My Hockey Addiction

Holy crap. Finally got some time to watch hockey tonight and I was amazed how much faster the game seems (maybe its just been the year off). It seems like the players can get a lot more speed moving into the offensive zone and it really amps up the action.

It also helps that in the hour I watched the Sharks were down 0-1, then 0-2, but were able to score two goals to force overtime. After the 5 minute overtime I got the pleasure of seeing the Shark's first shootout win of the year. Very exciting, definitely appreciate the changes they've made in the game. It was always so disappointing before when the game ended in a tie -- kind of a let down. Yeah, maybe it polutes the 'purity' of the game and increases the variance, but you gotta figure that the better team is still going to come out ahead on average.

Yeah, did I mention that I have two addictions? The first one is obviously poker. The second one is fantasy hockey. I've got two teams and I obsess about each of them (even though neither of them is that good and I don't have much of a chance in the long-term in either league).

A while ago I saw a website about the signs of problem gambling and it was: preoccupation, check... betting more frequently... check... chasing losses... check... procrastinating work to think about poker... check... hmmm. Honestly, the only thing that separates me from a problem gambler is that I don't lose enough. That's the nice thing about poker -- you can disguise an addiction with a steady income.

And, sadly, it is much the same with fantasy hockey. Two years ago (you know, before the players and NHL decided to suspend games in a sport that was already losing fans faster than a Walmart in Florida) I sunk a lot of time into one fantasy team, so I was a little concerned about how much time I would spend this year. You know, like how much poker would I get to play? Well, turns out poker didn't lose out too much, and I don't spend too much time on fantasy hockey.

Most notably, so far I've spent a lot less time watching games, so tonight was a real treat to see a half-hour of hockey. It doesn't help that the Sharks seem to always play on poker nights. But who needs to watch -- FHL is mostly stats anyway :)