This question is pointed at the Predaholics. Those of us who devote more time and energy than “normal fans” toward the pursuit of Pred hockey. We rarely miss a game, prepare for each by taking in as much info as possible, post on the message board, follow bloggers and Tweeters of Pred hockey, read as much as possible, occasionally call into talk shows, and general live and die with each game day.
We are in a classic slump. Minus Monday’s game, we’ve been losing, slipping out of the Top 8, and looking hopeless. How do you handle these times? Do you significantly alter your MO? Do you detach? Do you dive in deeper searching for answers? Do you lash out (Fire Trotz! Trade Legwand! Bring back Ronning!). Do you attempt to kick “the habit” and drop back to normal fandom and not make it so important?
Like any high investor in something, when things are good, there is no better high. You’ve decided to heavily invest and the investment is delivering. You were right. You took a risk and won. However, when that investment dips, when you’ve put more into it than you are getting out, life can really suck. You realize how much you rely on your investment, and the hole it leaves when it’s not returning anything. You start to question its future viability and your own decision making. You fear a world where the investment results never turn around, and maybe how little actual control you have over it.
Sports are a great escape from the Real World. It’s the original Reality TV. You live thru others and ride the rollercoaster you know will likely derail at some point but you enjoy the ride while it’s happening. You learn to deal with the ultimate derailment when the season is over and you didn’t win the Cup or make the Playoffs. You judge each year that “The Dance” is worth it and your glad you didn’t know the way it all would end, even though deep down you probably did know but maybe this year, it’ll be different.
One of the best features of a Board like this is the connection with people as invested as you are, riding the same rollercoaster in a different car. When things suck like they do now, our coping skills are challenged.
So how do you cope? Help your fellow addicts deal with the current lack of supply. It won’t create wins, but it may sustain others until the wins return.
When my friends who don't follow the team quite as closely start talking about how we're sucking or asking me what's wrong with the team I tend to think positively as a rebuttal to make us seem not as bad.
The Preds are my number one team in sports, but I'm fiercely loyal to teams in all other sports as well, so even though none of my other teams are usually good, I'm usually able to step back from the Preds and put my temporary focus on another team that's playing also (depends which other sports are being played at the time). I don't "stop caring" because things are bad, I just try to calm things down by diverting part of my attention elsewhere.
Again, with that said, the Preds are always number one.
Being a Vandy alum and huge Vandy basketball fan, I have learned to weather disappointment quite well haha (almost threw my office monitor out the window after the Murray St tourny buzzer beater).
The Preds are my favorite sports team by far. My girlfriend is a die hard fan as well which is awesome. Losses are tough, losing streaks are tougher, but the sun rises. I get over it by unplugging from the hockey world for 24 hours and reflecting on our past seasons. This team is very similar to last year's and many before that. The Preds always find a way to win in the end; even other team's fans will tell you the sane thing.
We have a great GM and Coach, good prospects, and a generally solid team. Take a step back, especially from blogs and forums like this, and generally you'll feel better fairly quickly.
I always feel like Theoden's quote in LotR is our long term philosophy. "A sword day...a red day...and the sun rises!"
As a multi-sport fan, I have some experience in dealing with tough times.
For example, my other team is the Auburn Tigers. It's been a tough year for us. We weren't expected to do well and didn't. Actually, we did a little better than most people thought we would record-wise, but our losses were ugly blowout losses. Worse, we just got drilled by our hated rival who may well end up in the championship game. Needless to say, some of our fans are absolutely losing their minds.
How do I deal with this adversity?
First and foremost, ignore it. Ninety-nine percent of the people wringing their hands, gnashing their teeth, pulling their hair out and writing lengthy message board posts about how our coaches and players suck and the performance is unacceptable are simply emotional people who don't know very much about sports. Some years are rebuilding years. Some years shouldn't be, but things don't go your way.
I could spend hours reading these "I'm a better fan than you are because of how angry I am" posts, but I don't. I simply redirect my web browser elsewhere and let those people give themselves ulcers.
Instead, right now I'm focusing my energy on the Preds. I have to admit that I'm a bit frustrated with the Preds and have written a sarcastic post or two, but overall, I love our team, win or lose. I'd like to see us playing better, and I thought we played a good first period last night, except for the one breakdown that lead to a goal. The second and third periods were just so-so. Pretty good defensively, but also lots of scoring chances given away by passing ineptness and lots of scoring chances where we failed to convert.
That's my primary frustration, is our failure to convert what we generate. The other night against Edmonton, we generated an incredible number of great scoring chances. If we had Hall, Nugent-Hopkins and Smith on our team with those chances, we would have buried a bunch and won 6-1.
However, I temper my frustration when I realize that even if we spend big, the chances of us becoming a Chicago, Boston or Pittsburgh are not high, and I feed off the winning we get done on sheer effort. I also take great pride in watching us play well defensively. If we can play well defensively and we win 1-0 or 2-0, I'm good. Overall, I just love celebrating how we're able to be in the top-half of the league, better than a lot a of teams, and causing major headaches even for the elite teams. Obviously we're not there right now, but hopefully will be again as the year progresses.
