The Lounge"...Where the parking lot of the Igloo meets the concourse of the Nassau County Coliseum and the bathroom line of the Skyreach..." - Wickedbsfan
As You Have Grown Older, Have You Lost Interest in Sports?
Probably not to figure out. Not many players from Ottawa (not necessarily born here, but grew up playing junior here)... especially ones who'd be among the best in the league... I'm 23 so likely around my age... first name starts with a C last with a G...
Again, that's not to say that they don't care a lot. They do. And there are times when what happens at the rink affects their personal life (after all that happens to me in my career, and I have much less pressure on me)... but let's just say that the average Habs/Leafs fan is crazier about hockey than the average player.
I'd bet an even bigger separation between hockey and actual life occurs when these guys start families.
So what you're saying is that you're good friends with Claude Giroux.
When the Senators lost in Game 7 of the ECF to the Devils, I was crushed for over a week (14 years old). In 11th grade, I spent all my cash on a 20 game pack of tickets. I used to listen to all the call in shows, read all the rumor blogs (spectors, hockeytraderumors.com...) and I knew Ottawa's prospects inside out. I watched every Bills game on Saturday, had killer fantasy baseball teams and thought Off the Record was a good show.
I'm now 23, soon to be 24. I have a good job, car payments and my parents don't raise an eyebrow when me and my girlfriend sleep in the same room when we visit.
I enjoy watching and going to games, but it's mostly for the social aspect of having a few beers with friends. I rarely sit down to watch a full game myself. I usually flip between channels or catch a glimpse between sets at the gym. I used to hate how Ottawa games were so quiet, but now find it odd when I see grown men heckling each other. Call in shows are even more odd to me. When the Leafs beat the Sens, it doesn't bug me at all.
So basically... yes. I'm much less interested.
The funny thing is, in the past couple of years, I've become good friends with a player who's from Ottawa, and is currently one of the best in the league. As a kid, I idolized guys like this. I thought they lived and breathed hockey. But... they don't.
It's a job. Yes, they want to be great at their job, just like I want to be great at my job. They want to succeed, just like we all do. But when they're not on the ice, they quite honestly don't care all that much about last night's game. I find that die hard fans are much more passionate, and take things much more seriously, than the actual players. That's probably one of the factors for why I've become much more apathetic towards sports. It's just a game... nothing to get too worked up over.
A little of both. In respect to playing sports, I don't play nearly the amount I used too. But as far as my interest in hockey, I watch/read hockey related stuff whenever I can. I know more about hockey now and than I ever used too. Although the introduction of internet definitely helped that as I never used be able to watch the Sens, but now I can watch every game.
Although I am still at the point in life where I have minimal responsibilities. I could see when marriage and homes and kids come along things could change slightly. But that's still years away.
The passion's still there, it just doesn't show up as easily. I used to get pissed off after every regulation loss, used to get ecstatic after every win, but now I just stay calm unless it's the playoffs. I don't know if it's because I'm getting older or just because I've grown used to the feeling that the regular season gives. The playoffs still get me pumped though.
Everyone kept freaking out over Pittsburgh - Philly, Didn't watch until third period
Not going to keep a hockey game and baseball on simultaneously...and then the Canucks play at 10 PM, when East Coast folk have to sleep...so you can forget about me watching the Western Conference games
Think the best series so far are Was Boston and Pitt - Philly...casually following the rest. In the past I probably would have been interested in most of the series...but there just isn't that appeal in the SC playoffs this year.
I mean, I won't go that far, as obviously everyone here in the media is talking about the Caps, and I'd be crazy to miss the Pitt-Philly series. But other than that, as I Said before, there isn't much incentive to watch any other series in the first round.
Maybe if Vancouver won a few games in LA then I might get interested
A little, but once you reach your mid forties, after another mid life crisis, and realize everyone and everything has let you down time after time after time, you stop trying and just watch sports on TV.
A little, but once you reach your mid forties, after another mid life crisis, and realize everyone and everything has let you down time after time after time, you stop trying and just watch sports on TV.
I was a huge sportsfreak from a very young age and I followed pretty much every sport on tv, magazines and teletext.. but after Sweden lost to Belarus in 02 I died a bit inside and pretty much stopped watching sports except for when ever there was a tournament in hockey or football like the WJC, WC, Olympics.. but in 07 I got back in to hockey real bad and now I'm starting to get depressed because the season is soon over.
I was a huge sportsfreak from a very young age and I followed pretty much every sport on tv, magazines and teletext.. but after Sweden lost to Belarus in 02 I died a bit inside and pretty much stopped watching sports except for when ever there was a tournament in hockey or football like the WJC, WC, Olympics.. but in 07 I got back in to hockey real bad and now I'm starting to get depressed because the season is soon over.
Dude, that is so much like me. I cried my eyes out after the Belarus game in 2002. I've always been into the NHL and the Devils but I had a huge gap of sports disinterest between 2003 or 2004 until 2007. I started following the NHL again during the spring of 2007.
I was considering making a post/thread about this the last week or so myself, actually.
I am not old - I turn 25 in May - but as I sit and watch games I have this uneasy feeling that I should care more then I do, because I use to.
Growing up in small town Saskatchewan you are spoon fed sports. I played Basketball, Baseball, Indoor Soccer, Bowling, Curling, Road Hockey, took swimming and skating lessons, etc. From a family where I was the youngest of 3 boys our lives were centred around sports so the seeds of my addiction were planted well before I could realize it.
