Mark mentioned the Saturday portion of my weekend. For the third time in the past few years someone close to me decided to hold their wedding on a long weekend, thereby ending one of the few chances I had all year of fishing. I can’t state this more concise or clear – long weekend weddings are selfish. I understand our friend Rob did it, and I feel I can speak my mind as he knew how I felt before he booked it, but no matter who you are people have things they’d rather be doing on their long weekends outside of attending your wedding. Those of you unmarried folks please understand this now so as to save yourself the anger and glares later. There are many other weekends to get married on, and short of being told you have a few weeks to live, I see no reason anyone needs to rush into a rapid wedding that requires taking the only weekends left at the hall. I see many reasons not to rush into a rapid wedding, but that’s another post..
So the more entertaining element of my weekend was Monday when, along with our sporadic friend Alex, I headed out to catch two FIFA U-20 games at the National Soccer Stadium on the exhibition grounds. The tickets came courtesy of the aforementioned Rob who’d asked me to come with him and then got held up with work and was unable to go. Count me as one of the many Canadians who don’t “get” soccer, but I was anxious to check it out live and take in my first game. I met up with Alex at The Friendly Greek near Pape and Danforth where our catch-up and lunch took longer than expected and placed us in the Portugal v New Zealand game with about 10 seconds left in the first half.
Rob had purchased some prime ducats putting us five rows back, just off mid-field. Great seats surrounded by great fans. The crowd was heavily pro-Portugal, and they were quite dominant during the game, so I kept my support of the Kiwis to a dull roar so as not to upset the apple cart. After the game Alex and I went for a stroll in the crowded thoroughfares of the stadium, picked up a $12.50 Carlsberg, and then back to our seats for Mexico v Gambia. I’m obviously a huge fan of Mexico and had adopted them as my home country for the afternoon, demanding all Gambian supporters stop “oppressing my peoples” with their pro-Gambian chants. It was all in good fun and I was actually impressed with the general good nature of fans on all sides. A boisterous but fun Gambian contingent were a few rows behind us, with a massive Mexican section to our left, and the interplay between the groups was fun and impressive. Some of the Mexican crew even wandered over at half-time to shake hands and offer up some hugs to the Gambians – good to see. As the Carlsberg’s began to take affect on many I even managed to start small “WE LOVE FRENCH TOAST!” and “WHO WEARS SHORT SHORTS?” chants, thereby de-sophisticating the footie proceedings. :)
As for the games – well, I know little about the sport. Game two was fast-paced, exciting, back and forth with Gambia dominating for about 2/3 of the game, but the Mexicans capitalizing on their chances to win 3-0. Lots of fun, and I’d definitely look into a Toronto FC game in the future. If only MLSE weren’t the owners and already pricing it out of the market…