My Life as a Sports Fan

*sappy post alert. This is why I hate blogs, right here*

So today I turn 20. Yeah, I'm a youngin. Anyways, I was sitting there thinking about how the Oilers' playoff run has affected me and wondered how exactly I had come to this place.

When I was 6, my family moved from Iqaluit to Winnipeg. I had never heard of sports at all really. My dad had a blue Bills sweatshirt he bought in Buffalo one year, but I had no idea who the Bills were. I had seen pictures of my grandparents in Oilers jerseys during the 80s. Again, no clue. Moving to Winnipeg (and watching TV channels besides the Disney one) changed all of this.

My First sports memory is October-ish of 1992, when the Blue Jays were playing the Braves in the World Series. I didn't really know what was going on, but I was at a Beavers meeting at a friends house and the game was on in the background. I just remember the Devon White triple-play-that-was-wrongfully-ruled-a-not-triple-play upsetting all the adults in the room.


Around the same time, ESSO started giving out free packs of hockey cards when you filled up your tank. Gas cost like 40 cents/litre back then and two stations in town would regularly drop to 20 cents in a gas war. Anyways, my dad drove from the southwest end of town to the airport in the north every day to work, so we were using our fair share of gas, and my mom was raking in these hockey cards. Then My dad took me to a Jets game.

Getting my first Teemu Selanne card was the first happiest day of my life. It took me like 3 months of collecting before I got one. Then, for my 7th birthday, my parents bought me one of his rookie cards. My love affair with hockey really stemmed through my connection with those cards. I recognized players from their cards and would recite their stats to my dad during games, as well as what Upper Deck had to say about them on those special inserts. My weekly allowance, earned from cleaning the basement and doing the garbage, would be used to buy hockey cards.

That winter, Selanne took me on a magical ride, scoring 76 goals, haviong 132 points, being unstopapble on breakaways and penalty shots, throwing his glove in the air and shooting in with his golden stick. I loved the man more than life itself. I was there for the game against Quebec. I was there for "52,53,54, Bossy's record is no more. The Jets won 7-5. 54 was on a wrap around where Selanne deked Fiset to the ground about 15 feet in front of the crease then calmly slipped around the net and tucked it in. I was there for the game against the Leafs where he topped Stastny. It was uncanny how he resonated with the fans, how his rivalry with Bure developed into a war between the two teams. It was only fitting the Canucks and Jets met in the first round that year. It hurt me bad the Jets lost.

One other glaring moment from that first year was a late-night HNIC game featuring the Jets and Flames. My Calgarian-uncle Ken was in town for Christmas and we engaged in a hearty verbal exchange over whose team was better. The Flames prevailed. It was either 3-2 or 4-2. I've hated them ever since.

IN Novemeber of 92, I watched the hometown Blue Bombers lose to the Stamps in the Grey Cup. Man I hated Flutie. A year later, the Eskies would give them the same treatment. Despite my earlier attachment to teh Bombers, however, I never stuck with them, flipping around depending on where I was living, cheering for the Lions in BC, for the Esks now.

JAnuary of 93 brought my first NFL game. Bills vs. Cowboys. My dad cheered for the Bills, so obviously I picked the Cowboys. It may seem like bandwagon jumping, but I swear, the Cowboys became my favourite team simply so i could root against my dad. IN the mid-90s, as the arrests and drug charges piled up, my interest in the cowboys waned. I latched onto the Bucs for a little while, won a super bowl with them, gained little satisfaction and stopped really caring about american football.

That Spring, the defending World Series Champs trotted out an amazing line-up. White, Alomar, Molitor, Carter, Olerud, Sprague, Borders, Fernandez and LF-du-jour, at leats until the acquired Henderson. Hentgen, Guzman, Stewart, Morris, Stottlemeyer. Ward, Leiter, Timlin, Eichhorn. Coke had a psychadelic commercial with a BLue Jays themed Jingle and the Jays walked off with one of the most memorable moments in baseball history, Joe Carter's 3-run bomb that never gets enough credit for being one of the best HRs of all-time. Olerud batted .363 and led the Al. Molitor finished2nd at .332 and Alomar went 3rd at .326. No, I didn't look any of that up.

That following winter, Selanne would tear his knee-tendon and miss half the year. It was kinda disappointing because he only had 54 points in like 51 games. Then the baseball and hockey strikes hit, the Jays couldn't three-peat, and the team was never the same after that. The same year (94), I moved from Winnipeg to Prince George, BC. I cried because I couldn't watch the Jets anymore.

In September of 94, the Victoria Cougars of the WHL moved to Prince George. I attended the first game in a too-small arena (the new one had yet to be built) sitting behind the bench of the Tacoma Rokcets and listening to their trainer swear all game. My dad was unimpressed.

