sets them apart is their sense of professionalism. It’s all business all the time. The only thing that matters is winning. Some teams say it but don’t mean it. This team means it.

…

In the words of one player, Mike Babcock is “even more intense.” Didn’t think that was possible.

More death starey? Ooooh, I can’t even begin to picture that. But this is the attitude I like. The word “complacent” was probably one thrown around a lot on this blog last year because that’s how this team looked for most of the season, and bits and pieces of the playoffs. They knew what was at the end of the rainbow and they knew they were good enough to get there. Too cocky? Probably. But they got where they needed to be, and they lost not for a lack of trying. But it’s been reinforced now that even when you’re giving it your all, you still need that extra push. That’s why hockey is so spectacular.

I don’t want to here these media-trained hockey robots that say all this “well we had a real good season last year, but we couldn’t get it done.” I want to hear “we should have won, and we’re pissed we didn’t” because that’s how I feel. I want to feel the fire in this team, because I couldn’t find it for long parts of last season. I want to feel it off the ice, and I want to see it on the ice.

The clock starts ticking tonight. Not the Wings, obviously, but teams that are gunning for the Wings. All I know is my TV will be tuned to Versus all night, my laptop will be tuned to CBC via NHL Gamecenter, and my fist will be tuned to anyone’s throat who tries to pry me away from it.

I’ve never been more excited to start anything.