How long have you been a Blues fan?

[Blueston]

Early ‘80s. Although I was more if Cardinals (baseball and football) and Steamers fan as a kid. By mid-late ‘80s Blues were my top team. I left for college in 1990 and listening to Blues games on transistor radio from my dorm room in Houston (thankfully the Mighty Mox signal really carried at night) was probably my strongest tie to home.

 

[bluesXwinXtheXcup]

I made friends in college with a guy from Minnesota in 1992. He just lost the North Stars and needed a new team. The rules were odd to me, but what really got me in to hockey was the Sega Genesis hockey video game. I got to learn who the good players were, the rules, and why positioning was important.

My buddy is no longer a Blues fan. Too much heartbreak he says. But I'll be a fan until the end.

 

[HighNote]

Blues games were on in my house as long as I can remember. I remember my mom or dad would wash my hair in the sink when I was probably 3 or 4 and the game would on on this little dial-tv we had on the kitchen counter. My dad was a fan since the team was born, and was a season ticket holder I believe throughout the 80s and maybe even the early 90s. He got me into playing and watching hockey at a young age. I'd watch some games on TV and my dad would take us to games fairly often throughout the 2000s. I was never really a true fan that watched every game until, I'd say, 07 or 08. And I wasn't a die-hard fan that would follow everything to do with the team like we do on this board until probably the 2012-2013 season.

So something like

- '07	'07-'12	'12-present
Casual fan	Fan	Die hard fan

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

I guess July 1st, 2014 would be another point on the timeline. That's when I joined HFBoards, right as we signed Stastny.

 

[ScratchCatFever]

Regular season game in '92 against the Hawks, (I would've been 5 at the time, and had been playing tee-ball and was not excited by the game.) Bob Bassen fought Brian Noonan, and Nelson Emerson who became my favorite player and first Blues jersey scored a goal late in the 3rd to give the Blues a 4-3 win. The following spring/summer my dad pulled me out of baseball at Affton Athletic Association and got me signed up for summer hockey. Good lookin' out pops.

 

[Blueston]

I made friends in college with a guy from Minnesota in 1992. He just lost the North Stars and needed a new team. The rules were odd to me, but what really got me in to hockey was the Sega Genesis hockey video game. I got to learn who the good players were, the rules, and why positioning was important.

My buddy is no longer a Blues fan. Too much heartbreak he says. But I'll be a fan until the end.

We played the heck out of that hockey game in college!

 

[MissouriMook]

Started listening at the age of 4 during the 68-69 season. My parents would leave me and my brother with my Grandma while they were at the game and I would listen to Dan and Gus on the radio to hear what was going on where Mom and Dad were at. I picked up the game before too long and got hooked. One of my favorite treasures is the year-end LP the team put out recapping that season. I actually have it as an MP3 on my phone now. My favorite clip is when Berenson tied a game in late 1968 at home against the Rangers with 12 seconds to go and it sounded like the old barn was going to fall apart when the crowd went nuts. There will never be another quite like Dan Kelly.

 

[simon IC]

Strange story. I grew up in Leaf land, and in the early '70s collecting and trading hockey cards were all the rage in the schoolyard. I happened to have in my possession a very coveted Jacques Plante card, which I determinedly hung on to. Well, some of the other kids decided to take it by force one day. In fact, they beat me up took all my hockey cards. I bitterly yelled after them something to the effect of "Leafs suck, anyway!" One kid turned around and contemptuously threw a card at my feet. That card was Gary Unger. I thought he was the coolest looking hockey player ever, and I really liked the Blues logo! So, believe it or not, I have been a Blues fan ever since. It just kind of, stuck. (I have hated the Leafs ever since, too! ).

 

[Xerloris]

Born in 80 and started watching sometimes in the 80's. Can't give an exact year.

 

[WeWantTacos]

One Saturday when I was ~6 years old I was flipping through the 5 tv channels we had and came across this alienlike sport on KPLR11.

None of my friends or family were fans, so I had no experience prior to that. It's such a strange looking sport to a child who'd only been familiar with bucolic sports like baseball or soccer.

Who are these jacked up guys in helmets and pads flying around on a sheet of ice smashing into each other... and what the heck is that thing standing in front of the net?

I enrolled in roller hockey that summer and became hooked.

Hull, Pronger, MacInnis, Ken Wilson, the clown jerseys, and the RHI champion St. Louis Vipers. The 90's were a good decade to grow up a hockey fan in StL.

 

[Falco Lombardi]

I’ve been a fan as long as I can remember. First game when I was 4.

So...24 years now?

 

[carter333167]

Since 1967. Truthfully, probably since 1972-1974...when I became aware of hockey.

 

[TK 421]

My earliest memory is from sometime in 1986 when I noticed a Blues game on while flipping through channels. I was instantly hooked, I basically just sat there mesmerized by my new favorite thing in the world and have essentially built my schedule around it since.

Begged my mom for tickets and went to my first game against the Minnesota North Stars. I was in the upper tier seats at the old barn watching 20 somethings go beserk when Darin Kimble fought Shane Churla. During intermission my brother and I discovered peanuts fit through the holes in the floor of the stands and that fate had delivered us a food vendor directly beneath us. As you might imagine much fun was had between periods as the mystified vendors occasionally opined why the damn peanuts were committing mass seppuku on their counter. If they had measured my adrenaline levels leaving that game I'm pretty sure they would have been on par with a combat vet lol. So much fun and a night I will never forget.

