Big day

Ah, Super Bowl Sunday. I'm enjoying being a fan for this one. It's amazing that with so much wall-to-wall media coverage, practically nothing insightful or original is being said. Perhaps it got lost in the glut of saturation. No matter. I devour the fluff pieces, the opinion ones, the prognostications, it's all a part of the pageantry of the "big game".

Being raised on American football and the World Cup hard-wired me to love a final. There's something both fatalistic and exhilarating to have it all come down to one game. I love that the last game matters, that it generally sets up the best versus the best. To me, that's what makes a single-table structure often anti-climactic - a team can sew up the title before the season ends, and it can clinch against a low-ranked team, on a day that no one has been able to plan for. The ones I hate the most are when a team wins a game, then goes home, and finds out there that the outcome of another team's result means they have clinched the title. Great. They're at home in their socks when they become champions. Lame. Plus, it makes it hard for the fans to prepare the party, because they're never quite sure when the title will come.

It's not that I refuse to watch the soccer abroad because of it - I follow it. I still like the elimination structure of Champions' League, though, for example.

Anyway, since I currently don't have an NFL beat, and I can just be a spectator, I'm soaking in all the pomp and build-up of the Super Bowl and marveling at how far MLS Cup has to go. Honestly, though, I think David Beckham in the championship game would make everything jump a factor in that direction.

So the friends are coming over, the big screen is set, the menu planned, (it's all about oven-ready appetizers), and the super sporting day is here. Yay for big events!