For the 41st time in a row, the NFL has crowned its champion in a quiet, understated competition pitting one group of manly men against another, with nothing more or less than supreme bragging rights - the kind you can only gain by mastering a worthy foe on the field - on the line.  Let the other sports cater to commercialism, and envelope their championships in pomp and circumstance.  So what if people seem to like it?  The NFL is for purists.

Ha ha!  For most fans, the Super Bowl is an opportunity to get together with a large group of similarly disappointed fans - fans whose teams either failed to make the playoffs, or, if they root for the Cincinnati Bengals, simply couldn't get out of jail in time to play - and watch the ads.  Every year, the price for a 30 second slot grows, like a suspicious mole someone really ought to take a look at.  This year, it cost roughly the GDP of Italy to tout a product or service for half a minute.

But we're glad the cost is so high, because that generally guarantees at least a handful of very entertaining ads.  When you're spending more money than you can hope to count on a spot, you tend to avoid the guy-in-a-gorilla-suit-screaming-low-used-car-prices approach.

An unfortunate side-effect of the higher quality ads has been that, for many years, they have represented the only entertainment value offered, as the game itself turned out to be a dud.  NFL officials have spent very little time thinking about that, however, as they prefer to pursue other activities, such as cackling over their immense piles of cash, and figuring out how to kill their golden egg laying goose via the NFL Network.

So this year was special for me, because I actually went to a Super Bowl party looking forward to the actual game.  Sure, I was looking forward to the ads as well, and the Prince halftime show, and the endless varieties of fattening food.  But more than all that, I was excited about the game.  I live in Indiana, and work in Chicago, so I had far more interest in, and information about, the two teams than I ever have before.  I'd listened to Chicago sports radio all season as it filled roughly one million hours discussing Rex Grossman.  Occasionally, the talk would center on his potential to be a long term QB solution for the Bears, but usually it focused more on ways that he might be abducted and mailed to Mongolia, with no return address provided.  I'd watched longtime Colts fans gingerly approaching the possibility that this, finally, could be their year.  They were too afraid to hope out loud, much less boast.  Colts fans, no matter how old, acted like six year old kids afraid to tell their birthday wish for fear they would jinx it.

Still, I'm not a fan of either team.  Because my parents lost a bet with God, I am a Minnesota Vikings fan.  Not since my childhood have I had any real interest in the winner of the Super Bowl, until this year.

It's not that I've abandoned the Vikes, though I wish I could.  It's that I successfully avoided passing the curse along to my son.  He's a Colts fan.  He's not a casual Colt's fan, either.  He is emotionally tied to the team in a way that, as an objective observer, you have to say is overboard.  But if you've ever rooted for a team with all your might, and had trouble sleeping before and after big games, and spent hours re-enacting great plays in your yard, it's something you wouldn't take away from anyone.  

So I found myself rooting for the Colts more than I have for any of "my" teams as an adult.  Watching my son ride the emotional roller coaster of the game, from the lows of Devin Hester's opening kickoff return and Thomas Jones' long run, to the highs of Reggie Wayne's wide open touchdown and Kelvin Hayden's interception return, I began to share his fervent hope.

To be sure, he'll wind up on the other side many times in his life as a fan.  And at some point, perhaps, if he's like me, it may be too many times, and he'll invest less and less into the team each year, reaping fewer disappointing returns.  But he'll always remember this game, and the way his team came through, possibly in part because he was rooting so damned hard, and so will I.