Where My Ladies At?

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(How I Became a [Female] Hockey Fan)!

My Tumultuous Love Affair with a Man Named Hockey (PART I)

this one's a little to long to do all in one post!! ; )

I was born in 1993 in Southern California and I grew/growing up a mere 30 minutes away (with LA traffic) from the Honda Center, which I still call The Pond. I may be young but I've had quite the love affair with hockey. As many children growing up in southern California, I did not instantly gravitate to hockey, but when I was in 3rd grade everything changed. Before 3rd grade the only hockey I knew was the one in the movies and TV, I had seen every Mighty Ducks movie and almost every episode of the animated series but I was far more interested in other things like dance and gymnastics. After 3rd grade was a completely different story.

The affair began when my elementary school had been getting low reading scores in standardized tests and coupled with the fact that our school librarian had some connections to the Anaheim Ducks, which I still call the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, our school become sponsored by the Ducks to read more. The "sponsorship" subsequently led to our school to go on a field trip to the Pond to watch our Mighty Ducks practice. The year was 2002, right after the Winter Olympics where Canada had won their first gold medal in ice hockey in 50 years (but I don't need to tell you that), and my friend was more than excited to see his idol and Olympic champion, Paul Kariya. At the practice, we had a chance to talk to the players and my friend made a beeline for Paul Kariya, and dragged me along with him, and I'll never forget what happened next. It went a little something like this:

"P-Paul K-Kariya, hi, I'm Mitch and you're my idol, and I'm so happy you won your gold medal, after missing out at the last Olympics. Can you sign my folder?" My friend Mitch said, the folder he was referring to was his folder of the Ducks with all the players and their hometowns and appropriately had Paul Kariya on the cover.

Paul just smiled and ruffled my friend's red hair, "I don't think so, son, maybe later." And with that he left. Obviously, Mitch was heart broken and on the verge of tears, which lead to him sniffling on the entire bus ride back. Needless to say, even now, I do not like Paul Kariya (he made my friend almost cry!). But that incident, led me to watch all of the Ducks' games on TV so that I could see what was so great about Paul Kariya, and naturally I fell in love with the sport. I watched every game, living every moment with my team as we made our run for the Cup, but it wasn't in the cards for us to win. But it was at this time that my affair with hockey became public, before I would watch the games on the tiny television in my room, but during our run I would watch with my entire family, cheering and groaning with every play.

[TO BE CONT'D ... next Thursday!]

- Brianna G.

Don't forget, if you wish to submit your story, I kindly ask that you email them directly to me so they don't end up being repetitive for some of the readers. Also, if you don't want me to include your name, please let me know that as well (what I'll normally do is put your first name and last initial if I have it OR just your screen name).

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I also want to let you know I LOVE these stories (and so do alot of our readers) - I've always found it interesting no matter who the fan, so I'm enjoying ALL OF THIS IMMENSELY!! KEEP THEM COMING, but I ask that you email them please - THANKS!!!

Also, I ask that you please BE PATIENT as I'm still receiving TONS of stories (they'll be posted in the order I received them, to be fair). If you sent in a story, it will eventually be on the blog - I promise!! ; ) JUST BE SURE TO KEEP THEM COMING (the more the better!)!! AS A NOTE, I'm currently on stories I received back in December 2009 / January 2010!!!


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If you haven't, you can READ MY STORY HERE
(how "yours truly" became a [female] hockey fan!)!!