Sports

A follow up to the last post:

As someone who generally doesn't follow sports, I've often wondered why people seem to take it so very seriously when I find watching any sports game to be insufferably boring. (I recently heard about a "coming out of the closet" movement for people who are not interested in sports). It obviously doesn't have to do with how exciting the specific sport is, considering how there are people as invested in the relatively slow game of baseball, or completely dull curling, as to fast paced hockey, where there's always a good chance of seeing a fight.

I used to explain it by saying that what makes the difference is that you care who wins. In this way, a game of rock-scissors-paper can be as exciting as a game of football, as long as it matters to you who wins. I'm not a very patriotic person, so I've never been able to say that I much care if, say, Montreal wins the game vs. any other place. After this hockey game, I feel like what is important isn't just that it matters to you personally, but that it matters generally. I'm sort of interested in the outcome of a baseball game simply because my grandmother really really wants the Red Sox to win. And, since I can hear people yelling in the streets and honking horns from where I'm sitting in Halifax, I couldn't help but find that last hockey game entertaining.