Disappointment and Sports

Watching sports, and being a fan of sports can be such an exhilarating thing, but that is not what this post is about, quite the opposite actually. This is about the heart wrenching disappointments that also come with being a sports fan. I guess this is inspired by the disappointing loss by the Packers today, but it is something I have been thinking about writing for quite a while.

I would have to say that the Vikings have probably led to the most disappointment in my sports fandom life. 1998 was the first year where I truly got into football, and everyone remembers what happened at the end of that season. 15-1, losing in the NFC Championship, not even in the Super Bowl, but just the conference championship game. I have enough disappointment from the fact that the Vikings haven't even had the decency to lose in the Super Bowl, just love crushing my spirit in the conference championship.

We can move on to 2000 where I had gotten into football even more, And the Vikings once again make the conference championship only to be utterly destroyed by the Giants 41-0, and I watched every bit of that game.

And then of course there was 2009, the team that took the Vikings' style of crushing playoff defeats and added a whole new twist to it. That game was just rough, so many disappointments in one game. It is still rough to even think about that game.

The Vikings are just so great at getting your hopes up and then completely ripping your heart out. It is really hard to do the feeling justice through writing. Every time, you know it is going to happen, but through morbid curiosity you have to keep watching until they give you what you know is coming.

Now I can't say the Twins have been as disappointing as the Vikings, but you get excited year after year, and get knocked out by the Yankees or someone else, year after year, usually getting swept in the first round. Getting your hopes up that maybe, just maybe, this will be the year they do something in the post season, but of course they don't.

Disappointment is the risk you take by truly investing in a sports team, you feel the joy of victory, but also the agony of defeat. Risking that is what make sports so enjoyable, knowing you could get that rush from a victory, or feel like your heart has been ripped out by a defeat.

In the end it isn't about whether they win or lose, but that they play the game.