(Love)

It is more entertaining to hate than to love. This may at first appear to be incongruous to claimed purposes of this column – that of providing occasional humour, even less occasional insight. Hate could be misinterpreted as a non-loving word. Don’t worry, further clarification is forthcoming.
Sports teams. That explains it. Let’s not forget, nor pay obeisance to those nutjobs that take being a fan seriously – real seriously. So much that other facets of life like eating, staying married, bathing, and sleeping become secondary, even forgotten, when the Packers, the Leafs, the Red Sox, or even the Roughriders enter the TV screen, that ethically dubious invention, like gunpowder centuries before it.
Fortunately most of us can distinguish fandom from reality, and somewhere in the alcoves of mind realise it’s all pretend. We’d remove butts from sofas if a loving child was bleeding profusely or the Queen surprised us by dropping by for tea. I fall into this category – not a nutjob, just an exuberant enthusiast.
But I differ in one key aspect. I hate other teams more than I love my own. I hate the Leafs, the Yankees, the Stampeders, the Lakers, and the Cowboys. I will die hating Rick Monday for what he did to my beloved Expos. It’s not real hate, but it is grand amusement when in the company of Leaf (and any of the others) lovers, most especially friends of friends, strangers to me. They give me odd looks when I go ranting off on Jeter or Pulford, or any other sworn enemies of my teams. When I tell of the times I shot my TV, or spent money to buy a sweater so I could burn it, they give me those questionable looks. I return the looks with questionable ones of my own accompanied with pretend serious questions, “You don’t really like the Yankees, do you?”