why do I bother?

I've noticed something that warrants scientific study. the more interested I am in something, the worse it ends up. this is particularly relevant to the matter of sport.

I wasn't able towatch much hockey this year. my fave team, the montreal canadiens, finished first in their conference, something they hadn't accomplished in nearly twenty years. the only games I got to watch were against toronto or ottawa, and it seems like they lost just about all of them.

now that it's the playoffs, I can watch EVERY game. and save for one, every game I've watched, they've lost. every game I haven't, they've won.

I try not to be superstitious. sure, I'll bribe the cats to get me goals, but that rarely works (since that implies I'm watching, and therefore they are losing). but I don't actually believe they have any sway over the outcome.

this goes back for years. perhaps its the paranoia of growing up in seattle. in 2001, the mariners tied a record by winning 116 games in a season. they didn't make it to the world series. a few years back, the stinkhawks made it to the stupidbowl, only to have the outcome pretty obviously rigged (when national telecasters are pointing out how bullshit the officiating is, I'm willing to chalk that up as more than "hometown bias").

if I have a vested interest in a positive outcome, it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy of doom. and it's really putting me off of sports.

it doesn't help that the group of people I've been playing fantasy hockey and baseball with is about ready to lynch me (considering near constant interaction with many of them for over five years, that isn't surprising), I'm giving some serious thought to just quitting sports altogether.

it's not even that I'm all that interested in sports. I've mostly just followed them as the one conersation piece I can have with those around me. the industry I work in is hardly sophistimacated, I don't get very far discussing foreign films or classic literature. sports are about the only thing I can have anything resembling a "normal" conversation with the simpletons I work around without being dismissed as weird.

I'm about to say "fuck it" and write off those conversations. it's not like the small talk has gotten me anywhere anyway. and they all know I'm a freak. why pretend?

so habs fans, I apologise... I'll quit watching hockey at once, and maybe they can salvage their stanley cup run...