Dear St Louis Blues,
I have put off writing this because I do not want to say goodbye to you. This is an odd sensation for me. Last year I was sad to see you go, but that sadness was muted by my excitement at seeing my beloved Cardinals finally back in action. My baseball brain had taken over, as it has every year, and hockey was fairly nonexistent to me.
At this moment, I cannot tell you the sixteen teams who were in the playoffs last year. I was unconcerned with such matters.
This year is an entirely different story. I had NO IDEA when I took on this writing thing that I would come to love you so much. I didn’t know that you would be able to steal my heart, make me fall head over heels for you, and then beat the ever-loving shit out of me. But you know what? I liked it.
Hello, my name is Ann, and I am a hockey masochist.
Well, maybe not quite to that extreme.
These past few months I’ve spent every waking second I had free immersed in you, covering you, writing about you, and it has made me realize just how much I truly do care for you. I watched you struggle through that horrendous month of January, wishing there were something I could do to take the injuries away. I was there, at my computer, while my heart was ripped into shreds as EJ and JMac were shipped away, and then there again as it was built stronger than before with the emergent forces that are CHRISGODDAMNSTEWART and the Captain.
You have put me on the highest of highs, like that night of the absolute routing of the Scum. I couldn’t even sleep that night with how wound up I was. Or that 9-3 defeat of the Ducks? There might have been jumping and much rejoicing.
You have taken me to some of the lowest lows, watching the many number of leads disappear into nothingness and keeping that L column total too high for my liking. Or the times that you just didn’t seem to show up at all, feeling like I cared more than you did. That sucked, by the way. Don’t do that anymore. You have made me sad and angry, sometimes both at the same time. It is probably the most frustrating feeling ever.
You have made me so apathetic at times that I couldn’t even get angry, like that time the Flames CRUSHED you 6-0. I was there. I stayed for the whole thing. And you know what I did when that sixth goal went in? Laughed. Like the rest of the Scottrade Center. What more could we do at that point?
Through it all, though, I haven’t ever wanted to leave. I have felt my hope being beaten into a pulpy mess, only to have you try to revive it with a 31-31-32 season for Backes, or me being there for his and Steener’s 100th NHL goals, or a goal from the knees by Oshie.
This season, these past few months, you have solidified yourself right in the center of my heart. I wish your season was continuing. I wish there was your postseason to write about, rather than having to adopt a different team. I want to see you succeed and grow and become a fixture in the playoffs. And when the day comes that you boys lift Lord Stanley’s Cup above that Bluenote, I will cry with happiness because I love you, and I want that for you.
I do not want to say goodbye. Baseball is not muting my sadness this year. Part of me wishes it was, because this just hurts.
Guys, I really miss you already. Come back to me soon.
Love,
Ann
