Showing posts with label links. Show all posts
Showing posts with label links. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Just resting...
One problem with the holiday season is it leads to a lack of blogging time, especially when busy writing for other publications. I did manage to get some thoughts on the Roy Halladay trade and what it means for the Blue Jays up over at The Rookies However, I've finally cleared some of the backlog of work, so I should be able to get a few things up here pretty soon. One of the things I've been working on is a three-part series on concussions, which I'm planning to run today, tomorrow and Thursday. The first installment will go up shortly. Until then, here are some of the other pieces I've previously written on the subject:
- "The heads up on head injuries" (Queen's Journal, Sept. 28, 2007)
- "NHL's stance on concussions is troubling" (Queen's Journal, Dec. 28, 2007)
- "The school of hard knocks" (Queen's Journal, Jan. 29, 2009)
- "Take concussions seriously" (The Phoenix Pub, Aug. 11, 2009)
- "Football, brains and dogfighting" (The Phoenix Pub, Oct. 12, 2009)
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Live blogs, links and programming notes
Work unfortunately got in the way of writing here again, so I haven't been around for a while. That should hopefully change in the next little while, and the first item in the line is a live blog; I'll be live-blogging the Vancouver Whitecaps - Rochester Rhinos game tonight from the press box at Swangard, and then should have a post-game piece up tomorrow. Kickoff is at 10 p.m. Eastern/7 p.m. Pacific, so come join me here (or at The 24th Minute or Epic Footy] then! In other programming notes, the daily Link Trains will return Monday and I should hopefully have a few original pieces up here this week as well. Until then, here's some links to my stuff and the best of the Interwebs from the past week, as well as some music.
Video of the Day: Spirit of the West - Home for a Rest
A classic party song from a Vancouver band. Many people have probably heard this one in bars or clubs without any idea of who it's from, but the band's actually pretty good and quite well-known out here on the West Coast. I saw them play live at a New Year's Eve concert in Surrey a few years ago, and they put on a great show. Excellent music for your weekend.
My Links:
- A take on Vancouver trading for Christian Ehrhoff and Brad Lukowich [Canuck Puck].
- I explored if sharks should really be trading with orcas, threw in some music and added links in last night's Last Call post [The Rookies].
- My weekly Phoenix Pub column looked at the history, value, rules, teams and alumni of the CFL this week [The Phoenix Pub].
- Also on the CFL front, this week's edition of my weekly column, The Whole 110 Yards, featured the Blue Bombers' destruction of the Lions, a look back at the Las Vegas Posse and a take on Kerry "The Barber" Watkins [The Rookies].
- I was a guest on this week's episode (Episode 6) of The Phoenix Pubcast. We spent an hour discussing the CFL, its significance and how the various teams are doing this year. You can download the episode here [The Phoenix Pubcast].
- At my day job, I interviewed Vancouver Giants' general manager Scott Bonner about the team's training camp so far this year, their search for a more physical identity and the success of highly-touted prospects David Musil (projected as a possible top-five NHL draft pick in 2011) and Kevin Connauton (a NCAA star drafted by the Canucks in the third round last year) [The South Delta Leader].
- Not sports, but I got to write a couple of interesting news pieces this week as well. This one looked at if the Point Roberts-Tsawwassen border needs extra security in the wake of the Ryan Jenkins (the international fugitive found dead in Hope) incident, and this cover story looked at the potential expansion of beekeeping into residential zones.
The Best of the Intertubes:
Baseball:
- Great stuff from Brian on the Jays' season so far [Fallen Leafs].
- Joe Posnanski on why this year's Royals may be the worst ever [JoeBlog].
- Ian Hunter looks at North Van native Scott Richmond's performance this season. Richmond remains the only member of the Blue Jays I've interviewed, so I'm obviously rooting for him [Blue Jay Hunter].
Football:
- Samer has video and analysis of Alex Smith hitting Greg Ellis. That's right, a quarterback hit a defensive end. Trying to impress Mike Singletary? [Second-String Fullback].
