On Monday (and really in the three months leading up to Monday), I explained why I’ve decided to start following hockey again. Essentially, the timing is right, the mood is right, and now- after the Whalers broke my heart 15 years ago- it’s time to pick a new team to root for (To read Monday’s entire column please click here).

With that said, I’ve already eliminated more than half the league from consideration. Some are gone because of fan apathy (Yeh I’m looking at you Tampa Bay, Columbus and Phoenix), and others because of geography. Simply put, if I’m going to root for a team, there’s a very reasonable chance that I’m going to want to go visit for games. Which is why the Devils, Sabres, Oilers and a few others are no longer in the running either.

Still, there are 12 viable candidates remaining. It’s time to eliminate some more.

Let’s start with the Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars, Los Angeles Kings and Ottawa Senators. What do they all have in common? Not much, other than that they’re next to head to the chopping block. To their credit, these four teams have great fans, and are in fun cities. But at the end of the day, they remind me a lot of the actress Anne Hathaway: I see what the fuss is about, and why others get excited about them. But they’re just not for me. As George Constanza once proclaimed “It’s not you. It’s me.”

Moving on, the Chicago Blackhawks are in sort of similar position. They’ve got everything I’m looking for in a franchise starting with die-hard fans and a bounty of young players that’s almost an embarrassment of riches. Plus let’s be honest, when it comes to cities, it just doesn’t get much better than Chicago.

The problem with the Blackhawks is that they might be a bit too good. Jumping on their bandwagon now- in the year after they won the Stanley Cup- seems a little tacky, like when a 24-year-old Victoria’s Secret model marries a 60-year-old billionaire or something. It’s easy to throw yourself in the mix when things are going good. But it doesn’t seem fair to everyone who had to survive the bad. The Blackhawks are off the list too.

(Aaron’s note: I didn’t intend to get dramatic and break this article into two parts, but because of length, it just made the most sense.

Part I here is my history with hockey, and why I’ve decided it’s time for me to pick a team to follow. Part II will be posted tomorrow, when I actually pick a team to root for, and explain why. Be sure to check back then.)

Considering I almost never write about hockey, I bet many of you would be surprised to know that the NHL and I go way back.

For two glorious years of my childhood, my uncle was a Hartford Whalers season ticket holder, and I spent my winters going to games with him. Truth be told, I’ve been to more NHL games in person than NBA, MLB and NFL games combined.

The memories from those two years will stay with me forever: Getting to a weekday game extra early just to see Wayne Gretzky enter the rink, and his presence seeming almost too large for the building. Watching Brett Hull come out of the tunnel for the first time, and thinking to myself, “Geez is that guy small.” Seeing Dominik Hasek and his goofy mask. Sensing the regalness of Mark Messier from 500 feet away.

Sadly though one memory stands out above all others, and that was the Whalers last game in Hartford. Unfortunately, I was in the arena that afternoon, about 15 rows off the ice with my uncle.

To fully describe that day in words is impossible, and ultimately, I could never do it justice. Let’s just say it was tough. I was too young to fully understand what was going on at the time, but when something you love, something that means so much to the people of a city just disappears one day, well, there’s no feeling quite like. I’m sure Baltimore Colts, Cleveland Browns and Seattle Sonics fans are nodding their heads right now.

Sadly, the emotion with the Whalers even went beyond that though. I know it might sound crazy, but to understand the importance of the Whalers, you’ve got to understand that it went well beyond wins and losses. They were literally the heartbeat of the city.

A few summers ago, some buddies and I spent some time in Europe. France, Spain, Ireland, a few other places.

We did it all. Ate the food. Drank the wine. Tried (some days more successfully than others) to woo foreign girls with cute accents back to our hostel. Stayed up too late and got up too early. Saw famous monuments and nude beaches. You name it, we did it.

But what I remember more than anything from that summer was the Euro Cup. Basically, for those of you who might not know, the Euro Cup is the European soccer championship, an event that happened to be taking place at the exact time we were there. In some countries, it's even a bigger deal than the World Cup. No seriously.

It didn't matter if you were in Spain for an Italy-Holland match, or in Holland for Portugal-Turkey. Everyone was on the edge of their seats, glued to the TV, every time a game was on. Period.

When the Germans met Spain in the final, by sheer coincidence, me and my buddies happened to be in Germany. It was awesome, and even now, two years after the fact, I still can’t completely describe the atmosphere that night.  Maybe a little bit Mardi Gras and part World Cup, with some strong German beer and pretty flashing ladies thrown in. Young and old, rich and poor, doctors and lawyers, they all mixed in the streets of Munich that night. It didn't matter who you were, or what side of town you were from. That night all that mattered was that everyone was German. And it was surreal.

When I got back to the States a few weeks later, I tried to explain to everyone what I'd been a part of that night. The sounds. The smells. The tension of thousands of people swaying second to second. But nobody understood.

I mean, it wasn't really their fault, how could they understand? This wasn't Yankees-Red Sox, Lakers-Celtics, or the SEC Championship football game in Atlanta, it was so much more. Imagine if the Indianapolis Colts were in the Super Bowl this past February, playing…Japan. Weird, I know, but whether you love Peyton Manning or not, who would you be rooting for? Now multiply that by 10, and you’ve got the Euro Cup.

Sunday’s Gold Medal hockey game was the Euro Cup on skates. I'm not one for hyperbole, but this was the first sporting event of my lifetime that truly brought our country together.

With all the work I’ve doing to get this website up and running, I haven’t been able to do much, well, writing.

It’s time for me to jump back into the game, but of course I picked arguably the worst weekend in sports- you know, the one before the Super Bowl- to do so. And with both the NBA and college basketball seasons still in the middle stages, I wasn’t sure where I’d go or what I’d write about.

And then it happened. Through some nifty internet investigation, I found out that the NHL is hosting its All-Star game this weekend. As those old Guinness commercials used to say “brilliant!”

Not only do I actually enjoy watching hockey, but the league makes for some of the easiest comedic fodder since Kevin Federline entered our lives a few years back.

To get the journalistic juices flowing, I figured what better way to start than to keep my first ever running diary of the event in honor of course, of ESPN.com’s Bill Simmons.

Without further adu, the 2009 NHL All-Star Game diary: