Hmm... yes... I've decided I need to mark my allegiance with an NHL and NFL team. I have my NBA and MLB ones... the Raptors and Blue Jays, as the Canadian teams that just happened naturally. But in the NHL and NFL I've been wavering for years, watching a little of each team but never one specifically. It's about time I pledged my allegiance! Time to dedicate myself to "a team"... yes, it is time.

I've narrowed it down to 8 teams for the NHL and almost everyone for the NFL. I'll cut them down bit by bit within the upcoming week or so... I need to concentrate on this for a while... it'd better be a permanent thing or else I'll come off as a frontrunning douchebag or bandwagoner when I switch!

NHL:
Edmonton Oilers (grew up a couple hours away from there)
Vancouver Canucks (currently living in Victoria)
Toronto Maple Leafs (association from cheering for the Raptors and Blue Jays)
Minnesota Wild (always been a fan of their defensive style)
Boston Bruins (I know it's against my nature to cheer for a Boston team, but I like these guys... they're scrappy. Plus unlike the others, they're long tortured and ignored)
Buffalo Sabres (long suffering for a cup, had some bad breaks, I have sympathy)
Philadelphia Flyers (ditto the above)
NY Rangers (I half-cheer for NY teams a lot, I'm on the Yankees and Giants side of the Boston-NY debate. Was my bandwagon team in last year's playoffs. Sported a zombie Jagr avatar.)

NFL:
Buffalo Bills
Arizona Cardinals
Minnesota Vikings
Atlanta Falcons
Seattle Seahawks
Dallas Cowboys
NY Giants
Philadelphia Eagles
Washington Redskins
Miami Dolphins
New England Patriots (18-1! 18-1!)
NY Jets
San Francisco 49ers
St. Louis Rams
Denver Broncos
Oakland Raiders
Kansas City Chiefs
San Diego Chargers (I'm not cheering for a Norv Turner team)
Chicago Bears
Detroit Lions (lol)
Green Bay Packers
Baltimore Ravens
Cincinatti Bengals
Cleveland Browns
Pittsburgh Steelers
Carolina Panthers
New Orleans Saints
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Houston Texans
Indianapolis Colts (never liked them)
Jacksonville Jaguars
Tennessee Titans

If you cheer for any of these teams or have a particular hate for any as a rival, do your damndest to woo me

I have no clue about NHL, but for sure Green Bay Packers for NFL.

They may not be the best team, but they are the youngest and most exciting, even without Favre. And, who can forget the tradition and community love!

If not them, i have recently been fond of the Saints. With Drew Brees becoming the next great Quarterback and Reggie Bush, the future looks really bright for them (once the get a defense...)

NFL - Arizona Cardinals
NHL - Boston Bruins/Edmonton Oilers

I have no real solid reasoning. They just seem to fit. Well that and outside of Montreal and New York, who couldn't root for the Bruins? They're just so damn likeable.

I'm nowhere near finalizing my decision, but I can't lie and say the Cards aren't sitting in the top tier of the list at the moment. I'm personally tied to them through my 0-13 start predicting their games last year, and I always like the long tortured and beaten underdog franchises. But then again, do I want to associate myself with Chip...

In the meantime, I've already decided to eliminate one of the NFL teams:

...

The Tennessee Titans!

It is clear after tonight's second half that they're the absolute Superbowl favorites right now, no ifs ands or buts. I simply cannot choose this team at the moment because then I would be a frontrunning douchebag and bandwagoner. I admit that when making the list I was very close to already leaving them off for that reason, but unlike the Pats, Chargers, Lions, and Colts, I still like this team, but yes, their victory tonight and solidification of the league's best record confirmed their status as the top dog and I cannot by my sports morals choose them.

Cowboys

there's drama every week and they might not even make the playoffs. O_o

oh and their 1 billion + stadium will be open for play next season.
that shit is HOT! it looks like one huge football.

When in doubt, always go geographical.

Your NHL team has to be in Canada. That's a no-brainer.

Your NFL team should make sense geographically, while also providing you with a consistent level of quality. I'm thinking the Bills, the Seahawks, or the Vikings might be a good pick.

Bills for NFL, since they may be moving to Toronto.

And obviously the Maple Leafs.

Couple more cuts after pawning it over:
...

The San Francisco 49ers
The Kansas City Chiefs
The Cincinatti Bengals
The Denver Broncos
The Jacksonville Jaguars

Biggest reason all five of these teams are off is because they're irrelevant to me, I don't care much about them one way or the other. The 49ers and Chiefs are in the same boat, with the running back being the only player I know, and their coaches being more of a draw than the team. Herm Edwards ftw!

Bengals... I never liked Palmer or Johnson and Cincinatti just seems like such a whatever sports city. I'd almost like to avoid experiencing a winless season my first trip with them thankyouverymuch.

Broncos... too much of an all offense team, I don't like that. I hate the Denver Nuggets way too much to cheer for any Denver team.

Jacksonville, again, too shitty a city for me to care about. "Whatever"

I'm not into NHL much but I love the New York Rangers. They're sick this year.

Green Bay Packers is a great choice for the NFL. One of the youngest teams in the league and it's the only NFL team publicly owned. The team IS the city.

Cutting an NHL team

The New York Rangers

Like Tennessee, part of the reason for this is that they're the top team in the league, though it wasn't as big a factor this time because I've felt I've been on the Rangers' side for a couple years now and the leap wouldn't be as big. No, rather it was more the offseason that they had that did me in. I loved Avery, he was prime entertainment and I always cheer for any villain, without him a lot of the bad boy allure and character of the team that attracted me before is gone. I was also a huge fan of Jagr. The guys they replaced them with, mainly Redden, Zherdev, Naslund, I don't care for at all. Add that to Gomez, who I have leftover hate for from the NJ days, and there's too many players, along with their coach, who I feel irrelevant towards. That's not to say I don't have a soft spot for Lundquist, Staal, Rozsival, Dubinsky but it's not enough to make up for it. A year ago this team definitely would've made my top 3, but I won't choose them now.

Couple more names stuck out to me

...

Oakland Raiders

NY Jets

Pittsburgh Steelers

Oakland probably should've been in the last group of irrelevant teams, but in this case there's no coach or mentality around the team I dislike... I also like the prospects of JaMarcus. This would be a unique and daring choice as any to jump on board to, but again, there's just not anything particular that draws me to them.

As for the Jets... ew, they're the Jets. No but really, while I generally lean towards NY sports teams, I can't support Favre's asshole comeback. Or Mangini.

Pittsburgh... again I almost feel they're "too good" for me to jump on right now. I love Big Ben to bits, but the team just feels a little less endearing when they won a couple years ago and will automatically be a contender for the next decade... it's almost like they don't need my support. I would say the same thing about the Giants, except they've probably been the closest thing to 'my team' the last couple years so that gives them a big time boost, and I love Eli.

Onto hockey...

Philadelphia Flyers

Nothing more to say other than I like the other teams slightly more. I love all the players on this team, I love their bully attitude, I love Philadelphia as a sports city and their fans... Philly's plight is sympathetic and as a result I root for them most years, but the kicker there is that I think I feel even morseo than way for the Sabres and have more of a kinship for their bad luck (defencemen all going down in the Carolina series, owners screwing them out of Briere and Drury... and naturally that cd getting the butt rape in football too). And of course, the Leafs fit in that conversation too. That's not to say I will pick Buffalo or Toronto, but the point is that if I'm using the sympathetic for their plight card which makes me cheer for them most years, those two seem to have a stronger case. So in this case, it's a case of simply leaning towards the others more rather than anything against them.

Oilers, duh.

Also I'd go with the Packers. They seem likeable enough. And crappy.

That'll do it for the night... to be perfectly honest all the names eliminated so far were the ones an inkling in the back of my mind that I wouldn't choose them in the end, but you know, I like giving myself the time to fully consider things... this might be one of my most important and influential sports decisions ever! What if I meet my future wife because she's wearing a hat of the team I pick and I go "Hey, no way! What's your name?"

Now it gets tricky though... I could pick just about all these teams.

Dallas Cowboys
Philadelphia Eagles
Cleveland Browns

At the point now where I like all these teams, I just have to cut the weakest links. First two I guess you could say have been associated with good for most of the time I've been around, again I guess that turns me off... I'm more of an underdog sort of guy.

