It's...Hockey time?

The NHL kicked off yesterday. Now, in between the MLB playoffs, the NFL picking up and the NBA starting training camp in the coming weeks, we begin a sports overload and of course hockey gets pushed to the back. But I love hockey, always have. To me, hockey actually takes the most physical achievement.

Baseball is the most graceful of sports, the most poetic, the one you can use for the most metaphors about life. Football is the most entertaining by far. Basketball is the most accessible to anyone (it's a ball and a hoop for goodness sake). But hockey. Hockey requires balance, hand eye coordination, strength, speed, endurance and the ability to do more things with your body at once than anything else.

I mean come on, we all had those birthday parties when we were 12 at the ice rink. I don't know about you, but I was always the kid that clinged on to the rail way or that embarrassing bucket they gave to the kids that could never skate. I always fell. I actually really glad I still have all my fingers. Maybe it's just that my high school never had a hockey team so I never saw how humanized it can be, but to me skating on ice, moving a stick and still shooting a little puck while avoiding other players and not falling down always seemed like the hardest thing in the world. I was used to baseball where they throw the ball to you, or basketball where I had solid ground to move on.

Hockey season started the other day and I have never chosen a clear team to side with. I have a Capitals jersey I got at a thrift store, but I always played as the Red Wings as a kid on hockey video games because I thought their mascot was the coolest...but in one game I was the Sabres for some reason. So any thoughts as to who I should cheer for would be appreciated by anyone that reads this. I'll give myself a week before I default to either the Capitals or the Rangers. Or Islanders. I already have one Washington DC team, the Wizards, and no New York team yet. Might be the deciding factor