Terrible Sports Weekend

Wow, this was most certainly a depressing sports "weekend" for me (including Thursday night, thus the quotes). Not only did a suffer some losses, but they were especially painful ones.
First, Bears - SF. This is definitely a game that the Bears should have been able to win. The 49ers are not a great team this year and the Bears should have been out to prove that they are a play-off team. Instead it was a sloppy, poorly played game in which both teams consistently squandered opportunities to take control. Well, mostly SF squandering all the opportunities the Bears were giving them. Watching our new "franchise" QB throw 5 INTs was brutal. 2 of which came in the end zone. Even worse, the 1st of those was to a large gentleman who was standing in plain sight. And even if he had missed it, there were 2 more defenders jumping in front of the receiver. So there was roughly a 0% chance of the pass not getting picked. Yeah, some were flukes with receivers falling down and running into refs, but even those looked like they could have been picked anyways. Even with all that, they still managed to bring it down to a last-second drive to possibly win it. A drive that ended in soul-crushing fashion with the 2nd INT in the end zone.
That brings us to yesterday's Purdue - Michigan State game. Purdue, even after so many brutal early-season losses was still in a position to get bowl eligible. All we had to do was Beat MSU and IU and we'd be set. First play of the game? Purdue fumbles a hand-off and MSU runs it in for a quick TD. 7 seconds; 7 points down. But they did rally back and were up by 11 in the 4th quarter before letting it slip away to lose 37-40. And thus a rough season of close losses and huge wins (Ohio State), yet another 2nd-half failure ends our run at a bowl game. Even though I'm excited about the direction the team is heading, and the young talent they have, it's tough to spend another year without a bowl.
And then came the Iowa-Ohio State game. I still had hopes that some family pride could be salvaged and have Iowa finish on top of the BigTen and head to the Rose Bowl. But it was not to be. The 3rd maddeningly close game of the weekend resulted in an Iowa loss. Luck for them they are still ranked #10 in the BCS and have a shot at moving up to at least #8 with a win next weekend and scoring a sweet BCS bowl.
And now I'm a short 2.5 hours away from my own hockey game, wondering if my luck will change just enough to get us a win. I don't ask for much; just a W.
Fingers crossed!!