I have never been THAT sports fan. You know, the guy who paints himself team colors and stands shirtless in weather that turns your nipples into deadly implements? Not me. I have my teams; the Pittsburgh Steelers in football and the Philadelphia Flyers in hockey and root for them earnestly. (I have leanings in other sports but don’t really care enough about them to REALLY pick a team) I have stood by these teams through good times and bad. No bandwagon fan am I, no sir.

So while I am not willing to shave a team logo into my head I have in the past been a follower of game day superstition and a bit of a TV yeller. OK a lot of a TV yeller. In my defense, how are they supposed to hear me if I don’t yell?! As the years have worn on and I have realized that the primary purpose of any sports team is to repeatedly punch you in the gut when the games count the most a lot of my superstitious ways have faded and most, though not all, dropping away. No longer must I wear a certain jersey or sit in a particular chair in order for my team to win lose the game in the most painful way possible. I have tried to cut down on my TV yelling as well taking into account that our 3 cats, 2 dogs and, initially, my lovely wife would all scatter like a bomb had gone off whenever I would cry “GOAL!!” or “catch the ball you stupid fuck!” you get the idea.

So the idea this past Super bowl Sunday was to just enjoy the ride. My Steelers had put together an improbable and fantastic season and to even be in the big game was an unlikely achievement. My plans included playing a little WoW, watching the game, and maybe getting some laundry done. Through 3 quarters of the game keeping it to a low boil was pretty simple. The 100 yard interception return garnered some whooping but otherwise it was optimistic approval. Then in the 4^th quarter it all went to hell and the Cardinals woke up. As they turned up the offense I turned up the volume so that when Warner hit Fitzgerald with a 68 yard TD pass, I yelled for the whole house to hear that was it, the game was fucking over. Only, it wasn’t and if I was loud then the floor must have shook when Santonio Holmes caught the perfect pass, got two feet in the endzone and kicked the entire fanbase of the Cardinals square in the junk with his impossible game-winning catch. I was thrilled! I was stunned! And not 1 minute later I was re-stunned to see the ball knocked out of Warner’s hand and picked up by the Pittsburgh D to seal the game.

There was hugging, there was jumping and yelling, the dogs all got Super Bowl cheese slices to mark the occasion and compensate for the hub-bub,.(the cats got treats too once they later came out of hiding) So yeah, so much for not yelling as much.

In the end it was a thrilling tilt and I am proud to be a Steelers fan. The Cardinals played a hell of a game too and that 4^th quarter, well that was the thing that sports legends are made of.

Congrats to the Black and Gold, I look forward to pretending I am not going to yell at you next year when you defend your Superbowl title and I wear my lucky Steelers shirt.