Nothing to do with quilting.

I live in the suburbs of Pittsburgh PA, the home of Champions. Despite the pitiful state of our baseball team we are a sports minded community. It’s not a “get out and do it yourself” culture, it’s more of a “sit on the sofa with a beer and watch it happen” society. We love our Steelers, Penguins and yes, even our miserably ranked Pirates.

That explains why I, who knows nothing about the game of hockey, was in front of the television at 12:45am watching the Penguins win game 5 in Detroit.

After a 14 hour workday that included a drive to Indiana PA to pick-up items for the Shop Hop prize baskets and an evening BlockWatchers meeting I was just about to turn off the TV and head to bed when I decided to check the Penguins score. Detroit was ahead 3-2 with less than a minute to go and the announcers had decided that everything was over except Detroit’s victory party when the Penguins scored and tied it up.

WHOO HOO!

Having no idea how they solve a tie game, I had to stay up and watch, it turns out that they play “overtime”. After another period of hockey (and we all know how sporting event time works) the score was still tied. Now what? Clean the ice and begin a second period of overtime. I was exhausted and I haven’t had ice skates on in years! End of overtime 2 and still no score. On to a third period! If you stick it out THIS far, you have to see it through to the end, no matter how tired you are going to be in the morning. More to the point, all Pittsburghers know that our teams only win because WE make it happen. WE suffer right along with them; WE send the proper vibes, even if we don’t understand what is going on. If they loose it is because WE went to the frig or the bathroom at an inopportune time, or God forgive, bed, and let them down. I just couldn’t let that happen. One of our players literally “took one for the team” (a stick to the face that drew blood) and their player had to go sit in the “bad boy” box. That allowed the Penguins to finally score and me to go to bed! There are a lot of tired people in Pittsburgh today. Feeling as if I had done my part, although I’m not exactly sure what that was, I am one of them.

GO PENS!