The Shoey is the best celebration in sports

The Shoey is the best celebration in sports

Whether it be pouring Gatorade on a coach following a win or a face full of shaving cream after a walk-off there are some great celebrations in sports, but the best of them all is the shoey. Many people love cracking a cold one after winning a game, but there is something about the shoey that would make Stone Cold Steve Austin proud.

The shoey is an Australian drinking tradition that supposedly brings good luck to the drinker. It can however also be considered a punishment because it’s probably not a great thing to be drinking beer from a shoe.

Recently the shoey has reached new heights of fame in the U.S. with UFC heavyweight fighter Tai Tuivasa doing a shoey following each of his last five wins. Tuivasa can be seen climbing to the top of the octagon before a beer and shoe are tossed to him. Once he has the beer and shoe he fills the shoe up and chugs it most recently in front of nearly 18,000 fans.

Tuivasa this last weekend introduced the world to his new “Shoeyvasa” which is similar to a beer bong except in the shape of a shoe. At the UFC 271 press conference, the Australian fighter gave the three other fighters participating and UFC president Dana White one of his new inventions. After the fights on Saturday Tuivasa managed to get White to try out the Shoeyvasa.

In some way, I think that using a fake shoe is cheating because if one is going to drink a beer out of a shoe they might as well use a real shoe to get the full experience of it. From personal experience, it tasted no different using a real shoe than drinking a beer out of a bottle. It was just much more entertaining to drink from a shoe and I see why people do it.

There has been another UFC fighter that has been seen doing a shoey after a win. That fighter is featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski. Volkanovski chugged a beer out of his shoe after beating Brian Ortega at UFC 266 and then was seen at the Las Vegas Raiders game the next day doing a shoey out of someone else’s shoe.

This sort of celebration has made appearances in many different sports in the last few years but is almost always done by an Australian or New Zealander. Formula 1 driver Daniel Ricciardo first brought the shoey to notability when he did one following a race in Germany in 2016. Unlike Tuivasa who competes without shoes on and then gets a relatively fresh shoe to drink from, Ricciardo drank champagne out of the shoe that he had been wearing the entire race. I cannot imagine that extra sweat from the shoe tasted great. This came while Ricciardo was on the podium after he finished second place in the German Grand Prix.

As a former member of Red Bull, then Renault, and now McLaren Ricciardo has done the shoey nearly every time he has finished on the podium since 2016. The only exception was following the 2020 Eifel Grand Prix at the Nürburgring in Germany where the Aussie driver did not realize he completely forgot about the shoey until a post-race interview. The most recent shoey for Ricciardo came after he won the 2021 Italian Grand Prix. 

An athlete from New Zealand that did a shoey following a win this year was freestyle skier Nico Porteous. Porteous won the FIS men’s ski halfpipe World Cup competition at Mammoth Mountain in California in January on his very last run. When the medals were being handed out the 20-year-old Kiwi poured a beer into his ski boot and proceeded to chug it while the skiers beside him couldn’t help but laugh. Porteous could very well be the next athlete to do a shoey when he competes in the men’s ski halfpipe competition at the 2022 Winter Olympics later this week. He is the favorite for gold and we could see a shoey from the podium if he wins New Zealand’s second-ever gold in the Winter Olympics.

The shoey is a great celebration because it is unique and slightly gross. It also crosses sports and occurs from venues all around the world. Also it is not only for sports as Post Malone did a shoey during a concert in Australia.

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