- Looking at the best four years of the NFL's top running backs [Behind The Steel Curtain].
- Is Chad Henne the long-term solution for the Dolphins at QB? [The Phinsider].
- The University of Wisconsin is ending beer company sponsorships on their radio broadcasts in a fight against binge drinking. Yeah, that will work. [The Gally Blog].
Basketball:
- Analyzing the Raptors' off-season moves [Heels on Hardwood].
- Very interesting stuff from Kevin Arnovitz looking back at the debate around the construction of Madison Square Garden and the importance of architectural preservation [TrueHoop].
- Michael Jordan v. Kenny Rogers [Ball Don't Lie].
Hockey:
- James Mirtle's take on the Canucks' trade [From The Rink].
- Sean Zandberg looks at the new Canucks [Nucks Misconduct].
- Alex Tanguay may or may not be a member of the Tampa Bay Lightning [Puck Daddy].
Soccer:
- Jason Davis looks at the American company leading Russia's World Cup bid [Match Fit USA].
- Previewing Barcelona's season [Unprofessional Foul].
- Could Orlando regain a USL-1 franchise? [Soucie On Soccer].
Thanks as always for reading. Full Link Trains will return Monday. Remember to stop by tonight for the live blog!
Video of the Day: Spirit of the West - Home for a Rest
A classic party song from a Vancouver band. Many people have probably heard this one in bars or clubs without any idea of who it's from, but the band's actually pretty good and quite well-known out here on the West Coast. I saw them play live at a New Year's Eve concert in Surrey a few years ago, and they put on a great show. Excellent music for your weekend.
My Links:
- A take on Vancouver trading for Christian Ehrhoff and Brad Lukowich [Canuck Puck].
- I explored if sharks should really be trading with orcas, threw in some music and added links in last night's Last Call post [The Rookies].
- My weekly Phoenix Pub column looked at the history, value, rules, teams and alumni of the CFL this week [The Phoenix Pub].
- Also on the CFL front, this week's edition of my weekly column, The Whole 110 Yards, featured the Blue Bombers' destruction of the Lions, a look back at the Las Vegas Posse and a take on Kerry "The Barber" Watkins [The Rookies].
- I was a guest on this week's episode (Episode 6) of The Phoenix Pubcast. We spent an hour discussing the CFL, its significance and how the various teams are doing this year. You can download the episode here [The Phoenix Pubcast].
- At my day job, I interviewed Vancouver Giants' general manager Scott Bonner about the team's training camp so far this year, their search for a more physical identity and the success of highly-touted prospects David Musil (projected as a possible top-five NHL draft pick in 2011) and Kevin Connauton (a NCAA star drafted by the Canucks in the third round last year) [The South Delta Leader].
- Not sports, but I got to write a couple of interesting news pieces this week as well. This one looked at if the Point Roberts-Tsawwassen border needs extra security in the wake of the Ryan Jenkins (the international fugitive found dead in Hope) incident, and this cover story looked at the potential expansion of beekeeping into residential zones.
The Best of the Intertubes:
Baseball:
- Great stuff from Brian on the Jays' season so far [Fallen Leafs].
- Joe Posnanski on why this year's Royals may be the worst ever [JoeBlog].
- Ian Hunter looks at North Van native Scott Richmond's performance this season. Richmond remains the only member of the Blue Jays I've interviewed, so I'm obviously rooting for him [Blue Jay Hunter].
Football:
- Samer has video and analysis of Alex Smith hitting Greg Ellis. That's right, a quarterback hit a defensive end. Trying to impress Mike Singletary? [Second-String Fullback].
- Looking at the best four years of the NFL's top running backs [Behind The Steel Curtain].
- Is Chad Henne the long-term solution for the Dolphins at QB? [The Phinsider].
- The University of Wisconsin is ending beer company sponsorships on their radio broadcasts in a fight against binge drinking. Yeah, that will work. [The Gally Blog].
