To Root or Not to Root (for Ws), That Is the Question

So, Sabres fans ... it looks like we have a dilemma on our hands, don't we?

For starters, you're welcome. Anyone who had the audacity to doubt the merits of Trevor Luck should now feel amply ashamed. Ever since I started rooting for the Sabres to lose out the season in order to gain a lottery pick in this summer's entry draft, they've started playing the way we expected them to since the beginning.

So here's the problem. Since Trevor Luck is basically a theorem at this point, I don't know whether to start rooting for them to win out the year and make the playoffs or not. Obviously if they're not going to finish dead last, they might as well make the playoffs (no one wants to root against his team when they deserve support). But then, if I start genuinely hoping they make the playoffs, they won't -- and, of course, there also won't be enough games left for them to fall back down the toilet drain to a lottery pick.

The biggest kicker is this: I could root out loud for them to lose and secretly hope that that would confer wins, but that's called the ol' "reverse jinx," and it ends up screwing you every time, too. The Sabres would still lose and fail to make the playoffs, and they'd actually finish 9th -- just enough to destroy us a little more inside and still fail to grab a lucrative slot in the draft.

So that's basically the story of my life. It's why I drink and why I keep psychiatrists up nights. I'm a walking enigma who had the fortune of growing up a Sabres fan, and once again face the burden of carrying the collective fate of an entire city and its hockey team on my shoulders.