Sporting Madness

Congratulations are in order to Gordie Howe, who turns 80 today. There are some great retrospectives on his career from NHL.com 's John McGourty and Shaun P. Roarke , as well as the Canadian Press ( via The Hockey News ). Howe was my favorite player growing up, even though I never had the privilege of watching him play. I fell in love with the Howe legend from reading about him, particularly the part about his move to the WHA to play with his sons Mark and Marty after the Red Wings decided he was too old. Mostly because of him, I was a diehard Hartford Whalers fan growing up (and still have a Whalers jersey). As Kevin Allen of USA Today points out, one of the best things about Howe was he could do anything. "Bobby Orr was the most spectacular hockey player I ever witnessed," he writes. "Wayne Gretzky is the sport's most creative offensive star and Mario Lemieux is probably the most dangerous scorer ever to lace up skates. But as extraordinary as these three...

An interesting combination of circumstances conspired to form the genesis of this post. Yesterday, I was riding back from a field trip to the Globe and Mail 's Toronto office with several Journal colleagues, sitting in a crowded van, listening to 80's music and reading Sports Illustrated 's Fifty Years of Great Writing . The Simple Minds song Don't You (Forget About Me) of Breakfast Club fame came on, and it struck me that in many ways, that's what great sportswriting is really all about: capturing the games, events and legends and firmly entrenching them in the readers' minds. The ability to do that turns a talented backfield from merely Stuhldreher, Crowley, Miller and Layden , who would have been remembered as merely one of the many talented units in 1920s college football and likely forgotten about soon afterwards, into the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse , who have remained outlined against a blue-gray October sky for almost 84 years and seem probable to...

The Canadian Soccer Association announced today that Peter Montopoli will serve as their new general secretary, a new position created to replace the chief executive officer's job and bring the title in line with other world nations. Montopoli's claim to fame is acting as the event director at last year's U-20 World Cup. The CSA press release plays up his impact there, stating, "As National Event Director for the 52-match tournament, he helped Canada 2007 draw close to 1.2-million spectators, engage 469.5-million cumulative television viewers, and spark $259-million in economic impact." It's good to see the CSA finally filling some of the vacancies , but there's still several curious things about this announcement. First, it came out less than a week after the association appointed Stephen Hart as their new technical director, which seems to indicate that they've had the successful candidates in mind for both slots for the last while. If that is the c...

I know I've written extensively before about the problems with the 2008 Olympics, but Jack Todd's column in today's Montreal Gazette begs to be addressed. I actually agree with a fair bit of what Todd wrote, which is somewhat rare: he's a skilled writer and he defends his arguments well, but his views on sports are usually a good distance from my own. We draw similar conclusions for drastically different reasons though, and in the end, he goes much farther than I would. Todd starts off well, talking about how it's terribly disappointing that the IOC and the international community that so graciously awarded China these games as a "force for good" are now washing their hands of the whole bloody mess. "For shame. Under cover of darkness, China is once again inflicting untold horrors on Tibet while the rest of the world looks on, wringing its hands and doing little or nothing else to stop the killing," he writes. "Obviously, the IOC made ...

Update: Jeff Blair of the Globe and Mail sees things much the same way I do : that's some validation! That baseball injuries list I posted yesterday seems to have been ominous: news came out late yesterday that Blue Jays' third baseman Scott Rolen fractured his finger in a fielding drill. Perhaps it was bad karma, coming on the same day as the Jays finally decided to end the controversy in left field by cutting Reed Johnson. As the Globe 's Jeff Blair pointed out , this injury is a severe problem for the Jays and their strategy for the year. "And now it's all out of whack: the lineup, the defence (Rolen's range at third base was supposed to offset the net defensive loss of having David Eckstein start at shortstop over John McDonald) and the karma, for what that's worth," he wrote. "Bad day, indeed — and there's still six more to go before it begins counting." Dustin Parkes from the always-excellent Drunk Jays Fans has more on the wo...

Ever had an injury so unbelievable or embarrassing that you're afraid to tell people what happened? You're in good company. Check out this list of injuries picked up by major leaguers (link thanks to All Your Base Are Belong to Rios ). Here's my favorites: Item: Outfielder Vince Coleman missed the entire 1985 World Series after being rolled up in the tarp machine at Busch Stadium Comment: Seriously? You know you're in trouble defensively when your outfielders can't outrun the tarp machine. No wonder the Cards lost that series... Item: Hall of Fame pitcher Phil Niekro was injured while shaking hands. Comment: This provides a new excuse for ballplayers uncomfortable around the public. Item: John Smoltz burned his chest while ironing the shirt he was wearing. Comment: Proving you don't need to be too smart to be a good pitcher. Item: Carlos Zambrano was diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome after spending as many as five hours daily on the Internet. Comment: T...