Basketball:
- Analyzing the Raptors' off-season moves [Heels on Hardwood].
- Very interesting stuff from Kevin Arnovitz looking back at the debate around the construction of Madison Square Garden and the importance of architectural preservation [TrueHoop].
- Michael Jordan v. Kenny Rogers [Ball Don't Lie].
Hockey:
- James Mirtle's take on the Canucks' trade [From The Rink].
- Sean Zandberg looks at the new Canucks [Nucks Misconduct].
- Alex Tanguay may or may not be a member of the Tampa Bay Lightning [Puck Daddy].
Soccer:
- Jason Davis looks at the American company leading Russia's World Cup bid [Match Fit USA].
- Previewing Barcelona's season [Unprofessional Foul].
- Could Orlando regain a USL-1 franchise? [Soucie On Soccer].
Thanks as always for reading. Full Link Trains will return Monday. Remember to stop by tonight for the live blog!
Sunday, August 16, 2009
The Link Train: Living in the limelight
This is a new daily feature I'm going to be running (and yes, I did steal the name). The plan is to post a music video and a list of the most interesting links from the various sports I tend to write about each night. There will be a partial focus on the teams I tend to write about, but there will also be plenty of room for stories from around different leagues and other sports. Submissions and comments are welcomed, either in the comments section of the previous night's post or via e-mail or Twitter. Enjoy!
Video Of The Day: To go with the efforts (led by Stephen of Stephen on Stuff) to make Rush a trending topic, here's Rush with Limelight.
My Links:
- A piece I wrote on Y.E. Yang's unexpected victory over Tiger Woods in the PGA Championship [The Rookies].
The Best Of The Intertubes:
Soccer:
- Duane Rollins weighs in on yesterday's Toronto FC win (which I live blogged here) [The 24th Minute].
- Jason Davis has some good thoughts on the similarities and differences between Freddy Adu and Charlie Davies [Match Fit USA].
- Adam Soucie takes a look at ESPN's EPL broadcast schedule [Soucie On Soccer].
- Sam on why he thinks Manchester United will repeat as English Premier League champions [The Canadian Stretford End].
- Adam (of Avoiding The Drop fame) has a two-part newbies' guide to soccer [The Phoenix Pub].
Baseball:
- An excellent back-and-forth between Eyebleaf and Joe Posnanski about Joe's article where he proposed calling bad contracts "Ricciardis". I'm obviously on Joe's side in this one, but regardless of who you agree with, it's tremendous to see that level of insightful discussion between a blogger and a mainstream writer [Sports And The City].
- Jonah Keri has a great piece on Carl Crawford's amazing year [Sports Illustrated, via Minda Haas at Getting To First Base].
- Should the Jays go after Jason Bay in the off-season? [Infield Fly]
- A report on former fourth-overall pick Adam Loewen, a high-school classmate of mine and former BCPBL star who's trying to work his way back to the majors as an everyday player [Mopup Duty]
- My favourite Yankees fan, Chad, breaks down why Mark Teixeira may not be a shoo-in for AL MVP just yet [Behind The Moat].
- Drew Fairservice on why it isn't wise to try and open hotel doors with Blue Jays' gift cards [Ghostrunner on First].
- Aaron Fischman takes us around the majors, karaoke-style [Dodger Blue Blog].
Football:
- Vanya Tucherov weighs in on the B.C. Lions' win over the Toronto Argonauts Friday (another game I live-blogged) [B.C. Lions Den]. I'll have more on the game and the rest of the week's CFL action in my The Whole 110 Yards column Tuesday at The Rookies.
- Rookies coworker Samer Ocho Cinco previews the NFC North. [Second String Fullback].
- Michael Bean previews what the Steelers' 53-man roster may look like [Behind The Steel Curtain].
- Clinton Portishead on who's a worse human being: Michael Vick or Dante Stallworth? [Style Points].
- Josh Zerkle on the NFL's rookie salary cap [With Leather].
