Sports

[ronniesoak]

Question to the thread: Do you think your interest in sports was directly impacted and perpetuated by your father (or mother)?

Context: I was a sporty child up until I left High School where my University didnt really offer sports. I still keep fit and my dad and I follow Liverpool FC, so i was always interested in football, whose winning the premiership league, whose moved from where, whose winning whose loosing.

 

In 2012 he died, and I haven't watched a game since. I feel like my love(possible wrong word) of football was context sensitive, i liked it because my dad liked it, it gave us something to bond over and discuss. No dad = no need for football.

 

Thoughts?
 

[jennegatron]

Question to the thread: Do you think your interest in sports was directly impacted and perpetuated by your father (or mother)?

Context: I was a sporty child up until I left High School where my University didnt really offer sports. I still keep fit and my dad and I follow Liverpool FC, so i was always interested in football, whose winning the premiership league, whose moved from where, whose winning whose loosing.

 

In 2012 he died, and I haven't watched a game since. I feel like my love(possible wrong word) of football was context sensitive, i liked it because my dad liked it, it gave us something to bond over and discuss. No dad = no need for football.

 

Thoughts?

 

 

 

I think this is a fantastic observation. Thankfully my pops is still kickin' it, but is directly responsible for my love of American Football. I think it might hurt too much to watch it after he's gone (a long long time from now, I hope.) He's really the main thing keeping me from forsaking the terrible organization that is the NFL.

[Apelsin]

So I presume you're from Gothenburg, right? I spent a year living there, but at the time the Indians were not particularly good and I ended up not going to see any of their games. I also ended up not seeing any football matches from any of the teams in town, even though I meant to. In retrospect I just felt like staying at home a lot that year. 

 

Yes, I am originally from the Gothenburg area. They've been having some consistency problems for a couple of years (usually playing quite well during the regular season, but getting ousted in the first round of the playoffs) and the trend seemed to continue this year. But now they've seem to have found their way again, luckily.

 

I've not watched many of their games either (or the Gothenburg football teams either for that matter). Never been much of a person to go to these kinds of events before, at times because of a lack of funds, at other times for a lack of people to go with and, just as you, just not quite feeling like it. After the game on Friday though, my interest has been piqued. If they manage to fight their way past Luleå, I will have to go see another of their play off games this year.

 

Question to the thread: Do you think your interest in sports was directly impacted and perpetuated by your father (or mother)?

Context: I was a sporty child up until I left High School where my University didnt really offer sports. I still keep fit and my dad and I follow Liverpool FC, so i was always interested in football, whose winning the premiership league, whose moved from where, whose winning whose loosing.

 

In 2012 he died, and I haven't watched a game since. I feel like my love(possible wrong word) of football was context sensitive, i liked it because my dad liked it, it gave us something to bond over and discuss. No dad = no need for football.

 

My father is not very obviously interested in sports. When there's a world championship or Olympics going he'll switch on the TV and watch it, almost regardless of what sport it actually is, but he has never really displayed that kind of interest in any specific teams or leagues in the world. While we certainly caught some of the public broadcasts of our hometown hockey team,  my interest in hockey comes almost exclusively from having access to the NHL games from a very young age.

[Apelsin]

EDIT: Ooops. 

[ronniesoak]

I think this is a fantastic observation. Thankfully my pops is still kickin' it, but is directly responsible for my love of American Football. I think it might hurt too much to watch it after he's gone (a long long time from now, I hope.) He's really the main thing keeping me from forsaking the terrible organization that is the NFL.

cheers! I hope your father(and mother) have many many years ahead of them.

[Badfinger]

My dad is a bit more than casual sports fan generally, and my mom was a huge baseball fan. That's certainly part of where I got my first love of sports. I became a much bigger football fan, neither of them were hockey fans, and basketball wasn't on the radar, and I got into those as well. I think they planted the seed, but my love of competition definitely fostered it beyond their fandom. I have watched all sorts of esoteric sports, competitive video games, card games to a lesser degree. ESPN 2 used to be my best buddy, with it's lumberjack games and world's strongest man. There's some nature and nurture tied to sports for sure, but my love of them is not tied to my parents.

 

 

Also, ~@*My Bracket, UGH*@~

[ewokskick]

Question to the thread: Do you think your interest in sports was directly impacted and perpetuated by your father (or mother)?

Context: I was a sporty child up until I left High School where my University didnt really offer sports. I still keep fit and my dad and I follow Liverpool FC, so i was always interested in football, whose winning the premiership league, whose moved from where, whose winning whose loosing.

 

In 2012 he died, and I haven't watched a game since. I feel like my love(possible wrong word) of football was context sensitive, i liked it because my dad liked it, it gave us something to bond over and discuss. No dad = no need for football.

 

Thoughts?

 

 

 

Absolutely for me.  My dad took me to OU football and basketball games growing up.  He also caused me to root for Cleveland pro sports. 

