Category Sports
The Canadian Bandwagon
Canada is a hockey-obsessed nation. That’s ice hockey not the type played on grass. The game was invented here, refined here and the best players still come from here, though the rest of the world now produced excellent players. Hockey is part of our national myth. Americans of my generation can tell you where they […]
Super Bowl LI
It is Super Bowl Sunday in the USA, the championship game of American professional football. For the first time in more than a decade I’m thinking about tuning in. The Super Bowl is the most watched, most over-hyped sporting spectacle in America. The game rarely lives up to the anticipation (unlike the Canadian Grey Cup) […]
Alfie
Ottawa is honouring Daniel Alfredsson, the retired captain of the Ottawa Senators hockey team, with a special ceremony today retiring the sweater number he wore for 17 seasons. The game is expected to be a sellout. Alfie holds a lot of team records, for goals and assists among others. He was a bona fide superstar […]
Kicking Off Grey Cup 2016
The Grey Cup game is being held this evening in Toronto, the annual championship of the Canadian Football League (CFL). I had thought about going, but decided to opt for the pleasures of watching on television instead. Being at a national championship in any sport is special, and I was very tempted to make the […]
A Cautionary Tale
When an athlete fails a drug test it isn’t newsworthy anymore. It happens so frequently to professionals and amateurs alike. No-one really pays attention. The process has become ritual, a dance we all know so well. There is shock and denial at first. Then the suggestion the results are tainted, or the athlete took something […]
Golf For The Average Person
I am not, and have never claimed to be an athlete. Couch potato is more my style, though with a book, not watching television. So it might surprise you to discover that in my teenage years I gave serious consideration to a career as a professional athlete. Mind you, it wasn’t one of those physically […]
Do You Care?
The Summer Olympic Games officially kick off today in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (though some events have already started). Does anyone care? Certainly the athletes do. For many this is the apex of their athletic careers, medal or no medal. But does the public care? Or have we judged the Olympic spectacle to be not […]
Cuban Baseball
Suppose you had to choose between the dream of a lifetime and ever seeing you family again. How would you choose? What if the choice was between riches and poverty? That’s an easy one. Except with the money you lose your family and your home. Does that change the equation? There are a group of […]
They Called Him Mr. Hockey
He was 47 years old and the best player on the ice I grew up watching Gordie Howe on television, though by that point, the early 1960s, his star was somewhat dimmed. He’d been in the NHL since 1946 – a league where the average player career is about six seasons. At that point he […]
Opening Day
On the first day of the baseball season the stadium really is a field of dreams. Everything is potential; the harshness of reality has yet to take hold. Thursday night the Ottawa Champions took the field for the first time in 2016. (Starting the season here before mid-May leaves you at risk for snow. I […]
random thoughts from lorne 
Recent Comments