No curse, no curse

Growing up I've always been a sports junkie, my main focuses has always been basketball and football. I love My Kings and Steelers. With both teams riding high early in the new millenium. Eight straight playoff appearances for the Sacramento Kings highlighted by the heartbreaking Game 7 breakdown in the Western Conference Finals to the Lakers in 2002. As for the Steelers, getting to the AFC Championship game was never the issue but as far as winning them, that's a whole different story.

My last glimpse hope came in the 2003-04 season for both the Kings and Steelers. In a season that saw the Steelers become the first AFC team to win 15 games and with their new hot shot rookie quarterback Ben Roethlisberger it seem like the sky was the limit for this team. That was until they bowed out to the New England Patriots in the AFC Championship game. The same thing applied to my beloved Kings as they carried on much of the season without Chris Webber and finished with a astonding 55-27 record only to lose in another seven game nail biter to the Minnesota Timberwolves. To sum it all up, I was crushed, I felt like I am cursed, that whatever team I root for will never win the big one.

The following season the Kings traded away Chris Webber and their window for success was closing fast. As for the Steelers' they started out fast by opening the season 7-2, before injuries to Big Ben led to three straight losts and on the brink of missing the playoffs. If I wasn't fully convinced I was cursed, I am 90% convinced now.

Then something happened, they got like Kobe Bryant hot (no homo) the Steelers won their last four regular season games in convincing fashion, just enough to get into the playoffs as the six seed. But any football fan knows that no six seed has ever reached the Super Bowl so their chances were as good as me hooking up with let's say Halle Barry.

Then something even more amazing happend, in the Wildcard game, Bengals quarterback Carson Parmer got hurt on the first play of the game...Steeler victory. In the Divisional round against the Colts' when we seemed to have the game sealed until a late game fumble at the goal line by Jerome Bettis. Giving Peyton and the Colts' one last chance to win the game, that was until their "big mouth yet mad efficient" kicker Mike Vanderjagt missed an easy 46 yard field goal. Then in the Conference championship game against the new and improved Jake Plummer led Denver Broncos, then somehow the Steelers' "D" seem to have turned the clock back on Jake "The Snake" and cruised to a 34-17 win. Super Bowl XL here we come.

February 5th, 2006, I was overcome with joy that one of the teams I have rooted for is part of the "big" game and was 60 minutes away from possibly winning Super Bowl XL...maybe I do have a shot with Halle Barry after all.

Well we all know what happened in that game, aside from the story about how Jerome Bettis finally gets a Super Bowl and to win it back in his home town, it was a relatively uneventful game but Steelers won. STEELERS WON! I almost wanted to do the Steve Young "get this monkey off my back" thing. It was arguably one of the single most greatest feeling in my life. I still get goosebumps thinking about that night.

Guess I am not really cursed afterall.