Perhaps that's it.
It's the amount of **** I took when I was online as a younger person saying Las Vegas should be in the discussion for the NHL and following every stop of the Bruckheimer attempt to get the NHL in Las Vegas. I fell in love with hockey with the Las Vegas Thunder instead of the Chicago Blackhawks. I guess I'm just more connected with Las Vegas hockey versus the Golden Knights or the Blackhawks.
I'm seriously one of those guys that said you can't change teams once you're a fan, I see people like me talking trash in the main boards thread. Perhaps the Blackhawks were my adopted team replacing the Thunder instead of the Knights replacing the Hawks as my team since the Thunder was actually my team.
This has seriously bothered me for a while. I was a serious "you don't change your team" guy, and now I've got empathy for team changers.
I mean I'm guilty of being on the other end of that. Like I said, I was also a huge Teemu Selanne fan. So when I heard the Winnipeg Jets were coming back to the NHL I was really hyped for that. I proclaimed myself to be a Jets fan. That they were my "second team" but that started to ring hollow pretty much halfway through their first year. I couldn't force myself to tune in for their games or participate in their subforum. I wanted them to do well but really it was JUST Anaheim. Like...it's cool to see Winnipeg doing well. Especially when compared to tanking teams that continue to fail. But I never cared the way I care for Vegas already. When I miss Vegas games it's not cause I'm watching the Ducks instead it's usually cause I'll be swamped or I might have a date or something. Any time I CAN watch the Knights, I do. And I love doing so. I love talking about this team.
I've really started to love these players the way I've only been able to as a fan of the Ducks. I
like some of the Jets but I don't love any of them. When I think of the players I love I think Getzlaf, Fowler, Lindholm, Gibson, Henrique, Kase, Cogliano, Silfverberg, Marchesseault, Fleury, Perron, Wild Bill, Theodore, Schmidt, Tuch, Smith, Haula. That's why when the Ducks/Knights recently played it felt
weird to me for the first time. I think in the prior meetings, I was still just jazzed on the idea of the Knights and seeing them do well. Now I'm developing favorites and forming emotional attachments to players on the roster. So seeing players I like and love hitting each other, chasing each other, battling for pucks, shooting at my favorite goalies...it was f***ing weird. I winced with every hit. Every shot on goal excited me and made me nervous at the same time. It's a weird place to be being a fan of both.