Growing up in the north is completely different than growing up in the south. Different types of food, clothing styles, vocabulary, and especially a different taste in the sports you like. From living a majority of my life in the north, I have fallen in line with their stereotypical lifestyle. I don't enjoy all of my foods with copious amounts of butter on them, I don't always remember my manners, and I surely don't wait around anxiously for college football season.

In fact, I don't follow college football at all, aside from my college's team. I am a proud and avid Chicago Blackhawks fan. I love watching the quickness that is hockey, and it's exhilerating watching the puck scale across the ice and into the net. Being a hockey fan in the south and finding another fellow lover of hockey is like finding a needle in a haystack. But when you do find someone else, its like being given a present when it's not your birthday. Someone else who appreciates the amount of skill and talent that it takes to skate on ice, while using a stick to maneuver a flat puck passed defenders and a goalie.

Currently, the NBA playoffs are happening. I wouldn't have known about the playoffs except for the fact that Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors have been playing exceptionally well and breaking records left and right. However, everyone around me is talking about all of the playoff series and I can only think about one thing... it's Stanley cup season. About a week ago, Stanley cup playoffs began. This basically means that all of the hockey teams, the ones who have qualified of course, have begun playing 5 game playoff series in hopes of advancing to the next round. To someone who doesn't understand the "hockey fan lifestyle", this is the best time of the year.

I yearn for the day where I walk into a sports bar in Atlanta and see hockey on the TV. Last summer I had to beg my boss to turn on the cup series game in our restaurant. I would do anything to be able to strike up a conversation about hockey in public with a complete stranger. Every time I see a hockey t-shirt, hat, jersey, you name it on campus I fangirl a little at the idea of another hockey fan in the south. There are lots of things I love about living in the south, from the sweet tea to the beautiful summer-like days in the middle of March, but one thing that I miss from the north is hockey.