Flogel turned a Ravens fan after a good friend launched him to taking part in American soccer. He performed in his youth (pre highschool) and preferred the workforce bonding facet of it. In 2012, he and different NFL followers in Germany began a convention of watching the Super Bowl in an American bar. Their first was the 2012 HarBowl, and Flogel gravitated in the direction of John Harbaugh and the Ravens.
“I felt like Jim, he was the quarterback and he was so profitable in the NFL, and John went the teaching route and needed to work his approach up,” Flogel mentioned. “It felt like John was the underdog.”
Flogel joined The German Flock, an official outpost of the Ravens Roost (No. 500). That’s the group he was with when he met Hochhalter, who was newer fan. She had a good friend that was into the New Orleans Saints, and watching the recreation her as a result of it appeared like a mix of chess and navy. She learn the guidelines and taught herself about the recreation and began watching recurrently in 2019, the rise of Lamar Jackson and the Ravens’ magical 14-2 season.
“Lamar did issues no different quarterback did,” she mentioned. “It was tremendous particular. It was new. It was unpredictable.”
Hochhalter can be an avid reader/author, so the Ravens’ reference to Edgar Allen Poe sealed the deal. She was a Ravens fan.
“I’m not a fan as a result of I’m a girlfriend and my boyfriend is a fan of the workforce or one thing like that,” she mentioned. “I’m a feminine unbiased fan that discovered her workforce. I’m tremendous happy with that.”
She and Flogel had such an excellent time at the Ravens’ recreation in London final season that they determined they wanted to take it to the subsequent degree. They needed to go to America. When the schedule was launched, back-to-back video games in close by New York and Baltimore made for the good probability to double dip.
“After the London recreation, I knew I wished to go to Baltimore straight away,” Hochhalter mentioned. “It was such a fantastic expertise. It was like the entire London metropolis was purple. And you then had this stunning podcast and the entire state of affairs in that pub. So I simply knew I wanted to go ‘dwelling.'”
But that wasn’t the solely takeaway from the schedule. They, like everybody else, famous that the Ravens needed to journey for a second straight 12 months on Christmas – a Grinch-like transfer by the NFL schedule makers. Last 12 months it was San Francisco and this 12 months it is Houston.
Given that Christmas is such a giant deal in Germany (it is celebrated over three days), Flogel figured they might carry some German Holiday cheer.
“Honestly, I felt actually unhealthy about that,” he mentioned. “So I had this concept due to what the workforce gave us, particularly in London final 12 months – this sense, this emotion that was so superior. I wished to provide it again. And that is why I assumed, you recognize, what may very well be a pleasant concept for Christmas?”
Flogel reached out for assist and donations from different German followers to purchase all the snacks – together with spekulatius, christstollen, pfeffermusse, sweets, and far, rather more. He wished to ship sufficient snacks in order that everybody in the group may have a style.
“Christmas is a household vacation,” Hochhalter mentioned. “And we’re a soccer household.”
