PLATTEVILLE, Feb. 25 — I have noted previously here that I do not own a TV that is hooked up to anything but a DVD player and an old VCR.

Part of it is due to connectivity issues — the wifi doesn’t extend well throughout the house. Part is due to poor program delivery choices, thanks to poor-quality digital TV signals, the demise of every single cable TV option Platteville used to have, and the correspondingly overpriced (in the opinion of someone in a traditionally poor paying line of work) satellite and streaming choices. 

And, as I have also written here before, the reality is that there is next to nothing worth watching on TV. Bruce Springsteen’s 1992 album “Human Touch” included a song called “57 Channels and Nothin’ On”; it could be 570 channels now and he could rerelease the same song. Three weeks of unscheduled convalescing and therefore TV access showed nothing but “reality” TV (which isn’t), shopping channels, reruns of TV series I didn’t watch when they were originally on, several channels devoted to Western reruns, political talk that I get enough of on social media, and new and recent “entertainment” devoted to a political agenda instead of, you know, compelling characters, well-written dialogue between them and storylines with some attempt at originality. 

(I cannot provide much of an opinion about Super Bowl LX, its commercials, the controversial halftime show or the alternative halftime show because I saw none of them except for snippets from a son’s watching on his phone during family dinner.)

However, the aforementioned convalescence did give me access to the compelling college football playoffs and bowl games and the NFL playoffs, with several games that were far better than the (not really) Super Bowl. And last weekend our visit to our college daughter included TV access to be able to watch the last weekend of NBC’s Winter Olympics coverage.

The two 2–1 gold-medal-winning hockey games for the U.S. over Canada were everything you would want in sports, particularly the adrenaline-generating uncertainty over who was going to win. The women’s team tied the game in the last two minutes of regulation and then won in overtime. The men’s team scored both of its goals while I was not watching — making coffee during the first goal and pulling into church on the last goal. Perhaps that’s why they won, instead of the actual reason of timely scoring and a goaltender standing on his head to bail out his severely-outshot teammates.

Sports is one of the few unifying things remaining in our increasingly multidivided society … except for divisions between sports fans, such as this area’s Packers/Bears, Brewers/Cubs or Wisconsin/Iowa splits. The current U.S.–Canada tiff over tariffs and the Great White North’s hatred of the democratically elected president (an office parliamentary democracies do not get to vote upon) didn’t improve after Sunday’s gold medal game in which the losers complained about the 3-on-3 overtime format, complaints absent when Canada won its quarterfinal in overtime with the same format. 

My UW Olympic history class taught that, contrary to what some fans realize and more might prefer, the Olympics has never been without politics, both inside and out. Nevertheless, there is something heartening about seeing the unbridled joy of professional athletes who actually are playing for their country and not just a big paycheck. The Olympics demonstrate the line from ABC-TV’s late “Wide World of Sports” of “the human drama of athletic competition,” including “the thrill of victory” upon a gold medal or the best finish in your career, and “the agony of defeat” upon the absence of either. 

This is a huge week for the local “human drama of athletic competition,” with college basketball conference tournaments, the regional round of the girls basketball postseason and the state individual wrestling tournament, followed next week by the girls basketball sectional round, the regional round of the boys postseason and the state team wrestling tournament. Athletes in individual sports are relegated to the consolation round or a non-gold award upon a loss, and those in team sports face the looming end of their season or high school careers upon a loss.

NBC’s Mike Tirico closed the men’s gold medal game with a heartfelt message to young hockey players, pointing out that the 2026 men’s team success may have been inspired by losses in previous Winter Olympics of older players while the current Olympians were in youth hockey. While Tirico’s chase-your-dreams advice is not always good vocational advice (as college graduates working in poorly paying lines of work, including those with advanced degrees, sometimes find out too late). But Vince Lombardi said that chasing perfection results in catching excellence, and for children chasing an athletic goal teaches the lessons of sports — striving for excellence whether recognized or not, teamwork, being part of something bigger than yourself, etc. — whether or not they become stars.