I had just graduated from college and, while waiting for WNBC to offer me a radio disk jockey position as Howard Stern’s replacement, took a job in my home town of Lancaster, Pa., at a now-defunct sports bar called Rookies. Lacking any obvious Budweiser-pouring and hot wings-frying skills, Rookies’ management hired me on as one of two male servers. (The other guy was “the hot one.”)
Now, Rookies was a typical sports bar in most ways, except for a carefully crafted niche: they made sure to advertise the fact that, in the modern age of 1997, they had 4,731 televisions* and, therefore, could show every single NFL game playing on any given Sunday at the same time. You can probably guess that this excited a lot of people in my hometown in Pennsyltucky: “IGGLES. STILLERS. COWBOYS. WE CAN SEE ALL OF THE GAMES. Pack up the kids and let’s go.”
Hi. I’m Canadian. That means I’m morally obligated to love hockey, unless I want to be exiled, eh? Sadly, this love didn’t come to me until I was 13.
On October 4, 1991, I attended my first Vancouver Canucks game. That was also the San Jose Shark’s very first game – I still have my puck like the one above. My grandfather had four tickets, but they were not together. I sat with my dad for the first and second periods in the lower bowl while my brother sat with Grandpa in the upper seats; we switched for the third period.
It was unlike anything I had experienced in my life. Attending a game is not even remotely close to watching it on television. The atmosphere and excitement is electric. (Although, to be fair, I still find it somewhat difficult to follow along without the play-by-play.) The sights and sounds are overwhelming – well, at least for a 13-year old from the sticks they were.
I’ve been a Canucks fan ever since, and support the local hockey club whenever possible. I haven’t been to a Canucks game since I was 19 (14 long years ago), but I’d probably have to sell a kidney AND my liver to get good tickets now. Because of the family I’ve gotten myself into, I will also cheer for the Habs, but not when they’re playing Vancouver, obviously. And when it comes to the playoffs, if my team is practicing their golf swings, I’ll cheer for whichever Canadian teams are left.
I don’t know a lot about hockey: I just know that I love it, and that’s good enough for me.
When I was tiny, my dad used to let me stay up past my bedtime to watch the Bruins play. I’d stand up and put my hand over my heart while Rene Rancourt sang the National Anthem and sometimes Canada’s anthem. (I had a weird crush on him. No lie.) I was a Bruins fan, through and through.
In 1992, when I was twelve, we got our own team. A hockey team in Florida, which is like a bobsled team in Jamaica, but cooler. Because we have psychotic Southern fans.
The Tampa Bay Lightning started playing in a tiny Expo Hall in Tampa at the fairgrounds. In 1994, they moved to my hometown and started playing in a gigantic stadium dubbed The Thunderdome. That coincided with me rounding the bend into teenager-dom and becoming 110% boy crazy.
I lived and breathed hockey. I went to nearly every home game. General admission tickets were less than $10. My mom would drop me off before the game, and my best friend and I would buy cheap seats and sneak down to the good ones during the practice before the game. We sat along the boards. We sat directly next to the penalty box. We collected pucks and sticks. We painted our faces and made signs and started the wave and tried to get on the Jumbotron. I attended one of those charity events and skated around with the players and nearly died of infatuation. I was for-effing-real in love with #39, Enrico Ciccone, the badass defenseman who kind of looked like Casey Jones from the Ninja Turtles.
My jersey is signed by the entire roster of the 95-96 team, including the coach Terry Crisp and commentator Bobby “The Chief” Taylor. (My friend and I would stalk the players’ exit after the games. We were such nutballs.) When we went to the playoffs that season, I was at the game that for years held the highest attendance record in the NHL with over 28,000 fans.
On the very last game in the Thunderdome, we hopped the fences half an hour after the game and ran across center ice to sit on the bench. I can only imagine that the security guards took pity on the two tall, nerdy girls having a complete spaz attack over sitting where the actual players had sat. That night, we ended up wandering to the locker room and standing around with the players’ wives and kids. To this day, I have no idea how we managed to pull that off.
Then the lockout happened and the Lightning never seemed to bounce back. Shit happened. I graduated high school and left for college and rarely went to games anymore.
My team sucked. But they were still my team.
Then, in 2002, things turned around for the Lightning. We picked up Vinny Lecavalier and my all time hockey crush of the universe, Marty (the hockey hobbit) St. Louis, and we started making noise again.
In 2004, the year I got married, my boys went to the playoffs. On the day I got married, I kept running downstairs from the reception to the bar to check the score. The next morning, we left on a cruise out of Tampa. It basically turned into the Hockey Shenanigans cruise, with a crew full of Canadians and a whole bunch of Tampa Bay fans watching each game in the theater on the ship, shit talking and screaming and drinking. I’ve never had so much fun ever, in my life. My poor husband had no choice but to get dragged along in my frenzy.
The Stanley Cup finals went seven games. By Game 7, we were back home in Gainesville. I sat on my futon with my best dude friend and didn’t breathe for the entire game. At one point when we scored, we screamed so loud my cat literally ran up the wall until he hit the ceiling. Shenanigans! Best night of my life! God, it was amazing.
Now, as I round toward my seventh wedding anniversary, my boys are back in the playoffs. They have to win tomorrow night against the Boston Bruins, the team I grew up cheering for.
They have to win tomorrow night.
And this time, I’ll be in the cheap seats in my 16-year-old Tampa Bay Lightning jersey. And I will believe, and I will scream myself hoarse, and I will wonder when I got older than the players, and I will remember being a little girl in love with the tough guys on skates.
