Every parent sits amazed at how much their child has grown/changed/accomplished over x-amount of time. We annoy our child-free friends, while those with older kids just nod along, remembering; "Three weeks ago he was barely standing up, now he walks from the couch to the dining room without stopping".
Last year about this time, the Spokane Chiefs were beginning a playoff run that would take them to the Western Conference Finals, before losing to Portland. As I've explained before, Cameron was at the time unfamiliar with the whole "playoffs" concept, and actually quite distraught as the much-better Winter Hawks beat the Chiefs rather solidly before losing the WHL finals in the next round. There were tears, we tried to explain the next season would come up soon - but the guys did their best and actually did better than predicted before the season, and that was something really great.
After you've been around the block a few times, especially in the upper-left quadrant of the United States sporting map, you tend to be less emotionally-invested in the outcome of a given sports season. During the actually-competitive Mariners run of 1995-2001, we may get our hopes up emotionally, but up here we knew they would eventually meet up with, and get their hats handed to them by, the Yankees.
We become ultra-realists: Sonics fans knew that their playoff battles had to be won in six games, because their was no way in David $tern's green Earth they were going to be allowed to beat Barkley's Suns or Jordan's Bulls on the road, in game seven - it was as foreign as a hippie in Bellevue. One-game scenarios are a tad different, but when every Super Bowl week headline mentioned Jerome Bettis' Detroit ties, we knew the Seahawks were not the league's preferred victor.
So we bring it around to Cam. As I sit here, The Chiefs are down 0-2 to the Vancouver Giants having allowed approximately 85 goals between the games. It's not looking good. They haven't had a home game yet, but as the lower-seeded team they need to win at least one in BC - and again, 85 goals. He realizes that it's an uphill climb with not a lot of horsepower behind it. But still he roots for his guys. He has his favorites, takes his grandma-gifted Lego alarm clock to bed to listen to the final period, overtime, shootouts and post-game shows with Mike "the Boyler" Boyle. When the season ends, he will be able to tell us when training camp opens and the public scrimmages are scheduled (yes, he checks the team's press reports). But I don't expect as many tears this year, and next year maybe there won't be any.
"Oh how fast they grow up"!
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