I always skipped out when my friends would walk over to the Willet ice rink to watch hockey. It was a cold, kind of a long walk, and for all I knew it was boring. Why would I waste my time?

I was 100% wrong. I finally bit the bullet and went to a college hockey game (GO POINTERS!). They are national champions, so it wasn’t hard to have fun watching a game where the home team was genuinely good!

When I first got there, watching the game was okay, I didn’t know what was going on and my butt was cold. My friends tried to explain what was going on, but it was going in one ear and out the other. Then we got our first goal, not only did the crowd go crazy, but they had their own cheer. The cheer was pretty much telling the opposing goalie how much they suck at being a goalie, and I loved it. It was crazy because in the first couple minutes of the game I was like “eh, this is a little rough for me,” but by the end, I was chanting “FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT”. It was a complete 180 for me.

We left that night with a big win, and I was genuinely excited to be going back for another game. The next night I sat behind the goal, and my friends were making fun of me about how excited I was getting! I was like a little kid on Christmas. My hands were in a permanent switch between raised fists and rubbing together like crazy with a clenched smile. I didn’t know what had gotten into me, I’ve never liked a sport like this before. Again, we left the rink with another win, my friends asked me one of the hardest questions I think I’ve ever had to answer. “What NHL team are you going to cheer for?”

My friend group was split between the Wild and the Blackhawks, but I didn’t really want to cheer for someone they cheered for. What fun would that be? So, I consulted with them going between the Capitals and the Penguins. The next day I told them I had made a decision, and they were eager to hear who I would cheering for. When I told them the Blackhawks, all of them were surprised, half were happy, and the other half just asked me “why?” I told them that I wanted a team that won. So, of course, I got all the names in the books: bandwagoner, puck bunny, and a few other choice words.

But little did they know, I went home and watched hockey games on youtube for an entire night, just trying to figure out what was going on (and to watch the zamboni, because who doesn’t like that?). The majority of the games I watched happened to be the Blackhawks. So out of curiosity, I did some research on them. They have some of the best players in the NHL, and they’ve won 3 Stanley Cups in the past 6 years. The announcers always had something good to say about the Blackhawks, even when they weren’t doing that well. One thing that they always seemed to come back to was that, the Blackhawks were professional. They could be down by 3 points the whole game and come back in the 3rd period and overtime to win. They could keep their cool and just play the game. I’d say that’s pretty impressive. There was also a particular article about a new player on the team, Vinnie Hinostroza. The team was proud that he was born in Chicago, and he got to make his first NHL goal in Chicago. I thought it was really awesome that they recognized him enough to write an article.

I’m still an amateur hockey fan, no doubt about that. But I will never miss another opportunity to go to a hockey game. I know the basics: icing, offsides, faceoffs and all that good stuff. But I know I still have a lot to learn. I downloaded the NHL app, and you can guarantee it that the goal sound will go off every time the Blackhawks score.