Light The Lamp

Anyone who knows me knows that I love sports, almost as much as any man I know, and more than a few of them. It's a family trait. When St. Pauly Boy and I started dating, he was quickly emerged into the family's fanaticism when after only 1 month of dating he flew to Kansas City from LA to meet myself, my mother, father, and brother for a weekend of Twins v. Royals baseball games and one pre-season Vikes game. And after that weekend, he was hooked. Thank god for that too, I don't know if I could have married a non-sports guy. Seriously, what would we have in common? In our house, the wife is the one who teaches the husband everything there is to know about sports.

We share season tickets for the MN Wild with my folks and my brother and his wife. Every game we go to, SPB learns more about the game of hockey. When he doesn't understand something, I explain it to him. It's fun. I love teaching him about hockey. Hockey is particularly important in my family. We're obsessive about the game. When the North Stars left MN, we mourned for a long time. Thank god for the Gophers because I don't know that we could have recovered from such a loss had there not been an alternative. I remember when the Gophs won the NCAA title for the first time in like 50 years, it was on my birthday. I couldn't have dreamed of a better birthday present, and it didn't cost my parents a dime. I gladly spent that Saturday night in my parents basement watching the game on the big screen instead of at the bar with my friends.

While we were busy perfecting the art of Spectator Hockey, St. Pauly Boy decided he wanted to learn how to skate. Right on! But that's not actually enough. He doesn't just want to learn how to skate, he wants to learner how to play hockey. Like with a stick and everything. That's awesome, honey, seriously. But don't you think you should just get the skating thing down first? Nope. When he does something, he does the HELL out of it.

St. Pauly Boy played his first hockey game ever....at the Xcel Energy Center.

Yep. The X. Where the Wild play. Where we go 3-4 times a month to see our favorite team in action. No, he didn't win some between periods fan challenge. My brother actually rented the goddamn ice and invited his pals for a "pick-up" game on Wednesday. And SPB decided to join, even though he'd never played the game a day in his life. They took the same stroll to the ice that the Wild players take before every period. They sat on the same benches as both the Wild and visiting teams. Wayne Fucking Gretsky has been on that visitors bench. My husband sat on a bench that has touched The Great One. And he had never even skated before.

Can you imagine a better initiation into a sport? Just a leisure pick-up game at your favorite professional sports arena of all time. No biggie.