Wherefore Art Thou "Hitting The Post"

We've all read hockey blogs. Okay, maybe not ALL of us. But most of us, no? Um, some of us? Whatever. You get the picture.

I have personally seen a few hockey blogs since God invented the blog.

It's actually a pretty good combination: hockey and blogging. The hockey fan being used to isolation and self-marginalization simply by associating himself with the sport, and blogging being essentially a passive-aggressive means of masturbatory ego-stroking. But I digress...

This is actually about my third attempt at writing a hockey blog. My previous attempts failed because I either focused too narrowly or got distracted by pregnant wives or new babies or total life overhauls. But no more! I am now Settled Into Life. And clearly this means that it's time to get back to writing about hockey.

For the record, I follow all levels of hockey. I grew up in Canada South (aka Minnesota) and fostered the love of the game alongside my thousands of fellow Gopher-staters. My appreciation for the game quickly surpassed my ability to play it and, though I do play in the beer leagues now (as a goalie), that is not the main manifestation of my participation in the sport. Instead I love watching hockey and talking/writing about it.

I follow the Minnesota Wild NHL team most closely. But, being that I have not lived in the State of Hockey since the Wild were born, I have been a slave to the NHL Center Ice cable package for going on 5 years now. In addition to being able to follow my beloved Wild this allows me to be able to watch A LOT of hockey during the season. I sort of pride myself on being a HOCKEY fan first, and a WILD fan second. In other words, though I'll always want the Wild to win, I try to appreciate a good play, game, season no matter which player or team it is - even if it means the Wild lose. In this way, I tend to abhor blatant homerism. I believe you can root for your team without blinders on. That every call against your team is NOT automatically wrong. That, to paraphrase Crash Davis, "sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. And sometimes a huge blizzard postpones the game."

So I'll be offering my view on the world of hockey. I'm not Grapes. I'm not Fischler. I'm not even Eklund. I'm just a guy with a love of hockey and a computer.

NiNY