Every year American sports fans are faced with the same awful, empty feeling which begins to set in around 9pm EST on the first Sunday in February. Yet again, the NFL has tantalized us for 5+ months, building to a deafening crescendo that is so intoxicating we forget about the sudden halt at the end of the ride. The SuperBowl has come and gone. It all ended so quickly. Now you're faced with the daunting proposition of slogging your way through February so that March Madness can provide you with your next fix. Sounds terrible, right? Luckily, I am here to provide you with a road map to deftly navigate the February sports doldrums.
Plan 1: Embrace hockey for a month. For all you stick-and-ball sports people, this is your best bet. Hockey has all the hard hitting of football and is played more frequently. I know you've been avoiding hockey for years, but I am proposing a limited term commitment. Just pay attention to hockey for the shortest calendar month. I promise you won't regret it and here's why: this is a bonus year for hockey!! You get pro hockey until the NHL breaks for the Olympics. Then you get the Olympics!! Here's what you do: Pick a good NHL team (or two) and start following them. You will get to watch them a couple times before the NHL goes on Olympic hiatus on February 9th. Then, from the 12th to the 23rd, you get Olympic hockey featuring some of the players from your adopted favorite team(s). For these two weeks you'll have the option of cheering for one country or all the countries that have players from your teams (think of it kind of like fantasy football). Once the gold medals are handed out, you only have to wait a couple of days for the NHL to reconvene and, in watching the Olympics, you might even have found some new players to follow (or hate. I find that sports hating can be just as compelling a reason to watch sports. May I propose Boston Bruins/Canadian Wing, Milan Lucic if you are unsure of who to start hating. Watch this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rYgKqDMB9Q and let the hate flow.)
Plan 2: Start prepping for this summer's World Cup in Brazil by taking in some world class soccer. Before I start this plan, I want to ask you to bear with me. I promise not to be "soccer guy" and try to shove "the beautiful game" down your throat. I hate that guy as much as you do and I am a huge soccer fan. I absolutely respect your right to think that soccer is stupid, boring, low scoring, whatever. I just want you to hear me out. February is going to suck anyway unless you follow Plan 1 or simply heave yourself headlong into the other winter Olympic events. Why not take advantage of the opportunity to know the names of the global superstars before the World Cup kicks off? Nothing shuts "soccer guy" up faster than spouting knowledge about soccer. He'll be stunned into silence and your ears will thank you. So, here's the plan: watch this hilarious video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KeG_i8CWE8. I'll wait. Ok, back? What you were looking at there, was NBC pitching their new international gem. They swooped in and stole the English Premier League (EPL) TV rights essentially causing the collapse of Fox Soccer Channel. NBC has done an amazing job with making the EPL more accessible to us Yanks than ever. You can catch games every Saturday and Sunday morning. It's the wealthiest, most star-powered league in the world (apologies to Spain and Germany) and the rosters are stacked with the best players from all the powerful soccer countries. Remember that douche from the South Africa World Cup in 2010 who got away with a handball that screwed Ghana out of the final four (would have been the furthest an African nation would ever have gone on soccer's biggest stage)? That douche, Uruguay's Luis Suarez, plays for Liverpool and is scoring goals at a CRAZY rate this year. Who owns Liverpool? The Fenway Sports Group. Yup, same as the Boston RedSox. Boom! You already have a team to hate.
The other soccer spectacle that can help you through February is the Champion's League Quarterfinals. Real quick, let me explain what this competition is. Imagine we had a season long tournament with the best baseball teams from the US, Japan, Korea, Panama, Venezuela, the DR, and Puerto Rico. These teams would still play their regular league games, but work in "Champion's League" games throughout the season, slowly eliminating teams until you whittle it down to the absolute best. Champion's League is essentially that, but it only includes European soccer teams. The quarterfinals are fun because you get to see Germany's "Yankees" take on England's "Yankees," but you also get some Cinderellas in there. This year's final 16 includes teams from Germany, Spain, France, England, Greece, Turkey, Italy and Russia. Do you have any idea how many eons of bad blood that encompasses? It's going to be awesome. (Thanks for finishing those two paragraphs. If you are not convinced that soccer is worth trying or even a little curious about the things I mentioned, I promise I will warn you up front so you can skip anything I ever write about soccer going forward)
Plan 3: Catch the Olympics bug for two weeks. NBC will be televising a ton of this stuff and some of it is pretty interesting. There is decent variety. Lots of skiing, skating (speed and figure), and snowmobiles. Biathlon features cross country skiing with a rifle and stopping to shoot targets. Curling has been described as "what the staff at Bed, Bath and Beyond do after hours" and it's oddly compelling TV. And don't forget about the sled events. At the Vancouver games in 2010, someone actually died doing this (luge, not bobsled). If you're one of those people who watches NASCAR just to cheer for a crash, this might be a good distraction for a couple weeks in February.
Plan 4: Just be miserable. Watch mediocre college hoops as they drag through the conference season. Tune in to NBA basketball that no one takes seriously and watch players just biding their time until May, when the games start to matter. Wallow in the tragic loss of football and start preparing your mock draft. I didn't say this was a good plan. I just said it was an option.
Plan 5: Some combination of plans 1-4.
I know I have given you a lot to chew on here, so I just want to leave you with one final note about the thing I think is most worth your time, Olympic hockey. Think about this. Would the NBA even consider shutting down for two weeks over a scheduling conflict with the Olympics? Probably not. That means that Olympic hockey matters to a lot of fans. Let it matter to you for 12 days. Pop in your BluRay of Miracle, scream "'Merica!!!!" at the top of your lungs, and climb on the USA hockey bandwagon for a bit. It's really awesome. The driver is Chuck Norris and the wagon is pulled by two gigantic eagles. You won't regret it.
