My Growing Passion for Hockey

My mindset toward the NHL has always been, at best, apathy. In my house baseball ruled sports, followed by basketball and football and somewhere down the road was hockey. I chose to root for the New York Rangers because I lived in New York and didn’t have an allegiance to anyone else. The truth is, though, that I didn’t really care about anything hockey. That mindset was changed because of one game; game seven of the 2001 Stanley Cup finals.

Without looking it up, I couldn’t tell you who played or who even won the Stanley Cup in 2001. The only reason I remember that it was 2001 is because I watched the game with my grandfather in a hotel lobby because we were visiting my cousin to celebrate his graduation. It was after that game that I became a fan of the sport of hockey. I watched the game, completely entranced in the action and emotion, with the biggest sports fan I’d ever known. After the game, I remember thinking that I’d never seen two teams play with such intensity and I loved every second of it.

Later that same year the New York Yankees lost game seven of the World Series to the Arizona Diamondbacks. While baseball is my favorite sport that game didn’t compare to one I’d watched months earlier without a rooting interest. Following the Stanley Cup finals in 2001 I began to pay attention to hockey and I would always see how the Rangers were doing in the standings. I would always try to catch game sevens in the playoffs because I loved the emotion from the players. But I still didn’t find hockey interesting enough to watch during the regular season.

When I made my decision to go to Plattsburgh State University, it had nothing to do with sports. The school was a Division-III NCAA program and didn’t get any national coverage but we had a great hockey program and I loved going to the games. I was crammed into the seats during the 2007-2008 SUNYAC championship when Plattsburgh’s men’s team won the conference. The little college town erupted that night and my hockey fandom grew a little bit more.

Following college I attended many minor league hockey games in Albany, NY. I watched the Albany River Rats and then the Albany Devils play many games at the Times Union Center and got the opportunity to stand right outside the ice. I loved watching the puck smash in front of the glass right in front of me. I loved feeling the boards rattle when players were checked where I was standing. I loved the speed of the game; the hard shots and the subsequent quick saves or fast goals fascinated me.

Little by little I became a bigger and bigger fan. Then during the 2011-2012 season the Rangers earned the first seed in the playoffs and made a run to the Eastern Conference Finals where they lost to the New Jersey Devils. That’s when I became hooked. Being so close and failing seemed like a travesty. The next season I attended my first NHL game where the Rangers beat the Capitals in DC. Then I went to game one of the Conference Quarterfinals where the Rangers lost 1-0 in overtime to the Capitals. Even though my team lost, the atmosphere in the Verizon Center that day gave me goose bumps. I loved it.

Now the Rangers are back in the Conference Finals and I’m so excited to watch them play. While I’ll always think baseball is the greatest sport in the world, there is no better sporting event to witness in person than a hockey game and there is no better sporting event to watch at home than a game seven in the NHL.