Witness to a Tragedy · 8 February, 17:30

As the Portland Winter Hawks go for their 16th consecutive loss against the Tri City Americans, it is time to accept the fate of the team and that realistically we may not win another game this season.

For the fans like myself, and many others scattered around the MC, this is tough going and hope seems to be trumped by a negative reality every night.

To break up this continuous negative reality, I pulled out my favorite Hockey short story by Jeff Greenfield, “Hockey Fan-Antics, or…Why the Ranger Will Never Finish on Top or Win the Cup!” for wisdom and humor.

Because all hockey fans on losing teams have something in common:

A continuous drama…mostly tragic in nature.

As Greenfield describes it:

As everyone remembers, Aristotle taught that tragedy is a catharsis of emotion through pity and terror: an exercise in which we learn something in life by watching heroic mortals struggle in a web spun by higher forces. We do not watch Oedipus Rex or Hamlet to find out whether Rex will reign happily ever after, or because we hope Hamlet and Ophelia will settle down at Elsinore. We go to be moved by the spectacle of man challenging his inexorable fate.

Yes, that is why I go to hockey games. It is not all wins and losses. The game Jordan White made 68 saves put me on my seat and I was not disappointed in what I saw, even the loss. Many of the other players at times have shown heroic effort.

How do we deal with this game-by-game ?

A New York Ranger fan, a character in Greenfield’s story which he names Wanda goes through her check list to start every game:

Wanda performs her face-off ritual. As the last strains of the National Anthem are swallowed by the crowd, she shuts here eyes, makes the sign of the cross, and clasps her hands to the sky in prayer. This affirmation of faith complete, Wanda leans over the railing, cups her hands to her mouth, and screams with unbelievable power, “Come on, you sons of bitches—kill em!”

A prayer couldn’t hurt.

— S. Blanchard

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US Divisional News · 18 January, 16:48

— S. Blanchard

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