On Watching Your Team Lose

Today, I did something I had spent the past couple of weeks bitching people out for doing. I walked out of a hockey game early, just because my team was losing, and I knew they were going to lose the game entirely, and I just couldn't watch it happen.

So, I'm a hypocrite. However, I'm a sympathetic hypocrite. Getting into hockey over the past few weeks has been a lesson in transference. Once you start caring about the sport, the guys on the screen aren't just a random collection of guys with skills and high salaries. They're a representative of you! They play well, and you have hope for your future. They play poorly, and suddenly your streak of bad luck stretches all the way to the TV screen and you have to turn it off.

However, you've already started to behave in completely irrational ways. You start bargaining. "Let them win this game and it will make up for the crappy interview and terrible day I just had. Let them lose and I'll realize that I'm cursed."However, this makes no sense. First of all, there are dozens of fans on the other side doing the exact same thing. Are you praying in Montreal? Then somebody in Philly probably did the same thing. And, judging from tonight's score, it seems like they did a better job than you.

Clearly, it's mostly up to the people on the ice, as well as people behind the bench whether your team wins or loses, no matter how much you hope, pray and wear the hell out of your jersey. So why bother? Why should I have bothered to stay for the rest of the game?

First of all, there are the standard reasons. Sports end up connecting you, just like the shoe commercials predict. Trite, but true. I watched Montreal beat Washington, eating pickled eggs in a tavern, yelling just as loudly as the rest of the people there even though I was English* and under 45 years old. It's also good conversation fodder when you're on breaks at work. And there's something heartwarming about seeing entire metro cars turned red because everyone has their Habs gear on after a win.

Then there's the other reason. It's about perseverance. No matter how much they're sucking, teams can't just go home before the final buzzer sounds. And even once it does, they'll just be back next year. It's Sisyphean - and, since we're going that far - a lesson in existentialism.

Unless, of course, someone sells your team and then they end up moving. In which case, maybe you really are cursed.