Anchorage area. On a map, we’re
about the size of Europe. We’re pretty
damn big. But even here in the
Anchorage area, per capita, I think you’d
be hard pressed to find a region of the
country where rugby is more popular.”
Mohr’s sentiment about rugby talking
to the Alaskan ideals makes total sense
when uttered out loud. On the pitch
there are a number of styles being
played: chip-and-chase rugby, burly,
physical play, and slick movement.
There are players from Honolulu in
Hawaii, there’s an invitational side called
the Stars, there are Tongan and Samoan
flavours, and the organisers keep talking
about attaining a more international feel.
Indeed, so many interviewees who call
this land home are transplants; we meet
several from all over North America who
visited the state, fell in
love, moved here.
What unites all of them,
on and off the field, is
that get-on-with-it
attitude and an
unwavering positivity,
even when the going
gets visibly tough.
In steps Erica Thynes,
who is here with the
Anchortown team, to
encapsulate just this
with one anecdote.
Slipping out her
prosthetic tooth for a picture, she says:
“So a bunch of us were hanging out
watching the Northern Lights, away in
a cabin right by Skilak Lake – our team
often just hang out socially like that.
“It was winter time and pitch-black
because there’s no sun, right. I woke up
in the middle of the night and jumped
out of bed to go to the bathroom,
thinking I was at home. But I wasn’t. I fell
out of a f****** bunk bed, and there was
a small amount of space between the
bed I was in and a picnic table which
had a bottle of Jameson sitting on it.
“I smashed my mouth on the bottle.
My tooth split and went back up into
the roof of my mouth. It all opened up.”
Laughing and pointing to her mate
nearby, she concludes: “My friend
Lauren there then drank the bottle of
Jameson and took the bottle cap and
made a magnet out of it for me. She
said, ‘Here’s a little memento to the
destruction you did to your face!’”
One of the other things they are so
proud of here is the intern programme
they run, where players from all over are
encouraged to spend their summer at
the grounds and help out with the game
(for details, see our panel). After all,winters here are extreme and so in
summer, aside from this event, 15s is the
main meal on their menu, while all over
the United States others sample sevens.
One returning Kiwi, Grant Johnston
from the Otago rugby scene (who we
later discover is in his early 40s), heard
of the scheme a few years back when
he was hungover on his couch, and
when he was told the next day that he
had a lot of mandatory holiday time to
take from work, he booked up. He
keeps coming back to Alaska because
of the social nature of the rugby, the
idea that he can help their game and
also due to the region’s natural beauty.
Which is all positive. But in a land
where everything is just that much
bigger, there must be big hurdles too.
“Our finances are the biggest
challenge,” says president Delozier,
hinting at the logistical toll of being
based at least three hours away by
plane from other rugby hotspotsDotting down
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