Sporting Madness

Hockey. At times, it's just a game. Men's hockey is a somewhat odd inclusion in the Winter Olympics, given that its athletes are by and large ( Tore Vikingstad s excluded) internationally-renowned millionaires. That's in sharp contrast to the rest of the athletes, who generally aren't living the lifestyle of the rich and famous. At the same time, the sport is the marquee event of the Winter Olympics, and the most accessible event for many; most people have at least a passing familiarity with the game and the rules, unlike sports like curling or figure skating. It deserves to be here, and it deserves to be the final event. The problem with that, though, is that the men's hockey final takes on so much significance that it can overshadow the rest of the Games. This is especially true in Canada, where our national identity is so bound up with hockey. As I wrote earlier, that's a somewhat superficial comparison, because we are much, much more than that. It still i...

"A modern-day warrior, mean, mean stride/Today's Tom Sawyer, mean, mean pride" - Rush, "Tom Sawyer" Today's gold-medal hockey game between Canada and the U.S. is pretty much a perfect way to end the Olympics. The U.S. leads the medal count, while Canada leads all countries in gold medals. Moreover, hockey's "Canada's sport", but one the Americans have taken up in ever-increasing numbers, and the talent gap between the two countries has increasingly diminished in recent years. It should be a fantastic display of hockey. One of the questions is if Canada can keep its pride under control, though. For so long, there's been the attitude that all the Canadians need to do to win is just show up. That doesn't cut it anymore. Canada might still have the best roster on paper, but it's very close at the top, as their loss to the Americans in the round-robin and their close match against Slovakia in the semifinal proved. Anyone can w...

Everyone will be focusing on hockey for most of today, but I wanted to say a few words in praise of Canadian curling skip Kevin Martin before talking about the imminent Hockeypocalypse. For me, it was fantastic seeing Martin pick up his first Olympic gold medal in a hard-fought game against the Norwegians yesterday, the same country that beat him in the final in 2002. To me, Martin is the quintessential embodiment of Canada. He doesn't look like an elite athlete; in fact he looks rather like a middle-aged insurance executive. He plays a sport not many people worldwide have heard of, and far fewer understand. Plenty of Winter Olympics sports have exposure issues, but most of them are simple enough to understand and appreciate on first glance when people do tune in, whether it's the high-speed thrills of bobsled or luge, the ridiculous hang time found in snowboard cross or the halfpipe, or the artistry of figure skating. To the uneducated, men's curling in particular often...

The University of Guelph announced this morning that Kyle Walters will be stepping down as their head football coach [thanks to Jaime Stein for the tip]. The press release says Walters "will be parting ways with the Gryphons to focus on pursuing coaching ventures elsewhere at the professional level." Mike Treadgold , the sports and health editor of The Ontarion (Guelph's student newspaper), tweeted this morning that a source informed him Walters is off to Winnipeg to become the special teams coordinator with the CFL's Blue Bombers, and also mentioned that rumour on his blog . It isn't completely confirmed yet, but that certainly sounds plausible given both the Bombers' coaching turnover and Walters' apparent desire to seek opportunities at the professional level. Guelph may miss Walters. He was only the head coach for four years and only put up a 13-18-1 record overall, but the team certainly seemed to be on the rise recently. They've made the...

(This is part of my ongoing series exploring the different sides of the Olympics; see this post for an explanation. I would have used "hoserism" instead of "jingoism", but I prefer to associate that with things I like . ). One of my central issues with the Olympics is the difference between what they are and what they claim to be. This shows up in almost every arena imaginable; the Olympics are supposed to be a celebration of sports at their purest, but the omnipresent corporate tie-ins detract from that a bit. They're supposed to be run by an international body that has the good of athletes as its top goal; in reality, they're run by an incredibly corrupt organization* that sees nothing wrong with blaming the victim to cover up its own flawed decisions. They're supposed to be an international gathering to promote peace and goodwill, but quite often, it seems that what they're really promoting is national chest-thumping. *You can read Andrew Jen...

