Aye dawgs,
I still can't believe it, I've been laid up recovering from knee surgery, with a big *** smile on my face the entire time because I simply still can't ****ing believe it.
In 99% of scenarios I'm a pretty cool customer, I don't rattle easily, im usually good in a crisis but when it comes to the Raptors I just my bearing on reality.
Before the game I was on the verge of puking Willie Beamon, Bill Russel style because I felt in my heart like this was going to be our only shot. The part of my brain that controls logic and reason was saying "hey look Raptors are heavy favorite to win the series", but it was being totally overwhelmed by 20 years of losing and total embarrassment.
I love the Jays, and the Senators, but the Raptors mean something different, to be a Raptor fan, to be a basketball fan growing up outside of Toronto, meant something different, it meant you were an outsider, it meant you were subject to mostly derision and persistent reminders that your fandom was less than, that it was alien, that it was passing fad that would be quickly wiped from consciousness of nation if the Hockey people had it there way.
and over my life time it changes, it goes from every one playing street hockey, cars, multiple times a day, having to wait for kids to move there nets out of the way because street hockey games dotted entire suburban landscapes, until slowly but surely basketball nets spring up to take their place. but still the derision remains, from the older whiter sports establishment.
so all the feelings outsider, otherness are baked in to my love of the Raptors, and so when they lose it feels an essential part of my essence is losing, is being rejected and when they win, it's like the purest form of validation and acceptance.
that's why I've always loved outsiders in every sport, it's the reason im an Ovechkin fan as the homie
jjs07
knows because everybody wants to seem themselves represented in sport, nobody wants to be alond.
so toast to all the outsider out there man, keep the faith, ignore the haters, your validation will arrive, you are not alone.
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