Monday, April 23, 2012

Glasgow Rocks Pro-basketball

While I didn't have to travel far to see any pro-basketball in Glasgow, it was a special event, nonetheless. A few of my officemates and I decided to pick up tickets to the last Glasgow Rocks game of the championship season at the Kelvinhall International Sports Arena. I knew, going into this, that it was not going to be anything like going to an NBA game in the States. The BBL (British Basketball League) has about 13 teams that seem to range in size, popularity, and skill level. The Rocks were placed 5th in the BBL going into this game, playing against the Durham Wildcats (ranked last...) so at least we could rest assured that we weren't going to see an upset.


Even though the arena was small (only eight rows of seats along one side of the court and behind both hoops), it was nearly packed, though I should mention was packed with lots of younger kids, most of whom were pre-teen boys excited to watch the Rockettes, Glasgow's 5-person team of bleach-blond, spray-tanned cheerleaders. Admittedly, they were fun to watch. You could tell they were having fun doing what they were doing, but I'll have to say they were a bit less committed to their booty-shaking choreography than, say, their busty and bootylicious NBA counterparts.

I've watched a lot of basketball growing up, though I have to be honest and say that I've....well, I've kind of forgotten a lot about the game. Mostly the penalties and fouls...don't really remember how those all work. But I wansn't out of place as most of the Glaswegians didn't know, either. The small arena was loud during a good play or a score, but during the rest of gameplay, you could have heard a pin drop! The Rocks played well, though definitely a bit more sloppy than the NBA skill-level. Interestingly, though, three or four players for The Rocks were American, and I'm willing to bet that they may be signed on to a NBA team in some fashion, but are playing overseas to gain experience and to maintain their abilities. With 7-minute quarters, the game went by quickly, but it was a good time. The Rocks are now qualified for the Playoffs, and, based on what I saw last night, will likely give a good showing.

I would definitely suggest going to a game if you've got an hour or two and you're looking for something different to do around Glasgow!


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This work by Eric W. Portenga is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.