Super Bowl Sunday is here, one of the great American holidays. After expending so much energy showshoeing yesterday (more on that in a later post), I’m ready to eat plenty of junk food and drink a couple beers today! The game promises to be an entertaining matchup as well, with the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers.
It’s kind of crazy how many Packer fans there are here in Boulder. It’s like Green Bay West. My friend D from church is a Packer fan because he went to undergrad at UW-Madison. The worship leader at church is a Packer fan too (at least for this game). The woman who runs trivia at Boulder Beer on Wednesdays is a Packer fan. The receptionist at NCAR had a huge “G” flag hanging from her desk on Thursday morning. The woman on the intercom Friday evening at Safeway (the grocery store), after advertising some Super Bowl specials, said, “Now I don’t know how Green Bay’s gonna pull this one out, I just have faith that they will,” or something to that effect. I’ve heard there’s also a Packers bar here in Boulder too. I can’t get away from it! Heck, even my shampoo and body wash bottles are green and yellow, respectively. Aaaaagh!
I’m almost in a bit of a quandary over who to cheer for. First off, being a Vikings fan, I really don’t like the Packers, although there are a few teams I like less than them, such as the Cowboys (“America’s Team” [puke], Jerry Jones), Bears (another division rival, always despised them), 49ers (something about them has always rubbed me the wrong way), Giants (they’re from New York), and the Jets (from New York and Rex Ryan is their coach). I do like the Packers as an organization though, because the team is owned by the community. So they don’t have a billionaire owner who’s threatening to move the team to Los Angeles if he can’t get the taxpayers to build him a shiny new stadium (like Zygi Wilf of the Vikings, sigh).
As for the Steelers (“Stillers,” as local yinzers call them), they’re quarterbacked by Ben Roethlisberger. It’s pretty clear that Big Ben raped a girl in Georgia in the offseason, yet didn’t end up facing a trial because the cops couldn’t quite *prove* it in a court of law. But it was clear enough for NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to suspend him for the first several games this season. For that reason alone I’ve kinda been cheering against the Steelers all year. The Steelers have also won a few Lombardi Trophies in recent years, and I’m kind of tired of them. I do really like their coach Mike Tomlin, though. He’s a class act, and if the Steelers win today, he’ll be the second former Vikings defensive coordinator to win a Super Bowl as a head coach in the last five years (Tony Dungy with the Colts in SB 41).
Having lived in both Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, I have plenty of friends from both fanbases too, so that won’t be swaying my cheering interests. While I think the Packers will probably win, I’ll be cheering for the Steelers. Well, maybe not for the Steelers as much as against the Packers. Maybe I’ll be cheering for the Budweiser clydesdales instead. Again, as a Vikings fan, I just can’t abide another Super Bowl trophy residing in Lambeau Field. I would’ve cheered against them making it this far, except they played the Bears in the NFC Championship (in that game, I was tongue-in-cheek cheering for the meteor strike). Either way I think this will be a close, entertaining game. I’ll be wearing my Vikings Brett Favre jersey, in the hopes that the Packers lose and their fans still won’t be able to “get over” Favre, hehe.
My roommate and I are hosting a Super Bowl party this afternoon, with a few people coming over from Randy’s church and a few people from my church. Should be a good time! Speaking of church, it’s time to brush the snow off my car and head in. Enjoy the Super Bowl, everyone!