Destination Phoenix - Die hard fans from down under unite!
The suns are a classy organization from management right down to the players and support staff. So its no wonder that so many international fans with no ties to any NBA cities, choose to support the mighty Suns. In some cases these fans are even more die hard than some locals, having to take days off just to watch big games, getting up at 3 am for live playoff matches, watching grainy stop start low quality streams on 15 inch monitors just to see the suns somehow, and even travelling the 30 thousand plus km's just to catch a regular season game live.
That last scenario is about to take place, with 4 die hard suns fans from Australia and New Zealand (only 2 of which have met each other before) getting together in January to make the trip to the USA with the sole purpose of cheering on the suns and seeing some games live!
Myself from Adelaide, South Australia, as well as 3 other members of Planet Orange ("Tastic" from New Zealand, "Nevetsov" from Brisbane Australia, and "NF33IH" also from Adelaide South Australia) will be leaving from Sydney on January 12th, 2009 and after brief stops in Berlin and London will be landing in Toronto on the 18th of January ready to catch the suns first game of a season long 6 game road trip.
We have hired a car, and will be following the suns through all 6 stops on the trip, Toronto, Boston, New York, Charlotte, Atlanta and Washington, before flying from Washington to Phoenix (WOO HOO!) to catch games against the spurs (BOO), bulls and kings, hoping to enjoy a superbowl party somewhere and then leaving the great state of Arizona on the 3rd of February heading back to australia via New Zealand (ending a complete trip around the globe just to watch the suns)
Were going to be blogging all the way, right from the start to the finish, with details on planning, things that go wrong, things that go right, posting videos, reviews of each game, city, stadium, photos etc, we all hope that it gives the international suns fans (of which there are many) an insight on what its like for die hard suns fans to finally get to see them in person!
Keep an eye out for part 2 of the Desitnation Phoenix Blog. All we have done now is booked flights and car hire, hopefully by part 2 we will have started finding accommodation, game tickets, and our itinery for travel and what to do on days off in all the cities.
If you have any advice, comments, are we mad to try and drive that road trip (6 cities in 8 days?) or anything, we love to hear any input anyone might have.....
Preparing to go around the world in search
of the Valley of the Sun.
A sextet of international basketball fans
with intent to bask in the collective glory that is the Phoenix Suns, and
follow them like an ice cream truck follows a fat fighter’s convention.
Have to admit I thought this day would
come, but not so soon, or with random internet buddies who go by the names SDU,
Never Fear 33 is Here, KPCB34, rodrizzle and nevetsov. At least there’s no
‘funboy12’, ‘Kobe#1’
or ‘han_solo_is_my_dad’ type nutjobs in for the ride (Lakers, Mavericks and
Spurs fans need not apply). We might even meet up with a German on the way, Moe
– JustMoe - just for schneetz and geegles.
Apologies in advance to all those who have
to read the spiel that will undoubtedly spew out every orifice of the lone Heat
supporter on the trip, rodrizzle. And all things considered, 83% ain’t bad!
Many an arm and a leg are tied up in
Destination Phoenix, some would say an excessive amount. I wouldn’t, and as the
old proverb goes, ‘the poor man’s budget is full of schemes’. This isn’t a
scheme per se, moreso a dream that is finally being realised, and something
that can’t have a price tag put on it. None of us are millionaires, and to
spend so much money and time away from family, friends and the comforts of
home, I think, shows how much the team means to us.
Our Motley Crue will be assembled on
January 12 th 2009 in Sydney, Australia,
ready to board a plane and partake in a beverage or four to take the edge off
the early start to the morning.
As sunsdownunder mentioned in the previous
blog entry, there are a couple of stopovers on the way, in Germany and the UK, so any people wanting to meet
up for a chat can get hold of us through this website.
Rodrizzle will meet us in Toronto, as we follow the Suns on their
season long six game road trip starting against the Raptors.
We’ll be covering the many miles in a
people mover, equipped with slide door, cup holders, and perhaps some poker and
sing-a-longs, as well as the countless recollections of Suns moments both past
and present. Leg space will be at a premium, as will support for myself as the
only non-Australian on the trip!
Thankfully, the great people at Planet
Orange and suns.com answered when we came calling asking for any suggestions
and/or assistance, even having the courage to splat sunsdownunder’s mug onto
their frontpage. Hopefully you, the readers, are not turned away from the pasty
spectre greeting you (I know, a pale Australian, I’m as perplexed as you are).
Bookmark the page, tell your friends, your
gardener and your hairdresser, and come have a look-in from our viewpoint as
international Suns fans, and most of all enjoy the ride ‘cos we sure will!
