It’s the most wonderful time of the year… …to be a sports writer. It’s a job where folks are paid to watch sports, so being an Oscar Madison type is not the most arduous job on the planet. From the free food, the hanging out with the guys more often than the wife, (or in most cases ex-wives?), the semi-cool swag, to occasionally witnessing actual history, it is, for the most part, every sports fan’s dream job. Nevertheless, even the…
The question you’ve got to ask yourself is: Do you care if a talking head smokes pot? If you do – and if there are lots like you – then Michael Irvin is in deep hemp. If you don’t – and I suspect that you are like most folks out there – it kinda explains a thing or two about why he sounds the way he does. The Hall of Fame announced that it is considering allowing Irvin admittance to…
A random sampling of folks from a number of walks of life demonstrated how much they are enjoying the World Series.Besides those who are actually in the business of covering the thing, the overwhelming consensus is, What Series? These are all east-coasters mind you, so they may be a bit biased towards getting sleep. The games are delayed by a useless pre-game and finally get underway precisely when its time to put the kids to bed. Then, because it is…
The sports world is always in search of the next “big” game. It’s a television thing. With so many sports networks now fighting for viewers eyes, they are willing to spend some serious dollars trying to get fans addicted to their brand of “must see TV.” Sports networks have created many of the games that you now watch semi-religiously. An ESPN marketing guy invented the X-Games. Wrestling became gianormous not because of the steroids, but because of clever television promotion….
At the Gay Games in Amsterdam in 1998 a major brouhaha broke out over a requirement that athletes who define themselves as ‘transgendered’, or belonging to the sex different from the one to which they were born should provide proof of what the rules called “completed gender transition.” One can only dream of what that proof may be, but I’m hoping it was a simple drug test rather than say, a panel of judges having a look see to make the…
Every week, on average, two athletes are arrested on charges they beat up their wives or girlfriends. That staggering number -provided by the associated press – has nothing to do with the colour of their skin or the sport they play. It’s a matter of shocking frequency, which generates the perception that athletes are hot-headed maniacs who are more prone than other “normal’ men to hit their wives or girlfriends. That perception is, unfortunately, wrong. Over the weekend I asked a QOD regarding leagues…
Compelling TV it wasn’t… …but thanks for tuning in. Sunday’s final round at the U.S. Open was valiantly being billed by the commentating crew as the battle between golf’s new superstars: Tiger Woods attempt to fend off the charges of Sergio Garcia and Phil Mickelson. Johnny Miller was optimistically chirping all day long on NBC’s and TSN’s air, “You never know” and “Stranger things have happened”. Well – for those who have paid any attention whatsoever, we all did know and stranger things have not happened:…
I’ll be the first to admit that what I know about coaching junior age, kiddee type hockey players wouldn’t fill up one of their cups, but this decision by the CHA to allow little kids to start whacking each other seems to be born from someone suffering from post-concussion syndrome. And I base that only on what the CHA has said in the past. The CHA’s mandate is the advancement of the game of hockey in Canada. But at first…
For the duration of the playoffs, I’ve been ranking the Leafs near or at the bottom of the TSN.ca Power Rankings and that has made the Toronto faithful real unhappy. But on the flip side – placing Toronto dead last week after week after week did inspire them in a way: They constantly were wondering about the method of my birth, my species and just what kind of a relationship I have with my Mom?… This past week however when…
There is one thing that you can always count on and that is the Vice-President of the NHL and the chief judge and executioner of league justice, Brian Burke is always consistent in his inconsistency. On Thursday night during the opener of the Western Conference Semi-final Dallas’ Grant Marshall drove the butt end of his stick into Kelly Buckburger’s eyehole, which quickly blew up like Bim the Michelin Man. Marshall got a 5 minute major and a game misconduct…