Your Obligatory AO Post

I'm really late on this but we're going to talk about it anyway so deal.

Alex Ovechkin hit the 60 goal mark Friday night against the Atlanta Thrashers. It's a pretty big deal.

AO is the first player to accomplish the feat since the 1996 season. Yeah, freaking 1996. If you had asked to me guess when the last time was a player hit the 60 mark I would of said 1934. It seems like we've been enduring this clutch-and-grab trap-the-life-out-of-the-game style of hockey much longer than 12 years. So thank goodness we can finally, officially, say we're past that (I know there's still a lot of that but play along). It was a curse on my life that made me question the intelligence of mankind on a daily basis. Kind of like when boy bands were popular in the late 90s/early 00s. They were the kind of thing that made you wish global warming would get it over with and destroy the Earth already.

But just think about what that year mans for a second. 1996.

Hockey Blog in Canada had a great synopsis on the whole situation, including a list of things that were going on in the world in '96. Here's a few more that really make you feel how long ago that year was if you're like me and have no grasp of time and other such concepts. I walk around half the time thinking things that happened in 1999 happened last week. That's where I'm coming from on this one.

In 1996...

• Y2K computer crashes weren't a glimmer in anyone's mind.
• Nintendo 64s had not yet been released. Nintendo FREAKING 64s.
• The OJ verdict was only a few months old.
  
• Britney Spears and Paris Hilton were 15.
• Google had not yet been founded and we were still at the beginnings/middle of the internet boom.
  
• You might of still been playing Oregon Trail.
  

Now if none of that had any effect on you... If you still can't grasp how long ago 1996 was... If it still feels like yesterday... I guarantee this next one will get the point across.

Here it goes.

In 1996...

Tupac and Biggie were still with us.

Now you understand. It feels like they've been gone since before time.