Shaving the playoff beard

With the Sharks' elimination Sunday night in the eighth-longest game in NHL history, I join the rest of the weekend's eliminated players in shaving today, both figuratively (back to blogging) and literally.

This morning's cleanly-shaven chin-scratcher? A $1.00 charge on my hotel room bill called "visitor assessment". Uh, isn't that inherent within the concept of paying for a hotel room? They give me a room, and assess me a charge. But now they're tacking on an additional buck?

Oh, wait...I bet they're going to assess me on how good of a guest I was--THAT'S the visitor assessment. If I took too long of a shower, or messed up the bed too much, or made the room too cold, I get a poor assessment, maybe by the energy police.

Assessing the Sharks, they get an F for their performance in Game 2, C's for Games 1 and 3, an A- in 4 and 5, and sadly, a B in game 6's loss. Unfortunately, that failure to move on results in an F, with the Sharks now having lost more playoff games since 2004 than any other team in the NHL. Getting to the playoffs consistently is great, but unless you're raising The Cup over your head (or at least skating in the finals), you don't get an A.

My assessment? I probably took too long of a shower, and didn't get enough sleep (since I was up late watching hockey). I give myself a B+.

Can I have my dollar back?