Sport
Sport is not only an important pastime in Tasmania, the state has produced several famous sportsmen and women and also hosted several major sporting events. The Tasmanian Tigers cricket team represents the state successfully (for example the Sheffield Shield in 2007 and 2011) and plays its home games at the Bellerive Oval, Hobart; also the site of international cricket matches. Famous Tasmanian cricketers include David Boon and former Australian captain Ricky Ponting.
Australian Rules Football is also popularly followed, with occasional discussion of a proposed Tasmanian team in the Australian Football League (AFL). Several AFL games have been played at the Aurora Stadium, York Park Launceston, including the Hawthorn Football Club. The stadium was the site of an infamous match between St Kilda and Fremantle which was controversially drawn after the umpires failed to hear the final siren.
Association football (soccer) is played throughout the state, with discussion of a Tasmanian Hyundai A-league Club building on the existing Southern Premier League and the Northern Premier League. Tasmania hosts the Moorilla International tennis tournament as part of the lead up to the Australian Open and is played at the Hobart International Tennis Centre, Hobart. The Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race run every year between Boxing Day and New Year since 1945, finishes in Hobart.
While some of the other sports played and barracked for have grown in popularity, others have declined. For example in basketball Tasmania has not been represented in the National Basketball League since the demise of the Hobart Devils in 1996.
Read more about this topic: Tasmania
Famous quotes containing the word sport:
“Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain,
Where health and plenty cheered the labouring swain,
Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid,
And parting summer’s lingering blooms delayed,
Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease,
Seats of my youth, when every sport could please,
How often have I loitered o’er the green,
Where humble happiness endeared each scene.”
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730?–1774)
“For generations, a wide range of shooting in Northern Ireland has provided all sections of the population with a pastime which ... has occupied a great deal of leisure time. Unlike many other countries, the outstanding characteristic of the sport has been that it was not confined to any one class.”
—Northern Irish Tourist Board. quoted in New Statesman (London, Aug. 29, 1969)