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猜猜看，看起來高高瘦瘦的Ian喜歡看哪種運動比賽呢？"go tailgating"是什麼意思呢？這週Ian要介紹加拿大人最熱衷的比賽，我們一起來認識一些觀賞比賽會用到的單字片語吧！文章有點長，耐著性子讀完，保證你獲益良多！加油加油！！

I’m sure that there are lots of people out there who love sports just as much as I do, maybe even more, so today I want to tell everyone a story about the greatest sporting event I have ever witnessed live.

I was born in Montreal, and I lived there for the first 10 years of my life. In grade 5 my dad was transferred to a job in Kansas City, Kansas, so our family moved to the United States. At this time I was introduced to a new sport… football.

(In Europe, football is soccer, but don’t get the two confused. In North America soccer is soccer and football is American football.)

In Kansas and across the Midwest, football is by far the most popular sport. Our high school had its own football stadium that could seat over 4,000 people. The games sold out every Friday night, and fans would take off their shirts and paint their chests with the school colors.

I used to go to all the games as well, not because I was on the football team, but because I was a marching band geek and I used to play the baritone with the marching band at halftime.

Living in Kansas City forced me to fall in love with football, and we would play backyard football every chance we had. However, it was very seldom I got to go and see a professional football game, as tickets for Kansas City’s NFL team, the Chiefs, were always sold out and hard to find.

One week my dad got tickets to go and see the Chiefs play against their biggest rivals, the Denver Broncos. The Broncos and the Chiefs have had a longstanding rivalry that dates back over 20 years. The Broncos are also my grandma’s favorite team (my grandma loves football), so it was even more vital that the Chiefs win, for bragging rights of course.

At the game there were over 80,000 people in the loudest stadium in the world. The sound level on the field often reaches 120 decibels, or the equivalent of a small jet engine. Everyone one goes tailgating before the game, which means that you have a b-b-q in the stadium parking lot before the game starts and most people drink a couple beers too! By the time those 80,000 fans entered the stadium, they were revved up and ready for some action.

The game was very close, and came down to the last second. Kansas City had the ball and was down by one point. Because there were only 6 seconds left on the clock, they choose to attempt a 52 yard (around 46 meters) field goal. In football, that is a very long field goal and it was a cold day as well, so it would be even more difficult to kick the field goal because the ball gets hard in the cold weather.

When the kicker kicked the ball, it looked like it wasn’t going to make it. My dad was standing next to me saying, “It’s low. It’s too low.” But the ball just seemed to float continuously until it just squeezed by the goal post. It was good!

The crowd shot off like a cannon, blasting a sound the likes of which I have never experienced. I vividly remember myself cheering and looking at my dad cheering in joy, but I could not hear my father’s voice, or my own voice for that matter. The sound was like white noise, where every single voice melted together to create the tremendous sound, yet not one single voice was distinguishable. I will never forget the feeling of being a part of such a crowd.

Just after the field goal went through, a man I hadn’t spoken to the entire game who was sitting next to me picked me up and started hugging me. He was a very large man, and he swung me around like a rag doll. I must have looked funny in this big man’s arms with my legs flailing all around. 

One thing people might not think about is the exciting things that can happen after the game is finished. When the game ends, you have 80,000 ecstatic, drunk fans all trying to exit the stadium at the same time. Leaving the stadium, one of the fans began ‘mooing’ like a cow. It was funny because everyone felt like a bunch of cows being herded out of the stadium. The call caught on and everyone began ‘mooing’ like cows. Thousands of people walking and ‘mooing’ together definitely made the wait more fun, as we made our way away from the most amazing sporting experience I have ever witnessed.

恭喜～因為你無比的耐心及勇氣讀完了這篇精彩的文章，哈哈！趕緊來複習一下單字吧！

單字情報站

witnessed...................證人/目擊者

stadium.....................體育場

chests.......................胸膛

marching band...........樂隊

geek.........................反常的人/怪胎

baritone....................上低音號

backyard...................後院/私人

rivals.........................競爭者

bragging rights...........entitlement to boast about something (有權力可以吹牛)

decibel......................分貝

tailgate......................tailgate在本文的真正意思請參考Ian的解釋。

blasting.....................爆炸

rag doll......................布娃娃

ecstatic.....................狂喜的

herded.......................成群