In order for Dave and I to really live up our Aussie
experience to the max, we have always made a conscious effort to dive into the
culture and lifestyle that surrounds us here. Of course we have no problems
trying new grub, sipping fine wines and taking in all of the markets and
festivals...but we were a little slow to change our hearts over to a new sport,
especially with the hockey playoffs starting to get interesting this time of
year. We’ve hooked up every cord we could find to stream the hockey games from
the laptop to the TV at 10am each weekend but that’s really just not cutting
it!
So we decided to start up a Social Sports team at work
recently. After some crazy busy weeks at the start of the year, Gretch, our
fearless leader, informed us that we had missed out on all of the league
choices except for Touch Footy. Sweet... what’s that? Contrary to my belief,
it’s not really like our CFL/NFL football at all. I had never before seen a
footy match, none the less played the game; all I knew was that it involved
some running. So where do we sign up?! Now that we are in full swing, I’m
pretty stoked that we get to learn a totally new Aussie sport.
We had a couple ‘team practices’ over our lunch hour at
work, which consisted of six people running amok in some form of a 3 on 3 scramble
(keep in mind that we actually have about 15 people on the team and play seven
on seven in a real match sitch). Our first official game was rained out and
since then we’ve had three games. It’s actually hilarious and I crack up most
of the time because the whole concept of the game is completely foreign to us
foreigners...go figure! But seriously, we take for granted how much we learn
about a sport just by growing up playing with a ball here and there. Then
someone hands you a footy ball (if that’s even what you call the honkin’ oversized
football) and you have to learn to spin it underhand style?? Another strange
concept of Footy is that you can only pass backwards, whilst still trying to
run forward to make a try (aka point). Needless to say, it doesn’t take long to
pick out who the Canadians are on the team when the ball goes flying forward
(there are 4 of us).
We’ve been off to a slow start losing all games so far, but
I know a win is coming our way because we’ve made big strides even since the
first match. The team we just played last night was sharp and I’d say we held
our own considering some of us are newbies, having never played before.
Unfortunately for old bones here, I over exerted myself on the first play of
the game when I darted sideways to tag a guy at lightning speed. I felt
something really stretch in my lower left side of my back. I thought I had covered
all bases with our pre-game warm up stretches... apparently not though because
granny herniated a disc. Well I’m not entirely sure yet (hopefully will find
out tomorrow) but I couldn’t get out of a laying or seated position without my
main man’s assistance and the sharp pains were ...well painful! Up until now I
was feeling pretty chipper about being 25!
If I can keep up with
the sprints and somehow manage to tame down the loud ‘girly’ shrieks (as my
teammate has already pointed out and told me to can it) that come out whenever
someone chases me when I have the ball ...then all will be good! Hopefully the
athlete in me springs right back into action for next Tuesday’s game!
xo Tegs
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