What sports sustain you during the offseason?

College basketball. Damn Longhorns coming into Pauley and beating UCLA last night--bah.

 

Me too...worthless Kings.

I follow Fullham matches as well, whenever they are on tv.

 

Ive never been to a pro hockey game before, but did date a gal whos parents owned or had something big to do with the minor league team in Long Beach. I got to go to one of those games and it was fun. Strange for me to have so many time outs and breaks. I guess I just love soccer too much. Also dated a girl who is cousins to a guy named Travis Roy. If you are a big hockey buff you might have heard of him. Back in 1995 he was playing for Boston University an eleven seconds into his first shift, was checked into the boards and broke his neck. He wrote a book called "Eleven Seconds" which I thought was a pretty good read considering im not really a hockey fan.

My wife likes hockey so sometime this season we'll make it to a Ducks or Kings game.

Im gonna stick with the euro champs league this off season and any other soccer I can get my hands on.

 

Hockey. Not watching NHL, but playing twice a week - in two "beer leagues." College football for another month, and then the NFL playoffs (but probably not the Super Bowl).

Then I enter the dreaded dead time - since I abhor basketball in all of its shapes and guises (the only "sport" where any single score is less improtant is bowling.)

There will be the USMNT game in January at HDC to sustain my need for a soccer fix. Then there is the combine and the draft. And I expect more activity in the soccer "hot stove league" for LAG then in the past.

And then BigSoccer will be my lifeline to "sanity" until things gear up again. I wonder if Becks being on board means we can no longer go to the HDC to watch training and practice matches.

 

Something I notice on this thread and that I've seen on the Riot Squad forums--a lot of hockey fans. I guess the two sports are kind of similar--any hockey fans agree? Did you get into one sport before the other?

I guess it's kind of ironic, seeing as the only major sport about as far down the totem pole as soccer as far as the popularity of the league is conerned is hockey.

 

I've started to get into Basketball through my renewed interest in Soccer. I remember being into the sport back in elementary school when Jordan came back to play (the second time around - anyone remember SpaceJam?), but I lost interest after a while. I'm slowly starting to get back into it though, because I began to notice similarities between the two respective sports. I guess Basketball players think the same thing, since many have admitted to being Soccer fans: Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash, Yao Ming...

Other than that though, there's luckily always something going on in MMA - being a Judoka, I'm huge into MMA. Miss PRIDE though .

 

I agree that the sports are essentially varients of the same game, and you could include Lacrosse and polo in the same family of games - there are probably others. Which always makes me surprised to learn how many hockey fans can't stand soccer. It's one of life's mysteries.

I can tell you exactly when I became a hockey fan. Thanksgiving night, 1957, my parents took me to the old Chicago Stadium for a game between the Blackhawks and the Montreal Canadiens. I saw Jacques Plante, Doug Harvey, Bernie Geoffrion and other hall of famers. Its indelibly etched in my memory.

Soccer I can't date with that much precision. I can remember watching a weekly EPL game on a black & white TV, and thinking that Queens Park Rangers was the neatest name I had ever heard for a sporting franchise. Soccer balls were not available, anywhere, in stores where I lived. I remember mail ordering for the first soccer ball I ever owned, and my brother and I spent hours playing one-on-one soccer varients in our backyard. I also remember going to old Soldier Field in Chicago to see a pro game, I think for the Chicago team that played there before there was a Sting. By that time I was old enough that my brother and I could go in on the train without my parents, so it had to have been some time in the very early 1960's.

Then I kind of fell away from the game, until I had kids and they were in AYSO. So, on a whim, we went to a USMNT game at the Rose Bowl. It might have been a Gold Cup matach - I don't think it was a real WC qualifier. That was my first exposure to international soccer, and particularly at the first match of the double header I was drawn in by the passion of the crowd. I think it was a Honduras match, and I thank the Honduran fans for really getting me hooked. It was that raw passion that drew me in and I've never looked back.

 

I used to be a big hockey fan when I was a kid--around 10-14 I followed almost all of the major sports really closely. I could give you just about every starting lineup of every baseball team, and I was a huge Kings fan. Then, I guess some things happened--coughGIRLScough--and by the time I was in college, I was only really following UCLA football and basketball.

I've gotten back into baseball and the NBA, even the NFL, which was previously my least favorite league, but I never really got back into hockey. I think part of it is that even if you don't follow baseball or pro football closely, they're so popular that you have an idea of what teams are good, and who the big players are. With hockey, there's been so much turmoil--teams moving (I still think of the Hartford Whalers and the North Stars) and new teams, and completely new players. When Robitaille retired, it was kind of a symbol of the hockey that I used to know being completely gone.

