Ah, losing.  The kinda sucky, sad side of sports that people like to pretend just doesn’t exist.  At least, that’s what I do.  I will be honest, I hate losing.  Especially when I’m used to doing the absolute opposite.  There is no worse feeling than going from a high win season to the bottom of the standings.

This fact made this year especially rough for me as a hockey fan.  I was incredibly spoiled with my hometown hockey team throughout my high school years, with the Erie Otters recording 4 back-to-back 50 win seasons. This had never been done before in the history of the OHL.  We weren’t only good, we were great.  And we only got better as time went on, culminating in an OHL Championship.  This year, you may ask?  Well, this year we only won 23 games.  Out of 68.  It was kind of rough.  Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon theme.  The Otters tend to be either the best in their division, or the worst.  It’s all or nothing.  And unfortunately, there have been NINE separate season where we have finished last.  They are kind of pervasive.  But hey if the trend holds up, this means we are going to get good again in three years!  That’s good, right? (Cue the nervous, sad crying.) (In case you were wondering, this *shouldn’t* happen this time.  But who knows, really. We shall see.)

I had high expectations coming in for Penn State Hockey as well, with the team coming in as last year’s B1G Champions.  However, there were rough periods in the beginning, and some persisted for most of the season.  While we definitely improved, and ended up doing okay in the B1G Tournament and are NCAA Regional bound this weekend, it still was not the level I was expecting.

This was my first year really following the Chicago Blackhawks.  However, after 10 straight years of making the playoffs, the team officially became out of contention for the Stanley Cup Playoffs earlier this week after a season plagued with injuries.  (Although there were some bright spots…. see “The Cat” and be on the watch for “The Cat Part 2”, coming soon.)

And the Buffalo Sabres, my other NHL team?  Well, they always lose.  Always.

For a fan, it can sometimes be difficult to go through a losing season.  While the die hard fans will stay through the ups and downs and wait for luck to strike, others will simply stop paying attention.  It can be discouraging to watch a team continue to lose especially when they are improving over the course of the season as occurred this year with the very young Otters team.

My mind tends to wander back to better times, or toward the future.  You start looking critically at your team and thinking about what is best for it.  Should this player stay, or be traded?  Do we need to pick up a new center?  Defenceman? What about a goalie?  Is this youth going to grow together and and become their own leadership, or should we trade for some older guys?  Its all about working back toward that major goal, and the main question is:  What do we need to do to get back into championship contention?

To finish off, I just have to say to anyone out there considering jumping ship from their current loosing team: think long and hard.  Because if there is one thing I know, its how sweet success tastes after you have lost for so long.