Life over Hockey Fandom

Life is funny sometimes isn't it? Last year there was nothing I loved more than hockey; talking to other hockey fans, watching hockey games, tweeting about hockey news...in a word I was obsessed. For anyone who has read my personal blog before you may have read the post earlier this Fall about the past six years of struggle I had been through, if not here's the Reader's Digest version. Shit happens, and sometimes when drowning you cling on to the ray of light that can bring you happiness and you don't let go. But as with all things in life, one day you're up the next day you're down. Somewhere along the line the online hockey community went from the thing that saved me and filled me with joy and energy to a place filled with negativity and whining. I can handle criticism but hockey seemed to invite people into my life to constantly criticize what I did, how I felt, what I liked and any opinion I had. I didn't realize it at first, I blamed it on the Avalanche crapping the bed midway through last season as to why I wasn't as into hockey but the Playoffs rolled around and I watched maybe two games. I couldn't care less, and I finally figured out why.

The hockey community is a great one, filled with fun individuals who really love the sport and want to talk to other hockey fans. The problem is that for me it felt like instead of going out and doing stuff I would talk hockey with other people. This past summer the hockey community was hit with tragedy, time and time again. Instead of banning together people fought over how other people should mourn, over what was classy and respectful and what was not. It was insane and above all else it was energy draining. I often found myself turning off Twitter and re-reading Steve Jobs' Stanford Commencement Speech - about living your life to the fullest. Somewhere along the line I realized that while online communities are great and connecting with other fans is fun, it's not the only part of my life. No wonder I had little to offer other than critiquing people on Twitter; I wasn't actually living an active life so I had nothing to comment on other than observe how others were living. What a boring life. Then the 10 year anniversary of September 11th came and Penelope Trunk wrote a piece that had me in tears at the end. Steve had nailed it on the head about remembering to make the most of each day, but even that seemed lofty and we always think we have tomorrow. But Penelope, well she smacked it out of the ballpark, bases loaded bottom of the 9th Inning in the World Series Game Seven for the Championship. I realized how to make me happy and what was worthwhile to me.

A few months later and I'm happier and healthier. I run two to three times a week, go to yoga four times a week and am out past 10 pm on most days. I hang out with cool people, learn something new each day, and get to laugh out loud instead of type LOL. That doesn't mean I don't love my Twitter family, it just means balance is needed in my life. For me, the pendulum swung all the way over to hockey and the online hockey community and as with all things the pendulum has to swing the other way to correct itself. I'm striking that balance any way I can, and sometimes that means by unfollowing people who don't have much to tweet about other than whine over how their team got screwed or their fellow fans or the return of Sidney Crosby.

But if you're wondering, I still love my Avs and am excited about Landeskog and the future for the organization. I still check out the scores, watch highlights and check out the news; but it isn't the only love of my life any longer. So if you're on Twitter and I'm tweeting about music, movies, food, technology and yoga, feel free to tweet me back; it's even more fun than just tweeting about hockey, I promise.