Plan 1: Embrace hockey for a month. For all you stick-and-ball sports people, this is your best bet. Hockey has all the hard hitting of football and is played more frequently. I know you've been avoiding hockey for years, but I am proposing a limited term commitment. Just pay attention to hockey for the shortest calendar month. I promise you won't regret it and here's why: this is a bonus year for hockey!! You get pro hockey until the NHL breaks for the Olympics. Then you get the Olympics!! Here's what you do: Pick a good NHL team (or two) and start following them. You will get to watch them a couple times before the NHL goes on Olympic hiatus on February 9th. Then, from the 12th to the 23rd, you get Olympic hockey featuring some of the players from your adopted favorite team(s). For these two weeks you'll have the option of cheering for one country or all the countries that have players from your teams (think of it kind of like fantasy football). Once the gold medals are handed out, you only have to wait a couple of days for the NHL to reconvene and, in watching the Olympics, you might even have found some new players to follow (or hate. I find that sports hating can be just as compelling a reason to watch sports. May I propose Boston Bruins/Canadian Wing, Milan Lucic if you are unsure of who to start hating. Watch this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rYgKqDMB9Q and let the hate flow.)
Plan 2: Start prepping for this summer's World Cup in Brazil by taking in some world class soccer. Before I start this plan, I want to ask you to bear with me. I promise not to be "soccer guy" and try to shove "the beautiful game" down your throat. I hate that guy as much as you do and I am a huge soccer fan. I absolutely respect your right to think that soccer is stupid, boring, low scoring, whatever. I just want you to hear me out. February is going to suck anyway unless you follow Plan 1 or simply heave yourself headlong into the other winter Olympic events. Why not take advantage of the opportunity to know the names of the global superstars before the World Cup kicks off? Nothing shuts "soccer guy" up faster than spouting knowledge about soccer. He'll be stunned into silence and your ears will thank you. So, here's the plan: watch this hilarious video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KeG_i8CWE8. I'll wait. Ok, back? What you were looking at there, was NBC pitching their new international gem. They swooped in and stole the English Premier League (EPL) TV rights essentially causing the collapse of Fox Soccer Channel. NBC has done an amazing job with making the EPL more accessible to us Yanks than ever. You can catch games every Saturday and Sunday morning. It's the wealthiest, most star-powered league in the world (apologies to Spain and Germany) and the rosters are stacked with the best players from all the powerful soccer countries. Remember that douche from the South Africa World Cup in 2010 who got away with a handball that screwed Ghana out of the final four (would have been the furthest an African nation would ever have gone on soccer's biggest stage)? That douche, Uruguay's Luis Suarez, plays for Liverpool and is scoring goals at a CRAZY rate this year. Who owns Liverpool? The Fenway Sports Group. Yup, same as the Boston RedSox. Boom! You already have a team to hate.
The other soccer spectacle that can help you through February is the Champion's League Quarterfinals. Real quick, let me explain what this competition is. Imagine we had a season long tournament with the best baseball teams from the US, Japan, Korea, Panama, Venezuela, the DR, and Puerto Rico. These teams would still play their regular league games, but work in "Champion's League" games throughout the season, slowly eliminating teams until you whittle it down to the absolute best. Champion's League is essentially that, but it only includes European soccer teams. The quarterfinals are fun because you get to see Germany's "Yankees" take on England's "Yankees," but you also get some Cinderellas in there. This year's final 16 includes teams from Germany, Spain, France, England, Greece, Turkey, Italy and Russia. Do you have any idea how many eons of bad blood that encompasses? It's going to be awesome. (Thanks for finishing those two paragraphs. If you are not convinced that soccer is worth trying or even a little curious about the things I mentioned, I promise I will warn you up front so you can skip anything I ever write about soccer going forward)
Plan 3: Catch the Olympics bug for two weeks. NBC will be televising a ton of this stuff and some of it is pretty interesting. There is decent variety. Lots of skiing, skating (speed and figure), and snowmobiles. Biathlon features cross country skiing with a rifle and stopping to shoot targets. Curling has been described as "what the staff at Bed, Bath and Beyond do after hours" and it's oddly compelling TV. And don't forget about the sled events. At the Vancouver games in 2010, someone actually died doing this (luge, not bobsled). If you're one of those people who watches NASCAR just to cheer for a crash, this might be a good distraction for a couple weeks in February.
Plan 4: Just be miserable. Watch mediocre college hoops as they drag through the conference season. Tune in to NBA basketball that no one takes seriously and watch players just biding their time until May, when the games start to matter. Wallow in the tragic loss of football and start preparing your mock draft. I didn't say this was a good plan. I just said it was an option.
Plan 5: Some combination of plans 1-4.
I know I have given you a lot to chew on here, so I just want to leave you with one final note about the thing I think is most worth your time, Olympic hockey. Think about this. Would the NBA even consider shutting down for two weeks over a scheduling conflict with the Olympics? Probably not. That means that Olympic hockey matters to a lot of fans. Let it matter to you for 12 days. Pop in your BluRay of Miracle, scream "'Merica!!!!" at the top of your lungs, and climb on the USA hockey bandwagon for a bit. It's really awesome. The driver is Chuck Norris and the wagon is pulled by two gigantic eagles. You won't regret it.
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