The Tape Delayed Super Bowl

Few things can bring people together like sports. Crisp Christmas mornings opening presents at Grandma’s house, with most of Mom’s family there (4 uncles, 7 aunts, teeming masses of cousins) would give way to the family football game, played every year when the sun was high and there wasn’t a cloud in sight. Almost every male in the family would join in at some point. With such a big cast of rotating participants, and only a small area to play (the yard being half covered with cars), there wasn’t much structure to the “game”. There was just enough room to fit in all the thrills of football. We’ll throw. We’ll catch. We’ll hit each other. Merry Christmas to all. Beautiful.

Worldwide, the ultimate in sports unity is soccer’s World Cup. Entire nations will come to a stop when their team has a big match. People will stay up all hours of the night to see if their homeland will advance. Surprisingly, another World Cup is nearly upon us. It’s hard to believe it’s been 4 years since the last one. In fact, it seems like just yesterday I was ignoring this event. I kid, I kid. Soccer is a wonderful sport—if you shrink the field by about a hundred yards. And widen those goals a bit, too. I’m tired of seeing all those nice open shots fly into the stands. The goal is about 800 times bigger than the ball! What do they pay you people for!?

Okay, so Americans have a hard time enjoying soccer. Too many ties, not enough blood. Soccer is a sport where there is incentive for a player who is not hurt at all to roll around on the ground screaming like a sissy trying to draw a red card on his opponent. Football is a sport where players whose tendons are pathetically hanging by a thread will shoot themselves up with cortisone, then play as though nothing has happened. They won’t be able to walk when they’re fifty, but that’s OK. They never intended to live that long anyway! Hoo-ah!

Therefore, the ultimate in American sports togetherness is the Super Bowl. Super Bowl Sunday is the 2nd biggest food day of the year in America. That’s a fact. Someone crunched the numbers and determined that more food is consumed on Super Bowl Sunday than any other day except Thanksgiving.

It’s not such a big day in Korea, it turns out. In fact, I saw no sign at all that anyone was aware what day it was. That’s not too surprising. In Korean time, kick-off was at 8:30 AM on a Monday. And also, there’s the small matter that no one knows what the hell a football is. Furthermore, the game was going to be broadcast while I was at work reminding six year olds to speak in complete sentences. It looked like I’d be high and dry for what promised to be one of the most exciting Super Bowl match-ups in years.

Then I got the facebook message. Brandon (who is Canadian, actually, so I dunno why he cares) found a place that would be replaying the game that night at 9. Excellent! I spent my Monday in media blackout. No internet at all. I was rooting for the Saints, but I didn’t think they would win. But who knows? Football is one of the least predictable sports. Just two years ago the Giants beat the Patriots, and that was ten times more David and Goliath than Saints over Colts would be. By the way, I just noticed that calling that Giants-Pats Super Bowl a David and Goliath story is funny because Goliath himself was a giant. Can’t believe that took me two years to notice.

There were four of us traveling out to Sinchon, where the bar was located. Sinchon is a busy place with tons of bars, so it wasn’t easy to find. Luckily, it was obvious what we were looking for. A foreigner, who turned out to work for the bar, walked up to us and said “Are you guys looking for Beer O’Clock? It’s this way.” He saw some Westerners and said to himself, ah, here are some of my customers. Smart plan. Trolling the streets for foreigners on the night of the Super Bowl replay.

About the game itself, what is left to say? It was an epic game. I think the page has been irrevocably turned on the reputation of the Super Bowl in terms of game quality. When I was a little kid, everyone always talked about how the Super Bowl was always a terrible game. And, in those days, that was true more often than not. Usually one team would dominate and the other would be ruthlessly humiliated in the most watched TV program of the year. It was ugly.

But somewhere along the line that changed. I think the transition was the Rams-Titans game. That was a great, close game with a highly memorable finish. That Titan player extending his arm as far as he could and coming up a yard short of the end zone as time expired is one of the best photos in NFL history. Since then, good games have clearly outnumbered bad ones at the Super Bowl. The only 2 stinkers were Ravens-Giants and Bucs-Raiders.

Even in a decade of good Super Bowls, however, this year’s stands out. Simply put, this was one of the most exciting football games I’ve ever seen. There were goal line stands, a two-point conversion complete with the drama of a successful replay challenge, A FUCKING ON-SIDE KICK TO START THE SECOND HALF!!, hardly any penalties, and of course, the game-clinching pick-six.

I may be a suspicious character in Brandon’s eyes because of that interception. I swear, I saw nothing and heard nothing about the game. But somehow, after more than a full half with no turnovers, I got this strange feeling that any turnover would be taken back for a touchdown immediately. I think I based this on a few things. 1. It was a pass-happy game so any turnover would likely be an interception, which are more likely to be turned than fumbles. 2. The defenses of both teams are kind of middle of the road, overall, but both have a mean opportunistic streak. They capitalize on the opportunities given to them. 3. The game was just so damn dramatic by this point that a turnover not leading to an immediate touchdown would have been anticlimactic somehow.

That third point isn’t really based in logic, but I’m sure it motivated me anyway.
So, during the 3rd quarter I declared, “I will bet 5,000 won” (about $5) “that the first turnover will be returned for a touchdown”. There wasn’t an immediate response. People are thinking about the fact that this game was recorded. It already happened 12 hours ago. But I’ve been whooping like a madman every time the Saints do something good and I’m obviously way into the game. I must have seemed trustworthy enough to Brandon, because he took me up on it.

You know the rest. There was a single turnover. It was an interception returned for a touchdown. It was the game-clincher, and it was clear after that the Saints had pulled off the upset. Brandon paid up immediately, but he did ask me directly if I knew what would happen. He was wondering if he’d been cheated. I can’t blame him. It’s a crazy bet. Jason remains convinced that I did know the outcome. I feel kind of weird about it, actually. I mean, I’m honest to a fault. I won’t even tell someone I like their new haircut when I actually don’t. It’s almost pathological. But of course, no one here has known me for longer than 4 months, and how can they know?

In any case, it was an awesome game. Truly one for the ages. Considering that I hadn’t seen a football game in months before this one, I was just in ecstasy. It had everything, and it couldn’t have happened to a nicer team or a cooler city. Long live the Saints!

See you next week!
-Randy