Sporting Madness

Anyone who thinks Sepp Blatter and FIFA have any integrity left needs to read Andrew Jennings ' story today in the Daily Telegraph about how a Swiss court recently ruled that FIFA had made attempts to deceive detectives investigating the missing $45 million embezzled by ISL, FIFA's former marketing agency, and forced them to pay some $57,000 in court costs as a result. As Jennings writes, "In an extraordinary decision, three judges in Zug hearing a fraud trial into the collapse of Fifa’s former marketing partner, ISL, ruled earlier this month that football’s governing body 'knew more than they told investigators', that their behaviour “was not always in good faith”, and some of their claims 'were not credible.'" That's pretty significant. FIFA's defence in the whole ISL case was that they didn't find out about the missing money and the kickbacks to top officials until it was too late, even though there was compelling evidence to the cont...

Well, new posts on this site are back after a prolonged absence. Unfortunately, my work at the Langley Times , the Queen's Journal and Out of Left Field has kept me swamped lately, so I haven't been able to write anything here for quite a while. Hopefully, I'll be able to get back to an average of a post a day shortly, but we'll have to see how it goes. In the meantime, to prove I haven't just been slacking off, here's an edition of the Links of the Day focused on the other sports writing I've been doing (I've done plenty of news, business and entertainment for the Times as well, but this is a sports blog, so I went with some of the sports links): - A story on Langley pitcher Scott Richmond, who got his first start for the Toronto Blue Jays today [ Langley Times ]. - A piece I wrote on the Whitecaps' official bid for MLS (and Steve Nash signing on as a co-owner) [ Out of Left Field ]. - A look at some of the Queen's teams new recruits [ Que...

Well, I didn't get the chance to post the recap of last week's B.C. Lions - Winnipeg Blue Bombers game earlier in the week, so I figured I'd save it for now to properly set up tonight's rematch. Here's the GBU breakdown from last week's game in Winnipeg: Final score : 42-24, B.C. How I saw it : On TSN. The Good: Stefan Logan: The pint-sized (5'7'', 185 pounds) running back not only filled in for the injured Joe Smith, he did an exceptional job of it, picking up 143 yards on only 18 carries in the CFL's second-best debut performance ever by a running back (the best was Larry Key, way back in 1978). He forced the Bombers to respect the ground attack, opening up passing lanes for the Lions' air attack. Jarious Jackson: The Lions' quarterback had a fantastic game, going 19 for 24 to pick up 340 yards and 5 aerial touchdowns while only conceding one interception. He also ran twice for 18 yards. As a result, he picked up the CFL's offensi...

Hopefully I'll be able to get/keep weekly CFL picks going here. Here's the first (brief) version: more detail to come in future weeks! Tonight: Hamilton (1-2) at Calgary (2-1) (TSN, 9 p.m. ET): Pick: Calgary Rationale: Calgary's solid offence and quality defence should be enough to beat a Jesse Lumsden-less Tiger-Cats team. Tomorrow: Winnipeg (0-3) at B.C. (1-2) (TSN, 10 p.m. ET) Pick: B.C. Rationale: B.C. and Jarious Jackson finally looked like they were supposed to last week on the road, where they demolished Winnipeg: this week should be round two. Saturday: Montreal (2-1) at Saskatchewan (3-0) (TSN, 7 p.m. ET) Pick : Saskatchewan Rationale: No one's looked able to beat Saskatchewan yet, and I don't think the Alouettes will be able to break that streak. Sunday: Edmonton (2-1) at Toronto (1-2) Pick : Edmonton Rationale : The Eskimos have looked much better than expected so far, and Ricky Ray should be able to pick apart an old and slow Argo defence that has u...

Photo: The Vancouver Whitecaps take on Toronto FC at Burnaby's Swangard Stadium. [Andrew Bucholtz photo]. A bit late getting to this one due to the other work I've had to do, but I was at the Vancouver Whitecaps - Toronto FC match on Wednesday, so I figured I'd better write about it briefly here. This was of course the Whitecaps' final match of the Nutrilite Canadian Championships, and came on the heels of their stunning Canada Day victory [myself, Out of Left Field ] over TFC at BMO Field [myself, this blog]. Unfortunately, the pair of eggs they laid against Montreal meant that they needed to win by a landslide to have any hope, and there wasn't much of a chance of that happening. There was plenty of pride on the line, though, and the Whitecaps played their hearts out, earning a draw in the end [Matthew Sekeres, The Globe and Mail ]. Here's the breakdown, in classic GBU style : Final score: Whitecaps 2, TFC 2 How I saw it: In person The Good: Eduardo Sebra...

Photo: The cover of Bob Ackles' memoirs . It came as quite a shock last week to hear the news [Neate Sager, Out of Left Field ] of Bob Ackles' death at 69 [Ian Austin and Marc Weber, The Vancouver Province ]. Ackles was such an integral part of the B.C. Lions, the CFL and Canadian football as a whole that it seems weird to consider a future landscape of the game he loved so much without him in his prominent role. It's been a bad year for CFL icons: remember, we lost J.I. Albrecht [Stephen Brunt, The Globe and Mail ] back [Neate Sager, Out of Left Field ] in March [my piece], so Ackles' death takes away yet another of the characters who made this league great. Today, as an appropriate intro to the Lions-Blue Bombers game, TSN spent a half-hour of their pre-game show relating the tributes [a collection of them from TSN.ca ] to Ackles, a man who thoroughly deserved all of them. The collection of tributes they were able to put together on short notice was very impres...

