Posts Tagged ‘spectator sports’
Nervous Wreck
Last night I watched the last two “elite eight” games of the women’s NCAA tournament and found myself feeling more nervous about the situations of the games than the athletes who were involved.
When it comes to critical game situations, I am a wreck. Continuing to play effectively when you have 4 fouls is impressive. Having the clarity of mind to make a key pass in a split-second of opportunity is brilliant. Demonstrating the confidence and steadiness to hit a closely guarded 3-point shot reveals more nerve than seems possible from my experience.
Conversely, when I am working in the paddocks around four beasts who each weigh over a thousand pounds, I’m probably cooler than I should be. The other day, Light kicked out in my general direction so quickly without warning, I think it warped the laws of physics.
Suddenly I was no longer so calm and collected.
The horses have been moodier than normal the last few days. Maybe they are picking up on my tournament-watching energy of late. I think their nerves might be getting a little frayed, too.
.
.
50th Birkie
I have never skied the American Birkebeiner race up in Hayward/Cable, Wisconsin but I have been a long-time fan as a spectator. Today is the 50th anniversary of the great winter spectacle and they have worked hard to make a race of it despite the absence of winter weather.
The course has been reduced to a 10k loop of man-made snow that will be raced in multiple laps to reach the multiple competitive race lengths.
Having stood many times on the edge of the track as skiers make their way, I am able to virtually feel the thrills from the live-streamed video on the Birkie’s website, but it’s not the same.
I was looking forward this year to seeing the feed presented from the back of the new electric snowmobiles that were purchased with donations from supporters but they can’t use them for this lap race. The main race will be five laps around the loop and I assume it will become like the snake swallowing its tail as elite leaders catch up to stragglers.
Yesterday, the coverage of the 20k Kortelopet offered overhead views from a drone that allowed a view of the leaders on their first lap. That was nice to see except for the absurd views of the snow-white path winding through the otherwise brown landscape everywhere else.
It is sad to see this wonderful spectacle of winter being reduced to a fraction of its former self on the milestone of the 50th year. It says something to me that I find myself captivated and almost hypnotized by the live-streamed views available, very likely a function of my memories of seeing it before in person.
I’ll watch today’s elite skiers race and lament the unfortunate timing of their 50th race happening on this 2024 “winter that wasn’t.”
.
.
Wasn’t Easy
It was a championship game. It’s not supposed to be easy. The 58th NFL Super Bowl game last night between Kansas City and San Francisco was tied after regulation time expired in Las Vegas. Watching the game on television from the comfort of my home, I was exhausted by the end. It doesn’t feel right that one of the teams had to lose.
Congratulations to Kansas City for the overtime win.
Let the crazies grow their conspiracy theories to bizarre new lengths. It won’t make them any harder for me to ignore.
It was a great end of the season for the NFL and it makes it hard to deny the Chiefs have a reasonable claim on the beginnings of a dynasty.
I don’t know what that’s like. I grew up rooting for the Minnesota Vikings, four-time Super Bowl losers. For the record, we lost the first one to the Kansas City Chiefs.
Now I need to adjust my sports spectating to college basketball in preparation for the NCAA March Madness Tournament.
While I’m waiting for that to get here, I’ll sneak in a few NHL games and watch the weather predictions for hints of possible accumulating snowfalls before the vernal equinox arrives.
We do have one bit of guaranteed excitement in store for the coming weekend. A contingent of the Hays clan will be joining us for a weekend up at the lake place in Hayward.
It won’t be easy to come up with viable outdoor winter recreation choices, but it will be a fun-filled few days, that’s for sure. I’m planning a photo contest while we are there and expect to publish some winning shots here on the blog when I can.
We are going to take Asher up with us so our time may be equally split between training him and having fun with family. I expect I’ll find it to be almost as exhausting as watching the Super Bowl game last night.
.
.
Time Flying
It’s not as if anything is guaranteed to turn out the way I expect. I’ve been exercising my opportunity to explore being idle lately between sessions of walking Asher and tending to the horses. No agenda. No goals. Occasional spontaneous naps. A few streaming series, a random movie here and there, a lot of listening to music, watching suggested YouTube videos, and meandering down the rabbit hole of Reddit comments on news or popular posts.
There are plenty of ways to visit worlds completely foreign to my reality. Did you know there are still people who discuss everything that a certain defendant-in-chief says or does? It’s weird how stark the difference is between reading news from other places compared to standing out among our four horses.
Yesterday was the “final four” day for NFL playoffs. This morning there are fans for two of the teams who couldn’t be happier and fans of the other two teams coping with a heaping serving of dashed hopes. I feel their pain.
