Entries about sports

Eight years ago, I was sitting on a counter having an internal debate. I was in Air Canada Elite lounge in Terminal 2 of Lester B. Pearson International Airport in Toronto. Access to the lounge is a benefit of being an Elite flyer, and includes comfortable chairs, free alcohol and big screen TVs. The date was Sunday, February 24th, 2002, and I was about to get on a flight down to St. Louis for work.

The debate I was having was whether or not I would get on that flight.

That Sunday was the final game in the Men's Olympic hockey tournament in Salt Lake City. Canada was playing the USA. My flight was scheduled in the late evening. I had showed up very early for my flight to make sure I could see the game.

In close to the end of the second period, and Brian Rafalski had just scored a goal for the USA to tie the game up at 2-2. The game was tight, and I suddenly was hit with the realisation that if the game stayed close, it could go into overtime. If the game wrapped up in regular time, I'd be able to see it all, but if it went to overtime, I'd either have to leave to catch my flight or blow off the flight and keep watching the game.

Luckily, I never had to make that choice. Canada scored with less than 2 minutes left in the second period, and then went on to put away another two goals in the 3rd period to win 5-2.

Between you and me, though, I would have blown off the flight and watched the game. Some things are more important than work.

Last Sunday (February 21st), I sacrificed work again by staying up really late to watch Canada and the USA play Olympic Hockey again. It was the round-robin part of the tourney, and Canada and the USA were both undefeated. The winner would move on to the quarter finals. The loser would have to play an elimination game before getting to the quarter finals.

I headed down to The Albion on New Bridge Street. The pub is owned by a Canadian, and so he got a late licensed to stay open for all the games. As the Olympics were in Vancouver, which is 8 hours difference from London, most of the games started very late. That Sunday, the game started after midnight.

It wasn't a great game, as a Canadian fan. Canada lost 5-3, setting up a long road to get to the final. It stung to have stayed up so late and not get the benefit of seeing a Canadian win.

Over the next week, Canada played three more games, winning against Germany, Russia (one of the favourites in the tournament) and Slovakia and winning them all to set up a final against the team they'd lost to the last Sunday - The United States of America.

I head down to the Albion again for the game. Judging by the crowd there the previous Sunday, I figured I should show up earlier. I showed up at 6 PM, two and a quarter hours before the game. I was one of the last people allowed in before the bar was packed and no others were let in.

Canada was up 2-1 until the dying minutes of the game, when the USA scored and sent the game to overtime. The crowd, almost all Canadians, were stunned into silence.

Luckily for the crowd, Sydney Crosby scored in overtime to win 3-2. The crowd went wild. People who didn't know each other were hugging. Everyone was smiling. A few folks even broke out the champagne.

Congratulations to Canada! Always nice watching these things with other folks of your nationality.

Come June, though, I'll have to adopt another country to be part of. Canada didn't make it into the World Cup.

Ah, February rolls around and a young North American man’s mind turns to one thing. Cheerleaders... Oh, and chicken wings, and beer, and the hail Mary pass and nickle defences. Okay, a young man’s mind turns to more than one thing, but they are all wrapped up in the same event. Super Bowl!

Yes, it is time for that annual celebration of all things American and bombastic! Fireworks! The Who! Queen Latifah singing! Six hours of pre-game coverage!

This year I took myself to Amsterdam to watch the big game, a continuation of my silly “Super Bowls around the World” quest that has seen me watching American football in such non-American places like Costa Rica, Chile and Tanzania (though not so successfully there).

Amsterdam is in the Netherlands, and is known by North Americans mostly as a place to get sex and drugs. The city is famous for it’s raunchy nightlife, mostly centre around the red light district.

A red light above the door means you can look into the window and decide if you want to spend some time with the young lady working there. Sometimes, though, they are old ladies. And sometimes, they aren’t ladies at all, though they look like ladies.

