winning means bringing it with everything you've got

I really did not sign up for this.

I've known I'm an overly obsessed Leafs fan. I've known that from the beginning.

I know I'm a person who tends to care about things with everything I've got. I've known that forever. It's a character flaw, I think. Because whenever something means something to me, more often than not, it comes to mean everything to me. It's been that way since I was a little girl. And it's a right pain in the ass, to be entirely honest.

So perhaps I should have seen it coming.

But, you know. The Leafs already mean the world to me. And I care about them, my boys, so much, that you would think, you would think, that my heart (forgetting for a moment that the heart is an organ for pumping blood, and having attacks during intense, tight games and going with the emotional heart of TV, movies, music and literature)... that my heart would only be able to love one team that much.

Nope.

Because as much as I've somehow (and I still haven't quite figured out how) fallen in hockey team love with the Leafs, I'm still me. I'm still the same person who cares about who and what she loves with everything she's got.

So now I've got two teams that mean the world to me, apparently. And that's not even counting Team Canada, which I'm usually pretty likely to follow obsessively too.

And that... that was so not part of the plan.

The Pittsburgh Penguins were always supposed to just be the team that entertained me. The team that had such incredible young talent that they were, I was quite certain, the most exciting thing on ice. They were just supposed to be the team that made me feel better when I needed to root for a team that actually won on a consistent basis. And, to be fair, the team that provided me with prime boy-oggling time, given the fact that I'm madly in love with their captain and star player.

And when the Leafs were eliminated from post-season contention, the Pens were just supposed to be the team that kept the playoffs actually meaning something to me this year, because last year's just rooting-for-good-hockey completely and totally sucked.

They were just supposed to be my second favourite team, the team that made me happy when the other guys made me sad.

Here's the thing though. I have very quickly come to a somewhat startling realization.

The Pens have, at some point, become my second favourite team. Scratch the favourite. They don't mean near as much to me as the Leafs do. But damn, they mean a whole heck of a lot to me. They're not just my "second favourite", though they are that. No, at some point, they became my second team, another team that means the world to me.

Which is scary as all heck, because I know that if my Pens don't win Stanley this season, it's going to *hurt*. And I hate that.

But with all that said... I think there might be something special going on here. And as scared as I am, I'm going to root for it with everything I've got.

Because when the Pens came back last night from 3-0 down to win the game against the Rangers 5-4, to take a 1-0 lead in the series, and somehow avoid losing home ice advantage, in that moment, it meant everything.

So here we go. I'm in this. I'm so, freaking, annoyingly, crazily in this. It makes no sense whatsoever. And yet it makes all the sense in the world.

Hockey is a funny, funny sport.

And I love it with everything I've got.

I could never do it any other way.
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