Winning and Losing, Both Are Confusing...and Lent sucks

As is my custom, I'm about two weeks behind the news cycle. Whatever I'm about to write about Tiger Woods is probably regurgitated from things I've heard other people say or things other people have already said.

It's Lent, now, and Lent sucks. Being the season of Catholic repentance commemorating Jesus' 40 days of temptation in the desert and culminating with a brutal form of capital punishment. Ok, so that Easter thing works out well. In the spirit of that season, the family and I have given up sweets completely. No cookies in lunches or frogurt after supper or ice cream or cake, and so forth. Sometimes I've used Lent as a time to jump-start a diet or replace bad behaviors with good ones. This year, in an effort to honor it's place as a time of repentance, I can offer some couched apologies - and they're only couched in the interests of people's privacy.

To my wife and friend, Carol, who has walked a long and winding road with me. I am not - and perhaps will never be- the best boyfriend, husband, father, and friend you might have hoped for, and for all of my deficiencies, I am sorry.

To the kids, yeah, I owe you one too.

To my parents, to whom I've not been the best son.

To my brothers, who I'm not always there for, and who deserved a better big brother.

To my deceased grandparents, who put up with me as a spoiled brat and awkward teenager.

To my only uncle, I'm sorry things were never completely smoothed over, but glad that you and my mom were able to bury some animosity.

To P and L, I can't give anything back, but I'm sorry for what I took.

To my friends, and you know who you are, I haven't always been as caring and attentive as I've meant to be.

....I guess that's it. If you don't know, don't ask.

So Tiger Woods goes on the telly and issues his statement last week while I'm working. He certainly sounded like a guy who was reading from a piece of paper, but his voice also showed what I hope was genuine human emotion. Tiger's like Todd Marinovich (if he'd been succesful), he's an almost genetically designed "Robo-golfer". From a young age, he was a phenom and remained so. The word "failure" wasn't an issue for him, as it never really happened. Who ever told him "No"?

His father passes away and he's left with enablers (I know nothing of his mother). Girls throw themselves at the guy. Perhaps his wife was once one such girl (I have no clue). Take a tremendous, history-making career in what's been a fairly short and successful life, then analyze it all through the prism of the past 3 months. Since Thanksgiving, the man and his family have entered the crucible of the public eye. His November car wreck starts the ball rolling and the rumors begin shortly thereafter. How far down does Icarus fall? His December statement is intensely scrutinized and talking heads are dividing up his bones because we all know he won't survive this. His wife's photographed not wearing a ring. Then rehab. All dispensed for the public's consumption.

This really must be tough for the man behind "Robo-golfer", and his family.

Seriously, he's got kids, and I assume that means something to him. As for the wife, who knows? Perhaps she knew exactly the measure of the man prior to this and perhaps not.

So...back to his "statement".

What I liked about it was the sense that- perhaps- he'd remembered the person he had been and the person he'd always wanted to be. Not just the athlete. Not just the famous endorser-of-products. The person. I recall myself as a kid, wanting to be a person who was honest and just and hard-working and faithful, etc. Inevitably, humans fall short of that idealized person, but remembering your ideals can help you back on the path. Who am I? What defines me? Does the fact that I engaged in lousy behavior define me? Tiger's golf doesn't define him. His adultery, hopefully, won't either. At least, I hope not.

But, as they, say, we'll see.

So, Tiger's the "winner" I was thinking of at the beginning of this blog. The "loser" is the sport of ice hockey.

Why in the hell does no one care about this amazing sport? I enjoy NFL football and it's gluttony of corporate interests, but my enjoyment of the No Fun League is waning with every ticket-price increase and catalog of "fine NFL-themed merchandise" I get in the mail. Apparently, there's a market for NFL-themed thongs. I shudder at the thought...well, I shudder only a little bit.

Sunday, there was a preliminary round game between Team USA and Team Canada. In Canada, something like half of the entire country watched the game - and cried. But here in good old US of A it was an afterthought on some channel called MSNBC (which also carries Olberman, I think...to which this blogger says....meh). The game was AMAZING. Canada owns the game, they invented it, it's the fabric of their society blah blah blah. And our boys (and women, by the way) went up to their barn and beat 'em. Wasn't pretty, but it was everything great about the sport: fast skating, offensive chances for both teams in an up-tempo back-and-forth way, excellent defense and clean checking, and amazing shot-blocking and goal-keeping. This isn't the NBA, where shot-blocking means getting a hand up, in hockey this means allowing a frozen puck moving at speeds over 85 mph to bounce off your body. I play, I have had my bruises, and they hurt like hell.

What is it about hockey that scares US citizens? I think it's perception. And competition. ?Hockey's regular season is on the long side and begins just as baseball is wrapping up and the NFL season gets rolling in earnest. Alongside those pillars of society is the NBA, which draws people's money and time away, too.

Hockey is fast-moving. Football is slow. Hockey is a fluid game. Football is rigid and heavily-governed with a million nutty rules on what constitutes "a catch". Hockey is hard-hitting. Football is - but they aren't wearing skates. A bad hockey game usually has a great deal of hitting and perhaps fighting. A bad football game is....just an awful thing to watch.

Take a chance, you bunch of stick-in-the-mud afraid to try anything new scaredy-cats, and watch a hockey game. Tell 'em you were scolded and shamed into watching it, for all I care. It's worth the effort.