When you move to the States you are expected to take at least a passing interest in the local sports teams. In Utah you have the Jazz, the basketball team, so far though as much as I would like to I haven't been able to see a game live at the stadium because at the moment its just a little out of range of our budget. I would love to take advantage of the advertised rate of 5 games for $135, but with the two of us that comes to $270 which right now would be better off going else where.

There is also Real Salt Lake in football (soccer) but to be honest soccer in America doesn't really interest me, after being brought watching European football there are just not enough good players here to get my interest and Real Salt Lake aren't that good. Or so I thought. There barely scraped it into the playoffs with the last league of the season. Of course soccer here having an American sport twist to it meant that didn't matter. A team here can go undefeated in the league and still not make the national final. Real Salt Lake not only scraped through to the playoffs, with a pretty poor league record, but then went on to become champions. And I being totally uneducated thought they wouldn't do anything. In doing so they were the first professional team in any sport in Utah to win something nationally for over 50 years.

After Real, there is the Salt Lake Bees, the minor league baseball team. Despite the fact that every week they seem to play Las Vegas the wife and I have actually gone to a game. It's fair to say from that showing that the Bees are crap. They lost 5 runs in just one inning.

The other major sporting even in Utah is college football, in particular the game between Utah State versus BYU. The city is pretty much divided by those who wear Red (Utah) and those who wear Blue (BYU) based largely on what university they went to.
This weekend was the big game, which I only found out on Saturday morning, but since I was staying at the in laws for Thanksgiving and they weren't watching the game I didn't feel free to switch the channel. It's a pity since the game was tied at the end of the game and both teams went on to score in overtime so it seems like it would have been a good introduction of college football.

However over the past couple of days there has been a big deal made about the comments made by one of the BYU players after his team won.

"I don't like Utah. In fact, I hate them. I hate everything about them. I hate their program, their fans. I hate everything. It felt really good to send those guys home. I think the whole university and their fans and the organization is classless. They threw beer on my family and stuff last year and did a whole bunch of nasty things. I don't respect them and they deserved to lose." 

What's the deal? Ok maybe he's a bad winner. But in the heat of the moment after a hard fought victory he's just expressing his opinion. It likely gave him the motivation needed to try and win the game. Maybe if a few more Utah players felt the same towards BYU the result might have been different. You can be sure that some of the fans that went to the game would have said far worse. I for one actually have a bit more interest in watching the next BYU - Utah match.

If people giving this college player crap for a few ill judged words seriously think that is bad god help them if they were ever to go to a Rangers - Celtic match at the end of an SPL season when the league is in the balance.