The new year starts with one of sport's strangest traditions -- college football bowl games. Named after things like Sugar, Cotton and Roses, these games have limited interest unless you once went to one of the schools involved. But, coming as they do after the New Year's Eve party night, many football fans watch this neverending parade of games and pageantry all day and evening.

On a frosty Sunday night in late January comes the single most important date on the sporting calendar -- the Super Bowl. This game decides the championship of the professional league, the National Football League. The event itself overshadows the actual game. Pre-game activities start in the early afternoon with the game in the early evening. It is a day for parties and Super Bowl events staged in bars. Avoid planning any activities that involve your football fan/lover on Super Bowl Sunday. If you find yourself obliged to attend a Super Bowl party, go ahead. You're sure to find some other non-football fan wives/girlfriends to chat with.

January puts you solidly in the middle of both the hockey and basketball seasons. Most every night there'll be a game of one or the other involving your hockey/basketball fan/lover's favorite team.

February is one of the slowest months in the sports world. So go ahead and plan those Valentine's Day activities. Chances are there'll be a regular season hockey or basketball game on that night, but it's reasonable to expect him to forget the game that night and devote the evening to you.

What can upset your relatively sports free February is the Winter Olympics, a 2-week festival of frosty fun that only happens once every 4 years.

The beginning of one of the busy seasons in sports. Baseball awakens from its winter slumber with a month-long ritual known as Spring Training. Both the hockey and basketball regular seasons approach their conclusion at this time and games tend to take on added importance as teams scramble for playoff spots. March also features a curious event known as "March Madness" -- a college basketball tournament that generates tremendous interest and has become a gambling phenomenon. It takes up a few March weekends and culminates on a Monday night in late March.

April is the cruelest month for wives/girlfriends of serious sports fans. It is the start of the baseball season. A harbinger of Spring and the welcome sight of warmer weather, but also the start of many long evenings glued to the tube for baseball followers. In early April there will come "Opening Day", a day held semi-sacred by Gandie and millions of other baseball devotees. Opening Day almost always happens on a weekday afternoon, necessitating taking the day off work or phoning in sick. If your baseball fan/lover takes an instant holiday or is inexplicably 'sick' on this day, you'll just have to be understanding.

April is period of frantic activity for hockey fans. The playoffs begin and many important games are played and for many teams, the whole season is decided then. The first round of hockey's Stanley Cup playoffs tends to provide many upsets. Your hockey fan/lover's favorite team might have had a great regular season only to be eliminated at this point. If that happens, he'll be depressed for days. A week or so later, a similar process happens in basketball. Both the hockey and basketball playoffs extend for a long time (2 months) before a winner is decided. So be prepared as he settles in for a long siege of nightly compulsive sports watching.

April also offers what most golf fans would agree is the most prestigious event on the golf calendar -- The Masters -- a somewhat snooty, exclusive event, held in Augusta Georgia that ordinary people can only see on television.

May means more of the same kind of action started in April, but more intensified. The hockey and baseball playoffs continue unabated. However, as teams get eliminated, the games get fewer and towards the end of the month there may actually be a few nights when there isn't a game. Because of competition from other sports, interest in baseball may diminish in May, but most every night there's still a baseball game on TV for your sports fan to keep track of, most likely by channel hopping with the remote control during breaks in action of other sports.

May is also highlighted by the two most significant events in the racing (horse and car) world. On a Saturday afternoon in May they run the famous horse race called The Kentucky Derby in Louisville, Kentucky. This traditional event, lasting only minutes, will peak the interest of even those who follow horse racing on a casual basis. Likewise, car racing holds its premier event in May, on the U.S. Memorial Day weekend. The Indianapolis 500 tends to stir excitement even among those sports fans who seldom devote much attention to car racing.

Though it's a winter sport, hockey reaches its zenith in early June when some team actually wins the much-cherished Stanley Cup. Approximately a week later, basketball comes down to a similar series of games to finally determine a champion. The thing you have to remember is that all major team sports (except football) are decided in a series of 7 games. That means as few as 4 games or as many as 7. By about the middle of June, both hockey and basketball will have declared a champion and the season will end and there'll be a sudden void in the life of sports fans. In most cases, that slack will be taken up by a renewed interest in baseball.

