Tired and hung over, I'm waking up early to reserve a spot at an empty bar on a Sunday morning. I'm not the only one-many of my friends come and join me. We piece together what actually happened over the weekend, we order some food and then we concentrate on the real reason we're here: the National Football League. Buffalo Wild Wings has more than 10 NFL games every Sunday afternoon and, being obsessed with sports, I need to be able to watch all of them. While other people are sleeping in or studying, I'm watching a close game between two teams I don't care about.
With the wide geographic diversity of the students you see a wide variety of different teams represented at Buffalo Wild Wings. I've seen plenty of Chicago Bears, Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns and Indianapolis Colts fans, but you also see fans from Buffalo, Houston, San Diego and even New Orleans. However, over the years I have noticed a weird coincidence: after a team has a great run, more and more of their jerseys keep showing up. It seemed like more and more brand new Patriots jerseys were showing up throughout their near perfect season last year. There is no way these people started to root for these teams just because they are playing well, right? We always joked that people could leave the tags on the jerseys so they could return them if the team's season falls apart.
One of the best parts of going every Sunday is the rivalry between groups of fans. The combination of cocky fans, taunting and alcohol always means plenty of entertainment. There hasn't been a fight yet, but last year there were some close calls. One tradition is whenever the Bengals lose, fans of other teams start the famous "Who Dey" chant as their fans begin to leave. You have to love sports. People have even stayed just to root against another team. Another tradition is some people bring little shrines to put on their table. Now, I like to represent my team and all, but bringing a helmet and blanket to cover the table may be a little much. If the shrines had candles you would have thought that the team had died.
Another great aspect is you always know when some big play happened as you start to hear chants from other sides of the bar. You even see people run over to another television to get a better view. To add to that, people you don't even know start giving you high fives when your team scores. Its sort of like being at multiple NFL games at once, except the beer is cheaper and you don't have to pay $15 for a hamburger.
One weird thing that happens every week without fail is there is a television always showing something obscure. One week it's the Home Shopping Network, the next it's the Food Network. Who goes to a sports bar and learns how to cook a turkey dinner without sound on the television?
Last week one of them may have topped them all-there was competitive Scrabble on television. Scrabble!? Who is watching this? Why is this even on television? To top that off, during the games I would glance over at the television showing Scrabble to see that each player had their own Scrabble coach. I can't even think of what a Scrabble coach does.
If you didn't come to watch the NFL games or Scrabble there are always bar staples such as pool, darts, the GoldenTee golfing game and Bags. You have heard of the other three, but what is Bags? That's the interactive corn hole game. Corn hole may be fun to play in real life, but on a video game it doesn't translate. What is next, interactive beer pong?
Could you imagine if Buffalo Wild Wings had this same scene Nov. 4 during the election? You hear fans start cheering and you run over to another television and hear someone, "Oh my! Obama just carried North Carolina!" Then you hear the conservative fans start screaming that Steve Chabot just retained his seat in the Senate. It would be a mess-two people would probably get in a fist fight over the Issue 6 vote.
With less than a year left in school, I will look back at all my memories from college and remember many of them, both good and bad, came from watching NFL games at Buffalo Wild Wings. From the last year's incredible NFL season to the amazing triple word score in the Scrabble championship, I'll always remember all the good times spent there. On the other hand, Buffalo Wild Wings will always also remember all the money I spent there.
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