Our football season is wrapping up in Canada.
Today is the semi-final game between Edmonton and our team : the BC Lions.
OUR TEAM IS IN THE FINALS.
You would *think* that the brand-new stadium would be sold out, here in Vancouver, since it is the SEMI-FINAL (Western Final) in the Grey Cup challenge?
This is a significant game.
The stadium is super deluxe, holds up to 50K fans and last word has it that only 38K tickets ( costing anywhere from $35 to $85) have been sold.**
Why?
Despite the Lions probability of WINNING the Grey Cup next weekend - being played in right in Vancouver - there is a lackluster reaction here in BC.
Hockey trumps Football every time, in Canada........
And this, my friends, is why you will never see the same enthusiastic crowds for football at colleges* and high schools......as you see south of the border.
 |
| Grey Cup and a couple Mounties |
* The Vanier Cup Challenge is being held this Friday (our version of the College/University games) in Vancouver - and you can buy a ticket for as low as $17. Lots for sale still! The same ticket for an American College final is over ONE THOUSAND dollars for the cheapest seat!!! The most expensive is over $4K!!
** The Grey Cup final game - East vs West - is sold out - although Showtime states you can still buy. (cost of Grey Cup tickets? $279 for the cheapest, sideline tickets are $695-$1200 and club sideline seats - $2400 In comparison, the American equivalent - Superbowl - tickets in the cheapseats start at $2300 - sideline tickets are $5100 and up, and club seats are $8000 to $20,000!!!! And, by the way, the $20K seats are sold out already - you are out of luck if you had intentions...... )
5 comments:
Pretty hard to compare American and Canadian football. As a kid I loved watching the Bombers sitting on metal benches at -20F. Yes, when I was a kid Canada still measured in imperial and fahrenheit.
From high school to pro, football is king in the states. Most of my friends in Canada have their favorite NFL team they have to watch every week.
It is not fair and you can't really compare money for tickets or attendance either. Canada does well with its 8 pro teams, when there are only 32 in the States, that has 10 times the population of Canada. If we had an equal number of pro football teams to people, that would mean there have 80 teams here.
NPO: you are correct, statistically speaking. :)
The enthusiasm, though - in Canada, when you compare hockey vs football....the energy isn't the same.
I found the price comparison more interesting than anything...just as an aside (thus the footnote)
It wasn't meant as a put down, however, I appreciate and applaud your defence of the Canadian football system. :)
I would agree, most Canadians interested in football do tend to have their favorite American teams. There is a strong contingent in BC that supports the Seattle Seahawks and goes to their games/watches regularly. :)
I just found it odd that a semi-final Greycup game is sacrificed for a not-so-crucial hockey game.
oh! was going to also make a comment about the imperial system of measurement. :)
I remember also...however, interestingly enough, since my experience, in 1976 when I first started my nurses' training...the hospitals always used metric! :)
To this day, body temperatures in Farenheit and measurement of fluid other than ml/cc's confuse me
Many Winnipeggers head down to watch the Minnesota Viking too.
Some get defensive, but I gave up trying to defend one way of measuring versus another. There are half a dozen ways to measure temperature. Britain still uses miles per hour and the metric system for other things. Is meat sold in kg or lbs? A horse is so many hands high and how far is a furlong anyway? A boat travels so many knots and if I fall over I don't care how deep a fathom is. It is kind of amusing.
I find metric easier if you are multiplying or dividing.
Babies are easier in grams to figure wt loss.
Definitely if I fell a fathom, I wouldn't be counting centimeters! hahaha ! Good one! :)
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