There's No Crying in Hockey

As an avid sports fan with a psych degree, I find it hard to separate the two sometimes. Superstition reinforcement/punishment schedules, creating disorders based on typical fan behavior… the connections are endless. Dealing with the 5 stages of loss Saturday would be one of those times.

In a span of about 2.5 hours, I watched my Gators lose 74-71 in OT to Butler in the Elite 8, ending their chance at the NCAA championship, then went to my seat in the RBC Center to watch my Canes let playoff chances slip a little further out of reach with a loss to TB. Not the best night as a fan. Probably also not the best night to bring 8 friends from work to the Canes game, many of whom were coming to hockey for the first time. Sad game, and I wasn’t the most fun to be around after it was all over, for sure. The upside is that my regular sports friends and I are learning to work through losses like this a little quicker. Denial came with the 2^nd period TB goal that gave them the lead. Anger surfaced w/the 3^rd period empty net goal, quickly followed by bargaining in the remaining seconds of the 3^rd with our far-fetched hope for 2 quick goals. Depression stuck around for about an hour, from the sound of the final horn, through the ride home, and for a 20ish min discussion in the parking lot as we listened to the Aftermath on 99.9 the Fan. That was when our 3^rd Caniac friend who couldn’t make the game started texting us pictures of customized NHL team shirts with inside jokes as the player names and links to Ask the Canes videos that made us laugh. Between Mike Maniscalco’s ever reassuring and honest words on the Aftermath and Kate’s amusing links, we moved on to acceptance and all was, well, not quite good, but somewhat better, at least.

In honor of the videos that made us less sad & the boys that make us love hockey, I decided to post some of the links here instead of a depressing post recapping in detail why Saturday sucked. Even if you’re not familiar with the players, the videos are still pretty funny. Enjoy!

Ask the Canes: What do you sing in the shower?

Canes singing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer


Canes & Wild players attempting to say, “Where is the bathroom?” in Finnish before their season opener in Helsinki


Chicago Blackhawks w/Joey the Jr. Reporter on what makes Patrick Sharp beautiful


Jonathan Toews & Patrick Kane from the Chicago Blackhawks- hilarious!


PS- My objective recap of Saturday's events: The unlikely quartet of VCU, Butler, UConn & Kentucky are heading to the Final Four this weekend, and the Canes pretty much need to win at least 6 of our remaining 7 games, including the game v Buffalo on 4/3, to get into the playoffs.