MM: How much is your loyalty worth? A Flyers fan's ramblings.

After a stressful, tiring semester of early morning classes, papers, and Thursday nights, it is good to be home for winter break. There are a lot of things I always look forward to upon my return to Lansdale, PA (my bed, home-cooked meals, my dog, etc.), but there’s nothing I enjoy more than sitting in my living room with my dad, a hot cup of tea in hand, and watching the team that I have followed loyally for many years now: the Philadelphia Flyers.

However, as I sit here watching the pregame show for the Flyers/Lightning game, I cannot help but wonder why I am still giving the guys in orange and black the time of day. Lately, it has been a painful and unpleasant ordeal to watch the team that Hockey News predicted to be this year’s Stanley Cup champion take stupid penalties, allow soft goals, and sit second-to-last in the Eastern Conference.

You know your team has hit rock bottom when an analyst wishes there was a statistic to track stupid penalties and lists as keys for the game: Score first. Score again. Score three times. The team has become a joke that even the hometown analysts cannot help put poke fun at. I am having horrible flashbacks to the 2006-2007 season, when the Flyers were the worst team in hockey and yet I still put myself through the agony of watching loss after loss after loss.

Maybe I should follow the lead of Lee Kirby, a former Toronto Maple Leafs fan who sold his loyalty on eBay for $23.48 After his Leafs started out this season 0-6-1, Kirby had had enough and promised to switch his loyalty to the team of whoever bid the highest on his fanship. A Dallas Stars fan won the bidding war, and thus Kirby the Stars fan was born.

On abandoning his Leafs and pledging his loyalty to a team 1,500 miles away, Kirby said, “I'll always care for the Leafs. But Dallas is a fresh start. I played baseball for many years, and I switched teams three or four years ago. You feel rejuvenated.”

I can empathize with Kirby and his frustrations as a fan who has never seen his team bring home the bacon, but something tells me he was never a true fan in first place. The thought of ever abandoning my team, no matter how horrendously they are playing, is simply unfathomable to me, let alone rejuvenating. I am not going to say that there is more to sports than winning, because essentially there is not. But there are some added bonuses to following a particular team – learning about and identifying with certain players, cheering with fellow fans, arguing with rival fans, sporting your team’s colors with pride...the list goes on.

Something tells me a majority of sports fans would feel the same as I do. Sure, there are moments when a Giants fan might drown his sorrows in beer rather than watch his team lose to the Eagles, but just a few years ago that same fan was probably laughing in the faces of shocked Patriots fans as Eli Manning spoiled New England’s perfect season in the most meaningful game of the year. It’s a world of give-and-take. There will be championship seasons and years in the basement. You win some, you lose some.

For all the times the Flyers have prompted me to hang my head in disgust (the Scott Hartnell glove-throwing debacle) or throw things at the television (any time they lose to the Penguins), they have provided me with moments that send my heart racing (Keith Primeau’s goal in the fifth overtime in 2000) or (I’m a girl so it’s okay to admit this) bring a tear to my eye (Jeremy Roenick scoring following a bone-crushing hit by Darcy Tucker on Sami Kapanen in 2004).

My life won’t be complete until the Flyers win the Stanley Cup. It may not be for another few years, or even a few decades. But as a loyal fan, I believe it will happen eventually, and I won’t be selling my loyalty anytime soon. This is not only because I would feel foolish if I defected and then they finally won, but because how much would it suck to be bought by a Pens fan? I’d just quit watching hockey all together.

So to all those disheartened sports fans out there (I really do feel for you, Cleveland) – keep the faith!

Peace out!
Meag