Are You Ready For Some Football?
NFL fans have their rituals. Starting with the teams they cheer on: the hometown team they’ve cheered on since forever, the team of the city in which they reside, and the team(s) in their fantasy football rosters. On gameday, those teams are represented, and represented with great enthusiasm with face paint, logo clothing, and increasingly hoarse shoutings of fight songs.
Another ritual is where the game is watched, if not at the preferred stadium. A friends house? A sportsbar? Circuit City on the best TV on the house? In Brooklyn, where I live, it is possible to find a bar catering to the randomest sports team imaginable, and hosting the intensely-attentive fans of that random sport (think: Curling). One problem I’ve found is when you go out in public in the colors or logo of the team playing against a New York team that day. Yes, let’s file that under “ill-advised”, shall we?
It doesn’t matter if a New York fan is fairly newly relocated from Podunk, KS or Whipporwhill, MI, they square off on New York teams as soon as they sign that lease. Giants or Jets? Much bonding with other fans shall soon ensue.
Because I am resolutely a fan of a non-New York team and totally obnoxious in my football watching, I stay home and order in some wings. Maybe I’ll search for other Brooklynite fans of my team, we could sneak around and cheer on our team together! Surely my team has an outpost bar in the City somewhere. Well, that’s a research assignment for me, but if you find yourself sitting alone and watching NFL Today, wondering “One of these things is not like the others..”, rest assured someone across town silently answers, “Joe Buck”.
Football! Chicken Wings! Beer! Yes, I’m a girl!
I come back to Metblogs after an absence, notice nothing on Sports for a bit, and decide to throw together a Baseball update. I go to check out the newly updated page, and there’s football posted just before me. Gah.
Yes, it certainly helps to be a fan of an NYC team, but half the people in this city are transplants, so just head down to your local sports bar and enjoy whichever game is on. That is assuming that your team is not playing the Giants/Jets.
Too bad about those Eagles. Philly fans must’ve had a bad day yesterday.
I’m totally with you on this, Trouble. I am a born and raised NYer, but have always been a Miami Dolphin fan (I sadly admit that it started with me liking their colors). I am a certifiable football nut, and could name most of the third string RBs in the league. I often get asked “Jets or Giants,” which is a pretty typical NY-centric point of view (as if anyone else could possibly like another team).
HANG IN THERE! There are us non-NY-team-lovers out there!!! Just few and far between.
On a related note, how annoying is it that most of the time, cable TV only shows the Jets and Giants games! It is the biggest sports-related negative about living in a two-team city (although neither of the teams even plays in the state, but that’s a whole other blog entry).