Monday, October 17, 2011

#45 - Go to an NFL game

The NFL is the one major (men's) professional sporting event I've never attended. It's weirder because I flippin' love college football.

Maybe it's because the Lions have always sucked, so it never seemed like it'd be fun to go to a game... especially in the Silverdome. (Sidebar: I have been to the

Silverdome for other events, including the Motor City Bowl where I saw Randy Moss roll over Ole Miss and to watch Catholic Central High School play for the state cham

pionship. I've also been to Ford Field for other events, including an Eminem concert that featured Missy Elliot, 50 Cent, and D12 and the 2010 Frozen Four, which should have included the Maize & Blue. That's another story.)

I had high hopes for a Bears game at Soldier Field, but... holy crap are those tickets expensive! Man!

So I turned to the Lions, who were rumored to be good. Then I thought, hey, maybe a Bears fan will go with me to the Bears-Lions game. Then I realized that game would be Monday Night Football! Then I realized no one in Chicago was going to go to a Monday Night game with me in Detroit because most of my friends have jobs or school. Whatever.

I put out a feeler on facebook, just asking if anyone wanted to go to a Lions game in Detroit with me. I got a few vagueresponses.

And then I got a very uncharacteristic, committal answer from Nader Elmasri! He said if I wanted to see Lions-Bears, he'd commit right then!

I was excited for about 30 seconds until I remembered, again, that the game was a Monday Night game and he's a teacher now. (BTW, I told you real life sucks!) I texted him so.
But then! He said he was on break that week! We could go!

And we did.

The drive to Ann Arbor was no drive to San Diego, but to make it reminiscent, we left Chicago at midnight Sunday night / Monday morning and arrived in Ann Arb
or at 5am (with the time change.)

We had a delightful day touring Ann Arbor - thanks Virus & Gerald for the tou
r and love!
We headed to Detroit at 6pm for the 8:30pm game. It was a little chaotic down there since the Tigers were in the playoffs and the Lions were undefeated. There was a weird little tailgate between Ford Field and CoPa.

That's right. The TIGERS in the PLAYOFFS after ridding the post season of the YANKEES and the LIONS UNDEFEATED. 4-0!

Michigan at that time was 5-0. A lot has changed in a week. Tear. I wish it were a week ago when life was beautiful.

So the city, at the time, was pretty pumped up. It was crazy loud in Ford Field. There were a lot of drunks and douchebags and drunk douchebags.

Nader lucked out and was seated next to 2 Bears fans, while I had 2 chummy Lions fans on my side. It was a perfect situation until my Lions fans left. But things perked up once the Lions started kicking ass (love to Stafford, Johnson, and Best!). They just would have been a little better if I had someone to high five and jump around with instead of the silence that was then on both sides of me.

I managed to sneak in a hello to Nick and Kelly SMITH somewhere in there. I love them. They're delightful.

To sum up the rest, I had a great time. The Lions kicked ass. It was awesome.

We even walked to Greektown for some food since Nader wouldn't get out of his seat during the game to feed himself. It was poppin'.

Yay NFL game!

No comments:

Post a Comment