Two Non-Sporty People Talk Sports

Are you a sports fan, or are you like us and almost completely clueless? Either way, you might enjoy these stories of our clueless experiences with professional sports!

In this episode, Larissa shares what it was like to attend world-class sporting events in Qatar, including seeing some world-famous players! Misha tells the story of briefly managing a national rugby team and getting a behind-the-scenes look at competitive sports.

Along the way, we discuss sports culture, international events, team spirit, and why sports are such an important part of life for many people around the world.

Laugh with us at ourselves as we discuss a topic we actually know very little about! We might not be able to teach anyone anything about sports, but this episode is great for English learners who want to improve their listening skills while hearing some vocabulary related to sports, competition, and international events.

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Thanks and we'll talk to you soon.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

It was I had to look it up to be like, hmm, there was an interesting game I saw.

SPEAKER_00 0:04

I wonder what that was. Yeah, it was a big deal. So many of our listeners probably are like, I would love to see that. You didn't even know. I didn't, and I'm so sorry that I that it was wasted on me. Hello, Eepers.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Welcome to another episode of Extra English Podcast with Misha and Larissa. We're two Canadian English teachers talking about life in Canada, our lives, and anything else that might interest us, and hopefully will interest you too. So join us for another conversation. So today we're going to talk about sports, which is kind of hilarious because neither Misha nor I play sports or really likes much sports or knows much about it.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

We're very unsporty. So this is a funny topic choice, but we have a few things to say.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

We do. Um so for five years I lived in Doha, Qatar. And that was in like from 2008 until about 2013. So at that time, Qatar was they had bid to host the World Cup.

SPEAKER_02 1:12

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

Which they did actually do in 2022. But it it takes a long time to to become to get ready to host an event like that. So they were bringing in a lot of very high-level sporting events to kind of to practice and to show the Olympic committee, not the Olympic Committee, the FIFA committee that they could that they could they could do this. So we had the opportunity to watch a lot of like incredible athletes.

unknown 1:45

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

And things that I would never even think to watch. I saw like Olympic level diving. High high dive board diving.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

Crazy.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Pair synchronized individuals. Like what where would I ever? I don't know anybody who is an who is an aquatic diver. Where would I see that?

SPEAKER_00 2:08

I don't even know, yeah, where in Canada, if I wanted to watch that, how I could do it.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

There must be places because there are people who who do that. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Here this is the lack of sports knowledge coming in.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

But that's so amazing that you got to see that. Yeah, it was so interesting and and impressive. I I remember just because I've seen it on TV and on the Olympics, like this kind of this kind of athlete, but in real life, to see like they're just up there and then they're like tumbling and they're landing in the water and they're not making a splash. It's so incredible. And I don't even think I had to pay to go to that one. They just really wanted people to come and and they wanted to work out the kinks. Sure, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

Figure out their system.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

That's amazing. It wasn't just that. I saw um professional level or like high high level um horse jumping. Uh-huh. Horse jumping. That crazy. So I I actually have a niece who who does compete, um, equ does equestrian compete. I do a friend also. But I actually have never watched one of her shows. Have you seen your niece do? I haven't, no.

unknown 3:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

It was like it was so fascinating for about a half an hour.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

The sports limit for non-sports, non-sports.

SPEAKER_01 3:26

I think the problem is I didn't like I couldn't really tell how one was better than the other. Yes. You know, I when you're into a sport, you know the, in this case, the horses and the riders, and you follow their statistics, and I I didn't have that.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

You know when something is particularly a skilled.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

Yeah. But still, anything with animals would be fun for at least a half hour. At least a half. Maybe it was even longer than a half hour. 40 minutes.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

That's so cool. That was always at night. Oh, really? It's really interesting. Most of these events were held at night. The diving was indoors. Yeah. But because Qatar is so hot, of course. They would host it, they would have lights on, and like we it wasn't possible. It wouldn't be fair to the horses or the athletes to compete in the day.

SPEAKER_02 4:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

Interesting. Yeah. Hmm. I wonder when they eventually hosted the World Cup. Did they have the games at night?

SPEAKER_01 4:16

You know, how did I not even watch that World Cup?

