Lacrosse-titutes

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Brenton and Jenn had recommended to go and see a lacrosse game. We didn't really know anything about the sport but thought what the heck, we'll give it a look.

Rick came to stay for the weekend, he was irate as he arrived. The bus driver had told Rick off for tearing his return ticket off from his first leg ticket. He was clearly a power tripper. He then told Rick he wanted him to empty all his bag to check it. Rick under his breath said "Jesus". That was it, the driver went nuts telling Rick he couldn't get on. Rick waited around til everyone had been checked on and apologised to see if he could get on. The driver said yes, but wait for it... he made Rick stand outside for two minutes to cool down. The whole bus had heard the conversation so Rick had to stand outside whilst everyone stared at him. So understandably when he arrived at our place he had been brewing with anger for a couple of hours. The Rick of old would probably thrown him through the front windscreen, but he is a picture of calmness nowadays.

That morning the weather was phenomenal so we got food for a barbeque. We dined out on the deck until the weather started closing in.

We had quite a few hours to kill before the lacrosse so a bit of drinking was undertaken. We arrived at the game raring to go, we just had no idea what to expect. We got into it in no time, it is a fantastic spectator sport. The game we saw was the local Calgary Roughnecks versus Colorado. Wikipedia descibes Lacrosse as a team sport of Native American origin that is played using a small solid rubber ball and a long-handled racquet called a crosse or lacrosse stick. The head of the lacrosse stick is strung with loose netting that is designed to hold the lacrosse ball. Offensively, the objective of the game is to use the lacrosse stick to catch, carry, and pass the ball in an effort to score by ultimately hurling the ball into an opponent's goal. Defensively the object is to keep the opposing team from scoring and to dispossess them of the ball through the use of stick checking and body contact or positioning.

What I liked about it was that the music in the arena kept going during the game, and the commentator was completely and unashamedly bagging the opposition. Whenever they fouled and were heading to the penalty box the commentator would yell "Hey number 4, get in the box, sit down and shut up". The crowd knew what was going to be said so the chant rang through the stadium. What also got attention were the cheerleaders who had on tiny outfits and so have got the nickname "Lacrossetitutes", ha ha, I love it.

Rick and I decided to have a competiton to see who could get the most excited when the Roughnecks scored so there was some vociferous support.

In the end Calgary finished strongly and came away 13-10 victors. I think mostly because of the support of two New Zealanders who really had no idea what was going on.

When we got outside, we were surprised to find that it had been snowing ... a lot. There must have been about a foots worth in a couple of hours. I was loving it, hammering people with snowballs, they weren't too impressed. We escaped the snow into a bar and stayed there until it had run out. The snow that is, not the alcohol.

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