Sports Fans are Irrational

161 Sundays to go.

• 161 people died in the earthquake in the Philippines on October 17, 2013.   Can you imagine if 161 Americans had died in some disaster?   It would be wall-to-wall 24 hour coverage for months.   It happens somewhere else or to others who are not Americans, it isn’t that important.   Well its worth about 5 minutes if there are particularly gory pictures but it usually gives way to some celebrity scandal.
• Liechtenstein has a land area of 161 square kilometers.

 

Sports fans are irrational.   At least this one is.   If you don’t follow a sports team, I envy you.    If you do, you know the pain I am suffering.  Or if you’re married to one, like my wonderful wife, you’ve seen this pathetic B movie before.   “Oh, jeez, he’s lying in a fetal position, hugging his jersey, shaking and crying his eyes out.  I better at least get him in the house before the neighbors see him.”   Maybe you’ve escaped this dark night of the soul because you’re a bandwagon jumper and only openly root for teams that win year after year.    My suffering is not rational. Why should I care.  I don’t own the team.   I don’t personally know any of the players.   It really has nothing to do with me.    But I’m suffering.  And damn it,  let me stay out here in the yard if I want to and show the world I support my boys. 

I have a few favorite teams but my personal favorite is the hockey team, the San Jose Sharks.   They were eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoffs this past week.    They have never won the Stanley Cup.     They have never been to finals.     They have a reputation for underachieving, what some may call choking.     And if ever a team’s loss could be labeled as choking, the Sharks this year are too late for a saving Heimlich maneuver.     The Sharks held a 3-0 lead and needed only one game to win the series.    Only 3 teams in the near 100 year history of the National Hockey League had ever been eliminated after holding a 3-0 lead.    Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present the fourth team in that proud lineage:

 Your 2013-2014 San Jose Sharks!

 I have been a Sharks fan since their NHL inception in the 1991-1992 season.    They were not only bad early but historically bad.     They still hold the record for most losses in a season, having gone 11-71-2 the following year.   Digest that for a minute.   71 losses out of 84 games.   Still I watched every game that was on TV.    This was before today’s era of every single game appearing on TV.    So probably more than half of those demolishings the Sharks were only available to be enjoyed on radio.   I listened to all of those too.    I remember one really fun game when they were beaten 13-1 by the Calgary Flames on the road.      It was such a bad year that I remember a particularly bright moment and cause for massive celebrations was when they tied, not beat, but only tied the powerful Montreal Canadiens at home on a goal in the last minute.  That was David not beating but just kinda walking away from Goliath  before he beat the crap out of him.   This was before overtime and the shoot  outs that today’s game has to avoid ties.    So that was huge.    A couple of years later when the Sharks had risen to mediocre status, I had a really bad flu.  So bad that my wife was lobbying hard for me to go to the hospital.   I’m like a lot of men.    I refuse to go to the hospital unless a priest is being summoned for the last rites.     They were playing in St.  Louis against a team that was one of the top teams that year.    They were gunning on all cylinders that night and shut them out 2-0.   Almost immediately after the game I could feel my fever breaking. Other than at my wedding,  I have never felt such a warmth and rush of well being and euphoria that wasn’t alcohol induced. I remain convinced to this day that the win had a lot to do with it.

The more recent Sharks’ teams have been contenders and own a spot in the top 10 of winning percentages among all 30 teams the past 10 years.    They are expected to win and also expected to win the Stanley Cup one of these years.  They’ve gotten close only to be eliminated usually by the team that put it all together to eventually win the big prize. 

In April right before game 1, I have my usual Stanley Cup shrine going.  In years past,  I have a little mini Stanley Cup and I arrange a couple of framed autographed pictures of Sharks players around it.   My wonderful wife isn’t crazy about this since she has great taste and busts her tail to maintain a house that is the envy of all who see it. But she allows me a little corner in our upstairs bedroom.   To change things up this year I scrapped the pictures and instead went with The Cup along with a couple of bronze hockey figures that were made in Russia during the  Soviet era.  There is no correlation between the pictures and the Soviets,  I just like those bronzes.   Right before they dropped the puck, I changed into a Sharks Stanley Cup shirt I got a few years ago.    I walked over, kissed my pointing and middle fingers and laid them mindfully into the bowl of the Cup.    I did that the first 3 games and they were up 3-0.  Just blew them out.    For some reason I got complacent and totally forgot before Game 4 and they lost.    No problem, they have 3 more to go.    Each time I did the deed with the shirt and the kissing and it was 3-2, then 3-3 and now I’m getting worried.   I wore a Sharks pin to school before the next one, hoping for a little game 7 mojo.     Nope.   They lose and they are now part of NHL history.    I had trouble falling asleep that night.   Again nothing to do with me, but its like you feel bad when your friends or relatives are suffering.

The next day, I did laundry, washing all of my Sharks stuff that I had been wearing that week.   Luckily the salt from all the tears did not leave any bleaching marks and I put them away tenderly in the back of the closet and  brought  the San Francisco Giants stuff  to the front of the closet.   I’m now in orange and black as we speak.    

I was really brutal in my analysis to those asking this week in my  assessment of their loss.   I called them chokers.   I said they were soft.   I said they need to blow up the whole team, fire the coach and the general manager.   I’m never that brutal but a monumental, historical loss such as this called for a monumental, historical over reaction.     I have since then come down off the ledge and realize as  I did during the games they were letting slip away, that the reason they lost was not because they choked but because the other team was better the last 4 games.   In particular the goaltender was out of his mind good.     In hockey, a goaltender playing out of his mind can put a team on his back and win a series all by himself.     That’s what happened.    My brother also told me one statistic that made me feel better.    I told you that only 4 teams in the history of the NHL have lost a series after being down 3-0.    But he told me to keep my chin up because of those 4 teams, 2 of them went on the next year to win the  Stanley Cup.    That’s pretty cool and I’m going with it.     Right up until next April or May when they crash and burn during another unsettling, shocking stretch of underachieving at just the worst time possible.