Since our last update via TASTIC, not all that much has happened in terms of confirmed activities. The last two members of the group, KPCB34 & nevetsov have now fully paid up on their flights. Further concreting our itinerary, leaving only accommodation, car hire and most importantly (as far as 5 Suns fans are concerned) game tickets to be purchased.
Once the above has been completed the wait will seem like forever and an eternity, as well as excruciating, with nothing left to do other than such. Having said that, for me, the wait will seem miniscule in comparison to what I have personally endured as a Grant Hill fan.
With that in mind I thought it’d be time to give you an insight into The Man, The Myth, The Mav-e-rick (Mighty Boosh fans will relate) that is Never Fear 33 Is Here (NF33IH).
Rewind to a time where everything in the world seemed to be so much larger than to what it actually was in reality (with perhaps the exception of Shaq). You see, growing up in a less than middle class family in Australia, my chances of seeing the rest, or for that matter any other part of the world and to a larger extent (for me) the NBA was extremely low.
Fast forward to the year 2000. Grant Hill was to wear #15 for the team formerly known as the Dream Team. A group of friends, myself included, were set to travel the 800 plus km’s to witness an exhibition match, prior to the Sydney Olympics, between Team USA and Australia. Whilst the trip went ahead and it was an unbelievable experience for everyone, I was left with a bit of an empty feeling as the ankle injuries that were to take away Grant Hill’s prime had just begun to surface.
Once again fast forwarding, this time through the six seasons of the “Ankle” and various other injuries/infections. My support never waning in the hope that Grant Hill would one day run the floor pain free as he once did. A couple of failed attempts to make the journey to the U.S. with my wife followed. Then came “THE BLESSING”, my wife (the beautiful person that she is), never one for the travel bug said to me, “If you can find someone to go with, then go for it”.
That was all I needed. Almost immediately I was on the blower (phone) to SDU (sunsdownunder) to put the feelers out. Nope, no go there (He had just enjoyed the birth of his first born, so it was completely understandable). Back to the drawing board I went. With no other Suns fan in my immediate circle of friends that could afford to go I dropped an e-mail to nevetsov.
Keep in mind that to this day the only members of this entourage that have actually met in person are sunsdownunder, KPCB34, rodrizzle and myself (KPCB34 & rodrizzle have never met, if you can follow that, you get an A ;-) ). With that being declared, nevetsov and I (having never met, in case you missed that point) began serious talks to make the trip over for last seasons’ playoffs. At the end of the day, we were lucky we pulled the pin due to the fact that our beloved Suns were bundled out in the first round and we had in actual fact planned to get over for the second round.
Well that brings us to now, the dream is now getting closer and there are only 119 days until “The Journey” begins. But who is counting……….right? Tee Hee.
Stay tuned for the next instalment and don’t forget to check out our profiles should you want to know more about us as crazy individuals.
As you guys may know, a bunch of die hard Suns fans from Austraila and one from New Zealand are making the trip in January just to see the suns play each game on their season long 6 game road trip and then a 3 game home stand in the valley of the sun.
I can't wait to be in Phoenix on April 3!!! Sorry that you can't join us this time. LOL
I know that every dollar and every single penny gonna worth it. It's really priceless!
Thank for sharing us experiences as I know I will never have chance to enter the cool locker room like you guyz, but at least I know now how it looks like from your experiences.
Finally! The day of our first game has arrived, and we wont have to wait long as it’s a 12:30 start!All of the guys woke up before 7am despite having terrible sleeps for the preceding week, its like Christmas day and noone wants to sleep in.
We all got dressed in our suns gear and packed into our van and took the 40 minute drive to Toronto city.After a brief visit to the CN tower we ventured to the Air Canada Centre and took some group photos outside and then headed in. The group was bouncing off the walls with excitement as we headed in – first up were the raptors cheerleaders who I asked for a photo and whilst they didn’t approve of our orange jerseys, they obliged. we were also surprised at the large number of suns jerseys around the arena – steve nash certainly is well loved in Toronto and actually a number of suns fans around the arena asked to take photos with our group – gave it a bit of a celebrity feel to the already increasing excitement.
NF33IH and KPCB headed to their 10th row baseline seats and TASTIC, Nevetsov, Rodrizzle, and myself headed to our nosebleeds.The warmups were fun with shaq and tucker having a dance contest, amare nailing some sweet 3’s, and it was nice to see shaq go up to every member of the opposing coaching staff and shaking their hands – very respectful.
As the national anthem was played – the camera panned past all the suns players and shaq made a goofy face with his eyes and the stadium that was once in silence was filled with laughter.It was fun to watch the starting lineups being introduced, shaq floored lopez with a chest bump which had me in stitches, and then before we knew it the game was on!