In High School I was still sports crazy but over the last year or two my "give-a-****" metre is very low. I will still watch (sometimes) and hope that my team wins and if they do I am happy. Not jubilant or standing up giving high fives to everyone around me (unless in the rare event that I am attending the sporting event, which in that case I let myself enjoy the atmosphere). Just simply happy, content. If they lose I am a little disappointed but I don't really care; "that's too bad" kind of feeling and that is as far as it goes.
I am a bartender at a Sports Pub and I see everyone come in dressed up in their teams jerseys and either ready to kill themselves or party until the sun comes up depending on the result and I just don't really relate with it anymore. Seeing a grown man cry after their team loses makes me look down on them; I understand I should not judge what people care about but it just seems so odd where I think "what the **** is wrong with you? It's a game".
My priorities and values have changed dramatically. I try to look after my mother and grandfather. Attend school and work full-time while trying to do as much fundraising/volunteering as possible. I have a little nephew and in the next several months a niece. In the end, sports have taken a back seat to what I am willing to emotionally invest my life in. In an internet meme sense: I only have so many ****s to give and by the time it gets around to sports my reserves are nearly depleted.
The only exception is for family purposes since a cousin of mine coaches professionally. He is the reason I started liking Pittsburgh (Penguins, Steelers, Pirates) when I was a kid (95-96 season) and now I will root for whatever team he is coaching at the time. However, I am equally supportive of all of my family for their success, it just so happens that his occupation is more public and easy to follow unlike a cousin who works as a nurse, a teacher, or with a police service.
I've culled the number of sports I pay attention to.
Soccer, hockey and MMA are high-interest items for me. I don't care at all about American football anymore, and basketball and baseball have both fallen below the threshold of things I pay weekly attention to, and "watching Sportscenter" is no longer of any interest to me.
I am 28 and have been living outside of North America for a number of years; geographical separation makes it more difficult to "keep up" with sports and is a great way to avoid the ones you don't really care about.
I grew up as a pure sports fan...put anything on competitive and I'd watch it...that's definitely gone now.
My interest in hockey has shrunk mostly to one team, though I can still watch games without my team involved and enjoy it I just don't have the time to do so with regularity anymore. My football watching has shrunken considerably to the fact that I will only watch my NFL team (Steelers), but I'm still a more liberal with college (I'm an FCS fiend...I will forever be more interested in what happens in the Missouri Valley Conference than in the SEC), and with baseball...I partially blame the Pirates for being irrelevent for my entire life, the league for being so broken that it's unfixable, and baseball games just taking too ****ing long anymore...but I can't watch a baseball game I'm not emotionally involved with and it's ****ing hard to get emotionally involved with the Pirates...maybe moving to Los Angeles will sway me a bit, but I'm still way too loyal to my hometown for the Dodgers to ever overtake my Pirates.
Basketball makes it easy not to care about. What a useless joke of a sport.
__________________
“The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile, but that it is indifferent. If we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death, our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfillment. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.” - Stanley Kubrick
I don't have the best attention span for watching sports like when I was kid. Honestly, I spend most of my time on the computer. Mostly, I just have Sportscentre on in the background or whatever hockey or football game is playing on TSN. I give my full attention when the Canucks or BC Lions are on, or if I'm not on the computer.
Hockey - I'm as big of a Canucks fan as I've ever been or ever will be, I've cheered for them since 1990. I used to really be into the World Juniors and Olympics, as well as the NHL, when I was kid, but now, I just can't be bothered. It's not the Stanley Cup. I have no reason to feel overjoyed if Canada wins an umpteenth World Junior Championship. It was all right when Canada won Olympic Gold at home, but I wasn't elated or anything. It's all about the Canucks and WHL Giants and nothing else (but mostly Canucks). I go to lots of games, although I don't really enjoy going as much as I used to (Not anything to do with how good the teams are, more just personal reasons.). If I didn't like to take pictures of hockey (or whatever sporting event I'm at) a lot, I'd probably almost never go to games at all anymore.
Football - My second favourite sport. I've watched football for roughly the same amount of years as hockey. The only team I love as much as the Canucks is the BC Lions, and I've cheered for them since 1991. It's good to have the CFL around in the summer when there's no hockey to watch. I see things as hockey in the fall-spring and football from summer-winter, with other sports I don't watch or watch very little of just being in there somewhere. I don't really have a particular NFL team that I really cheer for, I'm just a fan in general.
Baseball - I was a big Blue Jays and Mariners fan when I was kid in the 90's, the good days, but I lost interest when the Mariners went back to being crappy around 2002 or so. Maybe I just realized I didn't have the attention span for baseball anymore. After that, I only watched during the playoffs, especially if the Cubs or Red Sox were a threat (because I thought it would be good to see them break their curses). The 2004 postseason was one of the best things I ever saw in sports with the way Boston came back against the Yankees and then breaking their curse, but after that, it was back to finding baseball boring.
Basketball - I used to like the NBA, the Sonics, the Bulls, etc. The 90's was a great time to watch the sport with Air Jordan and all. It was exciting when we got a team, I was a fan. The Grizz didn't really get a fair chance in this town, though, so when they moved, that was it. I permanently gave up on basketball and haven't watched it since (Other than the highlights on Sportscentre, which is good enough for me. I like a good dunk but it's not enough to get me to watch an actual game. I don't even watch March Madness.). I hear about how soft the sport has gotten (hey, like hockey, the only difference being that hockey doesn't suck).
I wasnt really a huge sports fan to begin with. Watched basketball and hockey up till I was 14. Now all I watch is Canucks games and a few Habs games here and there. I still watch stuff like Superbowl or ufc, but only cause my friends host parties for those events
