The Super Bowl

I hate the Super Bowl. It's a joke...an exhibition of pure American commercialism and excess. It is an event that dwarfs the game itself. It is to the normal sports soap opera what the melodrama is to the normal drama.

So ask me how surprised I am to say that Super Bowl XLII (even this Roman numeral thing is pretentious) was one of the best and most thrilling sporting events I've ever seen. I'm shocked, stunned, dumbfounded! For the first time in years, I found myself forgetting about everything that surrounds this media monsoon...I found myself forgetting about the bloated half-time show and the commercials and who sings the National Anthem and the coin toss and all the other garbage that goes with it. For once, I was captivated by the game.

Now, I'll admit I'm a Giants fan, but I'll also state that I'm not longer as heavily invested in sports teams as I was back in the day. I learned long ago that real happiness does not lie in the outcome of an arbitrary game or season. Now I'm able to sit back and enjoy the game for what it is...a game. And that's exactly what I did during this Super Bowl. This was one of the greatest sports games I had ever witnessed. This was what sports is all about: David vs Goliath, miraculous plays as the final seconds tick away, come from behind victories, incredible athleticism on display, staying calm in the face of pressure (both real and figurative), the little guy becoming the "hero" of the day, people joyfully losing themselves in a common bond for a short period of time. Nothing else mattered. Not the Heinz Red Zone. Not the star player's lady friends. Not multi-millionaires playing a kids game. Not commercial tie-ins or corporate sponsors or parties or celebs promoting their upcoming movies or TV shows.

Just the game.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming...