National Anthem
By Ryan Fyfe,

A national anthem in general, is a patriotic musical compositionthat is recognized formally by a country’s government as theircountry’s official national song.

This idea of identy came about during the course of the 19th and20th centuries, with the rise of the national states. It was atthis time when most countries adopted a national anthem, whichoften times coexisted with other commonly sung patriotic songs.For example, Although Canada’s official national anthem is “OhCanada”, another widely recognized national song is “The HockeySong”, due to Canada’s strong history in the sport of hockey.

Typically, anthems will try to acomplish the goal of reflectingthe unity of a nation by galvanizing the history, traditions andstruggles of its people within the song. In the nineteenthcentury as anthems first rose to prominence in Europe the styleof music common then has continued to be used in almost every nationalanthem. Even where western orchestral music was a foreignnotion, like in nations of Africa and Asia, the national anthemis still usually in European style. Some countries havechallenged the dominance of dated orchestral music, likeAustralia for example. “Advance Australia Fair” has been thenational anthem of Australia since 1984, but there is muchsupport for the folk ballad “Waltzing Matilda” as a nationalsong. Some even considerate a candidate for the national anthem.This is much like the example I mentioned above with Canada and”The Hockey Song”

National anthems have in the past and will continue in thefuture to be an important part of the history of the countriesof the world.

About the author:Feel free to reprint this article as long as you keep thearticle, this caption and author biography in tact with allhyperlinks.

Ryan Fyfe is the owner and operator of NationalSpot - http://www.national-spot.com, which is the best siteon the internet for all national related information.

Fantasy Sports
By Jeff Oreilly, Thu Dec 8th

A Fantasy Sport is a game where a person builds a team comprisedof individual players of a professional sport. These team”owners” compete against others based on the individualprofessional’s real statistics. Simple versions of this convertstatistics into points earned by each team, then determine theoutcome. Other more complicated versions create a computer modelof the game by inputting the statistics of each player generatedby their professional sport. Examples of fantasy sports areFantasy Football, Fantasy Baseball, Fantasy Hockey, etc.

Fantasy Football is played by football fans who assemble a teamof real NFL players with their real statistics. These teams joina league of from 8-12 teams, then compete throughout a regularseason. Often these leagues even have playoffs at the end of theseason. A typical roster is made up of 2 quarterbacks, 3 runningbacks, 5 wide receivers, 2 tight ends, 2 placekickers, and 2defenses. Points are scored similar to real football, with extrapoints added for running or passing for many yards at a time,and points subtracted for turnovers.

Fantasy Baseball has a very similar format to Fantasy Football,with players who manage baseball teams made up of real lifebaseball players. It is the earliest form of Fantasy Sports,with origins in a form called “tabletop baseball”. This form ofFantasy Baseball was made up from customized baseball cards withstats from recent seasons. Players then made up fantasy teamsfrom these cards and played imaginary baseball games againsteach other. Tabletop baseball evolved into a form calledRotisserie Leage Baseball, where stats were taken from thecurrent season and events such as injuries were counted into thegame.

Methods of choosing players for a team include an auction,where players pay for which professionals they want, or around-robin draft until teams are filled.

Fantasy Hockey is similar to the other popular versions ofFantasy Sports. Players are chosen from real NHL players. Atypical Fantasy Hockey team is made up of 2 centers, 2 leftwings, 2 right wings, 4 defensemen, and 2 goalies. Two types ofleagues are Head-to-Head, where owners play one on one gameseach week, and Rotisserie, where all owners are trying to winthe most amount of points, with no weekly competition.

Fantasy Sportsonline has grown into a huge business, generating over $100million in revenue. Over 30 million Americans play fantasysports. Each year the number of internet leagues and websitesgrows substantially.