As far as NBA games go, this one was fantastic from a fans point of view. Amare and shaq had some amazing plays, barbosa and jrich had moments of dominance, nash put on the best playmaking display ive ever seen in person to finish with 18 assists, and as the game got close down the wire, tied at 102 with 4 minutes to go the Toronto crowd was as loud as any I have heard and we were the target of boos from fans around us who had grown tired of our celebrating throughout the game.The 7-0 run the suns went on from there sealed it and we finished off the 117 – 113 victory.Before the game I predicted suns 118 and raptors 113, had amare made that last free throw I would have been spot on, but im more than happy to be wrong as long as we won.
The raptors stadium was fantastic, their ingame entertainment really added to the experience and you could definitely see that the fans their get their moneys worth every night.Most of the fans around us were nice, infact we met a number of fans who asked about our journey, gave advice and wished us well
I would rate the Toronto experience like this
Game play – 10 out of 10
Stadium – 9 out of 10
Ingame entertainment – 9 out of 10
Localfans – 7 out of 10
Total rating 9-10 – the rest of the trip has big shoes to fill
We left after the game to catch the end of the cardinals game, that was fantastic and now im looking forward to being in Phoenix when the superbowl is on, that should be amazing!!We headed to niagra and crossed the border into the USA where we spent the night in amsterdam and im typing this about 3 hours from boston where we will be heading to see the suns vs celtics tonight….
If that game is half as entertaining as the raptors one, we should be in for something special!!
Literally clockwatching down to the second, every day at work, in the car, at home, on the John, waiting in line at the bank, heck even while I type this my mind has little cogs in it trying to work out how long till the home stretch. Tom Petty had it right, the waiting is most certainly the hardest part.
There’s been a couple of emails that have been forwarded out and around…well more than a couple, no joke – closer to 1000 than it is to 100! They’ve done the rounds in the past three months, getting forwarded around more than those “Fat Emo” or “FAIL” emails, and probably providing each of us more laughs than those now cliché pictures.
There has been countless varying opinions, sledging, name calling, grasps of the English language, and acceptable emails for work email accounts, but to be fair we’ve been eating them up like Homer when he went to Hell in that classic Halloween Special…season 5 I think? Needless to say cartoon quotes, Suns statistical anomalies, movie scenes and random sing-a-longs will make the time pass in the truck we’re driving around in…but that all seems oh so far away!!
Apologies to all the peeps at my work at the NZ Transport Agency, if I’ve bored you with rants about the voyage to the Valley of the Sun, it’s only because I care….about the Suns…haha. Month end won’t be the same without my moaning I’m sure…or the two pregnant lasses leaving around the same time, Chrystal and Julie (I only tease you two cos I care).
We’ve purchased a mascot, a Monkey, aptly named ‘Sunny’ by sunsdownunder, along with the odd group trinket to take along for the ride. If you see a small pack of Suns supporters carrying a purple monkey, odds are it will be us, so make sure you yell out and say g’day, we won’t bite and would love to meet some local Phoenicians. On that point, we’ll be in a sort of uniform, armed to the teeth in Suns gear and baying for opposition blood and/or rebounds. We’ll be the devilishly good looking foreign gentleman yelling louder than an old woman at a Tom Jones gig, minus throwing the underwear – though we do have a couple of Suns garters that will be used as punishment and/or when a good photo op raises itself.
The seating process has been fun…and hectic! Spreadsheets aplenty, prices from all over the economic spectrum floating around, and plans to get as close to the action as possible.
I think Never Fear will be bringing a bottle to the game to get some sweat from Mr Hill, while the rest of us will be screaming our butts off and trying to get as much out of every game as we can.
A highlight for all of us all will be against the Knicks in Madison Square Garden, arguably the most famous sports venue in the world. We’re all hoping it turns out better than last year’s visit to the Garden, and with Coach D’Antoni in charge it’ll be an eye opener for sure! Will be weird seeing DA, Q and Marbury on the Knicks…but who knows who’ll be there in a week’s time let alone three months!
The Hawks game in particular will be special, as we have (drum roll please) COURTSIDE SEATS! I’m not sure who nevetsov kidnapped/took incriminating photos of/blackmailed to get them, but I’ll take the same approach I take to eating burgers – I don’t care how it got on my plate, I’m going to eat that bad boy if I’m hungry. In this case, my eyes will be feasting on the Suns and their smorgasbord of offense and entertaining plays.
After the big six game road trip we have the three game homestand, which will be epic and just being in the Suns stomping ground will be an experience I know I’ll never forget. A Mecca-like trip for us all, it promises to be one of the most memorable moments of our collective lives.
The pickup game between the International Suns Fans and the locals will be a doozy, and we’ll hopefully get some photos/video to see the C grade movie impressions of our Suns boys!