 

I grew up a Cincy Reds fan since my mom is from Cincinnati area. Enjoyed them winning the 1990 world series against Oakland with players like Barry Larkin, Eric Davis and Chris Sabo... and the Nasty Boys. Played varsity baseball in HS and then got out of baseball when the millionaires went on strike. Luckily I had played 7 years of AYSO and loved the WC coming to the Rose Bowl and then MLS kicked in. I cant believe its already been 12 years?? Jeez. Where is the time going! I guess im right in line to have some kids now and get them in AYSO.

 

I think that AEG made a huge push to sell Galaxy season tickets to its existing LA Kings fan base once David Beckham was signed. I think that is why there has been an influx of King's related Galaxy fans this year. Perhaps someone can correct me if I'm wrong.

Also, if season ticket sales are struggling this off season (not confirmed just guessed at based upon the re-introduction of some perks that had been previously dropped) I'm guessing that a lot of that would be to the LA Kings fan base. I can totally see some hockey fans sampling the Galaxy this year and not being too impressed with what they saw and not renewing.

Although, saying that, I doubt it would take much to impress an LA Kings fan after the mostly miserable last 14 years we've suffered through.

 

I love watching hockey but I've never been able to follow the NHL. It's become very "underground" and hard to follow unless you really watch for it like MLS. I never played Ice Hockey but I played Roller Hockey and it was always interesting to play while other sports never were. I never played baseball, or basketball and like wise don't watch them on TV with the exception of college basketball (it's a pre-req for living in Tucson) .

The game play in Hockey moves very similar to soccer and the level of skill required seems similar also. I really enjoy going to the U of A IceCat games here, not because I really follow the team, but because I just love to watch the game played well.

I also watch college football during the off season for as long as it lasts.

 

College football (now on hold for a few weeks) and College Basketball are great just because of the unknown (particularly this year with football). The NBA used to be high on my list but the whiny bickering gets on my nerves a bit. Though baseball doesn't start until Spring, I love heading to Chavez Ravine for a complete opposite experience from the Galaxy - calm, relaxed, beer drinking afternoons versus the much more intense Gal games. For someone who has to deal with chaos everyday, its nice to get a break and just relax outdoors.

September and October are just the far superior sports months and now we're heading into a bit of a lull IMO.

 

Didn't that old arena have that monster organ that was like built into the arena and that played during the games? That's old-timey hockey right there.

 

Hockey

Born & raised in Edmonton, Alberta and am now living here in So Cali. I go to alot more hockey games than I do football (I only went to 2 galaxy games last season + the open house) but i play hockey, watch hockey, live/die with the Oilers haha

last night rocked...4-0 against the ducks. wooo!

 

Absolutely. Al Melgard playing the Mighty Chicago Stadium Wurlitzer. The pipes were built into the superstructure of the roof. When he got going, the building rocked in a way that no sports venue has since. And, if you stuck around for a little while after the game, Al played "The Lord's Prayer" after every game, and it's amazing he didn't actually literally "bring the house down." You could feel more than hear that music. Old time hockey indeed.

 

It's beautiful things like that which the Bettman-lead NHL has allowed to fade away into memory.

 

I've been keeping busy watching my Stl Rams go 3 and 9 this offseason.

 

Watching My beloved Broncos break my heart this year. Booing the Raiders Chargers Chiefs. Also just started to get into hockey ( a latin guy walks into a hockey arena......). Any Nats game I can watch. UCLA til last weekend. Maybe some Baseball since we picked up torre it might be interesting. Basketball, ill pass.

 

I agree. I might get interested in LAD now that they have Torre.

Sanchez, I think Ive seen that joke...

"A Latin guy walks into a hockey area and orders a beer. "That'll be $12 says the man. You know, we dont get many Latin people in here. "The Latin guy says - At $12 a beer, its not hard to understand."

"A Latin guy walks into a hockey arena and asks, where the hell are the bacon wrapped hot dogs!"

 

There is no off-season! That's the real beauty of soccer that American fans have yet to really grasp. I watch MLS from April to November, college soccer during the fall, high school games all winter long, the EPL from August to May, the Champions League in between, international games scattered throughout the year, and when that's not enough I play two or three times a week whether its in my Sunday men's league or mid-week pickup games that go on year-round. I enjoy other sports, but there is only one I live for.

 

My wife has certainly grasped that concept.

 

I'm grasping at straws, man.

 

And she is still your wife, so you must have found a real good woman. Not only does my wife grasp the concept, but she's completely given the two girls over to me in that regard. My two year old doesn't care which game I'm watching so long as she can be on "my team". The four year old won't play soccer in the street without her replica gear on, and the two of them often go the local park with me just to see the big kids play. They have probably seen more live college and HS games than most fans here on BigSoccer, and this is mostly due the wife's insistence that I regularly take them "out of the house, anywhere so long as they are out of the house". I figure its better than a bar, and at least I'll have someone to watch the games with me later in life. My wife isn't a fan but she'll let me give the kids religion, and for that I am truly thankful.