I enjoyed the game last night. When it comes to the Pats-Colts rivalry, it's win-win for me. I grew up in Indiana, and I was in high school on that infamous snowy night in 1984 when the Colts packed their things and snuck out of Baltimore in the dead of night.  That's the stuff of legend.

Since calling New England my stateside HQ—which I have for nearly 15 years—I have struggled with the question of allegiance to a "home team".  My ties to the Colts were not particularly strong (I have actually spent less time with them as my "home team" than with the Pats now).  Truth is I swing both ways (but I usually like to side with the winner, and I tend to adjust accordingly—which means retroactively when necessary). 

I see no reason I can't appreciate the power and the pathos of a game without choosing sides.  Some might argue I can't really feel the Pat's pain unless I'm hopelessly devoted, and in a sense they're right.  But I see this dispassionate stance as a gift.  It's The Cosmic View. 

The problem is not just with the individual game, though.  It's the season.  Because obviously if you are not following the constant up-and-down (or rumpy-pumpy, as my Welsh lady friend would say) of a season, you can't get off on the money shot of a championship game.  When you're a fan, it's like you're the one doing the fucking, or getting fucked, and that's why it seems so serious.  When you're not a fan...well, there's nothing more comical than watching other people so utterly absorbed.  It's better than Animal Planet.  

While I see the point of it, I wonder if it's really a necessary component of spectator sports to take sides, and fiercely, if somewhat arbitrarily (based solely on geography, for example)?  I mean, do all sports fans need the fierce intensity of emotion that seems essential to the spectator experience?  Or can football, baseball, and soccer be appreciated more dispassionately, but just as fully? 

It's a real question.  I'd appreciate some insight.

I suspect there are two sorts of fans out there.  There are those who seek the emotional outlet of a love affair with a team or a player, with all the little hopes and fears and slights and betrayals that entails.  I am sure that members of this camp, men and women alike, feel a deeper and more intense emotional bond with Tom Brady at game time than with their spouses and children.  If their spouses and children have been properly indoctrinated, the feeling is communal, almost like what Pentecostals feel for the Holy Spirit when it "moves in them."  In fact, I think I have seen Pats fans speaking in tongues at times during close games.

And then there are sports purists.  For them it's about the holy grail of a perfect pass, kick, play, or game, and they can—if grudgingly—concede to "the other team" and be satisfied in the experience regardless of what to them must be these lesser, sentimental attachments based on the vagaries of place and time that we see in the first group.

There's probably a third group that roots for whichever team's QB has the best butt.  Unfortunately the Panthers were not playing last night, so Jake Delhomme's was not an option, and it's a toss-up between Brady's and Manning's. 

But still a win-win, I'd say.