Re: [OT] Completely off-topic and useless celebrating re: World Cup

On Tue, 18 Jun 2002 08:09:50 +0100, Ground Zero Games <jon@gzg.com>
wrote:

>>Damn, it's one thing to do well in our sports, but
>>sports that 99%+ of our population doesn't even care
>>about??

Actually, soccer is _the_ most played sport in the US. Canada, too.
There are
more kids playing organized soccer than any other sport, including
baseball
(requires a lot of equipment), football (requires a lot of equipment and
liability insurance), basketball (although playable outside, most
leagues have
to be played indoors in limited facilities), and hockey (requires lots
of
equipment _and_ limited indoor facilities).

The problem is that once you get beyond early high school, most kids
with any
athletic ability transfer into the "money makers" (baseball, basketball,
football, and in Canada, hockey) full time. 

>Yep, you Yanks are doing good this time, John - it's usually your
Women's
>soccer team that wins stuff rather than the men, isn't it?

The sad part about the US getting so far in the World Cup is that it's
damn
near impossible to see the games! In Canada, at least the CBC is playing
a lot
of games (TSN, the cable sports network, also covers it). Down here, the
majority of games are covered on ESPN and ESPN2 on cable. If you don't
have
cable or a satellite dish, all you get to see are the two games a week
that
ABC puts on (and those are, I think, time delayed).

>PS: it must be strange for you Yanks to be participating in a "World"
>something-or-other that actually INCLUDES the rest of the World, isn't
>it.....?   <BIG GRIN>

In the Americans' defense, baseball's "World Series" was named after the
sponsoring newspaper, the New York World, that originated it.

Allan Goodall		       agoodall@hyperbear.com
http://www.hyperbear.com

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