There’s no NHL and the way things are going, there isn’t going to be an NHL for a while. It’s only preseason and I’m already starting to feel the malnourishment of my sports fix. You can’t be a sad Sally sulking in the corner forever, so the best thing to do is go over the options.
1. Baseball — I don’t think I can look at baseball just yet. This season hurt, and it hurt bad. The rapid decline of the New York Mets destroyed me and left me broken in jagged, sharp pieces. It’s too soon to face it again. That’s out.
2. Soccer — OK, this has been pretty good so far. Who thought Arsenal would be 4-1-2 to start off the season? I was pretty sure they were going to suck. Bayern Munich is playing well too, but that’s expected. While soccer has kept me pretty happy so far, it is a weekends-only sort of deal, and that’s not going to be enough in the grand scheme of sport things.
3. Basketball — NBA, why can’t you just start already? The Olympics may have ended months ago at this point, but I’m still on that basketball-high. I want to know if my prediction is right and if the successful Olympic performance will give Carmelo Anthony a boost. Still some time to go, but soon.
4. Golf — No. Golf sucks.
And that leaves one more option, and this is the answer that I just don’t want to accept:
5. Suck it up and start watching football.
I know, I know. Football is probably the most beloved of all sports right now. It’s all over my Twitter feed (here’s looking at you, David Spiegel) and I’m sure it’s all over your feed too. It’s always a lot of drama and it’s all very exciting, but I just haven’t been able to get into it. I don’t even know why, to be honest.
It isn’t a lack of effort. I’ve tried for years at this point. I try to sit through games with friends at school. I have tried watching it with my brothers and my dad. I’ve even tried watching it by myself. Nothing works, and I don’t know why.
Maybe it’s that football is, on average, 10 to 15 seconds of action before a tackle or a touchdown and then play stops and the players are forced to reassemble again. I need the constant action, the kind of action you get with hockey if everything is going smoothly. Football is very different from hockey in that respect, and adjusting to football in that way is tough.
Maybe the issue is how obviously women are objectified in football culture. Not only is there the image of Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders dancing around in white booty shorts and sparkly blue tops that show flat stomachs and perfectly-shaped and contoured breasts, but the female football fan is a memorable one as well. Female football fans are put on a pedestal, and it’s demeaning in most cases. An “acceptable” female fan not only has to know what she’s talking about, she has to be attractive as well. But, most likely, it’s just that I haven’t been able to fully invest in it. Maybe the lockout will make me try harder. Maybe this is what was needed to get me into football.
Or maybe I’ll just continue to be upset about the lack of hockey. I’m just a little NHL girl living in the NFL world.
Cat Tacopina