Monday Night Football (How I Met Your Mother)

Ted's favorite holiday is Super Bowl Sunday. He has everything planned out continuing their tradition of watching it together with hot wings. The gang's plans are cut short when they find out a worker at the bar has died. They are forced into going to the funeral, otherwise they won't be allowed back in the bar. The funeral starts at the same time as Super Bowl XLI, so they tape it figuring they'll watch it afterwards. The wake lasts too long and they run out of time to watch the game. They plan to not find out the score of the game until the next day to watch it together.

Ted tells his kids that depriving themselves of not knowing the scores was harder than they all thought. Ted decides to work at home so no one can tell him the score while Barney handcuffs himself to Ted's wall, so he can't find the score, because he has a lot of money on the game.

Robin does the best she can to avoid the media by trying to delay the sports news and by covering her ears. When someone asks why she's acting weird, she uses the excuse of her friend dying and how she couldn't watch the game because she had to go to the funeral.

Marshall goes to class with Lily for show and tell, where a student threatens to tell the score to Marshall. Marshall asks the kid why he's threatening him and the kid replies that he is in love with Lily. The kid does many things, such as blackmailing Marshall to give him money.

Ted constructs a device (Sensory Deprivator 5000) so he can get the wings and not find out the score while he's in the sports bar. After he gets back, he realizes he must go back to get the dipping sauce.

Meanwhile, Barney escapes from Ted's and tries as hard as he can to find the score of the game. He runs into many people including Emmitt Smith, who have all missed the game, to Barney's frustration.

Marshall continues to be tormented by the student until he gets him back by spraying juice on his pants and threatens to tell everyone he wet his pants. Marshall smugly asks for his money back and takes the kid's snack pack.

While Ted is back in the bar getting the sauce, he tells his kids that that was the moment everything went wrong. Ted trips down a couple of steps, Barney checks the newspaper, Robin hears the winner at the station, and a janitor has the radio on in the kindergarten revealing the score of the game to Lily (who covers Marshall's ears to keep him from hearing too), thus almost all of them know the score of the game without even watching it.

Marshall, Lily and Robin head to Ted's but don't reveal that they know who won, and Barney promises he won't tell – only to be heard loudly screaming in Ted's room that he lost every bet thus ruining the game for everybody, since Ted knew who Barney bet on. Robin, Marshall and Lily play it off and pretend that Barney ruined the game for them.

Despite this, the five decide to sit down and watch the game anyway and still manage to enjoy themselves as much as ever. Future Ted finishes the story by telling his kids that he doesn't remember who won or even who played, but he'll always remember the evening as a fun one he spent with his friends.

Staci Krause of IGN gave this episode a rating of 5.4 out of 10.[1]

• "Monday Night Football" at IMDb
• "Monday Night Football" at TV.com