Come on, Come on, Come on...

I remember vaguely watching Hockey when I was young. I remember staring at the tv screen and wondering how anyone knew what was happening. And thinking that it was silly that there should be hockey on when it was warm outside. But other than the occasionally glimpse of a Chicago Blackhawks game on TV or perhaps an unknowing glimpse of a televised Stanley Cup game, I paid no attention to hockey.
I married Eric. We spent one horrible winter in Northern Michigan where the lake we lived on froze over by the end of October and did not thaw until mid May. We promptly moved to North Carolina, a southern state where no one knew that you could have car races on a lake in the middle of winter because no lake has ever frozen over in Central North Carolina… Not EVER!
In 1997, to much ridicule from hockey fans all over, a little team called the Hartford Whalers relocated to Raleigh NC. Bets were made as to how long a hockey team could last in a hot and humid southern state that lacked hockey knowledge, heck they lacked knowledge of cold and ice forget about hockey. And I smiled and nodded as my Michigan friends laughed, I could careless about hockey so anything they said did not matter to me. But wait, suddenly my tv is tuned in to hockey games. And there is this cool blue puck that makes it easier for my novice hockey self to keep up with the game. The team moves to its new arena and I am actually attending games… hockey in person is AMAZING. In May and June of 2002 I spend every two to three nights drinking beer with friends and watching the Hurricanes storm their way to the Stanley Cup finals.(10 months later Jack is born and we seriously consider naming him Bates after Bates Battaglia)
Eric joins a hockey league and the kids and I cheer him on just waiting for him to score his first goal. Soon we are a hockey obsessed family. Ok there was that long hiatus during the strike but Eric was playing hockey then so we were still hooked.
My kids learn hockey chants, Jack starts sleeping with his hockey stick and also the puck Eric scored his first goal with. Some of Eric’s students buy him a Hurricane’s flag for our car. The Canes start the playoffs and win and win and win. We sit huddled around our computer –because we no longer have cable – and watch the game tracker. We consider getting cable, just for the rest of the play offs but opt to invite ourselves over to friend’s houses instead. And finally the games are televised on network TV. My kids stay up late for game four as we all hope that the Canes will sweep. Eric becomes discourage as the Canes start to lose game after game. Game six is so awful, I actually go to bed early so I don’t have to watch the misery. For game seven, Eric and I sit on the couch, (the kids are in bed this time) reserved as the national anthems of Canada and the US are sung. When the anthems finish I turn to Eric and say – LETS GET ‘EM and he returns an emphatic – YES!! And we are in. We want them to win, we are Cubs fans and Lions Fans from way back we know better than to really hope but we do hope and MAN did it pay off. Game Seven was GREAT!! I have never seen such great back and forth hockey. And we WON! WE jumped around the room, drank champagne and basked in the glow of the tv. Don’t tell the other people in NC but I can live without college basketball… HOCKEY RULES!!!