Goal scorer, O Goal scorer! Wherefore art thou Goal Scorer?

Goal scorer, O Goal scorer! Wherefore art thou Goal Scorer? Deny thy new contract and refuse thy free agency; Or, if thou wilt not, be sworn my love, And I'll no longer be a Coyote fan.

I know I should be excited about the new Coyotes season on the horizon, and I know that the new blood and young players may be something interesting to watch, but I'm having a real hard time having much stomach for the 2001-2002 Yotes season. Don't get me wrong, the Coyotes will always be my team, but my heart just isn't in it any more.

I take exception to being lied to, I guess. Exception to Mr. Fletcher and Mr. Gretzky telling me up to the last minute, the last week of June, that JR would be their first priority and then having to watch him interviewed on television in tears and make myself be happy for him when he signed with the Flyers. Why not tell the truth? Is hockey that horrible of a business that a little truth can't be had? When May rolled around, how hard would it have been to say, "Jeremy, we can't afford you, thank you for everything you've done, good luck wherever you go." At least give the fans a little time to get used to it, at least be upfront and honest about the situation. But noooooooooooooooooooo, the Coyotes front office couldn't do that. They lied. And I can't forget that. And I can't forgive them for making my favorite hockey boy cry. I will never ever forgive that. Never. Maybe that makes me petty and vindictive, but I figure it just makes me loyal.

Funnier yet, the day that Roenick signed with Philadelphia, the Coyotes ticket sales representative called me and wanted me to buy Coyotes season tickets. Poor thing. I told her, and I quote, "You called me on the wrong $%^& day!" And then I ranted. Not that she cared. But don't think that they gave up so easily. This week I got email from them again, wanting me to buy season tickets. I responded, politely believe it or not, and said, you blew it. I was a signature away from three season tickets and you let him walk out the door. But let me check my schedule and when I'm not flying out of town to Flyers games, when I'm not in Chicago or Toronto or L.A. or New York, maybe I'll catch a Coyotes game or two.

They didn't like that.

My biggest question for this revamped "we are not rebuilding" Coyotes team is, who is going to score the goals? The new left winger Sergei Berezin has seen his goal production drop from 37 to 24 over the last few years. Michael Handzus will have to return to 99-00 form to score even 25 goals. The new "first line center" (cough cough cough) Damion Langkow scored 13 goals last year. Thirteen. Less than half Roenick's production. Most of the players responsible for the improved power play are gone and departed favorites Roenick and Tkachuk scored more than half the team's goals and produced three 90 plus point seasons. Can this rebuilt team match that? Can these youngsters, probably led by "I'm too young to be captain" Shane Doan step up far enough to fill the gaping holes left behind by Tkachuk, Roenick, Carney, et al? And will Coach Francis take the bullet when this team doesn't do it, when they stumble out the gate and take the rest of the season to get back up again? Hockey News predicts this team will finish in 10th place in the West and dubs the Coyotes a rebuilding bunch of rag tags. So, didn't they get the memo about the Yotes "not rebuilding"?

Cliff Fletcher doesn't need to worry, he'll be bumped higher up into the front office once Mike Barnett takes over the GM job. Then Wayne Gretzky will have all his old cronies in place, tell the fans to like it or shut up, and the good old boy network will be in place for the move to Glendale. Suck it up fans, we're supposed to be happy about all this, remember? We were so overjoyed with Gretzky's purchase of the team, keeping them from moving to Portland. Well, right about now, I'm kind of wishing they would have left.

From the desk of Jo Namio: http://www.jeremy-roenick.com.