There is nothing like a child’s first love. Not the one that breaks your heart once. But the love that breaks your heart again and again your entire life. In sports your first love is often the one that lasts.
He may not be able to get himself up on most school days without his mother and the promise of chocolate chip pancakes. But he set his alarm and got himself out of bed at 2:30 in the morning for every hockey game the Washington Capitals played and watched until completion, whether that meant regulation or overtime, or double overtime, or triple.
He may not be able to get himself up on most school days without his mother and the promise of chocolate chip pancakes. But he set his alarm and got himself out of bed at 2:30 in the morning for every hockey game the Washington Capitals played and watched until completion, whether that meant regulation or overtime, or double overtime, or triple.
All over England you can strike up conversation by asking which football club they follow. And they always have one. And when you ask why they answer that it was their father’s club. Or their grandfather's or the place where their first house once stood. “We’ve always been Arsenal fans,” they might say. "My dad remembers the plane crash in 1958 and that's how he got stuck on United."
The previous evening my son went to bed with tears in his eyes after his team lost on a long day which ended well past 3:30 in the morning. There was only pain in his heart.
The next afternoon we watched as the Manchester City fans wept in pain and then joy, the reverse for Manchester United.
The pain lasts and then fades and it's on to next season.
A few hours after the soccer season ended I was riding in a car with a Manchester United fan, whose team had been handed as heartbreaking a defeat as we’ve ever seen. “Manchester City deserved it,” he said. “I have to hand it to them. They played the better football.”
That night I told my son I'd pick him up at eight o'clock the following evening.
"Please don't say the word eight, dad. It reminds me of Ovechkin and that the Caps lost."
The pain lasts and then fades and it's on to next season.
A few hours after the soccer season ended I was riding in a car with a Manchester United fan, whose team had been handed as heartbreaking a defeat as we’ve ever seen. “Manchester City deserved it,” he said. “I have to hand it to them. They played the better football.”
That night I told my son I'd pick him up at eight o'clock the following evening. "Please don't say the word eight, dad. It reminds me of Ovechkin and that the Caps lost."
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