Life Through Hockey

The Red Wings play the Edmonton Oilers tonight at 8pm, on some station that I don't have to worry about finding since whatever bar I go to will unquestionably have already found it. To a lot of people, it will be just another game on television that may catch their interest for a second or two in between flipping through other programming. To some it will be interrupting their regular programming and they'll feel a rise of anger when they see that playoff hockey is on NBC instead of whatever retarded game show has people slinging catchphrases in their daily conversations.  Yet, for some people, what happens tonight could seal the next three months into an envelope labeled "Something Else".

We all have things that are dearly important to us, and a lot of people find true love through sports. I surely do. Is it because I understand the game or because I can identify with the players' frustrations as having played myself? Maybe. However, on a deeper level I think it is because I realize that the players that suit up in red and white and take the ice every night are living their dream. They are doing what they told themselves they wanted to do since they were little kids, again through the process of "growing up", and when faced with the opportunity to put forth the amount of work and effort necessary to make it a reality, they stepped up, worked hard and generally won at life. They put themselves out for public consumption, entertainment, and criticism. They are amazing. In turn, I feel a loyalty to that team of individuals, through waivers, retirement, and even trades when it's time to let a player go.

Hockey is an incredibly emotional game. A lot of people who are not fans of the game would probably fail to realize that. 

In June of 1997, in one of the most tragic incidents in hockey history, Vladmir Konstantinov (among others) was in a limosine accident that put him into a coma, and from which he eventually sustained head injury and paralysis. I have never cried with such intense sadness and happiness at the same time, as when he was wheeled onto the ice following the 1998 Detroit Stanley Cup win. My emotion bled through in respect for his courage, what he'd given to the team, and subsequently what his team was able to give back to him.

In 1999, nearly exactly seven years ago from this date, Steve Chaisson (Red Wings defenseman) was killed in a car accident. I grieved as if I had lost a member of my own family. The degree of sympathy I felt for people I'd never met was difficult to interpret, and wasn't anything short of true admiration.

In 2002, when Detroit won the Stanley Cup I, once again, couldn't suppress my emotions. I was ordered multiple sympathy drinks, when they really should have been celebratory.

2004, known infamously as "The Year Without Hockey" was one of the worst years in my personal life, ever. I found little joy in cheap replacements.

Tonight, the Wings face elimination if they are beaten by the Oilers. Unfortunately, the game is not being played at the Joe and I'll feel like I'm watching the game with people that are cheering against me. I can respect them, but I hate them until the game is over. Because tonight, if elimination is imminent, I am going to swimming in emotion I will fail to be able to control. The team into which I am inexplicably emotionally invested wasn't able to achieve their goal this year. They spent a record regular season preparing for the moment where they could again feel an equal reward for the amount of energy spent and be perfectly content with their performance without the hinderance of what they could have done better, or more efficiently. 

There is a point when you're facing fierce adversity where you either decide to become self-defeatist, or to draw from that energy and overcome it. This is true in hockey, and this is true in life.

Plus, if all I have to look foward to on SportsCenter for the next three months is baseball and golf, or Colorado as the 2006 Stanley Cup Champions, I'll die.