Off-topic: A life lesson for junior male hockey fans

I like teachable moments in life. It's not often that I pull a non-hockey teachable moment onto the blog, but it is my duty as a woman to put this one out there for any mite-sized male fans.

Here's an email I received from a certain high-profile, male Caps blog author:

Hi, Kristin-

In preparing for the upcoming game between the Flyers and the Capitals, we wanted to get the perspective from "the other side." Quite simply, we'd love a one to two sentence soundbite/quote on why you think the Flyers will beat the Caps. We'll include the quote (make it as insightful/clever/snarky etc. as you wish) and a link back to your blog in our gameday preview.

As one of Sports Media Challenge's "Top 10 NHL Blogs," we recognize that blogging is all about community-building, and that's why we're trying to reach out and introduce our readers to your blog and generate some good-natured smack talk.

So if you'd like to participate, shoot an email back to us as soon as you get the chance (no later than the night before the game, if possible), and we'll see where it goes from there.

Now, if y'all pay attention to the authoring, you know that my name is Nadine. However, I was raised to be a respectful person and I went to college at a private school in the South where common courtesy reigns. So, here's my friendly, joking reply:

Uh X, I'm not Kristin.

Nadine
flyers.femme

His reply:

An excellent point, Nadine. My apologies for the prematurely sent and inaccurate email. And thanks for reinforcing the stereotype of every Philly fan! :)

Right. So even with that little smiley face, I'm confused. Why is this degenerating into stereotypes? They are inherently evil. And which stereotype does he mean? (Pardon me, but I've only lived here for three years. I'm not one of those "intimidating" Philly fans. I'm civilized, unless you count the fact that I wear Halloween colors to sporting events.)

I cannot let this go now, because my female freak-out alarm has started up. However, I must maintain that courteous tone. Here's my second reply:

Wow, X. I was just trying to point out that based on your salutation, you had contacted the wrong person.

I wasn't sure if you meant to send the message to me as well, or only to Kristin. I only wanted to let you know that you reached the wrong one of us if in fact you only wanted to write to Kristin.

That being said, good luck to your team tonight.

Nadine

Not offensive, right? His final reply:

No, no. Thanks, Nadine. I was just joshing around.

Should be a good game. I hope so anyway. The Caps really need this win.

Best,
X

Of course, I wrote back to say that so do my Flyers since we confront the evil Rangers that just killed the Caps last night. (While those overly-presumptuous Habs enjoyed wracking up a win on a Flyers team with even worse D than usual and beat the crap out of Gator's face. Please, God, we need Gagne back.)

But, back to the life lesson. It's a fundamental rule for relating to women, which I'm sure every man has learned and one which should never be forgotten:

Never, ever, under any circumstance, do you call a woman by the wrong name.

Sorry, Mr. X. I just had to make a fun post about this one! ;p