Now that the Celtics have won the NBA title I can say something I don't think I've ever been able to say before: The last championship in each of the four major sports was won by a team I hate. Sure, I've watched teams I hate win championships before, but I've always had other sports with champions I liked to cheer me up. No longer is that the case. Over the last eight months there's been a clean sweep of championships won by teams I make a point never to root for.

I knew it was going to happen once the Lakers and Celtics clinched their respective conference titles, as I despise both teams. I had a feeling back in December that David Stern was going to orchestrate a Lakers-Celtics NBA Finals, so I can't say I didn't see it coming. I didn't watch one second of the phony Finals, but I had to hear about the results of each game due to a co-worker who was rooting hard for the Celtics and couldn't stop talking about them. I tried to explain to him that most of the Boston fans you come into contact with on the internet are insufferable jerks who think the world revolves around them, but he cared more about seeing Kevin Garnett get a ring than the sickening idea that those loudmouthed New Englanders (and the bandwagoners they've picked up over the last six years) get to experience the height of success yet again.

At least one good thing came out of this NBA season: I finally got the courage to accept that the NBA was a sham and to stop holding onto it because of the love I had for it in my younger days. David Stern, you can engineer all the Lakers-Celtics Finals you want. I'm not wasting anymore time watching this façade o####enuine competition until you're out as commissioner. Any league where two teams have won half its titles has something wrong with it.

Then there was the NHL. This was my first year following hockey closely, and I think I've found the sport that will replace the NBA in my heart. Hockey has players that are passionate about the game and generally focused on the team first, which is more than I can say for basketball. The only downside to this season was that the Stanley Cup was won by the Detroit Red Wings, a huge rival of my Chicago Blackhawks. Despite the fact that I'm an all-Chicago fan, I don't really mind the Lions, Tigers or Pistons that much. It seems that the Blackhawks-Red Wings rivalry is taken most seriously of all the Chicago-Detroit feuds though, so the Red Wings are on my "always root against" list. Admittedly, I haven't developed a real hatred for them yet, as I'm still new to hockey fandom, but they're about as close as you can get in my situation.

How about that Super Bowl? I heard about the outcome, but like the NBA Finals I didn't watch a nanosecond of it (except to see that play everyone was talking about on YouTube after the fact). I hate both the Giants and the Patriots, so I decided to spare myself the agony of watching one of them win it all.

What? The Boston hater didn't want to see the undefeated Patriots lose and all the smiles wiped off the faces of the arrogant Beantowners? Sorry, but not if it had to be at the hands of the Giants. Not only do they represent New York and have plenty of obnoxious fans of their own, but their quarterback is Eli Manning. The guy whined his way out of playing for the Chargers and has now been rewarded for it. When someone like Eli Manning wins a Super Bowl after four years in the league it only perpetuates the idea that big market teams with lots of historical success are somehow more important and worth playing for than teams that haven't yet reached that level. It makes me sick. John Elway had to pay penance for doing the same thing with three Super Bowl losses and the question of if he'd ever win the big game for over a decade. Eli got off with only a few years of doubt from the New York media and some criticism from his former tailback.

Then, of course, we have the most important sporting event of them all: the World Series. I threw all my support behind three different teams over the course of the Playoffs, but the one that ended up holding the trophy was the Red Sox, the team the evil city loves most. I could try to recapture my feelings about it here, but I think my post from after the Series ended says it better than I could right now.

If we end up with a Cardinals-Red Sox World Series or some such abomination 2008 will officially be the worst year in the history of sports. Of course, I'll probably still watch the World Series even if it features two teams I hate just because I love the game of baseball so much. After the way the past year has gone though, a team I can be happy for winning the World Series would do a lot to keep me from sinking into sports depression.

Earlier this evening I posted saying that the Rose Bowl gave me my first disappointment of 2008. I now have my second.

I haven't been able to watch a Chicago Blackhawks game on television all season, but the NHL Network decided to broadcast their game against the Los Angeles Kings tonight. I decided I was going to watch the entire thing, since it might be a while before I'd be able to see them again. Guess what happened? I had the "privilege" of seeing the team with the NHL's worst record beat my guys 9-2. The Blackhawks actually pulled their goalie in the first period, and for a team that's supposed to be among the best at penalty-killing they allowed five power play goals. At the beginning of the Third Period they announced that Jonathan Toews wouldn't be returning to the game because of a sprained knee. I don't know how serious the injury is, but you never want to hear about one of your guys getting hurt. It was one of those nights where nothing went right for one team and the everything went right for the other. How I hate those.

This has not been a good day for Chicago-area teams in the city of Los Angeles. 2008 sure has gotten off to an ominous start.

There's something exhilarating about discovering a new sport. Right now I'm learning about the game of hockey, and I see it as a sort of journey that will hopefully end with me understanding and appreciating it like I never did before. With baseball season over, few NBA games I'm interested in being televised and the NFL having been reduced to something I casually check the scores for, it's the most exciting thing happening in my life as a sports fan. I don't fully love the game of hockey yet, but I think I'm on my way.

It's hard for me to connect to any sport without a sense of its history, so right now I'm in the process of learning the history of the NHL. In the past I'd looked up old rosters and Stanley Cup Final results, but that obviously still left plenty of gaps in my knowledge. I'm now looking up full playoff results in order to get a sense of which teams were good when. I've learned about some of the rivalries, and I'm starting to get a sense of who the greatest players and coaches were. There are several expansions and franchise shifts I still need to commit to memory, but that'll likely come with time. Right now most of my knowledge doesn't go back farther than the 80's, but I'm working on it.

