As a lifelong die-hard Chicago Bears fan, I’ve never been more excited–and frustrated.
My team is going to the Super Bowl, but almost nobody outside of Chicago thinks it can win. Not my out-of-state friends. And certainly not the sports pundits.
Our Super Bowl opponent, the Indianapolis Colts, won its conference championship by four points, yet, at this writing, the Colts are favored to beat the Bears by a significant margin. Sports Illustrated’s football expert, Paul Zimmerman (who is known as Dr. Z), picks the Colts to win by 10 points.
“I don’t see the Bears matching the Colts’ scoring machine,” he writes in the magazine’s current edition. He may as well be cursing at me.
For frustrated Bears fans, especially those living away from Chicago and the blue-and-orange hype, fan blogs offer a chance to vent with like-minded die-hards.
With steam coming out of my ears, I set out in search of fellow frustrated fans feeling slighted by the experts. I found them at a Web site called Da Bears Blog (www.dabearsblog.com).
Jeff Hughes, a 25-year-old playwright from Kearny, N. J., who writes the blog passionately and eloquently, knew exactly how I feel.
“This is not a new development,” he said of the disrespecting national press. “After week seven this season, the Giants were the best team in our conference, according to the experts. Then it was Dallas. Then when New Orleans beat Dallas, they became the best team. And going into the playoffs, the Eagles became the best team in the conference.”
Everyone but the Bears.
“During the last game, [Bears running back] Thomas Jones ran for nearly 200 yards,” Hughes said. “Two hundred yards in a playoff game! That’s remarkable. Thomas Jones was possessed [that] Sunday. I thought the national people were going to be writing about him all week. Nothing. There was nothing.”
On Da Bears Blog, where the language is sometimes as rough as it is in the stands of Soldier Field, Hughes expounded on this issue in a post titled “Doubting Thomas.”
In response, his readers left 69 comments, writing directly to Hughes and, interestingly, to each other.
“It really is amazing how he is so under the radar in the press,” wrote a reader calling himself Coxy.
These are my people.
Hughes’ partner at Da Bears Blog, Noah Brier, handles the technical aspects of the site.
Using a tool called Movable Type (www.movabletype.com), Brier designed and maintains the look and feel of the blog.
In contrast with popular blogging tools such as TypePad (www.typepad.com) and Blogger (www.blogger.com), which are configured and maintained for you (all you need to do to begin writing your blog is to sign up), Movable Type is a do-it-yourself blogging software. It must be downloaded and installed manually on to your Internet server.
The upside of Movable Type and its top competitor, WordPress.com (www.wordpress.com), is that virtually every pixel of the blog is customizable.
“I personally don’t like the way blogs look in general,” Brier said. “I prefer to start from scratch and control everything.”
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Which is why Da Bears Blog looks different than most of the blogs you’ve seen.
Ironically, Hughes, who bleeds Bears blue, has never lived in Chicago. He grew up in a house filled with New York Jets and Giants fans.
How did become such a passionate Bears fan? Hughes explained that he has only one memory from his earliest childhood: the “Super Bowl Shuffle.”
“I remember clear as day sitting there as a 2-year-old, seeing the `Super Bowl Shuffle’ on the TV,” he said. “I don’t think I have another memory until I was 5 or 6. But at 2, I had this moment of cognizance that translates into a life of being a psychopathic Bears fan.”
Hughes started Da Bears Blog two years ago. But did not contribute to it often. It was only when this season began, and the Bears started winning, that he began writing regularly.
“I try to describe what it feels like to be a fan experiencing three hours of the football game,” Hughes said. “And, more important, to give fans a space to let some steam out and debate each other.”
Hughes said his blog gets 700 to 800 unique visitors each day. Posts typically receive between 40 and 100 comments.
Even if the Bears win the Super Bowl, Hughes predicts that it won’t get any easierfor Bears fans.
“If we win, the story will not be about the Bears winning in the national media,” he said. “It will be about [Colts quarterback] Peyton Manning losing. All the stories will be about Manning coming up short.”
All of them, perhaps, except the ones at Da Bears Blog.
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Alex L. Goldfayn is host of “The Technology Tailor Show” on WGN-AM 720 from 6-8 p.m. Saturdays.