(Because you can never see this song too much, here it is again. From Monty Python's great The Life Of Brian .) There's been a lot of criticism of these Winter Olympics over the past few weeks, much of it deserved and some of it even by me . However, what many of the critics are overlooking is that there are real positives to the event that also deserve coverage. One of the most significant bright spots so far has been the atmosphere the Olympics have brought to Vancouver. The Vancouver area is a great place to live, but for all its charms, it often feels awfully restrained. In one of the Hardy Boys' novels, it was described as "a sleepy fishing village", and ABC sportscaster Jim McKay commented during the Vancouver Whitecaps' 1979 NASL series against the New York Cosmos that "Vancouver must be like the deserted village right now" thanks to all the people watching on television. The village characterization isn't particularly fair given ...

Yesterday marked the fifth anniversary of the death of Hunter S. Thompson . Thompson has always been a hero of mine with his brilliant writing and his willingness to think outside the box and challenge the status quo, so I thought it would be only appropriate to honour him here. In a lot of ways, Thompson pioneered the form that many of us bloggers use today, using unconventional approaches that never would have seen the light of day in the conventional media. He frequently abandoned the idea of neutrality, injecting himself and his views into his stories. That's not always a perfect tactic, but it can be used to great effect, especially if the writer keeps a sense of perspective; many sports bloggers bring their fandom to their writing and use it to elevate their work, rather than detract from it. Thompson also told a lot of the stories that weren't being written elsewhere, such as his great work on the Hells Angels and his analysis from Richard Nixon 's campaigns. Sp...

The Olympics have suffered countless calamities over the past week, including the mechanical failure at the conclusion of the Opening Ceremonies, a slew of weather issues, the cancellation of many of the tickets for events at Cypress, the collapse of a barrier at an Alexisonfire show and subsequent injuries to many concertgoers and the failure of the non-Zambonis at the Richmond Oval. For these events and a slew of others, the Games have taken a beating from many, particularly British journalists. Yet, as Bruce Arthur of the National Post points out in an excellent column today, the biggest issue around the Olympics is still the tragic death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili and the cover-up that's followed it. The IOC's initial response to Kumaritashvili's death was promising. The grief Jacques Rogge and John Furlong demonstrated appeared real and heartfelt, and their tribute to Kumaritashvili at the Opening Ceremonies was appropriate and well-delivered. Howe...

Maybe the SFU Clan had the Olympics on their mind this afternoon, as they fell 63-61 [ Mike Tucker , UVic Sports Information] on the road to the sixth-ranked University of Victoria Vikes in their final league game. It would be all too easy to see the Vikes' upset of the top-ranked Clan as some sort of game-changing moment for CIS women's basketball, but there's more to it than that. The Clan had won 49 straight games , or 54 if you count the playoffs , so it's certainly noteworthy that someone finally found a way to beat them. In truth, though, this probably just shows that Canada West is about more than just SFU. As the most recent Top 10 rankings show , the conference is absolutely stacked in women's basketball. They have No.1 SFU, No.2 Regina, No.4 Saskatchewan, No.6 Victoria, No.8 Alberta and No.10 UBC, six out of the ten slots. Back in 2008, I wrote a piece for the Queen's Journal about the West's dominance in men's volleyball. What I wasn...

One of the biggest problems with the Olympics in my mind is the way they divide people into camps. At the one end of the spectrum, there are those who get so wrapped up in nationalism that they cast a blind eye to the issues around the Games. They denounce anyone who dares to question elements of the Olympics as unpatriotic and label them as traitors and un-Canadian. At the other end are many people involved in the protest movements, who overlook all the positive aspects of the Games in favour of promoting their own narrow agendas. Both sides try to outshout the other and wind up becoming even more extreme in the process, leaving little room for rational thought and debate. Where do I fall? Well, it should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with this site's mission statement that, in the words of Pogo creator Walt Kelly , "I'm for the extreme middle." There are massive problems associated with the Games, the IOC, VANOC and the Canadian media's coverage of ...

