Completionist

When the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004 after an 86-year drought, Bill Simmons wrote a book Now I Can Die in Peace. I was never a baseball guy, but the concept stuck with me. 

You think about it when your NFL team loses seven playoff games in a row.

You think about it when your NHL team is the worst in the league and you've never seen them win a single series. 

You think about cities like Buffalo, Minneapolis and Cleveland prior to 2016, where they have multiple teams and still have gone long stretches without seeing a champion. It is entirely realistic to go your whole life and not see your particular team win a title. Around 2016-2017, it seemed more than realistic for me to not see the Chiefs or Avalanche win a title. I thought law of averages, Chiefs might win in fifty years and Avalanche might win in thirty years. But until it happens, you just never know. Even with one minute on the clock up a goal in Game 6, you just never know. 

And then the Chiefs drafted Patrick Mahomes. I got to see the team I care about most, the team that had hurt me to the point where I was almost numb to playoff losses, come back in the Super Bowl and lift the Lombardi Trophy.

And then I got to see the Avalanche get over the hump of three straight second-round exits. I got to see my hockey team lift the greatest trophy in all of sports. For the next 61 years, the names Landeskog, MacKinnon and Makar are going to be engraved on the Stanley Cup.

In times of desperation, I've prayed to the sports gods "just one." I vowed to never be greedy. Just let me see one title and I won't ask for anything else. I'm here to keep that vow. 

Yes, I'm still a fan. And when the Chiefs made it back to Super Bowl LV I wanted them to win. But it's okay that they lost. I never demanded or expected to see a dynasty. I just wanted one in football and one in hockey. Now I've gotten both.

Hockey and football, complete. 

The only other teams I care about are the Illini, my alma mater. The trick there is that I know Illinois football will never win a national championship. I've accepted that. It's fine. I saw them go to two BCS bowls in person and lose both. It's possible that they could even win the Rose Bowl once, but that's still not a real title. So I can basically just cross them off and say that's complete too. 

Illinois Basketball on the other hand...I did see them come within a hair of a national title. It was tied with a couple minutes left. It's possible for them to get back to a Final Four in the next fifty years. Once your there, they could even win a natty. But even if it never happens. I'm good.