- Donovan McNabb turns over a new leaf [Hugging Harold Reynolds].
Hockey:
- James Mirtle on the bankruptcy cases in Phoenix and Nashville [From The Rink].
- Greg Wyshynski's thoughts on Mark Messier's new gig with the Rangers [Puck Daddy].
- Sean Zandberg weighs in on why the Canucks may not have all that drastic of a need for a puck-moving defenceman [Nucks Misconduct]
- Tom Benjamin on how Bruce Dowbiggin took him out of context and unfairly blamed the blogosphere in the Patrick Kane saga [Canucks Corner].
Basketball:
- Rob Mahoney on why Dirk Nowitzki won't be playing for Germany at this summer's European Championships [The Two-Man Game, via Kevin Arnovitz of TrueHoop].
- David Berri on how the Rockets may be in better shape than many think [The Wages of Wins].
- Scott Lewis has the top ten highlight-reel plays from the Raptors last year [Jurassic Hoops].
Other:
- Jay Busbee has some good thoughts on Yang's win, and why it's likely the most significant upset in pro golf history [Devil Ball Golf].
- Adam Best on 30 different sports figures who could be aliens [Fan Addict].
Video Of The Day: To go with the efforts (led by Stephen of Stephen on Stuff) to make Rush a trending topic, here's Rush with Limelight.
My Links:
- A piece I wrote on Y.E. Yang's unexpected victory over Tiger Woods in the PGA Championship [The Rookies].
The Best Of The Intertubes:
Soccer:
- Duane Rollins weighs in on yesterday's Toronto FC win (which I live blogged here) [The 24th Minute].
- Jason Davis has some good thoughts on the similarities and differences between Freddy Adu and Charlie Davies [Match Fit USA].
- Adam Soucie takes a look at ESPN's EPL broadcast schedule [Soucie On Soccer].
- Sam on why he thinks Manchester United will repeat as English Premier League champions [The Canadian Stretford End].
- Adam (of Avoiding The Drop fame) has a two-part newbies' guide to soccer [The Phoenix Pub].
Baseball:
- An excellent back-and-forth between Eyebleaf and Joe Posnanski about Joe's article where he proposed calling bad contracts "Ricciardis". I'm obviously on Joe's side in this one, but regardless of who you agree with, it's tremendous to see that level of insightful discussion between a blogger and a mainstream writer [Sports And The City].
- Jonah Keri has a great piece on Carl Crawford's amazing year [Sports Illustrated, via Minda Haas at Getting To First Base].
- Should the Jays go after Jason Bay in the off-season? [Infield Fly]
- A report on former fourth-overall pick Adam Loewen, a high-school classmate of mine and former BCPBL star who's trying to work his way back to the majors as an everyday player [Mopup Duty]
- My favourite Yankees fan, Chad, breaks down why Mark Teixeira may not be a shoo-in for AL MVP just yet [Behind The Moat].
- Drew Fairservice on why it isn't wise to try and open hotel doors with Blue Jays' gift cards [Ghostrunner on First].
- Aaron Fischman takes us around the majors, karaoke-style [Dodger Blue Blog].
Football:
- Vanya Tucherov weighs in on the B.C. Lions' win over the Toronto Argonauts Friday (another game I live-blogged) [B.C. Lions Den]. I'll have more on the game and the rest of the week's CFL action in my The Whole 110 Yards column Tuesday at The Rookies.
- Rookies coworker Samer Ocho Cinco previews the NFC North. [Second String Fullback].
- Michael Bean previews what the Steelers' 53-man roster may look like [Behind The Steel Curtain].
- Clinton Portishead on who's a worse human being: Michael Vick or Dante Stallworth? [Style Points].
- Josh Zerkle on the NFL's rookie salary cap [With Leather].
- Donovan McNabb turns over a new leaf [Hugging Harold Reynolds].
Hockey:
- James Mirtle on the bankruptcy cases in Phoenix and Nashville [From The Rink].
