Wagon, Ho!

One of the things about me is that I can watch almost any game, any sport if I have a team to root for. And since in recent years my Caps are consistently either out of the playoffs completely or eliminated in the first round (darn you Pittsburgh!), my postseason viewing usually consists of a series of conversations like this one:

Me: Go Team X!
Friend: Aren't you a Caps fan?
Me: Yes.
Friend: Are they in the playoffs?
Me: No.
Friend: Then why are you rooting for Team X?
Me: [shrugs] I don't know. GO TEAM X!

Still I don't consider myself a bandwagoner. (Bandwagonette? I don't know...) I lived in Montreal so I think of the Habs as my second team and have no problem openly rooting for them. I adopted the Flames during the 2004 playoffs because I loved the way they played - believe me, I was as surprised as everyone else that they made it as far as they did - and have followed them pretty regularly since.

But here's my conundrum - right now the Caps are (again) out of the playoffs. Montreal is still in the fight but its going to go down to the wire. Calgary is clinging to 8th place in the West. And I'm about to explode.

Please understand that not watching the playoffs is not an option - I just can't do it. The hockey fan in me won't let me miss a second, even if it means watching teams I hate. And while I have some backups in the West, I'm stymied by the East. Rooting for two teams in the same conference tends to create more enemies than I know what to do with and everywhere I look I see evil. (No offense, ladies!)

In the end I guess it usually comes down to the lesser of two evils, series by series...so I guess my answer is that: I pick the lesser of two evils and "cheer" them on to victory - then return to hating them until next year's playoffs.

Does that make me a bandwagonette? Bandwagonite? Bandwagonian? Hard to say. I hope it just makes me a hockey fan.