[ratamero]

Also, ~@*My Bracket, UGH*@~

I'm second to last on the Giant Bomb bracket group. I had Davidson and Providence making deep runs. I know.

 

I think my father made me the F1 fan I am, but I enjoy many others sports he never cared about. It has actually been a bit the other way for me: I got really into cycling for a while, and he started watching races with me and now follows the Tour de France every year even though I'm not there anymore.

[ewokskick]

I'm second to last on the Giant Bomb bracket group. I had Davidson and Providence making deep runs. I know.

 

I think my father made me the F1 fan I am, but I enjoy many others sports he never cared about. It has actually been a bit the other way for me: I got really into cycling for a while, and he started watching races with me and now follows the Tour de France every year even though I'm not there anymore.

That's what you get for picking against OU.

 

Edit: actually it's historically a good idea to pick against OU. :/

[TheLastBaron]

Question to the thread: Do you think your interest in sports was directly impacted and perpetuated by your father (or mother)?

Context: I was a sporty child up until I left High School where my University didnt really offer sports. I still keep fit and my dad and I follow Liverpool FC, so i was always interested in football, whose winning the premiership league, whose moved from where, whose winning whose loosing.

 

In 2012 he died, and I haven't watched a game since. I feel like my love(possible wrong word) of football was context sensitive, i liked it because my dad liked it, it gave us something to bond over and discuss. No dad = no need for football.

 

Thoughts?

 

 

Definitely is the case for me, here's a post I made a little while back.

 

 Mostly every sport/team I follow is related to my dad (with one exception).  I live in the Bay Area, but my dad is from is from Boston (well he's actually from Littleton which is 40 miles west and a fun fact is that Steve Carell used to be his mailman) so I follow the Red Sox and the Bruins rather than the Sharks and the Giant's/A's, in fact I really don't like the A's because I've never been to an A's game that wasn't A's vs Sox.  I've sort of gotten a little cold on following baseball though, it was by far my favorite sport growing up and most evenings I would sit with my dad on the couch watching it. It's not as big of a deal as it used to be which is probably related to them winning the world series.  On the other hand I've never cared for the Patriots or the Celtics.  The Patriots my dad has never followed as a result of them being terrible when he was growing up, and he likes the Celtics, but I just never was into Basketball probably because I never played it growing up.  Hockey is kind of weird because when I was super little I liked the Sharks, but at some point switched completely over to only really caring about the Bruins which is again probably related to watching games with my dad.  These days I don't have cable so don't watch much, but will listen to Bruins games on the radio, whereas I just check the scores for Red Sox games usually.

 

All that being said my favorite sport is soccer and my favorite team of any sport is the San Jose Earthquakes.  This is definitely just from me playing growing up, I played on club teams and then in high school.  It's almost the opposite of other sports, my dad knows nothing about soccer (well he does now) so if we're watching a game together it's a lot of him asking me stuff about the game which is what I used to do with him.  I have season tickets and I don't care how bad they are I'm super excited for the new season and new stadium.  Not having cable does kind of suck though because as much as I love the Quakes the MLS is the MLS and I used to watch every single Premier League game for years (which isn't actually very much since teams only play ~once a week) and now I get once game a week over the air if I'm lucky. 

 

 

Also regarding MLS, the Quakes' first game at their new stadium was yesterday and we beat Chicago.  I ran into a lot of people I haven't seen in years at the game too which was cool, it's not the biggest stadium (18000), but it was sold out so I wasn't expecting to recognize people left and right as I was walking around.

[Polish Hill]

Since Pittsburgh doesn't have an MLS team I chose the Chicago Fire back in 06 and I look forward to another lackluster season.  Shipp though!

[TheLastBaron]

Since Pittsburgh doesn't have an MLS team I chose the Chicago Fire back in 06 and I look forward to another lackluster season.  Shipp though!

I actually really like the Fire as far as other teams go.  My neighbors' son played for the Fire for a few seasons probably 10 years ago and I have a friend who works for the organization so I'd like to see them do well.  I also really like Mike Magee and now that he's not on LA I'm allowed to.  I hope he's back playing soon.

[Badfinger]

Holy SMOKES Kentucky obliterated West Virginia. They had a shooting percentage less than 25%. Didn't have 20 points until almost 3/4 of the way through the game. The WVU guy who was talking up that they'd win didn't score a single point.

 

Geeeeeeez.

[Bjorn]

I'm glad I forgot that there were games on tonight that I cared about and played Bloodborne instead.  I didn't need to see both the Shockers and another Big 12 team lose. 

[Polish Hill]

On one hand being a Kentucky basketball fan would be great since they are more or less perennial contenders.  But on the other hand having all of your good players more or less be one and done has to sap a lot of the enjoyment I would think.  

[Architecture]

This Arizona/Wisconsin game is going to give me an aneurysm.

