Synchronous Sports

I drove to Port Augusta (about 300km north) yesterday.  Spent the night in a rustic caravan park.  After the drive I wasn't in the mood for much else but mindlessness so ended up watching some TV.  In particular, I watched a weekly round-up of the last week's A-League soccer games.  Started thinking about the similarities I noticed between soccer and ice hockey.  Found more than I would have first thought.

Then, tonight, drove back.  Listened to Australia v South Africa on the radio, playing test cricket in Capetown (the 4th day of the third and final match of the series).  When I got home I watched a bit on TV, albeit with the radio commentary instead of the televised guff that passes for commentary.  Again, thinking of what I was hearing/seeing with a hockey template.  And again, finding the similarities.  Much to my surprise, I might add, for although I've read a post on another blog which compared a little of soccer and hockey, I haven't heard of anyone comparing or even contrasting the games of cricket and hockey.

Ah, a new idea! I thought, quite proud of myself.

So, sitting there feeling quite pleased, I became even more surprised when the radio commentator started comparing a particularly powerful stroke made by a rampant David Warner with a hockey shot whose name he didn't know (a slapshot, as it turned out when his fellow commentator pitched in).  The original commentator then started dribbling about how ice hockey is a game he has always wanted to become a fan of, and of how he keeps watching games but finds himself enjoying the fights and the slapping into the perspex most because he can never see where the puck is.  Why don't they paint it in a bright neon fleuro, he opines, so everybody can actually see it?

I used to be a bit like that, I think, you just gotta watch more hockey.  

Interesting moment.