I sat in the second row at the Meadowlands, on a Sunday night, for a nationally-televised professional game in football hell. Was it the Giants during the Ray Handley era? You might have an argument there. Hell, any video anthology of the Giants just skips right over those years.
“..and when Bill Parcells retired, then came Dan Reeves…”
Was it the Patriots/Eagles game back in the late 90’s in Philadelphia? No, but being in the environment of such hostile fans despite the fact there is no rivalry would be close. These people booed Santa Claus when he came out to kick field goals at halftime for crying out loud.
Tough crowd.
But no, I am talking about real hell.
“Sure, I’ll go to an XFL game.” I replied to my buddy Nick not knowing what I was getting myself into.
For those who don’t remember this one-hit wonder, the XFL was a professional football league created by Vince McMahon that consisted of eight teams stocked with players not thought to be talented enough to make the CFL or NFL. The experiment lasted just one season.
The match-up on the slate this night was the New York/New Jersey Hitmen vs. the Chicago Enforcers. I think they polled fantasy football enthusiasts or nine-year-olds for team names. You had The Thunderbolts, The Rage, and The Xtreme which on a side note always reminded me of the movie Twister.
We arrived there and it was cold as balls. Strike one. That’s ok, we figured, we’ll just keep warm with beer.
Wrong.
The XFL had a policy: no alcohol sales at games. I’m an adult watching sports. No beer is like sex with a hooker without the condom. It just makes zero sense.
So there we were, with our hot chocolate like we were at a Pee Wee football game while the teams are getting in position for the opening kickoff. I’m wondering why they are putting the ball in the middle of the field. Oh my God, it’s a scrum for it. Whoever gets there first gets possession. It’s like the world’s slowest face-off.
Is that a nickname on the back of that guy’s jersey? And who the hell are all these people? I think I remember that Maddox guy from somewhere but everyone else I don’t recognize.
“Is the game over?” I asked after what seemed like twenty punts each side and a score that was like 3-0.
“No, it’s like three minutes into the first quarter.” Nick replied.
“Dude I can’t feel my toes.”
So remember that the next time someone gives you tickets to a Knicks, Dolphins, or a Royals game don’t complain. It could be worse.
Much worse.
Coming Monday: The Interview with Jeff from View from The Cloud.
You can read this weekly sports column every Saturday here at Angry Seafood.
Humor-blogs.com was not forced to go to XFL games but they have funny blogs. Go there to read some.
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by Football News Aggregator » I Have Been to Football Fan Hell, on January 26 2008 @ 1:42 am
[...] Original post here [...]
by Qelqoth, on January 26 2008 @ 8:22 am
Bad news - I still have no idea how this American Football thing works and unless it is footie or cricket, I just get confused.
Good news - Caption Contest at my blog - winner gets a month of free ad space.
by Jeff, on January 26 2008 @ 1:18 pm
I remember the XFL clearly. I was so hoping it would turn out to be a good thing and was so disappointed that it wasn’t.
It was also the era when Jesse Ventura was both announcing for the XFL and governing our state at the same time. I was so proud.
And what was with the nicknames the players had? I remember there was one guy whose jersey had “He Hate Me” on the back. WTF?
by ChrisC, on January 26 2008 @ 10:17 pm
@Qelqoth: Sweet! I’ll drop by tommorow and enter
@Jeff: He Hate Me would be WR Rod Smart. He got an NFL gig off that. I know he played on the Eagles for a couple years and I think also Carolina.
by Rickey Henderson, on January 28 2008 @ 4:11 pm
No beer at an XFL game… woo boy, if Rickey wasn’t going to one before he certainly isn’t now.
by ChrisC, on January 28 2008 @ 9:19 pm
Yah and they didn’t tell you this. As we were walking in, I saw all the closed beer vendors and I just figured that because it was XFL, they only had a few stands open.
Seriously, I wanted to buy a hot chocolate at every snack spot and then throw it at them in anger. But because I would have to be drunk to do something like that, and if there’s no beer, I can’t get to that who-gives-a-shit stage and wouldn’t even have a reason to buy a hot chocolate in the first place. This would create a paradox in the time-space continuum. I am not sure what would happen next.
Maybe agents pop up, point at me and say ‘It’s the anomoly’.