Sporting Madness

I was on Daniel Feuerstein 's excellent soccer show, Feuerstein's Fire , earlier today to discuss the Whitecaps, B.C. Place and the Nutrilite Canadian Championship (speaking of which, I'll be live-blogging the Whitecaps - Montreal Impact match here tomorrow evening at 7:30 p.m. Pacific) with Daniel and my 24th Minute colleague Duane Rollins . The entire show is well worth a listen, touching on Toronto FC, the Montreal Impact and Canadian soccer generally. My segment starts about 45 minutes in. You can check out the show here .

This story from Alana G (via TrueHoop ) is hilarious, but frightening. As most probably know, the NBA is holding its All-Star weekend in Phoenix over the next few days. Reporter Niki D'Andrea of the Phoenix New-Times wrote a cover story about a "tattoo cap" on NBA players that commissioner David Stern was supposedly thinking of implementing, which turned out to be based off a satirical story by author/blogger Con Chapman which was republished on his community blog page at Fox Sports. D'Andrea explains her rationale in a blog post here : "Though our knee-jerk reaction to the tattoo cap story was that it might be a joke, what it touted seemed possible. Commish Stern had already instituted a business-casual dress code for NBA players going to and from games -- in an attempt to thwart a trend toward hop-hop attire among some players. Also, Suns players we interviewed thought the tat cap story was true and complained about the alleged plan in our article. Cal...

According to TSN.ca , Doug Gilmour will be officially announced as the new head coach of the Kingston Frontenacs today. At first, that seems like a decent idea; just about anyone behind the bench would probably be an improvement over Larry Mavety , and the team has some talented players, so a coaching change might make a difference there. Gilmour's status as a local hockey legend also adds to the respect he'll get from the players. He has some coaching and player development experience as well, working as an advisor to the Leafs for two seasons and serving as a Marlies' assistant coach this year. His experience won't necessarily make him a great coach, but it certainly can't hurt. More revealing, though, is Gilmour's recent cameo [ Miss 604 ] in the soon-to-be-released Slap Shot 3: The Junior League , a straight-to-DVD movie. Perhaps he enjoyed seeing a gong show of a junior franchise on film and decided he'd go for the full experience? If so, he's ce...

It was tremendous to hear that the Vancouver Whitecaps claimed the United Soccer League Division I championship [ Marc Weber , The Vancouver Province ] Sunday with a 2-1 win over the Puerto Rico Islanders [ Jim Morris , The Canadian Press via The Globe and Mail ]*. It's the Whitecaps' second championship in three years (their last one came in 2006), and their first championship clinched at home since they won the 1991 Canadian Soccer League title. That's some great news for Vancouver soccer fans. Yes, the Lions are still doing well and the Canucks are off to a 2-0 start, but for at least a little while, the Caps claimed top spot in the Vancouver spotlight. *Morris has some great tidbits in the notes at the bottom of his story, including that this is the first time the USL men's final has ever been between two teams from outside the U.S. and that the Vancouver-Puerto Rico trip is the second-longest in any world soccer league (bested only by Vladivostok and Kaliningrad...

There's been quite a bit of controversy over the Queen's Athletics and Recreation Department's recent decision to refer to their teams as the "Queen's Gaels" from now on instead of the traditional "Queen's Golden Gaels". For dead-tree edition background on the story, check out my piece in today's Journal or the article Jordan Press wrote for Monday's Kingston Whig-Standard . There's also some solid pieces of the Out of Left Field variety, including Neate 's initial post on the rebranding and name change, Neate's post on Monday's football game (which includes some reaction to the name change and Duane 's first upset comment on the matter), a satirical press release written by Duane about the next logical step, dropping the "Thigh" from the Oil Thigh*, and Duane's post today suggesting that this is all part of "the modern marketers' pathological need to control every aspect of everything....

Photo : Fernando Torres sneaks by Philipp Lahm en route to scoring the only goal of the Germany-Spain final Sunday (Photo from BBC Sport ). Breaking down the European Championship final ... Spain 1, Germany 0 Well, that was a bit of a lackluster final compared to some of the tournament's other games. There was still some good soccer on display, but not a ton of great offensive chances or climatic moments, in my mind at least. Also, the Spanish team fell left, right and centre whenever a slight breeze came up: it worked, but they really didn't need to spoil a good game with a diving exhibition. Spain certainly deserved the win on the basis of their play yesterday, and they probably should have had at least two goals. Perhaps I'm just a grumpy German, but I don't think their win somehow prevents them from criticism, though, and I certainly haven't been drinking the same Guinness as those pundits who are heralding them as the greatest side in the world. The praise that...

Photo: Wingback Philipp Lahm seals the Germans' place in the finals with a stoppage-time goal. [Photo from The Daily Telegraph ] Breaking down Day XVII of the European Championships... Germany 3, Turkey 2 What a game that was. Unlike their snooze-fest against the Croatians, the Turks went for the throat right from the start and created chances by the bushel. The Germans, meanwhile, seemed to be caught flat-footed, and could only defend for the first little while as Turkey racked up 10 shots to their two in the first 20 minutes: amazing, considering the short bench Turkey was left with due to suspensions and injuries. The offensive pressure soon paid off for the Turks, as Ugur Boral drilled a rebound off the crossbar through the legs of Jens Lehmann in the 22nd minute. However, Germany quickly equalized four minutes later against the run of play on a great combination from Lukas Podolski and Bastian Schweinsteiger, and it was 1-1 going into the half. In the second half, watching beg...