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| Surviving dull week 'n sports Wednesday, February 03, 2010 Bob Buckel This is, without a doubt, the deadest, dullest week of the year in sports in the United States of America.
[I note the country, recognizing that somewhere in the world, people are stomping each other to death this very minute out of passion over jai alai, cricket or 57-man squamish. Here, the only passion is people thinking about their new hot wing recipe for the Super Bowl, or wondering if GoDaddy.com is going to push the envelope with another risky Super Bowl ad.]
That the week between the conference championship games and the Super Bowl is the deadest week of the year is beyond dispute. All we get on TV are endless interviews, highlight film, heartwarming feature stories and predictions by the “experts” who thought the Bears and the Patriots would be playing. The Senior Bowl and the Pro Bowl don’t count as football – in fact, they’re less than football. The Pro Bowl, moved up this year to try and fill this black hole, was even worse than usual (not that I watched – I had to match up socks and check out a new version of Emma). At least in the past the players who were selected got to go to Hawaii and walk through a meaningless charade of a football game after a week of fun on the beach. This year, they went to muggy Miami, where half of them already live. The guys whose teams are in the Super Bowl didn’t play because (duh!) they can’t be distracted by this farce. The Senior Bowl? I’d put this college All-Star game just above Arena League football, but below Friday Night Smackdown. I think several guys turned down the invitation because they didn’t want to miss class.
When will the powers-that-be figure out that “all-star” games are for casual, pick-up sports like baseball and basketball, not sports where you put on body armor and try to kill the players on the other side? If they’re going to insist on doing all-star games, they should play flag football, let the guys go shirts and skins and have families and fans picnicking on the sidelines. I’m sure more people would watch. Baseball? Well, the Rangers’ sale is news, but as a spectator sport, negotiations are about as exciting as watching paint dry. The “winter meetings” produce a trade rumor now and then, or a tidbit about a pitcher’s elbow, but not much else. Basketball? The NBA is slogging through meaningless games while everyone pines for the All-Star break. College basketball is fun this time of year – if you have a team you call your own – but it’s still a few weeks before things get really exciting. (It is, after all, “March Madness” – not “Jazzy January” or “Fantastic February.”) What does that leave? The Australian Open? Hockey? A golf tournament sponsored by an insurance company? The (gasp!) Winter Olympics? (Mark Campbell called dibs on those, so I can’t go there. See page 1B.) Nope. It’s just unfathomably dull in the sports world right now. This week is, in fact, the first cold-turkey slap in the face of the No Football Season. Get used to it. There’s one more game, then it’s a long, long time until fall. I’ll be okay. We have some cards, and I believe I saw a Monopoly game up the closet when I was hiding Christmas presents. Maybe I’ll get the tax stuff together before April 14 this year. That front flower bed could sure use an upgrade. And hey, isn’t it time to plant spinach and carrots? Wait a minute! Flip back to that last channel! Was that 57-man squamish? Whoa! Cool! Do we have any chips? Bob Buckel is publisher of the Epigraph. |