So, last night I watched the Red Wings lose in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals and in the aftermath I was reminded of a question I was asked a while back, and it's one that I've pondered for a long time now, and that is whether it's more painful to have your team get close only to fail or to be a miserably rotten franchise that has no hope of getting anywhere near anything resembling glory. And since I am wallowing in the horrendous tide of shitwater following last night's brutal loss, I figured now was pretty much the best time possible to answer this question.
For as much as last night sucked - and it suuuuuuuucked - after everything was all said and done, after I had gotten done cursing my poor television and wishing horrible things on complete strangers, wondering what the Russian word was for mongoloid, and generally acting like a retarded methed up werewolf, I was able to sit down, take a deep breath and realize that the Red Wings are still a damn good team and a great franchise, and I feel comfortable and confident with the dudes in charge and the talent assembled. They'll be back. The dismay that I feel is only temporary, a momentary thing that will pass and then I'll go back to being excited about the Wings next year.
But the Lions are another story altogether. The pain and agony, the horrors that they put their fans through is constant, a never ending barrage of stupidity and rank incompetence that is played out week after week for a third of the calendar year. There is no let up, no moment when we can all sit back after a loss and remember that, overall, things are okay, that we've had a lot of success and in the future we'll have more of it. No, instead, after each loss, all we can do is look up at the owners box and see Old Man Ford asleep and drooling on himself while Junior spoonfeeds him applesauce and the degenerate apes who run the franchise sitting in their own filth, flinging shit at one another and denigrating their own players. It's a horrible thing, terrible and soul crushing, and when you really stand back and look at it all, compare the two situations and really think, only a great fool would tell you that being a fan of a team like the Wings is somehow worse - even when they lose in heartbreaking fashion - than being a fan of the Lions, when every day, every week, every miserable season is just one long heartbreak that never ends.
But there are new people in charge, civilized, intelligent people who seem to know what they're doing. And in that there is a semblance of hope - maybe for the first time in a decade. With that hope there also comes the potential for disappointment. The losing might be tougher to take because we might actually start expecting things. But those bad feelings will be temporary, ephemeral, and when we take a deep breath, we can remember that there are people up there who in the end have a pretty decent shot at getting the job done. And really, that's all we ask for. It's just the chance, the chance to maybe win something one day, the chance to get to stand up as Lions fans and tell everyone else that we're the best, the chance to watch the games with excitement and hope in our hearts. They may lose- and for a while they're probably going to do a lot of that - but for the first time in a very long time Lions fans can take a deep breath and feel like we can trust these guys to fix this thing. It's been a long time coming, and it will probably take a long time still to get where we want to be, but at least we're moving forward now, towards something, and not just freefalling towards the Earth, bitter and angry because Matt Millen, the Fords, Rod Marinelli, Wayne Fontes and company forgot to pack our parachutes.
It will be a hell of a day, the day that we as Lions fans don't want to rush Ford Field like a pack of irate vampire apes. And it will be a hell of a day when we get upset when they lose because we expected them to win instead of getting upset when they lose because, well, because we're just sick of them losing.
I have been a fan of great teams and lousy teams, the sublimely brilliant and the terribly inept, the historically great and the infamously awful. Sometimes your teams lose, and it sucks. It really sucks. But in the end all you really want is the chance to have that feeling, to either be overjoyed when you win or despondent when you lose. It's no fun feeling like you're heading to the damn gas chamber every time your team plays. It's terrible and it's wrong. I want to have the feeling with the Lions that I got last night with the Red Wings. I want them to make me feel terrible, like my sports heart has just been ripped out. It sounds ridiculous, but it's true. I dread ever having to feel about any of my favorite teams like I have felt about the Lions or like I used to feel about the Tigers.
I just want the chance to cheer like I mean it, like I believe in the players wearing the uniform of my favorite team. I want the chance to get pissed off at the refs, to feel righteously indignant when things don't go my team's way. I want the chance to feel proud, to be able to say I'm a Lions fan without people either laughing or commiserating with me like someone just died. I want the chance to be the fan of a team that wins the damn game - or a damn game. And if they lose the game, well, I want the chance to sit down after it's over, after all the bitterness, after all the stupid sports rage has subsided and think hell, we're still pretty damn good. It still seems so far away, but for the first time I can really remember as a Lions fan, it feels possible, real. Perhaps it's just because it's new, or maybe I've just gone completely around the bend, beaten and defeated by the horrors of Lions fandom past, delusional and clinging desperately to a mirage, but here we are, and I think maybe, just maybe, we've got a chance.
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