I realize that by now that’s most likely a cliché and not a really original one, but that’s never stopped me before. I really started to take notice of this phenomenon a few weeks ago. I was looking through a local newspaper and as I quickly leafed past the sports section, one picture caught my attention. A picture of a fight at a hockey game; with a four sentence caption underneath that described the fight being depicted as well as mentioning other fights these two men had recently been in. Then the other night I was over at Sandi’s and for some inexplicable reason she was watching the game (I can only guess that living in the home city of The Calgary Shames has somehow infected her mind). I attempted to pay attention for a little while in order to possibly understand the appeal. Less than five minutes into the game a fight started. The commentators took the time to fill us in on the background. Apparently these two teams had a game just a few nights previous and this fight was a carry-over from the last one. The brawl was broken up and they started playing hockey again…for about another five minutes. During the second fight they put up a statistic on the screen regarding fights between these two teams throughout the season.
Around this time I left the room to go play video games with the children. It was far more satisfying to actively battle giant rats, kobolds, orcs and gelatinous cubes than it was to passively watch a hokey fight. I eventually went back to the living room and watched the last five minutes of the game. Amazingly there were no fights during that time (although at one point two players were nose to nose “talking” to each other.
Now I suppose there are a lot of people out there who think that these fights are “part of the game”; however since it’s my blog I’m just going to go ahead and say that you’re wrong. I think sports games should be about the game itself. If you want to watch and /or participate in a fight, come on down to The Redneck for our Monday Night Brawl For Y’All. Gerri and Tammy are eager for some competition.