Feb 4th, 2009 – The Month that Blows
Thanks Super Bowl – now February gets to piss us off even more than usual.
The month that lingers on like a BBQ stain on a white T has just become even more onerous because all we have is a great game (the greatest game?) to look back upon – and little to look forward to.
Sure it’s the shortest, but just consider the brutal withdrawal symptoms we will all soon be suffering through due to the lack of a meaningful sporting event. Looking at the schedule, there’s just nothing to take up the slack.
Can basketball make up for our loss? For most us college ball doesn’t really start until March. As for the NBA, it’s the middle of a very regular regular season. In the East only six of the fifteen teams are above .500. Out west it was looking like the title was L.A.’s to lose. Kobe scored a record 61 points in MSG on Monday. However, that was on the heels of the news that the Lakers lost Andrew Bynum to an MCL injury until long after all the snow has melted.
At least there’s the All-Star game on the 14th!
Ya. Exactly.
There’s big swimming news of course, with Michael Phelps shocking the world by doing something that pretty much every other 23-year old does not just once in a lifetime but twice a day and three times on Saturday. But taking bong hits could hardly be described as a sporting event.
Unless of course it’s really good stuff.
The NHL is plodding along in the midst of what might what could be the most boring regular season in league history. You know you’re having a bad year when the biggest story in the game is about a player dying.
There was some tennis to talk about this month with Federer losing to Nadal, this time in Australia in a five set thriller. The only problem is, it was over the on the first day of the month ending at 8am Sunday morning.
We’ve got the Daytona 500 on the 15th: NASCAR’s annual confusing tradition of having their biggest race of the year go first, and then have the rest of the series drag on until Jimmie Johnson eventually wins it.
Golf? Until Tiger tees it up – does golf even count?
Nope, let’s face it. This is going to be some rough days ahead while we get over the greatness we all watched in Florida.
There never was a Super Bowl like XLIII. Improbable to start with, from the kickoff to the final play of the first half, to the halftime show and then a great third quarter followed by a better forth, it was pure non-stop jaw-dropping, pizza, beer and wing stuffing entertainment.
It even had porn!
It was so good we should try to let Pittsburgh’s 27-23 win over the Cardinals linger in lieu of anything to supplant it.
There was Kurt Warner, supposedly the nicest guy to walk the face of the earth since Gandhi, losing, yet at the same time guaranteeing his Hall-of-Fame slot. There was the 100-yard interception return by James Harrison to end the first half. Seeing chubby guys run is always a giggle, but seeing one run that far, that fast and then having him go in for a TD with zeroes on the clock overshadowed the Boss – almost. There was Larry Fitzgerald who was so overhyped in the pre-game show you’d though he was the second coming of Jerry Rice proving in the second half that he was pretty much that by bringing the Cards back from 13 points down to the lead – something no other team had ever done in Super Bowl history.
If it ended there it would have probably taken the “greatest” title due to the underdog making the biggest comeback ever. What cemented it was the next two minutes and thirty seconds.
Ben Roethlisberger drove his team the length of the field in a business-like fashion. Everything he did was right. His receivers caught the ball when they were supposed to. The zebras put their whistles away when they should have. All of which was capped by Santonio Holmes making that amazing toe-dragging catch of
Roethlisberger’s indefensible perfect pass.
Steelers win. Change the name of the city to “Sixburgh.”
There are those sporting events that come along very rarely that keep everyone buzzing far after they are over.
Let’s hope for every sports fan, that buzz lasts until the end of the month.
Cheers – Gavin McDougald – AKA Couch
