Last night, The All Blacks were crowned World Champions for the first time in 24 years from which the inaugural event (which they also won on the same pitch) was held at Eden Park in Auckland. I wonder, could any team in history rival the weight of a nation and its expectations more so than the AB's? Perhaps, Sidney Crosby might have a jab at this argument but I wasn't in Vancouver or across the breadth of Canada for the duration of the Winter Olympics in 2010. I was however immersed the last six weeks in a country of less than 5 million people during an event that most of North America doesn't even know occurred. (yes, we had teams) I will admit I was ignorant to the importance of rugby before I came here but can empathize well with New Zealanders considering how much I love, live and die with the team I follow, almost religiously. (no they don't play gridiron)
This event awakened a nation shadowed in its bigger brother's shadow. On national news I heard the broadcasters call New Zealanders the Mexicans of Australia which, firstly, is a bunch of... (cue local lingo) bollocks, (they're more like Canadians) and secondly, da's racism bro.
Sorry, back to what I was getting at.
The Rugby World Cup 2011 not only stimulated a suffering economy but rekindled a national pride and brotherhood it seems was lost between native Maori and their European descendant countrymen. Given, my knowledge of historical facts of tensions between the two groups is limited I can justify my claim through what I have witnessed in the last two weeks. Random hugs, kisses and high-fives were commonplace among the unified group after the match minus a few French supporters which, surprisingly, still seemed to be singing some sort of thanks to the nation for a great event. I've been to a few major sporting event finals where things had not gone so well after win or lose and I can say, thankfully the All Blacks won. Yes, New Zealand is a wonderful place with relatively no species land or sea that will place you in a body bag but had the final score been reversed by the final whistle I think (with my luck here so far) I would have experienced a much different side of NZ hospitality. My flatmate told me if NZ lost that I might as well book a ticket home and I believe him as I witnessed not just nail-biting tension throughout the sea of thousands as France drew within one point of the All Blacks, but had most people not been in public they would have lost themselves. I'll leave it up to you whether you think the loss would have been mental or phyiscal. Hearing a pin drop in the central business district of a fairly large city where tens of thousands of people had gathered to watch is unnerving to say the least. It was unpleasant and gut-wrentching to be honest and I've only been here 3 months and I'm American. Oh well, all in hindsight I guess as by the skin of their teeth the AB's pulled it off. Richie McCaw the captain of the AB's said it best, and of course I will paraphrase, "We didn't play our best but we did enough." And did enough they certainly did.
On a side note of personal victory, I scored the only 2 goals of our game tonight where I'm almost always easily outskated by anyone most on the ice. Our big guns didn't show up due to an almost guarenteed hang over of epic proportions. Fortunately, our goalie who was wearing a silver fern across his chest had an on night as well and we lost 6-2! At least my beer was well deserved this time around.
Leave you with the 90 seconds before the final whistle in Auckland CBD when I couldn't hear my own thoughts.
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