I’ve been watching the Red Wings playoffs for over a decade. Every year the season starts with hope and anticipation. How far will they get? What saves will our superhero goalie make? What hard hits will our veteran players crush their opponents with?
During a college summer internship at a General Motors transmission plant, we piled into a small break room washed out by florescent bulbs; the windows that looked out onto the factory were grimy from years of cigarette smoke. Above a wall of vending machines hanging in the corner was a 20-inch tube tv. Men with greasy mustaches and mullets, dirty t-shirts and ripped jeans, huddled with us clean, naive college kids, all eyes locked on the small screen. With minutes to go, we all held our breath as one of our players flung the puck down the ice; we watched it slowly glide past the red posts of the empty net. Those still working watched us through the dirty glass silently jumping up and down in celebration.
One of the movie theaters in town showed the playoff games on the big screen. Every seat was full. People cheered and booed and groaned and gasped together as our team got close to scoring or close to getting scored on. A player approached our goal and smacked the puck toward the net, but Chris Osgood swept his arm and caught it in his wide glove. The room erupted in cheers and high-fives.
I worked second shift and got home about 11pm, when the game should have been over, but that year the playoff games went into triple overtime. I got home from work and got to watch a whole other hockey game. We stayed up until 2 in the morning, fighting sleep, to see the final outcome.
We don’t invest our money in cable. There’s nothing good on television, besides hockey, that is. So we park ourselves at sports bars, on friends’ couches, anywhere that gets us a view at game time and gives us a hand to high-five when that airhorn blows.
*What’s your favorite sports team? What are some of your favorite memories of watching them? Get our your timer and start writing!*