DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Not so popular sports in the US.

I meant more like this.

Dawg, you won't be sorry. It's a GREAT sport. Your team becomes very close, due to the nature of the game. And it takes a lot of skill to play it well. Physics, control, angles, strategy, smarts, communication skills.... it's got it all. As diverse as this community is, I'm certain that curling would appeal to almost every single Dawgtalker. It's really that cool.

And.... there's beer. Lots of beer (if you're of that proclivity, that is).

When I did my BG II stint, I still needed a single PE credit towards graduation.( During the time that I'd stopped out, the school went from quarters to semesters. The credits I'd earned during BG I were only weighted at about 2/3 of semester credits. I'd satisfied my PE requirements during the first go-round, but was still short when I re-upped.)

Because I was a late registrant, the only open class available that didn't clash with my core curriculum that semester was curling...

...MWF ...at 8:00 AM. No wonder there were still openings.

(BTW, I was commuting from Lima that year, approx 1:15 away).

I'd seen curling during the Olympics and on TV (CBC), and thought it looked about as exciting as watching a bucket of water evaporate. I wasn't likin' my options, son... but a man's gotta do what needs to git done, you know?

So, I show up for the first day of class. Dude who ran the class was also the pres. of the local curling club. The VERY FIRST THING he told us about was the beer. Then, he said we couldn't drink in class- IN CLASS- but that there was no such restriction in place at the curling club! (what a great recruitment tool for the 'youth movement' within the club, eh?...)

Saint, I loved every minute of that class. Loved my team mates, too. Only missed one session... and THAT was because of car trouble. Felt like crap, too- for letting my team mates down.

You'll LOVE it, Dawg. I think I know you a little bit now... and I'm guessing this sport is a perfect fit for your personality type. I'd stake my house on it- I'm that sure.

Lissen... as payment for all this good advice (and 'homespun backstory') that lends entertainment value, credibility through "a personal touch," ...advice that will no doubt add to your Quality Of Life, all I ask is this:
If you DO decide to pull the trigger on this, please PM me with reg updates about your club doin's.

OR BETTER YET... start up a semi-regular blog-type post in EE.
With semi-regular updates.
That would be very cool.


BTW: I plan to join the local club after I retire/scale back the job.

If you think that's redneck they do the same thing only with lawn and garden tractors. Used to be big around these parts back in the 80's.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_N6zepScN9Q

j/c

I love to watch competitive swimming. It's a specialty sport, for sure. I got into it from HS... I was on the swim team. 50 free, 100 free, 50 & back, 200 free, 200/400 medley relay, usually backstroke. I was never great, but I could be used as a roster-filler on a team with a shallow depth chart, and could occasionally surprise (by dropping a second or two from my regular practice times) during a meet.

Did a fair amount of tennis in my teens/20's... still have a passing interest in it. I Watch the Big Three most years- women's and men's- but still miss the days of Agassi and Sampras: "The Wild Child v. The Technician."

Thanks, Dave- for the "ABC's Wide World Of Sport" reference. I still can't believe that an AFAm Father and his son would actually make a date to watch the annual "Duke Kahanamoku Invitational" on that ABC show. To this day, if I'm channel-surfing, I'll pause to watch a surfer ride a massive curl. Any surfer/any curl. Even if it's a 'Point Break.' re-airing.

__________________________

I just thought about something that DEMANDS a 'microrant' from me:

Even though I now only tune in to ESPN about 6-10 times per year, I still have to say this: the World Championship of Poker should NEVER be carried by this station. I know that the "E" in ESPN denotes "Entertainment," but this is a stretch by any reasonable measure.

Watching geeks play cards for money?

Buckets.
Water.
Evaporation.
Watching nothing as 'entertainment.'

...and when a player gets 'knocked out' of the competition, (s)he simply stands up, and walks away from the tournament????

WTF???
No stretchers? No smelling salts? No medical personnel? No specially-rigged Meat Wagon to haul off the defeated player?


Ancient Romans would call us Pussies if they watched the NFL for an entire season. I wonder what they might say if they if they were forced (by Caesar, no less) to watch nerds play cards.




"WTF? No lions? No Gladiators? No blood? Why am I here? I tell you guys.... this 'new entertainment' is a Vast Wasteland...."

