The Rugby Match at the Bottom of the World - Neatorama

For 26 years straight, New Zealand has defeated the US in rugby to win the Ross Island Cup. But these aren't professional rugby players -they are scientists and support staff who live and work in Antarctica! The national team back home in New Zealand are the All Blacks, but the team from Scott Base goes by the name Ice Blacks. The US team from McMurdo Station, well, most of them don't even know how to play rugby before they are recruited for the annual game. Yesterday's game is recounted in embarrassing detail at Discover Magazine. Link

See the New Zealand Antarctic team performing their customary haka in this video from a few years ago. Link

(image credit: Chaz Firestone)

I've actually witnessed this event during 2005/2006 field season. It was kind of sad that none of the American spectators had any clue what was going on.

But it was fun, and the US almost scored for the first time even.

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I guess if your fit/crazy enough to work in Antarctica, rubgy just comes naturaly.

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Seems just a wee bit fixed in favour of the Ice Blacks

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I think it was only fixed in that the US team was too cold to think of saying, "How about we play American football instead?"

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I can't believe that no American ever played Rugby prior to these matches. The sport has been in almost every US college and university since the 1960s. I suspect that the game originally started because there were some American scientists who had played the game and the NZ scientists could not play baseball.

The difference is that Kiwis play the game in the womb.

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So is the photo the "team dump taking" shot before the game begins or what?

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That's the haka, Von Skippy.

http://www.neatorama.com/2007/09/12/haka/

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Rugby on Ice - heard it all now its great

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I thought the Ice Blacks was the name of the New Zealand mens senior ice hockey team!! They are way more famous than these guys!

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Rugby on ice, didn't coke do an ad campaign back in 1999. Yer the ice hockey team is way more famous.

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