Topic 30(B): Appropriation
Jun. 18th, 2012 04:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
java_fiendAnd here is #2 of 6...
The last of the ticker-tape and the balloons have fallen. All of the remnants of the victory parade have been cleaned up and life is moving ahead at its normal pace once again.
And my Los Angeles Kings stand atop the world of professional hockey. After forty-five years of futility, they are finally Stanley Cup Champions. I’d be lying if I told you that it didn’t still give me a feeling of giddiness to say that. I’d also be lying if I told you that as Game 6 of the finals wound down and it was clear that my Kings would finally claim Lord Stanley’s Cup that I didn’t have tears in my eyes. If you watched the coverage of the game, you would have seen people standing in the aisles and their seats inside Staples Center openly weeping with joy as the final horn sounded… so y’know, at least I wasn’t alone in that.
It’s just a game and you’re not even on the team, so why do you get all worked up and emotional about it? Yeah, a few people have asked me that question. I know that some people don’t truly understand sports and sports fandom… of course, I could turn that around and ask them why they get so worked up when it looks like Harry Potter or Edward Cullen are about to die but that’s neither here nor there really. Ahem.
But it’s a fair question nonetheless. And my answer to the question would have to be two-fold.
The first being that I (obviously) love sports. I played football back in high school, tried to play baseball but sucked way too bad at it, played some street hockey and played basketball on the weekend with friends for years. Sports absolutely lights me up. I love the thrill of competing and even more, I love the rush that comes with beating another team. There is definitely something primal and cavemanish about it, but giving your opponent a sound ass-kicking and watching them trudge off the field or court dejected, sad and thoroughly defeated just feels GOOD. Hey, I said it was somewhat cavemanish!
Football had always been my favorite sport growing up. But way back in the day, the owner of the LA Kings at the time, a guy named Bruce McNall, brought in a guy named Wayne Gretzky to play for the team. Like a lot of kids, I didn’t know a lot about hockey then but getting the freaking Great One to play for our local team inspired a lot of us to learn about it real quick. I absorbed every bit of hockey minutiae and history I could. And it wasn’t long before I was hooked and absolutely fell in love with the sport of hockey and with the LA Kings.
Back in 1993, they made a run at the Cup but were soundly beaten in the finals by Montreal. I remember the feeling of heartbreak but being that there wasn’t a lot of winning to be celebrated amongst the sports teams I fervently followed (Oakland Raiders, Anaheim Angels) so it didn’t sting nearly as bad as it could have.
But I love sports and I am devoted to my teams, win or lose. You celebrate the highs and hang tough during the lows. You live and die with your teams and have to take with good with the bad. That’s part of what being a true fan is all about.
The second part of the answer is a little trickier and something I’ve only been thinking about recently so bear with me here. What stirred me so mentally and emotionally about the Kings winning the Cup is because I identify so heavily with the team on a personal level. That sounds weird, I know but let me explain… wait, there is too much for one Idol entry, let me sum up… (bonus points if you can identify the quote!)
The Kings have usually put a decent to good team on the ice. Rarely anything spectacular, but good. And yet season after season, they continue to work and try hard. They get after it, compete and never back down from a fight. Yet season after season after season, they come up short. And every off-season, they try to figure out it, try to fit in a piece here or a piece there in an effort to get better, to improve and to take another step on the journey to the top. Some called them chronic underachievers but there had always been one missing ingredient. And in forty-five years of existence, they’d never been able to get over the hump, had never been able to attain greatness.
And this season was looking much the same way. They were good, they competed but they languished in the middle of the pack for most of the season. But then they did something funny… they fired their coach mid-way through the year and brought in somebody new, somebody with a vastly different approach and slowly, you could see the team begin turning it around. In a season that had some expectations attached to it, they looked like they were going to miss the playoffs entirely until the last few days of the season when they just barely squeaked in.
They came into the playoffs as the lowest-seeded team and were set to face the best team in the league in the first round. It wasn’t looking real great and I was preparing for the traditional early-round exit. When you’ve been a Kings fan as long as I have, you hope for the best but brace yourself for the worst and eventually, it loses its sting entirely when it happens. But something changed and my team caught fire. They absolutely steamrolled through the playoffs and completely battered everybody that stood in their way of attaining the Cup.
