I just won a gourmet burger and fries over the Iced Hockey.

From this day forward I no longer despise International Iced Hockey.

And Harper gets his second case of beer from Obama in a mere two days!

That was a bloody good game.

IN RESPONSE TO HERTHA

Comfortably more people play and watch Cricket than Iced Hockey.

Huge on the sub continent. Why do you think the IPL is so financially rewarding?

I agree though that Rugby Union is a minority sport. Although I would align the depth of Ice Hockey at being closer to Rugby League on the woman's side.

+1

What is about heads of states and these cringeworthy bets over cases of beer...usually the local swill. I'm not aware that either Harper or Obama are big beer drinkers. Now if it was Rob Ford the bets could be interesting

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House_Honey_Ale

Some may say that this would warrant Obama being called a beer drinker?

Word on the street was that Rob Ford was drunk and watching the game at the Maple Leaf Sports Bar.

NOt sure I completely agree, with either you or Hertha.

Rugby union, like cricket and to a lesser extent rugby league, enjoy a long history of international competition beyond the scope of a World Championship/Cup or Olympic competition. In rugby union there's an annual series of internationals in both the Northern and Southern hemisphere, and regular full-international tours both against top-ranked teams and as a way of encouraging less-developed rugby nations. The last world cup had 20 competing nations, from 102 national teams who had entered qualifying tournaments - that's a pretty wide spread. Rugby 7s is a Commonwealth Games sport and the inaugural Olympic tournament is in 2016.

While the League code of rugby doesn't have quite the annual depth of "series" internationals, the world cup is growing in status and popularity. Cricket, too, has its regular interrnational tours, as well as the various multinational tournaments of short-form games. There are 97 countries eligible for qualification to the ICC world cup.

Hockey, along with almost all other North American sports, is remarkably parochial and insular. Sure, there are international players in the NHL, but top-flight players don't get released to play in the big IIHF tournaments. The Olympic tournament, despite the continued whinging and bleating of Bettman and the owners ("it's not fair that we don't get paid by the IIHF for the use of "our" players" - oh FFS grow up, you money-grubbing pr1ck) is a seriously big deal in international hockey, and with the continued development of the women's game outside North America it, too, fully deserves its place in the winter Olympics, where the total number of participating countries is traditionally smaller than for the summer games. Development of the European club game to a higher level will only help hockey.

It's never about the number of spectators, though. Cricket has a lot of followers simply because it is played in some extremely populous countries...

Doesn't surprise me. He doesn't strike me as the kind of guy with any self-control when it comes to alcohol or the like. His mistake in all of this was to go and watch the game in a public place like a sports bar with the proliferation of twitter bitter, cell phones and other (un)social media outlets that can document his every action.

I was not aware of that..thanks...

My beef is about these cliche ridden 'bets' that mayors of cities playing each other in the stanley cup playoffs have with one another where the loser has to provide a case of the local swill or the losing mayor has to wear a jersey of the winning team to a council meeting. It just comes across as cringeworthy and to be honest, the mayor of my city, Ottawa, is really not in to sports at all.

I do believe that the White House brew is what Obama bet with.

The British and Australian Sports Ministers like to have a bet during the Summer Games on which country will win the most medals too I think.

Rugby. I am going to speak exclusively about Union as the dominant code is still only played by a handful of countries and with the exception of New Zealand, White South Africa and some South Sea Islands (All sparse populations) there are sports that generate far more interest from a participation and spectator level in places like the UK and Australia.

There are 5 teams who can win the Rugby World Cup and that is not going to change for many generations to come. I enjoy watching World Cup Rugby as I played the game but I would be disappointed to see it at the Olympics as it is not that much more competitive than Iced Hockey.

7's could be an exciting Olympic sport as the barrier to entry and skill level required is lower than the 15's version of the game. Therefore more varied results will be recorded and more countries can play the game at a top standard.

This sounds like an interesting "Scotland Yard" discussion......

7's has been played at the Commonwealth games for a while - starting in '98 in Kuala Lumpur, Wikipedia helpfully informs me. NZ have won all four gold medals, with Fiji, England, Aus and SA picking up the minor placings between them. It's not exactly unpredictable, but the Kiwi domination can't last forever. I think it's a bit of a stretch to add to the Olympics, myself, as I can't see the addition of non-Commonwealth sides making a big difference to the dominant forces - with the possible exception of Argentina.

As you say, a possible topic for Yard debate. Are you volunteering to organize another gathering?

Possibly. It will have to wait though until after March 12th as I am due some test results from a Gastroenterologist. Been teetotal since December 7th.