Local Sports

It is compulsory when you live in Australia to become a fan of sport, so much so that more than 50% of the questions on the citizenship test are sports related. I'm sure you can guess that Jared had little trouble adapting, but suprisingly Katie has started to get hooked as well. Winter brings rugby and Aussie Rules football with summer bringing Cricket and soccer. We've gotten a bit more hooked on rugby since it is alot like football back home and well cricket is just dreadfully boring to watch.

When it comes to Australian rugby, there is no bigger rival than New Zealand. I guess in a way it is a similiar relationship to what we have with Canada and hockey. Our Kiwi friends' Paul and Brady invited us over to their house for the first match of the Bledisloe Cup (which is played each year between Australia and New Zealand). Unfortunately the Kiwis won, but it was still good to witness our first New Zealand Haka (Maori war dance that they perform before the match) and watch the game with all of our friends.

The next match was in Sydney, so we decided to get tickets and hopefully serve as good luck charms for the Aussies. The game was at the ANZ stadium in Olympic Park (where the Olympics were held). Everything started off well, our seats were fantastic, the atmosphere was incredible, and we were winning for the first 78 minutes of the match... and then a late penalty against the Aussies sucked the life out of the stadium and handed the Kiwis the victory. Oh well... still a great experience. It is amazing to envision how electric the atmosphere had to be during the Olympics.

We have had better luck with our local professional rugby league team - the Manly Sea Eagles, who won the Premiereship last year. Jared's friends from college (Annie & Brenda) were in town, so we decided that it was only fitting that we attend a game while they were here given the aforementioned Australian love of sport. In the world of rules, it is also a requirement to wear team gear when you attend sporting events, so we all had to buy some maroon and white prior to going. We were surprised to see that the atmosphere is more like a highschool football game especially compared to the huge ANZ stadium that seats 100,000 people! It may be the most "Aussie" thing we have done yet and we were probably one of the only Americans there.

In the cricket world, there is nothing bigger to Aussies/Pommies (English) than winning the Ashes, which is a series of five five-day test matches, which by my estimate is about 20 days too many. Cricket is a bit like baseball with about the same amount of excitement packed into 5 days as you get in 9 innings of baseball. Is it really a sport when they stop playing around 10am to have "morning tea"? At any rate, we've learned to watch the highlights talk to our friends about wickets, stumps, etc. and pray that nobody notices that we don't know the slightest thing about cricket. Our friends Andy and Helen (Manly Pommies) invited a few of us over for a BBQ at the start of the fifth test (days 21-25)... not sure I can say much about the cricket, but thankfully Andy is a wizard on the barbie and Helen makes some delicious brownies. Five days later the results came in... Aussies lose again... Jared is now convinced that he's a jinx to any team that he starts to follow...

Despite the never ending stream of sport here, our new teams will never replace our teams at home and we can't wait to catch a Pens or Steelers game when we visit this winter.