What a RUSH! (AFL = Alternate Football League)
Well, I'm sure most people are bloggin' abou the Super Bowl this evening - we watched and enjoyed a good game and food with friends over - but since I was a fan of neither team, nothing much to say about it, (other than that one guy on the Steelers needs a haircut really bad, maybe now he can afford one.)
While the Bears let us down this season (but made it to playoffs at least) - they are not the only football team in town! That's right, there is always the AFL (Arena Football League) which I'm more a fan of now than the NFL - since I've been to twice as many games as NFL. (AFL-2, NFL-0)
The Chicago Rush are our team. (though at the time of this posting, their site is down!) Their opening is a lot of fun - flames! fireworks! cheerleaders! (ok, forget the cheerleaders, sharp elbow from Sara) but they do a great job at setting the tone for the game... I mean, how can they possibly lose after that intro!
Shhhhh! Don't tell the fire marshall the flames nearly reach the roof! If you aren't familiar with Arean Football - it is played a little differently - kinda all the best of the NFL, just more action on a small field, and hey! You can actually afford tickets! The field goal is higher and narrower, and if you miss the ball might just bounce off the side nets and still be good to grab and go! The walls along the side are 'in' if a player just touches (or pushes off them) but out if you are clobbered into one. The game is enough the same that it is still easy to follow, but just enough different to make it a little more interesting. Plus, did I mention, tickets are affordable?
The Chicago Rush! Part of the AFL = Affordable Football LeagueKidology's director of web operations, Steve Tanner (and his wife Amy) are big Chicago Rush fans... though you might not know that attending with them since Steve spends half the game yelling at them ('holding them accountable' is what he calls it) This was part of an anniversary celebration for Steve and Amy and he even got their "Happy Anniversary Steve and Amy" up on the scoreboard. (I'm sure that will be on his blog soon)
Here is a stressed out Steve frustrated by the way the Rush managed to remain 10-11 points behind nearly the entire game.
Here's Sara and Steve's wife Amy... usually she gets to elbow Steve when he gets too obnoxious yelling at his beloved team, so she just elbowed Sara, who passed it on to me, and I got to do the honors. It actually was a pretty exciting game! While Steve had declared we would lose after the very first play, I maintained hope and optimism throughout the game. And in the end, er, in the near end, I was right! They came back, pulled ahead, and then after an amazing down to the wire play with only seconds left they pulled off a winning touchdown to WIN THE GAME! It was pretty cool to hear the stadium go nuts in celebration... until the ref finally got everyone attention and shocked even the losing team that actually there was a penalty and the game went to the visiting team. The stadium got so quiet you could hear a pin drop as the whole place fell silent. You could actually hear the winning players on the field cheering the stadium got so depressingly quiet... like a grave yard. I caught the whole final play and celebration and the beginning of the horrid realization on video.I used my wife's camera which records a format of AVI that I can't view on my Mac, though I can hear it, and even the audio is fun. If anyone knows how to convert it is QT or WMV I'd love to see it. DOWNLOAD IT HERE: CHICAGO RUSH WINS almost (AVI 12.81MB)
Even though it was our second time to a losing Chicago Rush game, it was still a lot of fun. But the highlight was in the bathroom. Did you know that the Alstate Arena has advertising hand washers! WOW! This is soooo neat-o!
While you dry your hands, you can read advertisement about different products. There is even an ad inviting you to place your own ad on the hand dryer. I got the number, but I'm trying to decide whether to advertise Kidology.org or my blog on the hand washers. But I just had to blog the hand dryers, it's got to be one of the coolest things ever!
Maybe the Hand Dryer company will find my blog post and give me some FREE TICKETS to another Chicago Rush game! Hey, it worked for Steve, it's worth a try!FREE TICKETS PLEASE!!!
12 Comments:
Now that Karl has mentioned it, the complete saga of the Allstate Arena's hand dryers can be read here.
A "story problem": Karl has been to 0 NFL games. If he has been to twice as many AFL games as NFL games, how many AFL games has he been to?
RE: 'Story Porblem' - I almost added a line about that 'twice zero = zero' but i decided i would be being too petty and nobody would notice that anyway. ha. i was wrong! (and i know who you are!)
Our church goes to a wolves game every year (Feb 25th!!!!!!) and last year the hand dryers freaked me out too (they are in the girl's bathroom as well!) I was very entertained while drying my hands! Glad you were too!
My take on the game is archived here. I'm starting to think that Karl and Sara are bad luck at these games!
Try iSquint. It's free and worth a shot.
If that doesn't work...
Steve is much more tech savvy than I am, but if you haven't already, try doing some sleuthing as described here: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93199
and Google to see if there's an appropriate codec you can download.
Being stuck in a Windows-only environment at the moment (boo!) I used Hyplay (www.hyplay.com) (also free) and was able to view your video on a machine running Windows XP.
And having viewed the video...
We wuz robbed!!! IMHO, it was a block in the side, not a block in the back. And to the extent it could be considered a block in the back, it looked to me like our receiver got pushed by a NY player.
iSquint - duh, i have iSquint2 and use for converting videos for my iPod, i didn't even think of trying it on an AVI file - it worked, and i agree, we were ROBBED!
VLC media player is another good ap for running just about any video file QT won't run on macs. Worked for the play.
AFL=Amateur Fake League. Just cuz Da Coach is affiliated with The Rush, doesn't make it anywhere close to Daaaa Bears and REAL football -- the NFL.
I did like that audio clip, though.
Jordan, shut up :)
Major League Bastian - I suggest you come to a game and see for yourself! The AFL is more REAL FOOTBALL than the NFL!!! The players in the AFL are about 10 times more talented than those NFL players that get paid LOADS of money!! The AFL players actually play both offense AND defense so they're more athletic and talented.
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home