Calendar Girls and Controversy at the WC!

Time swims!

Day 4 is about to begin and we're already in semi-finals territory. With Finland, Germany, Sweden and Norway in the semis in both the men and women's comp, the nordic countries' dominance of this sport has been made strikingly clear.

Meanwhile, the German media is doing a fantastic job covering the event. You can find lots of great video interviews at this site specially created for the tournament (you may want to use 'google translator' though).

However, the highlight for some will no doubt be this video interview of the Finnish ladies team, which amongst other things promotes their fundraising calendar (selling for 15 Euros each, bargain!). There is also a great interview with the South African blokes, which shows more hair and less skin. And of course, a little bit of controversy about a Russian player being expelled from the tournament for foul play.

There are also rumours that the Swedish are confidently boasting "We clean the Germans away!", which is a remarkable development because as we all know Swedes are most notorious for their modesty and politeness (except maybe towards the Danish).

If you have a secret crush on the Swedish women's team they have a great blog (in both English and Swedish) telling of their ordeals training for the WC.

And finally, this little gem from the CMAS Facebook feed:

An expert commentator noted that the Finnish women, who have just played defending Champion Germany to scoreless tie, were so poor a few years ago that they did not even compete in the Nordic Championships.

"They have really improved," he said, "but if you had asked me a few years ago, I would never have predicted this."

Let this be a source of encouragement to aspiring teams out there like South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and North America!

Fun World Championship Party Ideas

1. The Finnish have a legendary reputation for heavy drinking. They are also known to shun small talk. In fact, when you say "Cheers" to them the likely response will be "Are we here to talk or are we here to drink."So in honour of their determined spirit, fun party idea number one is a SILENT DRINKING GAME. Tune in to the WC live feed and throw back a stiff drink for every goal. Kippis!

2. If you think the UWR World Championships is better than the Melbourne Cup (some famous Australian horse race), which it is, then you need to hold an UNDERWATER RUGBY SWEEPSTAKES. *All credit to Laura Whitehouse for this gem of an idea

Write down the names of every participating country on a separate small piece of paper, put them all into a hat. Everyone pays the same amount of money and draws a piece of paper from the hat. Decide how you're going to split the money (winner takes all, winner gets 70% and second gets 30%, etc.). Sit back and wait for the grand final!

3. The other thing about Finns is that they are Finnatical about saunas! Which brings us to our last fun party idea... NAKED SAUNA PARTY!

Yes you really have to be naked, otherwise it's like using chopsticks with two hands or drinking beer with a straw. Also, as awesome as it would be to mix sauna with drinking games, it's really not advised unless you have a waterproof defibulator handy...

Got any other suggestions?

Finland 2011

5 days, 51 games of UWR all on live video streaming... Welcome to the UWR World Championships!

Day One brought some nail biting matches, as well as a few turkey shoots with South Africa coming off second best to Austria 50-nil. Nonetheless, hats off to them for getting themselves in the World Championships despite having only just played their first game on the 5th October last year! You can check out the SA website here. For full results of Day One matches, go here.

Here is the link to the live streaming, straight from Helsinki with love and moomins. The first match tomorrow starts at 9am Helsinki time (that's 4pm in Sydney, Australia) and there are matches starting every hour all the way up till 7pm Finnish time (2am in Sydney).

It seems like Davrell Tien is the official correspondent providing match-by-match analysis for us. Here's a great account of the Women's match between old time rivals Sweden and Norway. You can find tons of updates on the competition's official Facebook page. Or if you are more TWITTER inclined, then look up #uwrwc11
Alright, I think that about covers the basics!