It's Playoff Time...

The past month or so has been Playoff Time at the Thompson household. This means a lot of late nights watching a sport that I'm trying really hard to learn and follow. I was raised on hockey and any other sport was just not all that interesting or watched in our home except for the major games (ie. Superbowl, final games in series, and well, golf) or if there was absolutely nothing else on. At least that's the way I remember it. 4 out of the 5 members of my family played hockey and the one who didn't (Mom) was all of our biggest fan, making it to every game possible (except when she had to take one of the other kids to a game that was at the same time 'cause Dad was coaching our team) to cheer us on in the freezing cold. So to me, hockey was basically the only sport out there worth watching or knowing anything about. I knew all the players and some basic stats and who was good and who sucked. I was able to watch a game and know what was going on and why certain plays were played and everything. Hockey just made sense. That was then.

Along came Jeff and the Kennedy family tried really hard to convert the South African to Canadian ways and fall in love with hockey, but well, he's possibly more stubborn than my family and wouldn't be convinced of hockey's greatness. Wanting to spend some good "quality time" with him I started trying to watch basketball and learn about the teams he liked. To me basketball was more of something you played in your driveway with a few friends than something that people got paid millions of dollars to play. It was strange and so different to watch than hockey and took me a long, long time to "get". But every year with him I would make a concerted effort to learn about whatever teams made it to the finals (I figured that knowing who the players on two teams were would be more than enough for me) and try to really enjoy it with him for a couple of weeks. After almost 9 years of this pattern (watching a bit through the year and then trying to really learn about the two teams in the finals) I'm actually starting to like and understand basketball. The crazy thing is that I tried to watch hockey a couple of times in the past few days (the last two games in the Stanley Cup) and it took me a long time to even get used to watching what was happening. It all looked so sloppy and strange. Jeff's opinion of hockey was starting to make sense. I didn't know anyone on either of the teams (and supposedly they had some really big names - Crosby??) and the whole thing was just weird to watch. After spending twenty years basically living and breathing hockey, just 6 years out of my parents home and away from it made it all seem so foreign.

But now it's Basketball Playoffs... a time waited for all year by Jeff and then almost glad when it ends and we can go to bed at a decent time again. One of my favorite memories of Noah's birth (coming up on Friday the 13th this year.... ooohhh, spooky) is that just a couple hours after Noah was born, there was father and son cuddling and watching the Miami Heat work at winning the Title. They spent the next few nights watching games together and building some good, quality father-son time in a long honored tradition - sports watching together. While Noah was a little young to really learn the ins and outs of basketball, I know it made Jeff happy to have a son to share his joy of the game with... someone other than his wife who worked really hard to understand the game but asked way too many questions during it.

I never thought basketball would be a sport that I'd watch and enjoy, especially more than hockey, but I guess that's one of the "sacrifices" that are to be made in marriage. And hey, what guy doesn't like feeling really smart when their wife has to ask questions about something that they really know the answer to, especially in sports, a "man's thing". I know Jeff likes it a lot more with me asking him about and him explaining "his sport" to me than back in our dating days when I tried to explain hockey to him, it's just a man thing, I think. Oh well... go Lakers! (That's who Jeff told me we're cheering for... I still don't watch enough during the year to have a favorite team when playoffs come, I just go with whoever Jeff says.)