Thursday, June 7, 2007

SPORT: Positively 4th Street...

It seemed appropriate that my city was a dreary, rain-drenched oasis of disappointment this morning.

Apologies for the pretentious wording of the previous sentence. Any way you word it, however, this was one depressing city this morning, basking in the glow of a Stanley Cup hangover that will inevitably persist until at least the last week of training camp this fall. Even if you have no interest in, or don't understand or appreciate the game at all, on this side of the border, it seems impossible to remain unaffected when your city's hockey team makes a playoff run like the Senators did this Spring. The daily newspapers, for weeks, featured a cover story related to the Senators every day of their Stanley Cup run (even days with no games). In a city which is the capital of the country, where decisions are made and Conrad Black scandals come to a head and Steven Harper appears more Darth Vader-esque by the day, it seems that the only redeeming story lately in this city has been the Sens playoff run, and good on them, so to speak.

I'm a Leafs fan, and I got drunk with the rest of the city and supported and enjoyed this Cup run to the fullest. Ask any Leafs fan in the 613, and you'll receive a similar response - under just about any circumstances, cheering for the Sens is simply sac-religious. But I believe you'd be hard pressed to find any Leafs fan, or Habs fan for that matter, in Ottawa who didn't support the Sens and get caught up in the excitement that is the Stanley Cup Finals. I also believe you'd be hard pressed to find any non-hockey fan who didn't party with the rest of this city, and get caught up in the romantic notion of being the greatest hockey city in the world, if only for a few months. Fan of the game or not, in this country, there's just something about a Stanley Cup run that is just... well... fun.

And that's why I cheered for the Sens in the playoffs this year. And for the record, I was still cheering for the Leafs this spring as well (I believe Darcy Tucker was 4 strokes under par the other day.)

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