The Simplest Form

For an overwhelming majority of my life I have thoroughly despised hockey, and I don't mean that lightly. I flat out hated hockey and everything about it. I hated the long hair, the attitudes of the players and the culture that went along with it. I wanted no part of a sport that involved fans mostly consisting of 50 year old long haired men drinking beer, yelling obscene things, talking about their "playing days" and just in general acting immaturely. I hated how all throughout the NHL lockout all they talked about was hockey, and there weren't even any games going on! Then, once the Blackhawks became good, I started to like it even less. The Blackhawks quickly became one of the most popular team with most of my friends, and most of Chicago, after umpteen years of not being cared about at all, just because they were good. It seemed like everyone had hopped on the hockey bandwagon, and this made me feel even more passionate about my now counter-culture dislike of hockey.
But in the past two weeks I have had strong revelations about this game. It all started when I attended the Glenbrook North vs Fenwick Blackhawk Cup Semi-Final. Now I must admit that I was sort of dragged there with my friends, but I was semi open to the thought of going because I know a few kids on the team and enjoy cheering for GBN. Once I got there, the atmosphere was magical. The energy inside the small arena was incredible, everyone was yelling and cheering non-stop. The excitement was like the climax of a basketball game, except lasting the whole 51 minutes. I especially found the fast paced action very appealing, as sometimes I find myself a tad bored in other low scoring games. I was constantly enthused by the thill of a goal scored, and the agony of a goal allowed. GBN came out with the victory over the 1 seed Fenwick in a 3-2 slugfest to advance to the Final at the United Center.
And tonight I was lucky enough to go to that game. I was even luckier to attend that game as a member of the media for my sportscasting class. Having a media pass to the State Championship game was easily one of the coolest things I have experienced so far. My two fellow GBN TV sportscasters and I got to do countless things we will most likely never be able to do again. We got to visit the Blackhawks' locker room, the United Center press hospitality room (Which if you ever find yourself in, has the greatest mashed potatoes on the face of the Earth.), the United Center press boxes, and out on the ice to film the trophy awarding ceremony.
While this was all fun and nice, it was in the GBN locker room filming the coach's pregame speech that I finally fully understood hockey. As the coach said something along the lines of  "This is what you (players) have been dreaming of since you first put on your pads. It's your time. Go out and do it." (Rough Quotation) It was then I realized hockey wasn't about obnoxious 50 year olds, it was about the love of the game, the players that will never play again once they graduate from high school. It was the heart put into the countless hours of practice and the 60+ games a season, and now I finally understand. Sometimes you have too look at the simplest form of something understand the true feelings behind it.Maybe its time to change my feelings about water polo...