CONFESSION OF AN EXHAUSTED HOCKEY FAN

Author’s note: If you haven’t followed my past blogs, some of this will not make sense. More than anything, this blog is a cathartic exercise for me. I apologize and I thank you for your indulgence.

Depravity and Deprivation in LA

We didn’t realize it, but at the time of the Detroit Red Wings 2008 Stanley Cup playoff run, my brother and I were feeling an unprecedented level of quiet depravation. Years in LA, the lockout, life had caused us to lose touch with one of the more significant vehicles of entertainment and bonding in our lives: our love and devotion to the Detroit Red Wings. We were oblivious to the fact that we were searching for ways to spend more time to spend together,to re-experience a piece of our past that had meant so much in our family.

Quiet depravation.

Double entendred and purposefully misspelled if you will: A sense of loss and a level of depravity, you can only get immersing yourself as a true Los Angelenos.

And immerse we had. Not much of my mid-western Detroit “self” existed anymore in this spring of 2008. Four years after leaving Day-twa, I fit well into my Los Angeles home. The only thing I missed from my Midwestern roots-besides loved ones- were the Wings.

Maybe its in the blood, maybe part of the lifeblood that strengthens our relationship. Either way, by spring 2008 we were really jonesing for Hockey.

An unrealized sense of loss, combined with the nostalgic need to reconnect with each other through something that had been a strong glue, solidifying and helping form the relationship we had long ago nurtured all came to a head for my Brother and I.

It was sort of a perfect storm.

We started out with random texts in February and March, “McCarty’s back, did you see?” “HEDHS YES” “Love me some Macs.”

Then getting together for a NBC Saturday Feature: Wings versus Avs. A classic rivalry. And we sat there eating Baja Fresh, watching our Red Wings smother the Avs. We were blown away and unbelieving. Were these Wings this good, or those Avs this bad? (As it turns out: Both.) We were hooked back into something we had not closely followed in years.

It couldn’t be helped, really. The 2008 Wings were brilliant and exciting to watch. This looked like the teams of 1997, 1998 and 2002- only more. Already in mid March they were in playoff form: tight, methodical and sofaking talented. Mesmerizingly so.

Pasha and Hank “Wonder-twins activate: form of the perfect wing duo”. Nico, the brilliant silent leader. Homer and Ozzie. The thrill was back.

The 2008 Red Wings overwhelmed and amazed us. “Might be the best Red Wing team ever.” Hushed tones.

We relished every last playoff game and the time we finally found to spend together. Our love for the team and the game was re-ignited. My brother bought some new gear, started picking up extra games at his Burbank rink and joined another league.

For me it took a different turn. Unable to whiff even a wristshot, I could not expend my hockey en-fueled energy with sport. I began writing about that incredible Red Wing playoff run. And then, thanks to the wonderful people who read what I write and their amazing encouragement, I kept writing. A community of amateur Hockey writers- true fans of the game, grew from our interactions and fueled our involvement and interest in the game. We gave each other great energy and friendship.

I immersed myself in this hockey world. I wrote about free agency trades and the draft. I spent the summer covering hockey news as I learned about the league. For the first time in my life, I closely followed the whole league and the sport, not just one team. I made wonderful friends who were hockey fans, I joined a fantasy league. I received praise for my insight and opinions from one of the best in the business. I affirmed the knowledge that my appreciation for the game is firmly rooted in loving the game the Red Wings organization not only perfects and embodies, but which is so successful that it has fundamentally impacted the evolution of the league.

I learned, shared what I learned, and fell in love with the game. I made amazing friends.

A Year of Hockey

I wrote 3-4 times a week. Some weeks I wrote every day. I read copiously, ran a weekly radio show, did surprisingly well in my fantasy league and never missed a Red Wing game. I traveled all over the country to watch the Wings play. To San Jose, Chicago. Almost made it to Montreal. I attended Kings games, watched big games not involving the Wings. I attended WHL playoffs with other fans who lived half across the country (Go Ontario Reign!). I accepted an offer to write for the Examiner about the LA Kings. I organized and spearheaded a charity project involving young hockey writers and the NHL’s Hockey Fights Cancer program, for which I spent hundreds of hours organizing, meeting, and editing a book that now sits, nearly finished, never receiving final approval from the NHL for publication.

