I love hockey. Our NHL team here is the Minnesota Wild. The love for hockey is one I share with a few fellow bloggers, Jewels from According to Jewels who is a huge Philadelphia Flyers fan and Sean (aka BlueNote Backer) from Cautious Realism who loves his St. Louis Blues. A couple weeks ago I proposed a bet to the two of them, pitting our favorite NHL teams against each other. Before I explain the bet, let me give you a little background on hockey up here in the Northland.
I live in a suburb of Minneapolis, Minnesota which happens to be called the State Of Hockey. Hockey is more popular here than anywhere else in the country. When it comes to hockey we’re like Canada-Lite. But with far less mounties.
Hockey is so big here that the state high school hockey tournament attracts over 100,000 people. High School hockey in Minnesota is bigger than any other high school sport in any other state. Even bigger than football in Texas if you can believe it… check out the Wikipedia page if you don’t believe me. Wikipedia wouldn’t lie.
Also? There are more NHL players from Minnesota than any other state. We’re basically born with skates on. Ok, not literally… damn that would be painful for our mothers!!
Back to the bet. I doubt they take hockey as seriously in Philly or St. Louis as we do here, BUT that doesn’t stop Jewels and Sean from being huge fans of their clubs. So we are all putting our team pride on the line this season with the 1st Annual NHL Blogger Bet.
It’s as simple as this: The blogger rooting for the NHL team that has the best season and makes it the farthest in the playoffs wins. The two losers then have to mail the winner something that is unique to their part of the country. Kind of like mayors or governors do when their teams are playing each other in a championship.
This season my Wild got off to a hot start while the Flyers started slow. Since then the Wild have stunk and the Flyers have improved. The Blues started off red hot but have come back down to earth a bit lately. Unfortunately the way things are going, I’m thinking my boys will come in last place. Why did I initiate this bet again?
I’ll keep you posted in the coming months on how things are going… as well as what I plan to sent off to the winner if my team loses!
SD