Go The Knicks!

The Giants, the Knicks, the Rangers, the Yankees – being the sports-mad fundi I am not means there are a whole lot of new names I need to familiarize myself with if I am to fit in here. Baseball, basketball and ice-hockey are the major sports in these parts, and now I need to know my Knicks from my Nets (especially when it comes to talking to NY men!)  So my friend Lerato who worked for the NBA took me to my first game at Madison Square Garden last night – New York Knicks versus Oklahoma City Thunder.

American culture featured so prominently in all the movies and TV shows we watched growing up so I knew that there would be beer, and hotdogs and those big spongey finger-things. And there were! Sitting in the seat, looking down, I felt like I was back at the Soccer World Cup. Except this “field” was much smaller and there was so much activity going on. Time-out’s happen all the time, and there are always people coming out and dancing or performing or shooting out T-shirts from the T-Machine. Still, I kept wanting to shout “Up the Bucs” for some strange reason!

Famous Knicks supporters Jay-Z and Spike Lee weren’t there, but John McEnroe and Jerry Ferrara, who plays Turtle in Entourage were.

One of the players on the OC Thunder team has South African parents, who actually still live in Mamelodi, but he was raised in Switzerland – Thabo Sefolosha. He’s working on a basketball camp for the area – so I’ll keep you posted on that.

Now for baseball and hockey games!