Had A Bad Day #1

With the Pirates season getting ready to kick off, the dismal season the Steelers had last year, and the Penguins season winding down (hopefully not with a thud), I am reminded of many disappointing periods over the last few decades.

Being a Pittsburgh sports fan has not always been the thing to swoon over the last 20 years, despite the 3 Stanley Cups and 2 Lombardi Trophies.  There have been many heartaches and heart breaks through the years and I think these posts will epitomize that fact.  Why focus on the negative?  It keeps me grounded for when my teams fail to accomplish a goal and it makes the victories that much sweeter. 

With that being said, I want to kick this off with what I think is probably my personal worst fan day.

1. Super Bowl XXX - Steelers lose to the Cowboys - When the best part of the game was Rod Woodson taunting Michael Irvin by pointing to his surgically reconstructed blown ACL, you know it's not going to be a very good day.  Woodson played well.  Not his best game of his career, but better than most of the guys on the rest of the team.  Irvin would have the last laugh in the end, though.

This was Neil O'Donnell's final game as a Steeler.  You have to understand how hard it is to even type his name without breaking the keyboard.  It wasn't until after the 2006 Super Bowl that I could actually say his name out loud without going into a fit of rage.  I spent the previous years cursing his name and denying the fact he was even a member of the team.  I even went as far as cutting all of his cards into four sections.  Not tearing, because that would be too quick and painless, but cutting.  The four sections were then destroyed in four different calculated destruction ceremonies.  One pile was burned.  One pile was thrown in the trash.  One pile was buried in the little strip of grass we had on the side of our dorm building.  The final pile was released out the window of a moving vehicle while traveling at a high speed down Interstate 74.  This assured that none of the pieces would somehow find their ways back to each other and reform into some kind of Franken-card and continue to taunt me with their wickedness. 

I still hold a grudge against is cheatin' ass. Yeah, that's right.  Cheater, cheater, punkin eater.  Sour grapes, jealousy, hatred, call it what you want.  I will go to my grave believing Jerry Jones somehow paid him off.  How do you think it looks when you take a team to the Super Bowl, blow the game with completely unforced throws to phantom receivers that are easily picked off, only to follow it up the next day by jumping to another team for the highest paid QB contract in the league?  He had to get out.  People would have found out the truth had he stayed. 

PAID OFF! 

I'm not taking anything away from the play of Cowboys in this game.  They obviously wanted it more and played like they did.  It just hurts a little or a lot.  The two Lombardi's since then has somewhat eased the pain.

That was actually a little theraputic.  I can't wait to get day #2 off my chest.