Trip to Hamburg
(I know the picture doesn't go with my rant here at all but I couldn't resist posting this classic photo of Tip-in)

So Aaron, Erin, Chad, Jacob and I made the trip down to Germany last night to watch the Ostbeck Cowboys play vs. Wuppertahl (i don't know how to spell either name) in the Bundesliga. The drive down was only about 3 hours total with a quick stop for food at a gas station half way...so it was no big deal. We arrived at the gym just in time to catch the last five minutes of smashing warm up.
Pre-match I had expected this to be an ok matchup. I have played against the cowboys a couple of times and have seen them play at our tournament. They are not a spectacular team, but decent overall...lacking slightly in the mids if anywhere. I had never seen Wuppertahl, but had heard that they were the top team in the Bundesliga. They have a canadian guy who plays on the national team and two of the top younger players from Denmark. I expected them to be really good.
The disapointment began right from the first point. The match started with a missed serve from the Wuppertahl rightside (we couldn't figure out why the danish guy doesn't start over this guy) and then the next play the mohawked power hitter from the cowboys tried to sneak a smash completely outside the antenna for a kill. Ostbeck continued to put on a horrible smashing display. As a team, I guarauntee that they hit for a negative efficiency. Wuppertahl didn't have to do much to beat them handely 3-0. The match was never close. Wuppertahl didn't really impress me though. I guess its hard to impress in a match like that...but still I expected big things from the top team in the Bundesliga.
The only thing that didn't disapoint me was the atmosphere and everything besides the actual game. The gym wasn't very big but they filled stands with people. During warm up, the music was pumped so loud I could hardly hear myself think. They actually had two referees and two officials doing the lines!!! I hadn't seen that for a while! The players were announced one by one by an announcer and the home team ran out under a spotlight wearing cowboy hats. I think the most impressive part for me was how the crowd behaved. Ostbek is a new team to the Bundesliga and are third last in the league and yet they still somehow have a packed house of fans who stood up the whole time chanting and banging their drums. THIS WAS JUST A LEAGUE GAME! Here in denmark if you had a top team versus a bottom team playing a league game you would be lucky to get a quarter of the fans that were half as loud. Back in the CIS, we would get just as many fans probably but they would just sit in their seats and watch the match quietly, clapping for big rallies only. This was a blowout of a match, with two teams that are not even close to each other in the standings and no real rivalry between them, and yet the fans were on their feet the whole match! I don't understand! How does this happen?? I don't think you can attribute it to the calibre of volleyball. The bundesliga is a higher level than here in denmark for example, but I don't think that it is so much that the average fan would even notice the difference. So where does this passion come from?? It must start from a young age...the kids are brought up with a different attitude...i don't know!
anyways i'm starving!
peace out