Category Sports
A National Disaster
No rioting in the streets – Germans are too stunned for that. For the first time ever, the country’s football team has been eliminated in the opening round of the World Cup. It is tough for North Americans to understand just how big a deal that is. When I was growing up soccer, or football […]
World Cup 2018/World Cup 2026
The biggest event in sports outside the Olympics starts today, and unless you are Mexican, nobody in North America cares. Well, that might be an overstatement given that yesterday the 2016 event was awarded to North America, but Canada and the US aren’t playing this year. For Canadians that is nothing new. In our only […]
Cinderella Story
Not only is Cinderella is going to the ball, but it looks like the coach may not turn into a pumpkin. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. The Las Vegas Golden Knights are in the Stanley Cup finals. To say the hockey world is stunned is probably the understatement of 2018. The Knights are […]
The Beautiful Game
Last time it was Rome’s Olympic Stadium and the cream of Italian soccer. Today it is Sulzburg, and I don’t know if you can sink lower than this. This afternoon’s previous match, which I didn’t arrive in time for, was between SV Sulzburg and SV Tunsel in the county C league – the game I’m […]
David and Goliath
If this is the big time, where are the fans? The stadium is empty. Mind you, Lazio is the ‘other’ Rome club in Serie A football (soccer), the top tier of the sport in Italy. Roma is much more popular. Still, on a Saturday afternoon, on a holiday weekend, I would have expected more than […]
Stadium Security
When the National Hockey League introduced airport-style scanners in their arenas I complained here. I thought such measures would make going to a game a hassle, and, like in airports, wondered if it was worth it. This past weekend I went to a football (soccer) game in Rome, Lazio versus Benevento. The security measures there […]
Random Thoughts From The Game
As I mentioned yesterday, I went to a hockey game last Sunday between the Freiburg Wolves and the Bad Tolz Lions. It was my first sporting event since arriving here. Between periods I jotted down my thoughts. Rather than fix them up in a more coherent form, here are some random observations on the state […]
Olympic Dreams
We’ve passed the half-way mark (I think) in the 2018 Olympic Games. It all seems a little unreal to me. As a usually proud Canadian I want our athletes to do well. However, it has been difficult for me to cheer for them in real time. The CBC, Canada’s public broadcaster, has the Olympic broadcast […]
The Rink
I saw the sign, and didn’t think it was that big a deal. From Nov. 26 to Dec. 27 there would be a skating rink set up on the pedestrian mall in Mullheim, the largest town in our region. It is only now that I am beginning to appreciate that it is a big event. […]
Christmas Market – Heitersheim
I’m sure there are other Christmas Markets happening in the area, but we have reached the saturation point. Maybe next year. But we did make one exception, for a Sunday afternoon trip to Heitersheim. It was a sunny Sunday, and the town is a five kilometre walk; we had been told it was possibly the […]
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