A thought on games

At what point is a game no longer fun?

I'm asking in the wake of a basketball (club level) that has left me with a limp (I'm hoping will be gone in two or three days) and more bruises than I can count (including one to my sternum that knocked the wind from me and one on the back of my head from the gym floor).

Who do I blame? Certainly not my team. They played with dignity. There weren't cheap shots taken from our end... at least, none that reached the level of getting punched in the kidney when off ball. Add in that our coach was MIA, and I think we held our own.

I want to blame the other team. There were some pretty dirty things going down on the court. They were taller (and heavier) than we were, and there was some serious shoving. I saw one move that was intended to land our point guard on her head, and I almost lost it. But was the problem that they were attempting these blatant fouls? Or that they were getting away with them?

That's what it comes down to--The Refs. I think it's the job of the ref to make sure the game is safe. Yes, sometimes this goes to the extreme and it seems like the game is nothing but whistles. But there is a line. And when a player is shoved into a wall and there's no foul call, that line has been crossed. The other team wouldn't have continued their blatant infractions had the refs been calling the fouls.

Now, none of this changes the fact that I'm angry we lost, or angry that I'm limping and in pain. Anyone who knows me well, knows that I'm tough enough to put up with a heavy dose of abuse without flinching. This was the first game that I limped off the court at the final whistle to keep from collapsing on the floor. It is not my definition of fun. It is not my definition of a game. And frankly, it wasn't that close to my definition of basketball.