AS an Albertan by birth and blood-beef level I was an ardent follower of the Calgary Flames until the moment I graduated from journalism school, at which point I dropped all sporting allegiances to maintain my objectivity.
Just kidding - I stopped paying attention to the Flames because they sucked. That was six years ago and now they're even worse.
Last week the club hit rock bottom, trading a man universally labelled as the "classiest" player in the game to the Pittsburgh Penguins for two college kids, a draft pick, three rolls of tape and a coffee-stained program from a 1994 production of Cats.
Of course, "classy" - or as it's now known, #classy - is a descriptor thrown around pretty loosely in the hockey world. From what I can tell any player who knows how to read, puts in all his false teeth before doing interviews and is not Sean Avery or Matt Cooke can be labelled classy. But Jarome Iginla really did seem to be one heck of a classy dude and he was basically the sole reason I paid any attention to the club in recent years, refusing numerous rides offered by the Canucks bandwagon that often rolls by on the streets of my adopted home. Iginla was always smiling, scored goals with deadly wrist shots, fought tough guys only when necessary and not-tough guys only when provoked. And did I mention that smile?
He was the greatest Flame ever and in an instant, once TSN figured out exactly what team he was traded to, he was gone.
Now I know what all you Canucks fans are thinking as you perch on your expensive Rogers Arena seats to watch your (often) awesome team win another 1-1 shootout: "Hey, can you cheer a little quieter guys, I'm trying to order some yoga pants here."
Actually, what you're thinking is: What does Jarome Iginla have to do with us? Well, the Iginla trade got me thinking about what it means to be a fan in this interconnected age of online streaming and Twitter screaming.
The Canucks won't always be able to hog all the President's Trophies. One day they'll miss the playoffs and be faced with the prospect of trading away a franchise player, perhaps someone like a witty, selfless, all-world goaltender just a few years removed from backstopping his Olympic team to a gold med - sorry, bad example.
Maybe you'll have to trade those adorable Swedish fellows with their matching beards. Then you'd have to ask yourself a question that has dogged sports fans since Rome traded Stabbis Alotovus to Sparta for a pair of second round draft picks in the National Gladiator League: Am I cheering for the people or the laundry?
In the moments after the Iginla trade was confirmed, many Flames fans took to social media sites to pick sides. In most cases it seemed like they chose Jarome over the jersey. That's when famous Toronto Star columnist and unabashed Twitter grump Damien Cox came up with this #classy gem:
"The really pathetic sign is CAL fans now looking for success in Iginla winning a Cup in PITT."
Is that really so pathetic, Coxie? Sure, we don't all have awesome teams like the Toronto Maple Leafs and Toronto Raptors to blindly follow, but is there great shame in wishing success on someone who has brought you joy for more than a decade and is widely acknowledged as an exemplary human being?
Should ties to your favourite team, no matter how terrible it is or how much its arena is shaped like a cowboy's butt-rest, trump affection for a beloved player who moves on to a new team?
The answer more than ever seems to be no. We live in an age where you can closely follow any team from anywhere in the world. For a fairly reasonable fee you can watch every single game played in the National Hockey League all year. You can adopt some far-flung squad like the Columbus Blue Jackets and watch every single one of their games. I wouldn't recommend such a thing unless you need a cure for insomnia or are conducting a sort of Super Size Me experiment in toxicity resistance, but still.
On the night Iginla was traded, the Flames played a home game and unknowing fans were surprised to learn that the captain wasn't in the lineup for the first time since April of 2007. They didn't even get a chance to say goodbye.
Watching it all unfold on
TV I felt pity for the Calgary faithful in the building and for the players left on the ice without Jarome, settling in to play out the season on a grenade of a team that was now missing its pin.
Other than that, I didn't really feel anything good or bad about the team I once loved. I don't really care about the prospects the Flames got, or the outlook of the club in the future. I guess they can give me a call once their rebuild is finished in 2021.
The Flames will, however, always hold my gut. In many sports, particularly lower-scoring ones like soccer or hockey, you can claim to cheer for one team or another or to be neutral but the real test is when the twine ripples with the game on the line. In that instant you're either excited or bummed, there's no faking it.
Calgary will always hold my gut, but it looks like I'll be on an empty stomach for quite a while now waiting for another winner. In the meantime, I'll allow my heart to scream, "Go, Pens, go!"