My life was completely immersed in all things hockey for nearly 10 months.

By the winter of 2009, this obsession was exhausting me. I was burning out. I no longer wanted to carry the radio show, no longer wanted to lose my Sundays and part of my Saturdays preparing for the show, watching 4-5 games on a Saturday or Thursday. I was disappointed that the NHL had bailed out of the book project. But I didn’t take a break, or give up even when I wanted to. Each week or day even would draw me back with a little spark, some interesting news, or a friend’s perspective. I was tired of Hockey, but too foolish to step back.

In February 2009, personal tragedy hit my family. I quickly turned my attention away from the Wings and my little hockey world.

Just at that time, something unexpected and amazing happened in my personal life. Something that by all counts is bigger and more incredible than any fantasy anyone here in Hollywood could ever dream up. Bigger than the Cup, Bigger than Hockey. (Ironic only because it was Hockey that brought this amazing thing back into my life....) And so I gladly drifted away from writing, the radio show and the hockey world. Sort of.

As the 2009 Playoffs approached, my Wings were chugging along, the Red machine, doing everything perfectly. My Brother and I once more geared up, focused and ready for an epic playoff run. Expecting and sure of eventual success.

Expectations Only Mean You Think You Know

What’s Coming Next, And You Don’t.

Throughout the entire 2008-2009 season I had unwavering belief and certain knowledge that my Red Wings would make it back to the Cup and would get it again. I never had a doubt. In fact, given my new found intimate knowledge of the rest of the league, I felt beyond confident.

My certainty wavered at only two points. First, after the Sharks failed to snuff the Ducks in Round 1, and we headed into Game 7 against Anaheim. As much as I loathe the Anaheim team and their hideous untalented thug style of play, I knew this would be the true test. In my opinion, it was the real 2009 Stanley Cup final series. After Game 3 I had no idea who would ultimately prevail. It was the second most painful playoff series I ever lived through.

This year of Hockey had brought me back to that level of emotional investment I felt in the mid 1990s. I was surprised to realize I had truly forgotten the pain we felt in 1995, 1996 when arch nemeses crushed our Stanley Cup dreams. That Ducks series brought it all back.

Driving home from Anaheim after Game 6 seeing Hossa robbed, I was proud of my team, but worried about them and the beating they were taking, exhausted and scared. So much emotional investment in this year had culminated in the Confy Finals. So much time and energy. But I was in, committing to the cause as any good fan is.

And my Wings didn’t let me down.

We moved on, and eventually snuffed the one team I knew it would cost to beat.

I realized I wasn’t writing much anymore and I cancelled radio show after radio show when my usual co-hosts began to drop out of the broadcast- not surprisingly in conjunction with their teams falling in the Playoffs.

I tried to write, but found myself observing the same things about my Red Wings I had the year before, and using the same adjectives, descriptors and observations. Mere paragraphs in, I trashed blog after blog, feeling like I ought to just post a one liner: “See my analysis of Game 3 – Dallas Series, 2008.” I felt tapped.

If I was tapped, I marveled at how the Wings were able to maintain the physical and emotional strength that it takes survive 3 of 4 consecutive seasons that last from September to June. It made me love my team that much more.

On to the Stanley Cup Finals. Pens again. Most of my hockey loving friends had quietly dropped off my facebook grid. No one even bothered to check in with me. Some had switched their allegiance to the Pens. The same people who had bashed Sid the Kid all year I found were quietly supporting his Cup run. To me it looked less like support for the Pens and more like dislike for the Wings. I took it personally. I wanted to feel hurt, but initially, had little energy to devote to the matter. Instead, I stopped looking for interaction with non-Wings fans and stuck with my own kind.

Re-committed all my energy into supporting my team. (Insert “ die-hard athletic supporter” joke here.)

Plus, after beating the Ducks, I was even more confident in my team’s talent and strength. I even believed that beating the Ducks was the sacrifice the Hockey Gods need to bestow upon you the Cup.

I believed there was no team the Wings could not take down. To this day I still believe as a fan, and analyze as an amateur sports writer that the 2009 Pens were less formidable a team than the 2009 Ducks.

But you can’t make it through Anaheim unscathed. You can’t survive it without being beaten senseless, emotionally and physically drained. There is no modern team more brutal, evil and dirty than the 2007-2009 Anaheim Ducks.

