Guest post by Jonathan Baggs

There’s a lot of heartbreak in the lives of most team sports fans.  The goal of any team’s season is to win a championship.  Anything less is a disappointment and the closer a team gets to a championship without winning, the more disappointing it is. 

I’ve been a hockey fan all my life.  My dad raised me to cheer for his beloved Buffalo Sabres and later in life I’ve cheered for the Vancouver Canucks.  Neither team has won a championship in my lifetime, or in their 50 year histories.  I’ve seen both teams play in person, but they’ve lost each time.  There are too many heartbreaking stories of them losing to get into here, but it all adds up to 33 years of disappointment. 

2020 marks 50 years since the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs won their only(?) SuperBowl.  I started cheering for the Chiefs about 10 years ago.  I’d moved to St. John’s, NL and a couple of my good friends there were huge football fans.  When I started getting into the game one of them asked me what team I was going to root for.  For no particular reason, I said “OKC” (Oklahoma City).  He said “they don’t have an NFL team, there’s a KC, Kansas City”. I said “Ok!”.

Little did I know what I was getting into. The Chiefs were one of the worst teams in football at the time and had been one of the league’s most snake-bitten franchises since winning SuperBowl VI way back in 1960.  

Within a few years their prospects started looking up.  They added a new coach and quarterback and were on their way to being contenders. 

2014 Playoffs

The Chiefs made the playoffs for the first time since I started cheering for them.  Unfortunately, their first playoff game fell right in the middle of Dark NL, when rolling power blackouts were plaguing most of Newfoundland.  I spent the day of the game in my dark apartment hoping the power would come back on so I could watch.  Luckily, it cut in just before the game started. 

The Chiefs built a big lead by halftime and looked poised to win their first playoff game since the early 90’s.  Then things started to fall apart.  The Chiefs lost all their momentum in the second half, leading to the second biggest comeback(blowing it) in NFL playoff history. Different sport, same heartbreak. 

2016 Playoffs

The Chiefs finally broke their twelve year playoff winless streak with a shutout win in round one of the playoffs.  They then played Tom Brady and the powerhouse New England Patriots and got totally outclassed.  The Pats went on to win the Super Bowl.

Like most NFL fans, I now hated Tom Brady. 

2017 Playoffs

Late in their first round game the Chiefs trailed by 8 points, but miraculously tied the game with a touchdown and 2-point conversion.  Unfortunately, the 2-point play was called back because of a Chiefs penalty, they failed to convert again and lost the game.

The lord giveth and the lord taketh away. 

2018 Playoffs

The Chiefs jumped out to an early lead in their first round game before once again falling apart late and losing by 1 point.  On one amazing play the opposing quarterback threw the ball, it bounced off a Chiefs player and fell right back into the QB’s hands to run in for a touchdown.

 WTF!?!?

A New Hope

The following season the Chiefs had a new quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, who took the league by storm.  In his first full year as a starter he had one of the greatest seasons in NFL history, winning league MVP.  This guy was special and as a long suffering sports fan, I now had a real reason to believe.  They had a great season and made the playoffs with high expectations of success. 

2019 Playoffs

The Chiefs won their first playoff game while I watched in a sports bar in Vancouver.  The next week Marieke and I were in Hpa An, Myanmar and the Chiefs were in the AFC Championship game against the greatest football team of the century, the New England Patriots, with a spot in the SuperBowl on the line. 

With the time difference, the game started at 6 am and I was up early to watch on my laptop in our hostel breakfast room.  The game started horribly.  The Chiefs didn’t score any points in the first half and trailed by double digits going into the 3rd quarter.  I prepared myself for another heartbreak, but this time was different, this time we had Patrick Mahomes.  He took over in the second half, giving the Chiefs the lead late in the game.  With time running out, the Pats tried to tie the game, but then, Tom Brady threw an interception.  GAME OVER!… Not quite.  There was a Chiefs penalty on the play and the Pats kept the ball.  They went on to score and the game went to overtime where the Pats won the coin toss for possession of the ball.  They marched down the field and scored to win the game. 

To have such a rollercoaster game come down to a coin flip was hard to swallow.  

2020 Playoffs

The Chiefs were back in the playoffs.  The hype around them wasn’t quite as high as last year, but with Mahomes at the wheel, they seemed to always have a chance. 

In their first playoff game they fell way behind and it looked like the same old story.  Then Mahomes took over and they roared back to win the game going away. 

The next week they were in the AFC championship game again, playing for a spot in the SuperBowl.  Their opponent, the Tennessee Titans seemed built to beat the Chiefs and they jumped out to an early lead.  Once again Mahomes rose to the occasion.  The Chiefs led at halftime and never looked back. 

The Chiefs were going to the SuperBowl for the first time in 50 years!  They would play the San Francisco 49ers, the most complete and dominant team in the NFL.  There was no way I was going to miss seeing it.

