Field Theory by Hadyn Green

Yet, despite the huge number of games and the huge capacity of the park (albeit the fourth smallest), they sold out Fenway a record-breaking 456 consecutive games.

Given that The Red Sox represents a potential fan base of between 4 & 6 million people, most of whom would be within driving or transit distance of the park, it's not too surprising that they can regularly fill a park of about 1% of that population. It's like a Wellington team filling out a 5,000-seat stadium.

So the solution is smaller stadiums! Brilliant!

The record in the NHL is 484 consecutive games - held by the Colorado Avalanche at the 20,000 seat Pepsi Centre (where the Democrats recently did their thing).

However, there's a big difference between "sold out" and "full", at least in the NHL: the popular teams sell a vast proportion of the available seats as season tickets, but many season ticket holders don't bother turning up for every game.

In the "sold out" game I went to, the stadium was at most 80% full.

the 20,000 seat Pepsi Centre (where the Democrats recently did their thing)

I thought they were at Mile High?

there's a big difference between "sold out" and "full"

I completely agree. Moreover Fenway used to have a different number of seats depending on if it was a day or night game. (some seats were covered due to batter sight-lines).

Boccia is also one of three Paralympic sports that have no Olympic counterpart; points shall be awarded to those who guess the other two in the comments.

Well, one would be "the bastard child of rugby, rugby league", the other I had to turn to wikipedia - can't say I saw it, Goalball sounds an awful lot like handball to me :-)

the 20,000 seat Pepsi Centre (where the Democrats recently did their thing)

I thought they were at Mile High?

Convention at the Pepsi Centre; Obama's speech (i.e. the last day of the convention) at Mile High.

Bocce, while also a member of the bowls group of games, is NOT the same as Petanque
Yours in sorrow more than anger...

The record in the NHL is 484 consecutive games - held by the Colorado Avalanche at the 20,000 seat Pepsi Centre (where the Democrats recently did their thing).

Hmm, that's disputed. By both Toronto and Montreal. Toronto from wikipedia:

Earlier, they sold out every game at Maple Leaf Gardens from 1946 until the building closed in 1999.

That's er, well over a thousand games.

It's harder than it looks to please all of the people all of the time.

...and even harder to be an Otago supporter. The Otago NPC side really has been a shadow of it's former great self in recent years, with this year being perhaps the worst for over two decades.

Even in the classic Laurie Mains-Gordon Hunter-Tony Gilbert era, well, somethings you just had to accept into the bargain of the team playing scintillating rugby, win or lose: mandatory pasting by Auckland ? Best just to get it over and done with. Valiant, heart-stopping narrow lose away to Canterbury? Dems da breaks. Losing away to Waikato? Not good, but we always beat them at home.

But this year, bloody hell. We're being hammered by teams we'd usually thrash: Bay Of Plenty and Hawkes Bay. Not good. Not good at all.

Some mates and I were dissecting this at the pub last night. In short, there appears to be no team unity and captain Craig Newby is a temp-prone eejit. One of my mates had been in a corporate box at the last home game. Two of the injured Otago players gave a short speech before the game, then everyone went out to the box's balcony to watch the game - except the two players who didn't even bother to watch their team "mates". Bloody appalling.
Then, about 40mins after the game, Adam Thompson, Otago's sole current All Black, was seen walking down the road by himself (maybe there was an honest reason for this, but it's still puzzling...).
As for Newby, he loses it whenever things aren't going right, yelling in frustration, rather than displaying leadership and calling the team together and encouraging them to back themselves and getting stuck in.

It is very disheartening.

Agree. Otago should have been dropped into the second division rather than Tasman, who at least try.

As a Hawkes Bay supporter, the demise of Otago is the cause of much deep satisfaction. As we've always suspected in the rugby talent rich Hawkes Bay, when thrown back onto their own resources Otago doesn't actually have any. They pillaged us for years, and what goes around comes around. They should move the university to Napier as well, then the scarfies will get a decent climate and live in the North Island, where the rest of the country is.

Having got that little bit of revenge-is-a-dish-best-served-cold of my chest, the Thursday night rugby thing is a perfect example of how the NZRU screws things up. Come up with potentially a good idea, then make sure you enact it so half heartedly that it fails to capture the imagination. Instead of having Wellington vs. Canterbury on a Thursday, to get the thing going, they tepidly schedule the bottom half of the comp, so punters get to watch low skill levels in front of threadbare crowds on a rainy night in a run-down stadium.

As a Hawkes Bay supporter, the demise of Otago is the cause of much deep satisfaction. As we've always suspected in the rugby talent rich Hawkes Bay, when thrown back onto their own resources Otago doesn't actually have any. They pillaged us for years, and what goes around comes around. They should move the university to Napier as well, then the scarfies will get a decent climate and live in the North Island, where the rest of the country is.

A flood and an earthquake on your piddly little towns!

Though, yes, Otago rugby. I've not only stopped watching, but stopped even bothering to care if they win or lose. It doesn't seem so long ago that we used to have good teams, fed by the Varsity club, and a pile of All Blacks. Now I'm always surprised when the coach is quoted in the paper as I have no idea who he is or half the players he's talking about.

As a Hawkes Bay supporter, the demise of Otago is the cause of much deep satisfaction

As a Bay of Plenty supporter my hatred is directed towards Canterbury. At least it is now. It used to be Auckland in the 80s (stupid yuppies taking our players!)

As a Bay of Plenty supporter my hatred is directed towards Canterbury. At least it is now. It used to be Auckland in the 80s ...

Of course it is. And of course it was. And that's where your re-jig proposal (salary cap, different team winning each year etc) falls over. Without any team dominating, hatred will wither and die. Without hatred, well, what an anaemic and pointless exercise it will all be. Imagine it: Hawkes Bay win the Championship, so now their second tier players become too expensive to retain. So next season they finish mid-table. But no worries, in ten years it will be their turn again. Yawn.
Surely it's better to watch HBay fall agonizingly short of ending Canterbury's ten-year unbeaten reign than to watch half the Canterbury squad in Bay jerseys beat the other half in Taranaki jerseys to end Taranaki's one-year reign?

Imagine it: Hawkes Bay win the Championship, so now their second tier players become too expensive to retain.

I don't see how this works. The players all get giant salary bumps when they win? Who have you got doing your contracts?

A team with good scouting and coaching (on which there is no salary cap) and accounting should be able to dominate the table easily (See: Patriots, New England; Yankees, New York*; and Spurs, San Antonio)

*Except this year.