25.09.05
Night Grand Final
It was my first experience watching the AFL Grand Final at night this week. Here in Vancouver there were a few pubs that were showing the game (including one a few blocks down), however I headed to Burnaby where the Vancouver Cougars were hosting a party. I thought i better get to know my team mates a bit better ahead of next weekend’s US National Championships, but that’s a different story.
They probably had 150 people at the rugby club out there to watch the game. The beer was cheap and the pizza plentiful. And the crowd growing restless as it drew closer to game time that maby Australian’s in the one place all starved of decent football coverage made for an entertaining evening. A rousing rendition of the Australian National Anthem filled the Rugby Club and it was time for the festivities to begin. It wasn’t to bad a time either with the game starting at 9:30pm Friday here in Vancouver.
Half the crowd at the club had decided to side with the West Coast of Australia, the other the Eastern. So early on it was the red and white crowd was making all the noise. But as i am sure was the case anywhere in the world it came alive in the last quarter. The highlight of the night seemed to be the VB raffle. God knows why but it seemed to be well received. Had they been raffling off Coopers I would have bought all the tickets. At the end of the day if you ignore the fact it was decided by four points it was a very disappointing game of football to watch and very typical of the crap football that Sydney plays. Even over here on the other side of the world that was more than evident.
At the end of the game the Club had ordered 3 SUV Stretch Limo’s to take the revellers back to the city and that made getting home quite easy, and sure beat standing on the Sky Train station after 1am.
The rest of the staff from Forerunners travelled to the Frog and Firkin to watch the game with the Australian that worked in the store that I replaced. For the last few weeks i have been commenting that Hockey (of the ice variety) was insane. Well after Friday night Todd reckons that Hockey is nothing compared to the craziness of Australian Football. He said the way people go charging into packs, cop a couple around the head, no real penalties for rough play, people coming off bleeding and nothing done about it during the game was nuts. I had to explain to him that instead of sitting in the penalty box for 5 minutes, they sit in it all next week and more if anybody does something really illeagal. It was funny to see his reaction to it all. Compared to the Football they play over here, Australian Football is in a world of it’s own.
Next week: Aaron travels to Milwaukee for the US National Australian Football Championships.