[Dewar]

Yay, my wife will be busy next weekend and I got myself a Sounders ticket a couple rows up from a few friends with season tickets. Since it's bleachers, it sounds like it'll be easy enough to move seats and party with them.

 

I also think I'm going to get in on the MLS streaming package so I can watch some games when I can't go.

[Polish Hill]

This is vaguely sports but man, Wrestlemania had an incredible ending this year.  Nice to see the company not completely make a mess of things for once.

[TheLastBaron]

This is vaguely sports but man, Wrestlemania had an incredible ending this year.  Nice to see the company not completely make a mess of things for once.

I had a friend who's been watching since he was eight or nine (almost 20 years) who went to it and wont stop talking about it.  I kind of wish I had gone now even though I've never been into WWE and also hate going to Levi's Stadium.

[Polish Hill]

I had only watched as a kid but won tickets to the Royal Rumble from work last year and haven't looked back since.  I don't have cable so I never see any of the (often times bad) weekly Raws and just watch the pay-per-views and what is essentially the company's minor league weekly show (NXT) for $9.99 a month.  Solid deal and it isn't an overwhelming amount of content.

[Dewar]

I enjoyed going back and watching some attitude-era stuff, but I always get embarrassed watching it with my wife around. That's not a very typical reaction from me, but some of that stuff was just crazy inappropriate at the time, let alone 10 years later.

[Badfinger]

Wrestling's not a sport!

 

Baseball is less than a week away, though! Excited, even though the Phillies (as mentioned previously) are going to suuuuuuuuuck.

[undermind9]

i am a south side White Sox fan - but this is sort of a big deal on the north side - Judge Ruling on Rooftops

 

 

For anyone who doesnt follow Cubs baseball Wrigley field started a monster renovation of the bleacher area starting the day after their season ended in September.  They have essentially torn down the entire bleacher area and are renovating it, adding a concourse, renovating suite areas, etc.  The place is a dump and needed it - but the major fight are the video boards

 

Across from the right field are some 3-4 story buildings that were at one time homes occupied by neighborhood people - they'd go up on their roofs and watch the game for free.  Now they've evolved into holding companies that utilize the roof for their own ticket sales. They sell all you can eat/drink tickets with huge bleachers on the roofs to watch (from afar) the game from the outfield.  The seats arent great, but the prices are better VS admission + food/drink

 

 

Anyways, they are putting in two huge video boards in the outfield - 42' x 92'.  Right now only the left field board is up, and the other will be installed throughout away stints (finishing around july).  The right field had to wait for this ruling to ensure that it wouldnt get overturned & be a lost purchase.  I do a lot of work for wrigley so i have all the drawings and this board will totally wipe out 4 - 5 of the rooftop place's views...severely reduce another handful's.  And the best part is that on top of both of these are going 10' illuminated "Wintrust" and "Butweiser" signs

 

So not only did Wrigley finally update and get video boards ~30yrs late - they also have thrown off all the leeching remoras across the street.  They'll still suck this season, but it has been pretty lucrative for my company

[jennegatron]

I went to high school with the star of the NIT champion Stanford team. My sister had a bunch of classes with him and never had anything but super positive things to say. It makes my heart sing to see a kid from my home town do so well at such a good school, where he's also made the academic conference team.

 

My high school is very diverse but honors & AP classes very much aren't. It makes me so happy to see one of like 8 Black kids who took AP calculus between 2005 - 2011 thriving and excelling at Stanford, both in the classroom, and gaining very positive attention for his play on the court as well.

[miffy495]

Really? I'm gonna be the first one to say anything about the NHL Playoffs? Ok then. I wrote this on facebook after the game, but I'll copy it here. I am a Toronto Maple Leafs fan (grew up there before moving West) but they had a downright embarrassing season and didn't make the playoffs, so I'm cheering for any Canadian team that I can. In the series that have one Canadian team against another, I'm rooting for Montreal over Ottawa and was undecided on whether I care about the Calgary/Vancouver series. This is despite living in Calgary. I just never really felt any affinity for the Flames. Here is what I posted after watching tonight's game:

 

"Years ago, I wrote off the Calgary Flames as a team of mindless bruisers who would bash their way to victory and not actually worry about playing well. In fairness to me, that was true for a lot of the last decade. In fairness to them, apparently sometime while I wasn't paying attention they turned into a finesse team. That was a beautiful win tonight, well-earned. My Leafs will always be first in my heart, but if the Flames keep up that level of skill-over-hitting play, I could actually see myself rooting for them this year. Made a bet with my students today that if the Flames make it to the third round, I will buy a jersey and wear it on all their game days. If this is how they play now, I might not even feel bad about doing that. Congrats to them on tonight's game."

 

The Montreal victory tonight was also a beautiful game. That was a great night of hockey. Anyone else here actually care about it?