A Deep Delve Into the Psyche of a Tortured Sports Fan
I once received some sage advice from my old man: "Accept that your team will never win it all." I still remember the context in which it was said, where I was and the conversation that sparked it. We were driving home from Game 4 of the 2001 NHL Western Conference Final at Savvis Center in downtown St. Louis. The hometown Blues had just lost a heartbreaker to the Colorado Avalanche (a game that saw the Avalanche score three goals in 78 seconds and another in overtime to seal it), and the Blues were now facing a grim 3-1 series deficit with a shift back to Denver. My father and I left the arena that night in bleak fashion, realizing the mountain they would have to climb to get back into the series. My dad and I at one of the hundreds of Blues games we attended together. It was only the second time the Blues had reached the third round of the playoffs in my lifetime, with the first coming in 1986, when I was a one-year-old. If you're wondering, yes, they lost that...