Wednesday, May 2, 2007

And it feels like 1994

The last year that the Golden State Warriors and San Jose Sharks were both in the playoffs was 1994. This was the last time the Warriors made the playoffs before this year, and the first time the Sharks ever made the playoffs. And Kurt Cobain was alive, O.J. Simpson was known only as a retired football player, and George W. Bush was just the principal owner of an unsuccessful baseball team.

In the 1994 NHL playoffs, the Sharks went into the first series against the Red Wings as a prohibitive underdog, a number 8 seed against a number 1 seed. They ended up beating the Red Wings in 7 games before losing to Toronto in 7 games in the second round. This year, they're also playing the Red Wings, this time in the second round, and also an underdog, but not as much. Detroit is the top seed thanks to playing in a weak division, and the Sharks are a number 5 seed, but the teams are fairly evenly matched. With a victory tonight, San Jose has the opportunity to take a commanding 3-1 lead in the series.

In the 1994 NBA Series, the Warriors were swept by Charles Barkley and the Phoenix Suns in the first round. This year, they're playing the top-seeded Dallas Mavericks as an even bigger underdog than the Sharks were 13 years ago against the Red Wings. Last night they had the opportunity to put the Mavericks away, and were leading by 9 points with just over three minutes to go before Dallas scored 15 straight points to win the game by six. They have another opportunity tomorrow night to wrap up this incredible opening-round upset. And their 1994 foe Charles Barkley, is now an analyst on TNT who's been bad-mouthing the Warriors as a team and "Golden State as a city" (which it isn't) and saying they don't have a chance against the mighty Mavs. Taking anything Barkley says seriously is folly, but it would be great if the Warriors could take care of business tomorrow and shut him up for awhile.

The Sharks were new to the Stanley Cup playoffs back in 1994, and the Bay Area was swept up in Sharksmania. This year, they're pretty much expected to win, and have been playing second fiddle to the Warriors throughout their playoff run. My first toe-tipping into the internet was reading the alt.sports.hockey.sj-sharks Usenet group. That group was pretty hopping and active with the team being based in Silicon Valley and everything, and the sharing common experiences with people you don't know in real-time was like a thrilling new discovery.

The internet was a different place back in 1994. Almost no one was on-line, even in the Bay Area, so it was like a secret club. I also read the sf-49er newgroup during the 1994 football season (the last year they won the Super Bowl), and between the end of hockey (April) and the start of football, (September) the whole internet exploded, and there were ten times as many people posting. Which made for a noisier Usenet, so I stopped reading after Super Bowl XXIX.

Now, with the advent of what they call Web 2.0 (the collaborative internet, blogs and stuff), a good part of my online experience involves reading various sports sites, and sharing common experiences with people I don't know. The Warriors collapse against the Mavs, the A's comeback against the Red Sox, the Sharks win over the Red Wings, Liverpool's victory over Chelsea in the Champions League semis (there goes the quadruple). Instant reports from fans on both sides of these competitions is just a few clicks away. It's like the early days of Usenet all over again.

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