On the subject of spectator sports, last week, Major League Baseball announced the 2024 Hall of Fame election results. This has provided a stark reference for the passing of time in my life. Twin Cities hometown superstar, Joe Mauer was voted in on the first year he made the ballot. He was born about a year and a half after Cyndie and I got married.
A couple of blinks later, Joe was winning batting titles, Golden Glove awards, MVP awards, and All-Star appearances, all while playing for one team: his home state Minnesota Twins. The next thing I know, he has retired from playing baseball. Now he is in the Baseball Hall of Fame. His entire career seems like just a blip of time to me.
As a kid who grew up with a sports fan dad, I looked up to athletes and their impressive accomplishments as permanent fixtures. Then one day I noticed the lauded draftees and excelling rookies making headlines were younger than me. At least Hall of Famers were still older.
Not anymore.
Time sure flies when you are having fun.
.
.
4th Down
The NFL Wildcard Playoff Weekend is not over yet (2 games left today), but I am already a little woozy after two days of elimination desperation decision-making about going for it on 4th down. They weren’t all close games but they all contained the drama of getting knocked out of the playoffs in the first week if you lose.
Watching football several days in a row is a lot easier to do when the weather outside is frightful. It’s also a little less stressful for me this year because my team isn’t a contender. My allegiance leans toward teams representing the same division and conference as my Minnesota Vikings, but it’s not unlike me to change my mind in the middle of a game and root for their competition if circumstance dictates.
Color me fickle when it comes to other franchises and their fans. I had to pull for the Detroit Lions last night because I wasn’t up to seeing fans’ disappointment if they’d lost.
As the series, “Ted Lasso” reiterated, “It’s the hope that kills you.” In an earlier game, it was Dallas fans who had their hopes crash and burn in dramatic fashion. I felt sorry for them but it was offset by how thrilled the fans of Green Bay were.
Asher was a little disappointed we didn’t spend as much time outdoors as usual. He wasn’t interested in any of the NFL games. We pretty much exhausted all of his favorite indoor games. We’ve converted his outdoor “indestructible” throw ring into an indoor chew toy that occupies him for large chunks of time when he gets in that groove.
His bin of indoor toys becomes a wonderful time sink when a handful of his dry food is tossed in and around the objects so he has to nose stuff out of the way to find the precious morsels.
When that game is over there are usually more toys scattered around on the floor than remain in the bin. We can tell the exercise is completed when the sound of crunching kibble stops occurring. He might move around a few more toys, but when the munching is over, he’ll soon be looking for a new distraction.
I count myself lucky when he decides the next activity can be a nap instead of incessant whining to go outside.
It’s funny, I’m just the opposite. I start whining when I want to take a nap. When I’m successful and permission to sleep is granted, it’s a bit like getting a first down on that dramatic 4th down try.
.
.
Green Progress
We finally got a hint yesterday that our growing season is nearing its end. A Frost Advisory that included our county was issued and the forecast was flashing expected low temperatures in the mid 30s°F. I notice that Cyndie has dug out her winter headband to cover her ears on our morning walks.
We’ve taken the driveway landscaping project as far as possible at this point. Thankfully, it appears the grass seeding we did has sprouted to varying degrees everywhere we spread it.
We have achieved a hint of green when viewed at a low angle down by the road.
I’m feeling a little green with envy for fans of American football teams that win big games. The Minnesota Gophers got trounced by the #2 Michigan Wolverines on Saturday. The Minnesota Vikings couldn’t hold onto the football enough to defeat the visiting Super Bowl Champion Kansas City Chiefs yesterday.
I’ve got that losing feeling. Feels like a Monday.
At least I had the Minnesota Twins making a decent showing of themselves in the ALDS in Houston against the Astros. Also, the MLS Loons saved themselves from playoff elimination by beating LA Galaxy, scoring FIVE goals in the process! In addition, I was able to see much of the Gopher Women’s Soccer team getting their first Big10 Conference win against Illinois.
As a sports spectator, it pays to have a variety of teams and sports from which to choose.
.
.
Twins Win
Looks like I’m going to need to split my attention between two spectator sports this October. On Tuesday, the MLB Minnesota Twins snapped a record 18-game playoff losing streak with a win over the Toronto Blue Jays. Yesterday, the Twins sealed the deal with a second victory to sweep the series and earn a spot in the American League Division Series.
My attention this weekend will be bouncing between baseball and football. The UofMN Gophers will be up against the powerful second-ranked UofMI Wolverines on a national TV broadcast and the MN Vikings will face last year’s Superbowl champs, the Kansas City Chiefs.
It does not escape my Minnesota-sports-fan sensibilities that all these high-profile events could end badly for us, making a potentially exciting weekend an opportunity for multiplied crushed hopes in the end.
