The BIG Game!

Sunday is the Super Bowl. I know this because I Googled "When is the Super Bowl" to make sure. I knew it had to be soon, after all there was a TV show on this week about the best Super Bowl commercials of all time. And I was pretty sure when Katie and I talked last week she said it was this Sunday. And because my grocery store pushed a bunch of specials on chips. So yeah, Super Bowl time!

People who have known me for a long time would have been shocked 5 or 10 years ago to ever imagine that I wouldn't know for sure when the game was. Or who was playing. I had to Google that too. Especially since the 49ers got so close to going. To say I was a massive 49ers fan for the majority of my life would not be an exaggeration. 

Massive. 

And then...

I wasn't. 

It took a few things. Then a few more. Then finally I reached the point where the things that made me angry about the team and the way it was managed out weighed the joy I got watching the games. I did get a lot of joy out it for a long time. Then shortly after I stopped being a fan of the 49ers the whole Kaepernick situation happened. And that was that for me and professional football at all.

Not that Kaepernick didn't stand, I was fine with that choice. In fact I never cared for him as a player, thought he was selfish and childish. The kneeling? Which came after it was explained to him by a vet on his team that sitting was disrespectful, by the way. The kneeling actually was the most other centered thing I'd ever seen him do. I respected his choice. But the reaction from the owners? Nah.

Now, I get it. I really do. Bringing him on to your team was inviting the wrath of the sitting president and all of his MAGAheads. It would have meant dealing with the pretend disrespecting the troops controversy and possibly having to deal with actual police violence issues. Owners just want to make money. That's their whole objective. That could have cost them money. They didn't want that. So I get it. They hung him out to dry and pretended that he wasn't a good quarterback because they didn't want to risk losing money.

Just because I understand the reasoning doesn't mean I agree with it. 

But it pretty much kept me from forming a bond with any other team. 

Since then when Super Bowl Sunday rolls around we talk about if we are going to watch or not. Typically the game is on in the background. We read, we do chores, we eat junk food, we switch off and watch the Puppy Bowl and reminisce about how when it started it was just puppies playing without all the extra stuff they've added. We watch the halftime show, at least for a little bit if it's interesting. But we don't really pay attention to the game. 

It's weird in a way. To have been so enamored with something and now just not. And we still watch college football. We still enjoy those games and are deeply invested in how Michigan does every year. Just not the NFL. 

Which, I have to say, freed up a lot of time in the Fall. Sundays are all much more relaxed now. Don't care what time the games are on or who is playing. 

The same thing happened with the NHL but for different reasons. We've been Avs fans and Blackhawks fans and we talked about picking up the Golden Knights just to be with a team from the very start. But the problem we had was that we were bigger Winterhawks fans than anything else and the boys get drafted and scattered all across the NHL. So how are you going to root against Adin Hill or Cody Glass or Seth Jones or or or? I mean, they are all "ours" so... So we started just paying attention to the games over all. And we will still watch one here and there, but without one team to really pull for it's less important to really watch everything. We check in. Until the Stanley Cup, then we watch. 

Usually. At least some of it. 

I could see it happening with all of the sports we follow, eventually. The letting go. For various reasons. Even things you think are really part of who you are can become things you used to like. Things you used to do. Things you used to care about. And it's okay to let them go. To not care anymore. Even if you were passionate about them. You are constantly changing so it makes sense that the things you enjoy change as well. That what is a priority shifts. 

Now if you'll excuse me I need to run to the store to pick up some stuff for Sunday. The Puppy Bowl is on, and we need snacks...

(I haven't completely changed, afterall!)