Bertha vs. Blizzard: Who will win Super Bowl … of pathos?

In January 2015, an access tunnel had to be dug to fix Bertha, a giant boring machine being used to build a major highway in Seattle. The billion-dollar project is beset with engineering problems and cost overruns, truly making a case that Seattle needs a Super Bowl salve this Sunday. (PHOTO: Washington State Dept. of Transportation)

It’s Super Bowl Sunday … Weekend! This most American quasi-holiday arrives just as our easily distracted, irritable nation needs it most. Two football teams will enter the stadium and … well, both will walk out as well. But one of them will be Super Bowl Champions, a fact that surprisingly few people will remember in about 27 months.

Here in Minnesota, we have a hard time talking about the “Super Bowl.” The Vikings lost four of them within about a decade back in the ’60s and ’70s. In my adult memory, the Vikings had two championship caliber teams that lost conference final games in absolutely insane ways. Truly, 1998 scarred this state the way the Twins winning baseball’s World Series in 1987 and ’91 inspired it.

With no immediate prospect of seeing the Vikings in the Super Bowl, Minnesotans go through the annual ritual of choosing one of two sleek, generic corporate logos to cheer for during the Big Game.

If you don’t have a football opinion, why not develop an arbitrary one? Here’s the one I’m using this year: pathos. Which city most deserves our sympathy in the way of supporting a fatalistic outcome?

Let’s review our options.

Officials pose in front of the cutting head of “Bertha,” the tunnel boring machine that would go on to get stuck underneath Seattle without the ability to reverse. (PHOTO: Washington State Dept. of Transportation)

Seattle Seahawks

Seattle is a city of pitiable weather and, until last year’s Super Bowl win, a long dry spell in professional sports.

Still, it’s hard to cheer for a defending champ seeking a claim on a dynasty. So what else does Seattle have going on?

Someone sent me a fascinating story about an enormous transportation project that’s been going on in Seattle for a few years now. Long story short, they’re putting a major highway underground and it’s going to end up costing more than a billion dollars. B, for BILLION.

But that’s not the saddest fact about this. They put together a giant tunnel-digging machine, named it “Bertha,” and sent it down a’ la Dig Dug.

Just one problem. Bertha got stuck, and no one designed a means by which to put the machine in reverse. So they actually have to dig another tunnel just to reach the machine in order to repair it.

So, go ‘Hawks.

(Minus: Macklemore’s music isn’t holding up as well as we had all hoped).

New England Patriots

This week, about two feet of snow fell on the city of Boston, with even higher amounts in other parts of New England. The courageous, resilient people of the snow-swept Northeast dutifully dug their way out of the storm, and truly showed that they remain #BostonStrong. (With a little help from this blog).

(Minus: Deflategate, endless public disgust with this team, specifically).

People dig out of the big blizzard in Boston earlier this week. The massive Nor’easter dumped more than two feet of snow and inconvenienced New England to the point that a Super Bowl win would probably seem wicked awesome to Pats fans. (PHOTO: John Hilliard, Flickr Creative Commons license)

This is a decision each of us must make on our own. For me, something about seeing that excavator digging a hole down to an even bigger digging machine in a billion dollar boondoggle has me saying, “Seattle, you sad place and weary, damp people, I’m on YOUR side.”