Today, my column in The Ottawa Citizen was on the Super Bowl, (http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Entertainment/Shock+Bowl/1238844/story.html) or more truthfully, why I’ve never been much of a fan of Football. The gist of it is that it was never any fun to play as a kid, as you spent more time policing the game than actually playing it. I mean, nothing could be more of a buzz kill after a dazzling broken field run, than having to stop the play, try to count off the distance you had just accumulated, and then bicker with the opposite team about whose stride was the closest approximation of a yard.
Another thing that tended to ruin my experiences with football was the ball itself. Not everybody had one, and the one kid that did (who always used his ownership of it as a point of entry into a social circle that normally would have shunned him) treated it as if it was as delicate and precious as a human brain. If I’m remembering correctly, the blue chip model was a Wilson, and it was expensive. As such, it came with it’s own set of rules. You could not spike the ball. You could not let the ball touch the pavement. You were not to get the ball muddy or wet. In short, you were not to play with the ball. I mean, it just made you want to go read a book or something.
With that out of the way, I will now bravely go forth and handicap tomorrow’s Super Bowl game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals.
Team Name.
Although I don’t exactly know what a “Steeler’ is, it sounds formidable. A Cardinal, either the bird or religious person, does not.
Edge: Steelers
Talent Pool.
Pittsburgh has a population of two and half million, while Arizona, a state, has a population of six and a half million people from which to draw from to stock their team.
Edge: Cardinals
Quarterbacks.
Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is nicknamed “Big Ben” and has sore ribs. He is a close personal friend of Donald Trump, has his own line of Beef Jerky named Big Ben’s XL Beef Jerky, has been in a motorcycle accident and the first thing he said at the end of his last game was “The Lord is good!”
Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner is old and probably has knee disease. He and his wife are active born-again Christians, and in 2006, Warner was featured in a political advertisement opposing a bill supporting embryonic stem cell research.
Edge: God could go either way on this one.
Outfits.
The Steelers wear brown and yellow uniforms, the colours of dirt and urine. The design on their helmets looks like it might be the logo for some atomic commission, like it was chosen from a high school competition in 1954.
The Cardinals dress in nifty red, like the Flash. They have a Cardinal on their helmet and he looks like he’s got something evil in mind, like he wants to fuck you up, bitch. His crest also looks like a Mohawk, earning him extra menace points.
Edge: Cardinals
Cheerleaders.
Due to the economic downturn, the Pittsburgh “Steelerettes” have suffered some cutbacks, and instead of pom-poms, they now use dumbbells with strips of garbage bags glued to them. As such, many of the girls, who need to be very powerful in order to perform the routines, are plus-sized models and body builders.
The Arizona Cardinals cheerleaders team captain Marcie, an electrical engineer at Intel, said the whole team is thrilled to be part of the Super Bowl. She also said that they were going to “bring it” and that their routines to No Doubt’s “Hey Baby” and The Beatles “I Saw Her Standing There” were going to make things “sticky.”
Edge: Cardinals
I predict that the Cardinals will win by 14 ½ points. I called Goran, my bookie, and placed the bet. He said to me, “Little Bro, one day, you will make me broke, my man,” before laughing and hanging up.