We're changing things up this week. Since I've already highlighted all four of my teams once and that things have been pretty stagnant in Chicago sports recently, this blog is gonna be a little different. We're taking a trip down memory lane and going into the stories of how I came to fall in love with the Bears, Blackhawks, Bulls and Cubs. This post is gonna be more personal stories and less sports recap so if you find me uninteresting, I suggest you probably stop reading now. (That's a joke, please keep reading.)
Before I get started though, I do want to say that I have a feeling we'll be getting some big Bears quarterback news soon. I'm not really sure why, but I just have one of those weird gut-feelings. But maybe I'm just saying that because I need something to write about next week. If the Bears do get a new quarterback within the next week though, whether it's Russ or Watson (please), or Sammy D (no thanks), that will definitely be the topic of the blog.
Bears: Football was actually the sport that took me the longest to understand out of the big four. I don't think I fully grasped the concept of football until I was around 10 years old. However, even though I didn't necessarily understand football, I became a Bears fan a few years before then. Growing up as a kid, Sundays were always the same during football season. I would come home from church with my mom and my sister, and I would sit down at the kitchen table to eat lunch. The soundtrack to every one of these lunches was hearing my dad scream and cheer at the TV in the basement. What was it that had him so riled up? You guessed it, the Chicago Bears. When I was really young, I didn't care about the Bears. I knew that's what my dad was doing downstairs, but I had no interest in watching football. That all changed in January of 2007 though. The Bears finished the season as one of the top teams in the NFL and were in the playoffs. My dad was able to convince the whole family to watch the playoff games with him downstairs and that was the first time that I had really paid attention to any football games. The Bears ended up going on a magical run that year and making it to the Super Bowl. Again, I didn't really understand football yet, but I was obsessed with the Bears. I wanted them to win the Super Bowl so bad, yet I didn't even know what a first down was really. We watched the Super Bowl and my aunt and uncle's house, and my whole extended family was there. That night, at 8 years old, I experienced my first of many heartbreaks from the Bears. Devin Hester returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown and I remember everyone going insane. We were all sure that it was the Bears night. However, that wasn't the case. For the rest of the game, Peyton Manning and the Colts did their thing, whooped the Bears' asses, and took home the Lombardi trophy. I was very upset. I didn't even know when the next season would start, but all I knew is that I wanted to see the Bears win a Super Bowl in my lifetime.
So for the next few seasons, I tried to watch as many Bears games as I could. But like I said, I really didn't full understand football until the 2010 season. By then I knew all the ins and outs, could name every player on the team, and even knew a lot about other teams. I had become a young, fully-fledged football fan. Conveniently, I would experience my next Bears-related heartbreak that same season when the Bears lost the NFC Championship game to the Packers. That game hurt more than the Super Bowl loss to me. I was much more into football, I understood it better, and the loss was to the Packers. What a horrible, horrible combination of things. Of course, it hasn't gotten any better since then. I've experienced more pain (blog title) from the Bears and they still haven't won a Super Bowl in my lifetime. That being said, I still love the Bears and I always will. I just think it's funny that my Bears fandom started with pain and continues to be nothing but pain to this day.
Blackhawks: If any of my teams have blessed me consistently throughout my fandom, it's been the Blackhawks. The Blackhawks were awful for many decades, but luckily for me, the organization turned around in the right direction at the right time. I was always fairly into hockey as a young kid. I took skating lessons (I quit at age 7, one of my biggest regrets in life.) and I played some floor hockey in grade school. I also went to a ton of Chicago Wolves games. However, I wasn't even fully aware that Chicago had an NHL team until I was 9 years old. The Blackhawks ownership was so bad in the early 2000s, that most of their games didn't even air on television. All I knew was the Wolves, but that all changed one day at my church (I don't know how church has been brought up twice now, but it has.) in summer 2008. A nice lady at my church gave me a little Patrick Kane Rookie of the Year collectible statue. She started talking about how he was on the Blackhawks and that they were becoming a young, exciting team to watch. I wondered how she got the statue and how she knew so much about the Blackhawks (because I sure as hell didn't). She told me that her son-in-law worked for the team. I thought that was pretty neat. I didn't learn until about a year later who her son-in-law exactly was. He goes by the name Stan Bowman.
For those of you who aren't familiar with hockey, Stan Bowman is the general manager of the Chicago Blackhawks and the son of legendary NHL coach, Scotty Bowman. This guy didn't just "work for the team", he helped run the freaking team. At this same time, the Blackhawks started to get better and better, and they made their first playoff appearance in years in 2009. They made an underdog run until they got knocked out by their powerhouse rival, the Detroit Red Wings, in the conference finals. It was a little painful, but it also felt hopeful. I had become hooked on hockey by that time, and I was able to pick it up way quicker than I picked up football. Fortunately for me, the Blackhawks would spare me any further pain and they would go on to win their first Stanley Cup in 49 years in 2010. It was weird because all the old, diehard Blackhawks fans had been waiting for that moment for decades, but I was able to experience it within my first two years of fandom. I'm very grateful for that moment and for the Blackhawks in general. They've provided me with plenty of incredible moments as a Chicago sports fan, and they'll always hold a special place in my heart as my favorite out of my four teams.
