To be a sports fan is to constantly push toward your own destruction.

To be a sports fan is to ask how, in which new and inventive way, will my team hurt me this year?

And yet, even after you’ve asked, even when you know it’s coming, you just don’t know how, when it happens, and it will happen, it guts you, leaves you wincing in pain, gasping for breath.

In March, you were resigned, then resolute. You wouldn’t let them hurt you again like this. It’s only hockey, after all. There are so many more important things in the world.

In the summer, things are great. You feel like a normal human. You go outside for fresh air, take walks in the sunshine. You watch movies and regular TV. Sometimes you even start interacting with others again. You leave town and, among foothills and vineyards, contemplate what a life without it would be like, here in a world where no one cares. It would be OK, you decide. Great, even.

But then you return, and summer begins to wind down, and it begins to slowly creep back into your life in popcornlike bursts, small at first, but then more insistent. They fire an assistant coach and you march around the house to Battle Hymn, arm sweeping back and forth with pride. You say how terrible they’re going to be and scoff at anyone who thinks otherwise, but deep down you want to believe, doubt soaks in through your pores. Maybe it won’t be like that. Maybe not this time. Maybe they’ll be better now. And then, like a diehard 9/11 truther, you connect dots that don’t exist, concoct theories even you don’t believe. Old, good assistant coach coming back… the new freshmen… maybe the new captain will inspire leadership… maybe they will learn to play defense at last… maybe… maybe…

And so it’s October, and here you are, and here they are, and you are so hungry for them, your inner rage unchanneled for months. Despite all your promises, despite knowing better, you have allowed yourself to be tricked once again, to feel that second most terrible of all feelings: hope.

They will squeeze you through an emotional wringer week after week, occasionally bringing flashes of promise, followed by soul-crushing disappointment. Their defense will be atrocious, their power play anemic, their passing should be accompanied by the Benny Hill music at all times. The puck will find its way straight to the goalie’s chest, sail about three feet over a wide open net, or worst of all, ping! The pipe that haunts your nightmares.

You insist they will kill you someday. You envision your heart exploding out of your chest, entrails spilling everywhere. If you bled out, would maroon gush out one side and gold out the other? Would Goldy curl up on your grave and weep, murmuring “I understand” over and over in unintelligible gopher language?

But you keep watching. Night after night, weekend after weekend. It’s not that you think they’ll turn it around. You know better. You’ve watched too long. And optimism has never been your strong point. No, you continue on because of one simple reason.

You love them. It is the cruel and horrible truth of sports, and the most terrible of all feelings. You love them, so you will endure through everything awful they throw at you. And make no mistake, they will throw everything at you. Most of the season you will feel like you’re screaming into the wind, and your neighbors will wonder if they should call the authorities about all the shouting next door. “You having problems with your boyfriend, ma’am?” the cop will ask, and you will point at the television and reply, “They’re fucking losing to Anchorage.”

You love them for a variety of reasons, and your story, like all fan stories, is more important to you than it is to anyone else. But long ago in enemy territory, when your thoughts were consumed with how worthless and horrible you were and how there was no reason you should even be alive in this void of a town, they were there. They were on TV every weekend to remind you there was a world outside your abyss, and the only thing worse than living another day here in the world you never belonged would be to die without trying to find a world where you did.

They’re not the only reason you’re still here to watch the game tonight. But they remind you, no matter how terrible, that you escaped, that even for a walking trainwreck like you, things got better. Your first time in Mariucci, you felt like you had found your home, that you were finally among your people, who spoke your language, who got it. Your friends mostly have to be dragged along to sporting events, but here everyone was a friend, an angry friend who understood the principle of life catharsis through sports. You never had to explain yourself.

So for then, for now and for always. For the Maroon and Gold. The Pride on Ice. Battle Hymn. Sweep arm. Vulgar chants. Sieve arm. Blind refs. Sore throats. Better Dead Than Red. Ski-U-Mah. Forever.

Today, we are still undefeated. Crank up the Rouser and let us begin. They may well be a disaster, but they’re MY disaster. Trainwrecks in arms.

Go Gophers.