Absence makes the heart grow fonder?

I've always been a Detroit Red Wings fan, sort of by default. Born into it, kinda like being Catholic. When I hit my late teens and started making my own hockey decisions, I was still a Wings fan, but I ranked them a slight second place in my heart, giving top billing to the Avalanche. I was young. I was seduced by their speed, their winning record and their much prettier uniforms. While my heart was floating above Colorado, my physical location kept me anchored in the hold of the Wings.

Then I moved. Right into Maple Leaf heartland (a situation which could be its own post of issues, really. This and the lack of sushi were my two "cons" on my list of pros and cons for moving). And as I live through the months of this hockey season, I've realized something. I'm not a Colorado fan. I'm a Wings fan.

See, I don't actually *watch* hockey on a regular basis. I'll watch a bunch during playoffs, but during regular season, I don't follow hockey all that closely. (And now that my options are pretty much just Leafs after Leafs after Leafs, well... I really don't watch at all) I never realized how much I followed the Wings through osmosis. Radio and TV updates. Newspaper articles. Never really searching out the information and yet, always absorbing it nonetheless.

And now that I'm not surrounded by the constant Wings updates, now that I have to seek it out or be left in the dark (the latter happening more often than the first), I realize that Colorado was completely an infatuation. But the Wings... the Wings are for real. And for life.

Sometimes the one that you're looking for really is the one right in front of you.