NO CARD PLAYING ON A SPORTS CHANNEL!

Unthinkable.


A person shouldn't need to state something so obvious.

Kinda lost track on the world game since the move to Australia. Used to follow EPL religiously but not so much now. My team (Norwich) just got promoted again. Caught some games at the last World Cup and found it extremely difficult to watch due to the theatrics.

I occasionally fish and golf (though not simultaneously) and I'm terrible at both.

I love rugby union. I'm a member (season ticket holder) of the Melbourne Rebels. I also follow rugby league but nowhere near as much love but respect for the brutal physicality of it.
Used to play darts a bit back home in the pubs but no call for it here.

What is the difference between the Rugby Union and the NRL?

http://www.phrfne.org/

I've been involved in phrf sailboat racing for years now. Also raced dinghies, J24's a bunch of other one design class racing boats. I've been to the America's cup racing abroad and in the USA and joined in with the spectator fleets. Great fun plus I get meet a lot of folks into sailing by being an experienced crew mate.

I use to love watching the America's Cup until they started letting the cats race.

lately I've been trying to figure the point, the line at which the sport is so obscure that I don't have to root for the united states when it's the USA vs Some other country. Sure, Ok, Hockey, I gotta root for the USA or Canada or whatever, and then Olympic gymnastics, of course it's a must.
But when the sports just continue, on and on, and become less relevant as anything that should be a sport one would care about, I find myself wanting to find another country's competitors and see what it's like to root for them.

They televised the Strongman competition a few years back, and it was cool until I got used to seeing the same events. I think the entire draw of that was the obscurity of the event.

I remember the first time I was forced to sit and watch a tractor pull, I thought this has got to be the STUPIDIST thing I'm ever going to see. He just pulled it down the track, then the next guy same thing, lots of noise. Then it was time to leave and it was kind of like, ... Well, let's just wait and see one more guy, well, lets just see one more, .. let's see how far this guy gets, it's addictive.

Once at I saw a horse pull. Couldn't believe I was gonna stay and watch it. Until it started, it was like, OH my gosh he didn't get killed. Then again, oh my gosh he didn't get killed.

They take about a 10 ton weight, ehh maybe, and they swing a pair of larger than life horses around and have to back em up, back em up, back em up.. The horses DON'T want to back up, and they gotta back em up back em up.. and one guy is responsible for hooking the horses to the weight.

And theres no noise, just back em up, back em up, back em up, Clang, as soon as their hooked, Oh my gosh he didn't get killed, .. the horses pull like crazy the weight lurches forward about 6 feet and this guy jumps out from between a 10 ton weight and two larger than life horses, and every time I'm like, oh my gosh I can't believe that guy didn't get crushed.

They measure and then do it again, with another set of horses, and the guy barely gets out of the way, cheating death by crushing every time.

La crosse is a sport that does not exixt. I don't care about it and I don't want to learn anything about it, hopefully I don't end up at a point where I have to learn anything about it.

I tell you what, if you ever get to watch the 14 day, I mean up to 21 day coverage on what used to be the Outdoor Life Network of the tour de france, you'll realize there are like 20 different kinds of racing going on. It's almost as complex as football.
First of all, the fact it goes 21 days with 3 rest days mixed in, and every year the stages are a little different but the same, like an nfl schedule is different but the same every year.
There is country vs country. There are teams out there, about 9-10 teams each with their own sponsor and maybe 9-14 riders on that team. There are sprinting stages, flat, .. Climbing stages uphill, and speed stages downhill. And every day is a stage of the race, and most days have a little mixture of the uphill, flat or downhill. There are even time trial stages where periodically each biker starts vs a timeclock with little or no help from their friends, even those are portrayed with excitement as each stage is broken into 1/4 incriments to a line to see who's faster to that point of the day. And the faster riders start last, and sometimes they even catch the rider who started about 2 minutes ahead of them.

Now most everyday starts out the same, they all race along 40-80 miles today, in a big group, as long as your in a group you all get the same time, but on any given day, someone decides today's the day to jump ahead, so every day a group of 1 to 3 or 5 however many jump ahead lets say 1.5 miles ahead of the pack and try to stay ahead until the finish line.

