I’m not much of a sports fan. I try to keep up with who has won some of the games so that i can carry on an intelligent conversation with friends, but I rarely invest my time in watching games on television or attending them live. Our daughter married into a family with a history of dedicated fandom of baseball and football teams. She has adopted the loyalties of her husband and of his father and grandfather before him. During the baseball season, I try to keep track of the Washington Nationals because it is their team. During football season it is the New York Giants. They dress themselves in the jerseys of their teams, have their favorite players, and can quote team statistics. I try to pay enough attention to wins and losses that I can hold intelligent conversations with our daughter and son-in-law. I get the impression that be and his parents are a bit baffled by our lack of attention to sports.

Back when we lived in Chicago in the late 1970’s, I got interested in the Chicago Cubs baseball team. It seemed to be a very Chicago thing to root for a team that hadn’t won the world series since 1908. Being a fan of a losing team seemed to fit my sensibilities and I have since declared myself to be a fan saying, “Anyone can cheer on a winner. It takes character to remain loyal to a team that doesn’t win.” So in 2016, when the Cubs did win the World Series, it was seen as a big deal to my friends who are real sports fans. I paid attention to the playoffs and series that year in part because it was a topic of conversation with our daughter and her family as well as a lot of folks in the church. It was kind of fun to be identified as a fan of the team that was winning.

However, I can’t tell you much about the Cubs except that they haven’t won the World Series since. They haven’t even made it to the final series since then.

I sometimes call myself a morning-after sports fan. I am not enough of a fan to watch the game while it is going on, but I pay enough attention to check the score the next morning.

I barely know the basic rules and flow of the game of hockey. We had hockey sticks and used to push a puck around the ice when we were kids and I know the basics of scoring by hitting the puck into a goal, but that is about it. When we lived in Rapid City there was a young man who was in our youth group who played hockey and I attended a few of his matches to support him. Sitting with his family meant that I learned a few of the nuances of the game and it was easy for me to support his team because I knew him. That was quite a while ago and I haven’t been to a hockey match since.

However, I do live just a few miles from the metro Vancouver, British Columbia area. I can see the lights of the city from my back yard. I can watch airplanes descending to land at Vancouver International Airport. I listen to Canadian Public Broadcasting on my radio. We can see the buildings of Surrey BC as we drive about our neighborhood or walk to the beach. On Friday when we drove to Point Roberts it took us about the same amount of time to drive to the border as we waited to cross.

These days I check the northern horizon every night when I wake during the night because there have been some intense solar storms and the northern lights have been putting on a pretty impressive show. They are supposed to reappear in our night sky within the next couple of weeks, so I’m sticking to my habit. I plan to pay special attention to the night sky and perhaps look a bit earlier tomorrow night. If the Vancouver Canucks win their home hockey game on Monday I’ll likely be able to see the fireworks from our back yard.

The Canucks are tied 3 games even with the Edmonton Oilers and the final match of the seven game series will be a home game for the Canucks. It’s a pretty big deal in Vancouver. Mind you this is not the Stanley Cup Championship Finals series yet. The two Canadian teems are meeting in what is called the second round. The Canucks made it to the second round by defeating the Nashville Predators four games to two in the first round. The Oilers won their series against the Los Angeles Kings four to one. The Oilers were preferred by the oddsmakers to win the series but the Canucks have held their own and there could be a slight home team advantage tomorrow night.

Hockey is a Canadian sport in many ways. You don’t think of outdoor winter sports when thinking of Los Angeles or Nashville. Then again the Florida Panthers have already advanced to the Conference Final round on the other side of the bracket. They’ll be facing the New York Rangers. At least the lakes freeze in New York in the winter. And the winner of the Canucks-Oilers series will face the Dallas Stars. Dallas is another place where one doesn’t expect to see much ice outside of arenas with artificial ice making equipment. Still, the Canadian match up seems like what one would expect from the Stanley Cup playoff series. Canadian Public Radio has done a number of interviews with families that have ardent fans of both teams in the same family. They’re especially keen on covering married couples who disagree on which team to cheer on.

I don’t think proximity is going to make me much of a hockey fan. Living in Chicago for four years didn’t really make me a baseball fan. Still I’ll be paying attention tomorrow evening. And, if the Canucks win, I guess I’ll have to pay attention to what happens in the next series. After all if they were to bring home the Stanley Cup we’d probably notice more than fireworks in celebration.