February 1, 2008
"Men, I want you just thinking of one word all season. One word and one word only: Super Bowl ." --Bill Peterson, famed Houston Oilers football coach.
Market analysts say that nearly 100 million people are thinking of the Super Bowl and will tune in Sunday for the biggest football game of 2008.
I will be watching, too, but I must confess just not start to finish. There is just too much else to do during the game.
Eat junk food, watch commercials, and take in Puppy Bowl.
Puppy Bowl? Stay tuned; I'll explain soon.
Super Bowl Sunday will keep many of us busy. In fact, celebrating it has become a major holiday and is now deeply ingrained in our culture. We love to overdo everything on Super Bowl Sunday. We are Super Bowl busy and Super Bowl stressed.
We consume gargantuan amounts of junk food and beverages on a day when it is "in" to eat buffalo wings, chips and dips, pizza, nachos, and more. I plead guilty.
We must also be on high alert during the game to catch all its amazing television commercials. Wouldn't miss them.
Super Bowl Sunday can create stress in another way if one is not particularly excited about either team. I'm not this year although I love both the quarterbacks. Lamar Hunt once explained that Super Bowl fans often cheer for both teams and are more polite and neutral than regular season crowds. Yet, such indecisiveness adds to stress.
Then, there are those who take the Super Bowl so seriously that the word stress does not even cover it.
What a predicament. Whom to cheer? What to do? How to avoid Super Bowl stress?
Only one solution as I see it. Take time out from the big game and watch Puppy Bowl.
Puppy Bowl is now in its fourth season on Animal Planet, but I am just now getting on board. Sometime during the Super Bowl (check your local listings), Animal Planet broadcasts its own bowl game in which puppies run around a large football field-style pen chasing a ball or chasing each other. The puppies stop to drink water from a clear bowl with a hidden camera underneath so we can see their silly faces.
Simply put, Puppy Bowl is a hoot and guaranteed to eliminate all the stress from Super Bowl Sunday.
You can search online with the keywords "animal planet puppy bowl" and find a wealth of information. Such as, the starting lineup. I am pulling for Cali, a Shih Tzu, Jack, the Lab, or Rascal, the Border Collie. On the internet one can also find instructions for a "puppy" tailgate party and watch last year's video.
The Super Bowl may not be the ultimate game after all as Cowboys running back Duane Thomas once said, "If it's the ultimate game, how come they're playing it again next year."
