It is netball season. International netball season. When it comes to netball there are only two countries in the world who are really competitive; NZ and Australia.
I don’t know how netball works in Australia but I would imagine it is similar to NZ. In NZ netball is the number one sport for girls. Sure some girls play hockey or soccer or the very daring may even play rugby but netball is the mainstay for kiwi girls playing sport. I played it at school along with probably 80% of girls up to about 12 or 13 (then I got lazy) many many girls keep playing until they leave highschool. It is also an incredibly popular “social” sport for those older types just wanting to stay fit.
I pass a very very busy club (Auckland, North Shore) on my way home from work and several days a week there are more people there then any local rugby club could dream to have in attendance (School age kids. Parents etc in attendance but the courts are so popular they cause a real traffic jam). Girls start playing at about 7 yrs old, playing in inter-school competitions.
The Silverferns (NZ’s national team) are our most high profile women’s sporting team and in recent years have developed a following from both men and women.
It just strikes me as odd that Australia and New Zealand are the only real competition for each other. I know netball is like cricket and limited to mostly Commonwealth countries but what do girls/women play in other countries (team sports)?
In Norway the most popular women’s team sports are soccer and handball. Top-level women’s handball seems to draw more of an audience than men’s. (The women play rougher.) Among individual sports, cross-country skiing and winter biathlon are probably the most popular.
In Japan, volleyball seems to be the most popular women’s sport, with the world championships making the prime-time TV slot each year and the women’s team regularly getting more attention than the men’s.
Of course, since Japan doesn’t regularly dominate in any world sport, any woman or women’s team that does become an international contender (Shizuka Arakawa in figure skating or Naoko Takahashi in the marathon) immediately gets the spotlight.
Gymnastics is probably the most watched one in Spain. We do pretty well there, specially floor exercises. Synchronized swimming too; there’s like two clubs in the whole country but they’re in the two biggest urban areas so 20% of the population has access to joining one without having to move.
Sports with more federated women: martial arts. Navarra is notorious for that, kind of has given us a reputation of “don’t mess with the gals from up north”.
Sports practiced by tons of non-federated women: swimming, hiking, aerobics.
I live in a Commonwealth country and I had never heard of netball until I went to Australia. Even then, I didn’t learn just what it was. I may be risking a slight hijack, but can you explain exactly what netball is?
Women’s cricket has a lotal following here in Australia, but it is as nothing compared to netball. Netball has a national league and is televised. Women’s cricket has never been on TV as far as I can remember, and I have no idea how it is set up.
Hmmmmmmmmm. Kinda like basketball but no dribbling or travelling and no backboard on the net. Seven players per side. Very fast and dynamic and getting more physical these days. Almost always a womens sport.
It is weird that it is not played in Canada, the world cup was all Commonwealth and everyone knew the final would be NZ/Aus.
Mixed netball is a popular lunchtime sport in work competitions in Sydney. I think the women like the fact that the guys are the novices and have to be yelled at.
When I was a teenager, in Canberra, some of my teammates and I used to go to the Dickson pub after our rugby game, have a beer and a counter lunch and then go down the road to Southwell Park to watch the netball. We had a few favourite teams (we didn’t know who they were) that we chose by the attractiveness of their players. Well… the goal shooter really…because they are the ponytailed princesses of netball. The girls seemed to be thrilled to have a bunch of guys cheering them on.
For recreational team sports popular amongst women at least in western Canada, you’d find: softball, curling, hockey (of the ice variety) and in a more niche kind of way, synchronized skating.
And absolute carnage for knees and ankles, especially ligaments and other connectors that get put under incredible strain with all the violent stopping and starting.
You see, for those who’ve never seen netball, once you get the ball you have to stop dead. There’s no running with the ball, no dribbling. So ball movement is a matter of passing, and upon receiving the ball the player has to stop in the next stride. It’s not like basketball, where you can take a pass on the run and keep going; you have to come to a complete stop immediately. This all leads to very high rates of knee and ankle injury.
Well, the Wikipedia link told me that the provinces of Ontario and Alberta have a netball association; but they’re obviously not doing a great job of promoting the sport. It was not played at any of my schools in Ontario, and most schoolkids here in Alberta prefer to play soccer, it seems.
We don’t play that much rugby either. Certainly, it is better known than netball, but outside of a few high school and university teams, very few play it recreationally. Those who do are usually (but not always) expat Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans, British, and Irish. It never seems to be on TV unless the sports channel needs some filler.
PastAllReason has given a good answer to the OP, and I’ll second the sports mentioned there. I’ll add that they are probably just as popular in eastern Canada.
And thank you, calm kiwi, for your answer to my question. I promise, tomorrow I’ll have the necessary amount of coffee before reading the SDMB.
Honestly, girls here play the same team sports the boys do: ice hockey, curling, softball, soccer, and so on. Some are even playing football (Canadian football, very similar to American football) just like the guys.
If I had to mention one team sport that girls do here that boys do not, it would be precision figure skating. Picture a chorus line on ice skates, and you’ve got the idea. But even that is fairly rare, the ability to ice skate and a membership at an ice rink being prerequisites. Schools generally do not have their own ice rinks, and not everybody can skate period, much less to the level required for the sport.
