President Obama was right on the mark - The Pittsburg Steelers edged out the Arizona Cardinals in a last minute touchdown to win the Vince Lombardi trophy, the Super Bowl, the most coveted and the most prestigious trophy in NFL. In any finals of any sporting event, I have the tendency to support the underdog and so I was rooting for the Cardinals. They did put up a good fight but in the end they fell a little short. Plus the Steelers had already won the trophy five times and this was their sixth which is an all time record for Super Bowl wins. Ah well! its not like I have some money invested in a team like SRK does. Neither was I a die hard fan of any of the teams contesting. After we moved from Kansas City where we actually had a local NFL team to support, the Chiefs!!!, no matter how bad they played, Salt Lake City does not have a NFL team nor does any city in Utah. The folks here are satisfied with the excitement they get over the clashing of two of the local college football teams. These are people who find happiness in small things... just kidding ;).
The Super Bowl dates back to 1967 and is a game between the top teams in each of the 2 leagues in the American Football namely the NFC and the AFC which are the National and the American Football Conferences respectively. So, even if it is not as old as some worldwide sports like cricket or soccer, it is one of the greatest events in the American sports calendar. The highest sale of potato chips, sodas, buffalo chicken wings and pizza happens on this very day. Oh and beer too. There are numerous super bowl parties that we usually get invited too. This year we decided to stay home and watch since Aarav was not feeling too well. I have had numerous discussions with people here and some back in India as to how and why they call it a football game as neither the foot is used as its supposed to nor do we have a round ball. I will not go into that discussion again. I still prefer to call soccer as football which I feel is the true foot-ball. Same goes with the baseball world series... people!!! Soccer can have a World Series but not baseball. More than 140 countries play soccer, where as professional baseball, a handful. The halftime show has higher ratings now than any other normal music show after the Janet Jackson episode. Hence the conference fearing any such unusual event, have reverted back to bringing old rock stars and such who are in their 60s now. This year though, Bruce Springsteen did put up a good show. The other attraction is the good quality of super bowl ads. This year it was expected that the number of ads would be less due to the economic downturn but guess what; ads worth 206 million dollars were aired yesterday. Do you know that like super bowl parties there are super bowl ad parties too!!! They mute the volume during the game and un-mute during the ads... what a bunch of bozos!!!
So the purpose of this musing was not to rant about how strange some of the sports traditions the US has, but to appreciate its sports culture and certain traditions that can be found only here. I can never imagine myself playing American football though as the thought of I being tackled by a 300 pounder sends chills up my spine.
NFL link.
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Impressive!!!
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