AmericanDemon

Here's a question i've been wondering about. Can I watch the free replays outside of Australia? Does anyone know?

Hahaha! It came with a keyring, I wasn't aware that I'd be getting one though so I was kind of excited to put it to use!

I'm pretty excited and proud to be a first-time member!

I'm a journalist by trade. Personally, I never would have written that unless I was damn sure I was correct. Like 100% correct.Secondly, if I had printed that and then it was proven I was wrong, I'd probably write a 1000 word apology then hang my head in shame and probably wouldn't write columns for a while.

Oh yes! That's a great idea.

It's funny, I've got an autographed team photo from last year hanging on my wall. People come by see it and ask what it is. I tell them it's the Melbourne Demons, an Australian Football League team. They either stare at me confused, or say something like "Oh, i didn't know you liked rugby."

Been looking around online to find these movies so I can watch them. Found Spotswood, so i figure that'll be the first film I watch. I'll let you know what I think of it.

That's actually a good point that I hadn't thought of. The focus here does seem to be more on what can be done to minimise the problem.

I agree with you. I think it was totally insane. But it's the ONLY incidence of tanking being punished in the US that I could think of.

As an American all this tanking stuff is just weird to me. This season, I saw the first punishment handed out in American sports that I can remember for tanking. The San Antonio Spurs in the NBA were fined for resting their starters in two games. The fine? $250,000. Then, the story was dropped. There have been multiple instances of teams tanking in American sports but nothing big is really made of it here. It just happens sometimes. About 10 years ago, once again in the NBA the Boston Celtics (very solid and good team) were playing the Charlotte Bobcats. (amazingly horrible team. Think Port Adelaide, but maybe worse.) Anyway, at the end of the third quarter the Celts had like a 15 point lead or something. They ended up losing by eight. It is probably the clearest example of tanking I can think of (and IMO kind of impressive that they could screw up that badly). It's just weird to me that the media in Australia is blowing this entire thing out of proportion.

So, I just purchased my first ever membership. I'm pretty excited about it. Can't wait till the season starts.

Nope no gun!

I got the meaning haha. I knew septic tank beforehand, had to google china plate though lol. I like to think of myself of at least a step above most Americans here. I'm not one of the crazy ones, I swear!

You've pushed me over the edge. Next paycheck, i'm buying a membership!

I'm seriously considering buying an armchair membership for this year. I really love this club, and want to support them in some way. Plus i'd get a big discount for the online store, which is another real perk.

I think a really bad punishment by the AFL would be if we had to take Scully back. That could be far worse than taking away points from past seasons!

Yeah, I agree with you. I never check the tanking thread. Since a lot of it is just speculation of what might happen etc. But if something new happens I like seeing a thread about it to give an update.

I can't wait for the next season. I watched a documentary about the history of the club last night on YouTube, as an American fan I love learning more and more about this history of the club. I'm feeling so optimistic and excited about this season. Even if we don't do great, I love AFL more than probably any American sport...come to think of it, out of my top five favorite sports, four of them aren't very popular in the US. AFL, Soccer, Rugby, Cricket...i'm such an odd American.

As an American, the thing I love the most about soccer/rugby/afl is the fact that there isn't outside noise. There aren't prepackaged things designed to get the crowd to cheer, or let them know when to cheer. It was something so refreshing to me. I hate how fans here seem to have forgotten how to be fans. They need the jumbotron to tell them when to cheer. They need recorded ques to start chants. It's horrible.

I know he's had a lot of issues but i've always really loved Fev. He was really what made me get into footy. The first game I ever watched was a Carlton game, when Fevola kicked a goal from the deep pocket to win. I think it was around 2004. Seriously thought about being a Carlton fan purely because of him, but I decided I wanted to follow a team I cared about and loved, not just a team that had a player I liked.

This is all kind of funny to me, here in the States tanking isn't THAT bad of a thing. I mean, it's looked down upon, but it'd never be investigated or anything like that. A few years ago the top draft choice in the NFL was Andrew Luck. Fans of teams in contention to finish last called it "Suck for Luck." Of course no coaches or players ever said they were tanking but among fans it's just kind of shaken off. There's some evidence the Cleveland Cavaliers tanked to get Lebron James, but here in the states for some reason it doesn't have the same stigma that it does over there. Or maybe the leagues here just don't care.

For me, North Melbourne has the worst song in the competition. It's just seems weird and patched together to me. Like they couldn't decide between two songs so they decided to just combined them.

I'm 25 and I get asked why I support the Dees a lot seeing how i'm an American based fan. When I went about picking a team, I kind of created a formula. I didn't want to pick a team, because they were good or popular, or a consistent winner. I looked at history of clubs, their fan bases, players on the team, and the future of the team. Honestly, the Demons weren't my first choice to support. I bounced around from North Melbourne, the Bulldogs, and St. Kilda but for some reason, For the first two or three years I regularly followed AFL, I didn't have a team to support. I was leaning heavily towards St. Kilda for a while (and to be honest, they kind of still have a soft spot in my heart) but something kept pulling me back to the Demons. I absolutely loved the club history, and loved watching Liam Jurrah play. So, as i've said before on this board I picked the Dees as my team last season (right before we got thrashed by West Coast actually) and I haven't regretted it. Yeah they're not great right now, there have been a lot of tough games but I like having actual reasons why I picked the Demons instead of most American footy fans that support whoever won the last GF. (Or oddly Collingwood. IDK why but most the people i've met here who are fans support those ferals.)

Nope not the Sooners, the college I cover is a division below the Sooners, like the VFL to the AFL.

On a semi-related note, Some Iranian newspaper picked up a story from a satirical news website in the US, saying that Ahmadinejad is more popular than Obama in the American South.