:salut: I'll try to remember to pick a copy up the next time I go to a game. Are they going to list the article as being written by Stinkfinger the Crow?

With this be available online for those of us not attending the games?

i definitely need to go to that bar more often.

Confessions Of A Hockey Prostitute

I take my hockey pretty seriously. I’m prone to vitriolic outbursts when I hear people say “No one watches hockey” or “I only like watching the fights”. I enforce Wait-For-A-Whistle in my own home, even when hockey isn’t even on. I drive nearly 40 miles each way for men’s league games that start at 10:30 at night when I have to be functional in a meeting at 7:00AM the following morning.

So following the 2005-2006 season, when the Blackhawks cut ties with Pat Foley, their announcer for as long as I had been alive at the time, I was pretty upset. To that point, the list of atrocities committed by the Blackhawks on their fans, some of which I lived through, some of which predated me was extensive. To list them now in this space would be tantamount to burning down the glue factory that Barbaro was sent to, so I’ll spare you. But the fact remains that the only reason I had left to watch/listen to Hawks games was gone, and I was livid. I had had enough.

Taking a cue from what I had heard a fed up Kansas City Royals fan had done, I decided to put my hockey allegiance up for sale to the highest bidder on eBay. It killed me to do it, but I was at my wits end. I had determined that the winner of the auction would receive a sworn affidavit of my fandom and a photo of me in the new team’s sweater. After all, if they were going to be my new team, I was going to need one. So the week long auction started, and the offers rolled in, and the winning bid ended up being $50 from the proprietor of a sports memorabilia shop in the south suburbs who shall remain nameless. I received my payment, and he received his photo of me and the affidavit, made air-tight by a friend of mine who was in law school at the time, and even bore the signature of a witness. The team I was made a fan of, you ask? The Colorado Avalanche.

So I was an Avalanche fan. I wasn’t entirely thrilled with it, but a few of my favorite players had once donned the…ummm…snowy A(?), such as Ray Bourque and Chris Drury. To this day, I still consider seeing Joe Sakic hand The Cup directly to Bourque and allowing him to hoist it first as one of the most incredible sporting moments I’ve ever seen.

And I gave it an honest effort. I really did. I bought the Center Ice package to get the games. I only went to the United Center when the Avs were in town. I even had my parents pick up a vintage Forsberg Nordiques sweater when they were in Denver on vacation. All while still keeping a watchful eye, if at a distance, on the Hawks.

Then everything changed.

Last call finally came for Old Man Wirtz, and the changes started coming. Again, to list them would just be adding to the massive amounts of knob polishing that Rocky and McDonough have already received. But the important thing was that the on-ice product was improving and exciting, and I could finally start forking over my hard earned money to see NHL hockey in this town in good conscience. So I started attending games more frequently, attending them with my good friend, a Mr. Adam Tatro. It was like intentionally going to the bars where you know your ex-girlfriend is hanging out. Yeah, even the sight of her pisses you off, but damned if you know any better. And I found myself buying back in.

So I agreed to meet Tatro for the game after Christmas against the Predators last year. After an interminable ride on the #50 Damen bus all the way down from Lawrence, I met him at his vehicle, where he claimed he had a Christmas present for me. A Patrick Sharp sweater, complete with alternate “A”.

“I bought you back asshole. You’re a Hawks fan again.”

Unbeknownst to me, he had gone to the aforementioned memorabilia dealer, and bought my fandom off of him, and provide me with a sweater, as was the original stipulation of my sale of myself. (It was a Patrick Sharp sweater due to my well documented man-crush on him dating back to the 2005 Calder Cup finals, but that’s a story for another time).
So it’s going on a year now since my return to the fold, and it’s been excellent, especially with things coming full circle with the return of Pat Foley to the booth. And sure, I get infuriated with how fucking soft the Hawks are in their own zone, and I think Dale Tallon has the potential to set the franchise back years should he continue to screw the pooch with the salary cap situation, but by and large it’s been a positive experience, and I’m glad to be back.
So call me a sell out if you will, but I don’t care. As far as I’m concerned, it was a cry for help.

You can find Matt McClure in section 321 or in the smoking pen outside of gate 7, or email him at matthew.m.mcclure@gmail.com