Hello Readers and happy Monday! I hope your week is off to a great start and you enjoyed all the awesome events Hope had to offer over the weekend. Of course I’m talking about Winter Fantasia – did you all go? I know I shed some major tears about missing that one since I LOVE dancing.
But in place of Winter Fantasia, I had a pretty grand Saturday night going to the biggest Gaelic Football game rivalry there is – Dublin vs. Kerry!
Gaelic Football is unlike anything I’ve ever seen in the states. It is basically a combination of American football, volleyball, and soccer. The goal post is a soccer net with a football goalpost directly on top of it, and if the players score in the football goalpost it counts as one point, where if they score in the soccer net it counts as four points. Whoever scores the most points at the end of the game wins! In the game I went to Saturday, Dublin won over Kerry 20-13. The way the players carry the ball down the field is different too. Players can carry the ball with them for four steps, and then they have to dribble or kick the ball back up to themselves or volley it over to another player. To score, they have to kick the ball into the field goal or soccer net. (All of this was kindly explained to me by a man sitting behind me at the game who coincidentally was from Ohio, but had been living in Dublin for 19 years. Small world!)
If you’re interested in learning a bit more about Gaelic football, here’s some more info for you, but make sure to check out this awesome video that shows just how fast paced and interesting it is! This video is from 2013 when the championship game between Dublin and Kerry (that big rivalry I was talking about) took place. The game I went to wasn’t quite this hyped up because it was still regular season play, but the rivalry and energy were still very present!
Some things I noticed/found interesting about professional sports in Ireland:
- The players aren’t paid! That means that many of them have regular day jobs. Can someone say superman? Accountant by day, Gaelic Football champ by night.
- The sports arenas are very family-friendly. There were arguably more kids than adults there, and alcohol wasn’t allowed into the stadium. In addition to that, amateur Gaelic Football teams made up of kids younger than 15 played at halftime. It was really great to see so many families there!
- There was no announcer for the stadium. This was something weird for me because I’m used to Comerica Park and Joe Louis where they have so much going on on the big screen, but the screens were strictly for capturing the game.
Since I missed Winter Fantasia, I’m glad I could be in Ireland for this great game and rivalry.
Until next time, Readers!