Canadian Rugby?

Last night I drove to Hamilton (about 1.5 hours South of Auckland) to watch NZ's national rugby team The All Blacks play Canada.

Rugby is NZ's national sport and kiwis are pretty serious about rugby. The All Blacks are one of the best teams in the world and are real contenders to win the world cup in France later in the year. The All Blacks have celebrity status in NZ and get recognized where ever they go (well, by everyone except me).

I didn't know that Canada even had a national rugby team. Half of the Canadian players are amateur and half play pro rugby in Europe. I thought there were only about 3 Canadians in NZ, as that's all that I've met here, but I was wrong. On the way down to Hamilton we passed 2 bus loads of Canadians on their way to the game. At the game there were quite a few Canadian flags scattered throughout the crowd.

The headlines in NZ before the game were "By How Much Will The All Blacks Beat Canada". We didn't have a prayer. The Canadians put up a good game for the first half, but things went downhill in the second half. This was my first time to see the All Blacks play and it was a great game with a great atmosphere with 25,000 fans in the sold-out Waikato Stadium. Before the game starts, the All Blacks have a tradition of doing The Haka, which is a Maori dance intended to intimidate their opponents. It's pretty impressive to watch. At one point during the game, there was a good wave going - Kiwi style - which involves throwing beer/wine bottles in the air as you stand. The bottles are made of plastic, but some were going onto the field where the play was taking place. There was an announcement to stop throwing bottles on the field and the fans immediately obliged. How civilized!

It was a fun game, but unfortunately, Canada really got spanked: