Hawaii Loves Its Haka

The Hawaii Rainbows have taken, to fire themselves up, to doing the Haka before games. The Haka is mostly famous for being the intimidating pregame ritual for the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team. Now the Rainbows do it, mostly because their name is the Rainbows. But the WAC is not happy about it, and is banning the team from doing it.

The Western Athletic Conference has basically banned the Haka. They haven't come out & stated that, but last weekend's assessing the Warriors as being guilty of 'unsportsman-like behavior' - before the game even started against Louisiana Tech - amounts to the same thing.The University of Hawaii Warriors didn't even do the Haka on the field: it was performed in front of their locker area, facing a group of 200 of their supporters.

Even though the "dance" was done in the Rainbows locker room, they were assessed with a 15-yard penalty before the game, which we do not understand. But the All Blacks do it better anyway.