Ode to Significant Others

by Brenna Solop

My good friend is a hockey significant other. You know what I mean. She likes hockey a little bit, but her fiancee is a diehard Ranger fan. So, when she showed him a blog I wrote, his reaction was, “Islanders suck.” Gee, thanks. I had no idea. I was under the impression they were totally awesome.

I don’t want to paint a bad picture of him – I have since met him and he’s really a nice guy. Chalk up his initial reaction to old habits dying hard. We recently kicked him out of his own house (okay, he left voluntarily) during a jewelry party my friend was hosting and I really, really wanted to get my dig in. As he was leaving, I wanted to say, “hey, maybe your fiancee will pick out a necklace tonight to wear during the Ranger playoffs. A choker, perhaps.” But I couldn’t do it and I told him to enjoy watching his team that night, and to think of me since I had sacrificed my game-watching night to the gods of accessories. Eh, it didn’t matter. Both teams lost that night.

But my point is, let’s take a moment to recognize the significant others. For short I call them the Sigoths. The people that don’t really love the sport but love the people who love the sport. Like the friend I recently traveled with who awoke me from my pre-dinner nap in the hotel room by announcing, “Get the hell up! The entire Arizona Cardinals team is in the lobby!” There we were running to catch them, when truthfully neither of us could recognize a Cardinal (besides Warner) if he landed on us. But because her boyfriend is a superfan of the team, there we were getting autographs for him. And it’s not just ladies who are the Sigoths; I know a few men who are more into heavy metal than sports, but they endure boiling hot afternoons watching the Mets leave runners in scoring position all for their girlfriends’ sakes. And those black Pantera t-shirts don’t exactly breathe in the summertime. They are troopers.

My dad tried turning my mom into a Sigoth. The problem was she hated sports until the day she died. She said sports were just overpaid men in pajamas banging into each other. My sister was on the same anti-sport path until I stepped in and showed her the cute players. Good thing I intervened because she married a sports nut, and truth be told he’s the one who turned her on to hockey, not I. In fact, she got me more interested in the sport – I have to confess that it was my kid sister who explained to me what “offsides” is.  Well, she more yelled it than explained it…”See! See! Pay attention! That was offsides! That was offsides!!!”

I remember saying, “You’re just making that up! No one can catch that! You’re just following the refs’ call, and they’re making it up too!!!”

“Linesmen,” she said. “They’re the ones who call it. Not the refs.”

Good God! What happened to the little girl who could name every Barbie Doll in her 50+ collection just from the color eyeshadow? Linesmen? Off-sides? Memorizing the Zamboni patterns? What had her Sigoth done to her?

Sometimes love for a sport is contagious, sometimes it’s not. Regardless, it’s no easy task to endure the mood-swings of sports fanatics. I say hats off to those whose chances of getting lucky on any given night might be in the hands of the referee. Or the linesman. Or whatever.