Usually October is the best sports month on the calendar- baseball playoffs, football heating up in all leagues and the start of NHL and NBA seasons, its the only time when all 4 major sports converge for fans and casual spectators alike. January is becoming a close second, with major college bowl games, NFL playoffs and the NHL's Winter Classic taking centre stage on the 1st day of the year. The Winter Classic is like the high school prom for the NHL in the United States, lots of hoopla, everyone dressed up and smiling, "Putting on the Ritz" for the folks at NBC and around the USA. This year's game, hindered by weather that was unforgiving in terms of quality hockey was every bit the spectacle, featuring the 2 best players in the game going head to head, powered by the HBO series on their teams, rivalry and buildup to the event. The fact that the game was overtaken by role players, was sloppily played and took a back seat to the rain is really secondary, it's all about the event, and a grand event it was. Weather hardened football fans at Heinz Field certainly were able to handle the elements, strengthened, no doubt by several extra hours of tailgating and liquid courage. As I blogged on Saturday, the league needs to address sustainability for this game but overall while it would be easy to bash this year's Classic and many media types have, you cannot escape the conclusion that the NHL enjoys no bigger stage, even during the Stanley Cup finals than they do on January 1st. Travel 3 time zones and 2,100 miles to the west and you had the Rose Bowl and a defining moment for College Football and the BCS Bowl System. TCU defeated Wisconsin in an emotionally charged, highly entertaining game that earned the Rose Bowl its moniker as "The Grandaddy of them all".
It has been a tough bowl season, lots of blow-outs, games between teams that just crawled with a 6-6 record and a schedule that is exhausting, resplendent with crazy sponsorships- with sincere apologies to Beef o' Brady's and Kraft. For the Rose, TCU's victory was like that moment in the movie Hoosiers when "winning one for all the small schools" became the dramatic undercurrent to a football game played by two superb schools. TCU's victory, perhaps more than anything else illustrates that the system needs to be changed, playoff perhaps, or other means to provide the best teams in the nation, regardless of Conference the chance to play for the national title. It's true- playoffs don't guarantee the best team will win, but what they do is provide an equal playing field for every team over a short window to compete at the highest level with the ultimate prize on the line. Bully to TCU for shattering another flimsy glass ceiling with a significant Rose Bowl win. Overall January 1st is couch potato nirvana and a highly interesting and engaging way to begin 2011. With NFL playoffs starting this weekend and the BCS ramping up, the first month of the year promises mega story lines and lots to write, discuss, opine and argue about.
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