Pursuing a perennial loser like the New York Islanders is tantamount to preparing for all the other toll lives can wreak.
My dad is the biggest loser I know. He defined much of his life by what he lost – his marriage, old flames, sometimes his license, and countless sports bets.
To avoid any confusion, he is a textbook narcissist with a gambling addiction and an aversion to authority. Nevertheless, my mother married him despite dramatic protests by her sisters and the cars they parked outside during the ceremony. Immediately after they said “I do,” my dad put my mom into credit card debt.
Some of his Hall of Fame bills include paying $40,000 in one night at a casino on his honeymoon. Or when he lost $20,000 betting on horse races during a spontaneous weekend trip to Saratoga. All of this meant that there was no room in our relationship for dancing around this unmistakable fatal blow—always on the run, figuratively and literally, from the usual three culprits: love, sport, and child support.
New York Islanders fans before the game against the Colorado Avalanche at Ball Arena. Mandatory credit: Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports
Growing up, I rarely saw him, and when I did, I was his best partner. In high school, I could hear the brakes of a Toyota 4Runner bounce back a mile away. He pulls the seatbelt up, he’s never seen, he’ll be in the middle of the puff of a Robusto cigar, his arm hanging from the window half-down perpetually, his hair gleaming the color of shoe polish—so dark if you run your fingers through it, I’d expect a slick. Inside the car, once the leather seats breathe at the seams, the backseat overflows with flaky cassette tapes, all associated with specific heart attacks that I can recount as if they were my own, fishing poles, and a windbreaker stolen from the New York Jets circa ’80s. It wouldn’t take long before my father affectionately let my hair down, his eyebrows raised with a devilish thought,
So how do we confront them with planes? he would say with a grin the scale of a Cheshire-Cat and momentary triumph. His teeth were stained yellow from years of cigarettes and chipped from Budweiser caps.
“Okay, let’s not get crazy. It’s a long season,” I would say, knowing where this is going.
“You never know; this might be their year. They’re just putting the pieces together,” he’d reply, his eyes already shining.
Then go to betting percentages, player profiles, restarting the game, and picking the next draft. He was talking to me as if I knew all these facts already, as if I were there, in the know. Of course, after so many years of this routine I was in the passenger seat taking it all in, I can say I was.
In homage to the popular insult my mother used when I was a misbehaving teen, the classic “You’re just like your dad” story is starting to gain traction. I can be aloof. My mind is constantly elsewhere. I was a budding poet writing arcs of salvation and stories of return wherever I went.
I was also an athlete for four seasons who loved to talk about sports, especially hockey. During high school, my mother and aunts were convinced I was secretly a bookie for the way sports stats and predictions rolled off my tongue. Aunty, when you heard me rambling about winning back from IslandersI enjoyed being reminded that I wasn’t, in fact, on the team or the coach. Then she questioned me, asking if I was starting a sportsbook, more paranoid than ever. Sometimes, I would delay my response just to mess with it.
During college, friends looked up to me for my storytelling skills, adding focus and tension in retelling wild shenanigans. They would refer to me as the female Stu Feiner for the way I narrated hockey games and suggested sports betting strategies, and comments from my dad. The basics were understanding that the home team always has the advantage, avoiding bonuses, and taking your emotions out of the bet. The last part, the hardest.
Unsurprisingly, my father could never follow his own advice. He bets $100 a year on the New York Jets to win the Superbowl. Most New York sports fans understand the low odds of winning this bet and will save their money. It is also important to know that New York sports fans are a very passionate and passionate bunch who fall into two categories. The first is the elite, calling championship after championship: New York Giants, New York Rangers and New York Yankees fans. Then there are the sad masochistic suckers: the New York Jets, New York Islanders and New York Mets. Both are hopeless romantics, my father and I falling for the latter.
Rooting for these vulnerable teams, specifically the New York Islanders, is a lot like being in a toxic relationship. Perhaps, when they reach out to you, you answer because the sex was “that good,” or “because you still love them,” or simply, “for the sake of the plot.” Deep down, you know that your curiosity-driven, feline-powered decisions aren’t the most sustainable. Thinking of the New York Islanders as toxic exes means I choose to avoid all red flags, season after season. It also means that no matter how disappointing the Islanders’ performance was last season, I still had the enormous stamina to romanticize their future.
UNIONDALE, NY – SEPTEMBER 16: Fans celebrate the first goal scored by Cal Clutterbuck #15 of the New York Islanders against the Philadelphia Flyers during a preseason game at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum on September 16, 2018 in Uniondale, New York. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
My love affair with the New York Islanders began when I was 10, old enough to issue obscenities with a thick Long Island accent to get a look at the refs. My mother and I attended nearly every game from 2010 to 2014, when tickets were cheap and every win was an albatross. However, the Nassau Coliseum, the crumbling but charming historic arena where the islanders play, has come home.
From the outside, the Colosseum is far from any Roman sign and looks more like a prison filled with parking lots. Compared to other flashy modern NHL arenas, the venue was an absolute dump: the pipes burst from time to time, the floors icy with dried grease, and the boards pulsed so hard that the puck’s bounce was unpredictable. When I entered the Colosseum, the smell of cigarettes, beer, and nacho cheese immediately crept into my sinuses. Looking back, I had no trouble rooting for a losing team or blending into the masculine crowd of beer-drenched, sans beer-belly cheerleaders.
Ten years later, and many years after I shaved my life, I’m still leaning towards loss and hope. I continue unabashedly as a poet. I have a deep love for my dead father. I’m still a die-hard Islanders fan – hurling insults at refs, speeding during games, and turning friends into hockey fans. In recent years, the Islanders have done well, making exciting playoff runs while retaining their signature mercury. And despite the constant ordeals with this unbearable team, I still watched every game, knowing the unexpected joy they brought into my life.
Likewise, my father has put together his own winning streak, such as trying to be responsible for his actions and to be present in my life. Of course, our relationship still bears its signature mistrust and centers around its Achilles’ heel: nostalgia, love, and sports.
When I think of my dedication as an Islanders fan, I think of the way my father led me to pick up a sadistic love of disillusionment, too. Below that, there is also the sadistic desire for what is just. Rooting for the underdogs is usually symptomatic of the same team winning and wanting each team to have an equal chance at beating the odds. And so, I accept the reality of these two losing teams and continue to search for victory in unexpected places and people, season after season.
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