What stirred me so much was that they showed me that by taking it shift by shift, period by period and game by game, great things could happen. Doing the small things, things that while not carrying a lot of glory in and of themselves, add up and have a serious impact on the bigger picture. They showed me tangible proof of what can happen when you believe in yourself enough to take chances, what can happen when you push and challenge yourself to excel and do the smaller things in order to lay the groundwork for the bigger things.
They showed me that you can climb to the loftiest heights and achieve your dreams if you’re willing to bust your ass and sacrifice for it. You could see the look of absolute rapture on their faces as they took turns hoisting the Cup and an almost disbelief that it was truly happening. But they did it. They achieved the dream all of them say they’ve harbored since childhood and they make me believe that I can achieve my dreams if I pursue them with absolute confidence, zeal and passion too.
Perhaps I’m thinking too deeply on the subject as I’m apt to do.
It really was a run for the ages… the only 8th-seeded team to win the Cup… the only team to knock out the 1st, 2nd and 3rd-seeded teams in succession in their conference… an NHL-record 10-straight road wins… the only team to take the first two games on the road in each series… the only team to ever go up in each series three games to none as well as numerous other records shattered…
It is just a game after all but feeling my own tears of joy and seeing the tears on the faces of the King faithful in the stands but it sure feels like something far more. I like to think that everybody who believes so fervently and backs this team so passionately through thin times and flush, felt the way I did that night and celebrated a win that was not just a long time coming but one that spoke to us on far deeper, more personal levels.
The Los Angeles Kings are the 2012 Stanley Cup Champions… it still feels a little odd to say, even today a week removed from the event… but it also feels so right.
This has been my entry for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
therealljidol Season 8, Topic 30(B): "Appropriation". As always, thank you so much for your support over these very long weeks of competition. We're starting to wind things down so the heat is really ratcheting up and your support means more than ever. Thank you guys so much for reading (and continuing to read) all of this stuff I'm pouring out. It is very much appreciated, folks. Seriously. Who knows if there is going to be a poll but if there is, don't forget to swing on by, read some of the other fantastic pieces and spread a little voting-love around!
The last of the ticker-tape and the balloons have fallen. All of the remnants of the victory parade have been cleaned up and life is moving ahead at its normal pace once again.
And my Los Angeles Kings stand atop the world of professional hockey. After forty-five years of futility, they are finally Stanley Cup Champions. I’d be lying if I told you that it didn’t still give me a feeling of giddiness to say that. I’d also be lying if I told you that as Game 6 of the finals wound down and it was clear that my Kings would finally claim Lord Stanley’s Cup that I didn’t have tears in my eyes. If you watched the coverage of the game, you would have seen people standing in the aisles and their seats inside Staples Center openly weeping with joy as the final horn sounded… so y’know, at least I wasn’t alone in that.
It’s just a game and you’re not even on the team, so why do you get all worked up and emotional about it? Yeah, a few people have asked me that question. I know that some people don’t truly understand sports and sports fandom… of course, I could turn that around and ask them why they get so worked up when it looks like Harry Potter or Edward Cullen are about to die but that’s neither here nor there really. Ahem.
But it’s a fair question nonetheless. And my answer to the question would have to be two-fold.
The first being that I (obviously) love sports. I played football back in high school, tried to play baseball but sucked way too bad at it, played some street hockey and played basketball on the weekend with friends for years. Sports absolutely lights me up. I love the thrill of competing and even more, I love the rush that comes with beating another team. There is definitely something primal and cavemanish about it, but giving your opponent a sound ass-kicking and watching them trudge off the field or court dejected, sad and thoroughly defeated just feels GOOD. Hey, I said it was somewhat cavemanish!
Football had always been my favorite sport growing up. But way back in the day, the owner of the LA Kings at the time, a guy named Bruce McNall, brought in a guy named Wayne Gretzky to play for the team. Like a lot of kids, I didn’t know a lot about hockey then but getting the freaking Great One to play for our local team inspired a lot of us to learn about it real quick. I absorbed every bit of hockey minutiae and history I could. And it wasn’t long before I was hooked and absolutely fell in love with the sport of hockey and with the LA Kings.
