Oh the Spectacle!

These are heady times for Chicago sports fans. The spring started off with the blockbuster trade that brought Jay Cutler, Denver's Pro Bowl quarterback, to Chicago. The Blackhawks, long the underappreciated and underfunded member of the Chicago sports pantheon (think LA Clippers), are the youngest, hottest team in the NHL. While they may not get the Cup this year, they are built for future success AND they won their first playoff series in over a decade. The real winner this spring has been the Bulls. From seemingly out of nowhere, this team has grown up. We have witnessed, in this first round, the birth of a playoff star in Derrick Rose. We have seen 5 overtime games, with the capper being the TRIPLE OVERTIME game from last night.

I was lucky enough to watch the game in the company of the Namby Pamby. It was the first Bulls playoff game I have been able to watch almost in its entirety. There are some thoughts that I had while watching the game. I could not believe the passion. I was blown away by the physicality and the shouting and taunting. I was enamoured by the slow burns and the fades, the ebbs and flows...I could not believe how fast the feet moved back and forth across the hardwood. I could see the excitement and the exhaustion manifest themselves as the game stretched on for over 4 hours. The sweat was pouring, the yelling and physicality became more emphatic, and I feared that someone would get hurt.

And that was just talking about what it was like to watch Namby watch the game. The game itself was entertaining too.