Sunday, February 28, 2010

Disappointment

I have taken a great deal of grief from people over the years because of the way I embrace sports; I embody the true meaning of the word fan, as in fanatic. If you are not accustomed to how people of my ilk act, I'll put it this way; if the team I am rooting for loses, it is not the end of the world, but it will certainly ruin the rest of my day. To say the least, there are not many people at my advanced age who behave this way, but I have never been one to toe the line, I live on the extremes of polarity.

I bring this up for two reason: if you are not used to be around people like this and all of a sudden find yourself in their tornado of odd emotions, the best bet is to just let them steam out and eventuallly they will come back to reality and realize the folly of shutting down simply because the result of a sports game did not go the way they wanted to, the other reason is that if you have never been around one of these people, you will absolutely never, and i mean never, understand where in the blue hell they are coming from.

Many people would think that this is an insane way to live, and it may well be, but from my experience it is pretty common among New Englanders, and as a man from Connecticut, I fit right in.

For most people who simply do not know how to find that golden mean, living life and watching sports is a double edged sword. The best way to describe the upside of one of these (well, let's call them benders because that is what they truly are) benders is the realistic description that as a life long Red Sox fan, I will always have in my back pocket the pure euphoria of watching Keith Foulke underhand a ball to Doug Mientkeiwidshjfhdkshldkjhc for the final out of the 2004 World Series...

The opposite would be from the year before when it took a whole fifteen minutes for me to move after Aaron "Bleepin'" Boone took Tim Wakefield deep to end the Red Sox World Series Hope (phew sentence over).

Today was a Bleepin' Boone day...

It was shaping up to be a wonderful day, Uconn vs. Louisville and USA vs. Canada for the gold in men's ice hockey. I was hoping for a split (realistically Uconn).

Uconn outplayed Louisville in the first half, but the Cardinals were able to bank in a prayer at the end of the first half and the old-school Red Sox fan inside me kept saying, "thats the kind of stuff that happens when three points at the end of the game will kill us, this is not good, this is not good." (It was not good).

Sarnardo Samuels made a campsite in the lane and did not get called once, and to ease the pain, Uconn blew a winnable game (they are no 0-6 in games decided by 5 or less) and now are resting very cautiously on the bubble against a suddenly red hot Notre Dame team.

To describe what Uconn sports means to the good Nutmeg people is hard to do; many do not realize that it is our only team. When the Whalers left in 1997 (leaving behind a rabid fanbase, but it's ok Gary Bettman, sure overexpand, take teams out of Canada and the Northeast and send them south and to warm climates where hockey is not played, makes great sense) they took with them Connecticut's only professional sports team. Who was there to help us through this transition*? The University of Connecticut Huskies *Transition means moving on to something, we were left with nothing and still do not have anything.

Uconn (both men and women, and thankfully recently the football team) is that conservative and pretty rebound girlfriend that you got after breaking up with that cazy, but smokin' hot girlfriend; sure, she may not be as good looking as the last girl, but she will always be there and she will never hurt you (and inside you are saying, "true, but crazy girl was smoking hot, and it was kinda fun not knowing if she would stab me or up and leave in the middle of the night..." always forgetting that she did in fact up and leave in the middle of the night.

Uconn made the pain of losing the Whalers go away slightly. When you go to bed at night you are thinking about Emeka and Rip and Ricky Moore, but every once in a while you have that sex dream of Sean Burke and Pat Verbeek (by the way, gross line right there) and you wake up sweating and on the verge of tears.

Back to the point, Uconn lost a winnable game, ok...ok... USA can do this, we got the momentum...

CRAP down 2-0... there is no way we can come back against this team that reads like the who's who of hockey, I should've known things would turn out like this, my Red Sox sense have been tingling all day....but ya know, Luongo IS looking kinda shaky....

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL.... Ok ok, we're in this and Miller is playing like a beast, but damn are we getting crushed here in the third...fast forward.

Pulled goalie, we are dominant with the extra man, holy crap...... ... ........ GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL. I LOVE YOU RYAN KESLER I WABT TO HAVE YOUR BABIES!!!! Ok, overtime....

Has JR been doing lines? He is literally just as tense as I am JEREMY ROENICK YOU ARE NOT HELPING... Pucked drop (oh no, it's four on four we are so screwed....)

Yup, Igilna, don't let him pass it, no...wait WHAT THE HELL?!?!?!? He scored? I didn't even see it (neither did Miller apparently)...

Dear NBC,

I hated every single method you used to over the olympics and thanks to you, I didn't even see the overtime goal in one of the best games ever...EVER... in hockey. Please do the Mama Cass and choke and die. That is all.

Sincerely,
He who should've seen it coming

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