Marieke, Steph and I were travelling through Kenya and I had to figure out how I could watch the game.  Though neither of them follow (or understand) football, Marieke and Steph were happy to arrange our plans around the game and were excited to have a SuperBowl party.   We were going to be on the Kenyan coast and I was hoping to find an expat/sports bar that would be showing the game.  I figured Mombasa would be the best place to look, so I tried contacting a couple of sports bars there.  Unfortunately, none of them were showing the game.  Google searches seemed to indicate that the Super Bowl isn’t shown on TV in most of Africa.  Like most of the world outside North America, soccer(football) is the only sport that matters.  We’d have to find our own place to watch it. 

We found a nice, 2-bedroom Airbnb with a TV, WIFI and a kitchen in Mombasa’s Old Town.  I signed up for a VPN so we could stream the game on a Canadian website and I’d connect Marieke’s laptop to the TV with an HDMI cable so we could watch the game on the big screen. 

On Sunday Marieke and I arrived at the Airbnb after leaving Watamu that morning.  We met with the caretaker, a lovely woman named Shufaa, who let us in and made sure we had everything we needed.  I immediately tried to set up Marieke’s laptop to make sure everything would work, but the laptop couldn’t find the WIFI network.  It made no sense, our phones connected no problem.  As the saying goes, you make plans and god laughs. 

Steph arrived shortly from a great visit to Lamu.  We explained the situation and she offered to use her laptop to stream the game.  Her laptop successfully connected to the WIFI.  I set up the VPN no problem and the website streaming worked perfectly.  The only problem was the HDMI port on Steph’s laptop was different from the one on Marieke’s, so the cable we had to connect to the TV wouldn’t work.  There was no way I was going to watch my team play in the SuperBowl on a laptop.  Our only chance was to find an electronics store and buy a new cable.  By now though, it was late afternoon on Sunday and there was no guarantee we’d find an electronics store that was open. 

We headed out to find a cable, a liquor store to get some beer and a grocery store to get some Super Bowl party snacks.  We saw several electronics stores but they all primarily sold smart phones and accessories and didn’t carry HDMI cables.  Eventually we found a store that looked promising and sure enough, they had the cable.

With that done and feeling very happy about our success, we went to find a liquor store.  We’d learned how hard it can be to find an open liquor store the previous Sunday in Nairobi, but I found one on Google Maps within walking distance and hoped it would be open.  We arrived at the location but didn’t see the store.  Google Maps is often wrong about locations, especially in Africa, so we decided to walk a little further down the street to make sure the store definitely wasn’t there before giving up.  Again, luck was with us.  We found the store open and picked up some Tuskers, a popular Kenyan beer. 

With two main ingredients taken care of, we headed to a grocery store to buy some food for our stay and to make guacamole and chips for the game.  We made it back to the apartment feeling very accomplished.  The HDMI cable worked perfectly.  There was only one other essential thing we needed for a SuperBowl party, pizza. 

I contacted a couple of pizza places in the area but none of them were delivering at that time on a Sunday night.  There was one place a few minutes drive away, so with a half hour left before they closed, Marieke and I headed there in a Bolt(Uber).  I was worried they wouldn’t take our order so close to their closing time, but thankfully, they did.  We ordered 2 extra large pizzas for good measure. 

With all the ingredients for a great sports party we settled in for the night.  Amazingly, the Canucks were playing an early game that started at 10 pm in Kenya and we were able to find a site to stream from.  Steph, being from Vancouver, is also a Canucks fan and it was great to see a game when we were so out of context.  Unfortunately, the Canucks lost in a shootout.  I hoped the Chiefs would fare better.

The SuperBowl started at 2:30 am.  Luckily, we’d picked up some energy drinks to keep us going.  I was at peak excitement as the game finally started. 

The Chiefs looked good early but then fell behind and were down 10 points with time ticking down in the 4th quarter.  In past years I would’ve resigned myself to another disappointment but Mahomes and the Chiefs had come back in both of their previous playoff games.  There was still a chance.

Then it happened.  With the game on the line Mahomes makes a huge play on 3rd & 15 to put the Chiefs in scoring position.  They scored a touchdown a few plays later and were back in the game.  From then on it was all Chiefs.  They took the lead and the defence completely shut down the 49ers.  They did it, they won.  My team are SuperBowl champions!

In that moment all the pain from years of sports disappointments melted away.  All the ups and downs, the thrill and the agony had all led to this.  This is why sports fans do it.  This is why it’s worth it.  Hopefully, someday I’ll get to see the Canucks and Sabres win championships as well.

The next day we were all a bit worse for wear after being up all night, but I was still basking in the joy of the win.  Marieke had developed a very bad stomach which we hoped was just food related and not a stomach bug… We didn’t venture outside and took the opportunity to watch some of our favorite movies.  The day before had been Groundhog Day and we watched the Bill Murray classic of the same name. 

The following day we explored Mombasa’s Old Town and Fort Jesus.  Built by the Portuguese and controlled by several different powers over the centuries, the fort is a very interesting focal point of the history of the Kenyan coast.  Afterwards, we walked around Old Town to take in some of the unique and varied architecture, some of which reminded us of Rome.   

We had another relaxing night at the Airbnb before heading to our next stop, Diani beach the next day.