Cleveland... a) Their name sounds too close to shit, and b) I kind of feel Cleveland sports fans' turf is their own, to enter their constant twilight zone of pain without being from Cleveland would feel a bit wrong.

Edmonton Oilers

Eliminating these guys as early as this is as much a surprise to me as it is to you... that's why I did the preliminary cutoff bit. The more I thought of it, the more I had to leave out the Oilers for a couple reasons. For one thing, I spent 18 years living next to them and getting their news press and tv reports, and still for some reason or another never became 'attached' like I did with the Raptors and Blue Jays... in fact I was probably less attached to them than the other teams on this list. Is it because those two have the distinction of being the only Canadian team and that matters more than my direct geographic region? Maybe. But in any case, if it didn't happen then despite so much oppurtunity, sometimes you have to think things aren't meant to be. But more importantly, like what happened with the Flyers, they fall victim to the 'slightly one upped trap'. Mainly, if I'm going to pick a Canadian team (not saying I will, but that's the way the Oilers would be considered), they're easily the weakest of the three. Vancouver being my neighbour NOW is more important than Edmonton being my neighbour then, and Toronto has the supporting teams, the cup curse, and the fact that I've partly been cheering them for years anyways. So Edmonton was the easiest team to cut right now for that reason.

New Orleans Saints
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Washington Redskins

Picking New Orleans would be like picking Pittsburgh in the NHL... it's too easy. And I'm more of a defensive sports fan, so they're on the opposite side of the fence.

Tampa and Washington... I dunno. Again I just "liked them the least". In the case of the former I suppose, I hate the Lightning and Rays so by association I knock them off. Skins, eh, I guess because I'm making a habit of staying away from the already great teams.

NY Giants


I was holding off on the Giants because unlike some of the other 'frontrunners' who I've been wary of jumping on with, they've been the closest thing to the team I'm cheering for the last couple years... with that being said, they were never 'my team', just the one I wanted to win the most. So it would make sense for me to just pick them outright. But at the end of the day I realized that while it was a courteous move to leave them in the hunt long for that reason, the chances of me actually picking them in the end were lower than the rest remaining on the list.

Fuck you, Shack. Fuck you.

I hope you pick the Leafs, and have to spend the next 60 years of your life whining while they never win another Cup again. EVER.

Green Bay Packers

Can't really say much about it other than it just doesn't feel right. This is getting to be a real bitch wittling these down. I'm not even in the top 10 yet!

Miami Dolphins

Again, just looking over the list, seemed the least likely to say "I choose you" to. I don't like Parcells either.

Carolina Panthers

I was cheering for them in those superbowls, explaining their decent survival here, but the Hurricanes ruined the city of Carolina for me.

St. Louis Rams
Baltimore Ravens
Houston Texans

Again not much explanation, just seemed unlikely in comparison to the other candidates I would actually choose them in the end.

Whoa, just like that down to 5 for hockey and 6 for football. Zipping through this. The hockey one is impossible to break apart, but I guess I've made my decision

Vancouver Canucks

There's no denying the benefits of joining the Canucks train, as I could actually watch the games on a real tv, and with people. Geographically it would make most sense for me to just get on board and accept this as my team for better or worse right now. But the fact remains, before I moved here, I hated this franchise... they were definitely my least favorite Canadian team. So there would be something unnatural about jumping on board this train. It would be forced, you know. At the end of the day, removing geography, I like the other teams and their franchises WAY, WAY more. That's all I got, again this is harder than Suduku.

Chicago Bears

Just feeling the top 5 more, as much as I'd like to be a "Da Bears"-er

Seattle Seahawks

Just feeling the top 4 more, although Seattle's bad luck lately makes me feel sorry for them. Also not a Mike Holmgrom fan. Or an Elizabeth Hasselback one.

Now I'm stuck. The remaining:

NHL:
Toronto
Minnesota
Boston
Buffalo

NFL:
Buffalo
Arizona
Minnesota
Atlanta

If I take either Buffalo or Minnesota, do I double dip? Do I go with the Canadian team? Hmm.

From what is left...

NHL: Toronto
NFL: Buffalo