The problem is, a group of 120+ chasing you can take turns with who is out in front pushing the pace with hard work, while the others can streamline draft and go just as fast with less effort, so every day it's a suspense drama as the finish line approaches and the group inevitably makes up ground drawing closer and closer to those who had jumped ahead early. Often the maing group catches them only in the last 1 or two minutes, or last 5 or 10 kilometers.

and if it's a sprint stage, oh my gosh, those sprinters can make their bike go lets say just a little bit faster than anyone else, but only for like 60 yards, so there's about 3 guys famous for doing that and they all jockey for position at the end, like a horse race, and at the very end they are even taking their wrists and throwing their wheels forward, because if you win a stage, it's big.

And theirs 3 other kinds of racing going on, see sprinters at any point in the 21 days that there is an end of a stretch of flat ground, there's a line and whether you cross that line, that particular part , first through 6th, you get points toward getting to wear a green jersey, which means you own the flat stages.
Same for if at any point in the 21 days you come to the top of a hill, there is a line there, and if you reach that you get points toward a checkerboard jersey signifying you are the king of the mountain, or best at climbing hills, .. and each hill is graded to how steep or tall the top of that hill is meaning how many points are assigned to crossing that particular line.
Then there's a race for whoever is doing the best time progressing through the 21 days in their first or 2nd year of riding, or under the age of 21, and they are fighting to wear a white jersey.

And say you have the Green sprinter, checkerboard king of the mountain, or white rookie jersey on Tuesday, and someone else passes you in points, they get to wear it on Wednesday,... you don't want to lose it.

Same goes for whoever is ahead in the total time of the whole race, general classification, and is wearing the yellow jersey, you don't want to lose it. They don't want to lose it so bad that they'll kill themselves with effort trying to climb hills when they aren't a hill climber, they are a sprinter. Like watching a kicker try and play nosetackle, success or failure it's compelling to watch.

Then there's one last reason to watch, because these guys are on puclic roadways up in the mountains going uphill, toiling, exhertion, at slow speeds, the public waits in spots dressed anyway the public can dress for their chance to be on worldwide t.v. to do anything close to interfere, in the name of cheering, as a top rider slowly, SLOWLY, climbs past, and these guys run along side making all kinds of spectacles.
Then there's crashes and team cars, and motorcycles which are the race referees and there's the unenforced help from folks grabbing the cars as they make repairs while in motion, or apply bandages while in motion, or eat drink and other while in motion.

I won't even WATCH network coverage, with it's one day coverage, there's a lot going on and the major network that talks about this doesn't begin to capture any of it, (like the 4th of july by showing one firework) they don't begin to capture the drama.

And It happens around the 4th of July every year, and French independence day or something, Armistace day maybe, is during it, and the French riders go all out to be ahead on that particular day, like Canadians at a hockey tournament, I really can't explain how I got addicted to this. And I don't care if they cheat, there's so many more levels of suspense and drama going on each stage day.

G'day P,
I'm gonna steal the best answer from answers.com as I'm lazy lol


Both games are two different games and played very different.

In Rugby League there are 13 players.
The object is to advances the ball to score tries, while your opposition tries to stop you by tackling.
To do this they are given 5 tackles to do it and once you’ll tackled, you must get up and play the ball by pushing it with the foot back between your legs to your team mates.
Once you’ve on your 5th tackle, you have three choices: 1) to go for it to score tries, 2) to go for better field position to keep their opposition in their own half, and 3) to kick and force your opposition to play at the ball to force a mistake to regain procession.

Minor infringements like rugby union are resolved with the use of the scrums and in league the scrums is used rather than a line outs, but a total of 6 persons are used to form a scrum in league, in rugby union they normally use a total of 8.

The points system is also different; In Rugby league tries are only worth 4 points and a penalty and a drop goal is worth 2 points.

In Rugby Union There are 15 players and like league the object is to score tries; ‘well that the aim of it anyway.’
The opposition is to try and stop you by tackling you, but there are no tackle counts.
Instead a ruck or maul is formed where both you and your opposition push to either gain or to maintain procession of the ball.
They would continue this until tries are scored or points are made.
The point system is 5 points for a trie and 3 points for a drop kick or a penalty.

Also folks, it's a World Cup year, being hosted by the UK. Pretty sure the U.S qualified. Get on it!