SPEAKER_00 4:20

We could probably go back flips of it now.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

They were doing a lot of research into ways to do air conditioning and make it comfortable for people and players. Yeah. But I kind of just lost track of that story.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Well, fair. It was many years after you moved back.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

It was.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

It was. And I had other stuff going on.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

You know, Larissa, when you were talking about not knowing the sport well, this reminds me of the only sport I've ever really learned much about, which is rugby. Rugby? Very tough sport, rugby. I know so little about rugby. I know, I don't know a lot, but I know more about that than probably any other sport.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

Wow. I feel like it's that's an intense sport. I think it is intense. I think there are often injuries in rugby. Yes. You've got to be strong and skilled, and and I also know that it's very popular in some parts of the world.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

It is very popular. And the funny thing is, I was living in a part of the world at the time I got to know about rugby where it actually isn't very popular.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

Not Canada and also not popular. Like it could have been here, right?

SPEAKER_00 5:34

It could have been. That's right. I was living in Laos or Laos, which is the country in Southeast Asia between Thailand and Vietnam. It's a relatively small country. Wonderful country. I loved it there. Uh and strangely, I became the manager of their national rugby team. Of course you did. For a few months. Only because, not even a few months for one particular tournament. Um, my close, close friend who I met in India, although she's American.

SPEAKER_01 6:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:05

She now lives there permanently and she is a rugby player.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:09

Retired at the at this point. It's not the kind of game you play into your 50s. Right. Not that she's 50. Anyway, uh, she is very involved in rugby in Laos and internationally, but she was involved at the time with the the Lao Rugby Federation.

SPEAKER_02 6:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

And they were going to a tournament and they needed someone to be the manager. So with no relevant experience, I volunteered to do that.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

What does a manager do?

SPEAKER_00 6:34

Well, I would arrange, like when we went to the tournament, I would handle the schedule. I made sure we had the kit, which is what they called the sports clothes. I think that might be a British or Australian term. I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

Yeah, I think that's what they call it in football, like soccer too. Oh, is it? Okay. I think I learned that from TV.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Such a useful source of knowledge about sports. Anyways, things like logistics, like a lot of our travel arrangements, stuff that you didn't need special knowledge to be able to do.

SPEAKER_01 7:08

You just need to be organizationally adept. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

And I'm sure other managers do more. But I was doing what I could do. Um, but because of that, you know, I would go to the practices. Obviously, I went to the tournament, so I ended up learning like kind of the basic rules and and also the players, a lot of them were my friends. So I just have never been so excited about sports. But I would stand on the sidelines and be screaming pie pie, which is go, go, and so excited when they got a point. I forget what it's called. Not a goal. Oh, my friend's gonna be embarrassed by me. I've forgotten. But I even learned a few like relevant sports terms in Lao, which was a funny set of vocabulary, like ball is bun, and uh practice they called som, things like this. So it was fun. It was a fun way to, it just was a fun way to interact with people, to make some friends, etc.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

Really, that is the beautiful thing about sports. Absolutely. Okay, there's the exercise, like it's good for your body.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

Discipline is something I could use a little more of. That's a good thing about sports.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

Yeah, discipline too. Yeah, but then the it's the bonding, the bonding with the team, especially a team sport. There are individual sports, but a team sport has something really special about it.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

Absolutely. And the tournament was international, so it was nice to see people from all different cultures interacting in this thing they have in common. It was cool.

SPEAKER_02 8:39

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

So I've never seen rugby, but I have seen oh, I have seen really great tennis. Oh, tennis. I've seen I watched Serena Williams play tennis live. Wow. In Qatar also. In Qatar at night of course. In the winter. Oh they hosted they hosted a men's tournament and then also a women's tournament. The men's tournament, I think, was on a weekend that I was really busy, so I didn't I didn't go, but the women's tournament was a different weekend, and again I got really affordable tickets, and I saw I it was like world-class tennis. It was incredible to watch these women, you know, show their strength. And and tennis looks kind of easy. Like that the concept of it is easy, it's not.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

No, but I feel like at least it's simple enough that as a unknowledgeable observer, you could kind of get it a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

Yeah. Oh yeah, I totally understood what was happening.

SPEAKER_00 9:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

And and I could see the skill. Yeah. Like when someone does like a little, a little hit and then it it flops, or when they go to the corner, right? I can see the strategy. I can see. Oh yeah. It was fun. That was fun. Amazing. That would be so fun. It was. It was it it it's incredible that that I had the opportunity just to just to go.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

To go and see these incredible things that should only be on TV.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

That normally probably the audience is full of enthusiasts for that particular sport.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

Yes, and there were a lot of empty seats, actually, because I think they might have been friendly competitions rather than like they weren't getting paid a lot potentially to win them. I'm not sure. At the time, it was a very interesting time in Qatar when they just really wanted to to host some big things.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

Yeah, building up that international sports. That's cool. Good for them. It was yeah. Yeah, and interesting for you to be there at that time when because if you went now, probably you wouldn't be attending those big events.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

