Sporting Madness

An omnipresent but under-discussed element of sports in our modern era is the significance of the story. We often tend to think of stories as just factual representations of what goes on in a game, but the sheer amount of action involved in sports means they have to be both more and less then that. A breakdown of every single play without any kind of cohesive narrative structure or context from the thoughts of players or coaches would accurately relate what went on, but it would be exceptionally long and tedious. Thus, we edit, and we try to relate what we saw in terms of some larger overall angle. This isn't just journalists or bloggers either, but every fan who talks about the game with their friends afterwards; the tendency is always to pick out certain aspects that struck you as the most important and build a cohesive framework of a story from them. This doesn't have to be a bad thing, as it creates much more interesting discussions than a dry blow-by-blow of every play, bu...

It's time for another instalment of The Link Train . As always, leave links for tomorrow night's segment in the comments or send them to me via e-mail or Twitter. All sports-related submissions are welcomed. Thanks for reading! Video Of The Day: Iron Maiden - Fear of the Dark I'm a huge Maiden fan, but this was a song that didn't really make much of an impression on me the first time I heard it on the eponymous album. It was cool, but it didn't particularly jump out at me. I then heard them play it live at Toronto's Air Canada Centre in October 2007 (still probably the best concert I've been to; you can check out some photos from it on my Facebook page and it became one of my favourites. This song is just epic live, particularly with a good crowd like the one at their headlining set at the 2001 Rock in Rio festival (which turned into an impressive live album ) above; it sends chills down your spine to hear a crowd that large singing the intro in unison...

I'll be live-blogging the B.C. Lions - Toronto Argonauts game here and at Out of Left Field at 7:30 Eastern/4:30 Pacific. Until then, here's some links to the other stuff I've been writing and some of the best stories from around the web, as well as some tuneage to get you all pumped for the game. My pieces: - Here's the story of Canucks' prospect Sergei Shirokov and his quest to escape the KHL [ Canuck Puck ]. - Here's a link to the newest edition of The Whole 110 Yards , my weekly CFL column over at The Rookies . - The Vancouver Olympics are now only six months away. I have a story on one local group's Olympic preparations in The South Delta Leader , where I'm working for the next few weeks. - My weekly Phoenix Pub column took aim at the lack of proper standards and treatment around concussions in sports. - As part of those aforementioned Olympic preparations, the Richmond-Vancouver-Vancouver Airport SkyTrain line is opening on Monday. It will s...

Apologies for the lack of content around here lately. I've been working full-time for the past couple of weeks, filling in for editor Kurt Langmann at the Aldergrove Star , and have been swamped with other writing in my downtime, so I haven't had a lot of time to blog here. Don't panic, though; today's my last day, so things should hopefully return to normality soon and anything you still can't cope with will then be your own problem ! Anyway, I'll hopefully have a real post up before the end of the day. I'm also planning to live-blog the B.C. Lions - Hamilton Tiger-Cats game tomorrow (7:30 P.M. Eastern) and the Vancouver Whitecaps - Cleveland City Stars game Saturday (7 P.M. Eastern) but until then, here's a few links to some of the other pieces I've been writing. - A report on the BC Peewee and Bantam baseball provincials coming up this weekend. [ The Aldergrove Star ] - The second part of my list of annoying fan traditions. Everyone's favo...

Hope everyone had a great weekend. I'm taking off for a few days to go camping, so things have been somewhat light around here due to preparations for that. I do have a lengthy essay on sportswriting and Malcolm Gladwell scheduled to go up tomorrow morning, though, and I should be back with fresh content Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. Until then, here's a few links to tide you over: My work: - A post on the Canucks' acquisition of Mikael Samuelsson [ Canuck Puck - A piece on the death of former NFL quarterback Steve McNair [ The Phoenix Pub ] - A piece on the Sedins returning and a few other signings [ Canuck Puck ] Other good pieces: - James Mirtle sees the Canucks as a team with cash still to spend [ From The Rink ] - Joe Posnanski on the Royals' lack of speed - Neate on the Raptors picking up Turkoglu [ Out of Left Field ]

Apologies for the horribly long absence; I had to spend most of the past week preparing for a move and then flew across the country yesterday. I'm back in the blogging saddle now, though, and have plenty of stuff planned here for the next few days. Until then, here's a link to two of the pieces I've managed to write in the meantime and some other pieces I've enjoyed reading recently. - A piece I wrote Monday at Canuck Puck on the Canucks' involvement in free agent rumours and laying out my blueprint for Vancouver's free-agency moves. - A piece analyzing the top 10 picks of the NHL draft I co-wrote over at The Rookies . - An interesting piece by First Derivative over at The Phoenix Pub on why the acquisition of Marian Hossa may hurt the Blackhawks thanks to the length of his deal. - Neate has a breakdown of the CFL players from the CIS ranks over at Out of Left Field . - A great piece from Joe Posnanski on the Royals' problems handling injuries. Th...

Apologies for things being slow around here lately; I've been pretty swamped with other writing work. I'll try to get a full new post up tonight, but until then, I thought I'd share a few of the other pieces I've been working on. Hope you enjoy them! Feel free to leave comments on them at those sites or here, or send them to me via e-mail (andrew_bucholtz AT hotmail.com) or Twitter . Thanks as always for reading! - Over at my new blog, Canuck Puck , I have an analysis of how the Sedin twins stack up against other elite NHL players and why resigning them would be a great Moneypuck move. - At The Phoenix Pub , I have a few thoughts on how the recent increase in statistical analysis has changed sports. It's a bit of a follow-up to the piece I wrote here the other day about the (partial) demise of Moneyball . - At The Rookies , I have a piece looking at the most annoying fan traditions in sports.

So, I've added another site to the long list of places I write for. This one, The Phoenix Pub , is imagined as a sports hangout open to all, full of comedy pieces, analytical pieces and pretty much anything else you can think of. There's already a great cast of writers and editors on board, including Sculptor , the Avoiding the Drop gang and First Derivative of The Red Carders . My initial piece for them is one of the nightly Last Call series (open-thread commenting; you can find the full schedule over there as well), featuring booze, a Big Dirty Band music video and also an analysis of some of the reasons why the NFL has become the dominant professional sports league in North America. Check it out !