If sex isn’t your vice, then there is always the dope. Coffee shops are quite popular in Amsterdam, where you can go and buy and smoke marijuana.

What Amsterdam is less well known for (at least in the circle of friends I ran with back in Canada) is the pretty town centre with it’s canals, narrow streets, even narrow housing and even windmills!

I, however, was there neither for the sex nor for the drugs nor even for the pretty sight seeing. I was there for the American football. This year featured the Indianapolis Colts against the New Orleans Saints. While the pundits put their money on the Colts winning the game, the Saints were emotional favourites for most people. The city of New Orleans obviously has been through a lot in the past five years, and I think most people felt like they deserved some good news.

I watched the game at the Satellite Sports Cafe on the Leidseplein, a square in the south-west part of the centre of town.

The bar was jam-packed, with folks even sitting on the stairs between the two levels to get views of the game. I made friends with a group of guys sitting at the bar, and when one of their friends left before the game started, they offered me his stool. So I had a nice front row seat for the game.

The group included two Dutch and one American. Myself, the American and one of the Dutchmen were cheering for New Orleans - as was most of the bar. The other Dutch guy, though, was cheering for Indianapolis. I don’t think he had a decent reason to cheer for them other than being contrarian.

“They are the better team,” he said to me. “Peyton Manning is the best quarterback in the game. They have a very potent offence.”

“True,” I said. “The Colts do put points up on the board. However, they are too good. It’s boring - like cheering for a bunch of accountants. They are probably really good at their jobs, but it isn’t always exciting to watch.”

An American girl came around selling “squares.” Squares is a form of gambling, where you pay money to buy a square on a 10 by 10 grid, with each axis being one of the two teams. After all the squares have been purchased, the number from 0 to 9 are revealed along the axis in a random sequence. At the end of the half and the end of the game, the person who has the box that matches the last digits of the score wins some of the money.

I bought two squares for a euro each. When the numbers were revealed, I had Colts: 8, New Orleans: 2 and Colts: 0, New Orleans: 6. The first square wasn’t great, as there aren’t too many scores where it is easy to get a 2 as the last digit. American football scores in 7s and 3s, so you want to look at multiples of 7s and 3s and their combinations.

My other box was pretty decent, though. 0 and 6 are both easy numbers to get in football. Zero is were both teams start (obviously), so a team not scoring gets a 0. A touchdown and a field goal are worth 7 and 3, respectively, so scoring one of each gets 10 (which ends with 0, and thus in the “0” box). 6, similarly, is two field goals.

The half ended with Indianapolis up 10 points to 6 for the Saints. That was 0 and 6, one of my squares, so I got 50 euros paid out! Awesome - especially seeing as pints were going for 5 euros each.

The Super Bowl spectacle included a number of big musical names this year, as usual. Country singer Carrie Underwood sung the national anthem, and Queen Latifah sung America The Beautiful before the game. At half time, The Who came out to play - doing a medley of their hits and even breaking out the green lasers just like the video for Baba O’Riley. Pete Townshend even windmilled on his guitar - no doubt a reference to my watching the game in the spiritual home of the windmill - The Netherlands.

The game continued, and New Orleans took control in the fourth quarter, scoring a touch down on offence, and then picking off and scoring during an Indianapolis offence series. New Orleans ended up winning 31 to 17. No more squares money for me, but I was more than happy to see the team I had picked to root for win.

I wandered out into the Amsterdam night - actually early morning - and back along the canals to my hotel. I smiled, thinking about the party in New Orleans. I realized that I had watched the game and cheered for New Orleans in a city that shares a lot in common with it. Both are known as party capitals and both are places where the waters are only kept at bay by lots of pumps and dykes. They really could be sister cities.

