It happened again yesterday.
My alma mater, the Tar Heels of North Carolina, were playing in the ACC tourney; it was a game I needed to watch. Note, I did not say I wanted to watch it, but I "needed" to watch it. Plus, I was hungry, and I had no food in my home. So I head over to the Bullfrog, one of the local establishments a few blocks from my home. Eric the bartender is there. "Do you want something to eat, or a drink?" he asks. "Beer. The dang Tar Heels are on and they are losing."
And that is how it started.
Living in Minnesota, you are fairly well removed from the ACC and the loyalties/hatred to certain teams. Rarely do you meet someone from the ACC, but when you do it is generally friendly and it will involve the inevitable question of "why did we move here?" Rarely do you get a negative reaction. Today, however, was one of those days.
Something I did or said set off one of the guys at the bar next to me. It wasn't just a hatred of North Carolina, or a love of our opponent, NC State (no one loves State. not even NC State fans). For some reason this guy hated UNC or me, or both. It was more then run of the mill comments about regrettable players in our past (Timo Makkonen), but vicious comment about our cheating, overrated, corrupt program. It was pretty vicious stuff, worse then what you would hear in ACC country, and very surprising for Minnesota nice.
This being my home for the past 10+ years, I channeled my inner Minnesotan: I ignored him, said nothing, then waited till later to bitch about him to anyone who would listen (or read this). Then it hit me. I really, really need a Carolina bar.
Back in NC, I could find dozens of places to watch a UNC game among fans (or Dook haters). UNC fans need this. We are like early man; we need numbers for security, knowing that at any moment we could blow it. Having others there provides comfort and support, something we desperately need. The problem is, I don't have a place like that in Minnesota.
Overall, there are really not any good sports bars in downtown Minneapolis. There are a few bars that I have gone to that have TVs, good service, and generally have fans that won't bug me, but one by one, these bars have been cursed by horrific losses, and have been black listed for Tar Heel games (The Local, The News Room, Britts, etc). The only place where I had good mojo for me was the former-Hooters at block E (yeah, don't judge me). We went there because it was the only place that had multiple TVs, a great barkeep in the very un-Hooter like Megan, and that is where I watched every Tar Heel game during their 2009 run, which they won it all. Since then, they have closed down due to tax reasons (e.g. they didn't pay them), and I have yet to find a good replacement.
I tried Kieran's which is directly below the old Hooters. I figured maybe there was something about the spot where I watched the game, like there was a central vortex for positive Carolina mojo. It worked for the most part last year - we beat Marquette, avenging the horrific tourney loss in 1977, but it wasn't good enough to get to the final four (at one point. I was considering standing on the bar, just to get closer to the vortex, but was wisely advised this was not a good idea, not the least of which I would probably not be able to crawl up there).
Today I am going to try a new location, in Uptown, and I will be joined by folks who are pro UNC (or at least anti-dook; same-same). They know the pain of being a Tar Heel fan and they know better then to say stuff like "looks like you are going to win" when there is still time on the clock (for reference, you really should wait a good 5-10 minutes after the game before celebrating, just to make sure). Hopefully, we will have a win, and maybe I will find some other UNC fans and we can start to build up the support system we need before the tourney.
Go Heels!
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