 

[izzy]

around 2006. i was a big fan of tj oshie as a prospect back then.

not a lot of coverage of the blues or anything in canada/nova scotia so thats what it took.

got roasted a bit by the boys back then for being a fan of a bottom tier team that nobody knows about here (its the canadian teams, boston or phily usually) or wearing a brad boyes tshirt to school but its worth it now lmao.

was a flames fan kinda before that but just because of a kiprusoff obsession

 

[TheDizee]

too long

 

[AVictoryDive]

Geez some of you are as old as dirt haha just kidding love the stories.

 

[ScratchCatFever]

Strange story. I grew up in Leaf land, and in the early '70s collecting and trading hockey cards were all the rage in the schoolyard. I happened to have in my possession a very coveted Jacques Plante card, which I determinedly hung on to. Well, some of the other kids decided to take it by force one day. In fact, they beat me up took all my hockey cards. I bitterly yelled after them something to the effect of "Leafs suck, anyway!" One kid turned around and contemptuously threw a card at my feet. That card was Gary Unger. I thought he was the coolest looking hockey player ever, and I really liked the Blues logo! So, believe it or not, I have been a Blues fan ever since. It just kind of, stuck. (I have hated the Leafs ever since, too! ).

That is a sad, yet great 'how i became a Blues fan story' all at once. I sure hope those kids slipped in mud while making their get away.

 

[Davimir Tarablad]

Started around 97-98 as a little kid, took a hiatus from watching following the lockout plus Pronger trade (absolute favorite player when I was a kid). Picked it back up during the Payne era and haven't looked back since

 

[brokeu91]

I was born in 1978. I started watching in the late 80s. I had a brief hiatus during medical school but am back (well as much as I can with two small children at home)

 

[simon IC]

That is a sad, yet great 'how i became a Blues fan story' all at once. I sure hope those kids slipped in mud while making their get away.

Eh, I shouldn't overstate it. I was beaten up in the way 8 yr olds beat each other up. I think I got a fat lip. I'm enjoying these stories too! So interesting to find out where people are coming from. We are a great community!

 

[Memento]

I've been a fan my entire life (both parents have been Blues fans since their beginning). I first remember watching a Blues/Avalanche game on the television when I was six (I was born in 1991.), and I was hooked.

 

[LETSGOBLUES88]

I was born and raised(and still live in) Georgia so I’ve followed the Blues and Cardinals long distance my whole life. I grew up with both sides of my family being from Southern Illinois and stories of Musial to Plager to Federko to the Wizard of Oz; I was born into St Louis sports and my first Blues game I remember seeing was shortly after we acquired Gretzky back in 1995-1996....but for me my love of hockey didn’t start until the NHL decided to put a hockey team in Atlanta in 1999 and even bad hockey or lack of ownership support didn’t turn me off to the sport. It’ll be one of the things I’ll never forget is finally getting to meet/see Keith Tkachuk play in a playoff game after the Blues traded him to Atlanta.

Once Winnipeg stole the Thrashers I shut my brain off to hockey after 2011; but I always loosely followed the Blues even then. I feel as my fandom and support is right where it always should’ve been, right with the great people of St. Louis supporting the Blues! That’s why this series is quite emotional and important to me; I want the Blues to mop the floor with the Jets; there’s no love lost with the hockey fans in Atlanta that remember/supported the Thrashers and that they are now in the city of Winnipeg....I don’t want them to be successful and I vehemently want us to take their soul through every shift, hit and goal.

LETS GO BLUES!!

 

[Brian39]

Pretty much my entire life. I'm just a bit over 30, so I answered 20-30 years since I can't really say I was a fan at 1 or 2 years old.

The Rangers Cup run in 1994 is my earliest memory about being completely in love with hockey, but I know that the Blues were my entry point before then. If I had to guess, I'd say I became a Blues fan some time in 1992/1993 and was fully obsessed with hockey and the Blues by 1995.

My love of the Blues and hockey has never really wavered since then, but I would say the season-long lockout is the time that I started truly understanding and caring about the business and player development side of things. I was a junior in high school during the lockout and the salary cap and internet really made it easy to start caring about that kind of stuff.

You can count me into the 'just one before I die' group. I'm greedy and will almost certainly not feel that way at the start of the season after that first one. But I want to watch the Blues win the Cup so damn bad.

 

[67Blues]

Since 67. Fond memories of sitting at night in bed on a school nights listening to my black and gold radio next to my bed having Dan and Gus fill my mind with great hockey calls. Growing up, my father would take me down for stick day, that is how I got my stick for the year to play out on the street which would last about a week. We'd then replace it with a super blade that you put over the stove to put a wicked curve on it. We'd catch a SLU hockey game in the afternoon, eat at the Jack in the Box and head over to watch the Blues play that evening.

I was always glad that I got to play down at the old arena in a game prior to a game between the Blues and Toronto. I just remember stepping out on the ice and thinking that life didn't get any better than this.

Does anyone remember Jack Buck doing the Blues games with Jay Randolph and Gus Kyle?

 

[bluesXwinXtheXcup]

We played the heck out of that hockey game in college!

WashU?

 

[PiggySmalls]

Awesome reading everyone’s stories. To build off my earlier post. I moved to Alabama in 2003 and didn’t get to watch the Blues often until they moved from Channel 11 to FSMW. The cable provider I had didn’t offer the NHL network channel or any center ice package. I switch to Dish Network in ‘11 and got my love for the Blue note reinvigorated. Luckily for me, I done been married for a while to my southern Belle she had no clue what hockey was and didn’t realize how obsessed I was with the Blues when I was younger until I woke the whole house up when Steen scored the OT winner vs the King’s in ‘13. I didn’t get any that night. LOL. She should have expected it after the ‘11 World Series. My son was 13 months old. He started crying.

Sorry for the rant. Just waiting for Wednesday night to get here.