One form of preserving a healthy attitude that I employ is to hope for nice surprises but prepare for the more likely outcome of each team getting embarrassed. It’s a perspective developed over a lifetime of experience as a Minnesota sports fan.
There is a lot of potential for good or bad outcomes this weekend. I’m looking forward to suffering through all of it. I may even take up the fine art of nail-biting.
Go, teams, Go!
.
.
Moderately Disorienting
Just because we had July-like temperatures on the first day of October, it shouldn’t be all that disorienting. But over the weekend, both the college Gophers and NFL Vikings won their games and that knocked me for a loop. Not really, but I like to poke fun at the subject of local teams having a knack for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Some things that make the summery heat and humidity disorienting at this time of year are the shorter hours of daylight, the lower angle of the sunlight, and the fall-colored leaves covering the ground.
Oh, and the hum of lawnmowers cutting on neighboring properties.
I got a small portion of mowing done between periods of throwing balls for Asher to chase. He is not a fan of heat and we needed to take frequent breaks inside where he likes to lay on the cool floor tiles.
Plenty of panting was included during his cool-down sessions.
We are expecting a visit from the farrier today to trim and shape horse hooves. We’ll have fans blowing under the overhang. The horses are growing their winter coats, so this kind of heat in October has got to be more uncomfortable for them than it is for us.
They may have been hot yesterday, but they didn’t look the least bit disoriented by it.
.
.
Losing Lousy
It was an ugly weekend for my football teams with both the college Gophers and NFL Vikings losing games they could have/should have won. It’s a good thing I am mentally healthy enough to not let such trivial things spoil my outlook. Now, the embarrassing situation with our national government, in addition to the climate calamity being forced on the planet, are proving to be a little harder to shake.
Thankfully, I’m still feeling the lingering effects of joy and laughter from the overnight guests and biking adventure of the previous few days.
Also, I have the increasingly leaf-covered trails in our woods available for meandering while forest bathing. I’ll be alright.
There was one football victory worth noting. My old high school team, Eden Prairie, is now 3-0 after defeating Shakopee in EP’s Homecoming game on Friday. High school and our old community seem like such a world away to me now but allegiance to a winning football program is an easy thing to hold forever.
Here’s to not letting the lousy losses have a negative effect on us.
Happy last Monday of September! We are now on the fall side of the autumnal equinox. Enjoy!
.
.
A Comparison
A thought experiment comparing the sports I watch on television with the shows Cyndie and I have been seeing lately:
First of all, I will admit to having a bit of an elitist attitude about the quality of scripts, casting, and acting for the dramas and drama/comedies we choose. One of our peeves is when an actor has to describe something like a crime scene to a colleague who would already know the information being shared. Presumably, this is done to inform the viewing audience but doing so by way of describing a legal detail to one’s partner detective who would already be aware of it just spoils the whole magic of imagining the scene was really happening.
It comes across as stupid and demeans the viewing audience.
Recently, we have been enjoying “Reservation Dogs.” At the same time, we happened to take in the first season of “Dark Winds,” because we are big fans of Zahn McClarnon who is acting in the role of Joe Leaphorn (in addition to “Big” in Reservation Dogs). “Dark Winds” started out strong but soon fell to some simplified storytelling that took away from the overall effect.
There was a scene where day inexplicably became night and the elapsed time is not justified in any way. It is a jolt that kicks us out of the drama on screen.
How does this compare to watching sports? I don’t know. But there are differing levels of drama in the team games I watch. Obviously, the players can easily be seen as parallel to actors in scripted shows. Speaking of scripts, there are designed plays that teams attempt to execute.
Some of the plays come across as brilliant, and plenty seem kind of stupid.
The coaches compare to directors. A well-coached team with good players who execute the designed scheme can perform a game that is a joy to watch and leaves me energized afterward. I noticed that my reaction was similar to the way we feel at the end of a great episode of “Reservation Dogs.” We want to talk about it after it ends and can’t wait to see the next episode when it becomes available.
Well, that is what happens with sports fans. After a good game (and sometimes the bad ones) we want to talk about what we saw, read news accounts of what happened, and immediately look forward to the next competition.
Sports teams have a bad game on occasion. A good television series can have a dud of an episode.
One big thing about sports that appeals to me is that the games are happening live while I watch. That easily compares to the added thrill of watching Saturday Night Live skits on television. You never know exactly what’s going to happen.
Even though I put this energy into selling the joys of watching sports by comparing it to Cyndie’s appreciation of good television series, she still does not want to watch games with me.
That’s okay. The exercise has given me a renewed zest for watching this season’s NFL games. Go Vikings! [currently 0-2]
.
.
Relative Something 