Last Sunday’s trek from Dublin to Chicago via Iceland set the tone. The two-hour stopover afforded the opportunity to watch Eberechi Eze’s gem in Arsenal’s 1-0 win over Crystal Palace on the mobile phone, before reviewing some All Blacks games via the laptop on the longer haul.
It’s been sports all the way since.
Well, to be specific, sports, food and beer (although a good lager is the exception rather than the rule). Oh yes, and dogs. Maybe it’s the hotel we are in, but you can hardly grab a lift up or down from the 14th floor (could have been worse – there are 55 floors) without encountering a dog.
This is a dog-friendly hotel, with a dog run and a dog grooming service on the 11th floor. And one ventures it’s not the only one, for this is possibly the most dog-friendly city in the world. They’re everywhere, and most are perfectly groomed, as if they’ve just emerged from the hairdressers. Some are in matching attire, like two white poodles that were sighted in matching pink neck bows and footwear.
Every day is a Crufts Day in the affluent central Chicago, it seems.
But back to Chicago’s staple diet, in downtown Chicago anyway, namely: Sports, Food and Beer. And very often together, in easy harmony. Sports bars proliferate, with an array of big screens showing a variety of sports events, and with volume.
There seems to be an Irish bar on every third or fourth street. Even those bars which are not sports bars per se have sports on their TV screens, with a mixture of interested punters, and punters oblivious to the successive home runs that kick-started Wednesday’s fifth game in baseball’s world series.
American Football is Chicago’s number one sport but the USA’s third biggest city is also home to major professional teams from a host of sports in addition to the NFL’s Bears; namely the MLB’s Cubs and White Sox (Baseball), the NBA’s Bulls (Basketball), and the NHL’s Blackhawks (Ice Hockey). Other organisations include the WNBA’s Chicago Sky (women’s basketball), the Chicago Fire FC (Soccer) as well as the Chicago Hounds MLR (rugby union team).
This has been a bumper week for sports fans in the Windy City, with Monday the peak of what is known in the United States as a “Sporting Equinox” – when the MLB, NBA, NHL and NFL are all played on the same day. There was a Major League Soccer game on Monday as well.
There was a full programme of 11 basketball matches, game three of the World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays, the usual Monday Night Football game and two ice hockey games taking place – and all televised or streamed.
Monday was the only Sports Equinox of the calendar year in the USA.
As well as taking in other sports, some of the Irish squad attended the Blackhawks’ ice hockey game on Sunday evening, when they lost 3-1 to the LA Kings.
“Yeah, it was pretty cool,” said Jack Crowley. “I must say they do a spectacle at American sports. I went to baseball in San Diego before. That was a lot slower, but I thought they do a class job at entertaining games.
“It might not be the speed or the passion that I like in games, but yeah, it was cool to see and a good experience.”
That was a pretty good summation really. Some of the travelling media attended the Blackhawks’ game on Wednesday in the same United Center. This is also home to the Chicago Bulls basketball team, who were in action on Tuesday and Thursday, meaning the stadium hosted the two franchises on four successive nights.
Both in the bar nearby beforehand and in the 19,717 capacity stadium (where 15,100 were in attendance), we were close to being the only ones not wearing replica jerseys. The service was friendly and quick, and both the beer and chicken wings and pizza arrived with rapid efficiency.
The game was pretty easy to follow, as was the puck. Whereas baseball has its longueurs, the action is fairly continuous in ice hockey’s three 20-minute periods, with three all-in fights loudly acclaimed. The gaps are of course filled in with music and chanting, or kids participating in organised shooting games on the rink, or the crowd eagerly seeking out the camera.
The Blackhawks won 7-3 thanks to a first career hat-trick by the 20-year-old Canadian prodigy from Vancouver, Connor Bedard. He was the first pick in the 2023 draft, with the Blackhawks accused of “tanking” towards the end of the 2022-23 season so as to have first pick on Bedard, prompting a parody song “Bad for Bedard”.
The Blackhawks sold $2.5 million of season ticket packages. Bedard’s name was the most common on the backs of jerseys in the Arena so his third goal brought the house down.
As the clock counted down to the finish, chants of “USA, USA, USA” increased around the arena.
Viewed in this very American sporting landscape, rugby really is something of an oddity, even if it has some similarities with American Football, including the spherical shape of the pumped up piece of leather.
The Irish squad have been very happy with the gym and facilities at the 27,000-seat SeatGeek Stadium, which is home to the Chicago Hounds, who narrowly lost their Conference final for the second year running to the New England Free Jacks.
The Hounds are coached by former Wallabies fullback Chris Latham, with Noel Reid as an assistant/attack coach who also works with the Hounds academy. Reid and the academy players were invited to attend Ireland’s Wednesday session in the SeatGeek Stadium.
The 35-year-old product of St Michael’s, a skilful utility back who played mostly in midfield, played for Clontarf and Leinster, and won one cap in Tucuman against Argentina in 2014, when he came on as a replacement with Iain Henderson and played alongside current Irish assistant coaches Paul O’Connell and Johnny Sexton.
After turning down a contract extension at Leinster when he was 29, Reid played for Leicester Tigers, Agen in the Top 14, and had a brief stint in London Irish before pitching up with the Toronto Arrows. After they dropped out of the 2024 MLR season, he took up a coaching role with their Academy before Dave Kearney’s connections with the Hounds led to Reid becoming their backs coach last year.
He has also set up a business called The Rugby Academy in Canada, and his role there meant he actually retuned to Toronto, an hour flight away where his girlfriend lives, on Thursday and thus won’t be in Soldier Field for the Ireland-All Blacks game.
It’s a road less travelled but it’s been a brave one which has led to him stepping on to the professional coaching ladder quicker than if he’s stayed at home.
