Your So Happy It’s Thursday Evening Open Thread

Yes, I went with the English spelling tonight.

As far as sports, the only thing I can see that is on tonight is Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final with the St. Louis Blues trying desperately to prevent another BAWSTAN championship parade.

That comes your way at 5 PM Pacific, 8 Eastern, 7 DFO Time.

Fox Sports 1 has a Women’s World Cup Preview show and that’s what I want to focus tonight’s Open Thread on.

Yes, the DFO crew have been writing Team Previews for the Copa América teams, but there is another tournament taking place at the same time: The Women’s World Cup in France!

There is technically a third tournament, the CONCACAF Gold Cup, also taking place but I know we are testing the collective DFO audience’s patience with this much soccer already.

Four years ago, I went to Vancouver with family to watch some of the Women’s World Cup when it was held in Canada. Not only did I love Vancouver, but the games were extremely fun and the atmosphere was great.

I’m thinking it’s going to be the same this year.

Fox Sports will be providing wall-to-wall coverage starting with tonight’s preview show. Telemundo will be providing spanish-language coverage (in addition to their Copa América coverage).

The tournament schedule is here. The first game is tomorrow at noon Pacific time between the host France and South Korea.

Fox Sports has a pretty good rundown of the competition here.

As if you needed another reason to watch fit women play a sport at the highest level, the Fox announcing crew includes:

Telemundo counters with:

Details of Telemundo’s coverage are here.

Women’s World Cup games will air in the US in the mornings and early afternoons while the Copa América games will air late afternoons and evenings. That way you can enjoy fútbol all day and forget about that pesky work schedule.

And don’t forget to root for Canada!

BTW, the USWNT are the defending champs, so there’s that too.

Actually, the field is quite strong and there aren’t as many weak teams as there used to be. France, in particular, will be tough. Spain also has a shot to surprise while traditional powers like Germany, Brazil, China, and Sweden will also be contenders. In addition, Argentina, England, the Netherlands, and Norway will be looking to make their mark on the tournament and could knock one of the favourites out.

It will be a lot of fun. In many ways, some women’s sports are better and more fun to watch than the men versions. I know that, in AFL, the women hit harder. In fútbol, the women fight for the ball harder and don’t fall to the ground and cry like babies if someone breathes on them.

They are awesome athletes and deserve attention and ratings. Hope you watch at least one game!

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