Diane's Playoff Diary, 4/18/00:
Thanks for the Pep Talk

Technically we Stars fans are not part of the team. We don’t do a darn thing to affect the outcome of the games, and can only watch helplessly and hope our boys do their best. This is why we engage in all our crazy superstitions—the foil Stanley Cups and lucky jewelry and ceremonial kissing of the Carbonneau Sher-Wood that hangs in my kitchen—so we feel like we’re doing something.

Technically we’re not part of the team, but in spirit we’re on the team plane, in the dressing room, on the ice for the opening faceoff. So we feel it’s important to have our hearts united with the cause, our minds on the same page as the guys who really do get to play the game.

That’s why Guy’s latest playoff diary was helpful.

It’s like our own little talk with the coach in the room before the game. So, how do we all feel after Sunday’s loss to Edmonton? We’re disappointed, we should be, we got our butts kicked all right. But our mood is fine, we’re staying positive. We know from experience this road has its bumps.

And what do we do now? Avoid the same mistakes. Be the kind of team we know we are, a team that improves its play after a loss, a team that thrives on pressure rather than buckling under it.

That’s the good word from Carbo. And even more than the words themselves, it is the spirit Guy conveys that encourages us. "We talked about what Edmonton did to us, what we didn’t do and what we need to do to them," he says. I like this concept: what we’re going to do to them. This is classic Carbonneau: Confidence that bears no resemblance whatsoever to cockiness, because it is based on so much wisdom and experience.

Up 2-1 in the series, we fans are hardly panicking yet…but still, the nervousness had crept back in. Those butterflies settle down a bit at the sound of the steady voice of our third line center, whom the Dallas Morning News recently called the emotional compass of the team.

And although we aren’t technically part of that team, it feels better to know the compass is pointing to confidence.