| True love
Some of my favorites, taken
from http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=shanoff/readerlove/050803
“The lengths I've gone for
love: Love can hurt, and sometimes itch for a few days ... My wife likes
sports, but she's not overboard about it. On our honeymoon in Belize, we
missed the water taxi into town for dinner. The Niners were in a playoff game
that night. I was so desperate, I forced us to walk through the snake-,
mosquito-, bat-infested jungle for more than two miles. "It's an
adventure!" I kept trying to convince her. Once our bug-eaten,
sweat-sopped selves rolled into the bar, which featured satellite TV, she
discovered my motive. I got the roll of the eyes, the shake of her head and a
look that might have wished malaria on me. Niners won; honeymoon a success.”
-- Kurt Snibbe, Page 2
“Denver wins Super Bowl XXXII, and I cried.
Not just a one-tear-rolling-down-the-cheek thing, either. I cried. One of my
friends turns to my fiancee and asks, "Is he crying?" Her horrified
response was, "Yes, he has been waiting for this for 24 years." To
this day, I tease my wife that I cried when Denver won its first Super Bowl, and not at
our wedding.”
-- Darin, Topeka, Kan.
“When the Vikings lost the
NFC championship game in '98, I was supposed to propose to my girlfriend later
that night. Instead, after the game, I was so mad that she kept saying,
"What's the big deal?" So in turn, I broke up with her and haven't talked
to her since.”
-- Lamar, Neb.
“Having just moved to California from Connecticut,
my first dinner with my girlfriend's parents happened to be on the eve of Game
7, Rangers-Devils, playoffs, 1994. They wanted me to turn the TV off and eat
dinner with the family. The TV. Off. Game 7. Rangers. What are you, insane?
They refused to let me have any food, but I refused to turn off the TV. So I
sat on the couch, girlfriend seething at the dinner table, and watched that
magical game and Matteau's heaven-sent goal. Priceless!”
-- Timothy Wigder, Washington,
D.C.
“My then-girlfriend hated
sports. She flew us down to Auburn University for the Georgia game (a birthday gift).
When she realized my friend didn't come through on our tix, she bought two for
$130 on the visitor's goal line. I married her a year later, and she loves sports.”
-- Tom Smith, Ayer, Mass
“I believe ditching my
ex-girlfriend's birthday brunch with her family to attend a meaningless
Panthers game vs. Detroit
directly led to our breakup. I won.”
-- Biff, Charlotte
“I missed my best friend's
wedding rehearsal to go to the Final Four to cheer on my beloved Cardinals.”
-- Brent, Louisville, Ky.
“I broke up with my
four-year, live-in girlfriend on New Year's Eve because I wanted to attend the
Patriots vs. Titans playoff game with the guys instead of having to bring her.
It was either go with her or a Patriots-decorated van full of my friends.
Smartest choice ever.”
-- Jason, Lowell, Mass.
“I'm a diehard New York
Rangers fan, and I was thrilled when my girlfriend (now my wife) gave me
tickets to a Rangers-Habs game in Montreal
for Christmas. The weekend of the game, a brutal ice storm rocked New England
and most of the province
of Quebec. We heard the
warnings, but with some persuasion on my part, we went anyway, through icy
highways in northern Vermont
and pitch-black back roads through Canadian farmland that were littered with
tree trunks and huge blocks of ice that fell off bridges and stretched-out
power lines. The only way into the city was through a tunnel, because all the
bridges were closed. It was miracle we made it in there. Once we got to our
hotel, the power was already out on the entire grid for that part of the city,
and the hotel was running on emergency lighting and minimal heat. I had to
steal a few candles from the lobby bar just so we had light in our room. The
hotel was also completely out of food. We had to walk about 15-to-20 blocks in
the middle of the night - dodging ice patches, huge icicles falling from the
tops of buildings, and national guardsmen who were called in to help with the
cleanup -- before we found a section of town that had power and a place to eat.
The next morning, the
Rangers-Canadiens game scheduled for that night was canceled, of course, and
the hotel informed all its guests that they had to leave because there would be
no heat at all that night. So in a 48-hour span, we drove from Boston
to Montreal and
back in the worst storm the region had seen in years - all for nothing. To
this day, I try to reason with my wife that it was still an amazing adventure.
But judging from the looks she gives me, I think I'm lucky she didn't dump me
right there in Montreal
and drive home on her own.”
-- Chris Marcucci, ESPN.com
“Oct. 15, 2003. My lovely
wife, AJ, in labor. Cubs vs. Marlins, Game 7. Cubs are losing in the bottom of
the ninth. AJ walks calmly by me with her suitcase. After the final out of the
game, I glanced at the clock: 9:59. We jump in the car and race across town to
the hospital. Healthy, beautiful baby Addison is born at 10:20 p.m. after an
exciting three minutes in the delivery room. "See, honey, I had it timed
perfectly." (Spoken out of reach, of course.) Perfect ending to a terrible
day. That's what we have done for sports.”
-- Scott Johnson, Great Falls, Mont.
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