Champions

In the past 2 nights we have had 2 sport champions crowned. The Carolina Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup on Monday and Tuesday, the Miami Heat won the NBA championship. Really, I had very little invested in either series. Having not seen NHL hockey since 2004 and being at best a lukewarm fan of the NBA, I wasn’t real intrigued. I did, however, tune into the games from time to time, simply because they were broadcast in high def. I’m telling you, sports is what high def does best. There is no question. If you have yet to view such an event in HD, do not wait any longer. The picture is so good that even regular season baseball games are interesting.

Really, the only real good thing about these two sports ending the seasons means that we are that much closer to the real sports season… Football. Now, without the seemingly never ending NBA coverage to waste time with (and the cursory glance they gave to the NHL), SportsCenter can get back to their day jobs of covering the hell out of the NFL. Training camps open in roughly a month. Soon, they will begin breaking down every team, one per day, and analyze every aspect of the off season moves and the upcoming season. College players start practice a little after that and we start to talk about who is favored in the big rivalries… Michigan/Ohio State… Alabama/Auburn… The worlds largest outdoor cocktail party… the red river shootout… the civil war… Just typing it makes me excited.

This is also when Madden 2007 and NCAA Football 2007 video games are released. Anymore, the day Madden is released should be a holiday, simply because there are many many guys out there who will think of nothing but their upcoming virtual seasons for the entire day. I predict more than a few ‘sick’ days will be used that day.

Thus begins the time of year when I start to get a little giddy. I start researching for our fantasy football draft (not that it ever helps for I will end up injuring half my team anyway). I look at the weekend schedules of which college games will be on ABC or ESPN or FoxSports (always knowing that Notre Dame will be on NBC) and plan accordingly.

Mainly, it begins the season of the only team on the planet that I live and die by. Boise State Bronco Football. I will expound on this more in a future post, but growing up in geographically isolated Boise Idaho (seriously…look at a map) you don’t have any major pro teams close to devote yourself to. You’ve got one game in town, and growing up like I did, you learn to love it. At the time of this post, the season opener is 71 days, 9 hours, 2 minutes and 38 seconds away. Of course, this season will be a little different for me as the massive tailgate party of past years I will no longer be a part of. Just another thing I lost in the divorce. Those six or seven days were always in my top 10 favorite days all year. I’ll truly miss them. At least I’ll still be at the games, which is the main focus.

But, it’s still the greatest time of year. And its only 2 short months away. Bring it on.