In a lot of ways, #2's a better target than #1. You're awfully damned good and there are less people aiming to knock you off. Ugh, football.

I shall be skipping a loonie across Lake Ontario in cm's direction, hope it makes it. I am unsure how I blew that call, except to say those who claimed Florida had a tougher schedule were correct. Boisie State had some unusally good wins against good teams, but not 12 good teams. Excitement would be greatly increased with a proper playoff system, as every other college football division plays, and college basketball uses to great advantage. You either win or you don't!

I was more ugg about NCAA sports until I started going to some. They Wyoming game against Syracuse was a blast last fall.

Go Gators! (She says oh so smugly.) Caught it, gr, thanks!

I'm more of a rugby fan, myself. My little brother played both in high school and we both like the rugby at leaqst an order of of magnitude more.

What do they say about rugby players, that they have leather....? My dad and I were on our way to a football game last fall and had lunch in front of a rugby game. We should have stayed, although the later football game was very good, the rugby players were more cheerful, there were virtually no fans to watch, and they seemed a lot more athletic. And bone crunching. Get your ,ah, act together together Gordo, and you can join me for lunch and rugby next fall.

Sounds cool, Gary. A local travel agency (no longer in business) arranged a few events with travelling rugby sides against Canadian teams. The most amazing tackle I've ever seen had a Canuck forward tearing arse down the field with the ball only to have a New Zealand tackle run 50 yards to catch him. Let's see a football player do that.

A member of the Kingston Society for Playing Catch is a university rugby coach...or rather, this being Canada, <i>rugger</i>.

Rugby's one of those weird super-athletic games where guys can continue to play it long past their prime in other sports. Of course, they may have a number of ongoing injuries or other weirdness (I have in-laws with messed up shoulders and knees who still periodically play into their 50's).

Rugby Canada does not have the word "rugger" on it's site at all. The OED defines it as: "Slang or colloquial alteration of RUGBY (in the sense of ‘Rugby football’)". Wiki gives is as one of a group of words known as "Oxford -ers": "colloquial, sometimes facetious, abbreviation, prevalent at Oxford University from about 1875, which is thought to have been borrowed from the slang of Rugby School."

Let we give the wrong impression that rugby is solely the domain of big, fit crazy guys, the Canadian National Women's Team has a calendar available. Yow!

Screw the OED. All the old crusty guys I know call both rugby and the CFL rugger.

Feh. Crusty old rugby players are too likely to have been hit in the head repeatedly to be trusted linguistically.

One must take the inherent good with the inherent bad.

Holy cats! People really ought to be charitable and support the Canadian Women's Rugby team! Surprised gorthos hasn't lucked onto it yet.

In the interest of equal opportunity, is there a men's team calendar available?

I didn't see one, cm. I wasn't really looking for either, the ad just "flashed" out at me .. ;-)