I end, then, with congratulations to the city of New Orleans from her spiritual twin - Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Today FIFA is going to do the draw for the upcoming 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Its getting a lot of press here in England, as they have been identified as one of the top seeds. Not only are English fans wondering who the English team will play, but also where they will end up playing. There is a lot of hand wringing here about the transport in the country, as well as accommodation options. Some of the stadium are much smaller than others, and there are concerns about getting tickets. In general, though, most of the English fans seem quite excited about the prospect of seeing the English team in action during the World Cup.

Back in 2007, I had my own World Cup moment when I got to see THE WORLD CUP FINAL!

Now, sports fans will probably be wondering how I could watch a World Cup final in 2007, when the last World Cup was held in 2006 in Germany. I would have been a year late to watch the World Cup had I showed up in Berlin to watch it.

I need to qualify the above statement. It was actually the Under-20 World Cup, played by the national under-20 squads. It is still a FIFA World Cup event, though, so it must count for something, right?

The 2007 Under-20 World Cup was held in Canada. Canada isn't exactly known as a hotbed of football (aka soccer), at least at the adult level. A lot of the kids I grew up with all played soccer (including me), so the game was definitely popular for children. It just didn't really translate into an adult audience for the professional game, though. Toronto, and other Canadian cities, have had various incarnations of professional and semi-professional teams for years, but none really stuck with the public.

That's not to say that folks weren't watching top flight football. The multicultural population of Toronto are big supporters of football. They just tend to watch the game from back in their mother countries, whether that be England, Scotland, Italy, Spain or France.

As part of the deal of hosting the 1994 World Cup, the Americans set up a top-tier, national professional league. This helped grow the popularity of watching the game played in North America. As part of a bid to get both the 2007 U-20 World Cup and a bring a professional Major League Soccer (MLS) team to Toronto, Canada built the football-only National Soccer Stadium in Toronto, known on non-FIFA days as BMO Field.

Canada won the hosting of the FIFA U-20 in 2007. Set up exactly like the big boys play their World Cup, the games are broken into group stages, with the top two teams from every group going into the elimination round. The games were held across Canada, with the final being held at the National Soccer Stadium in Toronto.

At the start of the tourney, coverage was pretty quiet, but the hype surrounding the tourney grew as it progressed. The media started covering it more and more, and all the games ended up on Canadian TV across 4 different stations. Even though 2 of the stations were digital TV stations only and thus not available to most people, even without digital cable there were lots of games on regular TV. One Saturday night I was out at my local sports bar, and despite Toronto Blue Jays baseball and CFL (Canadian Football) being on, the U-20 was featured on the big-screen.

The final two games were played on Sunday, July 22nd in Toronto. The games were Chile vs. Austria for third place and Argentina vs. Czech Republic for the first place trophy. Figuring that this is probably as close as Canada is ever going to get to hosting a World Cup, I wandered down to the stadium and picked up a ticket.

Unfortunately, there had been a bit of an incident after the Chile-Argentina semi final. After the game, all 21 players on the Chilean team were detained by police after the game. The players claim to have been kept from seeing the fans by the police, while the police claim that the players started brawling with the Police.

The media coverage got a lot more intense after that. "There was an incident between the Chilean players and the police in front of the stadium, which is currently being investigated by all the parties involved. The 21 players were detained and later released," said John Schumacher, FIFA's spokesperson at the tournament. The Toronto Police called their actions "firm but fair" however the Chilean's called it police brutality. Many Chilean politicians were demanding apologies, and Canadian politicians are requesting investigations. There was some talk about perhaps the Chilean team not coming to play on Sunday in the third place game, but they announced they would come out to play.

Upon arrival at the stadium, there was a large protest outside against the Toronto police by Chilean fans. Probably a good 75 to 100 people surrounding a large Chilean flags, many of them holding signs. The protest was peaceful, and the police kept their distance.

The stadium was mostly filled with South American fans - Chileans for the first game, most of whom left and apparently gave their tickets to Argentinian fans for the second game. There were very few Austrian or Czech fans in the crowd, and they mostly got drowned out by the larger Latin American contingent. The Chileans had the best cheers - lots of variation. The Argentinians had most drummers, though.