Back in 1993, they made a run at the Cup but were soundly beaten in the finals by Montreal. I remember the feeling of heartbreak but being that there wasn’t a lot of winning to be celebrated amongst the sports teams I fervently followed (Oakland Raiders, Anaheim Angels) so it didn’t sting nearly as bad as it could have.
But I love sports and I am devoted to my teams, win or lose. You celebrate the highs and hang tough during the lows. You live and die with your teams and have to take with good with the bad. That’s part of what being a true fan is all about.
The second part of the answer is a little trickier and something I’ve only been thinking about recently so bear with me here. What stirred me so mentally and emotionally about the Kings winning the Cup is because I identify so heavily with the team on a personal level. That sounds weird, I know but let me explain… wait, there is too much for one Idol entry, let me sum up… (bonus points if you can identify the quote!)
The Kings have usually put a decent to good team on the ice. Rarely anything spectacular, but good. And yet season after season, they continue to work and try hard. They get after it, compete and never back down from a fight. Yet season after season after season, they come up short. And every off-season, they try to figure out it, try to fit in a piece here or a piece there in an effort to get better, to improve and to take another step on the journey to the top. Some called them chronic underachievers but there had always been one missing ingredient. And in forty-five years of existence, they’d never been able to get over the hump, had never been able to attain greatness.
And this season was looking much the same way. They were good, they competed but they languished in the middle of the pack for most of the season. But then they did something funny… they fired their coach mid-way through the year and brought in somebody new, somebody with a vastly different approach and slowly, you could see the team begin turning it around. In a season that had some expectations attached to it, they looked like they were going to miss the playoffs entirely until the last few days of the season when they just barely squeaked in.
They came into the playoffs as the lowest-seeded team and were set to face the best team in the league in the first round. It wasn’t looking real great and I was preparing for the traditional early-round exit. When you’ve been a Kings fan as long as I have, you hope for the best but brace yourself for the worst and eventually, it loses its sting entirely when it happens. But something changed and my team caught fire. They absolutely steamrolled through the playoffs and completely battered everybody that stood in their way of attaining the Cup.
What stirred me so much was that they showed me that by taking it shift by shift, period by period and game by game, great things could happen. Doing the small things, things that while not carrying a lot of glory in and of themselves, add up and have a serious impact on the bigger picture. They showed me tangible proof of what can happen when you believe in yourself enough to take chances, what can happen when you push and challenge yourself to excel and do the smaller things in order to lay the groundwork for the bigger things.
They showed me that you can climb to the loftiest heights and achieve your dreams if you’re willing to bust your ass and sacrifice for it. You could see the look of absolute rapture on their faces as they took turns hoisting the Cup and an almost disbelief that it was truly happening. But they did it. They achieved the dream all of them say they’ve harbored since childhood and they make me believe that I can achieve my dreams if I pursue them with absolute confidence, zeal and passion too.
Perhaps I’m thinking too deeply on the subject as I’m apt to do.
It really was a run for the ages… the only 8th-seeded team to win the Cup… the only team to knock out the 1st, 2nd and 3rd-seeded teams in succession in their conference… an NHL-record 10-straight road wins… the only team to take the first two games on the road in each series… the only team to ever go up in each series three games to none as well as numerous other records shattered…
It is just a game after all but feeling my own tears of joy and seeing the tears on the faces of the King faithful in the stands but it sure feels like something far more. I like to think that everybody who believes so fervently and backs this team so passionately through thin times and flush, felt the way I did that night and celebrated a win that was not just a long time coming but one that spoke to us on far deeper, more personal levels.
The Los Angeles Kings are the 2012 Stanley Cup Champions… it still feels a little odd to say, even today a week removed from the event… but it also feels so right.
This has been my entry for
therealljidol Season 8, Topic 30(B): "Appropriation". As always, thank you so much for your support over these very long weeks of competition. We're starting to wind things down so the heat is really ratcheting up and your support means more than ever. Thank you guys so much for reading (and continuing to read) all of this stuff I'm pouring out. It is very much appreciated, folks. Seriously. Who knows if there is going to be a poll but if there is, don't forget to swing on by, read some of the other fantastic pieces and spread a little voting-love around!
