Avid expat rustles up coachload for Chicago

Kim de Boer remains committed to the All Blacks.

She couldn't find Steinlager but managed to source some Moa, has plenty of Mudhouse wine squirrelled away and plans to make more sausage rolls than you can shake a bottle of ketchup at.

It's not every day, after all, that Kim de Boer will find the All Blacks in her home town.

De Boer, formerly of Hamilton, now La Grange, Chicago, is taking her role as an expat rugby fan seriously. Although she has lived in the States since 1985, she remains committed to the All Blacks and has organised a coachload of 56 people for the game at Soldier Field tomorrow.

"It's going to be full," she said, "mainly with people from the US."

Included on the bus will be husband Paul and their three sons, Mitchell, 17, Sam, 14, and Bradley, 13. They'll be decked out in the appropriate All Blacks kit.

She may now be a big fan of Chicago's Cubs, but de Boer is still an enthusiastic preacher of the gospel of rugby.

"Several of my oldest friends have started playing rugby," she says. "It's an emerging sport here.

"There's an English guy here running a youth programme called the Barbarians. They always talk to me because they know I'm so enthusiastic."

De Boer moved to the US with her mother, stepfather and sister after finishing high school in 1985. She intended to treat it like a gap year, but that didn't quite pan out.

The rest of her family, including father Geoff, live back in New Zealand and while she visits regularly, this weekend she's excited about getting a chance to play host to any expat who might want to ask her the best places to eat and drink in the sprawling megatropolis that is Chicago.

That has been the success of this concept and why the magnificent Soldier Field will be full to bursting. As a sporting contest it's easy to write it off - nobody expects the US to get close including, it seems, the All Blacks' selectors who have named a second-string starting XV - but as an "event" it is hard to dismiss.

New Zealanders are descending on Chicago from all over the States and beyond. It is a chance to see their favourite team in a destination they would never have considered possible.

If a few thousand Americans get converted to rugby along the way, great. If not, no worries. Expats like Kim de Boer and her coach-load of mates, and the hundreds of New Zealanders who have flown in for the week, will still have a ball.