Page A4 Berthoud Weekly Surveyor July 3, 2014

AND RECREATION

Ok, I will ask the question: have you been — or were you before the Unit-ed States Men’s National Team got

eliminated on Tuesday — infected with World Cup fever?

My answer, when asked that question, has been an emphatic “no.”

I just cannot get into soccer. I do not know why. I just can’t. I’m sorry. Soccer is just not a sport I fi nd enjoyable to

watch. And I know I am not alone. It is not that I do not respect or lack appre-

ciation for the athletes who play it, because I do; the skills and abilities required to play the “beautiful game” at its highest levels are on par with those who compete in any other sport.

Yet it has been hard the last couple weeks to escape the pomp and circumstance surrounding the World Cup. So as one who enjoys just about every

sport in the known universe, but has been unable to fi nd the ap-peal of soccer, I set out to discover what, if anything, I was missing. I wanted to learn what all the hub-bub was about.

“The World Cup is a big deal because it’s the World Cup,” said fellow Surveyor writer and fervent soccer fan, Heidi Kerr-Schlaefer. “I hear people compare it to the Super Bowl, but it’s not the same at all. No matter the race, creed or religion, soccer unites much of the world around us and I think that’s pretty amazing.”

The truth is the quadrennial event that is the World Cup does garner a lot of attention, at least a lot more than your ordinary soccer match.

According to Nielsen Media, the recent June 22 World Cup match between the United States and Portugal, an affair that ended in a 2-2 draw, was watched by 18.2 million viewers. It was the

highest rated non-football (American football, that is) telecast ever broadcast on ESPN. The match garnered a 5.4 rating in the 18-49 demographic

coveted by advertisers. For comparison’s sake, the Dec. 10, 2013, Monday Night Football game between the Chicago Bears and Dallas Cowboys earned a 5.7 rating for ESPN in the 18-49 demo.

While television ratings are not a full measure of a sport’s popularity, the numbers generated by the World Cup are impressive, and to reach near-NFL levels really says something about the bur-geoning popularity of the World Cup in the U.S.

Yet in an effort to fi nd out as much as I could about the appeal of soccer, I had no choice but go watch a match with some afi cionados of the game.

I did not fi nd anything out of the ordinary — fans had packed a local sports bar, were enjoying food and drinks and cheering on the American team. It was not anything surprising or unex-pected; there was little difference, in that respect, in the atmosphere for Tuesday afternoon’s U.S. vs. Belgium round-of-16 match from late January’s Broncos-Patriots AFC Championship Game.

Actually, that is not entirely correct. Perhaps the more apt comparison would be the

U.S.-Canada or U.S.-Finland hockey games at the 2014 Winter Olympics.

The reason I say that is, in speaking with as many people as I could, as casually as I could, I learned that the fans were as much whipped up into the event as they were the actual sport. It was not unlike the Olympics; the excitement seemed, at least among many with whom I spoke, to be as

much about national pride as anything. It was far from a scientifi c study, admittedly.

Many people with whom I spoke, not just Tues-day but over the last couple weeks, admitted they do not follow (American) Major League Soccer (MLS), the English Premier League, or any such other marquee soccer league but love watching the World Cup. One gentleman with whom I spoke said he was excited to take Tuesday afternoon off of work to watch the U.S. - Belgium match but would not be making time in the foreseeable future to watch, for example, a MLS match between the Rapids and Galaxy.

Soccer certainly has its die-hard fans, regardless if it’s World Cup or MLS or EPL, and God bless them, yet by my humble estimation the sport has not reached, and frankly is a long way from achiev-ing, a status equivalent to one of the “big four.”

And there is nothing wrong with that. However, this “soccer hater” (as yours truly has been called) will freely admit that he enjoyed watching the match Tuesday afternoon. It was a hard-fought af-fair; it was actually, dare I say, exciting.

I was disappointed when the U.S.A. team lost in extra time and was eliminated. I would have made time to watch their quarterfi nal match. I am not going to watch Brazil-Columbia, France-Germany or any of the other matches, but it was a small step.

FYI, Broncos training camp opens in 21 days.

Berthoud Blaze and Fury softball teams compete head-to-head

The Berthoud Blaze 14U girls softball team and the Berthoud Blaze Fury 16U girls softball team went head-to-head Sunday, June 22, after both teams defeated all other teams in their respective brackets. At the end of the day there has to be a winner and the Berthoud Blaze 14U fi nished fi rst while the Berthoud Blaze Fury fi nished in second place at in the ”Don’t Call Me Blue” United States Specialty Sports Association’s 16U softball tournament in Arvada, June 21-22.

Team members are girls primarily from the Berthoud, Longmont, Loveland areas.

Head Coach for the Berthoud Blaze 14U B team is Don Johnson. Head Coach for the Berthoud Blaze Fury 16U B team is Sean Lynch. Congratulations to both teams.

Berthoud junior varsity team wins big in Cheyenne

Submitted photoTop Row (l-r): Noah Purdy, Trinity Buckley, Joshua Doyle, Braden Hull, Karsten Bump, Coach Jimmy Sherwood, Bottom row (l-r): Justin Bauer, Derek Sandstedt, and Cally Castles. The summer basketball Berthoud High School junior varsity team took top honors, winning the division championship game the weekend of June 28-29 at the South Shootout in Cheyenne, Wy.

Are you infected with World Cup fever?

Surveyor Columnist

Dan Karpiel