The Hlog

A Midwest Fest?

Next Sunday is the best football day of the year. It used to be New Year's, until they moved most of the blockbuster bowl games to Jan. 2, 3, 8, and probably 17 through 29 in the future. The Rose Bowl is still on New Year's. Those old sentimentalists in Pasadena are still weeping with joy because they actually got a Big Ten/Pacific-10 matchup this year.

But this Sunday, when the AFC and NFC title games are held, is the best. It's relatively little of the sideshow insanity of the Super Bowl, and more just four teams slugging it out to get to the "ultimate" game. One of the two games will even be played outdoors in the Midwest.

If it wasn't for the fact that I'm a Mediacom cable subscriber in Cedar Rapids and don't get CBS affiliate KGAN thanks to Sinclair Broadcast Group yanking the station from Mediacom, I'd watch both games Sunday. So, like Sunday's New England-San Diego game, I'll have to catch the highlights (lowlights, if you're a Chargers fan) of the AFC championship contest on the late-night news and read about it the next day in the Cedar Rapids Gazette, the newspaper with the new-look Web site that you should go to early and often each day.

But back to Sinclair. If I haven't said it lately, thanks a lot, Sinclair. What kind of advertising rates does a local station charge when its ratings are an asterisk? Just asking.

Everybody but Chicago Bears fans seem to be pulling for the New Orleans Saints to beat the Bears Sunday in the NFC title bout. Because, you know, it would do so much for the people of New Orleans. But I'm guessing that win or lose, those in New Orleans who got wiped out because of Hurricane Katrina will still have a bit of a struggle even if the Saints reach their first Super Bowl. Something tells me all those people with Saints tickets were the ones with enough money to make their personal hurricane recoveries a little easier than those of the city's poor folks, many of whom got displaced and are probably never coming back.

What about the poor people of Chicago? They're still trying to recover from that deal a few years ago when Mrs. O'Leary's cow set fire to the whole city. They need an NFC title to help them get past that.

The poor people of Indianapolis need their Colts to beat New England in the AFC championship because it would give Colts quarterback Peyton Manning a chance to collect some product-endorsement opportunities. Manning's only been in what seems like 100 commercials in the last year. He needs more.

So here's hoping for a Chicago-Indianapolis Super Bowl. Call it Midwest provincialism. They could play the game in Gary, Indiana, instead of Miami. OK, bad idea.

But there hasn't been an all-Midwest Super Bowl since Kansas City beat Minnesota in Super Bowl IV. We're up to Super Bowl XLI, so that was XXXVII Super Bowls ago. Or 37 years, if you're not an ancient Roman. A Chicago-Indy matchup would beat the heck out of recent pairings like Pittsburgh-Seattle, New England-Carolina, or Tampa Bay-Oakland.

But if it's New Orleans-New England, I'll still watch. Oh wait, CBS has the Super Bowl this year, so I won't be able to get the game in my house. Thanks a lot, Sinclair.

 

 

 

 

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