I hope Melissa will be pleased to see something other than the shedding lizard on top of my blog now.
I've watched a lot of sports in the last two weeks. Due entirely to the nationalist enthusiasm of our new British housemate, Andy, I decided to give futbal a chance. So my first World Cup viewing took place at 8:00 a.m. at a local sports bar that was filled with pro-England fans. I will gladly confess that I've always been snobbishly anti-soccer, and that it's nice at my age to find something new to enjoy. The World Cup is a lot of fun to watch.
Then there's the NBA. Again, I'll admit openly that I've had a distaste for professional basketball that can be marked somewhere around the middle of Michael Jordan's imperial reign. The league made far too much money in too short of a time period, and the egos went haywire. But it is the Mavericks, after all, in a position to win their first title. So, when I've had the leisure, I've glared at the TV whilst it projected images of Nowitzski flailing or Wade fading. And there is still much entertainment value available for the final 5-10 minutes of the fourth quarter on.
Last night, however, I took the opportunity to watch the final hockey game of the year. After my beloved Stars took such an early and crappy exodus, I rebuked the rest of the Stanley Cup playoffs. But, when the Oilers came back from a 3-1 games deficit, I anxiously popped the cork off the Unibroue 15th Anniversary strong golden ale that I was comped earlier that day and eagerly rooted for the underdog Edmontonians (they had, after all, taken out the Wing in glorious fashion). Although the Oilers came up short, I was not disappointed in the least. Within 5 minutes of TV viewing, I had the meagerest of epiphanies -- hockey is, by far, my favorite sport.
That tingling in your gut that comes in the final 2 minutes of a college football game, or the 9th inning of a World Series, or even in the last 5 minutes of the NBA finals happens for the entire 60 minutes in the Stanley Cup. Hockey takes the best elements of soccer and football -- and adds grown men with sticks on ice! Even the cameraman who can't keep up with the puck can't ruin the most exciting game in the world of sports.
Here's to you, Lord Stanley, for invoking the greatest game on earth.
For the sake of arbitrariness, I give you my top five sports:
5. College basketball -- So much parody, so many underdogs to cheer for, and basketball still played as a team.
4. World Cup Soccer -- 4 billion people can't be that wrong, can they? This is the best place (not the Olympics) for athleticism and world culture to meet with intensity.
3. ML Baseball -- Slow enough to watch casually and enjoy conversation with friends, but rife with head games, individual achievements and unscriptable moments of glory.
2. College football -- The place where the crowd is most involved (in the U.S.), the energy is palpable, and heart can occasionally outweigh skill.
1. NHL Hockey -- Non-stop edge-of-your-seat adrenalin showcases feats of sensational power and speed with beauty and heroic self-sacrifice.