I've also learned a lot of the rules and terminology of the game. I now understand what a "power play" is, what the Plus/Minus stat signifies, what the "C" and "A" on the jerseys mean, and other details like that. Again, I still have several gaps in my knowledge, but little things make a difference in understanding the bigger picture.

I find it hard to enjoy a competition when I don't have a preference for who wins, so it was necessary for me to decide which teams I like and dislike. Because of my fierce loyalty to Chicago, my favorite team is the Blackhawks. They may have just lost two in a row, but I'm sticking with them. I've decided that I hate the Detroit Red Wings (due to their being the top dog in the Blackhawks' division), the Montréal Canadiens (24 Stanley Cup titles makes you hockey's answer to the Yankees) and the Boston Bruins (because they're from the evil city). Even though the Washington Capitals stink, their games are broadcast locally, so I guess I sort of pull for them. I don't actively root for any team that's won the Stanley Cup in recent times, and I root against any New York team by default, unless they happen to be playing one of the teams I actively hate.

I've also downloaded a Super Nintendo emulator for my computer and a rom of the game NHL '94. It's supposed to be the best hockey game of all time, so I figured it was worth a try since I like classic video games. I'm still not very good at it (that whole "scoring goals" thing is a bit tricky for me), but I'm sure I'll get better with some practice. I've definitely gotten better at "Shootout" mode since I first started playing it. Faking out the goalie isn't nearly as tough as it used to be. Perhaps I should buy the actual game rather than playing an emulated version on the computer.

I may be a relative outsider to the world of hockey right now, but hopefully someday I'll be able to analyze the game, have an extensive knowledge of its history, and even participate in intelligent discussion about it. For now, I'm enjoying this time when it's all still fresh information to me. There's so much to look forward to.

Baseball season ended less than two weeks ago and already I'm going through withdrawal. I've found myself playing Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball on the Super Nintendo just to fill the void in my life. There's no other sport that captivates me like baseball does. Without it the world is a much duller place. Nonetheless, I'll try to give some sort of take on the other sports I follow.

The NBA season has gotten off to an interesting start. Some of the predictions from my last post already look like they'll be wrong. Then again, anyone who follows sports knows that the way a team starts isn't much to go by. My Bulls just beat the Pistons tonight for their first win after a 0-4 start. Having a 1-4 record isn't ideal, but so what? There's still plenty of season to go. Last year they started 3-9. The season before that they were below .500 most of the year, and even had a 29-39 record at one point. The season before that they got off to a 2-13 start in which they lost their first 9 games. If you've been following the NBA during that stretch, you know they ended up in the Playoffs each of those years. Right now that 1-4 record doesn't look too bad. This Bulls team just finishes better than they start.

My "other" NBA team, the Clippers, is off to a 4-0 start. Color me surprised. With injuries to Elton Brand and Shaun Livingston I didn't expect much out of them this year. Then again, a good start can be just a deceptive as a bad one. In 2000-01 the Cavaliers started out 15-7. Their final record? 30-52. That's right, they got half their wins for the season in their first 22 games. Anything can happen at this point. I'm not going to rush to any conclusions about any teams yet. All I can say is that I hope the Clippers continue to play well and that the Bulls can get back on track after tonight's win.

I'll just skip the NFL since the Lions' 6-2 start and the Browns' 5-3 start have been the most interesting parts of it for me. With my Bears struggling, the only enjoyment I've gotten out of this season is watching the underdogs win. What other sport is there to talk about, you ask? My profile says I only follow baseball, basketball and football. Well, I've started to become more conscious of another sport this season: hockey.

I've always had a weird relationship with hockey. When I was growing up they used to show Blackhawks games on SportsChannel (remember that, Chicagoans?), but at the time I was all about baseball and basketball. I would read the articles in the Chicago Tribune criticizing the Blackhawks' management and analyzing their trades, but between school and following my main sports there wasn't much room for me to be a real hockey fan. Over the past few years I've developed an interest in hockey, because one of the reasons I love baseball seems to apply to hockey as well: the guys who play it have a true passion for the game. That's not to say that athletes in other sports don't have passion, but guys can become basketball players just because they're tall, and guys can become football players just because they're big or fast. Baseball and hockey require more specialized skills, plus you have to go through the minors to make it to the top. If you see an MLB or NHL game you know it took a lot of hard work for those guys to get there. That's the kind of sport I can appreciate. I guess you could say I've always wanted to be a hockey fan but found it hard to do so.

One big problem, especially these days, is that it's hard to find a hockey game on TV. I recently discovered though, that there's an NHL Network on digital cable. I've actually enjoyed watching some of the old games from the 80's that they show. I've heard that hockey was more exciting in those days, but even if the game isn't quite as high-scoring today I can see its appeal. The Blackhawks have been a pretty bad team in recent times (only one Playoff appearance in the past ten years), but they have some young guys coming up that give them hope for the future. They currently have a winning record and look like they have a shot at the Playoffs this season. Perhaps now is a good time for me to become a real hockey fan. Call me a bandwagoner if you wish, but I take pride in any team that represents Chicago. If the Blackhawks ever win another Stanley Cup someday I want to be able to say I was a part of the experience.

I could talk about baseball and all the offseason player movement, but I don't have much to say about it. The only thing I will say is that I hope the White Sox aren't planning on having Juan Uribe start at shortstop next year. I hope the only reason they exercised his option was to have a backup plan. If he's our starter in 2008 we're going to have a big hole in our lineup. Neither the Cubs nor the Sox have made any major moves yet, so until they do I have no particular expectations for next season.

This may be the first post I've made on this blog that covered all four major sports. I guess I'm legit now.