Let's Face it I am a Romantic

this should be an interesting blog... i asked dean to pick a topic and this is what he picked. it is 10pm on saturday night and he is watching ufc wrestling knockouts. its really not my thing but i have the laptop so it's keeping him entertained.
so hockey it is... i can't remember watching hockey as a kid in fact i don't think i ever saw a game til the year curt and i got together. thats a huge statement considering im a canadian and grew up in the same city that the vancouver canucks still play in. my parents weren't into watching team sports. my weekends were filled with racing, both live on the tracks ,and on the television. dad raced on the same track as guys like bobby rahal, danny sullivan and the great gilles villeneuve. in fact the day i was born my dad was heading to california for a race and almost missed my entrance into the world. i knew the names of all the formula 1 racers better than i knew our provinces. andretti, fitipaldi, mansell, rosberg, shumacher were like heroes to me growing up they were household names. we watched nascar too but not with the same veracity.
these days i can name a few hockey players. curt and his family are all avid watchers of the sport so over the years i came to understand the game but never learned to like it much. curt and i attended a couple games when we were first married and they were lots fo fun to go to but watching it on tv just never had the same appeal. i finially got into the game during the 2002 winter olympics when both the men and women of canada kicked the hides of our american counterparts to come home with both gold medals. olympic hockey is fast paced and is not filled with the politics of the nhl unless of course you include the gambling habits of gretsky's wife.
having boys i knew that one or all of them might get involved in hockey but i was adamant i wasn't going to be the one taking them to the rink at 4am. turns out i was right, robert, our oldest decided that hockey was to be his sport of choice. i managed to maintain my status on early morning ice times and let his father play the part of hockey dad. even the afternoon games i could find good reason not to attend. i love my son dearly and i went to every game he asked me to go to but he didn't ask me to attend many cause he knew how i felt about the game. i think he also know how i felt about the bigger, faster boys nailing my baby into the boards. the few games i went to it was really all i could to to watch my boy get tossed like a rag doll on skates by the opposing team. i really didn't like going and would cringe everytime he got hit. he loved it though and hockey was all he talked about the 2 years he played. dean's youngest wants to play and again i will take a stand on not doing morning ice times.
dean and his family are hockey nuts. they love the game and watch every double header on hockey night in canada like it was sunday's wonderful world of disney when i was a kid. i watch with them and have learned to tolerate the game. what i like most about these nights is listening to them talk about the history of hockey and the players that dean grew up watching. it is obvious that hockey was a family event in thier house and it always seems to bring the family together when hockey is on. they are baseball fans too and do the same thing during the ball season. as the two seasons almost overlap each other it means that there is always family time to be had in our house and thiers.
what brings your family together?