One against 73,000

I aim to work out this week more than usual.

I have a reason.

I'm a little scared of something that's coming up. Actually, a lot scared.

On Sunday I am going to a place where grown men, and women, bark. Not at each other but at the scene unfolding in the green bowl below.

These people wear masks, transforming into over-sized, rabid bulldogs.

They wear brown and orange.

The testerone, and the alcohol-soaked hopelessness, will be plainly seen and felt - in the beer line, in the line-up for the washroom, even in the parking lot.

In my time in various NFL stadiums, I have heard death threats rain down on those stupid enough to wear the colours of the opposing team. I have heard epithets that rhyme the name of the opposing team with the perceived sexual orientation of the person wearing that team's jersey. I have considered peeing my own pants instead of jostling for elbow room with 250-pound factory workers lining up at the trough.

This Sunday I am going to Cleveland to watch my favourite team, the Minnesota Vikings, play the Browns. I think I am sitting in a section known as the Dawg Pound.

If you're a hardcore football fan like I am, if you feel only relief or despair on Sundays, if you are a regular visitor to your team's hometown newspaper NFL blog, if you can tolerate TV people like Shannon Sharpe and Keyshawn Johnson and Ron Jaworski tell you what the game is about, and if it's rare that your favourite team plays within a four-and-a-half-hour drive, then you go to Cleveland.

Here's the problem, why I want my reflexes a little more tuned, my muscles a little more pumped:

When my team does something good on the field, I will be that guy dumb enough to rise from a crowd of 73,000 enemy and scream my approval. I can't help it. And I am afraid that when told to shut up or sit down or called a Vi-Queen, I will blurt "Suck it!" or "Brady Quinn has an IQ of 23" or some such. And then it's anyone's guess what will happen. But I should be ready.

Comments

[Mark M]

Let's go Buffalo!!!! Today is the BEST day of the year! Better than Christmas... my birthday...

The Start of football season is upon us!!! YEAH BABY!

although I have a feeling I will be wallowing in grief for most of the next 17 weeks.....