Saturday, January 31, 2009

My Favourite TV station above channel 300...

So in prepping for watching the super bowl (if you're asking yourself why you need to prep to WATCH the super bowl, you're reading the wrong blog) I've realized just how both awesome and horribly mind-numbing the NFL Network can be.

Now, I know a lot of people in the US complain that their cable or satellite companies don't carry the NFL-N, but here in the great white north we don't have that problem. As far as I know, Rogers (the major cable carrier) doesn't even charge for the station that's listed on channel 419 for me, just in between the NHL Network and the live horse racing channel (both are equally thrilling, let me tell you). While the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) deems it fit to black-out the live games that NFL Network broadcasts, TSN has picked up the rights to them, so even those with the most basic of basic cable subscribers (except for my friend Adina, who seems to be the only person in the non third-world that only gets to channel 28) can tune in for their Thursday and Saturday night football. Basically the point is that whenever you wanna watch some sweet sweet 24 hour a day football coverage, they got your fix for ya.

The NFL-N used to have some great original shows (6 days till Sunday) and some not-so-great ones (Put Up Your Dukes) that are currently residing in the big dumper in the sky and still do broadcast a plethora of original programming that are mostly shit. Their true forte, however, is in showing timeless classic games and NFL Films presentations. The America's Game series that chronicled the top 20 Super Bowl teams ever was one of the most slickly produced sports packages I have ever seen and their recent addition of the "Missing Rings" series that follows teams like the 1990 Bills and the 1988 Bengals brings a real sense of emotion and historic value to everything that those teams put onto the field. No one does this better than NFL Films and I mean no one.

It's not often that one can actually be watching a moment in history and recognize that history is taking place. That's what makes NFL Films so cool, they allow you to re-live these moments you may have missed or didn't realize were overly significant in the first place, over and over. It's usually not till afterwards, multiple replays, analysis, historical perspective, that we realize the true implications of what had happened. There have been a few exceptions to this rule in my life...

1) Sitting in my history classroom in grade 11, we were trying to get our non-cable equipped television set up somehow so we could watch the live goings on of a terrorist attack on the United States. Somehow I, yes I the LSB, managed to find a wire coat-hanger sitting on the floor and attached it with duct tape to the cable input of our TV so we could barely see Lloyd Robertson's CTV coverage of the events of September 11. I will never forget sitting in that room with god knows how many other people just staring at the screen for god knows how many hours.

2) New Years night 2007, I was in Florida at the time vacationing with my father. I was pretty tired after having spent the entire night before awake and partying in the New Year. All I really wanted to do was watch some TV and fall asleep. I happened to turn on the Fiesta Bowl and what happened in that fourth quarter was absolutely magical. The way Boise State won that game against Oklahoma, with it's gadgets and trickery was so unconventional and so...well, inspirational (who doesn't love an underdog made good) and to top it off with an on-field proposal (though it was kinda spoiled by Chris Myers) was just frickin awesome. I remember sitting up in bed and pretty much just giggling throughout the whole 4th quarter and overtime because of how amazing I realized that moment was.

and finally...

3) Super Bowl...last year...final minutes of the game. The undefeated and good-guy Pats (hey, Tom Brady almost singlehandedly won my fantasy season for me, can you blame me for rooting for them?) were up on the evil New York G-men 14-10...it was 3rd and something very much longer than the Giants had hoped. I don't really need to describe what happened next cause I'm sure you've all seen it a thousand times and it makes me cry whenever I see it. But that catch was instantaneously engrained into all sport fans memory as one of the greatest Super Bowl plays of all time. That Joe Buck - calling the game for FOX - got just about as excited as he does for a two out ground ball by A-Rod in July is pretty much par for the course there, don't read too much into it. That the Giants were able to score soon after to win the game was just gravy. Not for me though...I cried...true story.

What brings me to this evidently very long and drawn out thought process is how cool it is to be able to turn on the NFL Network to watch these classics over and over again. For all the crappy programming it's brought to our world, the one thing it still does better than anyone is allow it's fans to relive classic moments in ways that truly make you feel like you were there. The NHL, NBA, and newly created MLB network has a lot to learn from the way football archives it's history.


Let's hope the big game this year brings us something worthy of re-watching over and over again.
...and if it doesn't, at least there should be plenty of wings and beer.

Cheers!


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