I missed the first 50 minutes of the third place game, so I missed the only goal. Chile scored, and ended up winning the game 1 to 0 to beat the Austrians and win the third place trophy. The Chilean fans had a scare near the end, but some fine goal keeping saw their goalie Cristopher Toselli (who set a tournament record by recording 492 minutes of scoreless action before letting in three goals in the Argentina-Chile match) knocking a ball out of the net just before it crossed the goal line as he was falling backwards. It was a spectacular save.

In the second game, the Czechs scored first, but Argentina answered quickly and got another goal and went on to win 2 - 1. Argentina had the top scorer of the tournament, Sergio Aguero with six goals, won the golden boot for the top scorer, the golden ball as the MVP, was captain of the team so first to put his hands on the trophy and gets to wear the number 10!

The Czechs score! Czech U20 team celebrates.

Just a few minutes left

Argentina being presented the trophy of the U20 World Cup

Other than the Chile - Police dust up, the tournament was a great success. It established a new record for the highest total attendance in FIFA Under-20 World Cup history, finishing at 1,195,239. The previous record of 1,155,160 was set in Mexico 24 years previous. Including the final Sunday's two games, 31 of the tournament's 52 matches were sold out.

As for the growth of soccer as a spectator sport in Canada, things are looking up. Toronto FC, the MLS team, is one of the most profitable and well-attended teams in the league, though that hasn't exactly translated into on-field success... yet. The MLS is looking north again. 2011 sees Vancouver join the league with a professional team, and Montreal is highly favoured to join soon after. Canada is likely to get two MLS teams before Beckham even gets his first.

Siempre fútbol, Canada.

In the early 1950s, English football team Wolverhampton Wanderers did a tour of Europe playing “friendly” matches. A friendly is a game played between two sides that doesn’t have any league or title consequences. These games are often played in the off season so teams can stay sharp. The Wolverhampton team (“The Wolves”), one of the best teams in England at the time, beat a number of the top European clubs. The British Press started calling the Wolves “the Champions of the World” due to this success across the channel on the continent.

This didn’t go down too well with teams and fans over in Europe, so in 1955 the European Champion Clubs’ Cup tournament was started. At first only one team from each country was invited in (the winner of the national league competition), but in 1990s, the format was extended to include teams who are runners up, depending on how “good” the league they come from is deemed. At present, the England’s top four teams from the Premier League enter the Champions League (or more properly the UEFA Champions League), the most from any country (tied with Italy and Spain, who also send 4 teams).

The 32 teams are divided into 8 groups of 4 teams each. The teams then play each other twice, one home game and one away game. The top two teams from the group stages move on to the knock-out stage. For the round-of-16, quarter finals and semi-finals, the teams play two games (one home and one away), and the winner is the one with the highest aggregate score. If there is a tie in the scores, away goals count more than home goals.

The final two standing teams play one game at a pre-determined site to declare the winner. Last tournament in May of 2009, the final was played in Rome. This tournament, Madrid hosts the final on the 22nd of May, 2010.

Right now, the UEFA Champions League is in the group stages. One of the four English teams playing in the Champions league this year is The Arsenal.

Arsenal’s history dates back to the 1886, when a group of coworkers at the Dial Square workshop of the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich decided to form a football club. Calling themselves the Dial Square football club, the boys played their first match against The Eastern Wanderers on December 11, 1886 on the Isle of Dogs (where I used to live). It was a 6 - 0 win, over a club which I can find no more information about other than they lost one game to a team that would become one of the top teams in England. Despite the similarity in name Wanderers, they were not the same club that kicked off the Champions league back in the 1950s.

