well, damn! i've waited a whole year for this. it's finally time to drop the puck and start scrappin.

being a southern girl from texas, oklahoma and arkansas, i was raised on the dallas cowboys and college football. i didn't even know hockey existed. not until the 1980 olympics when i fell in love with the game even though i didn't understand it.

of course, living in arkansas, there wasn't really a team i could follow. hockey back then, for the most part, was still a canadian/northern u.s. sport and games were rarely shown on t.v. not only that, but i had no idea what team i'd even root for.

when i met my husband, we had a mutual love of the game and began watching every one we could. since st. louis was close to home, i began following that team(i know, i know, lots of disappointment there). hubby's team was the red wings(you didn't think naming our dog sergei was an accident, did ya?). many many a night, mark and i scrapped watching our two teams play. oh what fun!

omg, i love hockey. it makes me hot, baby! i mean juicy hot. baseball players are pussies, and football players are whiners but a hockey man is just that...a MAN!

Kurt Warner can't play cuz he hurt his thumb. Dion Sanders can't play cuz he hurt his big toe. boo hoo hoo.

Stevie Yzerman played at least five playoff games with a busted ACL, draggin himself up off the ice with his stick in between each whistle only to keep playing. Mario Lemieux was so weak from chemo therapy that his teammates had to lift him over the boards onto the ice, but once he was there, he skated and scored like a madman.

and i hate to break it to you football loving people, but that is not a rough sport. sure you've got some two-hundred plus pound, pad encrusted guy slamming you to the ground, but they only play sixteen games a year, man. that's nothing.

but in eighty-something games of hockey, with their thin little pads (that's mostly muscle there folks) they come at you doing thirty miles an hour and slam you into a board. sticks slashing in the eyes, on the wrists and sharp blades flying carelessly through the air. bodies crashing with concussion forces at mid-ice, hard bullet pucks in the chest and face, fistfights and bench clearings, ty dome dragging a fan over the penalty box glass and pounding the shit outta him...omg, i may need a minute here.

i LOVE the game of hockey. it's a delicate balance between brute force and lightening speed finesse. it is barely controlled chaos. it's fast, it's furious and thank god, it's finally back.

now if you'll excuse me, i'm a little worked up and i have...uhhhh...something i need to attend to.