Well the big event this weekend for me, being American, was going to an Australian rules football game on Saturday. Otherwise, known as the Australian Football League or simply "footie". I would classify it as a combination of rugby and maybe American football. However, this football is almost non stop running and contact and the players wear no pads. There isn't any really stoppage of play like in America after a play is run and everybody has to go back to their respective huddles. AFL is non stop until somebody scores. Basically, teams score by kicking a rugby like ball thru two uprights which are on different ends of the fields. Besides the roughness, I guess this is the only similarity to American football. If more information is wanted about this game I'll leave it up to you to Google it, but basically the ball can be moved up or down the field by either: A. running the ball, B. A underhand like pass to other players, or C. kicking the ball to players. All this is done while guys are trying to tackle the ball carrier. And yes, this is a very physical game. I saw numerous hard collision, but the worst would have to be the constant knees to the kidneys that players receive when jumping up to catch the ball. It was very interesting to watch. I went to the game along with Jason and the female import Natalie. The teams we saw are the only AFL teams in Western Australia and are both in Perth (well one is Fremantle, basically Perth), so its a little bit of an understatement to say that these teams are rivals. AFL is the most popular sport in Australia and is one of the first things we learned about when we touched down in Australia. So the fans of these teams are just a little hardcore. Very fun to watch and observe tho. I look forward to hopefully being able to go back and watch another one.
Our first basketball games are this weekend. One on Friday and Saturday. I'm very excited to finally get to play a game. I really don't know what to expect from the other teams or competition so it's going to be interesting to see what the weekend holds. I'm just glad to finally have the opportunity to play. First game as a professional basketball player. Kind of fun to say. So I'll have to give an update ASAP after the games this weekend to let you know how it went, and I'm also going to hunt the website that carries the results and such (I know its out there). Talk soon.
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