Go Ams!

One of the first things I taught my now-almost-8-year-old niece to say, when she was barely a year old, was "Go Ams!" This is short for Americans, which is the name of our local junior hockey team. Even then, in 2000, I don't think I was fully into the whole hockey thing anymore - teaching Devi to say that was more about harassing my brother-in-law, who is from Spokane, home of the Ams' biggest and most-hated rivals, the Chiefs.

But a few years before that I was extremely into hockey - season tickets, shouting myself hoarse at every game, buying jerseys ... the whole works. I went with my friend Terri and her husband Jeff, and we were SERIOUS fans. But then I changed jobs and Terri and I didn't hang out as much, and then she and Jeff split up and she moved away, and suddenly I didn't know the names of every player on the team, or what their record was at any given moment.

As of yesterday, it had probably been more than two years now since I'd even BEEN to a game.

So tonight, when I was at the potentially deciding game of a playoff series between the Ams and the Seattle Thunderbirds, I honestly believed I wasn't going to be all that into it.

Oh, sure, I hoped they'd win, but it wasn't going to mean that much to me personally. I was there to support a fund-raising effort for a charitable foundation my friend Kellee runs. A very good cause, and I just planned to do my time for the first half of the game or so, then head home to continue (i.e. START) packing, since we leave for Vegas in two days, and so far my packing has consisted of piling "potential" clothes into the chair in my front room and throwing the rejects into a pile on the floor of my spare room.

Yeah, sure - leaving a game before it's over - THAT'S totally something I would do. Except, of course, NOT.

During the course of my selling the "chuck-a-puck" pucks (buy a foam rubber puck for $1, during intermission throw it onto the ice, whoever gets it in the seat of the little pontoon boat wins it) I happened to wander onto one of the landings to observe for a moment. About 30 seconds before the Ams scored their first goal.

I was holding four of those little orange pucks, and all I can say is it's a miracle I didn't throw them onto the ice right then, the way my arms flew into the air with absolutely no conscious thought from me, to celebrate in the time-honored tradition of sports fans. (Picture any guy you know seeing his football team score a touchdown and you have an idea of the gesture I made.)

Seriously, I could no more have stopped myself from reacting to that goal than I could have stopped breathing. Cheering when "my" team scores is genetically encoded in my DNA, and I am powerless against the force of my own nature. Really - it happened three more times, just at tonight's game. (Final score, Americans 4, Seattle, ZERO.)

So after I got done selling my 57 pucks, I of course did not leave and go home to pack. Instead I invited myself into the announcer's booth to sit with a friend who is the PA announcer, and I was trying to be all calm and quiet since he was, you know, doing his job and I was about 6" from a microphone that could be live at any given moment.

So when the team scored again, you know I was all dignified and cool, right?

Are you kidding me? Have you read anything I've written to this point? Before that puck hit the back of the net and dropped to the ice I was on my feet shouting and clapping. I just can't NOT be a fan.

So congratulations to the Americans for closing out the series and moving on to round 3 and thanks to Curt for letting me hang out with him even though I don't know how to act like a grown-up.