Funnily enough, the Canucks have kept up their string of incomprehensible play lately. Things were looking bleak around the trade deadline while the team was hovering on the playoff bubble, and some demands for the head of general manager Dave Nonis were even heard after he failed to do anything more significant than swapping Matts. The team promptly continued their slump, scoring only five times in three games and recording only 10 shots against woeful Chicago, which captain Markus Naslund accurately described as "embarrassing." Since then, they've put up some better results, are now inside the playoff picture looking out instead of the converse, and could take the Northwest Division lead tonight with a win over Minnesota. It's hard to tell if this string of results flows from better plays or merely better bounces, though. Iain MacIntyre of the Vancouver Sun nailed it after the Canucks scraped out a win against Dallas last Saturday. "Seventy-two games into th...

For one of the funniest interview/response sessions I've seen in a while, check out this video of Andy Roddick being asked about his love life by a very vocal female reporter. The good stuff starts about 50 seconds in. Thanks to the Globe and Mail 's Tom Tebbutt for the link . (Also in Globe on Sports humour, check out James Christie's post about the "squattie potties", or public toilets in Beijing).

Interestingly enough, it seems Stephen Hart has been hired as the Canadian Soccer Association's new technical director, according to Sportsnet's Gerry Dobson. Surprisingly though, Dobson talks about this as if the story's already come out, but I couldn't find it reported anywhere else. Even the CSA's website has nothing on this, and still lists Technical Director as "TBD" in their staff directory. I don't dispute Dobson on this: he's one of the most connected people in Canadian soccer, and it sounds like he's already talked with Hart. If he had planned to break the news, I think he might have actually explained more about the hiring, though: at the moment, his post seems like a commentary targeted at those who already know the story. Did the CSA decide to hold off on the announcement to avoid diverting attention from tonight's crucial Canada-U.S. U-23 match for an Olympic berth, and forget to send Dobson the memo? One can only speculate...

Just a week after I wrote this piece about heart failure and athletes dying young, another student-athlete has died. Neate has more on the tragic death of 19-year-old Ereck Plancher, a receiver at the University of Central Florida. As the Orlando Sentinel's Andrea Adelson writes , this is anything but an isolated incident. "The same story seems to play out every year: a seemingly healthy college football player dies suddenly as the result of a workout, and there are no immediate answers why," she wrote. "The last year there were no noncontact college football deaths was 1999. Since 1966, there have there have only been seven years when there were no noncontact college football deaths." The Sentinel also provides a list of athletes who have died recently after workouts. Those are some scary numbers, up there with the ones I found from the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation's national registry of young athlete deaths . Their researchers estimate there ...

Against the odds, the Canadian men's U-23 soccer team pulled off an amazing 5-0 win over group-leading Guatemala Sunday to keep their dreams of qualifying for this summer's Beijing Olympics alive. Although they were last in the group heading into the match, with only one point from two games, the win proved to be just enough to advance to the next stage. It came at the expense of perennial power Mexico, though, who scored five goals of their own in a win over Haiti that drew them level with the Canadians on points: the one goal the Mexicans gave up proved their undoing though, as Canada squeaked through with a +4 goal differential to Mexico's +3. It's impressive that the Canadians were able to produce so much offense. Usually, soccer teams from this country score a goal or two and then tenaciously defend, perhaps cautioned off from going for the jugular by fear of dispelling the "polite Canadians" stereotype. In international competitions like this tournamen...

Some interesting news coming out of Langley these days. Trinity Western University announced that they've settled with former men's basketball coach Stan Peters. Peters, who was dismissed Dec. 13 after the Spartans got off to a 4-8 start, filed a wrongful dismissal lawsuit against the university last month as Gary Ahuja of the Langley Times reported. His suit claimed that his firing was only the second time a CIS men's basketball coach had ever been let go in the middle of a season. Terms of the settlement weren't released. Peters had gone on a solid run with the Spartans since joining the program in 1999: his team made the Canada West playoffs four out of the last five years, and he won a Canada West bronze medal and the Canada West Coach of the Year award in 2003. He's also an experienced coach, with 21 years of coaching at colleges and universities under his belt. To my knowledge, this year was expected to be a bit of a rebuilding one for the Spartans, so I w...

