As someone living within a 25 mile radius of Fenway Park, I am surrounded by the fans of "Red Sox Nation." I see how rabid these fans are no matter whether the Sox are up or down in the standings. I was raised in a suburb of NYC and so was more of a NY Yankees fan. Baseball is not my passion when it comes to sports but I do admire the die hard attitude of the Sox fans however. They stick with their team for better or for worse. To me, that is what being a true fan is all about. The Red Sox don't seem to have any fair weather fans. You either love them or hate them!!
The sport I have always been the most connected to is hockey. I was a huge New York Rangers fan in my teens. I watched or listened to every single game every season for several years. Those were the days in which if there was a home game at Madison Square Garden, it was blacked out on local TV so you could only listen to it on the radio. The only Ranger games that were televised were the away games, and I always watched those on my 13" black and white TV with a hanger for an antenna! My how far we have come. HD now makes it possible to actually see the puck and follow where it goes! HOOOOOAAAAHHHH!
I was a fan of the Rangers during the good years and the bad. I knew who all the players were, I knew their stats. My dad took me to some games at MSG and we got to watch from the cheap seats. He would cup his hands over my ears so I wouldn't hear all of the swearing going on up there!! The Rangers never won a Stanley Cup while I was a fan. But I watched every season no matter what. A family friend even nicknamed me "Hockey Puck."
As I got older and had a job and a life, I didn't have as much time to follow hockey. I was busy doing other things. Then I moved to Maine. There was no NHL hockey team there and by that time, I was rarely watching hockey at all.
We had children and then we moved to Massachusetts. BINGO. Now we lived in a Boston suburb. There was a NHL team here and I don't remember how or why I started watching again, but all of a sudden after the hockey lockout was over, I became a Boston Bruins fan. Let me tell you 1975 Ivy would kick 2010 Ivy's ass for being a Boston Bruins fan. I hated the Boston Bruins when I was a Rangers fan. I hated them with the white hot passion of a Red Sox Nation fan.
I have been a Bruins fan for several years now. This is all starting to feel familiar to me. They break my heart from time to time. Last season was awesome. The Bruins finished in first place in the Eastern Division and went to the second round in the playoffs. That is the furthest they have gone since I have watched them. Last season, their coach won the Jack Adams award, for being the best coach, their goalie won the Vezina trophy for top goaltender, the team captain won the Norris trophy for best defenseman. Other than than winning the coveted Stanley Cup, those are some pretty high honors. After they were beaten in the 7th game, in OT in the 2nd round of the playoffs by Carolina Hurricanes, the public found out that several Bruins key players had been playing in the playoffs with serious injuries. I guess the staff likes to keep this info under wraps in order not to give any advantages to the opposing team. Overall I was extremely impressed by the Bruins last year. I had great hopes they would continue their successful style this year.
This fall, one of their best scorers from the last few seasons, Phil Kessel, was traded to Toronto. He was recovering from summer shoulder surgery and was not slated to play until the season was 2 months underway. I am not sure why he was traded. I read reports of personality conflicts, and also salary demands that were not able to be met due to the NHL salary cap. He was a force to be reckoned with and would be sorely missed for his goal scoring acumen.
This season the Bruins have had a substantially LESS SATISFYING performance and it is kind of a mystery to us fans as to what changed from last year. It is almost the same group of players, less Phil Kessel, and less a few players that had been much less prominent last year. It is the same coach, the same goaltender, with the addition of a rookie goalie who has turned out to be better than his Vezina winning counterpart. On paper, overall, not that much has changed. But in reality, much has changed. They Bruins have scored the fewest goals of any team in the NHL this year. Last year, other teams feared the Bruins, and most teams, even the most elite teams, lost to the Bruins at least once. Last year, the Bruins hustled and played hard for 60 minutes. This year, they can barely scrape together 40 solid minutes of play.
That being said, it would be easy for me to be a fair weather fan and just say, "the Bruins suck" and stop watching the rest of the season. There are 11 games left until playoff time. The Bruins are currently in the 8th and last playoff spot fighting to hold on. If they stay in that spot, they will face the 1st place Washington Capitals with Alex Ovechkin in round 1 of teh playoffs. I predict that will be 4 games and out for this year's Bruins. It would be nice to make the playoffs but the Bruin's chances are slim for any progress beyond round one, if they make it into the post season at all.
My head tells me this season was over weeks ago during a 10 game losing streak (or was it an 11 game losing streak....I lost count). My instincts however, have to keep watching these last few games. I am a fan through thick and thin and sometimes it is painful to watch!
This year has not been the best year for Boston sports. I have a New England Patriots player living in my neighborhood. He has a Super Bowl ring, but I am sure it has some dust on it by now! The Patriots have not been the winning team they once were for a couple of years now. The Celtics are looking kind of shaky this year. There will probably not be a championship in their near future either.
Still the fans that love these Boston teams will continue to pay big bucks for the pleasure of seeing their team, good or bad. We will wait in long lines in the parking garage, pay $4 for a bottled water at the Garden, pay $40 to pay for parking at Gillette Stadium, and hope for the best at the end of the season. We will stick by our team and hope for a better season next year. There are always free agents and off season deals to be made that can change a team's dynamic and spark something that will make it a great season again.
In the meantime, this afternoon the Bruins just beat my former favorite team, the New York Rangers 2-1, so maybe this is the turning point!! :-D
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