In the past few years, I’ve been to a large number of sporting events. While this has included many Sabres games, I have also gone to see the Buffalo Bandits, the Rochester Americans, and the Buffalo Bills all play. The Bandits and Amerks have not disappointed me once but the Sabres and Bills often do. Disappointing in the fact that the Sabres and Bills both find ways to blow a game, not be able to get within a win’s reach whatsoever, and always fall short near the end of the season. Many fans in this general region become pissed off at the team and scream either in the arena/stadium or at their television sets. They might have a beer or two, cursing up a storm and becoming plastered to ease the pain over how bad the team is currently doing. Since I’m not legal yet to drink, I don’t do this and don’t think I would even consider doing as such even when I do become 21. I’ve found other ways to remove the anger from my life that comes with a loss.
Laughing.
It probably sounds extremely stupid, but I have found that in many cases, I can just laugh a loss off. I used to be one of the people to scream at a team when they weren’t playing up to their potential but now I find ways to make fun of them. Not each individually personally but just mock the way they are playing. Let’s take for the instance the meeting between the Sabres and Rangers that was earlier this month. I was so stunned by the two shorthanded goals that I would laugh everytime we got a power play and pleaded that we decline any further power plays we would receive during the night. It’s just not worth my time or loss of breath to get angry at something that shouldn’t matter that much within my life.
Buffalo sports fans are tough and have had to live with a ton of disappointment but I’m not going to let any of that bring me down. A sport is just a sport. We watch these games for entertainment purposes. While we may not be pleased with the outcome all of the time, we can try and take out the positive instances as much as possible. Yes, Sabres fans especially have not had many positives to take out of home games this year considering how poorly the team has played in front of the home crowd. I am forever the optimist though, and still anticipate each Sabres game night with a W on my mind and nothing else.
I guess what got me to thinking about this subject so much is just witnessing the sort of anger that can come out of people due to a sporting event. Adults instill this sort of behavior into their children if they grow up watching it together. I’m not saying that all parents do it and this isn’t me standing on a soapbox saying how parents should raise their children. It’s just me believing that all of us need to take the lighter side with sports sometimes. I think sports make us angry too easily. Though human nature is to be competitive with nearly everything we do, and that includes the sports that we watch even if we are not taking part in them ourselves. I’ve just decided I’m done being angry, I’m done worrying what place the Sabres will be in the standings tomorrow night, and now I just…go with the flow.
So for now, I’ll keep on laughing.
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