Sports
Canada have three major sports that they are involved in. Which to my surprise is less than I thought it would be but . Ice hockey, baseball and canadian football.
Ice hockey
With players hurtling around at nearly 50kph and the puck clocking speeds of over 160kph, this would be a high-adrenaline sport even without its relaxed attitude to combat on the rink - as an old Canadian adage has it, "I went to see a fight and an ice-hockey game broke out". Players, especially in the minor leagues, are as adept at a right hook as they are at skating, and a few years ago the national team waged such a battle against the Soviet Union that the fight only stopped when officials turned all the lights off.
Canadian football
Professional Canadian football , played under the aegis of the Canadian Football League (CFL) , is largely overshadowed by the National Football League in the US, chiefly because the best home-grown talent moves south in search of better money while NFL castoffs move north to fill the ranks. The two countries' football games vary slightly, but what differences do exist tend to make the Canadian version more exciting. In Canada the playing field is larger and there are twelve rather than eleven players on each team . There is also one fewer down in a game - ie after kickoff the attacking team has three, rather than four, chances to move the ball forward ten yards and score a first down en route to a touchdown .
Baseball
Baseball , with its relaxed summertime pace and byzantine rules, is generally considered an exclusively American sport - despite the first recorded game taking place in Beachville, Ontario. The Montréal Expos and the Toronto Blue Jays perform in the US's two major baseball leagues, the National and the American respectively. In 1992 and 1993, the Toronto Blue Jays became national heroes when they won the World Series twice in a row, beating America at their own game. Historically a lowlier bunch, the Expos are now awaiting the completion of a new $200 million downtown stadium to boost ticket sales - due to open for the 2002 season. However, it was they who became the first non-US team to play in a US league in 1968, eight years before the Blue Jays.
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