Out of Pod Experience

I for one don't waste my time watching sports. I play Eve or WoT while semi-watching them.

But seriously, I can see your point, especially about referring to a team as 'us' or 'we.' Animal behaviorist Desmond Morris theorizes that that's a modern substitute for the psychological need to be in a clan or tribe. Consider a chimpanzee. He lives in a troop (clan) of chimps. It's a distinct group, with a defined territory and rival troops that it constantly contends with. Desmond believes that homo sapiens lived the same way for 10s of thousands of years, before the development of agriculture and towns.

So, consider taking that chimpanzee and putting him in a house, with a chimp wife and chimp kids. Next door are other chimp families, but our chimp has no connection to them and barely knows them. Chimp no defined troop to belong to and defend anymore. Instead, he forms artificial troops in his mind. If there's a company picnic, and his office is playing a game of futbol or softball against another office of the company, he sides with his office against the rivals from the other office. His office becomes his temporary substitute troop.

Now, let's say that there's an inter-company futbol/softball league. Chimp's company has a team, and it includes people from his office and the other office. When the team plays against another company, Chimp sides with his with the company team-- it's his new artificial troop, even though it includes people that were members of a "rival troop" earlier.

Anyway, that's Desmond's explanation of why people become fanatics about sports teams in their geographical area. The team becomes a surrogate "troop" for them. Even though the fan doesn't personally know even one player on the team, the team has a distinct identity as a troop that carries on year after year. And it provides the essential component of "defending" or "aggressing" against rival troops (teams). So your diehard team supporter, who's socially isolated by the modern single-family lifestyle, is really finding a way to simulate the tradition of life in a clan or tribe. That's Desmond Morris's theory, at least.

Kind of sad and pathetic, if you look at it one way. Or kind of OK if you look at it another way.

Anyway, some of the placebos of TV sports are pretty good. Especially the commercials aimed at male viewers, featuring lovely hotties.

My young brother has kind of got a tribal thing going on his block. It's a quiet one, and along the way they've unified and doing block parties. But, sad to say ::my own opinion::, the energy sounds more like parents partying and flirting and about ready for consensual or non-consensual PVP wife-swapping/husband-swapping. DRAMA Bustards don't know how to be real kinsmen, it's not the same. That's the rub.

BTW, four teams left! Rangers v Lightning and Blackhawks v Ducks. I'm guessing Lightning and Blackhawks at the end. What do you say? Who are these Anaheim Ducks? I'm in East Coast USA, hardly see them play in this TV coverage zone.

Gotta agree that the Ducks look like a pain train at the moment. The best chance the east has is if the Hawks and Ducks beat the crap out of each other in a long and brutal series and one of the eastern teams comes out of the conference finals with a huge advantage in rest/preparedness.

It'll be hard to top Caps/Rangers in terms of excitement, though. Not a fan of either and I was still on the edge of my seat.

Yeah, that last Rangers-Caps game was incredible. It would take a couple of more games to really see which of those teams are better.
I'm afraid to bet on the Rangers over Lightning. Rangers seem to have days where they can't make it work, and Lightning's got a lot of emotion. (Can't comment on Blackhawks and Ducks, didn't see either play much through the season or even playoffs).

Welp. So much for my prediction. The NHL is conspiring against me. That said, should be an exciting cup final.

Being from Chicago all I will say is this.

GO BLAKCHAWKS!!!

LOL, Toronto will be where Babcock loses his mind. That or he completely guts the leafs and turns them back into a team that can be competitive. Ah, who am I kidding... it's Toronto :P

This Hawks/Bolts final has been a lot more exciting than I would have expected. Good response by the Bolts after the Hawks tied it 2-2 in the last game. That changed the face of the whole game 3, I think.

Pfft.

Go Bolts!