Finally, when things get really bad for all my teams, I essentially tune out the chatter. I watch the games, but try not to get too up or down and focus on other things in my life like family and other hobbies. It's just not worth making yourself crazy over.
I usually start following one of my other teams closely, since usually at least one of them is doing well.
Unfortunately, those other teams are the Buckeyes and Blue Jackets.
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Remember - when you're a hockey fan, it's not "reckless driving", it's "good forechecking".
"Viqsi, you are our sweet humanist..." --mt-svk on the CBJ boards
Thanks, Howson, for cleaning up MacLean's toxic waste. Welcome, Kekalainen; let's get good things built!
I have been homeless, had to pull the plug on my fiancée, on the week I was going to propose, and working in a miserable ****hole which reminds me constantly why America is failing... The Preds can't hurt me
The Preds are my number one sports interest. Period.
I used to follow a team in the Eastern conference also, so if one team was in a slump there was a chance the other would be doing ok. I have to say that I have really not felt confident that this team was stable yet. Won several they had no business being in, lost a couple they deserved to win, picked up points likewise. I mostly watch more games alone so I can express my frustration to the TV. My wife will say from the other room, "Who are you talking too?"
I have been homeless, had to pull the plug on my fiancée, on the week I was going to propose, and working in a miserable ****hole which reminds me constantly why America is failing... The Preds can't hurt me
Wow. That's hardcore. Reminds me of the 1983 AFC championship game. I'm a huge Jets fan and my girlfriend asks if she can come over and cook me dinner. I try to discourage it since I was totally focused on the game and didn't want to have to make small talk with anyone. She persists and I relent, but make no promises of being good company.
It's a mud bowl at the Orange Bowl, Richard Todd throws 5 interceptions, including a back-breaking pic-6 to AJ Duhe in the 4th quarter with the rain pouring (bet you can't tell i remember this like it was yesterday) and the Dolphins beat the Jets 14-0.
She's all smiles and happy making dinner, trying to cheer me up. I'll have none of it and want to crawl in a hole and sulk. The more she pushes the more I push back. Then she makes the critical mistake of insinuating I may take the sports stuff too seriously. In disgust, I tell her I'm not hungry and ask to be left alone. She fires back how ungratiful I'm being. I fire back I warned her not to come in the first place. She blows up, and I break up with her on the spot. Over and out. She slams the door and we never talked again.
A year later, I married my lovely wife, had three lovely kids, and just celebrated our 27th anniversary.
I owe my wonderful family life to Richard Todd and his choke-job performance that muddy day in the Orange bowl, with honorable mention to AJ Duhe.
First of all, it's just a game. I'll yell at the TV or the players during the game, but, for me the emotion doesn't last long after the game. Ranting for days that so and so screwed up wont change it and none of us are the coach, GM, or even the janitor sweeping the locker room.
Second, when comparing this season to previous years, the hyperbole just gets recycled about how this is the best or worst ever no matter how untrue it ever is/was. "IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you," ... Kipling must have foreseen the Preds message boards. Our "different level of suck" was a grand total of .01 goals per game before last night's game ... it's now .1 goals per game after our lone donut on the scoreboard to date this season. Rinne's sv% is comparable to last season and his gaa is comparable to his rookie season, yet we're acting as though the bottom fell out of our stats. We're 18th in goals per game this season .. even with our current slump (tied with Mtl and Dal). We're 18th in PP% even with the failure to convert last night (down from 16th before the game). Last season we saw nine players net at least 10 goals, two of whom had 20+ ... this season we have two players on pace for 20+ and eleven on pace for 10+. Analysis and logic trump uncontrolled emotion every time.
It isn't life and death. It's a freakin' distraction and supposed to be entertaining.
I used to get worked up for days on end about this team and this game, but I'm sort of with 101st on this one. I shout, curse, change the channel out of frustration only to switch back in a few minutes, but once the game is over I tend to cool off (unless I'm drunk, and then I have to distract myself haha).
It's entertainment. it feels great when the team is good, but at the end of the day there are entirely too many other things in life that actually matter for me to give that much of a damn. Don't get me wrong. If we ever win a Cup while I'm still in TN I will be passed out in a ditch somewhere the next morning because of the after party
I throw the closest handful of whatever I can find at the tv. Yell a few curse words and usually go to bed in a bad mood. In years past, it's affected me worse but I don't have the time or emotional capacity to deal with it right now. I go to work and don't think of anything but paperwork and *****y customers. I do hope they get it together because good games are a better distraction than these crappy ones.
At one time, Univ. of Tennessee men's basketball was my "escape" from everything that sucked in the real world. After a tragic event occured to my partner with that enjoyment, I became engulfed in the passion of the PREDS. With alot of negativity elsewhere around me, this new escape hurts to come to when it's a source of more negativity- like watching no threat of even a goal during last night's debacle. I have to keep telling myself, at least this diversion is still here to have. Btw, thanks AGAIN, gopreds9..the animation brought a smile back to me!!!
Luckily I'm a diehard UK Basketball fan as well. They generally don't suck, especially not lately. So I don't stay totally pissed off. Losing does put me in a bad mood though especially when I know there is some talent there. Currently I'm still not happy with Trotz breaking up the Hornqvist-Smith-Wilson line.
