What is the biggest sporting occasion for you personally? What really get's your cockles going and makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up?

For me, it has to be the football World Cup. There is absolutely NOTHING like it in sport. It makes a tingle go down my spine just thinking about it. It's so special.

What's yours?

For me it's a toss-up between 3 The Ashes in cricket is always special especially when we win, the football World Cup and the rugby World Cup.

All of them bring out my passionate side and my proud declaration of being an englishman.

Female mudwrestling. :D

1. Rugby World Cup
2. Cricket World Cup
3. NZ NPC Rugby final
4. NZ Rugby Ranfurly Shield Challenge
5. Bledisloe Cup rugby test
6. Olympic games if NZ has chance of a medal
7. Any other NZ international cricket match
8. Any other NZ international rugby test
9. Super 12 rugby final
10. NPC rugby match featuring North Harbour
11. Super 12 match featuring The Blues
12. Hong Kong Rugby Sevens
13. Ashes cricket test series
14. Any other cricket test series
15. Soccer World Cup

1. Tournament of Hearts
2. Intrastate football game of Iowa vs. Iowa State
3. Sugar Bowl :yum:
4. High school's homecoming game
5. March Madness[tm]

I just love my footy. Any England match really gets me in frenzy. As does any Chesterfield match, w're **** but we're the Town! :lol:
I love my cricket as well so the Ashes is up there as is the cricket world cup.
Rugby world cup is great to watch as well, but I don't know as much about it as I do the footy and rugby.
I also love watching the darts world championship. Really gets you watching it.

Thinking about it, where would my life be without sport?? Especially football, I don't think I'd be able to live my life if I couldn't watch my team every Saturday.

Super Bowl XXX. None of the more recent ones even come close. ;)

- Super Bowl.
- World Series.
- I remember those March Madness games with Dick Vitale, baby! I love those games.
- Nascar races.
- Fifa World Cup.

World Cup, the only other thing which even comes remotely close is the Olympic games.

Football of course.

Hockey

Female jellowrestling. :shake:

World Series.

Any Horse Show. Rodeos.

Why, le Tour de France, mais bien sur!

The other might be more surprising - College football bowl season, especially whatever game PENN STATE is playing, and watching Notre Dame get their butts kicked.

March Madness is fun, but I can't say it sets my heart a-twitter.

World Jr. Hockey Tournement. There are not alot of things that I skip out on sleep, work, and sex for but Team Canada games are one of them.

Benan, why "Junior" hockey and not the senior game?

Because:

a) the Juniors are where we're going to find the hockey superstars of tomorrow,
b) there's a hint less of the raw commercialism that pervades through professional sports (and the NCAA), and
(*sigh* here comes the Inner Cynic :( )
c) Canada actually has a hope in aitch-eee-double-hockey-sticks of winning this one...

Bleah, I *hate* my Inner Cynic.

But what gets me going? not much...maybe some moments out of the Olympics, and when I was in the US, Dicky V made March Madness™ worth putting up with. :)

Football World Cup :) Football is the best :cool:

Female jellowrestling. Hehe, last time we sugggested we hold an SP female jellowrestling contest, we got turned down. But I agree, nothing like women in jello. Except maybe in melted chocolate.


Super Bowl, hands down.
Or any World Series with the Sox in it.

I'd be tempted to say the Super Bowl...but in hindsight there are too many times its failed to live up to the hype. That being the case, I'd have to go with the NCAA mens basketball tournament...March Madness.

I think in a way it captures the feel that the World Cup fans talk about, except with, IMO, a much more vibrant sport. Soccer, to me (or football) has always seemed a bit like bad hockey on grass.

There's always a Cinderella team, last second heroics and heartbreaking defeats. A field of 64 teams of amateur athlete college students...the vast majority of whom are playing for school pride and the love of the game. Can't beat it.

The ACM-IPC World Championship Programming! ...what? If chess is a sport, then so is programming :p

On a personal level, probably Football. However, it is a lot less interesting if my team (the Pittsburgh Steelers) fail to make the playoffs. I'll still watch the playoffs and the Super Bowl, but it's not the same intensity.

Super Bowl XXX. None of the more recent ones even come close. Ah, you bring up a dark day. That was the last Super Bowl where my aforementioned beloved Pittsburgh Steelers were one of the competing teams. They lost to the Dallas Cowboys 27-17, in a game that was much closer than the final score indicated. Two Neil O'Donnel interceptions killed us.

There have been SEVERAL good Super Bowls since that one however. To wit: Broncos-Packers, Titans-Rams, Patriots-Rams, Patriots-Panthers, and Patriots-Eagles. All of those games were decided by a touchdown or less, and were exciting down to the very end of the game. Sure, if you were a Raven fan, you loved the Ravens-Giants, and if you're a Bucs fan you loved the Bucs-Raiders, but for everyone else, they turned off the game by halftime.

Midget tossing. It's fan-tastic.

Cr*p, I got the number wrong. I meant Super Bowl XXXI. And we gave them XXXII. :p

Football World Cup definitely goes in on a first place. 2nd place is Champions League. I love to see the fight of the giants, but most importantly I love to see our small Danish team as they struggle for recognition on the international football stage.

our small Danish team No wonder you don't win then, if you have a small team. You should try playing with 11 players like all the other teams do. :D

My list includes the Stanley Cup playoffs (sometiumes even after my Leafs have been screwed yet again), the olympics and Major international hockey tournaments (when I can get them on TV of course).

Olympic Games hands down. I am surprised not many care for it around here. In every games, I dedicate the whole 2 weeks to watching all kinds of sports, even the ones I do not care the least about. I think the Olympics is definetely the highest moment of sports, wherein we can see real athletes displaying their superior physical condition.
I also enjoy watching the Pride tournaments, mainly the finals of the Grand Pix. Even more so when Fedor and Vovchanchin are fighting.

Superbowl
March Madness
World Series of Poker

I'm only slightly kidding about the third one.

The Stanley Cup play-offs and Olympic Ice Hockey for me.

I reckon that the Olympics would gain the most attention, in terms of the shear number of people watching all around the world. My guess is that and the World Cup are the top two.

I would agree with Blog, but the Olympics only gets so many viewers because of the colossal number of sports that are involved. No one sport on its own would get that many followers.

I don't know if I quite agree with that - most people who I know who watch the Olympics do so solely because it is the Olympics. In most cases they would never actually watch those sports outside of the Olympics.

Ah yes, but it probably helps that you come from a country that actually wins a lot of medals. My country is lucky to come away with one or two so the vast majority of the sports are therefore of marginal interest. And even the sports that we do win are not that exciting to watch, like sailing and rowing.

Superbowl.

I remember the last play of the Rams vs. Titans. 1 yard short. You could just feel their disapointment as they went off the field.

[quote]Benan, why "Junior" hockey and not the senior game? [quote/]

The Jrs. are 16-20 year olds. And this tournement is were they really want to prove themselves. They are playing against the best 16-20 year olds in the world. It's hockey in it's purest form. They aren't playing for money, they are playing for pride.

It's a faster pace, it's just more fun to watch. Plus I've known a fair amount of guys who have played in the tournement for Team Canada and it's always fun to watch them.

Being a Norwegian, I have to say the winter olympics. But every football game with Liverpool is a great occasion for me, and last year's Champions League final was the greatest sports event I have ever seen.