REASONS WHY CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES DON'T CARE ABOUT THE WORLD CUP

Three billion earthlings are expected to watch the World Cup. That is an impressive number of people that choose to watch a game that barely makes a dent in the Canadian and American sports market.

The United States even hosted a World Cup in 1994, but the event came and went just like Woodstock- but with even less people that remember the event. It was not exactly a "where were you when?" moment for most of us colonial refugees from the British Isles.

Why do we care so little about a game that has clearly captured the hearts and minds of everybody else on the planet?

The simple answer is that we don't get it.

We see a game that is played on a big field with a lot of very well-conditioned athletes that have an immense amount of athletic ability. But they allow little or no contact on the playing field. They call plays where one player takes away the ball from another player a tackle. We call it touch football because the tackle typically looks like a 'Dancing with the Stars' move to us.

The instant response for any self-respecting hockey or North American football player is to separate the opponent from the puck or ball. By any means necessary. Soccer players react to contact with a fake performance of agony that draws a penalty against their opponent. Hockey will penalize the diver, and any lingering molecule of respect for a player who fakes an injury will be instantly vaporized. The difference is that acting hurt is part of the game in soccer. We think that it is part of the process that decides the best soccer player in the world MVP award.

John Wayne didn't much like soccer for this reason and neither should we.

It is well known to us that soccer loyalties run very deeply in the rest of the world. The game has become a political football that even decides your religion in many quarters. We don't get that. We love our teams and try not to get swept up in anything other than regional loyalties.

We think that the excessive violence in and around the stadiums that surrounds soccer games (sorry- football matches) is a direct result of the game itself.It looks like a giant game of jogging to us and it seems to have the same level of contact. So soccer fans find other ways to amuse themselves; they brawl on behalf of their team so they can add an element of contact to a game that has little of same on the field (whoops-pitch).

We know that we are out of step with the rest of the world on the beautiful game issue. But we can live with that news. Every time a guy gets popped on a football field or hockey surface, we know why we love our chosen games. It's all about the contact baby.

So wake us up when it's over and we'll fire up our brand of football here in the colonies.

COMMENTS

DENNIS:"Soccer, I've heard of that. Isn't that the thing that happens just before the riots".