Is it spring yet?

I swear, winter can't end soon enough, sports-wise. Consider the events of the first six weeks of 2007:

• January 3 -- attended the Sugar Bowl, which for about 28 minutes was somewhat competitive, but then the walls came crashing in as LSU outscored ND 27-0 in the last 32. It took many, many test tube shots from in between girls' cleavage to dull the pain.
• January 6 -- attended the Notre Dame basketball game at Georgetown, which traditionally has been a victory for the Irish. They even won their first game in DC this year, against Maryland, which is part of the reason I had high hopes for the Big East season and this game in particular. But instead I had a front row seat (literally) to see the Hoyas do early what the Tigers did late -- assaulted us by going up 21-6 on their way to an 18 point win. (Apparently my bad luck at football games has crossed over to basketball. The last four ND games I've been to have made me sick to my stomach:

• 2007 Gtown L, 66-48 (fewest points under Brey)
• 2005 NC St. L, 61-48 (ditto)
• 2005 Gtown L, 55-54 (lost on a dunk with 0.1 seconds left)
• 2004 Rutgers L, 81-70 (run out of the RAC)


By now I'm convinced that if I went to see our #1 hockey team play Southern Miss, we'd lose by four goals.)

• Then, in between watching ND lose even more inexplicably to St. Johns and South Florida, I managed to enjoy the Bears' first Super Bowl run in my memory. The game even started as well as possible, with the opening kickoff return and an INT of Manning. Then the football gods realized that I'm a Bears fan and made Rex Grossman's hands extra super slippery.

I have no idea what I did to anger whatever deities control these things. I try to live a clean existence, devoid of bearing false witness against my teams' abilities and coveting my neighbor's championships. I even make sacrifices at the altar of Cub fandom every summer. Surely seeing a few wins isn't too much to ask. While I won't stop going to games, I may go to fewer until the ratio gets a little better. I would say I'm going to quit cold turkey, but that would be untrue because (a) I can talk a big game but we all know there's no way I'm never going to another game again, and (b) if I did, the curse would definitely extend to games that I watch on TV, making the only possible scenario for my teams to win involve me climbing a mountain somewhere off the grid, completely unable to follow the games. Since that defeats the purpose of being a fan, I'm just going to have to put my head down and push through this. All I know is that if it is some kind of test, it better not last 40 damn years.