PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — In a day and age where information is everywhere all at once, it can often be difficult to unplug.
But for West Chester’s John Paciotti — a self-made restaurateur who decks his Delaware County Coffee Stations in Philadelphia sports memorabilia — you best not tell him and his friends the score on Game Day if they have to watch the Eagles in a bit of a delay, which can be typical for the earlier starts.
Paciotti, a former longtime Eagles season ticket holder, gets together with close friends every week to watch the games. They call themselves the Captains and will rotate hosting fun, energetic Game Day get-togethers.
But, as everyone has probably experienced at some point in their lives, there can be conflicts with kickoff. Paciotti works. His friends have other obligations. It would be easy for them to miss the game and catch the highlights later, alone. Instead, in an instance where they can’t make it to a TV in time for kickoff together, they tape it and wait until the Captains and others who’d like to join can gather. But there’s a simple rule. They watch the game as if they don’t know what’s going to happen.
“‘Does anybody know anything?’” Paciotti said, re-enacting the all-important question to his buddies in his Philadelphia Sports Fan of the Week interview with KYW Newsradio. “‘No. Okay, we’re good.’”
Don’t spill the beans. Don’t even give a facial expression that indicates what’s happening.
“I don’t want to know crap,” said Paciotti. “So that’s what we do. We set a time, and it actually frees us up a bit.”
Back in the day, it would probably be much easier to avoid a score update, which today can show up as a push alert on your phone. But to the Captains' credit, they find a way.
“It’s a challenge, but we accept that challenge,” he said.
And thus, they watch the game, even in delay, with the fun and anticipation of catching the action live. To Paciotti, being together with family and friends is the most important thing, even if it means you start watching the game two hours or so after it starts.