One thing that has taken some getting used to onboard is being separated from my favorite televised sporting events. Floating around the Caribbean puts us out of range for the United States feed for ESPN and we get ESPN Euro (or something like that). Basically, what that means is lots of soccer, cricket, tennis, and rugby. Very few NBA playoff games and zero hockey games. Most of the PGA tour events (except for majors) are not broadcast either. This is kind of a bummer for me, but, I have gotten the opportunity to watch a lot of sports that I normally wouldn't be watching.
For example, a soccer league called the "English Premier League" held their championship match today. I was blissfully unaware of this taking place until I walked into the crew mess for my daily grilled chicken salad lunch. There are 2 huge flat screen TV sets in the mess and they are typically tuned to the crew movie channels showing movies that are incredibly violent, but, today they had the Madrid Open tennis final on one and the soccer championship on the other. A large crowd had gathered to watch the soccer match, so, I joined them. It was a very close match between Manchester City and Queens Park Rangers (QPR). I started watching in the 86th minute of the match (very near the end).
The crowd was CLEARLY pulling for Man City. So much so they were booing the opposing coach. QPR was up 2-1. City had been pressing for the entire time I had been watching. Pulling their midfielders and even 1 defenseman up to the offensive zone in a desperate attempt to score. With the crowd hinging on every corner kick and desperate shot attempt by City the atmosphere was quite tense. Any person foolish enough to walk in front of the screen was immediately greeted with whistles and yells to move out of the way. When City scored a goal during the first minute of injury time the entire mess let out a huge cheer. Except for me, of course, it was nice to be a fly on the wall for this one.
Less than 2 minutes later, the striker for Man City dribbled the ball to the front of the box. Met by a QPR defender, the striker deftly sidestepped and slammed a shot past the QPR goaltender on the short side. The crowd at the stadium erupted and were joined by the entire mess hall a split second later. At least 50 crew members leaped into the air, screaming at the top of their lungs. The rest of injury time ran out roughly 20 seconds later and the fans at the stadium rushed the field to celebrate the Manchester City championship victory. The crew mess was electric for at least 30 seconds as crew members high-fived and fist pumped. 2 goals in about 2 minutes is almost unheard of in soccer. Nevermind in a championship game, for a come from behind victory, in injury time.
All the while, I was sitting back taking it all in. It's interesting being an observer at this time. Not only is this a sport that I rarely watch, but, when there is a sporting event with a finish like this…I'm usually on one side or the other cheering on a team.
My last observation was of the crew taking time to celebrate the victory. It lasted all of about 1 minute. Then everybody put their dishes away and went back to work. Except for me. I went to the theater to warm up for the day and then back to my cabin to write this post and watch Federer win the Madrid Open.
Video link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJqd7c8xlZ4&feature=related
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