& a blog

At a recent Philadelphia Flyers game, in which I saw no less then eight goals (and no more than four fights) I came to the conclusion that not all sports are created equal. In some, scoring is something routine and expected, something that defines the pace of the game. In others scoring is something extraordinary, inspiring, and eventful, something which provides landmarks for the story told by athletes in each game. In these sports, the scoring moment becomes a moment of salvation or damnation, a critical juncture through which the passion of the athlete is bound to that of the spectator.

This why I will always be fan of soccer and hockey over sports like basketball. Basketball suffers from the plight of long distance racing, the only thing that really matters is the end, and on the professional level, teams are rarely out of winning distance by the fourth quarter when the spectator really starts to care. At any instance during the rest of the game, one can get up, hit the bathroom, pick up some popcorn or make a phone call, confident that no single action (save a catastrophic injury or ejection) will alter the course of the game. Instead, baskets will be exchanged, runs will be made, and feats of expertise demonstrated.

But there will be no goals.

The goal is the greatest concept in sports. It is because of the goal, that any minute of a soccer game or a hockey game becomes pregnant with potential to alter the course of the game. Any fan of soccer knows that a game may finish with no goals, so it is a great gift (or horrible calamity) when a goal occurs. It is history, and it always feels like it. A single goal may be all that occurs. And that goal may occur at any moment, creating a sense of time in hockey and soccer that is unique- a sense of time in which virtually all time is equal in the possibility of achieving or witnessing the scoring miracle.

This has always been the attraction of soccer, and conversely what makes it impossible for the American sports fan to understand about the sport. In the US, sports must serve always serve entertainment and leisure over devotion, which means that American sports must create space within the game for concessions to be purchased, reflections to be made, bathroom facilities to be visited. Baseball has nine innings, with breaks between every half inning for the small things that Americans like to do at sporting events. At soccer games, people only leave during the half. At hockey games, people only leave during intermissions. At least every pitch in baseball (for it is the pitch that defines the pace of baseball, and thus the amount of time between pitches is policed by baseball leagues) comes with the promise of a hit, a play, an out, a home run. In basketball, by contrast, no event can take place in any one possession that ensures a victory. In basketball, there is only time and the score to play against.

It has been said that in soccer, the goal is an orgasm. The goal is a climax of exchanges and progressions, and true soccer fans “feel” the game in a way that betrays a certain sensuality. Because the only way to win is to score, teams become unified organs pulsing with passes and possessions leading toward that overwhelming conclusion.

Hockey proves more fascinating than soccer percisely because it complicates the idea of perfectly equal scoring time with strategic advantages and disadvantages- the power play. With an extra man adding advanatage to a team, hockey creates a time schema not unlike that catholic christianity, which divides the year into ordinary time (in which any team may score with equal potential) and extraordinary time (wherein a goal becomes even more likely). And yet goals are still ever present in hockey, and because of the sport’s speed, we are always just seconds away from the next one.

And then there’s the goalie. Between the goal and the play, he is the mediation between one man’s jubilation and another’s defeat. He’s not quite the anti-hero but he’s close. Because he makes “saves” and “saves” are actions of heroic proportions precisely because they are anti-goals. The goalie is the foil for the goal-scorer, who is always the hero. Except when he’s the villain.

I’ve decided that sports with goals are better. Because you can’t walk away from them, because they don’t have situations like two men on with no outs, or first and goal. Because they are always too dynamic to fall into situational rhetoric where one can distinguish between the importances of moments in a game. Some sports build towards a moment where you know something has got to give, it’s either a field goal for the win or a miss for the loss. That’s cinematic bullshit. Real sports are as organic and unpredictable as life itself. And that’s the way I like them.