Well, in a way, sports or at least football, is a pretty big part of Thanksgiving Day. Seriously, if you turn on your tv, there is only two things you will see. Parades and football games. There's not much else. Trust me, I check every year and it's always the same thing, parades and football, football and parades. Would it really hurt to throw a few episodes of ... I don't know...anything that's not football in there. Maybe some NCIS or The Big Bang Theory or anything not sports.
The thing is, this year unlike all the years past, I might actually watch a football game. Hear me out. Over the last ten years, I have slowly been becoming bored with watching sports on tv. I still love to get together with some friends and play a little football or baseball, but watching it had become duller than watching paint dry.
I'm not sure why or when it happened. Maybe it was because I felt like I was just watching the same thing over and over again. There weren't enough stand out moments. It's all "look, that guy just ran 4 feet and got tackled" or "oh, that guy just caught another fly ball" or "are the just going to drive in circles for 500 laps".
It seemed as if nothing new ever happened. I think alot of people were starting to feel that way, because this weekend I saw something occur in a hockey game I had never seen before. I'm not really sure the technical terms for what I saw, the best I can come up with is one hockey players ninja stomped another players face. I stood staring at the tv in utter disbelief. All I could think of was that one guy just went Bruce Lee on the other guys face. It was the coolest thing I had ever seen occur in sports.
My friend kept asking me what I was staring at, and in a very monotone voice I said, "Is...that...legal?"
I don't think my friend had any clue what I was talking about, at least, not until they showed the replay of the kick. He just laughed and said, "Oh the kicking thing. Yep, that's completely legal. I guess the owners thought people were becoming bored with the games so all the players are allowed three martial art moves per game."
This seemed insane to me, but after spending a little time on Google, I found out he was right. And this rule didn't just apply to hockey. You could find it in football, baseball, basketball...pretty much if the sports name ends in 'ball', you are allowed to go all Hong Kong Phooey on your opponent.
This rule and this rule alone maybe what brings me back to spending every Saturday and Sunday on my couch with a little Styrofoam cooler next to my feet and sharing the couch with five bags of chips and a few salsas.
If I am late with next Mondays blog post it is only because I spent all Sunday watching football and emptying that cooler. I promise I'll get it out by Tuesday and that I will never let sports interfere with my work again. Oh wait, there's football on Monday too. Uh-oh.
