Ghost-riding the bull

For Alma's birthday, I got her tickets to a PBR event at Allstate Arena (the former Rosemont Horizon), because she's a fan of the sport - that stands for Professional Bull Riders, for those of you were wondering how Pabst Blue Ribbon could sell out an arena. The event in question was last night, and I have to say it was pretty entertaining.

Bull riding sort of toes the line between ironic enjoyment and unironic enjoyment for me, but I have to say I lean towards the latter camp, as silly as that will probably seem to most of you. You've got these bulls that are trained to buck and spin, and guys trying to stay on them for eight seconds - which is really an eternity in bull riding, and only about a quarter of the 45-man field was able to complete a ride while we were there. The current points leader, in fact, failed to stay on his bull for eight seconds, and he had ridden 80% of all the bulls he'd gotten on this year prior to that point, a mammoth percentage. As the points leader, he was riding last, making it kind of an anticlimactic end to the night.

It was certainly a different kind of sporting event, reflecting, I think, the nature of its audience. In particular - have you ever been to a sporting event that started with a communal prayer? Because I hadn't. Also, because the flow of the action tends to be "three to eight second ride, nothing for 2-3 minutes," the head rodeo clown had to run around working the crowd the whole time. And I was surprised at how small Allstate Arena was, though this meant that despite being on the opposite side of the arena from the chutes, we could still get a pretty good look at the rides (or, technically, the outs - it's not called a ride unless you stay on the full eight seconds).

At any rate, we had a good time. Alma likes cheering on the riders and I like seeing what the bulls do - of course if a guy can ride a bull that's really hard to handle, that makes the whole thing even better. It's a fun niche sport because I can kind of just put it on whenever I feel like it and not worry so much about who the best riders are or what have you; I just like watching a guy try to handle a wild bull. Fun times.

Though obviously baseball is my favorite sport ever and the Cubs my favorite team, and Wrigley the closest venue to me even up in Evanston, I got kind of interested in checking out some of the more "minor" sporting events - there's definitely something to be said for the intimacy of Allstate as a venue (not that Wrigley is cavernous or anything), and it could be fun to see a Rush game or something. We're also probably going to try and see a Fire game or two during the summer; Alma's point was that she feels like if the MLS doesn't get support, it's going to go away like the NASL did (okay, she didn't reference the NASL). While I've had a hard time getting interested in the MLS, she's certainly right about that, and a thriving domestic league can only help the national team which of course I do care about, quite a bit. And Toyota Park only seats 20,000, about the same as Allstate, so it should have that same feel of being close to the action - my only previous soccer experience was at Soldier Field (post-spaceship), which is obviously quite a bit larger. Hopefully there are also a lot fewer drunk people there than there are at Wrigley.