So why the Western fixation with professional sports by a certain demographic (namely, 40 - 72-yr-old males) to which I belong? Let's state the obvious; that being that since we're in a first world country, we have the means -- the money and the leisure time to indulge ourselves. That would explain a lot of other things too: addictions, consumerism, dysfunction and obesity.

But back to the fixation with pro sports: in my case, NHL hockey. I've never played ice hockey. I've played all other sorts of hockey: Cosom hockey, floor hockey, ball hockey, table hockey, EA Sports hockey, arcade hockey, sock hockey, basement hockey, and even once barn hockey! So I'm guessing part of the fixation would be involvement with the sport. But I'm guessing it has to go a lot deeper than that.

Does it play into some sort of hero fantasy? Is it a vicarious thing? Is it the grown up equivalent to why adolescent boys are fascinated with super heroes? Does it compensate for us being powerless?

This is deep. I should probably go on some sports psychology web site and figure it out. Maybe I'll do just that after I watch the Pens - Hurricane game tonight.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

1969. Good Bye, Montreal -- I forgot to say it then so I'll say it now

Image
It's very difficult for me to say goodbye. I'm not sure why. Case in point: I started a blog post when I left teaching in Fort Erie in 2007. The post was about how difficult it is to say goodbye.  I never finished that post. I'm not even sure where it is. I looked for it in my draft section but couldn't find it. I started another post on the difficulty in saying goodbye after leaving a brief stint as a consultant with the school board from 2012-2015. I never finished that post either. My first memory of needing to say goodbye was in 1969. I was born in 1960 in Niagara Falls, Canada. I lived in a small wartime house on Franklin Avenue with my family of four plus my maternal grandparents. The house is still there (minus the pink aluminum siding); I think my parents paid six thousand dollars for it. We moved to Montreal in 1965. I don't remember needing to say goodbye to anyone that we left behind in Niagara because our entire extended family was either moving with
Read more

Health Update

The super short version: I'm still in near total remission :)   I had a scare about a month and a half ago when my blood test -- one day prior to a scheduled maintenance treatment -- came back with a dangerously low neutrophil count.         In normal people, the count should be between 2.0 and 7.5.  In cancer patients, they like it be between 1.0 and 2.0, especially in order to give you treatment.  Mine came back 0.1.  The long and short of it was that a) it was too low for treatment and b) I was in danger of picking up an infection (which I did and which landed me for a three day stay in the lovely Kindcardine, Ontario hospital while on vacation). My neutrophil count has been fairly low since originally being diagnosed a year and a half ago.  After my 0.1 count, my oncologist suggested that it might be time for another bone marrow biopsy.  That happened several weeks ago.  It came back negative -- which doesn't mean I have no bone marrow :) It means the cancer has
Read more

My Last Day of Teaching

Image
All year, I’ve been looking forward to this: my last day of teaching. Now that it’s here, I’m pretty sure I’m not ready for it. How do you prepare emotionally for a 30-year career to end? The day started with a Facebook friend request from one of my grade 12s. My normal rule is to not Facebook friend students until after they’re graduated, but, hey, I’m retiring and, besides, this young man is 18-yrs-old. I went out for breakfast with 2 colleagues/friends. I asked, How do I commemorate my last day of teaching? One of these fellow teachers said, blog about it. Hence, this post. Went to my mailbox as usual. Got my attendance -- there are maybe 12 names on the list. Only one of them reads “send to office” next to the name which means we don’t know why she was away… likely truant (I love that word :) ). I compare this to my previous school where, on some days -- especially a day like this -- there would have been two pages of absence reports. Made my way to my first period
Read more