It's not even that though. He's saying that you have to be a good little soldier and suffer through the hard times quietly to earn your gold star.
I love this team. I grew up with this team. That is why I am outraged. This isn't the loss talking, this is the lack of heart they showed. The team doesn't care but I do.
I'm basically in the same boat. I've invested time, if not money, in this team through all the recent bad years. That will, if they ever win the Cup, make the win sweeter no doubt. But I don't consider myself virtuous for having done it. I'm hard pressed to come up with an argument that it's been a good investment of my time. But I do it anyway. And I sure as hell don't look down on people who just stop paying attention.
I'm mostly speaking in a broader sense. We've seen the Avs drop from the perch it had during the glory years. We see the the home arena filled with opposing fans. That's reflective of the state of the team. That's reality.
Are Blackhawks fans any better than Avs fans because they are filling the Pepsi center? Are Wings fans? No. The teams are better. That's reality. Blackhawks fans weren't filling the Denver arena during the Bill Wirtz years. You think the Wings fans will still be traveling strong if their 20+ year run of success ends?
From a fan engagement perspective it absolutely matters that the team was playing in front of 50,000 people tonight. And if a lot of those people don't feel inclined to rush out to buy tickets to games at the Pepsi center, who can blame them? Besides folks reaching for a perch to act hoity toity for no reason.
As to the general state of the game thread, yeah there's overreactions. Find a game thread for any team on any forum that isn't bi-polar and overreacts with negativity when the team plays bad. That's the reality of the internet. People will vent because that's what people do.
Purely from a perspective of how the season is going, this was just one game against an Eastern team. There are bigger games. From a fan engagement perspective this game was much more important. And if someone is going to piss on the fans because they're not lining up in droves to see the team play, that's BS. The team has to earn that kind of support. They're not entitled to it. Period.