Tonight I watched my Maple Leafs, who are the 2nd worst team in the league at the moment, beat the Capitals, who are the BEST in the league right now, 6-3. It was a beautiful thing.

I stopped watching hockey altogether about 5 or 6 years ago because the Leafs started sucking so bad I basically couldn’t watch, but out of boredom last week or the week before, I turned on Hockey Night in Canada and while the Leafs lost that night to the Bruins, dismally (2-7, I believe), the hockey spark was reignited within me and I tuned into their next game against the Thrashers, where they won 2-5. I missed the Leafs vs Islanders game (I hate the Islanders, but more about that later) but we won that one too 2-3, then lost to the Bruins 2-5 and that brings us up to tonight’s game against the Capitals, which again, was a beautiful thing.

On Monday it’s the Leafs vs the Senators, with us having the home ice advantage and win or lose, those are always fun games to watch because of the whole rivalry thing. The Senators are an okay team, but I think everyone outside of Ottawa pretty much hates them, especially Toronto.

Needless to say, I’m in full-on hockey mode these days. I may not know half the players on my own team anymore and I may not totally understand all of the penalties (but then again I never did), but I’m so filled with quiet joy while watching that I can’t even explain it. I’m realistic though, I don’t expect my Leafs to make the playoffs and I think a lot of their goals are flukey and their passing is pretty much atrocious but they’re still my team and win or lose, that’s who I’m going to root for. Always have, always will. And just by the few games I’ve watched so far this season, it seems as though they’re getting better and better and acting like more of a team, so hey, maybe this is the year that things will turn around. Again, we’re not exactly gonna win the cup or anything, but I spent a lot of tonight reading about the current roster and it’s a good team, they just need to learn how to work together better and not rely on Kessel to do most of their scoring. Or at least that’s my observations of the team after watching only 3 games, in which case I could be completely talking out of my ass.

Prior to taking my 5 or 6 year break from hockey, I was actually really into it, mostly due to the fact that my ex-boyfriend, Chris, is the biggest hockey nerd I’ve ever known and when we first met, he chastised me for being unCanadian by not watching hockey and that pissed me off so I started watching. I mean obviously hockey’s kind of unavoidable in this country so I’d watched games before, I was just never really into it, but watching hockey with someone who’s REALLY into it turned out to be a lot of fun and since his team (he was from NY) was the Islanders and mine was the Leafs (which at the time was WAY WAY better), we had a friendly rivalry going.

Our breakup was not so amicable though because he cheated on me in both the emotional and physical sense and I channeled that hurt into passionately hating the Islanders, which I do to this day even though he & I are friends again.

I could be completely wrong on this because my memory’s fuzzy, but there are pictures of me roasting a pair of Islanders track pants on my BBQ from 2002 when I believe both the Leafs and the Isles were in the playoffs and a friend of mine from Camwhores, BJ, was a fan so I wanted to piss him off. Here they are (well, 2 of them anyway):

Good times, good times.

I was actually thinking tonight while watching the Leafs game that it’s a shame that I don’t have a Leafs home jersey, I just have the classic “away” one that Lisa, my step-mom bought me one year for Xmas. I used to have an Olympic Team Canada Jersey, but I lent it to Chris, my ex, and after the breakup I never got it back. To this day that pisses me off because those suckers are expensive and dammit, the Olympics are coming up and here I am jerseyless! Curses!

When it comes to Olympic hockey, I obviously root for Team Canada, but I also try to watch the Team Finland games too because half my family are fresh off the boat Finns and it is my belief that Finns are the best hockey players in the world. Prior to this Leafs kick I’m on, I was actually really looking forward to Olympic hockey this year because it’s the only Olympic event I watch. (I hate the Olympics otherwise, they interrupt all my shows!) The one year, again if I recall correctly, it came down to Team Canada and Team USA at one point and I made a bet with my aforementioned friend BJ where he had to do something on cam, but I forget what now, and he lost. I wish I could find the pictures from that fiasco because it was hilarious and my memory’s foggy. (What a pointless story haha BJ got banned from Camwhores for basically being a dickhead and the pics were in his archives so if I don’t have them saved somewhere, they’re gone forever. Bummer.)

Anyway, I think it’s safe to say that this season I’ve become a fan again and it feels good. I wrote all of the Leafs games down on my calendar (well up until the end of December when my calendar ends) and I plan on watching every single fucking game.