Now with Pronger on the Flyers, I expect Sid and his sheep to suffer what Pasha, Homer, Hank and Nico, along with the entire San Jose Sharks team have suffered. Let’s see a second run materialize with the Mighty Bruins still hungry and the Flyers beefing up to take back the “Thuggiest Team in The League” Title, (but with more young talent than the Ducks have had in a long time). Trust me, if the Flyers could just land a playoff goaltender, they would see a cup. Can you imagine a guy like Nic Backstrom or Henrik Lundquist on the Flyers? 22, there is your dream team. Thank goodness they have no talent to ever pick a decent goalie in Philly. But I digress. Where were we? AH yes, on to the Stanley Cup Finals 2009.

Soul Searching and Sour Grapes

And so it went. My Wings had flashes of brilliance in the 2009 Stanley Cup Finals, but they were held together by stick tape and mouthguards. They often played on nothing but adrenaline and sheer will. Their minds and hearts pressed valiantly forward, but the Ducks run had cost us.

By the end of Game 5 of the SCF, I was tired. I didn’t know how the Players were able to push on. I honestly didn’t know. But they did.

And still my Wings didn’t let me down. Sure, sure. I sat on the floor sobbing my eyes out as Game 7 wound down to its inevitable heartbreaking conclusion.

I cried for the loss. I cried for their disappointment, wanting this team that had given me so much this year to win the prize I felt they had earned.

I cried because of the year of Hockey, of a life immersed ended feeling my team had been robbed. I cried in disappointment, because I never once during that Finals series doubted these Wings would pull it out. I cried because my heart ached for the effort these amazing Red Wings gave and for the heartbreak they surely must have felt.

I never once stopped being proud of this team, or loving them. But I was exhausted. I could not take one more moment of Hockey. We turned the television off as the buzzer sounded, I could not even bear the idea of watching Sid hoist the Cup at the Joe. It still makes me sick to my stomach. I was done.

And then I felt guilty relief. It was over.

I didn’t watch, read, write about or listen to a thing involving Hockey for months. I stopped talking to most hockey friends. I quit the radio show.

I had seen it coming before the Finals series, but I did not know if losing the Cup had been the final straw. I did not want to be a sore loser, so I forced myself to attempt to write, promised one more radio show. Sent notes of congratulations to hockey friends who were Pittsburgh fans. Wrote one last heartfelt blog, but otherwise my heart wasn’t in any of it. Never did the final radio show.

I felt guilty. I felt like a fair-weather fan. (Of the GAME, not my Wings- JUST TO BE ABSOLUTELY CLEAR).

I let myself feel the hurt and took offense that “friends” completely abandoned me at the beginning of the Wings Finals run, and felt affronted that they had no words of support after my team lost (especially hurtful since I had supported them and their team’s runs and sent notes of condolence when they were feeling this same disappointment). I was resentful that I had given so much of my time, life, year to support and be there for people who ultimately not only abandoned me, but revealed their true feelings about my team.

I felt like the poster child for sour grapes and I was embarrassed. I did not expect my character would ever allow such meltdown. I felt guilty, but I could not over come it. I kept hoping it wasn’t so much sour grapes, as burn out.

But honestly, I didn’t know.

And so in that first week of June 2009 I left Hockey.

When UFA Day came along and I could not bring myself to check TSN, I wondered if I was done with Hockey. (Again, Not done with my Wings, just to be clear.)

June and July passed, without feeling the spark or need to tune in.

Then came August 16th. The HHOF. On a lovely weekend trip to Toronto, I dragged my wonderful, patient, incredibly understanding (non-hockey fan) boyfriend to the HHOF.

Yet even as I walked through the HHOF, something was wrong. I felt excitement, but nothing deep in my heart. Nothing like the feeling of standing there on the edge of Wrigley Field watching the Wings warm up. Nothing like that overwhelming sense of gratefulness and awe sitting in the nosebleeds at the Honda Center during Game 6 of the Conference Finals. Nothing like road tripping across the state to watch a game with some of the greatest hockey fans I have ever met.

Hockey felt like a responsibility, an obligation. Nothing at the HHOF stirred in my heart, even when I knew it should. Bobby Orr’s bronzed skates? Nothing. A Belfour mask? Meh.

