Sunday, March 05, 2006

Why I love this time of year.

Being the sports nut that I am, March has always been one of my favorite times of the year with the NCAA Tournament and the start of spring training. Now that I am covering the state basketball and hockey tournaments, I want it to be March all year round.

If you haven't gone to a high school hockey or basketball tournament game, do what you have to do to go. Drag the kids, bribe a babysitter, and walk uphill in 20 feet of snow to get to the game, because it will be well worth it. You walk into the gym and are defeaned by the cheers from both schools. You have a bunch of crazed kids screaming and yelling, along with their parents and grandparents, and the whole place feels like an indoor version of Mardi Gras. The cheerleaders are flying, kids are hitting the floor chasing after loose balls like their lives depend on it, and there is a collective gasp everytime a shot goes up.

When Wide World of Sports coined the phrase "The thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat", high school playoffs are what they had in mind. Kids jumping up and down on every hoop, not giving up until the final buzzer, and tears of joy and dismay at the final buzzer. These kids won't go on to the pros, or may not even play in college. This is their stage, and they live it up for all it is worth.

On a side note, is anyone dreading listening to the Rich Tarrant campaign ads for the next nine months as much as I am? Good Lord, I don't care to hear about how Red Auerbach releasing Tarrant helped "form IDX" until the campaign comes to its merciful end.

1 comment:

Haik Bedrosian said...

Those commercials suck. How about that music? Oh it's just so Vermont, huh?

So Rich-Dick played basketball thirty years ago. I should care?

Keep burning your money, Rich-Dick.