My Least Favorite Team is My Favorite Team: How the Minnesota Vikings Have Made Me Hate Every Team in Professional Football

by Keith Richotte

If you're a Minnesota Vikings fan, chances are you know the true meaning of a "love/hate" relationship. Keith Richotte, lifelong fan and observer of his favorite team, has written an account of many of the major crushing defeats and blunders in the history of the Vikings--the ones maddeningly ingrained in the collective consciousness of Minnesota pro football fans. There are so many of these ugly moments, in fact, that Richotte was able to find a reason to hate every team in professional football for what that team has done to the Vikings as a franchise and to him as a fan. This book chronicles many, many incidences that have dictated the Monday morning moods of people across the land of 10,000 lakes for decades. Either we're a cheery lot saying hi to strangers, or a bunch of gray-faced commuters driving around in a foggy slump. It's not enough to turn away and not notice what's going on. It's an addiction. We can't help ourselves.

177 pages, Paperback

First published September 30, 2007

Reviews

[Jay · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is unhealthy to be a Vikings fan. Richotte's premise is that the franchise has in recent years, been plagued by stupidity from top to bottom, making rooting for the Purple a 3 hour masochistic experience every Sunday fall afternoon for thousands of Minnesotans. Recalling the inept litany, Richotte's book will alternately induce a Viking fan to wince, giggle, or possibly crawl into a fetal position and weep. One quibble is that the author is too young to actually remember the pain of the 4 Super Bowl losses and they get short shrift. And with all due respect, the real reason to hate the Dallas Cowboys is the Drew Pearson "Hail Mary" shove of Nate Wright in 1975, which ended the season of the Vikings greatest team (notwithstanding the 1998 team of Cunningham and Moss), NOT the Herschel Walker trade as Richotte contends (which left the Vikes as mediocre as before).