I think I'm falling in love.

I've spent several decades making fun of hockey--white foreign guys on skates, who cares?

Through it all, though, I've always admitted that, in person, it's a pretty exciting game. And recently I posted here, on on Facebook, or I tweeted, or I screamed out the window-who the hell knows any more?--that high-def TV has dramatically improved the game for me.

Being able to see the puck is, you know, a game-changer.

 My basic antipathy toward hockey is complicated, going back to what I perceiving as the open racism that was the centerpiece of the Flyers' early marketing to the white suburbs and the Northeast and South Philadelphia sections of the city. I also, for somewhat personal reasons, was always suspicious of how Ed Snider became the sole owner of the Flyers team when it was created.

But maybe it's time to move on.

This Stanley Cup Final between the Philadelphia Flyers and the Chicago Blackhawks has been mesmerizing. Seeing the puck in play makes it easier to understand the strange rules, to see how a team attacks or defends and to understand the big picture. And, yes, now and again it is satisfying to just physically beat on an opponent, whether personally or viscerally.

I'm not sure I can get past the stupid fights that are "part of the game" during the regular season or the "Stepford" nature of Flyer fandom, but I am certainly willing, at last, to try.

An old dog learning new tricks.

I've never been much of a hockey fan, for a variety of reasons. I mean, white foreigners on skates? Really? That goes against all logic.

Given that perspective, I've always said that hockey is an exciting experience when seen in person but terrible on the tube.

My position was definitely influenced by the fact that my in-person experiences have always involved really great seats, including right up on the glass to the right of the goal two years ago as a birthday gift.

With the Flyers on a Stanley Cup run, I've tuned into games for the first time since I got a High Def TV last September. Voila! Being able to see the damned puck is a real game-changer. I could get hooked.

Hockey players seem like pretty nice guys, all in all. Even back then, the Terrible. Horrible. Really Mean. Dave Schultz, the enforcer of the legendary "Broad Street Bullies," was a sweetheart in person. And a prankster.

I was editing a local sports magazine back in those days and assigned a story on Schultz to a freelancer. And I hired a girl I was dating, and later married, to come down to the Spectrum to take photos of our cover artist sketching Schultz one morning. He was very nice to her and told her to get right behind the glass near the goal and he'd skate toward her so she could shoot photos of him in action. I was standing behind her when, about 10 feet out, he suddenly swung his stick and fired a puck right at us. The speed at which it was coming and the sound it make hitting the glass was damned near heart-stopping.

Here's a tattered copy of the cover of that long-ago, and short-lived magazine which featured the Schultz story. The artist was a guy named Wally Neibart, probably the most famous one I ever worked with aside from the very famous (in the day) Arnold Roth, who I got to do a four page Christmas story I wrote.

The play's the thing and, for one night at least, it was all Flyer-ed up.

How hockey crazy is this region over the Philadelphia Flyers improbable run to the Eastern Conference finals and presumed additional run the the NHL Championship Series and a potential Stanley Cup?

Local playwright Larry McKenna,whose "The Next Reunion" is playing at the Society Hill Playhouse in Philadelphia, rewrote the script at the last minute Thursday night so that actors arriving on or returning to the stage could incorporate updates of the score into their dialogues.

No word on how it went and the Flyers lost for the first in seven games. If they lose again tomorrow afternoon, there will be riots in the streets.