Miscellaneous: XL

Now that the unthinkable has happened and the Seattle Seahawks are finally in the Super Bowl, I’m entitled to engage in a little bandwagoneering. (Is that a word? Well, it is now.) But I respect you people too much for that.

When it comes to my adopted hometown’s sports teams, I, like Moe the Bartender, am a well-wisher, in that I don’t wish them any specific harm. The only team I root for is the New York Mets – who, incidentally, will tear up the NL East this season. When I watch any game, be it pee-wee girls soccer or NFL showdown, it’s always with the same hope: that I will see some truly stunning displays of poor sportsmanship, bloodshed included.

It’s not like I didn’t try to root, root, root for the home teams when I moved here. I pin my failure on the 2001 Mariners. Set the major league record for most regular season wins and then not go to the World Series? You’re dead to me.

Seattle hasn’t won a major men’s sports championship since the 1979 Sonics took the NBA crown. (Obscure sports fact: the first American team to win the Stanley Cup was the long-defunct Seattle Metropolitans in 1917. We don’t even have an NHL franchise now, yet somehow Phoenix and Dallas do.) But Seattle’s title woes never impress sportswriters or other fans. I think it’s because the rest of the country resents the isolated splendor of the Pacific Northwest. Seattle, some 800 miles from the closest NFL town, is like that kid from the gifted program who seems perfectly happy playing by himself. You never give him another thought, so you’re never aware of his pain.

The fact that the Seahawks are making their first Super Bowl appearance after 30 years in the league is being eclipsed by the many storylines circulating around their opponents the Pittsburgh Steelers, one of the most fabled teams in the NFL. The ‘Hawks are already underdogs. But I’m counting on that to work in their favor. Let everybody talk about the Steelers’ 3 road wins against the top teams in the dominant conference and Jerome Bettis closing out his career in his hometown of Detroit. Then the Seahawks can come in and quietly and efficiently get the job done.

And, yes, I’m going to be pulling for them.

Miscellaneous: Link

Cool! Muslim superheroes!