With the Super Bowl in the rear-view mirror, football season is officially over in America. But don't worry! The rest of the world is here to pick up our slack. Yes, people do play football in other parts of the world -- actually, there's even a world championship which we attended in July. Luckily for us, College Football Reddit alerted us to the fact that the Aalto Predators, a college team in Helsinki, Finland, was streaming their game Saturday complete with an English announcer. The game's over now, but you can watch it here.
Here's why you should watch this Finnish college football game.
1. The announcers are amazing.
SPORTS ARE HAPPENING.
The English broadcast of Finnish CFB is enjoyable and, at times, hilarious: pic.twitter.com/51v2IO8Syo
— RedditCFB (@RedditCFB) February 20, 2016
I am freakin' furious that we have to listen to Phil Simms call football games on a regular basis while this guy is out there. Somebody bring him to America and hire him. Sadly, he doesn't seem to enjoy calling the games much.
2. It's a neat adaptation
You can tell that the people putting this game on went through a lot of trouble to try to replicate American football culture. I imagine a lot of the stuff we use for football isn't easy to access in Finland -- you know, helmets, pads, refereeing uniforms, the chains the chain gang uses -- but they've done an impressive job of emulating the football experience, all the way down to the fans and cheerleaders.
But the game is slightly different. As a Finn on Reddit explains, it's really freakin' cold in Finland, so colleges play inside. This makes the game played 8-on-8 with no field goals, extra points, or punts. It's an interesting twist on the game. Anyway, they play tackle football on a hard surface. It seems very painful!
Football may seem like our game, but it's interesting to see the ways the rest of the world makes it theirs.
3. This guy
That guy.
Anyway, check out the game! It's worth a few minutes of your time to see our weird game all the way on the other side of the Atlantic.