Another awesome Why I Love post that we’ve been sitting on for a while. Never one to follow the rules, DC Urban Dad wrote about what he hates. I thought with March Madness coming soon this would be a good time to post this. Besides, hating on Duke is a polarizing topic.
This is gonna be tough, but it just has to be done. I can’t wait any longer. Tough part is what I am about to say might actually put my grandmother in the grave and for that I am truly sorry. I just can’t go on living like this. The truth shall set me free, so here goes…..
Granmdma, I don’t like Duke. No sorry that’s not enough. I – HATE – Duke and I despise Coach K.
I realize that this might come as a shock to you. Growing up, you knew me to bleed dark blue. I mean Grandpa graduated from Duke and Mom was basically from Durham, my allegiance was a forgone conclusion. I went to Duke basketball camp not once but twice, I followed Christian Laettner’s career like he was a diety, I nervously watched every Final Four match up and even sat in Wallace Wade and cheered on the Duke football team. I was a die-hard Blue Devil.
Then I went to college and went to UNC. It didn’t hit me at first. It took a few years to sink in, but even though I did not go to a single basketball or football game for that matter, I converted. Now some years later I am not a Tarheel born, but bred and when I die I will be a Tarheel dead. And well that’s why I just have to tell you…..
I hate their swagger and cockiness.
I hate the way Coach K whines and looks like a rat.
I love to hate them. And nothing you say or do can reverse this.
I only hope you can still love me,
Your Grandson
*** Matt Haverkamp is the author and responsible party behind DC Urban Dad. He has been a husband for over 10 years, a blogger for just under 3 and a father for just over 2. He has not mastered either, but keeps trying.
So we were running this wonderful series called “Why I Love…” and we had all these amazing guest bloggers writing posts about why they loved their teams. Then somehow we got sidetracked, but we didn’t forget, and when we come back, we come back big. Our friend Busy Mom tells us why she loves the Tennessee Titans.
In 1997, a group of football players relocated to Tennessee from Houston, and they didn’t attract a whole lot of attention what with their out-of-context name and oil rig logo helmets. They played at some random stadium in Memphis, and people went to see them out of curiosity, but not many.
Their path to Tennessee was a tough one. It was equal parts, “No way!” and “NFL Yes!” around here in the years leading up to their arrival. Some people were ready for Nashville to move up, and have a professional team like other cities, while others were violently opposed to paying for a new stadium and bringing an NFL team to town.
This is football country. On Friday night, you go to the high school game, on Saturday morning, you go to the the grade school game and Saturday afternoon is the main show: college football. It’s just what we do.
Until then, it had just never been professional football country, and people were wary. Would it take the support from Vanderbilt and UT? Can we support a pro team after all this work?
As it turns out, we could.
The Tennessee Oilers moved to their new home in Nashville (with the revolving name) and had their best season in franchise history, going undefeated at home. Something changed, then. They became our team, they couldn’t be beat, “not in our house”. They even made a run for the Super Bowl just a few years later with the Music City Miracle:
Though we lost, it felt like we couldn’t be stopped.
It became something separate, even complimentary (most of the time) to our existing football traditions. It was new, and our city opened up to the them. Our team. There were heroes on the field: Steve McNair, Frank Wycheck, Eddie George, and Kevin Dyson, just to name a few. Nashville and our state took pride in our team, Titans jerseys were popping up everywhere as were the ubiquitous car flags.
It’s hard to believe 13 years have gone by, and our original heroes are doing other things, now. Players have come and gone, sometimes for the better (*cough* Pacman *cough*), and some years have been better than others, that’s for sure (8-8 forever, anyone?). But, the Titans are still our rallying point even when it’s fun to moan about them, or hotly debate Jeff Fisher’s tenure, Kerry Collins’ lack of mobility or Vince Young’s…everything.
We still love our college and high school football, but this is separate, there’s just something kind of cool the first time of the season that Mike Keith screams, “TOUCHDOWN! TITANS!” on the radio.
But, one of my favorite things about having an NFL team in town is seeing how they’ve become part of our community.
I know it’s part of their job, and I get that this is such a girly thing to notice, but many of these guys had no connection to Nashville before the Titans arrived, and it’s cool to see how they “get it”. Many of them have settled here because they came for work, and now they want to stay.
Though it’s not my story to tell, I can personally vouch for the fact that Cortland Finnegan is not only an awesome football player, but he has been an amazing part of an important community close to me. He is the real deal, and it’s not part of his contract.
In May, 2010, Nashville suffered a devastating flood, the likes of which will never be seen again for hundred of years.
Yes, it really was that bad.
Even though their own stadium and their offices were under water, the Titans didn’t just throw money at the situation, they loaded up a bus and they got to work in some of the hardest hit areas.
They are a class act, overall, but, mostly we yell and scream at the TV or in person each week from August to January while they do their jobs on Sunday afternoon.
Even when I threaten to go down there and play myself, and when they seem to be the most frustrating team on the planet what with running everydamnball and that pesky “catching the ball” thing when they do throw it, they’re still our Titans.
Busy Mom is a native Nashvillian, a Titans fan (and a Packers fan by marriage). She can also be found at Busymom.net.
norm: I think these two are so popular because they win pretty much ALL THE ...
norm: Good thing everyone's vaccinated, because there are no insane people a...
Delora: This made me laugh so hard....
norm: I am so happy the Giants won the big one because that makes the 49ers ...
Christine Noble: I'm a Titans fan myself, but my nephew is a huge Giants fan. He hurt h...