I’d never broken a bone before the week I decided to relentlessly troll Ottawa Senators fans during their 2017 Eastern Conference Finals run. The funny thing is, as I was pulling my Sidney Crosby jersey over my shoulders for the third time in five days, I basically dared the universe to give me its best shot. I’ll tell you, the universe heard my challenge, and responded with swift karmic justice.

As a former Toronto Maple Leafs fan, I’d never had an issue sharing my true feelings about the Sens or their fans. The truth is though, before moving here in 2012, my animosities were mostly directed towards the Habs and their fanbase in Montreal. But going to university where the campus bar had a gigantic Senator logo painted on the wall, and where obnoxious Sens fans roamed the halls just waiting to tell me how much they hate the Leafs at every turn, I started to become bitter. So much so, that whenever the Sens had even a fraction of success, I would deliberately go out of my way to antagonize their spirited fans … without taking things too far.

In 2017, while the Leafs failed to make it out of the first round of the playoffs, the Sens made it all the way to the Eastern Conference Final for a date with Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins. By that point, Elgin Street had annoyingly been dubbed “Sens Mile,” and the volume coming from Sens fans was at an all-time high. It was insufferable, really. Fortunately, my grandmother from the East Coast is a huge Crosby fan and once gifted me a Penguins jersey with his name on it. So, after the Sens won game one in overtime, I decided to up the ante: even if it was over 30 degrees, on gamedays I threw on that heavy, black jersey and made sure everybody knew I was immune to the plague of Sens fandom that was ravaging the city.

The night of game two, I met my friends after work at Hooley’s on “Sens Mile.” I must have stuck out like a sore thumb because as soon as I walked in, I was getting jeered from all directions. It never bothered me, even when I sat on the back of a booth and loudly chanted down the final seconds of the Sens’ first defeat of the series. As the crowd solemnly began to file out, some random guy flipped whatever beer was left in his cup all over me, which only fed my ego.

Two nights later, while my jersey hung in the changeroom at work, my boss Sarah and my friend Graham discreetly covered the Crosby nameplate with duct tape and wrote the words “LOSE BAG” in large black letters. They laughed at me as I walked past them, oblivious to what they’d done. It wasn’t until I got to another friend’s place where he started laughing at me that I realized I was the butt of some joke. I took off the jersey, saw Graham and Sarah’s work, and called them to give the credit they deserved.

Which brings us to Friday, May 19 – the Friday of the May long weekend and the day of game five. As I pulled the beer-stained, once-vandalized jersey over my head, I said out loud to myself, “What’s it going to be today?” Not 30 minutes later, through no fault of my own, I was involved in a collision with a Blue Line taxi while biking to work that resulted in a broken left elbow and a hairline fracture in my right forearm. As I picked myself up off the road, the first thing I did was struggle to remove the jersey and tuck it in bag, because the last thing I needed was to limp my way into work looking like the enemy of the town. My friends were sympathetic, and made sure I contacted my family and made it safely to the hospital, but I couldn’t help feeling like karma had caught up to me.

I won’t lie, leaving the hospital wearing two arm slings was a blessing in disguise. Instead of beginning a long summer’s grind at work, I drank wine through a straw, was fed filet mignon, and got an unexpected East Coast holiday while I recovered. Best of all, the Sens ended up losing game seven in double overtime, and I like to think my sacrifice had something to do with that. The downside is, though, I’ll likely having lingering pain in my elbow for the rest of my life. I certainly learned my lesson – I’ll never openly challenge the universe again.

Connor Burk

Connor is in his second year of Algonquin’s Professional Writing Program. He is also an avid sports fan, fantasy football commissioner and believer that if one yells loud enough, they’ll be heard through the televison.