I won't watch the first two periods.
For the last 3 years, I've been very interested in the NHL playoffs. Throughout my childhood, I felt like an outsider. I grew up in a hockey driven community, where almost every one of my friends was involved with some house league or some "Select" team. The kids who were playing "Select," were always the ones who made a fool of me in gym class when we got to the ball hockey unit. My buddy Sean was one of those kids. Last year, he was playing for the St. Michael's Buzzers, which is the junior team for the St. Mike's Majors, one of the more prestigous teams in Toronto. My friend Adam played house league for a while, but I never set foot on the ice. Why? I couldn't skate. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't get my skates tight enough so that they didn't dig into my heels. The only person who was ever able to tie them tight enough was my elderly, female grade 3 teacher. Even the car junkies who I used to live next door to, were not able to tie them, even with their ginormous biceps.
This led me to a life of not caring for hockey. Instead I became obsessed with football. My dad watched every game in the CFL, and I've been a season ticket holder for 10 years. I lived my childhood as a follower of the CFL, even explaining what the "rouge" is, to men 5 times my age and twice my height. It was only until 3 years ago that I became very excited about hockey. With my friends brilliant idea to set up a hockey pool, and my unrelenting desire to win, I began to watch hockey with a passion. I would stay up late each night to watch hockey highlights to check on my players and would read the scouting reports to try and pick up new talent.
I haven't done the hockey pool since, but I did develop a sort of ritual. For the last 2 years, I would race home after work and watch the 3rd period. I found that the leafs won more games when I only watched the 3rd period, instead of the weekend games where I watched the entire game. I always considered it to be nothing until this year. I watched the whole first Leafs game, and they lost. I only watched the last period of the last two games, and guess what? We won. Tonight I see if my ritual will stick throughout the playoffs. I overheard a breakaway attempt from the living room and saw Belfour stone Hossa cold. 30 seconds later, they scored. Let's hope that was my warning. It's currently tied, and I'm not watching a damn second. How's that for commitment?