Agony and Ecstacy

So why do we like sport? That's a question I'm often asked. I'm passionate about my sport, just ask anyone who knows me, including Ash who's on the couch beside me watching the Gilmore Girls... and she says I'm sad.

This weekend I experienced the highs and the lows of sport, the reason that I follow teams, sportsmen, my country, my province.

On Saturday night the Chicago Cubs were dumped out of the MLB Playoffs by the Dodgers. Another sweep. Christ.. Now I'm not the biggest Cubbie in the world. I'm only a recent convert. Nonetheless, I really wanted them to win this year. It would have been great symmetry, 100 years after their last World Series win, five years after Steve Bartman. However, it was not to be.

By the way, Ozzie... Fuck you too.

Then, less than 24 hours later, Connacht took on Leinster in the Magners League in rugby. Oh Connacht... being a fan of the worst province in is the definition of a labour of love. We are given less money then every other team, and are less successful then the others also. Yet sometimes...sometimes the underdog wins. That was last night. Connacht beat Leinster 19-18. It was amazing. I cried. Genuinely, I cried. It was beautiful.

That's why I love sport. Joy, despair.. I laughed, I cried. It was everything that sport should be about. It was life at it's purest. Sport gives us moments we yearn for, ranges of emotion that re only otherwise hit in times such as family deaths, births and weddings. My life is sport. Sport is my life.