Photo: Saskatchewan knocked off B.C. 26-16 Friday night. (Photo from Luongo ) First, a quick disclaimer. There was plenty that happened in the sports I'm interested in over the weekend, but unfortunately, I didn't have a lot of time to write about it. Thus, I started several posts but didn't get them finished: they should go up later tonight or early tomorrow. Here's the first one. I'm going to try to start doing some analysis of the various games I go to or watch on here. There's usually plenty of other outlets handling the game stories, so I'll focus more on the analytical side, with perhaps a bit of humour here and there. My preferred method for these is from the Clint Eastwood classic " The Good, The Bad and The Ugly ," breaking down the best performances, the worst performances and the just plain awful stuff that happened (a previous example is here ). I'll file these under "The GBU". As always, post thoughts on the series or ide...

Photo: Jaromir Jagr, with mullet [Photo from James Mirtle's blog ]. Perhaps the NHL can only tolerate one mullet at a time these days. In seriousness, Jaromir Jagr's decision [Eric Duhatschek, The Globe and Mail ]to sign with Avangard Omsk of the Continental Hockey League (KHL, to use the Russian acroynm) is only partially surprising, but it should serve as a wake-up call to the NHL that they aren't the only league in town any more. We've heard this song somewhere before: a new league pops into existence, featuring plenty of wealthy businessmen with money to burn on their clubs, and they suddenly make a large contract offer to an aging NHL star to give their league instant respectability. That Bobby Hull contract was the key factor that launched the WHA off the ground: with him on board, the league was taken seriously and became a viable alternative for NHL players looking for a bigger payday. Interestingly though, few media sources are making the suggestion that th...

As I wrote in my Out of Left Field post on the Sonics settlement earlier this morning, there are only two scenarios by which this abrupt reversal on the city's part makes sense in my mind. The first is that they've actually obtained a more substantial guarantee of a replacement team than was indicated in the settlement deal : the second is that they were hornswoggled into accepting a bunch of cash and a number of vague promises for the future in return for their franchise. This second, more depressing scenario, which I picked as seeming more likely at the moment, seems to be the predominant belief in Seattle for the present. As columnist Steve Kelley of The Seattle Times wrote today : "Basketball died in Seattle Wednesday afternoon. It died because too many people who should have cared didn't. It died of neglect. It died because all of the powers-that-be stopped paying attention. ... Basketball is dead, and don't look for any miracle resurrections. Chances ar...

Well, the details of the Sonics settlement have finally come out [Sharon Pian Chan and Jim Brunner, The Seattle Times ], and it looks like they will in fact be moving to Oklahoma City sooner rather than later in exchange for $75 million dollars ($45 million if the city gets another NBA team within five years). That's much better than the $26.5 million Bennett offered in February before the trial, but it leaves me with plenty of questions for the city. Their whole case revolved around the idea of "specific performance", the idea that money alone could not replace an NBA team. What about the passionate testimony from writer and fan Sherman Alexie? What about Mayor Nickels' testimony [Greg Johns, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer ] about being an eternal optimist, where he said "A lot can happen in two years?" What about the testimony from economist Andrew Zimbalist, who said he couldn't put a dollar value on what the Sonics bring to the community? What ab...

Now that's highly unusual: The Seattle Times is reporting [Jim Brunner and Sharon Pian Chan, The Seattle Times ] that the Sonics and their owners have apparently agreed on a settlement, only hours before Judge Marsha Pechman was supposed to issue her ruling in the case. The timing of this is bizarre, as I don't see what either side has to gain by settling now. For the city, their aim throughout has been to try and enforce "specific performance" to make the team play at least two more seasons in Seattle, so it wouldn't seem to make sense for them to take a cash buyout at this stage when Judge Pechman might have ruled in their favour, and it's hard to imagine Clay "Buccaneer" Bennett agreeing to the Sonics staying in Seattle any longer than necessary. The other odd aspect to the timing is that both sides have already been fighting dirty: often, settlements are reached in cases like this one to try and prevent incriminating information from coming out...

Photo: Steven Pyeatt of Save Our Sonics. [Photo from http://stevenpyeatt.com/ ]. As part of the preparation for Judge Pechman's decision [Greg Johns, Seattle Post-Intelligencer ] later today on the future of the Sonics, here's the next installment of On the Ground, featuring an interview with Steven Pyeatt, the co-founder of Save our Sonics . Steven has been one of the most influential figures in the fight to keep the team in Seattle, working with co-founder Brian Robinson and the impressive team they've pulled together (including former Sonics star Slick Watts). He's helped organize rallies (including the one I covered ), e-mail and letter-writing campaigns, and much, much more. If the Sonics do survive in Seattle, his efforts will be a large part of the reason why. There's an excellent Seattle Times profile on him by Ashley Bach. Anyways, here's my questions and his answers. Q: What’s the mood like in Seattle? Do people still feel there’s a chance to keep...

Photo: Jim Moore, Seattle Post-Intelligencer sports columnist. [Photo from the Seattle Post-Inthttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif elligencer ]. Without further ado, I present the second installment in the On the Ground interview series. The subject this time is Seattle Post-Intelligencer sports columnist, . Here's my questions and his answers: Q: What’s the mood like in Seattle? Do people still feel there’s a chance to keep the franchise, or are they resigned to losing it? A: The mood here isn't good. I think people are hopeful that the city has a good case but are more resigned to the thought that the Sonics will win and leave town soon. Q: Do you think the rallies and popular expressions of support will make any difference in the end? A: No, I don't think the rallies or fan support matters. Hate to say that, but I don't. The judge even intimated during the trial that fan sentiment wasn't her chief concern. Q: What do you think was the city’s strongest argu...