The only emotions I felt were incredible love and gratitude toward my boyfriend who was wonderful enough to waste his time with me, enthusiastically I might add, wandering through a place I should have been joyfully exploring.

I stood looking at the California Seals sweater when he uttered, “Oh geez. Let me get a picture before you start to cry.”

I turned to look at him, curious as to why I would cry and saw that he had located the Igor Larionov induction display. It would only stand for another 2 months before the 2009 Inductees replaced him. It was something that I was incredibly lucky to be able to see.

Anyone who knows me or had read my stuff knows that the mere unexpected sight of Igor Larionov on ice accepting an award at the Staples Center is enough to reduce me to a sniveling crybaby.

But the tears never came. I still can’t tell you what I felt. Well that is not true. I felt ashamed that the emotions were absent. Tom snapped pictures and I felt rotten.

If a trip to the HHOF with an understanding boyfriend who doesn’t even follow Hockey and seeing Igor’s original CCCP sweater couldn’t pull me back in, what would?

I wasn’t sure. August ended with a recommendation from Cassie to apply for the SB Nation LA Kings writer position that was open. I never pursued it. I didn’t have the energy to commit.

I didn’t know what would happen this year. I knew I wasn’t going to do the radio show again, I hadn’t written about hockey in months. I had heard they revamped the NHL Connect sight and didn’t care. I wasn’t following the trades. Hudler’s defection to Russia barely upset me.

Birthday Hockey

I perused the Wings Schedule, looking to pick up Wings-Kings October tickets for my Brother and I- his annual birthday gift, and when I realized the Wings have no “Cali Hat Trip” until January, I felt something.

Akshully, I was totally distraught.

For 4 years my brother and I had an October Birthday Date. Dress in Red Wing gear, and head to the Staples Center for his birthday. And they had taken that away from us. I was so upset. No Wings in October? I was almost reduced to tears.

But it triggered something in me. As I planned a trip to Detroit for Thanksgiving, I saw that the Wings would be home and playing Calgary. A game at the Joe. I hadn’t been in the Joe since 2002, 2003 maybe? HEDHS, I could not recall. I called in a long standing favor and got two tickets. Not quite Section 109, Row 18, but who am I to complain? Seats in Section 110 will do just fine.

Slowly, the excitement is growing again. Anticipation for a new season. I found myself watching FSN when they ran a Classic about a week ago: Game 4 of the 2000-2001 Wings-Kings Series.

Excitement over the prospect of this year’s Wings. Realizing that we have some unknowns, and questions, and excited for it. Anticipation over what a year without such immense pressure will do for us. Hoping to see the boys play with joy in their eyes, and hoping they take a little the pressure off themselves. Knowing that we can make it back to the Cup again.

Growing excitement in building a championship fantasy team, even taking on a commish role this year, and inviting some of the smartest hockey fans I have known to be in the league. (Cripe this league is gonna be so tough. I have no chance of winning it, but I am stoked to be battling it out with each and every one of you!)

A Sunday morning watching Dallas beat my Wings on NHL Network in Game 5 of the 2008 Confy finals (especially poignant since I have a million other things to do). Watching Pasha manhandle an entire Stars team, catching his own rebounds 3,4,5 times…Sigh.

Beginning to wonder how Scott Hartnell and Jeff Carter will do with Chris Pronger on the team. Wondering if the Sleeping Bear of Boston is gonna come out and correct their mistakes and make a real Stanley Cup Run. Wondering if the Sharks haven’t traded away two core –key players, and are prematurely dismantling their very talented team.

A need to write about my hockey experience again.

Slowly, it’s all coming back. Not just my love for the Wings, but for the game. Creeping in ever so cautiously again.

I woke this morning with an answer to the question that had burdened me all summer. The worst questions a sports fan will ever have to ask of themselves:

Had I merely burnt myself out last year, or have I proven to be a shallow “fan”, a homer stuffed with a mouthful of sour grapes? Was my character so lacking?

I turned on the television, choosing The NHL Network’s “Ten Best Rookies of the 1990s” over E! Entertainment’s “True Hollywood Story: Christina Aguilera” and A&E’s “Sell this House”, and as I sat down to write this, I knew the answer.