Tis the Season

The temperature has dipped slightly, the leaves have begun changing, Halloween costumes grace all the stores.  You know what this means....

Hockey Season has started.

Before you judge, we fully admit that we are bandwagon Blackhawks fans. But, the timing just worked out so well. Considering the fact that while Columbus does indeed have a hockey team (Bluejackets.. we will beat you on Friday!) they were only introduced as an expansion team in 2000. Before that, hockey and Ohio... not so much.  So, we had ignored hockey through our early years and early adulthood, with only occasional observations of the sport. Then we moved to Chicago.


We arrived in our new home and decided we needed to get to know the area, the teams and the variety of sports. We tried liking the Cubs. eh. We tried the Sox. better, but eh. We don't care for basketball much, and we haven't made it to a Bears game yet. But, last year, we were given free tickets to the first Blackhawks playoff game. 2 things happened.

1. Dave and I loved it, instantly, entirely and equally
2. Andrea fell in love with Patrick Sharp

Since, we have witnessed our new found love win The Stanley Cup. It was so exciting, we still get chills thinking about it. Andrea stood in horribly muggy hot weather last summer with millions of people to watch the parade and see the cup (and Sharpie, of course).

And now, the season has begun again. 82 games this season, and we intend on following every one. Hopefully, to another positive result. Though, we realize it is unlikely we will win the Cup again this year... but there's no reason not to cheer and hope!

But we have a few concerns.

We lost some of our Stanley Cup winning team due to the salary cap. The hardest for us is Antti Niemi. Our fantastic goalie, now a San Jose Shark. We have Marty Turco as a replacement, but so far, 2 games into the season we aren't all that impressed. Perhaps we are being a little hard on him, still mourning the loss of Niemi, and hopefully he proves us wrong. So far, we've lost our first two, but with 80 still to go, we aren't worried (yet). Hopefully we beat Buffalo tonight.


Let's Go Hawks!