Anticipation

While many (most?) of you are reveling in the first two weeks of the MLS season, we Thunder fans are still waiting. We don’t have our season opener until April 23rd. At least it’s at home, but after that it’s another month before we can see our boys live again.

But it’s ok. The season is near and there’s still plenty of soccer to be seen from the ESPN coverage of MLS to the FSC coverage of the EPL, Bundesliga, and Serie A.

But it’s nothing like the real thing. Live in the stands, heckling the opposition bench less than 10 yards away.

The anticipation for this season has been building since last October when Amos Magee was named the new head coach. Since then, we über-fans have spent countless hours trying to figure out who will be on the team, who will show well and who will flop. Where will the team end up? How will Amos’ new system work? How will the players adapt? It’s all been building to a triumphant orgasm of a home opener, complete with Free Beer.

Adding to my own anticipation is the acquisition in my office of a brand new, gun-metal gray, SB-95C confetti shredder with lifetime guaranteed cutting cylinders. This baby shreds through our admissions files like nobody’s business and has thus far made about seven bags of confetti just waiting to be torn open and scattered about the track at the Jimmy after a Thunder goal.

Last season was a disappointment, but that never stops a team’s fans from believing that this season will be different. Each year begins with new hope, before either building to a playoff run or petering out in all-too familiar disappointment. Unless you make a great run to the quarterfinals of the US Open Cup, perhaps.

I’m also living in fearful anticipation of two other events in my life. Foremost in my mind is my wedding, an event that apparently takes more planning for fine detail than the Yahoo Mastercard Budweiser Avaya Adidas Hyundai McDonalds Emirates Toshiba Philips Gillette Fujifilm Coca Cola FIFA World Cup™ itself. Anticipation for this event is greater for me than that for the season or for the aforementioned World Cup. I fully expect it to be the greatest day of my life and the only thing that I think could make me as happy would be for the Thunder to win the USL-1 championship or the US Open Cup or for the US to win the World Cup. None of those events will be happening this year.

Less enjoyable in the near future is my date tomorrow with an oral surgeon. I’m going to be missing several days of work, but at least I’ve got plenty of soccer to watch while I’m in a slightly altered state of consciousness.