You may also have to block off a few hours of a weekend in June for the watching of Tennis. Wimbledon, by far the most glorified event on the tennis calendar, often grabs the attention of those who don't normally watch it.

The pace of sports slackens in the summer heat. Baseball rises to prominence. On a Tuesday night in early July comes baseball's All Star game. All major sports hold a meaningless All Star game, but baseball's is the only one worth watching, if only for the pageantry and history it invokes. As baseball shifts into the second half of its long season, it's worth noting whether your local team (or your baseball fan/lover's favorite team) is still in contention. If not, you may experience 2 months of diminished interest. If the chosen team still has a chance, baseball may well become a nightly obsession for him. The only other significant sports even that you may have to cope with in July is Soccer's World Cup, a month-long international spectacle that only happens once every 4 years.

This is the ideal time to get your sports fan/lover off the couch and out of the house for a much-needed vacation. Daily baseball action continues, of course, but not such that he can't miss the occasional game. Encourage him to get out and enjoy the rest of the summer before getting locked back into TV sports in the Fall. The exception to any August vacation plans you may have could be the Summer Olympics. Again, only once every 4 years, but something that will keep him on the couch in front of the tube for 2 full weeks.

Back to school and back to what will likely become a regular pattern of Sunday-Monday football watching. The NFL season opens on the Labor Day weekend so this is a good time for you to plan some alternative regular weekly activity for Fall Sunday afternoons and Monday evenings in order to leave your football fan/lover alone in front of the TV.

Regardless of the success or failure of the local team, interest in baseball intensifies as it enters its pennant race phase. Unlike other sports, only the top few teams make the baseball playoffs, so September often comes down a close watching of the standings and the results of out of town games.

The first half of October is a time that most wives/girlfriends of sports fans find the most difficult. Sports addicts will virtually disappear into a seemingly continuous series of games. Gandie himself has been known to watch as many as 6 baseball games, 3 football games and 2 hockey games in the course of an October weekend. Channel hopping is often necessary and decisions have to be made about which sports event to watch.

Of prime interest is the baseball playoffs, leading up to the World Series. It starts with a frantic first week in October when there could be as many as 3 baseball games played per day, some of them during weekday afternoons. By the second week, it's down to 1 or 2 games a day. Then in mid-October comes the World Series, one of sport's most cherished events. The champion of the American League Vs. the champion of the National League in a 7 game series. Don't plan any activities involving your baseball fan/lover until you are sure this event is over. Allow for possible delays due to rainouts. By the last week of October, you can be reasonably sure that baseball will be over for the year.

October also sees the new hockey season begin. Though it doesn't have the same ceremonial impact or the seasonal significance as the opening of the baseball season, most hockey fans want to be in front of their TV when the first puck drops. It becomes a symbol of the changing of the seasons.

And you must not forget about football being in full force.

The sports world almost enters a period of hibernation in November. No major events happen though hockey and football continues. In early November, the basketball season swings into action. But mostly November just a matter of settling into a regular weekly pattern of sports watching.

A Christmas blessing for those who've had to cope all year with a sports-loving relationship. There are few major sports events to conflict with Christmas shopping and all those parties you both are expected to attend. Only the regular season games of hockey, basketball and football. Christmas eve and Christmas day are usually devoid of any sports activity.

However, the weekend after Christmas, in the middle of the holiday season, comes the football playoffs. A Saturday/Sunday in which 4 important football games will be played, usually in conflict with other plans you have. A similar weekend may happen early in the new year as they decide who plays in the Super Bowl (see January).

So that's it. You've survived a year of living through the sports calendar and you've coped with it. Now you can bravely face the new year knowing that all the same things will happen all over again.

"Gandie's Guide For Sports Lovers" is offered free to any Web Site publisher who wishes to use it. It may be reproduced in whole or in part and may be altered to suit the requirements and/or personal opinions of the publisher of the Web Site. Therefore, the opinions expressed may not ultimately be those of Jim Semple (also known as Gandie).

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