The view from the Woods

The staff of the Journal’s Volume 135 put our last issue to bed last night. While it’s nice to have a newfound large amount of free time, the feeling of such an abrupt ending is hard to put a finger on. It’s kind of a mix of satisfaction, nostalgia, aimlessness and excitement for next year for those of us sticking around.
But with all of these feelings plus the universal stress of exam time, there are some new ones dominating my psyche that I didn’t see coming.
Dread.
My dear Ottawa Senators, whose successes and failures I’ve identified with since before I can remember, are in the midst of what could turn out to be the largest single collapse in NHL history.
After a 15-2 start, the best the league has ever seen, the Senators need to win their last two regular-season games to ensure a playoff spot.
Standing in the way are those pesky Toronto Maple Leafs, who have been long eliminated from the playoffs but find themselves playing in a game that means the world to the opposition. When that opposition is the Senators, the Leafs never fail to find a higher gear they usually can’t seem to reach.
Suddenly all the feelings of my childhood associated with Toronto-Ottawa games are coming back. I’d managed to get rid of them since the Sens’ last playoff loss to Toronto in 2004 since the Leafs haven’t played a playoff game since then. But the anticipation of playoff losses to Toronto was at least built up so fans could prepare themselves in the event of another playoff disaster. This game, it seems, has come out of nowhere, and what both teams had circled long ago as a nothing game is suddenly so much more.
Needless to say, exam studying isn’t going very well so far. As I write from Stauffer Library the game sits 2-1 Ottawa, but the way their team defence has been lately I’m cautiously optimistic at best.