The Long Wait is Over

The 2007 Rugby World Cup kicks off tomorrow with the opening game between hosts France and Argentina in the Stade de France. Arguably the highlight of my week, as a foreigner in a strange land where live rugby matches is as scarce as a politician without a private agenda in Washington D.C.

"Kinderlik opgewonde", or just plain excited am I on this day.
This causes a certain dilemma, for even though my host country has send a team to France, most Americans don't know what rugby is. (The thousands of Argentinians in Miami does, but they don't speak English and I only do a leetle Spanish, entiendo?) This is ironic in a sense, seeing as the last time that rugby was offered as an Olympic sport in the early part of the last century, the US took gold. Yes, they're the reigning Olympic Rugby Champions.

Baseball and Football are kings of the Sports channels. The US Open tennis tournament is currently underway at Flushing Meadow, NY. Last night the last two Americans left in the draw played in two seperate quarter-finals. Yet, these matches were not shown on regular TV, ultimate fighting, was. And baseball, in the two sports bars I went looking for coverage.

Fortunately Sentanta Sports (http://www.setanta.com/) announced today that they will stream live coverage of all 48 games of the World Cup to the seven rugby enthusiasts across North-America, as the exclusive online broadcaster. The company operates the only European sport channel in North-America.
The fee-based ticket pass is not too shabby either, costing only $14.99 for the full month of international rugby, live and on demand.

In ensuing posts, I'll write a short explanation of the game of rugby - to the benefit of my North-American friends - explaining things like why the wings tend to be the most handsome players on the field, how to cook your wings in a nice spicy Masala sauce, why prop forwards suffer from NNS, or no-neck-syndrome and much more.