Sporting Madness

There were a lot of memorable moments in sports last year, but most were for less-than-stellar reasons. Scandals erupted in every sport from baseball (Steroidgate) to football (Spygate), basketball (Refgate), soccer (Riotgate), and cycling (Landisgate). However, there was never any shortage of good material for sportswriters. Here's some of the year's best quotes: Baseball "It was a pretty serious situation. I pray for his buttocks and his family." - Washington Nationals GM Jim Bowden discusses the abcess removed from the posterior of pitcher Jesus Colome. "It's not lies if we knew the truth." - Toronto Blue Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi on the misinformation he spread about closer B.J. Ryan's elbow "I hope he arouses the fire that's dormant in the innermost recesses of my soul. I plan to face him with the zeal of a challenger." - Seattle outfielder Ichiro Suzuki (via a translator) on facing countryman Daisuke Matsuzaka "He looking for ch...

Apologies for the lack of updates over the last few days: a combination of my computer dying (or at least suffering serious injury) and the craziness associated with Christmas meant that I wasn't able to find the time to sit down and hammer out a post. Anyways, in step with the many pundits who have traversed the road before me(such as Ben Knight and my own father ), here's my shot at offering symbolic Christmas presents to those I write about. Hockey: -To Roberto Luongo : A trophy case for those he should collect later this year. Luongo narrowly lost out to Sidney Crosby and Martin Brodeur in the Hart and Vezina Trophy races last year, but is having a better season than either to this point. He also dominated their head-to-head battles, stopping Crosby twice on late breakaways and shutting out Brodeur's New Jersey Devils in a 5-0 rout. As the Vancouver Province 's Ed Willes pointed out in an insightful column yesterday, "Luongo, at this moment, is the best play...

Lots of news going on at the moment: here's the highlights. Hockey Flapping in the breeze The Dallas Stars apparently think Roberto Luongo's equipment is controversial. According to Grant Kerr of the Globe and Mail , Marty Turco and Mike Smith both took to the practice ice this morning wearing exaggerated cardboard flaps to question the flaps on Luongo's pads that supposedly extend wider than the maximum width permitted by the league. This surprised me a bit, as Luongo isn't one of the goalies regularly mentioned in the same paragraph as bulky equipment, unlike a certain Stanley Cup-winning netminder . It will be interesting to see if anyone at league HQ takes notice. Related: Alanah's take on the issue. Simon's attempt to save himself According to a Roy MacGregor piece in today's Globe , Chris Simon is planning to appeal his 30-game suspension. "I don't think it was fair," Simon told MacGregor. "I'm not a complainer. I've never ...

The 5-0 thrashing Roberto Luongo and the Canucks put on Martin Brodeur and the Devils on Tuesday was one of the more impressive performances I've seen this year. It becomes even more remarkable considering the context: the Devils had won 11 of their previous 14 games, while the Canucks went 3-3-2 in a tough eight-game stretch that had them hitting the road, returning home for a single game, and going back out on the road. Luongo had also missed the previous four games with sore ribs, so some rust might have been expected, especially against his main rival for the Olympic goaltending job (who had gone 11-1-1 in his last 13 starts with a 1.68 GAA). Perhaps some sour grapes were involved as well, as Brodeur controversially won the Vezina Trophy as the league's top goaltender over Luongo last year. Luongo was only 4-13 against Brodeur going into the game (although all of those games were when Luongo was playing with a terrible Florida team and Brodeur was with a very good New Jer...

Fabio Capello held his first press conference as the manager of the English national soccer team Monday, and there were some unexpected results. Capello declined to give any players assurances of a spot, which seems to be a good decision: they don't play a friendly until Feb. 6 and don't have a competitive game until World Cup qualifying starts in September, and the landscape of who's available and qualified could alter dramatically in that time. This is one of the advantages of bringing in an outsider, as he can evaluate the players and the program on their own merits without legacies and reputations clouding the picture. Capello certainly has the credentials to make an impact. He won 14 titles with his previous four clubs (Milan, Roma, Juventus, and Real Madrid), and took Milan to an unexpected 4-0 Champions League triumph over Barcelona back in 1994. He won the Spanish league title with Madrid last season, but was then sacked after a fallout with management, likely ove...

It came out today that Canucks’ centre Brendan Morrison will miss up to 12 weeks after undergoing wrist surgery. This is merely the latest injury misfortune to strike Vancouver, as they've spent plenty of time this year without three of their top defencemen (Sami Salo and Lukas Krajicek, who have returned to the lineup, and Kevin Bieksa, who's still out) and their number-one goaltender (Roberto Luongo, slated to return in tomorrow's game against the New Jersey Devils). Yet, despite the rash of injuries to top players, they've turned in quite a successful season so far: their 38 points are good enough that they're tied with the Minnesota Wild for first in the Northwest Division, and sit fifth overall in the Western Conference. A large part of their success so far has come from the stellar performances turned in by the younger players they've called up to patch the holes: Alex Edler and Luc Bourdon did a terrific job filling in on defence (see Ben Kuzma's c...

