Have you ever disliked something because you wanted to? Maybe it felt foreign, was something you enjoyed making fun of or maybe you also really enjoyed making fun of the people who liked it.
Maybe it was all of the above. Did you end up liking it anyway? If so, you can relate to my path to hockey fandom.
I have made fun of hockey for as long as I can remember. I’ve even made fun of it here, and with good cause.
Growing up in the south, it was the fifth least popular sport behind football, basketball, baseball and NASCAR. For me it ranked sixth because I was the odd fella who loved soccer.
Another reason I criticized it publicly and in print was that, despite its lack of support around me, the NHL kept shutting down. Whether it be for strike or lockout, the league stopped business four times in twenty years between 1992 and 2012 because of financial demands. Seemed to me as if they thought themselves awfully important for something that nobody I cared about cared about.
I also recognized that hockey is just soccer for people who live in the cold, but players seemed to have sticks in their hands and swords on their feet. I appreciated that fighting was allowed, but the rest seemed weird as he and double hockey sticks.
Eventually the Hartford Whalers relocated to North Carolina, called themselves the Hurricanes and won a Stanley Cup less than a decade later. It became harder for this sports fan not to get caught up in all of the excitement whether I understood it or not, but my aversion to hockey persevered.
Despite the warnings of Bell Biv Devoe, I later met a young lady with a nice smile who loved hockey and I began watching with her. I managed to avoid really liking it until the Olympics came and I got caught up in the joy of national pride and cursing Canadians.
The girl came and went but my appreciation for hockey somehow remained despite an honest attempt on my part to give it up. She still loves it and I wanted to go back to making fun of people who like that but there was a problem, I was now one of those people.
Any questionable feelings I had about my fandom were erased on Monday when the Canes went from down 3-0 to scoring 3 goals in 80 seconds of play and winning 5-3 during the playoffs. I genuinely doubt there has never been a louder hockey arena. I mean ever and I’m not kidding. Set a few decibel records in my living room too.
If you’ve been watching, you know how wild the NHL Playoffs are. If you haven’t been watching, what exactly are you waiting for?
Most Popular
Comments / 0