The Passion of Every Canadian

(I'm a little late with this one. Forgot to post it when I wrote it last week)

Every Wednesday night I go down to the church and play basketball. We don't talk about much, but after the game a number of guys go to Filo's down the street for appetizers. I went this week to get to know some of the guys and talk sports, but I found myself in over my head when the conversation ranged between Flames hockey and, well, Canadian hockey on a broader sense. There were at least 5-10 minutes we talked about other sports--baseball playoffs, the NBA (but mainly the fact that another Canadian could go as the #1 pick), and even a couple of other subjects, but other than that it was all hockey, and we were there for over an hour. And most of that hockey was about the Flames, although there was some discussion about who the Maple Leafs would decide on as their starting goalie

For years I have followed every major sport--baseball, basketball, football, soccer, and even hockey--and I have a pretty good knowledge of all of them. But hockey is definitely in the backseat to the others. Being from Northern California my favorite team growing up was the San Jose Sharks, who made the playoff nearly every year, but I wasn't as interested as I was the other sports, simply because no one else was. It wasn't televised or covered in the newspaper as much (that's right, I followed sports in the newspaper). The Sharks have been really good recently, but I honestly haven't followed the entire league other than standings. So to sit down and try to be part of a discussion about players on a team in a rebuilding season was beyond me, even if it was my new home's team.
TSN (the equivalent of ESPN) is the same way. I'm looking for football highlights on Monday and analysis during the week, and every time it takes the backseat to hockey. And the brunt of the coverage goes (deservedly) to the Cannucks, Flames, Oilers, Jets, Maple Leafs, Senators, Canadiens and Sidney Crosby, but I still get a whole lot more Sharks news than I did before I came here (like highlights of the team improving to 6-0-0 and 20 minute of analysis of this).
Out of all the cultural changes that I've had to and I foresee myself needing to adjust to, becoming a real hockey fan--the way I am a baseball and football fan--may just be the most difficult, or at least take the most work (although recycling isn't always easy for me to remember, either).