What Are You Looking At, You Hockey Puck?
It is completely unnecessary to suffer several days' emotional devastation when your team loses some big postseason deal like the Super Bowl." - George Carlin
There was a time in my life when I would be inconsolable right now. I'm talking about the kind of emotional distress that would have me locked up in my room most of the weekend, staring at the wall, and trying to find something, anything to take my mind off the fact that a group of 20 or so guys that I've never met had just ruined my life.
Obviously I'm talking about the Red Wings losing the Stanley Cup. I've followed them pretty closely since cable television finally made them accessible in the early 1990's. They've been contenders/champions that whole time. Six Stanley Cup finals and four championships is a pretty impressive record.
*Hockey is the best sport on a purely entertainment level and even more so during the playoffs. It's fast moving, tense, violent, and the score is usually close.. So when you add all that up and then put it in the context of a "do or die" final game it's even more entertaining. It's a shame that it doesn't translate better to television. I've yet to see a game on HDTV, but imagine widescreen HD vastly improves the television hockey experience. And above all other sports it is the best game to see live.
I've had my share of juvenile dejection at the end of "important" sporting events, but It was actually after the Red Wings won the Stanley Cup in 1997 that I became aware that my relationship to sports was changing. I was watching with five other guys and one of them was so intense and fanatical that when the game ended he jumped up and began high fiving everyone and screaming his head off like a maniac. It was embarrassing to watch and all I could think was, "Wow, is that what it looks like?" Since that time I've never gotten too up or too down about "my teams" and their end of year results.
So it's not the end of the world for me, my friends. I like the Red Wings and it would be nice if they won again, but oh well. It doesn't have a thing to do with my happiness. I'm just glad I have a job.
There was a time in my life when I would be inconsolable right now. I'm talking about the kind of emotional distress that would have me locked up in my room most of the weekend, staring at the wall, and trying to find something, anything to take my mind off the fact that a group of 20 or so guys that I've never met had just ruined my life.
Obviously I'm talking about the Red Wings losing the Stanley Cup. I've followed them pretty closely since cable television finally made them accessible in the early 1990's. They've been contenders/champions that whole time. Six Stanley Cup finals and four championships is a pretty impressive record.
*Hockey is the best sport on a purely entertainment level and even more so during the playoffs. It's fast moving, tense, violent, and the score is usually close.. So when you add all that up and then put it in the context of a "do or die" final game it's even more entertaining. It's a shame that it doesn't translate better to television. I've yet to see a game on HDTV, but imagine widescreen HD vastly improves the television hockey experience. And above all other sports it is the best game to see live.
I've had my share of juvenile dejection at the end of "important" sporting events, but It was actually after the Red Wings won the Stanley Cup in 1997 that I became aware that my relationship to sports was changing. I was watching with five other guys and one of them was so intense and fanatical that when the game ended he jumped up and began high fiving everyone and screaming his head off like a maniac. It was embarrassing to watch and all I could think was, "Wow, is that what it looks like?" Since that time I've never gotten too up or too down about "my teams" and their end of year results.
So it's not the end of the world for me, my friends. I like the Red Wings and it would be nice if they won again, but oh well. It doesn't have a thing to do with my happiness. I'm just glad I have a job.