Wednesday, July 12, 2006
World Cup Fever
Well World Cup has come and gone. I won't talk (much) about Zidane's bout of madness. Although some are saying that if the Materazzi insult was a racial epithet, then Italy could be stripped of their prize. We'll see.
It's strange being a soccer (football) fan in North America. The night before the World Cup I was cruising the sports channels on TV (I get three) trying to find a preview. Anything, anything, but nada. All three stations were showing the Lions lose to Edmonton (the other kind of football). This was the big news.
It's not as if soccer's not popular. I took the kids down to SoccerRio for the final. Got there early to get tickets and seats, but no luck. It was sold out by the time we got there, probably days before. Silly me. I didn't think they would pre-sell tickets. And then later on Commercial Drive, stimates of up to 10,000 people. And we can't manage to fit anything on the sports channels the night before? Someone's dropping the ball, so to speak.
We had a good time anyways. We all came back to our basement and watched. Kids outside at half-time kicking a soccer ball in the backyard. Our own little party. I know there were lots of others like this going on as well.
Afterwards I took a walk down the Drive, in my France shirt. It took me 5 minutes to walk the one block by the Caffe Roma. It was packed. No problems though, every one was happy. I even heard the police report that things were calm. Maybe they're finally coming around to the fact that public events such as this are a good thing, and lead to more safe public events and, who knows, maybe even safer streets.
The odd thing about my walk down the Drive was I didn't see anyone I knew (well one, but he's a musician so he doesn't count). I realized they were all Commercial Drive immigrants for the day.
So it's true, the Drive really is the host for a large portion of the city during World Cup. Part of me likes that and welcomes them. They're well behaved and having fun. This is the festival atmosphere that gets shown on TV. But part of me just wants to get my shopping done.
It's strange being a soccer (football) fan in North America. The night before the World Cup I was cruising the sports channels on TV (I get three) trying to find a preview. Anything, anything, but nada. All three stations were showing the Lions lose to Edmonton (the other kind of football). This was the big news.
It's not as if soccer's not popular. I took the kids down to SoccerRio for the final. Got there early to get tickets and seats, but no luck. It was sold out by the time we got there, probably days before. Silly me. I didn't think they would pre-sell tickets. And then later on Commercial Drive, stimates of up to 10,000 people. And we can't manage to fit anything on the sports channels the night before? Someone's dropping the ball, so to speak.
We had a good time anyways. We all came back to our basement and watched. Kids outside at half-time kicking a soccer ball in the backyard. Our own little party. I know there were lots of others like this going on as well.
Afterwards I took a walk down the Drive, in my France shirt. It took me 5 minutes to walk the one block by the Caffe Roma. It was packed. No problems though, every one was happy. I even heard the police report that things were calm. Maybe they're finally coming around to the fact that public events such as this are a good thing, and lead to more safe public events and, who knows, maybe even safer streets.
The odd thing about my walk down the Drive was I didn't see anyone I knew (well one, but he's a musician so he doesn't count). I realized they were all Commercial Drive immigrants for the day.
So it's true, the Drive really is the host for a large portion of the city during World Cup. Part of me likes that and welcomes them. They're well behaved and having fun. This is the festival atmosphere that gets shown on TV. But part of me just wants to get my shopping done.
// posted by Bob Walker @ 10:13 PM 
