Sporadic Thoughts: The Real Fight
What happens while we’re watching something else
I woke up and glanced at a sports roundup online, mildly curious about the much-anticipated hockey game between the United States and Canada. It’s a bitter rivalry going back generations.
Instead of a headline about who won and how the game was played, I was treated to a breathless announcement of how the game featured three fights—in the first nine seconds.
And this was not a lament on the part of the writer. It was more of an “ain’t that cool?” type of attitude.
In fact, here’s a direct quote from the piece:
“People who don’t talk about hockey were talking about hockey, which is what the NHL wanted out of this tournament.”
In other words, the powers behind the event were thrilled that grown men ignored the game itself and launched themselves at their opponents like wild animals before anything else had even happened.
Three times.
Really? THIS is what took center stage at what was supposed to be a clash of athletic titans?
Clearly, the players had prepared to fight before even lacing up their skates. It was a scene right out of “Slap Shot”, a movie I admit I enjoyed.
Because it was a movie.
The Year Without Sports
In 2004, I recognized that I had an addiction to sports. I chose to go through that entire year with NO sports.
Seriously, I didn’t watch or listen to a single game, and I didn’t read a thing about it. I completely gave it up, as an experiment.
And in that year, I finished writing—and then published—my first book. I took the ungodly number of hours I’d devoted to watching other people do things and invested those same hours into doing something myself. It was transformational.
On January 1st, 2005, I watched my first sporting event in a year, a college football bowl game. And it was . . . underwhelming.
Gradually, over the last 20 years, however, I’ve let sports again entwine itself into my life. I’m not a sports junkie, not when compared to people who listen to six hours of sports talk a day and are involved in four different fantasy leagues.
But I do subscribe to YouTube TV during football season for 80-something-dollars per month, purely for the ability to watch a handful of games.
Then I woke up one day and saw that all anyone cared about regarding a hockey game between the USA and Canada was the fact that there were three fistfights in the first nine seconds.
And it made me feel like a fool. I’m a party to idiocy. An accomplice to insanity.
What the hell is wrong with me?
What I Think I Finally Understand
This isn’t an attempt to influence anyone’s behavior. I’m not advocating for anything. I’m only noticing that, every once in a while, life hands us a quiet signal to re-evaluate the choices we’re making.
Most of the time, we ignore it and keep going.
Human nature, right?
But twenty years after giving up sports, I’m on the doorstep of doing it again. Not because I need the time for something else, but because I think I finally understand the message:
Most sports, both professional and collegiate, are simply very efficient ways of separating me from my money. And maybe from my common sense.
Maybe the real fight is for attention.
And I keep looking away.
Dom Testa writes fiction and nonfiction, and believes paying attention is harder than it looks.
Find most of his work at DomTestaBooks.com.