Just 36 hours from now...

...the first of the pre-season NAB Challenge Australian Rules Football season games will begin! Two-time defending champion Hawthorn will play traditional fan favorite Collingwood on the island of Tasmania, in Launceston. 

Many of the teams in the AFL have a relationship with a second location - develop a second fan base, if you will - and for the Hawthorn Hawks, that's Tasmania. They play four regular season games there each year! Imagine asking the Seattle Seahawks to play three or four games in Spokane, or Portland, or Boise! But the AFL uses this the way the NFL forces uses games in London: to promote and grow the sport!

Like any pre-season game, this one will be a mix of veterans and youngsters who have never played in the big leagues before this...and may never again after this, depending on how they do! But it's a great introduction to the sport, and we'll post whatever we can from the NAB Challenge here on Following Football for you novices to pick up the game and the lingo! If you want to follow it on line, AFL.com.au will probably carry the radio broadcast live - since it's on the other side of the world, they're eighteen hours ahead of those of us in the USA Mountain zone, so their 7 pm becomes our 1 a.m. broadcast. (Yeah, unless you're an addict like me, that's probably not going to happen...) But that's what computers are for!