Thursday Morning Cupcheck - Ask the ZuboZen Koanator 3000

by Todd Maternowski

Top of the morning, Stars fans: for those of us who watched the Stars' final three games of the season, you must no doubt be swimming in a sea of powerful, contradictory emotions. The Stars posted three shutouts in a playoff series --yet it seems that this year's incredibly entertaining regular season was once again capped off by a turdswish effort in the postseason. Turco played his heart out, yet the tireless Stars Magic that served them well in countless third-period comebacks was replaced by an infuriating offensive gameplan that seemed designed as a sleeping aid for the elderly. So much has occurred in the past week, as our collective fan-hearts experienced every high and low imaginable, that the past three games sound more like a Russian novel than a few games between soon-to-be-eliminated playoff underachievers. As a mere mortal, I cannot make sense of it all. My fellow x-treme hockey watching compatriot Escobar cannot make sense of it all. Even the Pope of Hockey, the esteemed Darryl Reaugh, tried valiantly but even he ultimately came up short trying to wrestle the inexplicably grotesque pile of excrement that is Stars playoff hockey.

When even the greatest hockey geniuses in the land cannot form a coherent sentence about the simplest aspects of a seven-game series, it's time to turn to the wonders of science. The true Stars fan needs answers now, and I was determined to make it happen for those long-suffering loyalists, but I needed to build something greater than myself to provide Stars fanatics with the tall, cool satisfaction they so deliciously deserve. And that's why I had to create the Unnamed Hockey Device 2000: pieced together from the dismantled remains of my NHL Cool Zone , along with parts from a couple of unfinished projects I was eventually going to get around to finishing --someday-- like my chocolate-milk-powered lightsaber and my Enrico Suave/Captain Beefheart mixtape generator, this was going to be the machine to end all hockey-explaining machines.

Putting it all together and delicately placing the new device into it's specially-designed AT-AT WALKER case, I thought I had created the ultimate hockey-explaining machine. Alas, like Icarus before me, I was a victim of my own hubris. After inputting all the data from the Star's past four regular seasons and playoff exits and feeding it through the machine, I kept getting the same response: "FIRE TIPPETT". I knew that something had to be wrong, so I made some minor adjustments in the thermoforechecking signal, tweaked the jumbotronamatrix and tried it again, but again kept getting the same repetitive answer, "TRADE LEHTINEN". I thought all the machine needed was another minor variation in the zambometer, but after adjusting the hat trick readings the Unnamed Hockey Device 2000 kept spitting out the exact same message, "BUY MODANO A PRETTY DRESS". Clearly I was missing something crucial, but what?

Artist's conception of the ZuboZen Koanator 3000

That's when I came to the realization: the Unnamed Hockey Device 2000 had no soul! I should have known that technology has limits on what it can accomplish: the so-called power of science was no match for the Stars' postseason, and if I was going to get some answers I would need the complimentary abilities of the spirit-world. For this purpose I decided to turn to the most deific of the Stars blueliners, Sergei Zubov, who's Budda-like patience, Tom Bombadil-like calmness and Mercurian passing abilities seemed ideal for my machine. Using a relic from his "torso injury" -- you'd be surprised at what you can get on eBay from anonymous Russian sellers-- I placed a piece of the enigmatic defenseman into the Unnamed Hockey Device 2000, filled the AT-AT with delicious chocolate milk and cautiously switched on the device, and viola!-- the machine came to life, and I realized I had created something truly beyond my expectations. From the ashes of the Unnamed Hockey Device 2000, I had created the ZuboZen Koanator 3000.

After a quick perusal of the instruction manual I had just written, I was ready to feed it my timeless Stars-related questions, and bask in the ZuboZen Koanator 3000's infinite hockey wisdom. My first question was one on the minds of all Stars fans for most of the series: "What the F^%k?? I mean, F%$k on a f&%king f$%ktstick, what the f*%king f%$k?!?" I got this from the ZuboZen:

The point of the question is dull but the answer is intimate.

How many persons hearing it will open their eyes?

Do you smell what the ice is cooking,

The spring does not belong to the regular season.

"Ok," I thought to myself, "now we're getting somewhere!" So I poured in some more chocolate milk and asked my next question: "Does this series exonerate Turco's past playoff meltdowns?" The ZuboZen calmly and quietly absorbed the milk and spit out this response:

Some hockey students do not realize the true man in a mask

Because they recognize ego-soul.

Puck possession is the seed of birth and death,

And foolish people call it the true man.

Again, this is exactly the sort of concrete answer Stars fans needed. On a roll, I asked it this: "What about the Stars' Finnish players, who played so well in years past only to completely disappear in the postseason?"

One should not discuss a timely goal

In front of a European.

Why has Lehtinen no beard?

What an absurd question!

Again, a pithy answer to a tough question. I noticed that my supply of chocolate milk was running low, so I decided to ask it some of the really perplexing posers that had previously paralyzed my hockey senses: "What are we to make concerning Modano's soft play in this and previous postseasons? After coming back from injury, he seemed so primed for gritty playoff success!"

At the turning of a flower

His disguise was exposed.

No one in heaven or earth can surpass

Trevor Linden's wrinkled face.

Again, precisely the info the Stars organization can use to make concrete off-season decisions. Buoyed by boisterous boyishness, I had to ask the ZuboZen another question: "Which players should we keep for next season, and which perennial underperformers should we dump?"

When the question is common

The answer is also common.

When the question is sand in a bowl of Frosted Flakes

The answer is a punch in the soft groin.

This is great stuff, I thought. Looking at my dwindling supply of chocolate milk, I realized I had just enough for two more questions. So like a Hollywood serial killer, I chose my words carefully: "So, uh, I mean, well, the Stars keep, you know, losing and stuff in the first round, and it, well, um, hey, it's not cool and, dang, sucks a lot and stuff, you know?"

Hey, Tom Hicks: what is the sound of no hands clapping?

Whoever understands the first round

Should understand the ultimate round.

The last and first,

Are they not the same?

Wow. I had just enough Nestle for one more go, and asked the question all Stars fans have been asking for the last three years: "And what about Tippett? The guy is possibly the best regular-season coach in the NHL, yet when it comes to the playoffs it seems he instructs his team to play timidly, without energy and avoid taking shots on net at all costs. What is the deal with this guy?" The answer I got should shock no one:

It is too clear and so it is hard to see.

A dunce once searched for fire with a lighted lantern.

Had he known what fire was,

He could have cooked his rice much sooner.

Although I was, at that point, out of chocolate milk I was now full of gleaming hockey wisdom. My quest to quaff this quagmire of queries was at an end, my belly full of happy knowledge, I was ready to accept the Stars' most recent playoff exit --and all past, present and future quick playoff exits --absorb the abject failures of twenty professional disappointments, take a deep breath and move on. Tune in next week when I use the ZuboZen Koanator to pick the winning lotto numbers in Texas' Jackpot Millions!