When your teams playing for the Lombardi Trophy, a Super Bowl party is not a party. Its an event. Sure, an event at which you drink a ton and eat your weight in queso dip while in the company of friendsbut still, its not a party.
Its business.
When your teams playing for a title, the frivolities of a stereotypical Super Bowl party are more a pain in the ass than anything. Commercial breaks arent for laughing at slightly funny ads that youll be sick of in two days. Theyre for sprinting to the bathroom, or rocking gently in the corner like a mental patient, freaking out over everything thats happened and whats about to happen next. Theres nothing more annoying than the dude whos way too obsessed with his squaresOh man. This is crazy, guys! If the Pats score here and miss the extra point . . . (flying beer bottle cracks him in the head)." The halftime show isn't entertainment, it sucks the life out of the real entertainmentunless you're fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of Janet Jackson's right boob.
If your team wins, then the party starts, and will be remembered as one of the greatest nights of everyones life. It becomes a part of history. If your team loses, the night no longer exists. Its stricken from memory like a bad relationship in Eternal Sunshine. That time spent drinking and watching football with friends is filed away in the same corner of your brain that stores the day your parents told you they were getting a divorce and the time you pooped your pants at recess.
But anyway, that's obviously not something that Pats fans have to worry about this year. In fact, I'm sure a lot of folks will go out of their way to ignore the game all together. After all, no amount of alcohol and chicken wings can numb the aggravation of watching Ray Lewis dance and cry and pray and molest an innocent deer on international TV, while Jim Nantz and Phil Simms fawn over him like he just discovered the cure for HIV, cancer and ALS.
Why go through the trouble of cleaning your apartment, spending a ton of money on food and struggling through a vicious Monday hangover, when there's a chance that all you'll have to show for it is the memory of Bernard Pollard and Terrell Suggs raising the trophy, while undoubtedly taking a moment to call Tom Brady the p-word? Or the sound of Joe Flacco smugly declaring himself the best quarterback in the NFL? Or the vision of God parting the Superdome roof and raising Lewis up to Heaven?
Yeah, it's understandable if you take a pass this year. Or if not, if you choose to sit tight during the commercial breaks, hoping to steal a few laughs. If you care far more about the numbers that make up the score at the end of every quarter instead of the score itself. If you spend halftime glued to the TV, praying for a Beyonce wardrobe malfunction instead of a second half miracle.
New England Patriots
Or maybe you just use the game as an excuse to get out of the house? To hang out with friends you haven't seen in a while? To escape the sad reality of winter in New England?
I don't know. But whatever you do, it won't be the same.
A Super Bowl party is never as fun when it's only a party.
And what's a party anyway if there's nothing to celebrate?
Rich can be reached at rlevine@comcastsportsnet.com. Follow Rich on Twitter at http:twitter.comrich_levine