Frivolous, I know (or essential, depending on your mindset)...

We're assuming that we need to have satellite TV in Calgary to have any chance of getting tri-nations, 6 nations etc. Any ideas on how frequently or what times rugby gets shown? Also, anyone know about a rugby league which apparently has games between Vancouver/Calgary, etc?

Hopefully my British husband will convert to Hockey and this info will be obsolete anyway!

Hockey is way better than ruggy ... I used to be a Leicester Tigers fan before I came here.

I know there's rugby somewhere here, but I haven't tracked it down.

I don't have cable or satellite (too mean), so I settle for watching hockey on CBC or go to games ... plus I've got six months of minor hockey coming up with two kids playing, so I won't be doing too much else.

Take a look at http://www.zap2it.com.

I live just outside Calgary (Bragg Creek) and we have Bell Expressvu with all the channels. All we ever get is Super 12's from NZ and rugby league from OZ. All crap. I don't know anything about league in Canada, my wife might as league is the girlie version of real rugby ;-)

Tell your husband to go to the bar they always have the 6 nations on, it's always early in the morning, so you can have rugby,beer and breakfast, it's perfect. Don't let him watch the hockey, unless he's having trouble sleeping.

Cheers.

Rugby n.
A game played by men with strangely shaped balls.

Rugby is played a lot here by girls in schools because they aren't allowed ot play 'American Football' but they can play 'touch' rugby without needing all the expensive pads and helmets and stuff. It's all kind of backwards really.

Soccer is pretty much a game for girls too ... but then again they get to play hockey with the boys for the first few years.

I'll be playing my first game of flag football next weekend ... never played it before and I don't know what I'm doing ... I know I'm not allowed to tackle, but nobody said anything about hand offs

What? Soccer is a game for girls? Last time a girl played soccer with the guys she was umm, well, let's just say she wasn't in a very good shape after the game. Do you know, soccer is pretty rough.. not to say that girls can't play it, but the % of girls who are willing to stand in front of a soccer ball coming at them at that speed, or 'taking' a tackle is pretty low.. I would much rather have no girls in soccer than ones yelling foul play when someone does a clean tackle, just because "you can't be rough on a girl." Having said that, I've played soccer with a couple of girls, and they aren't bad at it.. Just that it's pretty rough, just like ice hockey...

And never ever play basketball with/against girls. Or at least with ones who have long fingernails! :scared:

I grew up in Glasgow .... let's call it by its proper name ... FOOTBALL is a religion there ... I played it on cobbles & tarmac littered with broken glass ... you could hear the roar from Ibrox from my house ... watched them build the new stand at Ibrox from my classroom window.

By comparison with the standard and popularity of football in most of the UK, my only experience with it here ... organised kid's activities, not a kick around in the park ... it's a girl's game by comparison to the UK.

If anyone out there wants their kids to play half way decent football, I'd suggest they get into coaching themselves ... I haven't seen many Canadians who have a clue.

Football is definately more popular with girls out here. I think again because (american / Canadian) football is such an overwhelming men's sport like real football is in the UK so none of the NA american footballers want to play real football so the girls play it instead. I think that is represented by the fact the Us women's team always wins the womens world cup. I've seen a few groups of boys playing football at the local school on my way to / from work but mostly it's girls. However even more common in the summer appears to be softball around here. I can here them from my window everyday in the summer.

In winter of course Canada == Hockey and while they don't have mixed teams the girl's hockey is certainly inclusive and my mother in law and wife's aunt both have walls of pictures of them coaching girls hockey teams and my sister in law etc all played hockey as kids through school.

Drew

Haha.. Funny how I used to do this the whole time when people said "soccer". I'd give them a lecture about how it's FOOTBALL, not soccer. But to no avail.

haha, I agree about the "kick around in the park" part.. I hate it when people do that. Most of the time I've played though, it was very organised (i.e. not everyone running after the ball lol) and not unnecessarily rough.

That's because Canadians have absolutely no clue about "soccer." They'd rather watch some "sport" they call curling. Don't get me wrong, I like the brooms and all that, but man, that's just not... a sport..

Curling ... where mullets are still in fashion and the only NA sport where you drink alcohol while playing.

In terms of excitement, it's like a cross between lawn bowls and darts.

A lot of immigrants play football here. It's mostly those whose parents were born and raised here, etc. who have a very "Canadianised" concept of sports. If you walk around campus at my univ, you can see men playing football the whole time, wherever they find a suitable place. Now, it might not be as organised as a professional football game that's played in a stadium, but still.. and most of the people I've seen playing football are not women. Although as a sport in schools, etc., women's soccer seems to be more popular than men's soccer for some odd reason.

As for rugby, I must say I don't know a lot about it..

Well I like to watch darts on telly. Especially because all you brits are beaten by Barney.

Take away all the armor and rules in Canadian football, allow less stoppages, don't let the coach change the players every 30 seconds, play it in mud and increase the violence level ... then you'll get something approaching rugby.

Those two are as similar as darts is to throwing the javelin....