The Swedish Super Bowl

Game time with Magnus!!!

So when this whole ”Swedish” thing first popped up as an option we had a lot to think about. The logistics, the job, the adventure, the risks, etc. Shockingly (or not), one thing I thought of WAY more than I should have was how I would watch sports and specifically the Super Bowl out here. I was having nightmares that this year would be the Patriots vs. Falcons, and I wouldn’t even be in the country for it.

Luckily, the falcons removed themselves as a stressor the first weekend of the playoffs.

But the Patriots marched on, and I realized that I would need to figure out a way to somehow watch a game that started at 12:30am and would end sometime around 4am, in a country that might not even know that it was going on.

Lis assisted me in trying to find out how I could watch it – first seeing how we could stream US TV, then checking out local “boston-sports bars” (NOT OPEN for the game!), then finding that the American Club in Stockholm was hosting a party somewhere kind of far away. Then randomly I had lunch with my new coworkers and one lady sat down, who used to work for a TV station in town. I asked her about my dilemma and she immediately knew that TV10 would have it on! SWEET!

At that point, we switched to logistics. I was starting my second week of work that Monday, so I needed to be there at a reasonable time. I also needed to be with it, and I wasn’t counting on getting any sleep after the game due to the post-game celebration I had planned.

So I did what any red-blooded American male would do – ignored my family for the good of the game. We had some pregame pizza from our local place, which was fantastic, then I went to bed from 6pm to 11pm (waking up an hour earlier than my alarm was set for cause I was pumped up), so I had a good solid 5 hours in me. Lis had downed about a gallon of coffee that afternoon, so she was up and had her game face on still. Once up, I frantically searched for TV10, which took me about 20 minutes (20 very, very nervous minutes). Once I saw tebow on the screen, I knew I was locked in.

At that point I hustled to get some wings and fries in the oven (without waking the boy), and made some pre-game phone calls through Skype. I also grabbed some of the grocery store beers I had bought earlier – they were about ½ alcohol, but the liquor store is only open 10-4 on Saturday, so I had to work with what I had.

Getting my fat american on

veggie pizza, pre-game

meat pizza, pre game

Once the pregame started, I was excited to find out that instead of Steve Young, Michael Irvin and Chris Berman, I had three Swedes explaining the game to me. I did some quick googling on them, and Johan was the “bob costas” type – he just announces anything, a pro’s pro. Magnus was a huge guy with a championship ring – not sure what it was for exactly, but I’m betting he played in the Euro-league at some point. Then Kristof was the young gun of the group, and it turns out he had some actual NFL experience! Granted, it was two weeks on the practice squad for the packers, but still. He knew Aaron Rodgers AND spoke Swedish – he was good to go. (I love that in the US you need to be a hall of famer to talk about the game, but here, if you speak Swedish and know the rules of the game they mic you up)

From there, Mikey sent me a G+ hangout invitation, and this was the first time I’ve logged into G+ since the first week it was launched. It was great! We got a group video going with him in Chicago, his sister in NYC and his folks in Rhody. Everyone just set up their laptops near them, and it was as close to being at a super bowl as I could have hoped for. One interesting piece was that Sweden was getting the feed a good 5-6 seconds before the US folks. This had me reacting way before they were, which got a little awkward on some of the bigger plays. Lisa’s guess is that it was due to nipple-gate a few years ago, and that Sweden just didn’t care as much as the US FCC did.

it's like he was psychic

Game Time!!!

i'm locked in

high five across the pond

nice lil setup here google plus

So overall, the Super Bowl watching went great. We were able to “hangout” with our friends and family, eat fries and wings and put down some beers. Can’t wait for March Madness now!

The actual game….well lets just say I’m not quite ready to blog about that one yet….