Commentary: Indoor Football much more confusing that Australian Rules Football

[This story is a commentary, which slightly deviates from the traditional format for this news service. Enjoy the experiment.]

In an effort to try and expand the sports horizions of its readers, stlsports recently attended an indoor football game at the Savvis Center. Apparently St. Louis has an indoor football team, called the River City Rage. The Rage are a part of the National Indoor Football League, which is just another in a long line of indoor bastardizations of the NFL. Stlsports had an alterior motive for attending this game: so I could figure out what the hell is going on in the EA Sports Arena Football game that I won on eBay for twenty five cents.

See, there are several schools of thought on the football played indoors rules. For one thing, you can play regular old football indoors, like we can see in person at the Edward Jones Dome downtown. The roof doesn't retract and the building doesn't have any character inside, but at least it was damned expensive and it certainly revitalized the six city blocks that it was built upon. Then there are the other kinds of indoor football, the kind played in hockey or basketball arenas by people who couldn't make it in the Canadian Football League, NFL Europe, the Women's Pro Football League or the American Geriatric Flag Football League. For your money, you get 50 yards field and crazy rules that vary from one league to another, so that no one has any freaking idea what they are watching from one league to another. For example, when stlsports went to the NIFL league game to figure out indoor football, those rules did not translate to the AFL video game, much to the vexation of stlsports.

In light of the indoor football rules discrepancy fiasco, the Arena Football League game disc is now a coaster, and actually far better serves its new purpose of keeping moisture off of furniture than it did in its original purpose of entertaining the game player. The bottom line is that unless it is football played NFL style, then it is not really football. However, since the team here at stlsports is wildly unathletic, as is the case for most sports commentators, a search was on for a more amenable form of competitive gaming that combined a love of beer with a dislike for confusing rules. That's when we were introduced to Australian Rules Football, a type of sport sweeping the ... well, nowhere. It is the ugly step child of rugby, and it absolutely kicks ass.

When asked to explain the rules of Australian Rules Football, local Aussie import Roscoe Johnson, who is a 'gutter' by trade when not playing ARF, noted, "OY! First you swazzle up a few yobbles of beer-ee-oo, then you and you mates git on the pitch and at the snag of the bell, it's a right fine noggin for hog raggin the buzzard wit the ball. Then you make sure that the bob who has the billy gets a ramble on his backside, all in the hopes of draggin the billy into the graggler. Then its time for some beeries. Fosters is for nancys. I like mine the Braggles. Thats the stovetopper." So it sounds like ARF is basically binge drinking combined with 'kill the man with the ball', which is just fine with stlsports. Isn't that what real men should be doing with their free time anyway? Is anyone surprised that something like this would come out of Australia?

Play on, brave ARFers, play on. Stlsports will be cheering, beer in hand.

Since the last stlsports post, the death of Steve Irwin, a/k/a The Crocodile Hunter, became public news. When reached for comment, ARF player Johnson noted, "I didn'a cry when me own father was hung for stealing a pig, but I'll cry now."

[This story is a satire of public figures and rediculous sports.]

[We will miss you Steve. God must have one hell of a crocodile running loose in heaven to need you up there so soon.]