Ministry is the only true "sports bar" in Queenstown. Cricket and rugby matches are randomly being played on bar screens all the time. But Ministry is the only bar with multiple high defnition televisions that broadcasts the sound of the main event on the PA system. The head bartender is an avid sports fan who is friendly enough to record events for regular patrons who have to miss their games and then replay them while it is not busy. I watched the last few regular season games and all of the playoffs at Ministry, usually alone or with few others. I was surprised to find a crowd of decent size gathered to watch the Superbowl. I shot dirty looks at a few colts jerseys before joining my crew of black and gold clad friends who were busy drawing up a squares board. I was extremely pleased to learn that Ministry had imported Budweiser longnecks for the even. I have not seen a Budweiser, or any other American beer, for sale in any liquor store, bar, club or pub in New Zealand. I had not drank a Budweiser since last July and welcomed the familliar kick of the beer. I bought 10 squares, ordered some nachos and was ready for the game to begin.
Shortly before kick off we realized that the colors of a yager bomb are black and gold. We marched straight to the bar and told Adam that for the rest of the day yager bombs would be referred to as black and golds, and ordered a round. And of course, as everyone does, I would pay for these later that day, and most of the next day. I won't try to recapture the magic of the game. You all have your superbowl memories and I can't improve upon them. It was great feeling to watch the Saints win. The only thing that I saw different from you was that we missed the damn Superbowl commercials. Sky TV, New Zealands only cable provider did not air the commercials, but instead inserted their own advertisements. This meant that I saw pay-per-view previews for Twilight and Marley and Me instead of Bud Lite commericals. (On that note I just want to say the Owen Wilson is free to stop making movies whenever he's ready. Just go ahead and jump off that ship Owen, its already sunk)
Robert's Rant
For a while now I've been thinking about commenting on bandwagon fans. I'm not going to write about jumping on the Saints bandwagon. I don't want to take away from the Saints' success and I'm happy to see everyone enjoying. What really grinds my gears is the people jumping off of the LSU bandwagon. I heard alot threats from so-called fans before I left the states. "After that game I wanted to burn my LSU hat." "If LSU doesn't fire Les Miles, I'm going to sell my season tickets." What? Are you serious. You weren't burning LSU hats when LSU was pounding Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl a few years ago. I didn't see anybody outside of the Georgia Dome with their season tickets up for sale after we won the SEC championship in 2007. Didn't see any hats ablazed or tickets for sale outside the Superdome when we won the National title a few weeks later. It's like this. As an American, I support the United States of America. PERIOD. I support the president, whoever the hell it may be. I'm not a fan of Barack Obama. But as the President of the United States of American, he has my full fledged support. Same goes for LSU. I support LSU no matter who is coaching the football team, or the baseball team, or who the Athletic Director is. I support them, proudly - win, lose, or draw. I'm sick of listening to people claim to be "life-long-die-hard" LSU fans talk about burning their LSU hats. Are you really a "die-hard" fan? Did you even own an LSU hat during the Curly Hallman days? But for the love of God, stop talking about it. If you want to go burn your LSU, then by all means go do it. Or give it to me, I can always use another one. If you want to sell your tickets, then sell em. They won't be on sale for long. LSU football has been around longer than any of these so called fans. It will be going strong long after these so called fans are in the cold earth. So if you can't think of anything better to say about LSU, then as Eddie Murphy would say "Have a coke and a smile, and shut the fuck up."
A few days before the Superbowl, I became concerned about the squares board. Although I have never had a winning square, I have been buying squares on a board for as long I can remember. I didn't want to let this time honored tradition die in New Zealand. Luckily my American friends shared my concern. We surprisingly sold all 100 squares and I surprisingly one the second half. With the Saints victory, winning an extra $50 was lagniappe. It turns out I needed that fifty to go straight to my bar tab. Apparently it wasn't very cheap to import those buds over. I was estatic though. The Saints had won, Peyton Manning was pouting and it was a beautiful day outside in Queenstown. We celebrated hard for the rest of the afternoon.
I finally got to watch most of the Superbowl commercials yesterday. I really liked the one where the people are stranded on the island like in Lost and one passenger finds a radio, but the other finds the beverage cart. Good stuff.
No comments:
Post a Comment