I was at a course last week and it was interesting to observe the male greeting ritual which is often based on sports. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy playing sports .. but I don’t enjoy watching or talking about sports.

In almost every conversation where people do not know me (Or where I am a part of a bigger group), sports is brought up. It is like the weather, that superficial discussion point that can be leveraged until a stronger bridge is built or as a crutch when the bridge does not exist.

My history with sports is the typical one. I grew up in the average Canadian family where all the males congregated for hockey on Saturday night and we played hockey all the time. Ball hockey in the summer and in a league in the winter. During recess in the winter or after school? Hockey on the local pond. I played basketball, I even played on the high school football team in grade 12 (As a bench warmer). It was a great way to grow up and as a by-product of my upbringing, I can hold my own in any sports conversation.

But I can remember how boring I found watching sports, and I wonder why? I would sit through those Saturday night hockey games but as I got older, I would just leave my dad and brother to their bonding because I was bored to tears. I would rather read a book, draw, Lego, .. whatever. The same thing happened in university. My buddies loved to watch sports. Football, hockey, anything to keep us from doing homework. Thank goodness we had 2 TVs … one for sports and beside it, one for our Super NES.

It will be interesting to see what happens with my boys. An interesting case of home nurture, education nurture versus nature. Will their friends influence them to watch sports? (It is not on in our house .. although, if they wanted to watch it, no problem with me) or will some male DNA gene draw them to it?

We will see.

In the meantime, it still makes me yawn and no, my Canadian boys do not play hockey. We ski.