There's a 16 hour time difference between Toronto and the east coast of Australia, and we're a day behind in North America. So 6pm Sunday night here in TO is 10am Monday morning at home. The biggest sporting event on the US calendar, and the highest rating TV event of every year, is about to kick off. To me the SuperBowl, aka grid-iron/NFL 'grand final', used to mean -
- Australia Day - 'cos the game is usually played on the last weekend of January, not this year though.
- Half understood rules, incompletes, touch backs, pass interference and illegal formations, wtf?
- Stop-start gameplay that frustrates the Aussie rules fanatic more used to frenetic, non-stop action. Geez can they just get on with it?
- More hype around the half-time show and the TV ads ($1,000,000 for a 30 second spot) than surrounds the game. Sadly in Aus we usually don't get to see either, so we only have the game and as previously stated that's just confusing.
- One sided games that hardly recommend the sport to the uninitiated, just like AFL Grand Final blowouts.
Grid-iron, or in North America just 'football', is a great sport. I've come to love it from having 50 games a week to watch. The college games, which are university teams playing each other, are at least as popular as the serious NFL games. They are awesome specticles with heaps of cheer-leaders, huge matching bands and standiums packed with 100,000 uni-students, trust me it's a party.
In the height of autumn (fall) there are more games to watch than there are hours in the week and it's infectious. Like any game it's hard to like if you don't 'get it'. Anyone seeing AFL for the first time is likely to be fascinated but also confused and after a quarter bemused, just what the hell is going on? You have to immerse yourself in it : watch the post-game post-mortums, listen to the chat on radio the next day, read about the players, watch the games and lots of them. This Sunday, Monday back home, the Chicago Bears play the Indianapolis Colts in the 41st SuperBowl (SuperBowl XLI, doesn't have the ring that last years SuperBowl XL had but whatever).
The Colts are the Cinderella story, not because no one thought that they'd make it but because they've got one of the best cubies (cubie = QB = quarterback) of recent time, Peyton Manning, and have never made a SuperBowl until now. Peyton has a history of playing great in the regular season and choking like Greg Norman in the playoffs (playoffs = finals). This year he made it for the first time, and after a huge win against the New England Patriots (winners of several SuperBowls in recent years with their awesome cubie Tom Brady (great american name huh?)). I saw that game in Dallas and what a game it was, the Colts were down and out, basically toast at half time and they came back in the biggest comeback in semi-final history to storm home. Sadly I was backing the Pat's and lost a few bets, but losing to mates isn't really losing right? I think most of America will be cheering for Peyton and his Colts come Sunday.
The Bears on the other hand haven't been to a SuperBowl since 1985, their only appearance was a winning one against the NE Patriots, total blowout. They are definitely the other side of the ledger with a cubie, Rex Grossman, who is considered by many to be two people in a single body. He had 10 games out of the regular season 16 where he was considered to be the best cubie in the NFL, but 5 of the other 6 where he sucked like a Hoover. Truely a Jeckle and Hyde reputation and perhaps not completely deserved, you don't get to a SuperBowl by sucking at the wrong time. But the question on everyones lips is 'which Rex will appear on the field this Sunday?'
Either way there'll be beer to drink, the most outrangeous TV ads of the year, Prince doing the half time show and, hopefully, a fairly close game. What does the SuperBowl mean to me now? Hype and hyperbole, grit and glamour, more BS than you can handle and more drama than 5 Oscar winners. Like a game of chess there's some delays between moves but when the moves happen they unfold like a war zone, no wonder a popular defensive play is called The Blitz. Most SuperBowls don't live up to the hype, but this one has a real chance to be a great game. My Monday will be a little hazy no matter the result. And no matter what happens I'll be bringing a love for this style of football back down-under with me.
Andy, out. (Go Colts!)
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