I consider myself a calm person in general, but if you want to make me see red then do one or both of the following two things:

1. Talk trash about the Miami Heat. I will come at you with the force of a thousand suns and unload upon you a list of reasons why the Heat is one of the best sports teams to have ever existed and why Dwyane Wade’s face should be carved on Mount Rushmore next to the four great American Presidents – preferably in that awkward gap between Lincoln and Roosevelt.

2. Ask me why I support the Heat even though I’ve never been to Miami. If you’re really of the mindset that proximity to a club is a good measure of how intense your loyalty is, then either you’re still stuck in the 1920s or you don’t understand sports at all.

I’ll concede that my obsession for the Miami Heat was very much accidental. Everyone at school was talking about LeBron versus Carmelo, and I just sat there and decided that I was going to be indie and pledge my allegiance to Dwyane Wade. This was right before Shaq made his way from LA to South Beach and became the Robin to Wade’s Batman. I watched my first Heat game in 2005 and it was as close to love at first sight as you can get. Wade quickly became my sporting hero and basketball became my passion. I tuned in to as many Miami games as I could manage, which, given the 12-hour time difference, was quite a feat. I single-handedly revived the vintage sportswear game by wearing a Wade jersey on every free-dress day from year seven to year nine. At one point I actually asked my parents if I could change my name to Dwyane, which, as many readers of the Asian persuasion out there will know, did not end in my favour. I may have never been to a game live or even the state of Florida, but I could name you all 15 players on the roster, what college they went to and what their favourite breakfast cereal is. It’s that real.

Which brings me back to what really grinds my gears: no one’s sport loyalty should be doubted. I get that sports teams can have great inspiring impacts on their local communities, something that you can only really experience as a member of these communities, but why should my or anybody’s love for a team be any less legitimate simply because we’re from a different place? All sports have international exposure now, to the extent that there may honestly be more Heat fans in Shanghai than there are in London. Our fandom may not have been passed on from the elder generations and we may not have cute heart-warming stories about watching the games live, but we’re still connected to our teams in ways that are just as meaningful as local pride.

Take me for example. I moved a lot as a kid – I spent my childhood in four cities, went to five different kindergartens, two high schools and had a lot of friendships that only lasted about a year or two. There weren’t many continuities in my life, except for my love for Miami Heat – no matter where I was, that never changed and it honestly became part of who I am.

I may not bleed Miami or London, but I do bleed Heat basketball

We are just a week away from the seminal sporting event of the term: Town versus Gown. On Wednesday of Third Week, the Oxford University Amateur Boxing Club (OUABC) takes on the best of Oxford town in the debating chamber of the Oxford Union.

For the OUABC boxers, the event is crucial, providing valuable insight into the shape of the squad as the run-up to the club’s encounter with Cambridge intensifies. So far, Matt McFahn (Captain,) Tom Eliasz, Tom Scott, Theo Cox, Daniel Kibbey and Noah Viner have all confirmed bouts for next week.
Once Town V Gown is out of the way, OUABC will turn its attention to greater challenges: BUCS and Varsity. The BUCS campaign begins on 6th February with the first of the club’s league bouts, which are an equally important opportunity for the University’s boxers.

Tim Notke, an American high school basketball coach, once said that “hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” Luckily for OUABC, with external competition round the corner, it seems talent and hard work is present in equal measure. With four gym sessions and four morning workouts a week, the Oxford boxers are arguably one of the University’s most dedicated outfits. The gruelling January training camp in Tenerife is testament to that. Such is the confidence in the OUABC ranks that men’s captain Matt McFahn has set out the aim to “not only win Varsity, but do so clearly”.

Preparations for this term’s season-defining bouts stretched back well before Christmas. Whilst BUCS and Varsity are undoubtedly the highlights of Hilary term for the club, Michaelmas was not without competitive action. In October, the OUABC President Claudia Havranek and women’s captain Mariya Lazarova attended the England Novice Boxing Championships, with both women performing well before suffering closely-fought quarter-final defeats to seasoned Army opposition. Even more impressively, McFahn reaped the rewards of his early season fitness work, coming out on top in the Home Counties Under 20 category and securing himself a national bronze, just falling short against the competition’s eventual champion.

2015 was a year in which enormous strides were made in women’s boxing at Oxford. The current OUABC women’s squad is the largest ever and there will be high hopes for accolades on both sides of the club this year. Hitting punch bags with Herculean might while being as light as a butterfly on one’s toes is not just the prerogative of OUABC’s muscly male stars. The women of Iffley’s boxing gym are equally as adept at fighting in the quadrilateral ring. In fact OUABC has a team of six highly trained female boxers who take to the ring in dark blue in many competitions including, in 2015, being the sole female-only team in BUCS.