The Dial Square football club changed their name soon after to be known as Royal Arsenal. The club remained an amateur side for the workers at the Arsenal until 1891, when they turned professional and changed their name again, this time to Woolwich Arsenal. They joined the Football League, a collection of mostly northern based professional teams in 1893. However, the Woolwich team didn’t do well against the more established northern teams, and soon found themselves floundering both competitively and financially. In 1913 the team moved from Southern London up to Islington (where I currently live), to a grounds in Highbury. They dropped the “Woolwich” from the name (for obvious reasons), and have since been known simply as The Arsenal, or The Gunners.

Famous Arsenal fans (who are called Gooners, as a play on the Gunner nickname) include Nick Hornby, who wrote a book Fever Pitch about his love for the club. The book has been made into two movies, though admittedly one was about baseball. Other fans include The Queen, F1 racer Lewis Hamilton and singer Dido. As an aside, if Dido ever reads this... “Hey, how you doing? Drop me a line. Maybe we can go out and grab a drink. We can talk about whatever - Arsenal, your music, my blog, the fact I often still have sand in my shoes...” (I think Dido is foxy...)

As for me, I think I may becoming a fan of them as well. I wrote about the need to pick a football team to cheer for back before I moved over to England. I had talked about maybe Chelsea or Tottenham - both London based teams, but never committed to either. I flirted with the idea of cheering for West Ham or Millwall back when I lived on the Isle of Dogs due to their geographic proximity, but never connected. Arsenal though, I think is a team I can get behind. They have a fancy stadium (which happens to have a travel related sponsor even), are close to home and are one of the top teams in the league. I like that in team, after years of living in Toronto where we had the definitely not top of the league Toronto Maple Leafs.

Plus, I’ve already bought a shirt.

The Arsenal played at the ground at Highbury until 2006, when they moved to new, flasher digs just down the road. The new stadium was initially called Ashburton Grove, until a deal to sell the naming rights was secured with a middle-Eastern based airline. The stadium is now known as The Emirates.

The Emirates is just up the street from my flat, a 30 minute walk or a 2 stop tube ride. The stadium holds over 60,000 fans for football matches (including over 7,000 seats in the high priced “club level”), and is often sold out. On the outside, the stadium has a number of large glass covered areas which reflect the blue sky during day games and show off the fancy club level restaurants and bars at night.

Arsenal, after finishing fourth in the Premiership, qualified to be in the Champions League tournament. They are in group H along with Olympiacos from Greece, Standard Liège from Belgium and AZ Alkmaar from the Netherlands. After three games, Arsenal are atop the group with two wins and a draw. Their last game was against AZ Alkmaar in The Netherlands, where they drew 1-1.

The match on the fourth of November, 2009 at the Emirates was a chance for Arsenal to get revenge on AZ after the draw, which Arsenal thought they should have won. A win would also keep them comfortably atop Group H.

For Champions League games there are a few changes at the Emirates. Firstly, it’s not called The Emirates. Due to conflicting sponsorship between the clubs and UEFA, stadiums are not referred to by their “naming rights” names. Arsenal’s ground is called “Arsenal Stadium” on Champions League game nights. Also, they don’t sell beer. You can bet, though.

I had nice seats in the upper tier behind the north end goal. Despite being in the upper deck, the view of the field was still very good, and it wasn’t a problem to follow the action at all.

The fans were on fine form, chanting and singing throughout the match. “We love you Arsenal” was sung every four minutes or so. After the first goal, the faithful started singing “One-nil to The Arsenal” to the tune of “Go West” by the Village People. After the third goal, putting Arsenal up 3-0, the fans started a chant of “Are you Tottenham in disguise,” referencing Arsenal’s 3-0 win last weekend over hated cross-town rival Tottenham Hot Spur. One of the best chants was in honour of The Arsenal’s coach Arsène Wenger, where the fans sing “There’s only one Arsene Wenger” to the tune of Guantanamera.

