Or maybe I will.

So in an effort to ignore the silly annoying Bills (really guys, you had to go lose to the Dolphins?!), I will devote this evening’s post to the amusing search engine phrases that my blog comes up as referencing. The best, of course, being from two weeks ago:

“Being a Jets Fan in Binghamton Sucks.”

Well, then. I’m sorry you feel that way, Mr. Google User. I imagine it does suck, seeing that everyone there is either a Bills, Giants or Eagles fan. But from what I remember, there still is a bunch of Jets merchandise in the stores in the Southern Tier. Plus, you have to remember that the Giants are just super popular at the moment because they just won the Super Bowl. Eventually, people will jump off the Giants bandwagon quicker than spedies are sold at Speidie Fest. It may be more tolerable as a Jets fan in Binghamton then.

The most random recent search engine phrase that resulted in the searcher visiting my site is the inexplicable “fabiola my father girlfriend.” I can only imagine that Fabiola is the searcher’s father’s girlfriend, and the searcher doesn’t like her. The searcher wants to dig up some dirt on Fabiola, and started searching Google – without realizing, of course, that the last name might be somewhat helpful. The girlfriend’s last name isn’t “Your Dad’s Girlfriend.” I think that search was somewhat unsuccessful, unless the searcher wanted to find out that my Confirmation name is Fabiola, which I chose because she is the patron saint of travel, and fourteen year old me really wanted to take a vacation like all my friends did.

Then I get a lot of search phrases about hockey players and music, especially because I obsess over the whole “hockey players like country music” thing. It still makes no sense to me, but heck, I find myself listening to Carrie Underwood more often than not lately, so I shouldn’t be allowed to pass judgment. So to all of you searching for what type of music hockey players listen to, my educated guess is country music.

In the more normal realm, I get a lot of hits due to my post Obviously, Massachusetts Schools Neglect to Teach Geography of Areas outside of New England (or No, Western New Yorkers are not Yankees Fans.) Most of them being for “NY maps” or “maps of Poughkeepsie, NY.” That post is the most hit, the most commented and the overall most popular. People really disagree with me on that post, but that’s okay. I’m down with that. The only thing that matters is that you’re reading.

And today, I’ve gotten a hit due to the search phrase “I need the names of the best hockey players.” One, that someone typed a sentence into a search engine like that is amusing. I feel like my mom, the woman who thinks AIM is an e-mail, (typical Mom IM: “Hi Katie. I was online and thought I’d say hi. It is cold here. The Bills lost again. Oh well. Your brother says hi. I made pizza tonight. Oh no, have to go, dad is stuck in the attic again. Love, Mom.”), may have done that. She might think she has to ask Google to look up something nicely.

Well, Ms. Polite Searcher, you want the names of the best hockey players? Two of my faves are mentioned in the brief nuggets below:

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- Everyone’s Favorite Goalie, John Curry, finally returned to the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins lineup Saturday after a week off due to a back issue. The Penguins lost, 5-4, to the Portland Pirates, ye of little Gerbe. (I have mixed feelings on Gerbe. If you like a team that he plays against, he’s absolutely miserable. If you take a minute and appreciate his speed on the ice though, you realize that the kid has some crazy wheels, and his sometimes dirty play is just to make up for his lack of size.) I hope that Everyone’s Favorite Goalie was just rusty, and that he doesn’t get sent down to Wheeling, the Penguins ECHL affiliate.

- In my first season of serious fantasy hockey, I have been doing pretty well. I have some solid goalies, and my early trade for Phil Kessel (my favorite NHL player) makes me look like a genius. But then, an injury befell Manny Legace, one of my goalies. And just not any injury, according to ESPN:

Legace tripped on the carpet laid for Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s ceremonial puck drop as he was coming onto the ice to start the game. He was screened on the first goal and gave up the second to Patrick O’Sullivan, who was unmarked in the slot on a Blues turnover, so we don’t think the injury was to blame for either goal. Ben Bishop relieved Legace at the beginning of the second period in what was his first NHL appearance.

Yep, Sarah Palin inadvertently injured my fantasy hockey goalie. The only good that came from this was former Maine goalie Ben Bishop (who should have played for the Maine basketball team, he’s so tall) getting the start for Legace on Saturday. Bishop was the only highlight for the Black Bears last year, who are already in trouble without him this season.

- Um, so the FWNICM is kinda a big deal. His photo graces the front pages of both College Hockey News and USCHO.com tonight. He scored twice last evening against Michigan, had the only goal last Sunday at New Hampshire, and leads the team in goals. Everyone’s jumping on the FWNICM bandwagon, and that’s okay. I’ve been keeping the seat warm for the past three years. I told my partner in crime (the fiance) today, “This is like watching Steve Young finally put it all together in 1994, except I’m older, a tad less obsessed, and I get to see the FWNICM’s games in person.” Okay, so it’s not even that close, but let’s pretend, shall we?

- I just started reading Prohockeynews.com, and I was amazed at the number of small professional leagues that no one realises exists. For example, the Southern Professional Hockey League (SPHL)? Who knew? I recommend reading Prohockeynews.com because of the random hockey knowledge you can learn.