The Brock Badgers just knocked off the giant-killing Acadia Axemen to win the CIS national hoops championship. Pretty impressive when a #7 seed who didn't even make the OUA finals can pull off this kind of a win: it really shows the depth of the league. Plenty of people will probably use this win to further the case for expanding the tournament to 16 teams, which as I mentioned yesterday, I'm all in favour of, as long as it is an actual expansion rather than just a renaming of the regional finals. The game itself was a pretty good match: largely defensive overall, but some excellent play from both sides. I was particularly impressed with Owen White (MVP of the championships, who put up 12 points and 9 rebounds) down low and Mike Kemp's shooting from the perimeter (he put up 23 points, grabbed three offensive rebounds, and made six of 13 attempts from deep). White definitely looks a lot like Edgar Davids (Dutch midfielder currently playing for Ajax) with his glasses and drea...

Bigger than the Giants and Patriots. More remarkable than the Edmonton Oilers' Cinderella run to the Stanley Cup Finals. More unprecedented than the seventh-seeded Winnipeg Wesmen knocking off the undefeated McMaster Marauders. Even more unexpected than Barnsley knocking off Liverpool and Manchester United. There's nothing that's happened yet this century that can compare to the Acadia Axemen's improbable, almost unbelievable 82-80 double overtime upset of the Carleton Ravens tonight in the CIS men's basketball championships. They'll go on to face Brock tomorrow in a final no one would have predicted. As Streaming Sports Network Canada's Mark Masters noted on their webcast, "This is a game that will go down in the history books as one of the best all-time games in national history." I'd go even beyond that. Carleton has been one of the most dominant programs in any sport ever, winning the last five national championships, going undefeated in OU...

The NHL announced today that Anaheim Ducks defenceman Chris Pronger would be suspended for eight games for his stomp on Ryan Kesler of the Vancouver Canucks. Outstanding CKNW and Canucks TV colour man Tom Larscheid nailed it towards the end of the clip, calling it "A deliberate play by Pronger just to stomp on Kesler with his skate." In my mind at least, this was out-and-out dirty, right up there with the infamous Chris Simon on Jarkko Ruutu play. Of course, Simon's a fringe player, so the full book (a 30-game suspension) got thrown at him: Pronger wouldn't even have been suspended without the NHL suspiciously finding a "new angle" after they'd already ruled it was inconclusive. According to Pronger, the league told him Thursday night there would be no suspension, but then re-reviewed the tape on Friday and came up with the new punishment. I don't see how they deemed it inconclusive in the first place: even the original camera angle was far bette...

Much ink has been spilled this week on the death of J.I. Albrecht by such worthies as Neate , Stephen Brunt , and Earl McRae . One of the prices of young age is missing the chance to appreciate and understand legends firsthand, instead relying on secondary sources. Still, said secondary sources did a marvelous job of filling a young sportswriter in on what exactly will be missed. If you can read those pieces and not be moved, you're a tougher man than I. McRae's piece in particular shows the dichotomy at the heart of sports fandom: we like our athletes and heroes to go out at the top, and have a hard time combining the bedridden old man with the legendary general manager. "This is the figure of physical power, of dominating presence, I remember," he writes. "I am not prepared for the J.I. Albrecht before my eyes. His sunken body covered in a white sheet from his neck to his toes. His unshaven face thin and pale. His good eye red and hurting. His left arm and hand...

Note: this is another piece on the Sonics that was originally earmarked for my Journal blog, but got pulled from there due to an upcoming column on the same issue. Thought I'd put it up here: this situation deserves all the coverage I can give it, in my mind. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer finds himself in an unusual position this week. Instead of the usual vilification and curses that accompany mentions of his company, he’s now seen as a potential saviour—at least in Seattle. As the Associated Press reported Thursday, Ballmer and three other local businessmen—Costco CEO Jim Sinegal, Seattle developer Matt Griffin and wireless magnate John Stanton—have agreed to put up $150 million towards a $300-million renovation of Seattle’s Key Arena, the home of the NBA’s SuperSonics. The rest of the cost would be publicly funded. The cash would go towards adding new restaurants, stores and club space. The money’s desperately needed: owner Clay Bennett has repeatedly threatened to relocate th...

I'm still in a bit of shock after watching Manchester United knocked out of the FA Cup by Portsmouth yesterday. United dominated the match, and looked sure to score at many points, including when a Michael Carrick effort was cleared off the line, but they could just never put the ball in the net. A perhaps overconfident halftime substitution saw Tomas Kuszczak take over in the goal for Edwin Van der Sar, but manager Sir Alex Ferguson can't really be blamed: at that point, it seemed inevitable one of United's efforts would slide home, and given the crucial fixtures upcoming in United's quest for league and European glory, it made sense to try and get Van der Sar some rest. Kuszczak had played pretty well thus far this campaign in the limited action he saw as well, so it didn't seem like an unreasonable decision at the time. Unfortunately for United, Kuszczak made a critical error, taking Milan Baros down on a breakaway (one of Portsmouth's only legitimate scorin...