Arsenal ended up winning handily, with a final score of 4-1. The game was great to watch as a fledging Arsenal fan, as it featured an almost endless offensive push by Arsenal and not much life from AZ Alkmaar. Probably not so good if you were an AZ fan, though. I bet all the visiting Dutch fans off in the south-east corner of the stadium were sitting there and looking at each other saying, “Waatsch haappening, guysch? We aare getting schlaaughtered!”

Now I have a footie team to cheer on. All I have to do is start learning some of those chants...

One-nil to The Arsenal... one-nil to The Arsenal...

At least I already have the jersey.

I made it an early night on Saturday so I could be up early to head to Monaco. I had checked the schedules of the trains from both San Remo and Ventimilla so I knew exactly what trains to catch, and scheduled the alarm to wake me up 1 hour before my San Remo train so I could get ready and go to the train station. The alarm ended up not being necessary, as the traffic at night and the birds at daybreak made sure I was awake with plenty of time to spare.

The train gained more and more passengers at each station towards Monaco, until it was as jammed as the Northern Line tube on a weekday afternoon. At Monaco, we all spilled out into the underground station before working our way out of the depths and into the light of what is arguably the most glamourous country in the entire world.

Finally, all the excitement that had been missing from the period before my trip came flooding to me, and I started to feel the anticipation. I was in Monaco for the Grand Prix.

I have had an on and off relationship with car racing for many years, starting as a child. I would go through periods where I would watch for a few years, and then tune out before picking it up again later. Through all of that, though, the thought of going to the Monaco Grand Prix has always remained constant. For the Grand Prix of Monaco is about more than the car race. It is a celebration of outrageous levels of glamour, glitz and wealth.

Monaco itself is enough of a draw. This city state of a country is known for being a place where millionaires come to live, mostly because it has a very low personal tax rate. That does mean, though, that as you wander around you are likely to see tons of rich people and nice cars and beautiful women.

The Grand Prix captures all that in one perfect day. If you’ve never seen the race on TV, it is visible stunning, with the cars racing past million dollar yachts moored in the harbour and along streets lined with luxury apartments. Prince Albert always attends and presents the trophy, adding a luxurious royal air to the proceedings. There are always shots of millionaires and beautiful women.

The stands I were in overlooked both the Marina, a corner and one half of the pits.

On the TV they showed commercials when the racing action wasn't on. One was for the Monaco Yacht show, which ironically is carbon neutral. I doubt that includes the post-yacht show use of the yachts, though.

Walking through the pits were lots of beautiful women, and there were a bunch in the stands with me as well.

The male fans were also out in full force. Not as pretty, but some were pretty fanatical.

The race started, and I got a good look at the action, both on the track...

...and in the pits.

Heikki Kovalainen hit the wall just in front of us. Don't worry, he was okay. I was impressed with the guys who ran out and started picking up the pieces of the car while the cars were still cruising by at high speeds.

It was very sunny and warm, so lots of folks were looking for ways to beat the heat.

This lady made a hat of newspaper. Her boyfriend decided to embrace the heat, take off his shirt and get a tan.

The race ended and Jensen Button won, the fifth win of the season out of six for him.

Honda used to sponsor this team, but dropped out at the end of last year. I bet they are kicking themselves.

Afterwards, I went out and checked out the booth. I bought myself and my father a hat emblazoned with Monaco Grand Prix on it. Then I headed to a pub called La Jazz, which turned out to be a British pub.

I headed back to San Remo. Due to the sun, the lack of sleep over the past few nights and the few pints I had at La Jazz, I fell asleep on the train. I woke up in some place called Taggio-Alma, and panicked, I jumped off the train. Unfortunately, I left my hats on the train, so I lost my souvenir of the race!

Luckily, Taggio-Alma is only one stop past San Remo, and I was back to San Remo in decent time.

I made it an early night, setting my alarm for 7:00 AM. I had to catch an 8:07 AM train to head back to London, and I didn't want to miss it.

Continued in Glamour and Gasoline part IV: The Wrong Train