Sunday, February 1, 2009

Another Difference Between Hockey and Football

I'm not a fan of football of any kind, and one of the things I love about hockey is that it's not nearly as overrun with commercialism as the Big Three of football, baseball, and basketball. Out of those, football is definitely the most commercial, and there is no day in the American calendar more commercial than Superbowl Sunday.

And the Superbowl doesn't even offer us the good aspects of commercialism anymore: there hasn't been a truly funny or creative advertisement all night. I can't remember the last time I saw one during the Superbowl; it was probably back in the days of the long and lopsided Bills-Cowboys War, when I was but a tyke.

Much as I dislike this annual sabbath of whoredom and money-grubbing (all of which obscures the celebration of athletic greatness that this day should be), and as much as I find American football (sorry, but I do feel a need to distinguish it from the sport the rest of the world calls "football") boring and Sinister Violent as opposed to exciting, beautiful and Fun Violent like hockey, I do give the NFL props on one thing.

Of course I'm talking about the musical entertainment during the Half Time Show.

Football gets Bruce Springsteen (not even solo; he brought the E Street Band as well!), one of the very greatest of American musical artists, to play during its biggest event. The best the NHL can do is...what, exactly? Recruiting the Stanley Cup-manhandling Def Leppard to play the first Red Wings game of the year?

It's frustrating. I suppose one can't have it both ways.

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