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by G. Sax

I like professional sports. I can't help it. It's part of my earliest memories. I bawled like a four-year-old when the Steelers beat the Vikings in Super Bowl IX (I was four years old). I cried with smudged dignity in 1977 when John Madden and the Oakland Raiders manhandled the Vikings to their fourth loss on the grand stage in Super Bowl XI. I was devastated when Rod Carew went to the Angels. I felt the pain when Fran Tarkenton's leg was broken in a game against Cincinnati. I endured Les Steckel. I endured Sidney Lowe. I'm enduring Kevin McHale and his ability to coach his team to a loss after a 29-point lead in the 3rd quarter.

Did I fail to mention that root-root-rooting for the home team can also be challenging? Nevertheless, despite a generation of Vikings disappointments, the perennial "small market" quilt patches from the Twins camp, the near-irrelevance of the post-Garnett Timberwolves franchise, and the inability of the Wild to create any kind of offense under Jacques Lemaire, I feel lucky to live in a market that includes the four major professional sports teams. Ours is one of only 13 markets that can make that claim.

I certainly entertain opinions of sports contrary to mine, especially here where we've lost a basketball team (Los Angeles Lakers) and a hockey team (Dallas Stars), where we nearly lost the Timberwolves (to New Orleans) and the Twins (to contraction), and we're still in jeopardy of losing the Vikings to Los Angeles or another hungry market willing to build anything better than the Metrodome, which wouldn't be hard to do.

And then there's the cancellation of a World Series due to greed, the cancellation of a Stanley Cup due to greed, steroids scandals, and a weird propensity toward criminal behavior by some athletes.

Anything can happen, and it usually does in sports. The first two teams that made me cry did not end up on my all-time hate list. I hosted an Oakland-themed Super Bowl party the year they were pasted by the Buccaneers. The Pittsburgh Steelers are one of my favorite teams of all time.

Ultimately, I'd really like to cry tears of joy for the Vikings at the end of a football season, but that may not happen in my lifetime. For now, I'll cherish my 1987 and 1991 Twins World Series wins, that first year the NBA returned to the Twin Cities (at the dome!), and being part of the Team of 18,000 at Xcel Energy Center for home Wild games in beautiful downtown St. Paul.

Growing up, sports trips always involved driving to Bloomington's Met Stadium for football or baseball and Met Center for hockey. Then Minneapolis gobbled up everything sporty spice and Bloomington decided to embrace its suburbanity with a big mall to rival all the 'Dales in one fell swoop. (That's the Ridgedale, Brookdale, Rosedale, and Southdale malls, all in surrounding suburbs, if any of you out-of-towners were wondering.)

Now I have what is widely considered the best arena in the NHL located in my backyard, and it instills a civic pride I have no business taking credit for, and yet I do because I support it and I brag about it and I think it is a terrific draw for new St. Paul residents, new St. Paul nightlife, and, oh, I just can't stand it anymore! I have to go there tonight! So I will, and I will cheer against my former home team, the San Jose Sharks, a team that was created in 1991 by pulling the old Minnesota North Stars in half. It always comes full circle in sports.

I'll see you at McGovern's after the game. Happy 2009!