Of course, despite a packed early-term schedule, it is Varsity that looms large on the Hilary fixture list. The club secretary, James Kerr, summed up the emotions of the whole squad when he set out his desperation to “retake the Truelove Bowl from Cambridge in front of a home crowd”.
With a strong number of spectators set to descend upon the Town Hall, the event is sure to be as fiercely supported as it is contested. If OUABC can cap off an already promising season with BUCS, Town V Gown and Varsity success, it will be an achievement that is both impressive and wholly deserved

There is a certain kind of fearlessness and madness required to play ice hockey, judging by most people’s reaction to telling them your sport of preference. Most people wouldn’t spend their Saturday afternoons beating other people up while traveling back and forth at high speeds over a slippery surface at temperatures well below freezing. But the sport has nevertheless gained a cult following within Oxford, and it’s important to consider why.

The most obvious answer is, of course, success, which both the men’s and women’s hockey teams have enjoyed plenty of throughout the course of the season. Since the start of the season in October 2015, the men’s blues have enjoyed a nearly impeccable record of 3-1, recovering from their early-season loss to dominate on the ice. Their most recent match was an impressive victory of 12-3 against the University of London Dragons. With two rematches against Cambridge coming up in February and March, one the annual Varsity showdown, the ice hockey team looks strong. The women’s team has broken even with a score of 2-2, showing incredible improvements in their attacking drives in both of their most recent victories. At the end of November, the women’s blues played back to back matches against Imperial and Cardiff and won both, one by a particularly impressive margin of 12 points.

It’s clear that competing at such a high level and on such a frequent basis (although seasons average about 10 matches at the top competitive ranks, scheduling ice time within the limited number of available rinks means teams can play games on both the Saturday and Sunday of any given week) takes enormous amounts of training. But success in hockey demands a wide range of skills; players are not only expected to keep up with general fitness during the off season, but also to refine ice-specific techniques that are not imitated in any other sport. Skating requires incredible balance and speed, and hour-long games with frequent line changes mean players must have incredible endurance in order to maintain peak performance. Players also make incredible sacrifices to be able to compete for their team on a regular basis; training times are often irregular, with both men and women’s teams practicing at midnight and 11pm respectively on a weekly basis.

Given the dedication, time, and skills required, why do so many players choose ice hockey? Although Oxford is fortunate to enjoy such impressive records in the present day, the teams at the University date back, albeit non-continuously, to 1885, and officially since 1921. Today there are three main ice hockey teams at the University: the Men’s Blues; the Women’s Blues, and a second Men’s team, the Vikings. The Men’s Blues, compete at a higher level within the league than the Vikings and are comprised of 18 players, divided by position. The women’s team is of a similar size, hosting 19 players on the roster. The women’s team have been lucky enough to find two players skilled at the goalie position, which remains both difficult and somewhat unpopular as it involves having 55 mph slapshots fly at your face. The Vikings roster has 17 active players, although numbers can fluctuate between years depending on how many first time hockey players decide to join the team.

It’s a fast-paced, often violent, always-competitive sport creating an atmosphere that fosters popularity with its players and its fans. Although skaters are assigned positions on the ice, the current trend for two-way hockey (a style of play created by the Boston Bruins’ Bobby Orr in the 1970s) means that both defencemen and forwards contribute to the offensive side of play, which not only builds a strong dynamic within the team, but also allows more players to score, bringing more energy to their technique.
Some players choose ice hockey for the opportunities that it provides them. OUIHC opens its doors to all students, regardless of previous experience. Others are experienced players, with several hailing from outside the UK, and choose it because it is culturally familiar. Some Blues even turned their experience with the team into a lifelong passion for the sport; former NHL President Clarence Campbell played for the club during his time at Oxford.
Ultimately, it provides students not only with a venue and ice time, but with a team, an alumni network, and dedicated fans who share their passion for the sport. A passion rooted in the strength of the game.

It may be the historical or cultural significance, or it may be the optimal schedule for the nocturnals among us, or it may be because someone took a few too many leaflets at the Freshers’ Fair and ultimately realized that they had to pick something; but the essence of ice hockey’s popularity will always be the excitement that it gives to both players and fans, and it is that more than anything else that is responsible for its success