In 96, after putting up ridiculous numbers, the Jets dealt Selanne to Anaheim for Chad KIlger and Oleg Tverdovsky. Smart move assholes. I ripped up my autographed picture of then Jets GM John Paddock. That summer, the Jets moved to Phoenix. I was 10. I cried again.

That summer, I was staying up late to watch a Jays-Angels game on the West Coast. That game was 10-years ago today. The Ump blew a call at second base in the 9th that would have let the Jays tie it. They lost instead, 7-6 I believe. My dad was in the garage, building my first basketball net.

Earlier that year, at Easter, we were in Vancouver and I went to my first NBA game: Grizzlies-Suns. Kevin Johnson hit a half-court buzzer-beater at the end of the first quarter. The Grizz got killed.

Most of my years in Prince George were consumed by the Cougars. I got to know and cheered for Eric Brewer, Zdeno Chara, Trent Hunter, Blair Betts, Tyler Bouck and Dan Hamhuis. I remember one game, Calgary's only visit of the season, the Hitmen still had Brendl and were top three in the league. The game was on a Tuesday or Wednesday, but my Dad let me go. The Music system went out, only the PA worked, and the fans made noise all game long. It was the most ridiculous fan display I have ever been apart of.

Ever playoff would come down to the same thing. The Cougars would win their first round match-up against Kamloops or Kelowna (both teams were huge rivals, newspaper and radio made huge deals about these series). Then they would face Seattle in the stupid "extra round" thing that the WHL playoffs used to have. It was a short, five-game series that the Cats would win. Then they played Spokane and lost in 7. I hated the Chiefs so badly.

In the summer of 1998, during a trip to Toronto, I went to my first baseball game. Roger Clemens was on the mound. Wow. Toronto won 7-5, but man was Clemens sweet to watch. 7 years later, I woudl return to Skydome (Rogers Centre) with my dad. We bought walk-up ticketsd, sat in the right-field bleachers, heckled the A's bullpen catcher and RF Nick Swisher all game. Well, almost all game. In the top of the 7th, Swisher belted a HR 10 feet to my left. We didn't heckle him in the bottom.

Spring Break 2002 brought a team trip to Oregon for a Tournament. We hung there while The Ducks played Texas in the Sweet 16. On the way back, we were on court during halftime of a Osnic-Jazz game. I high-fived Gary Payton. I saw MAlone and Stockton run the pick-and-roll. I applied for a Seattle Supersonics Mastercard and got a free T-shirt.

IN Marches of 04, 05 and 06, I would book off work or skip school for the first weekedn of the Madness, and me and my buddy Vince would sit in front of my TV for 15 hours, watching ball, cheering the underdogs with 5'4" PGs and only getting up to go for Booster Juice and Little Caesars.

October 03 brought a cold bunch of me and my friends to College Corner at an Eskies game. It also brought my first face painting for a team. We also had ESKS done on our chests. There was a fight and some girl spilled beer on a guy. We were the onyl fans in the section who didn't get kicked out.

In University, balancing fandom with unbiased reporting has created a new challenge. I wa sentirely unprofessional during the Can West Final Four in 05 when Melnychuk hit his game-tying shot. I'm pretty sure that's the only time Chris and I have hugged. And thank God we chose the stands and not the Table for Alex Steele's shot against Calgary earlier this year. That brought me up out my seat as well.

And that brings us to this Year's Playoff run. I last shaved on the day the Oilers clinched the playoffs, April 13. It has been 62 days since, and my beard is killing me. I've watched every game except one (game 2 vs. detroit). I've made plans that make no sense at all, just to watch the games with the same people because we were winning. I was at Game 6 against Detroit, painted copper and blue (well, orange, not copper), hugging complete strangers in section 224. I've walked Whyte twice, high-fived cops and people in moving vehicles. I've stayed in a bar for 5 hours after a softball game with Dave Berry, Scott Lilwall, Ben Carter and Steve Smith. I've pounded a table so hard I've spilled water on myself. I've made hundreds of Flames jokes at Kendrick's expense, and for every one, I've bitched twice about how itchy my face is. By the end of tonight, I'll probably have shaved it off and the city will be mellowed by an Oilers loss. Then again, who knows. The only sure thing is that, on my 20th birthday, I'll be surrounded by friends and family, the people who have been involved in every one of these memories, counting on an unkempt beard and an unwashed Oilers T-shirt and Jersey to be lucky for one more win. 62 days or 65 or 67, this playoffs run has been a greta ride, and so has everythign else I've gotten to do. There are not many 20 year-olds who have experienced as much as I have, and for that I am greatful.

*end of sappy, no one wants to read emo-blogging*