A Much Needed Break

I did something this weekend that recommend to every sports bettor from time to time – I completely unplugged from the sports world for a couple of days. I picked my wife up after she was done work on Friday and we headed to the mountains of Banff. We ate well, tried to stay warm in the incredible cold, caught a concert (Ian Tyson – a true Canadian legend), saw a movie (Benjamin Button – I loved it), and generally wandered around doing not very much. What I didn’t do was watch any sports, think about any sports, or do anything even remotely related to sports. No TV, no computers, no radio, nothing. It was brilliant.

I think that this is such an important thing to do once in a while. Sports are all consuming for those of us who love them, and the schedule is pretty relentless – football ends as college basketballs starts to peak, it ends as the NBA and NHL enter their best period and baseball gets started, baseball carries through the summer, and we are back in football. Add in the the four majors in tennis and golf, the three Triple Crown races and the Breeders’ Cup, the big MMA and boxing events, NASCAR if you like, and the special events like the Olympics and World Cup and you have a reason to get up and excited pretty much every week year round. It’s impossible to stay focused and interested non-stop without relief. Long vacations are great, but not always practical. A short break can work just as well. Now I’m back, I feel refreshed, and I am ready to tackle the Super Bowl and beyond.