Commentary: A tale of two cities, games

Last week posed quite an interesting dynamic for me in the world of sports and it seems to be just the thing I needed to knock me out of the fall funk that is plaguing many people in Bigfork.

Thursday morning I woke up bright and early and hit the road to Superior for the Western B Divisional Volleyball Tournament. The gym was filled with excitement, even for the Valkyries' 10 a.m. game. It was a long drive down there, but somehow that was negated by the atmosphere of the tournament.

Throughout the day, I watched as fans, athletes and coaches kept the energy level up while riding a roller coaster of emotions. I never imagined that I would find such intensity there when I first arrived in Superior, a tiny town nestled between two mountains.

With the stakes much higher during the second day of the double elimination tournament, the spectacle was even bigger. Dreams were coming true for some teams, while others were having theirs crushed. At about 5:45 p.m. Friday, the latter of those two scenarios had unfolded for the Vals, and I jumped back into my Jeep and headed to the Missoula airport for the second part of my sports journey.

I'm a Seahawks season ticket holder and I haven't had a chance to use my seats all season. So, I used the break in the BHS sports schedule to fly over to Seattle for the football game.

Talk about a change of scenery. For anyone that hasn't been lucky enough to go to Superior, I'd describe it as being similar in size to Bigfork, but much older looking, feeling and smelling. Not that Seattle isn't an old city, but it has seen a lot of renovations over the years.

As I rode in my friend's car from Sea-Tac airport, it took me a little bit to adjust to the speed of life, the way people talk and the lack of courteous behavior in the larger city.

By Sunday morning, I was right back in the swing of things in my old stomping grounds — the suburbs of Seattle. I got ready for the Seahawks game listening to my friend chant, "Game time, who-wah!" From that point on, I was back to being filled with the excitement and energy that had surrounded me in the Superior High School gym just days before.

There is nothing like the sights and sounds of a Seahawks game to take away all of my worries and end all of the feelings of monotony in my life, and I realized that the same was true for the volleyball tournament.

Concerts, parties and vacations are all great getaways from the battles of life, but for me, I prefer a big sporting event. Concerts can have songs that remind me of too many things I don't want to think about, parties often have people I don't want to see and vacations are filled with obstacles of their own. But a professional game or a big tournament even at the high school level can really be the perfect medicine. They allow a person to become fully engulfed in something else, to be surrounded by other people in a similar state of being and to follow the trials and tribulations of the athletes rather than their own personal issues.

I was shocked by my change in surroundings this weekend, but I was even more shocked by their similarities. Together, though, they made a world of difference in shaking me out of the daily grind that has been dragging me down a little bit this fall.