Hockey on U St.

I've spent the last few weeks completely absorbed in finals and the NHL Playoffs.  While the relationship is far from symbiotic, it has worked in keeping my sanity intact while I attempt to cram all the (useless) biostats I possibly can into my non-math mind.

It's the playoffs.  It's what you do.  You sit in front of the television, you open your stats book and, during intermission, you pretend as though you're capable of absorbing anything you're reading (even though you find yourself continuously looking up at the TV to discern how the hell Rinne ACTUALLY saved that).

It's probably also addiction.  I really don't care.

One thing you notice when you're sports obsessed, however, is that a lot of people...well...aren't.  And in my life right now, a lot of people simply aren't...and they definitely don't follow this whole 'hockey' thing.  When I start talking about the Stanley Cup Playoffs, I'm like entertainment...like a foreigner speaking about some interesting foreign custom...

...which is ridiculous...because it's the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

The Stanley. Cup. Playoffs.

What the hell?  Right?

The whole thing can be a bit isolating.   But just when I think no one cares about hockey and I'm doomed (ha, doomed?  Blessed) to wander the Earth as a fan of the most under-appreciated sport in the world (to everyone else except hockey fans.  I personally would marry hockey if it were a person), I step out of the Gibson on U St. at 1 AM on a Saturday and stumble upon (not literally, though after one of the Gibson's painkillers...it could have happened) this:

There, spray painted on the sidewalk, is the greatest symbol of hockey's success advertising the greatest playoff fight in sports.

For a second there, I was back in Colorado, crowded around the TV of whomever agreed to host the night's playoff game, feeling right at home.  But DC's a good hockey city too, and when Sunday rolls around and I find myself in the living room, watching the Caps game with my two roommates and my roommate's boyfriend, I feel right at home too. (The Caps losing and going down 0-2 on the series kinda sucked though...)

-Shaela