I would not. I'm sure the tickets would be expensive. So the FIFA World Cup is coming to Toronto and and um Vancouver in June. It's very soon. And I've heard that tickets are hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

Whoa.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

And so, like a lot of people who would be interested in and who are excited because it's right in our backyard, yes, won't be able to go.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

That's true.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

And I think probably guitar is more like that now, maybe not thousands of dollars, but certainly it would be there, would be a ticket price.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

Yeah, more than a than when you were going to the interesting. That's so fun. I haven't watched a lot of sports live, but in my house growing up, there were two popular sports, which I think are probably pretty popular in general in Canada. Let me guess. Hockey. Hockey. And baseball. Yes. Baseball was actually the most. My dad liked to watch baseball.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

My dad too. Yeah, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:47

Yeah. And sometimes I would watch it with him. I didn't care about the baseball, but I like to spend time with my dad.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Yeah. Um there was a time when I could name most of the regular players on the Toronto Blue Jays team.

SPEAKER_02 11:58

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 11:59

Yeah, because we watched it faithfully on Sundays. Like my dad would watch it and I would watch with him sometimes. Cute. They have all retired. I don't know anybody anymore, but there was a time. There was a time. That's fun. Yeah. The things you do just to hang out with people you like.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

Just to bond. Yeah. Um, anyway, we would watch hockey sometimes. Hockey is what everyone thinks of when they think of Canadian sports, which is true. And I watched a lot of it in high school just because I was friends with hockey players. They wanted to watch hockey.

SPEAKER_01 12:29

I suffered through it for social, social gain. Hockey I find is hard to watch because the puck is so small that I can't I have a hard time following it around the ring. And it goes fast.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

It does go fast.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

I mean, you can tell by where the people are.

SPEAKER_00 12:45

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

But I don't often see when they get a goal. No, I don't.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

Oh, we're gonna we're gonna annoy some Canadians by not being enthusiastic about a hockey. It's also a long game. It is. Baseball's also long. Oh, baseball is so long. Baseball's really long.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

I'm done after seven innings, always. Six, five. Five is perfect amount.

SPEAKER_00 13:07

Two. Give each team a turn. Is that how it works? Anyway, we would go sometimes to see baseball in person when I was a kid. We had tickets, we had a connection. Sometimes we'd get baseball tickets to see the Toronto Blue Jays, which are the team closest to where I grew up and where we currently live. Um, and it's I mean, I think it's like music, like anything where in person is always more fun.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

Yes. And even if you don't care about the sport, like yes, what do I know about tennis? But I was fascinated watching them, watching artists do their thing. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

Skilled people. And I think you pick up on the energy of the people around you, right? The crowd's excited. And I had a Toronto Blue Jays hat I would wear. Well, look at you. Yeah, I was into it. Can't name a single player, but I watch some games.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

I have a Toronto Blue Jays shirt that I put on. Or Noah, I have it just in case one of my kids gets invited to a game.

SPEAKER_00 14:04

It's your it's your emergency sports shirt. That's right. That's cute. Uh, one part that was fun is in Toronto there's something at the time it was called the Sky Dome. I don't know if it still is.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

It's a Roger Center now.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

Right, the Roger Center.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

It was called the Sky Dome, which is a cool name. It is a cool name.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

And maybe it's something that other places have, but it was like a dome, which is a rounded half circle shape on the ground. And it the roof would open up. So when the weather was nice, you're out in the sun, you're getting that nice fresh air. It's it's a cool, like architectural.

SPEAKER_01 14:41

Yeah. And I think I don't think it's unique, but it was it was very special. Yes. Especially at the time it was built.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Was that maybe the nineties? Maybe. Yeah, it was definitely when I was going, it was the nineties. And also it's right at the base of the C and Tower. We're quite close. So they're kind of a pair, and you would see the CN Tower when you went.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

It was it was neat. Yeah. I think so. Because my dad liked baseball, we also watched, we went to to Toronto to see a game every now and then. And I feel like I was there once when it opened. Like I was there while the dome was opening, and it felt very exciting. That would feel cool. Yeah. Classic Canadian experiences, these. Yeah. So people our age might still call it Sky Dome, our age and older.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Even though that's not what it's called anymore. I'm gonna keep calling it that. But it's a good name.

SPEAKER_00 15:31

It is a good name. It's descriptive. Yeah. So that's what it is.

