Thursday Night Pointed Ovalball
& The National Pointed Ovalball League
“WOW! Ohio versus Michigan on Saturday!” I said, totally uncharacteristically, seemingly excited about the possibility of watching the game on our TV even though it would run into direct conflict with Minnesota's muzzleloader season.
“Alabama vs Auburn! When’s that on?” I exclaimed, equally excited.
A week later, “WOW! Michigan vs Iowa! BIG TEN!” I said, simply awestruck.
I made a note in my cellphone task list to have a good supply of beer on hand for that game. Buying 30-can packs of Schmidt at a time, assures me I won’t run out -- unless just so happens the deer camp boys knock on our door to watch the game with me.
"Uh, maybe I should grab another 30-pack just-in-case," I thought, for I’m quite aware of the supply issues of the last couple years up here along the Canadian border; sometimes you can get it and sometimes you can’t, eh.
What has happened to me? (Not the beer drinking part; the pointed ovalball game watching part.) I could forever care less who won college pointed ovalball games -- or for that matter, the Superbowl and all its play-off games; ditto that for basketball, baseball, tennis, golf, hockey, and yes, even curling. But just as fast as Covid / Delta, and the latest variant, demanded our total attention, so has this latest vision-locking/attention-sucking disorder called the National Pointed Ovalball League infected mine. What am I to do? It’s still deer season!
I’ll tell you. One of our sons gifted us the NPOL channel just ahead of the Minnesota Vikings / Greenbay Packers pointed ovalball game on Sunday, November 21st, and consequently our nearly 13-year marital union has soared to heights never realized before because my wife, Jackie, totally loves pointed ovalball. Me, not so much.
Jackie has years of Minnesota Vikings Pointed Ovalball jerseys, and has gifted practically all her kids and grandkids their player favorites, as well as providing other-sports team jerseys and favorite player posters.
When I came into the family, I bore witness to many Vikings games in front of the TV, endless streams of lame-brain commercials, raucous yelling and swearing at referees, more whining about overt commentator bias; the consumption of vast amounts of game food and drink; rapture/joy when their team won, and sorrow/disgust when they didn’t ... which, dependably, is the norm for these and presumably thousands of die-hard Vikings fans.
I can’t understand why some pointed ovalball fans would back a team, like the Vikings, for years-on-end, hope-against-hope, that ‘This Year’ they’ll get to the Superbowl and possibly win it, especially when the family conspiracy theorists claim that pointed ovalball games are rigged, and the league is out to get the Vikings for some long-forgotten transgression, and they will never be allowed to participate in, or much less ever win, the Superbowl; citing those teams who have won the beloved contest several times i.e., the New England Patriots winning six, as testament to the total unfairness of the regulatory factions of the league.
My dad loved pointed ovalball and all the other sports. He’d sit in his recliner, with the sports section of the newspaper on his lap, and watch a game on TV with the volume down, and at the same time, listen to a different game on the radio. Me, not so much; I just never got into it and I’m sure it disappointed him. My second oldest sister, ‘Ginger,’ loved Big Ten Basketball and watched all the championship games on TV to the very end of her life. I’m sure Dad and Ginger could exchange stats about them.
But in hindsight, I have my regrets about not participating in sports inasmuch that I missed out on learning the benefits of team play camaraderie; the lifelong network of friendships and associations gained by years of participation in sports. This, I first recognized in the Roseau County business community, and particularly in my varied places of employment as I finally accepted what I missed out on was an education intrinsic to being part of a team.
Still, the world needs a few writers and singers out there, even if we can’t throw a pointed ovalball straight, repeatedly dunk a basketball, or pebble a sheet of curling ice, eh
Life is your game.
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