Losing Interest Already

I won’t make any friends with this one, but I simply hate long, unnecessarily drawn out hypes. The 2008 Super Bowl will be discussed, analyzed, promoted and second guessed for 12 more days. And on that Sunday, the TV will begin its coverage at dawn for a night game. I honestly do not get any enjoyment out of all this pre-game activity which is absolutely totally irrelevant.

I was raised here in Maine and in my childhood nearly all New Englanders rooted for the New York Giants. Of course back then you could count the number of professional football teams on your fingers. Most of us could give you all the latest stats of Giants players.

I for one didn’t get too excited when the American Football League came along. Boston did have a team in it, but it wasn’t the New York Giants, a National Football Team. Eventually the AFL sort of forced a merger and the two conferences, AFC and NFC, continued the name of the National Football League.

For a while many of us Giants fans remained loyal. In fact, there still are many loyal Giants fans in New England. I probably am more of a Patriots fan these days than Giants; but I must admit on Sunday afternoons if both are playing at the same time, I just might be watching the Giants.

New England and New York aren’t natural rivalries as the play in different conferences and it takes a Super Bowl to get them together. I am looking forward to the game simply because for me it represents the better of two worlds: Growing up and growing away.

But the hype we’ll be living through for the next 12 days for me adds absolutely nothing. Most of the analyst’s prognostications will be wrong; they usually are. We’ll have daily blasts of injuries (Did you see the picture of Brady in his walking cast?), distractions (Why has Randy Moss all but disappeared?), and how many successful road victories the Giants have racked up and the Patriots home game wins. New England will be the Super Bowl home team.

Even this morning on the early morning news, the Super Bowl was mentioned virtually between every news story, before every weathercast, opening each segment, closing each segment.

I’m already tired of the Super Bowl. Nevertheless, I’ll be watching the game at game time, but very, very little of the rest.

I should mention that the Super Bowl isn’t the only drawn out event I’m disgusted with. Even worse is the presidential procedure. The Democrats have been running against President Bush for three years. And the President isn’t even a candidate. The caucuses and primaries for nominating candidates began before the New Year. Campaigning began way back last summer and before. And in some of the caucuses and primaries already held, anyone could vote for a candidate in either party. Perhaps both.

Some of us remember when the nominations were held in the summer before the November elections but the actual “season” didn’t begin until Labor Day. Sometimes I really think the “good old days” were better.

But like I’ll watch the Super Bowl, my string of voting in every election since I turned 21 (that was the voting age then) will continue. But I’m already tired of the whole thing.

G.D.