Atoning for My Sins

Last Saturday, lost in the shuffle of Stanford football, was Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year for Jews.  According to Wikipedia (the definitive authority on religious matters, of course), Yom Kippur's "central themes are atonement and repentance" and is the day when "a Jew tries to amend his or her behavior and seek forgiveness for wrongs done."  Wikipedia goes on to state that "the evening and day of Yom Kippur are set aside for public and private petitions and confessions of guilt."  Well, I'm not going to use this space to make any public confessions of wrongdoing over the past year; that would require thoughtful introspection and a mature attitude, neither of which I have any time or tolerance for.  I do, however, want to take account of my confessions of guilt as a sports fan, with hopes that I can indeed amend my behavior between now and next October.

• I was a terrible New York Islanders, and NHL hockey in general, fan this year.  Not only did I not make it to one NHL game - the previous season I went to both an Islanders home game and a Rangers home game (free tickets to the latter, of course) - but I also did a bad job following the league via TV or Internet.  The Isles' repeated awfulness is no excuse to giving up on a great game, perhaps the most extertaining one to see live (hopefully more on this later this year when I get a chance to make it to a Sharks game down in San Jose).
• I almost gave up on the Braves in April of this season when they suffered a nine-game losing streak right off the bat.  While I never completely counted them out of it, I did start looking towards next year and was willing to sacrifice the present for the future.  There were a lot of statements that sounded like "well, when we have Freddie Freeman starting at first base in 2011, then . . ." coming out of my mouth this past April, as certain friends and loyal Caught Looking readers are unwilling to let me forget it.
• I screwed up the setting of my DVR and failed to record a crucial ACC basketball matchup during this past college hoops season.  While this might not sound like much to some, I know how frustrating it is when you don't get to watch your team play a game you've been really excited about, so I apologize to the relevant parties (you know who you are) and promise to be more careful with my DVR technology going forward.
• Once again, I didn't find a way to get access to DirecTV's NFL Sunday Ticket this year.  While it's not really my fault - my only TV options in New York and here at Stanford didn't offer it - but I still feel wrong about not having access to arguably the greatest sports media offering on the market.  Some day, I promise you that I will live in a place that can get DirecTV just so I can order the NFL package.  When that happens, don't expect much from me on Sundays.

I'm sure there are more, but "legitimate" writing calls.  What sports fan sins did you commit this past year?