Well, the hammer dropped earlier this afternoon as former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell released his long-anticipated report . Contrary to Bob McCown's claim on Prime Time Sports a couple days ago, the report named far more than the dozen or so players he predicted. Several prominent players who there had been little prior conclusive evidence on were included in the report, including Roger Clemens, Eric Gagne, Miguel Tejada, and Andy Pettitte. On the Jays' side, important names included Troy Glaus (to no one's surprise) and Gregg Zaun (to the surprise of some). Many have argued that this report's value is minimal. However, I disagree. For one thing, it gave some solid backing to the widespread nature of steroids in the game, as the Globe 's Jeff Blair commented on The Score . "This issue clearly goes beyond hitters," Blair said. "The fact that they came out with the names of three prominent pitchers—Clemens, Pettitte, and Gagne—sort of give...

Oliver Kahn is one of the all-time great goalkeepers, and also one of my favorite players, but he's gone too far this time . Kahn was recently suspended for a game and fined 25,000 euros for "disciplinary reasons" by Bayern Munich manager Ottmar Hitzfeld . The club didn't explicitly say why Kahn received such punishment, but according to the ESPN Soccernet article linked above, it's likely related to the recent criticisms he made of Bayern's new signings in kicker magazine, one of the leading German soccer publications. "The new players need to get used to our high expectations." Kahn told the magazine. "It is not good enough to make a bright start. One or two (players) have got to work out that two or three good games are not enough. Bayern is not Marseille or Fiorentina ; we are like Real, Man United, Barca or Milan. It is hard to get a team together because we always need three interpreters. There is no pleasure in our game anymor...

The Vancouver Canucks lost a disappointing game 4-2 to the Los Angeles Kings Monday night. There were many problems with the Canucks ' play during the game, particularly on the defensive side where former King Aaron Miller looked especially vulnerable. However, more worrisome for Canucks ' fans were the troubling events prior to the game. Star goaltender Roberto Luongo stayed in the treatment room after Saturday's loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins, sparking rumours that he might be injured. He was scheduled to start Monday's game against the Kings, but pulled himself partway through the warmup , citing sore ribs. A seismic wave of fear was quickly felt throughout the Canuck community, as Luongo probably means more to this franchise than just about any other player does to any NHL team. Vancouver Province hockey reporter Gord McIntyre described the repercussions quite well in his post-game story . "It was the biggest shock since Bette Midler's understudy took...

According to a Reuters story today, Jose Mourinho has ruled himself out of contention for the England national soccer team manager's job. As I laid out in an earlier post on my Journal blog, Mourinho was far and away the best candidate for the job: he had enjoyed fantastic success with both minnows (FC Porto) and giants (Chelsea), and had also proven himself capable of both managing superstar egos and getting the most out of limited talent. He is also perhaps the only person adequately prepared to survive the storm of scrutiny that goes with the England job, which is unparalled in professional sports. In fact, Richard Starnes muses that it may have been the prospect of this scrutiny itself that led Mourinho to decline. If the self-anointed "Special One" who played the media like a fiddle during his time at Chelsea can't handle the prospect of even more invasive media coverage, who possibly can? Of the remaining candidates , Martin O'Neill and Jurgen Klinsmann s...

Scott Niedermayer's recent return should elevate the Anaheim Ducks back to their former levels of might. Even without him, they're still a solid team that has put up 32 points thus far, good enough for seventh place in a jam-packed Western Conference where they're only two points out of second. With him, they have most of the pieces that led them to last year's Stanley Cup championship. It's uncertain whether Teemu Selanne will follow Niedermayer's example and return for the remainder of the season, but the Ducks' younger forwards have done a nice job of filling the void, with Getzlaf, Perry, and Kunitz all recording over 10 goals so far. Anaheim's had its problems so far, though. One of the most prominent is the absence of scoring depth, as no one except the three previously mentioned forwards has more than four goals and the Ducks have only averaged an anemic 2.35 goals per game, 25th-best in the league. They also haven't been amazing defensively,...

After a prolonged absence, I've decided it's time to get this blog going again. I've been busy with working for the Journal and with my new blog there, but now seem to have a bit of time again, so I figured going back to this beat studying for exams. The plan for the immediate future is to post longer columns twice a week or so on my Journal sports blog and update this site in between with other columns, shorter thoughts, sports book and movie reviews, and links to interesting sites and articles that I've noticed. Hope you enjoy it. - Andrew