If You Can't Be an Athlete, Be an Athletic Supporter

Yesterday someone asked me what I had planned for the weekend.  I thought about it for a minute then answered something I very rarely get to say:  "Watching a whole lot of sports".  It's not that I don't like watching sports, so much as I just don't have the time.  My free time is extremely valuable to me, and taking three hours of a weekday evening to watch a hockey game on TV is simply not an appealing enough option.  

But a free live Kingston Frontenacs game on a Friday night in the Empire Life box?  That I can get behind!  I went last night with work colleagues, and though the evening could have gone either way a number of times, I'd say it ended up being an overall success on all counts.  Though I understand that the Fronts have been royally sucking this season, there was certainly no evidence of that last night.  They beat the London Knights (apparently one of the top teams in the league) 3-2 in what was an incredibly exciting game.  I even jumped out of my seat when the Fronts scored to win with only 4 seconds left in the game!

You see, until I married Steve I never really thought too much about hockey.  Despite the common belief that all Canadians grow up both playing and worshiping the game, it simply has never been part of my life.  My Dad (the primary watcher of sports in my house) preferred football, a habit that was to be honest something of a relief to me and my mom, as the season is much shorter and the games less frequent.  Likely due to my abnormal childhood, I have today come to prefer the game of football to that of hockey.  There's less cold, less ice, less showy fighting, better looking players (well, if you can get passed the shiny tights).  The fact that there are fewer games also makes it more exciting (i.e. as opposed to the Leafs playing the Sens for the eighteenth time this season...whoopdy-doo...).  I don't actually watch football all that much either, but the Superbowl is always exciting.  It's definitely the overall aesthetic of the game I find appealing - I don't really care who wins, but will be cheering for Arizona because it's hot there.

Which brings me to my absolute favourite sport...the only one I will go out of my way to watch: tennis.  Tennis has always been big deal for everyone in my family.  The fact that Steve also loves it was one of the things that originally brought us together (on our first date we watched the last Agassi-Sampras match in the 2002 US Open final).  The two finals for the Australian Open are also being held this weekend.  Actually, the women's has already taken place but I have not seen it yet, as it was on at 3:30 this morning.  We'll be watching when it's re-played at 8pm, and I pray to god I don't accidentally hear who wins before hand (I hope it's Safina, and am predicting she will win but only after Serena forfeits the game due to some sort of injury.  Of course she will only do this if Safina is winning to begin with).  The men's, a classic Federer-Nadal match, will be held at 3:30 tomorrow morning, and Steve and I are planning on getting up to watch it.  I'm predicting Nadal will win, but I hope I'm wrong.  I have SUCH a big crush on Federer.  He has such a graceful, classy way of playing the game and watching him makes me happy.