Bandwagon Hockey Fan

Okay, so the Chicago Blackhawks won the 2010 Stanley Cup, and although I grew up from age "it's a girl" till now being an overall Chicago teams fan, I will admit that I have only paid attention to the Blackhawks in the last two years. Here's why I think I deserve a bit more credit than being called a "bandwagon fan".

• I am from a hockey family. At the age of eleven, I was the first ever girl to play hockey in the city of Dubuque, IA. My story was in the Telegraph Herald newspaper and interviewed for a local cable access show. I got a Playmaker that year and made the travel team.

• Both of my brothers played college hockey (University of Iowa, University of Northern Iowa, and Iowa State University.)

• A show of our devotion? Our family owns the license plate HOCKEY for the state of Iowa since 1983. We ain't giving it up either.

• Throughout my childhood, my dad flooded my backyard from November till March, using snow for boards, attached floodlights to the 2nd story deck for playing at night, and created a warming house out of the basement garage with a walkout to the ice.

Mostly, I think I deserve extra "Blackhawks Credit" because I know what it feels like to skate hard and stop strong, blasting a fine mist of snow in the air. I know the feeling of the puck smacking against my stick from a perfect pass down ice. I know what the inside of a glove smells like, and the sound of the snap connecting to my socks.

I can close my eyes and feel the burn of the tug and pull of tightening my skates, and the intense focus I used when applying tape the curve of my stick. I was that kid, with red cheeks and sweaty hair matted down inside a helmet. I remember when ITECs came out, and when Cooper released long pants. I was the first girl to play hockey, and half the boys hated me out there on the ice, and the other half used me as the first example of girls and the early stages of sexual confusion.

When I watch a game, I'm there. That fast paced play, that snap of the puck to the stick. I'm back. I belong. I'm remembered. Now I may be rocking the sexy skirt and black boots, but that part of me that is a high dreaming sweaty kid hockey player is still there. Part of me is still smacking my brother along the iced-over snow drifts of our backyard ice rink in Dubuque.

A player is a million times better than a watcher. Watching is fair-weather, a sidelines neat and clean and nice smelling observer. A player is smelly and sweating and willing to get smacked into the boards and fights to get that puck in the net. The player is forgiven. You don't have to watch every game, be part of every battle, cause you're a member of giant the war.

I don't play hockey anymore, haven't since I was 13. Don't own skates and haven't seen the inside of a rink for years. Now I like pretty things, and have no desire to be any colder than I possibly need to be. November to March will find me wrapped in a warm quilt and desperately looking out my window for signs of spring.

But there is this childhood love of hockey, an enormous part of my family history and tradition. Spring and Summer were baseball and fall and winter was hockey. Plain and simple. Now grown up and grown beyond, there is still this sense I can go back and kick some hockey ass whenever I want. Just like a Chicago Blackhawk.