Category Sports

Relegation

It seems more civilized somehow, but I can’t see it going over in North America. Our sports system is different. I went to a football (soccer) game in London. I figured while I was in the UK I should take in a Premier League game, arguably the best in the world. Many of the team […]

The Dream Dies…Again

In 1993 the Montreal Canadiens won the Stanley Cup, the ultimate prize in professional hockey. No Canadian team has won it since. The Cup, donated by the Governor General of Canada more than a century ago to the best team in hockey, is a very Canadian thing. For decades only Canadian teams were eligible to […]

The Boys of Summer Return

When you are a young athlete you dream of the big time, what in baseball they refer to as The Show. For members of the Ottawa Titans, this is a season of hope. The Titans play in the Frontier League. It isn’t quite the bottom of the baseball ladder, but there are a lot of […]

Best Laid Plans

I delayed posting today because I wanted to be the first with post-series analysis as the Toronto Maple Leafs were swept by the Florida Panthers in their NHL playoff series. I was just waiting for the game to end before sharing my thoughts. Now my carefully thought out analysis is worthless as the Leafs managed […]

Was It A Wise Choice?

I remember the day as if it was yesterday. My friend Ian, who lived down the street, called. His family was going to the Expo ’67 World’s Fair. Did I want to join them? It was May 2, and the fair had opened just four days previously, so while I had a season passport I […]

Shattered Dreams

Like most sports fans, at times my head and my heart are at war with each other. Never has that been more obvious than during the World Cup this year. Canada qualified for the tournament for the first time in 36 years. We finished first in our qualifying division, ahead of the US and Mexico, […]

The Goal

It was a moment that defined a generation. Any Canadian my age, and many much younger, can tell you exactly where they were 50 years ago today, the afternoon Paul Henderson scored the goal. Americans my age know where they were when they heard about the assasination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. For a previous […]

Pool Time

The National Hockey League playoffs have begun. Sometime in the next month or so we will see the Stanley Cup Champion crowned. Last season I was excited to be able to watch televised games in my time zone for the first time in years. This year I already know I’m unlikely to show much interest […]

What Game?

They played the Super Bowl last night. Surprisingly I found myself watching. Not for the game, but for the commercials. I generally find four-down footbal boring, though I will admit it has gotten more interesting in recent years with a greater emphasis on passing. Still I don’t watch the regular season, and I pretty much […]

Let The Games Begin

I just erased today’s post. Deliberately. It was about the Olympic Games, whihc officialy open today in Beijing. I discussed the politics of the games, the human rights abuses by China (and other host countries going back to Berlin 1936), the various cheating scandals and a suggestion that perhaps it was time to jettison the […]