- In my first “I am seriously frightened of the wedding industry” report of my engagement, I have barely been engaged a month, and I’m already sick of getting emails from The Knot. When I registered for The Knot, they wanted to know personal information about my fiance, which I was totally not down with. So I registered as an “other” instead of a “bride.” Registering signed me up to get bombarded with their e-mails about “heart themed favor sales” and honeymoon specials. The worst are the e-mails I have received regarding the Disney Princess Wedding Gown collection. Seriously? No. I wanted to be Belle when I was eleven, not twenty-six. Between the insane The Knot emails and adding blogs like WeddingBee to my Google Reader, I think I’m ready to head for the hills and elope. I would much rather elope on our scheduled February sojourn to Orono, Maine to cross another Hockey East arena off our list than deal with the wedding industry. But, don’t worry all – I’ll suck it up.

TO: The Collective Population of New England (especially the Citizens of Massachusetts)

FROM: A Disgruntled Western New Yorker Turned Bostonian

RE: Geography of New York State and the Sports Fandom it Dictates

DATE: November 2, 2007

I feel it prudent at this time to provide you with a refresher geography lesson of New York State (or for those of you who did not pay attention in social studies, a first lesson.) This lesson was spurred on by the absolutely drunk (and I believe underage) Bruins fan and native New Englander who sat in front of me during Thursday evening’s Bruins-Sabres game. This fan proceeded to taunt all the Sabres fans (of which there were many, including myself) by telling us that the “Yankees suck,” and that A-Rod does several unrepeatable acts of a sexual nature. He then decided to mention that “Look, who won the World Series this year – the Red Sox, not your stupid (insert-bad-word-here) Yankees.”

Oh, Mr. Underage Drunk who was using a fake ID to provide his even more underage girlfriend with beers, which proceeded to cause her to do several imitations of various Family Guy characters for all of us to enjoy throughout the evening (not well, by the way – they were clouded by her Jimmy Fallon-esqe fake Bostonian accent circa the Saturday Night Live “Billerica Knights of Columbus” sketch.) If the Massachusetts school system had taught you anything, you would know that true Western New Yorkers couldn’t give a darn about Major League Baseball, seeing that many of us go our entire lives without seeing a MLB game live. This, of course, because we live no where near a MLB team worth merit. Of course, we could cross the border and watch the Blue Jays, but no one has wanted to do that since the mid-1990s. Anyway, we are too busy with football, hockey and lacrosse – baseball would over extend our sports focus.

Mr. Underage Drunk and your fellow New Englanders, to best argue my case, I present a map of New York State.

The red part of the map represents New York City, Westchester County, and Long Island, aka, the parts of New York that Western New Yorkers and New Englanders mutually loathe. The orange part of the map represents a few counties that think they are Upstate, but are really lumped together in our disdain with New York City residents. The green part is indicative of the Adirondacks region of New York State, a part that I’m surprised has yet to be annexed and split in half by the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. People here don’t pay attention to sports that are not represented in the Winter Olympics. The rest – the yellow – represents true Upstate New York.

Upstate New York can be further divided into four separate areas:

1. Western New York (of which I am biased towards, being raised here.)
2. Central New York (another place I am somewhat biased towards, as I went to school here.)
3. Albany/Capital Region
4. Poughkeepsie, or the Land of Downstaters-Who-Aren’t-Really-Downstaters, therefore we like them.

Within these four regions, sports team devotion is quite varied. Those from Albany and Poughkeepsie definitely tend to like the Yankees or Mets, because of their proximity to New York City. However, for football, while those from the Poughkeepsie area tend to like the Giants or Jets, I have found that those from Albany like either the Bills, Giants or Patriots, but not the Jets. The Giants hold their training camp at SUNY Albany, the Bills are considered the team of all of Upstate New York, and the Patriots are somewhat close by (2 ½ -3 hours) and for a few years now, have been quite popular to follow.

Central New Yorkers seem to split when it comes to liking baseball – half seem to not realize the sport exists, while the other half either like the Mets or the Yankees. When it comes to football, this region is all over the map – while you will find your fair share of Bills fans, I have come across Philadelphia Eagles fans (for example, Binghamton, NY is on the Pennsylvania border, and is maybe a 3 hour drive away from Philly – thus the Eagles fans there) and Giants fans. Strangely, I rarely found a Central New Yorker Jets fan. It is important to note that the further North you travel in Central New York (Syracuse and Utica, for instance) you will find mostly Bills fans, while in the armpit (Broome, Delaware, and Chenango counties), you find the most diversity.