Bulls: In late 2008, I was convinced by a friend at school to join the basketball team with him. This was a huge step outside of my comfort zone, because I had never played basketball before, let alone for an organized team. Not only was it any basketball team though, it was our school's 7th-8th grade team. Now here's the kicker. In 2008 I was in 4th grade. Yup, you read that right...4th grade. The school that I went to from preschool to 5th grade was very small. There weren't enough boys in the school for a 5th-6th grade team, so all the 5th-6th grade boys had to play for the 7th-8th grade team. They were so desperate for players, that they even picked up two 4th graders for the bench. Long story short, I sucked. I was undersized (obviously), I had no skill, and I barely played. One good thing that came out of it though was that it got me into basketball, but more importantly, it got me into the Chicago Bulls.
Even though I wasn't good at it, I became obsessed with basketball when I started playing it. I started watching every Bulls game, picking up every NBA video game, and convinced my dad to put up a hoop in our alley. (Side note: you'd think this obsession would lead to me becoming the next Larry Bird or something, but it didn't. I played basketball until my freshman year of high school, but I still managed to never get good and I rode the bench for 6 years straight.) The Bulls, much like the Blackhawks at the time, were a young team with an upcoming rookie star named Derrick Rose. They snuck into the playoffs that season with the 7th seed and they were set for a first round matchup with the 2 seed powerhouse Boston Celtics. Nobody really thought the Bulls could challenge the mighty Celtics, but they were wrong. The Bulls fought hard and they took the Celtics all the way to a win-or-go home game 7. I remember not being able to sleep the night before game 7, that's how excited I was. The day of the game I was all ready to go and decked out in my knock-off Ben Gordon (underrated player, by the way) jersey that my mom bought me from Kohl's. The Bulls ended up losing that game and got knocked out of the playoffs that night, resulting in my first Bulls-related pain experience. I was so mad that I ripped off my Ben Gordon jersey, threw it on the floor, and stomped on it. (I want to apologize to Ben Gordon. I was only 10 at the time and I was a young, angry kid. I didn't mean it.)
Since then, I still remain a loyal Bulls fan to this day. I've experienced a lot of painful moments as a Bulls fan, but so many of them are just unlucky and unfortunate, mainly Derrick Rose's injuries. I really think that those early 2010s Bulls could've won a championship if he never got hurt, but I guess we'll never know.
Cubs: Baseball was the first sport that I got into as a kid and that was all thanks to my grandpa. My grandpa has worked for the Cubs as an usher at Wrigley Field for as long as I can remember. He usually works in the sections behind the first and third baselines, so this means that whenever I go to Cubs games, I can buy cheap tickets in the nosebleeds, but then he'll find empty seats in his section and I get to go and sit down there. Let me tell ya, there is no better experience than sitting in the first 10 rows for a Cubs game at Wrigley Field. Being that close to the game and all of the players in the federal landmark (shoutout DOM Fredric) that is Wrigley Field...it's one of those things you have to experience at least once in your lifetime. Throughout my life, I've tried to take as many of my friends as I can to as many games as possible every summer, so that they can get that experience too. (John and Josh, if you're reading this, sorry that it didn't work out the game that we went to. I got you guys when everything opens back up in the future, hopefully.) That being said, I've been to a ton of Cubs games since I was a kid, definitely way more games than I've been too for any of my other teams. My first game was with my dad in 2003. I was four years old at the time, so I don't remember much, but I do remember it being a lot of fun, getting a plush cub toy that had Mark Prior's name and number on the back of it, having a bad experience with the old Wrigley Field trough urinals, and the Cubs losing the game (because of course they did).
Since that game in 2003, I've always loved the Cubs. They've caused me a lot of pain, and they still do, but I don't think there is a single sports moment in my life that I am more thankful for than the Cubs winning the World Series in 2016. All us Cubs fans asked for was one, and we got it, so I have nothing but love for the team.
That wraps up the blog for this week. I know it was long, but it's some stories that are very near and dear to my heart, and I hope that you enjoyed reading them. (That is if you actually stuck around and kept reading.) The blog will be back to normal next week, but I enjoyed writing this one a lot. It brought back a lot of memories for me and there's nothing better than a healthy dose of nostalgia, with a little sprinkle of pain added for good measure ;)
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