Live blogging the Stanley Cup finals, Game 5

Here's the thing. Hockey is the only sport I can stand to watch or listen to. I don't understand it, but I understand it more than baseball or football. And we don't have a basketball team in Pgh, so I never got into it. (Although, I do like basketball, and do understand it.)

So the fact that my team, my home team, is the game I get to cheer for in the Stanley Cup is the icing on the cake. It's acceptable to be a hockey fan. Everyone's talking about it. Even Sally!

I'm a girl. I don't know anyone that plays hockey except Bab's boys and I don't see them much. Plus, they know more about the game than I do, and they're not even 10 years old. I remember one time sitting in Bab's living room and Seggie and Primo arguing about who was the greatest, whose jersey they'd want to wear when they're in the NHL, predicting which numbers will be retired, arguing with Babs about whether Gretzky or Lemieux is the Greatest. It was so great. It was one of the overheard conversations I will remember a long time.

And I am not superstitious. Well, I haven't thrown any Stanley cups at anyone on SuperPoke, but that's respect. The cup isn't anyone's to throw until one of the teams has won.

I'm a girl that doesn't drink much. Or go to bars. Or hang out with folks who do, well, unless you count the beer snobs at my church. They go to the SE because of the beer menu (which is over ten pages long), not because the Pens game is on.

I'm not competitive by nature. I like a good game. I think one thing I want in a man I marry is someone who doesn't bitterly say to the TV, "well, they don't deserve to win if they couldn't win that game." (I shut up my treadmill lady today, she wanted to trash talk the Pens and I shut her down right away. Don't be talking down my team.) It's a game! It's our team! Believe! Was good hockey played? That's the important part! And that is what Mike Lange has taught me. That you look at the sport that was played. Team loyalty, yes. But the other team, win or lose, deserves our respect.

At the end of the night, win or lose, I want to have had a good time.

Someday, I'll meet a man who loves hockey. And Jesus. And I'll marry him and we'll have our own little hockey team...

A girl can dream, even this girl.

End of first period: Pens 2, Wings 0. I cheered and clapped in my dark living room, Mike Lange's voice filling the room, the TV giving the dark room a slight glow.

Getting ready for the second period. Well, I'll get back to watching. Maybe I'll wait to publish this...nah. I'm a "write it now, publish it now" kind of girl.