When you live in Chicago, anytime the Chicago Bears play the Green Bay Packers it is a must see game. However, the upcoming NFC Conference Championship between these two teams is the holy grail of rivalries. For almost everybody who lives in the Chicago and Green Bay area this game is a lot more than just a normal football game. This is one of those games that only comes around once in a great while. The last time the Bears and Packers even played each other in the playoffs was in 1941, but that was one of the earlier rounds. Sunday, the Bears and Packers will play each other for not just a win, but a win that will take them to the Super Bowl and for the fans of the team that wins (DA BEARS!) means eternal bragging rights.
All of this hype and excitement for Sunday’s game got me thinking about rivalries in sports and how they are ingrained into our minds and can make us loath other teams because of it. Ever since I was young, I have known that I am not supposed to like the Green Bay Packers and I have no idea why. All I knew was that my mom and dad hated them, so I did too. Why is it that the Packers and Bears are such big rivals? I have no idea how it even started and frankly at this point I don’t even care. All I know is that I really hate the Green Bay Packers and will always want them to lose even when they are playing other teams. When Brett Favre played for the Packers I couldn’t stand him, but the moment he switched to Minnesota I actually rooted for him. That would have never happened if he would have stayed with the Packers.
But, the question is why do sports fans get that intense feeling of hatred for their rival teams? It may be because the automatic hatred that comes from society, friends and family makes watching those games so much more fun and exciting. The adrenaline of watching your team crush your long standing rivals is awesome. When you are watching the game, it is like nothing else matters at that moment. If you are from Chicago, watching Aaron Rodgers get rocked by Brian Urlacher makes you smile and cheer, even if he got hurt. It is just a rite of passage in sports that when your team plays it rival, the game becomes much more than just a normal game.
This is especially true not for just watching a sport, but also playing a sport. That hatred that someone gets from just watching a sport is quadrupled when you actually play it. I played collegiate volleyball and when I first came in as a freshman there was this one particular team that we always played that were are strongest rivals. Every time the girls would talk about this team, they talked with such an intense hatred of everything about them. I had never even seen this team before, but when it came to the day we had to play them, this hatred had been etched into my mind so much that a fire just came out of nowhere and I automatically hated them, no questions asked. It was as if I had hated them my entire life. It made me play ten times harder than a normal game because I wanted to beat them so much more than any other team.
I hate to lose and there were times where I thought we could lose every game in the season and beat this team and I would be happy. That of course is a lie, but my clouded judgment from my hatred of that team made me think like that. As I became an upper class man, and the new freshman would come in, I would notice the same reaction and feelings towards the rival team that I experienced because of how all the upperclassman talked about them.
During rival sports games, whether you are playing or watching, the hatred can almost transform you into a different person. You become a lot cockier and things start coming out of your mouth that normally wouldn’t, whether it be about the rival players, referees, or even when your own players mess up. They become a lot more unreserved and thrive on it because it is competition and the competitive nature can come out and can make people a bit crazy. There is nothing wrong with this at all. Watching a rival game with a friend who roots for the rival team can be extremely entertaining. However, the moment the game is over, you gloat a little bit if your team won or sulk if they lost, but it is an instant transformation back into your normal self afterward. It is a strange phenomenon that occurs and it happens because of your loyalty to your team, which is etched into your mind from other people who have experienced the intense and entertaining feeling from the hatred and passed it on to you.
