Nick is passionate about his sports teams. His love of the Ravens, Penn State football, and Syracuse basketball is over-the-top. With those three teams, his schedule is pretty full from September through March.
The problem for Nick is that he has little to do from April through August. That's prime time for the NBA playoffs, the Stanley Cup playoffs, and major league baseball. Everyone knows that the NBA is off-limits in our house. That leaves the Orioles and the Capitals.
Nick has tried hard his entire life to be a fan of the Capitals and Orioles. Each spring, he dutifully tunes in to MASN and the Comcast Sports Network, hoping against hope that this will be the year that the Orioles actually become competitive and that the Capitals make it to the Stanley Cup championship.
Both teams are notorious for teasing their fans in April. The Orioles, in particular, seem to get off to a good start each year, even if it's just for the first 8-10 games. During that time, Nick has a good time taunting me, asking me if I've checked the American League East standings lately to see how the Yankees are doing. I ignore him til the end of April. Then, when the Orioles are in the midst of a typical late-April swoon, I start to ask Nick why he's no longer watching the O's games on MASN. He does his best to ignore me. But, I don't think Nick's watched an Orioles game in the month of May or later in the last 10 years. That's how bad they've been.
Something's different this year. Here we are, in the middle of May. We're 34 games into the season and the Orioles have a two game lead in the standings. In fact, they're tied for the best record in the American League. They may just be for real this year. It's got me a bit nervous.
Luckily, we've still got the Capitals. Like me, Nick only watches hockey during the playoffs. This year, he (along with Hannah, quite surprisingly) has watched each Capitals game religiously. This past series, as the Capitals battled the Rangers, I did my best not to watch the games with Nick. He was having so much fun watching the Capitals fight to advance to the conference finals. I couldn't bring myself to sit down and do battle with him.
Last night, after watching the first period of Game 7 and seeing the Rangers take an early lead, I went outside, lit a fire, and watched the stars come out. I could tell what was happening in the game by listening to the shouts from inside. At one point, I heard a big "Ooohhh" of anticipation quickly followed by an "Ughhh." Knowing that meant that the Capitals must have failed on another scoring opportunity, I settled back into my chair and continued relaxing.
Finally, after an hour outside, I headed in to watch the end of the game (upstairs, away from Nick and Hannah). Thankfully, the Rangers held on to win. Once again, the Capitals had managed to tease their fans only to fail.
This morning, Nick doesn't seem too upset at all. Like most Capitals fans, deep down, he probably expected them to lose. That's just what they do, right? I actually think that he's not down because he really does believe that this is the Orioles' year. You know what? I hope that he's right. He deserves it.
This is where the magic happens.
