The Dilemma: Three football players—an American, a Canadian, and an Aussie—walk into a bar. Who has the worst limp?

People You Can Impress: manly sports enthusiasts in former British colonies

The Quick Trick: If the players don’t have padding, it’s Australian for football.

The Explanation:
Rather than rip off American football, the Canadian Football League actually started as modified English rugby, then borrowed heavily from its American counterpart until the two were almost identical. The first difference you’ll notice about Canadian football is the field. It’s huge—110 yards long (with two 50 yard lines and a center line), 65 yards wide, with end zones 20 yards deep.

Canadian play is similar to American football, with interesting differences. There are 12 players to a side. The game moves fast, as the play clock is only 20 seconds and you have to go ten yards in only three downs. The backfield can have unlimited motion before the snap, so you can have receivers and “slot backs” moving at once, even toward the line of scrimmage (so they can be at a full run when the ball is snapped). There’s an added way to score, too. On a kickoff, punt, or—get this—missed field goal, the receiving team must advance the ball out of the end zone or the kicking team gets a point (called a single, or rouge).

Today the CFL is composed of nine teams, including the Montréal Alouettes (“The Als”) and the Edmonton Eskimos, with the perennial powerhouse (or powerhoos if you’re Canadian) being the Toronto Argonauts. They’ve won the coveted Grey Cup (their Super Bowl) 14 times.

Australian Rules Football (“Aussie Rules” or, more charmingly, “Footy”) is what happens when a penal colony decides to play rugby. The huge field is a modified cricket oval, but there’s no standard size. You’ve got a center square, two 50-meter arcs, two 10-meter goal squares, and four posts at each end (two very tall goal posts flanked by shorter “behind posts”). Each side gets 18 players, with cool positions like ruckman, rover, ruck rover, half-forward, and back pocket.

Play starts with a “centre bounce” (or “ball up”) and the ruckmen jump for it. The ball is bigger and rounder than an American football. You can kick or punch the ball but not throw it. You can also run as far as you want with it, but you have to bounce it every 15 meters. If you’re tackled, you must kick or punch the ball away to a teammate. If you catch a kicked ball cleanly, that’s called a mark, and you get a free kick toward the other team’s goal. Kick the ball between the two center posts for a goal (six points), or between one of the center poles and a behind pole for a “behind” (one point). As for scoring, you can tell who just scored what by watching umpires in white lab coats and funny hats make appropriate pointy motions.

The sport is one of constant motion and an absolute blast to watch. The tackling is truly brutal, and acrobatic “high marks” or “species” are spectacular. Plus, they don’t wear pads. Heck, their “guernseys” don’t even have sleeves.