DanMargarita.com

Of course, another New England tradition will continue as high school football teams square off for their annual Thanksgiving Day football game. This year it will be a little bit different as we are engaged in armed conflict half a world away. Indeed some of those U.S. Special Forces engaged in deadly combat may very well have been engaged in sporting combat last year in their own high school football games.

It set me to wondering what sport Afghans might usually be playing at this, or for that matter, any time of the year. Apparently the popular local sport is called bushkazi. Honestly, that's the name of the sport. If this were a year ago I wouldn't be claiming that the local sport was called clintonkazi.

Bushkazi is a game similar to polo except that the object of the game is for the horsemen to throw a headless goat carcass over a goal. Naturally, you'd want a headless goat carcass because the live one's have a tendency to resist being a participant in the game.

What I'm wondering is, in this twenty four hour cable TV world, why hasn't ESPN picked up on this? They could hire that soccer announcer who could change his scoring call to, "gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooat."

It's hard to imagine what a bushkazi match might be like because I can only picture it in western sports terms. I have an unlikely image of cheerleaders on the sidelines, covered from head to toe in their burka's yelling, "go Ahkmed, he's our man, if he can't do it, no one can."

Of course since alcohol is forbidden in that region, you probably wouldn't see too many "tastes great-less filling" arguments among the fans.

I don't know how organized it is. Perhaps they have leagues and teams. Considering the treatment of women in that part of the world, I imagine such team names as the "Kabul Misogynists," and the "Kandahar Oppressors." Of course with Kabul being the major media center there, they probably have the most money and get all the best free agents.

Like American professional sports they probably have endless rounds of playoffs leading up to the championship match, their version of the Super Bowl. I hope that match never gets too commercial and the Afghan public doesn't have to sit through some lame half time show with Michael Jackson or 'N Sync.

Perhaps some year, instead of being stuck with another boring Dallas Cowboys-Detroit Lions football game, we'll be treated to an exiting bushkazi match on TV.

I've got money on the Misogynists.