Tag: Blackhawks

The Chicago Legacy

Spring is a great time of year to be a sports fan.

March gives us the men’s and women’s college basketball tournaments that cripple workplace productivity as people replace spreadsheets and phone calls with box scores and online play-by-play logs. It’s the time of year when NBA and NHL teams really start to jockey for playoff position and NFL teams conduct their player evaluations in preparation for the draft in May. March also marks the start of Major League Baseball’s spring training. Spring training means warmer weather is on its way, along with the optimism that every fan feels at the start of a new season.  Continue reading “The Chicago Legacy”

Story Time: Rangers-Islanders 1999

I originally started writing this post as a connection to E’s first baseball game but I got so involved in the story that it became its own post. I decided I enjoyed writing it so much that I would finish it and post it anyway, even though it was a long time ago and being a parent was one of the farthest things from my mind. I’ll post more memories occasionally under the “Story Time” title. If there are specific types of stories you’d like to hear from when I was younger, either stories that you were a part of or a type of story you’d like to read from my point of view, either send me an email at sleepingontheedgeblog@gmail.com or post on the blog’s Facebook page. Enjoy!

I was in middle school when I first started paying attention to professional hockey. My closest friend was a New York Islanders fan, so that’s the team that I first started following (I went back to my Chicago roots with the Blackhawks a few years later). The downside was that the Islanders were terrible and played in an awful arena (two facts which remain true today, unfortunately, although apparently they’re moving to Brooklyn). The upside, though, was that because they were terrible and played in an awful arena, their tickets were really cheap, which came in handy for a middle school student with no income. My friend and I went to a couple of games and my love for the sport was sealed.  Continue reading “Story Time: Rangers-Islanders 1999”

Dear E

Dear E,

I’ve been meaning to start writing you letters for a little while now. I suppose the blog that I’ve been writing for the last year and a half has basically been a long series of letters to you anyway, but I wanted this piece to be directed to you, in particular, as opposed to me just writing about you. There are some things I’ve been thinking about here and there, especially over the last month and a half since my last blog post, and I want to make sure I get them down before I forget them.  Continue reading “Dear E”

Lesson #3: The Chicago Bears

I don’t spend a lot of time watching sports.

This is not an entirely new development; it’s been a gradual decline over the past five or six years or so. And over the last two years or so, my live sports consumption has dwindled to almost nothing.

There are a few reasons for this trend. The most significant, of course, is that I just don’t have as much time as I used to. Between a full time job and two part time jobs, plus actually wanting to spend some quality time with my wife and son, it’s not easy to carve out a three hour block (at least) to watch a game start to finish. I’m pretty sure the last game I tried watch from the beginning was Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals and we all remember how that turned out. I barely even watch highlights anymore, although that has a lot to do with my disappointment in what Sportscenter has become, as opposed to just not having the time.  Continue reading “Lesson #3: The Chicago Bears”

Liars, Killers and Brauns, Oh My!

There has been a lot of negative news lately regarding professional athletes in the U.S. The Biogenesis scandal regarding the use of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) in Major League Baseball has re-sparked numerous debates over the validity of certain records, awards and potential future Hall of Fame eligibility. Free agent point guard Daniel Gibson was charged with battery for breaking a man’s jaw during an argument. And, of course, former1 New England Patriots tight end, Aaron Hernandez, was arrested and charged with murder.

Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio, indeed.  Continue reading “Liars, Killers and Brauns, Oh My!”

Celebrating a Championship

As you may have heard (or read, seen personally, etc.), the Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup earlier this week. I mentioned that they were in the final in my last post, focusing there on the idea of the way our superstitions affect – or, more likely, don’t affect – sports games.[1] My extremely generous wife agreed to stay home with our sleeping son while I went to a bar with my brother[2] so that we could watch together. Sports are always more fun when they’re shared so we went out, we drank, we ate, we watched and most importantly, the Blackhawks won.  Continue reading “Celebrating a Championship”

Lesson #2: The Chicago Blackhawks

I’m not generally a superstitious person.  I don’t throw salt over my left shoulder; I don’t have a rabbit foot on my keychain; and if I break a mirror, I’m much more concerned about avoiding getting cut by shards of glass than I am about incurring seven years of bad luck.

That being said, though, I do think about superstitions fairly often.  If I’m walking outside, I tend to avoid the cracks in the sidewalk panels so I don’t “break my mother’s back.”[1]  When I open my umbrella indoors to let it dry out in my hallway, I think to myself about whether that will bring bad luck.  My family has a superstition that if you either step over a person who happens to be on the floor or walk in a complete circle around someone, you both acquire all of their sins and invite the evil eye upon them.  I’ve never bought these ideas, but they do pop into my head whenever I step over my son while he’s playing on the floor.  Continue reading “Lesson #2: The Chicago Blackhawks”

The Four Lessons: An Introduction

A few weeks after my son was born, I was sitting with him in my living room watching television and decided it was time to begin his education.

There’s been all kinds of research about how reading to your kids even while they’re still in the womb benefits their intellectual development.* You’re supposed to read to them, sing to them, play music for them and basically do anything that would annoy you if you were trying to sleep as a way to stimulate their tiny little neurons and synapses. By encouraging brain development, you’re preparing your baby for more conventional learning later on. All that being said, the education I had in mind had nothing to do with any of this.

It was time to teach him about Chicago sports.  Continue reading “The Four Lessons: An Introduction”

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