Coverage of Tuesday night's Blackhawks game at the United Center began at 8:30pm. Jim Cornelison sang the national anthem a bit past 8:40pm, and the puck dropped around 8:45pm. What followed was 270 minutes of hockey, which ended with a game-winning goal from Brent Seabrook in triple overtime at 1:15am.
There is a lot that an average human can accomplish in the time that many Chicago faithful spent watching the Blackhawks on Tuesday night. Here are a few examples.
Drive to Canada: The homeland of hockey is almost exactly a 4.5-hour drive from Chicago by way of Detroit.
Watch The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King special extended edition: The longest iteration of the third LOTR installment has a run time of 263 minutes.
Cook and eat a Thanksgiving turkey: You can get a turkey to a safe temperature in less than four hours. Then you can devour the bird and put yourself into a tryptophan-induced coma.
Binge watch Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: You're missing out if you haven't watched Tina Fey's new show yet. Granted, you might fall just shy of finishing the season in the time that it took the Blackhawks to down the Predators on Tuesday, but if you count the postgame coverage then it's an even swap.
Tour the entire Art Institute: The Art Institute is massive and usually far too large to tackle in a single visit, but if you hurry there's no reason why you can't do it in a few hours.
Ride the entire length of the Red Line both ways: If things are running smoothly on the Red Line (they won't be), you can get from Howard to 95th/Dan Ryan in about two hours. Ride it back, go home, and take a shower.
Read a Harry Potter book: If you stick to the first half of the series, you'll be able to get through a Harry Potter book in a matter of hours. The average American reads at a rate of roughly 300 words-per-minute, and Rowling's books have roughly five words on each page.
Run a marathon: If you're in good enough shape to run a marathon, you should be able to complete one in four hours or so. But if you're the kind of person who spends that much time watching a Blackhawks game, you probably aren't in very good shape.
