Growing up a Cubs fan made me a cynic...

...but becoming a Blackhawks fan has made me a believer. Today we've got a metaphorical adventure, about fandom, heartbreak, elation, loyalty, etc.

Last night I was up until the wee hours of the morning watching a tiny black disc travel at lightning speeds across a sheet of frozen water approximately 700 miles away from my living room. The Chicago Blackhawks were playing the Boston Bruins in the first game of the Stanley Cup Finals, an original six match-up between two of the greatest sporting cities in the country.

A little more than five hours after the initial puck drop, the Hawks walked away victorious. Somehow they'll have to spend the next three days recuperating, repairing and rebuilding all the energy they expelled over five and a half periods of hockey Wednesday night and be full-powered and ready to go Saturday night for game two. It will be an impressive feat, for sure; I can barely keep my eyes open today and I didn't play a single minute of hockey last night, let alone more than 100.

(I did go on about a three-mile run last night. Needless to say, I was a lot less proud of myself after watching guys my own age keep skating with a level of intensity I could never reach well into the third overtime.)

As I sat there watching the blurs of red and white whiz by, I was hit by a strange realization. As the game went longer and longer and sudden death become more sudden and deadlier, I found myself cringing every time the puck entered the Hawks zone. I sat on the edge of my seat, convinced the puck was going to slip by, that there were too many white jerseys in relation to red, and soon it would all be for naught.

But when the puck inevitably did not go in, and instead found itself on the other side of the ice, there was no corresponding optimism, elation or confidence that the red jerseys outnumbered the white and surely the puck would find its way into the back of the net. I was certain that, with the game on the line, the puck would instantly be cleared, find its way to the other side, and we'd be right where we started again.

I suppose every fan probably feels this way; being optimistic is too much of a risk. This column does a solid job of capturing the feelings that come with watching hockey, especially in overtime - every possession change is heartbreaking, every near miss is a moment of pure terror.

But I think I'm more prone to this feeling of abject fear after years spent believing in the Cubs only to watch my dreams be crushed, mercilessly, time after time. I just read another article about the difference between Red Sox fans and Cubs fans, as explained by Theo Epstein, that I think captured part, but not all, of the truth.

Epstein, who grew up a Sox fan before leading the team to its first World Series championship since 1918 as general manger, theorized that even in the good times, Red Sox fans are always preparing for the worst. Cubs fans, on the other hand, find optimism even in the worst stretches. The team may be terrible, but a game-saving catch is still a highlight worthy of hours of celebration.

I think he's right, in that the defining characteristic of Cubs fans is that we always, always believe. Even in 2003, as game six of the NLCS slipped away in tragic fashion, my 13-year-old self was confident Kerry Wood would come out, pitch the game of his life, and the Cubs would be headed to the World Series once again.

But that didn't happen, and my little heart broke, not for the first time, and certainly not for the last, because of the Cubs' fate. I think that's the important corollary to the undying belief - when that belief is shattered, when the other shoe drops, it stings all the more painfully.

So now, I think, I've learned to be more guarded. I still fully believe in the Cubs every time I watch them, but I've learned to protect my heart when it comes to my other sports idols - the Bears, the Hoosiers, the Hawks. For the most part my caution has been rewarded, in a way; it's not as difficult to watch IU fall far too early in the NCAA if I was kind of expecting it all along, and I've learned to just take what I can get with the often good but never great Monsters of the Midway.

The Hawks, though, are teaching me to shed that cynicism. I started paying attention to hockey and cheering for the team a few years prior to the 2010 Cup win, jumping on the bandwagon when the team added two young, dynamic players named Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews, stopped blacking out games on television, and overall acted like it cared about having fans and winning hockey games.

And lo and behold, my fandom was rewarded. I still can't quite believe they won in 2010; Kane's game winner was so hard to see for several seconds he was the only one who knew it had gone in and the Hawks were the champs. But they did win, and they've continued to be good, often great, making it back to the Cup finals in tidy fashion and grinding out an impressive victory against what looks to be a fairly formidable Bruins team.

For the next two weeks, I'll likely spend many a night perched on the edge of my seat, pulling at my cheeks and burying my head in my hands when I can't bear to watch. I'll still, I expect, be surprised every time Corey Crawford makes an improbable save or somehow Kane finds the net in a way I did not think possible. Cubbie-bred cynicism won't be that easy to shed.

But I suspect another year with Chicago as the keeper of the Stanley Cup will go a ways towards helping.