SPEAKER_01 15:37

So I've said we've both mentioned that we don't really follow or love sport so much. Um and so it's kind of a shame that all these incredible experiences were given to me, like they were wasted on me. I have a bit of an embarrassing story. Also in Qatar in 2010, I went to see um a soccer game. Football, if you will, soccer, as we would call it here. Um, everybody was going, you know, my colleagues, we were all going together. It was great, fine, whatever. It was again a friendly match, an exhibition game because they wanted to to test out how everything was working. Yeah. It was a little bit of a dull game in that the score was one zero. At the end. At the end. Okay. Not a lot of Which is not really surprising for soccer, I guess. But I'm used to like in other sports, sometimes we get more more action, right? Like basketball. Think about basketball, it's like a hundred and something.

SPEAKER_00 16:38

Football. We're unimpressed with your amount of points. You should change the sport.

SPEAKER_01 16:44

But I mean, it was fun to be there in the atmosphere and whatever. Um, and I don't think I realized how big a deal it was. But there were people like who had flown in for this event. Oh. So it wasn't just local. This then the stadium was packed. Uh-huh. People were coming in, and so I I had a sense that there's something significant happening here, but I didn't really understand. Yeah. So this week I researched it. So in fact, to be like, what was that? 2010. This was an exhibition game, Argentina versus Brazil. Oh. Misha doesn't know the significance of that. I had to look it up. Sounds cool. Argentina versus Brazil. These are like the best teams in the world. They came to Qatar to play each other just for fun. I went for cheap money. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

And I was like, I saw Messi get a ghoul. Even I know that name. I saw that. That's crazy. And then I forgot about it. He was the one point.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

He was the one point. But then like, it was I had to look it up to be like, hmm, there was an interesting game I saw. I wonder what that was.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

Yeah, it was a big deal. So many of our listeners probably are like, I would love to see that. You didn't even know. I didn't, and I'm so sorry that I that it was wasted on me.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

That's cool though. And it was very fun. It was very fun. Like it was fun to be there. It was fun to hear the cheering. I had never been to an international soccer game. I'd never been to a soccer game that wasn't played by children.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

Yes. Same.

SPEAKER_01 18:16

And like there were the chants, people had their chance. You know, there's a whole culture around sports. And it was fun to be an outsider experiencing that.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

Totally. And obviously most of the crowd knew who they were watching. Absolutely. So that enthusiasm would have you would have felt that whether or not you knew where it was coming from. I think even my friends knew. I'm just like, oh, here I am at sports. Plus, you know, at that time, I only know that name now because many of our students love football, as they would call it, which is now what I call it, because that's how I hear it talked about mostly. We have an international student body, obviously, and football's so popular. So I only know that name and a couple others and team names from my students telling me about it. Yes. So at that time, if someone 15 years ago, 20 years ago had said that name to me, I probably wouldn't have known it either. I can't blame you.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

It's very much lost on me, but but yeah, it feels a little bit embarrassing to admit that. So there, I've just told the whole internet.

SPEAKER_00 19:15

How little you know about football.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

Yes. But I wonder, like as much fun as I had being an outsider watching it, how much more fun would it have been to be an insider? Right? To be cheering for your team. Maybe people came from Argentina. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

I don't know. Well, and how great that there was an opportunity for people who might not be able to afford those big ticket sporting events. Like I'm sure there were people there at that time who, right? It was more open to lots of people if the price was so much lower while they were figuring everything out.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

You had to get to Qatar.

SPEAKER_00 19:52

Yes, but I'm thinking locals.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

Okay. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:57

Yeah. A flight across the world, not cheap.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

I do remember, we've said this was all in preparation because they were bidding to host the FIFA World Cup. I remember the day it was announced.

SPEAKER_02 20:10

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 20:11

When the the chairman, I guess, of FIFA, you know, it was it was broadcast. They broadcast it like on really big screens in the parks. The the revealing, the big reveal. And when they opened the thing and said Qatar, the country went wild. There were people like honking their horns and driving around and whooping and hollering. It was it was very exciting. That is exciting. I like that.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

It's fun that feeling. When you're in a large group who are having this excitement about anything, that's always such a good feeling.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

Yeah. Yeah. And sports are just so such a great way to bring people together. Absolutely. International competition. We're all the I mean, competition, you're uh against each other, but respectfully so. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 20:54

Right? You're competing with respect. I think that's nice. Yeah. Cool. Well, that's it. Those are our lifetime sports experiences. Oh, it's not. Summed up in 20 minutes. There's more. There's more, but those are some of the highlights. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was interesting to hear about. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

Thanks for listening to another episode.

SPEAKER_00 21:15

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