You may and/or may not already know this, but ...

Feb. 14 is Valentine's Day.

It's a special day when you attempt to remind your significant other(s) why they chose to date you, and not somebody better.

Feb. 14 is also four days after the five-year anniversary of the greatest game ever played in the history of a professional football league that no longer exists.

If you immediately thought of the XFL, you have disturbingly-good knowledge of failed football leagues.

If you were able to pinpoint the exact game I am talking about (a 39-32 double-overtime win by the Los Angeles Xtreme over the Chicago Enforcers), you definitely know too much.

That fact that I recall said game might explain why I'm writing about the XFL on Valentine's Day.

Tommy Maddox with the L.A. Xtreme of the XFL.

However, I was actually one of the 35,513 in attendance at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum that magical evening. And, to say you were at the greatest game ever played in the history of a given sport is something you can be kinda proud of, no matter how prominent, or not so much, a sports league is.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I bought into the XFL/WWF hype machine (perhaps it was that crap-tastic Baltimore Ravens-New York Giants Super Bowl played a week before the XFL openers that helped motivate me). I was aimlessly hoping for a league without coin tosses, fair catches, kickers, touchbacks and cheerleaders in clothes.

I eagerly anticipated attending my first game ... the Xtreme's home opener in Week 2 of the 2001 XFL season, which would be the first professional outdoor football game played in L.A. since the Rams and Raiders ditched town in 1995.

What we saw was history, which was later confirmed by a reputable site such as rememberthexfl.com, which declared it the greatest ever game.

Walking out of the Coliseum you knew you'd seen a spectacular game, but its aftermath confirmed its greatness.

By Week 2, the ratings for the XFL were in a historic free-fall. The double-overtime Xtreme-Enforcers game meant the extended time for play cut into the start of Saturday Night Live. This wasn't just any edition of SNL, it was a highly-publicized show starring Jennifer Lopez, and this was the booty-riffic JLo, before Gigli.

The delay damaged SNL ratings so badly that something had to give, and it was the XFL. NBC would later cut away from live XFL games if the contest had gone over its previously designated allotted TV time.

For most sports fans, the XFL lasted 12 weeks too long. The games weren't that great. The uniforms were even worse. The players were mostly has-beens and nobodys many casual football fans had never heard of (though a number of players later found success in the NFL ... XFL MVP Tommy Maddox, for example, led the Steelers to the playoffs in 2002 and now has one more Super Bowl ring than Dan Marino).

Still, to be at the greatest game in XFL history, that's still something to be proud of ... kinda.

-- JIM REINEKING