May 19th, 2004 was the pain of stubbing your toe, that excruciating moment of realization that you forgot to put deodorant on and a couple of kicks to the groin all rolled into one. This one day single handily rewrote the books on the pain that a sports fan can feel.

11:04pm EST - Chris Webber's 3-point attempt at the buzzer rattles in-and-out and with the clank of that missed shot it once again clinches another disappointing playoff loss for the Sacramento Kings.

	Kyle McLaren was in just as much disbelief as I was.

Shortly before midnight - The Sharks' Cinderella inspired Vegas-run sadly ends with a Game 6 loss to the Calgary Flames thus costing me a return trip to Sin City. The biggest mistake you can make in betting is making plans for the winnings before the bet is secured. It simply angers the betting gods. Last June I bet on the Sharks to win the Stanley Cup. They were paying awesome odds of 55-1 and I knew that with a young roster, a full training camp under coach Ron Wilson and holdout-free version of Evgeni Nabokov that they were worth a shot. I didn't get too carried away with their impressive season run that lifted them to the 3rd best record in the league. When the playoffs rolled around I placed all my betting karma together and loaded up on Sharks players in my playoff pool. Everything was aligned for a victory; the Sharks rolled through the 1st round and then beat the Avs in the 2nd round with relatively little trouble. But here's where I infuriated the betting gods; I started looking at Vegas packages thinking my bet was sealed. How wrong I was. In one fell swoop on May 19th I lost out on my bet, lost a vacation to the Disney World for adults, and essentially lost my playoff pool. Lesson learned: never piss off the betting Gods. And I'm pretty sure the Gods threw in that Sacramento loss just as an added No Cal kicker to go with the loss of San Jose.

May 19th was simply the apex of a bad sports year. It felt as agonizing as the last scene in the movie Rat Race where the entire group ends up on stage with Smash Mouth. Has there ever been a worst ending scene for a movie? Wait, that T-Rex going back to California at the end of Jurassic Park 2 was just disgustingly horrible in a Eric Gagne -Steve Kline dirty ball cap type way. If May19th was the conclusion of a bad sports year there was plenty of negative foreshadowing going on throughout the year. It was a year where I experienced virtually every considerable form of fan heartache.

Injuries: From Mario Lemieux to Mike Alstott and Chris Webber the injuries seemed to never stop. While I have my favourite teams, I tend to gravitate towards following individual players and not being able to watch these guys play on a week-to-week basis was a major disappointment.

	Not focusing more attention on Paulie and Chris is a Grady Little-type mistake.

Playoff heartbreak: The Red Sox's ALCS Game 7 loss to the New York Yankees was one of those demoralizing losses where I felt confused, bewildered and unsure where to turn to. The only time I've felt that way since was during Tony Soprano's 20-minute dream sequence. Seriously, are the writers just taking advantage of everyone's dedicated loyalty and not trying anymore? If the writers of The Sopranos want to turn this thing around it's really simple: More focus on Paulie Walnuts and Christopher Moltisanti. Honorable mention for playoff disappointment goes to the Sacramento Kings, San Jose Sharks and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, for not even making the playoffs.

Plain bad: I knew the Pittsburgh Penguins would need to go through some lean years and rebuild with youth but it still doesn't make it any easier to accept the pileup of losses they have suffered over the past two years. The one saving grace to this season was knowing that the Pens stood an excellent shot to draft Russian phenom Alexander Ovechkin with the top pick in the draft but even that fell through when the Washington Capitals won the lottery draft.

Shocking: There are very few things you can count on in the world of sports and Roy Jones Jr's dominance over the last 15 years was one of those. That's why Antonio Tarver's stunning knockout of Roy was so hard to accept. Maybe the Oprah weight gain and loss finally caught up to him or maybe his motivation has dwindled. Whatever the case, being on the cover of EA Sports Fight Night 2004 didn't help matters. Roy Jones is simply another victim of the EA Sports Jinx. When are agents going to realize this and start warning their clients? I guess now is as a good a time as any to send out condolences to Baltimore Ravens fans now that Ray Lewis has been named cover boy of Madden 2005. As fans, shouldn't we be able to buy insurance against these types of things?

Despite all the negatives experienced this year I can confidently say that I remained clear and free this year of experiencing the worst type of losing; having your team lose out in the finals. Thankfully I have yet to experience the pain of a championship loss and subsequently like a P. Diddy Broadway performance I hope to never experience one. Having your team lose in the finals is like finding out that Santa Claus is not real. In both cases you held such naïve optimism and promptly dispelled all negative thoughts from people telling you your belief is wrong and then in a sudden moment of realization you get hit with the stark reality of a major letdown. Whether it comes in the form of seeing your parents place presents under the tree or of the opposition parade around the championship trophy, it still hurts all the same.

Of course the best part about sports especially in this day and age of parity is knowing that another season will start in a few months time and all positive and renewed expectations will reform. There is a Buddhist ideology that all pain comes from attachment and if we can shed all attachments we can come closer to enlightenment. I'm not Buddhist but I can definitely follow the ideology that pain comes from those things which you hold a personal attachment to. Still I would much rather endure the pain of a few losses for the potential of celebrating a championship victory.