Now we come to the land of my birth, Western New York, where you are a Bills and Sabres fans upon your conception. Besides my Uncle Sean, I know of no Jets fans in Western New York, and I certainly have never met a Giants fan from here either. (Although, if I remember correctly, there is/was a bar on West Ridge Road in between the Kodak complex and the retail Candy Land that is Greece, NY that advertised as being the Giants fan hangout on Sundays. It is in that strip mall with the Abbots and, I believe, Buffalo Bill’s Tavern that has the white, hot pink and ’80s teal awing. Those of you who know Rochester know what I’m talking about.) The only other football team represented in the area are the Cleveland Browns – a small contingent of their fans exist throughout the area. These fans tend to be older in age and hawken back to the day before the Bills existed, and the Browns were the only team nearby. Strangely enough, this leads to a weird mix in Erie, Pennsylvania (just over the Buffalo border) where you have a pretty divided mix of Browns fans and Bills fans, with a smattering of Steelers fans.

However, baseball fandom in Western New York tends to be highly personal in nature. I know three devoted Red Sox fans in the area and two Yankees fans. When I was in tenth grade, I knew a few guys in school who aligned with the Red Sox because it was, in the words of one of them, “the team that college kids like.” I don’t recall their fandom going any further than the purchase of Red Sox hats. The majority of Western New Yorkers really do not align themselves with a particular baseball team. For example, when I was growing up, I once asked my father, who I looked to for all of my sports knowledge, what baseball team I was supposed to root for. He shrugged and answered, “I don’t know – the Blue Jays?”

Western New Yorkers do care about Triple A baseball, with the Buffalo Bisons, Rochester Red Wings and Syracuse SkyChiefs all in the International League and all playing each other regularly in “Thruway Series” games. But when it comes to Major League Baseball, Western New Yorkers live too far away from New York City (at least a six hour drive) to make it to a Yankees or Mets game on any regular basis. In addition, culturally, Western New Yorkers despise New York City with every ounce of their being – we equate Bloomberg, Guliani and their political counterparts with the devil for monopolizing state funding away from our region; we blame New York City for the past two decades’ influx of crime in the area due to criminals from NYC being sent to serve their time in Western New York and residing here when they are released; and overall, we hate the way Downstaters pretend we don’t exist. Truthfully, Western New Yorkers have an inferiority complex when it comes to Downstate, and we aren’t afraid to show it. Thus, the majority of Western New Yorkers would never think of adopting a New York City sports team as their own.

This disdain of Downstate New York is a reason why many young Western New Yorkers are seemingly flocking to Boston to lead their adult lives – career opportunities in our home region are so limited, but we can’t bring ourselves to move down to New York City because of our overwhelming dislike of the area. So we choose Boston, an area with similar, if not more intense, feelings towards Downstate as the ones we were brought up with. And this is why, at Sabres-Bruins games, the Sabres fans come close to outnumbering the Bruins fans – we’re moving up here in droves.

So, Mr. Underage Drunk, the next time you attempt to taunt Buffalo Sabres fans by telling us how much the Yankees suck, recall that we too, hate the Yankees. Instead, we recommend that you just singsongingly taunt, “Chris Drury. Chris Drury. Chris Drury.” or make up some taunt regarding the 1999 Stanley Cup Finals. We’ll smirk, and then, just like what happened on Thursday, some Sabres fan will remark to the other Sabres fans around him, “Never mind – the Rochester Amerks (the AHL team in Rochester) sell more tickets than the Bruins.” We’ll all laugh, proclaim the fan’s correctness, and look at the New Englanders’ confused faces.

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An aside added later – I forgot to add an important discussion piece in this entry. I feel that Major League Baseball had more of a fan base less dependent on geography before the most recent players strikes. In order to appeal to fans outside of a teams geographical region, a sport needs to have a momentum building that transcends geographical limitations. With baseball, when you had larger than life players like a Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio and the like, ones who seemed almost mythical, the story sold in places with smaller populations like Western New York, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Iowa, even though the teams involved played far away. Once player strikes began to happen, outlying fans such as these had less buy-in than fans in the actual regions where teams existed, and thus, were the first to abandon baseball. Baseball has been back for over a decade now, but only now are they rebuilding the momentum – you had three long suffering franchises win the last four World Series, which is again news worthy for those with no baseball team in their area. It will take a bit longer for baseball fandom to reach its before strike levels, and the fear should be that they have lost an entire generation (those 22-28 or so, who were of prime fan development age during the 1994 strike) of fans. However, I have no doubt that baseball will always be a relevant and successful sport in this country.

The NFL has this momentum now, with a wide ranging appeal that defies geographic boundaries. What helps professional football is that every state in the US has a Division I college football team, which is essentially the equivalent of the farm system in baseball. Even those states with seemingly nothing else have college football (Montana State – always a contender in Division I-AA, Boise State – the surprising stars of last year’s college football season,) thus allowing fans to follow players from college into the professional ranks. This buy in increases the propensity for someone not near any NFL team to be a fan of a NFL team. The NBA had the mythical athlete appeal through the 1980s and 1990s and have lost it – thus why the NBA is increasingly suffering loss of viewership over the past view years. The NHL barely touched the mythical athlete appeal with Gretzky, but besides that, never had a reason for those not located near a team to become a fan – thus why the sport is now failing miserably. A professional sport built on a pure regional adoption of team as the sole reason for fandom model will no longer succeed in America.