PLEASE HOLD

Today’s piece is about time travel, repetition, and reliving the same pain over and over again. Today’s piece is about time travel, repetition, and reliving the same pain over and over and over again.

I had the great misfortune of turning on the television this evening, a bit before five, not having changed the channel since last night. FSN was replaying the Wild’s last game at Vancouver, which they lost, 5-4, after having a two goal lead. Watching it the first time was pretty miserable, I didn’t have any interest in the rerun.

When I turned it on there were three minutes left in the game.

“This is right where it happened,” My dad said. We were going to watch more of the moderately terrible James Franco time travel show on Hulu, but that would have to wait.

“I want to see how it developed,” he said, so I didn’t change the channel.

We watched, again, as the Canucks scored the go-ahead goal. I’m still not sure who to blame, I’m not even sure if I want to blame anyone anymore. There was a good initial save, and then there was a mess, and then there was the goal, the dagger. I don’t know why I watched the rest of the game after that. If I had been home alone, maybe I wouldn’t’ve. I didn’t exactly watch it, so much as do stuff on my phone while listening and waiting for the clock to run down.

This time I didn’t stick around to see the end. They lost the game. I watched them lose it on TV last night. I could have watched them lose it again on TV this afternoon. Somewhere online, I could watch them lose it any time I wanted, over and over and over again.

Today’s piece is about time travel, repetition, and reliving the same pain over and over again.

My uncle is a musician, and a serious hockey fan. On nights he has a gig he’ll record the game, and watch it the next morning, unspoiled as long as the bar he was playing at didn’t have a bunch of TVs. He’ll live the swing of emotions a day delayed, winning or losing, unstuck in time. If he watched their most recent game he would have the up of the Wild’s first two goals and strong start, the bafflingly speedy down of the Canuck’s tying it, the utter despair as they added two more. The redemption of the Wild tying it again, giving us hope that maybe they’d come away with a point, that maybe they weren’t this much of a disaster. And the the dagger.

It’s a journey that hurts just as much viewed live or on delay. It isn’t a good time. Why the hell do we do this to ourselves?

Today’s piece is about time travel, repetition, and reliving the same pain over and over again.

Sports are one of the only things it’s widely accepted have no waiting period before spoilers are allowed. Wait a couple days after a television episode airs, a few weeks after a movie comes out. It can take years before it’s socially acceptable to spoil the end of a book. (Dumbledore dies). Sports are different. They happen in a moment, and we’re all in this moment, or like, within thirty seconds of the moment when our streams lag, but sports are one of increasingly fewer things experienced simultaneously. The bigger the occasion, the more people going through it together. My twitter feed moves at a breakneck speed during the Stanley Cup Finals, when everyone’s live tweeting the same thing.

Big sports moments happen in a moment. Where were you when the Cubs won the World Series? Where were you watching Katie Ledecky break those records? Where did you watch the Wild lose to the Canucks in a heartbreaking fashion?

I don’t know, which time?

Today’s piece is about time travel, repetition, and reliving the same pain over and over again.

Maybe not the same pain, but similar shades of pain, things that feel close enough in the moment. Frustration, and anger, and disappointment, and hopelessness. A thousand subtly different types of agony. Why the hell do we do this to ourselves again?

I have no idea.

None.

Today’s piece is about time travel, repetition, and reliving the same pain over and over again.

This is what we do now. The Wild frustrate me, and I write about it, and maybe you read it. This is what we do now. It’s routine. It’s habit. Having habits can make life simpler. It reduces the number of choices that have to be made. Just do the same thing over and over and over again.

The Wild have fallen into some horrible habits lately. They have lead me to frustration, and anger, and disappointment, and hopelessness. That’s what they do. I’ve accepted it. Moving on…

Wouldn’t it be nice to move on?

Today’s piece is about time travel, repetition, and reliving the same pain over and over again.

It’s December now. The Wild might be better in December. Time does pass, and we expect things to change. The same things are not going to happen over and over again, not exactly the same way. It’s the subtle differences that keep us going. It’s the subtle differences that we follow along together, a shared experience of frustration, anger, disappointment, hopelessness, and sometimes, joy.

Today’s piece is about time travel, repetition, and reliving the same pain over and over again. Today’s piece is about time travel, repetition, and the beautiful feeling of elation and enlightenment that can come when things are different. Today’s piece is about time travel, repetition, and waiting around until something beautiful happens. Today’s piece is about time travel, repetition, and the suffering you can brag about surviving when things get good. Today’s piece is about time travel, repetition, and holding on. Please hold on.