Why the Sharks? (Part IV)

It's my observation that generally people inherit their sporting allegiances from the people around them--very frequently their families, often their larger geographical communities. It is certainly possible for an individual to adopt a team representing a town that he or she has never visited and to which he or she has no other community connection, but this is relatively rare, as near as I can tell. As a kid, for example, I rooted for the Minnesota Twins, the North Stars, and Golden Gopher teams, because although I was born in Virginia and grew up in Northern Wisconsin, both of my parents are Twin Cities natives and attended the University of Minnesota. I suppose I'm nominally a Timberwolves fan as well, although I've never been a huge NBA fan and I'm not especially engaged by the team's fortunes. (My NFL allegiances have been nebulous, multitudinous, and mercurial, and lately chiefly revolve around A) my fantasy team and B) the desire to see the people I care about happy, which puts me in the odd position of throwing my karmic support behind the Vikings and Packers and Cowboys and Eagles, all at the same time. Many will likely say "No real NFL fan could root for both the Vikings and the Packers," to which I reply, "True".)

I think it took the peculiar set of circumstances that existed in 1993-94 to make me a Sharks fan. Certainly if the North Stars were still in Minnesota I would to this day be a North Stars fan through and through. When the Stars moved, though, it really threw the future of my hockey fandom up in the air, and in the summer of 1993 I had no idea where it would land.

I do not think I could have arbitrarily adopted a new team and made it stick. It's not enough--at least, it's not enough for me--to wake up one morning and say "Hey, I think I'll be a Vancouver Canucks/Hartford Whalers/Los Angeles Kings fan." It's not enough for me to say it...I have to really feel it, to really believe it.

If I had stayed in the Twin Cities after college, or if I had moved to a community that didn't have a hockey team (San Diego, say, which I looked at pretty seriously for grad school), who knows where I would be today? Maybe I would have lost interest in the pro game and threw my support entirely behind Gopher hockey. In a previous post I mentioned the possibility that I may have successfully adopted the Washington Capitals, on the basis of a thin association with that team in my early childhood, but who knows if this would've stuck?

Even if I had moved to a community with an established team--New Jersey, say (I also seriously looked at Princeton)--would I really have become a die-hard Devils fan? Maybe, but somehow I doubt it. The Devils were a successful team in 1993-94 (they went to the conference finals), with an established fan base...it was their team, not mine. I think it would've been difficult to feel that I was really part of that community. I may have taken some interest in the Devils' playoff run that spring, but I'm doubtful any allegiance would've endured. I wouldn't have felt it. I wouldn't have believed it.

It took moving to exactly the right place (and, for those who may have been wondering, no, the presence of a hockey team was not a factor in my choice of graduate school) at exactly the right time for me to become the hockey fan I am today. It was not just a hockey market that I moved to, it was an embryonic hockey market in the midst of growth and fermentation, and I happened to come along at one of the truly decisive moments in the history of the franchise. In fact, I would argue that until the team hoists the Stanley Cup, there is no on-ice moment in San Jose Sharks history more important than that Game Seven victory over the Red Wings on that day in 1994. It was a crisp and decisive watershed moment. If the Sharks had been as dreadful that year as they had been the previous season, I am doubtful I would have found myself as engaged in their fortunes as I was, and I doubt if my support for the team would have persisted beyond my brief stay in the Bay Area.

So, in this way as in many others, I am a very, very lucky man.

This is the last post in this series about how I became a Sharks fan. I encourage you to reflect upon why you love your favorite team(s) (both hockey-playing varieties and others). I'll bet you'll find there are great stories there!

*****

Training camp is underway, and the first preseason game is only a week or so away. I'll be posting a few thoughts about the upcoming season over the next few weeks.

Stay cool. Happy equinox.