Like a death in the family

By Kris Kotarski

In her groundbreaking works about coping with mortality, Elizabeth Kubler Ross identified five distinct stages a human goes through when faced with death. So successful was her analysis that even the Simpsons paid tribute to her in the episode when Homer ate the poison blowfish.

The women’s soccer team losing 2-1 to the University of British Columbia Thunderbirds on Sun., Sept. 23, is far from death. However, the shock and disbelief of the Dinos actually losing–and gasp!– giving up two goals is clearly astounding. To help Dinos fans in this most difficult time of need, we’ll walk through the five stages of death together.

Denial and isolation

What do you mean they lost? They beat the University of Victoria 3-0 the day before… They were flying around the Vikes net and sniping at will. Hema Chengkalath scored and so did Jessica Horning. Jessie Norrie converted a penalty kick. Goaltender Taryn Swiatek got her fourth consecutive shutout and the Dinos were dominant as usual.

There was no game against UBC a day later. And in related denial, the Dutch national team made the World Cup and the Polish team didn’t.

Anger

What the hell is going on? They’re not supposed to lose. The referee was blind, the Thunderbirds were cheating and the wind was blowing in the wrong direction. Angela Nayer had no business scoring on the Dinos. What may have looked like a brilliant header off a free kick was actually Nayer picking up the ball and throwing it into the net. I have slow motion replay. I know. When Jessie Norrie converted her second penalty kick of the weekend just a minute later, things looked right again. But Sarah Nannery had to ruin it all. She beat Swiatek with a powerful strike from inside the box and made the people angry. Damn Sarah Nannery. Go back to Vancouver. Nobody likes you anyway. Just wait till the Dinos go on their West Coast swing in late October. We’ll see who wins then.

Bargaining

So if the Dinos lose, what does that mean? Can’t we just forget about the UBC game? We can talk to the head honchos in the Canada West Conference and maybe we’ll get this blasphemy overturned. Surely, they must understand the Dinos don’t lose. The Dinos need a cushion in the standings and while actually winning would have helped, maybe we can still work something out. Maybe we’ll call it a tie on the account of Dinos’ forward Hema Chengkalath actually blocking a shot that was going into the UBC net with about a minute left in play.

Depression

Dinos Head Coach Robin "Slot Machine" Slot wasn’t too dejected after the loss. He acknowledged his team looked a little out of it and didn’t communicate well, but he was optimistic for the future. The players looked alright too. While no one was happy walking off the field, fullback Erin Ramsey had a smile on her face shortly after and predicted a great finish to the Dinos season.

For the fans, it’s a different story. All there’s left after this loss is a warm blanket and a cold pint. Prozac helps too, but one must be careful with anything synthetic. Until this loss is avenged, there’ll be no peace and no happiness.

Acceptance

Everyone loses sometime. A perfect season is rare and the Dinos still have the best team in Canada West. They may be a little wounded, but they’re not dead. They’re second in the conference and still in prime position to win it all. The players look forward to the rest of the season where they can prove this loss was just an unexpected break from the norm. As for the fans–they’ll have to live with the one tick in the loss column.

Hopefully, this will be the last one.

G-G-G-Goal Notes:

The loss to UBC dropped Calgary from second to eighth in the National Rankings.

Trinity Western has the best ranking in Canada West at fourth.

Calgary forward Megan Durado sat out the weekend with a concussion suffered at the hands of people from Saskatchewan. She’s expected back for Calgary’s next game on Wed., Oct. 10 when the squad travels to Lethbridge.