The horrific death of 21-year-old Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili in an Olympic training run today was horrible to hear about. Sports are supposed to be an outlet full of recreation and entertainment, an escape from the gloomy world of the front pages, but far too often, the grim realities of life intrude. Whether it's fatal NASCAR crashes , athletes like Mickey Renaud dying from heart failure , young athletes killed in gang violence or old legends slipping away after health challenges, or the tragic impact of concussions on the lives of former athletes, illness and death all too frequently find their way into our escapist world. CTV, one of the main Canadian networks broadcasting the Olympics, did their best to maintain that escapist illusion today. They gave the Kumaritashvili crash a passing mention before dashing back to their glowing propagandic coverage of the torch relay. Bruce Arthur of the National Post called their treatment of the situation "Orwellian...

A few weeks back, I wrote a post about how Madden players might just turn out to be decent NFL coaches (and also the surprising lack of time today's coaches spend in game situations). Seeing as it's unlikely that NFL teams are going to be hiring gamers any time soon, I thought I'd take a look at how those teams make their decisions on who their head coaches should be, and how backgrounds influence NFL coaches' success. This hopefully will provide some insight into what kind of head coaching candidates teams should consider and how this year's new hires ( Chan Gailey in Buffalo, Pete Carroll in Seattle and Mike Shanahan in Washington) might do. Now, coaching success can't be considered in a vacuum; the personnel coaches inherit have a lot to do with their success. Thus, I looked at how coaches do both in immediate turnarounds (so, the next season) and over the long term (their complete records), and I also looked at their backgrounds. I selected the last f...

It should be an interesting Super Bowl today; a clash between two high-powered offences, as well as two very different game philosophies. The Saints have a balanced attack and an incredibly aggressive defence, while the Colts' defence excels at limiting big plays and their offence is dominant in the passing game, but struggles to run the ball. You can find my full preview piece below , as well as other ones I wrote for Rob Carnell at Salt Water Music and Ryan Gallivan at The Gally Blog . Now, it's time for the prediction. Everyone has the Colts as big favourites, but I think this is overlooking a few things. For one, as Neil Paine points out, SRS (simple rating system, explained here ), which looks at teams' average margins of victory and their opponents' average ratings, is overwhelmingly in favour of the Saints. Yes, the Saints struggled against the Vikings in the NFC Championship game, but the Colts had issues with the New York Jets, a much less well-rounded t...

This year’s Super Bowl is more than just a battle between the New Orleans Saints and Indianapolis Colts; it’s also a clash of styles between the Colts’ pass-heavy offence and the Saints’ balanced attack. New Orleans was sixth in the league in rushing this year, averaging 131.6 yards per regular-season game, and fourth in passing, averaging 272.2 yards per game. The Colts were second in the NFL in passing yards per game, averaging 282.2 yards per game, but dead last in rushing, putting up only 80.9 yards on the ground. The Colts’ rushing game hasn’t improved by the numbers in the playoffs, as they’re still only averaging 2.9 yards per attempt and 71.5 yards per game. However, those stats are somewhat deceiving. The Colts got nowhere on the ground against the Baltimore Ravens in the divisional round, putting up only 44 yards on 23 carries, but that game was out of hand early and the Colts were often running just to control the clock. Against the notably effective rushing defence of the...

As long-time readers will know, I'm a great admirer of the "Moneyball" strategy of acquiring undervalued players. At the time of Moneyball, most of these players (at least the ones successfully targeted by Billy Beane ) fit into the high on-base percentage, low batting average category. There still are deals to be had on some of those players, but most major-league teams (except maybe the Kansas City Royals) have realized the importance of OBP, making it harder to exploit that particular market inefficiency. However, there are still inefficiencies out there, and some of them can be spotted with sabermetric research. This suggested an interesting train of thought to me. In the last experimental post , I took a look at how Madden users might fare against NFL coaches in play-calling and clock management. Now, I want to see if a baseball fan with a passing knowledge of sabermetrics like myself could put together a better lineup than experienced MLB general managers. Imagin...