- Greg Wyshynski's thoughts on Mark Messier's new gig with the Rangers [Puck Daddy].
- Sean Zandberg weighs in on why the Canucks may not have all that drastic of a need for a puck-moving defenceman [Nucks Misconduct]
- Tom Benjamin on how Bruce Dowbiggin took him out of context and unfairly blamed the blogosphere in the Patrick Kane saga [Canucks Corner].
Basketball:
- Rob Mahoney on why Dirk Nowitzki won't be playing for Germany at this summer's European Championships [The Two-Man Game, via Kevin Arnovitz of TrueHoop].
- David Berri on how the Rockets may be in better shape than many think [The Wages of Wins].
- Scott Lewis has the top ten highlight-reel plays from the Raptors last year [Jurassic Hoops].
Other:
- Jay Busbee has some good thoughts on Yang's win, and why it's likely the most significant upset in pro golf history [Devil Ball Golf].
- Adam Best on 30 different sports figures who could be aliens [Fan Addict].
Friday, August 14, 2009
Links, tunes and live blogs
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 see heavy use during the Olympics, especially transporting athletes, journalists and officials downtown from the airport. I have a story (and a video) talking to some local transit users about their thoughts on the line [The South Delta Leader].
Best of the Interwebs:
- Shakey gives us Landon Donovan's real backstory [Style Points].
- The Pirates Fan on the worst members of Steeler Nation [The Phoenix Pub].
- Weed Against Speed on an upcoming Toronto charity soccer game featuring members of Great Big Sea, Broken Social Scene, Weezer, Bedouin Soundclash and More [Sportress of Blogitude]
- Duane Rollins on Canadian international striker Simeon Jackson's potential Premiership move [The 24th Minute]
- Chilltown on why Tim Wakefield is The Most Interesting Knuckleballer In The World [The Rookies]
- A very painful injury to the Mariners' Adrian Beltre [Gunaxin]
- Adam Best on 30 sports figures who could be aliens [Fan Addict]
- Jason Davis on Landon Donovan apparently contracting swine flu before the U.S. national team's game against Mexico [Match Fit USA]
- Brian Wawryshyn on why football is, after all, just a game [B.C. Lions Den]
Tunage:
Here's a classic most appropriate for a game in Toronto. See you shortly for the live blog!
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 see heavy use during the Olympics, especially transporting athletes, journalists and officials downtown from the airport. I have a story (and a video) talking to some local transit users about their thoughts on the line [The South Delta Leader].
Best of the Interwebs:
- Shakey gives us Landon Donovan's real backstory [Style Points].
- The Pirates Fan on the worst members of Steeler Nation [The Phoenix Pub].
- Weed Against Speed on an upcoming Toronto charity soccer game featuring members of Great Big Sea, Broken Social Scene, Weezer, Bedouin Soundclash and More [Sportress of Blogitude]
- Duane Rollins on Canadian international striker Simeon Jackson's potential Premiership move [The 24th Minute]
- Chilltown on why Tim Wakefield is The Most Interesting Knuckleballer In The World [The Rookies]
- A very painful injury to the Mariners' Adrian Beltre [Gunaxin]
- Adam Best on 30 sports figures who could be aliens [Fan Addict]
- Jason Davis on Landon Donovan apparently contracting swine flu before the U.S. national team's game against Mexico [Match Fit USA]
- Brian Wawryshyn on why football is, after all, just a game [B.C. Lions Den]
Tunage:
Here's a classic most appropriate for a game in Toronto. See you shortly for the live blog!
Friday, August 07, 2009
Centre field
Well, I'm off for the weekend for a softball tournament, so things will be light around here for a little while. I should be back with fresh content Monday, and I've got plenty planned for next week, including my thoughts on the latest developments in the Phoenix Coyotes' case, a few thoughts on ESPN's Twitter policy, a post on how Rogers' approach to the Blue Jays is all wrong, more interviews from my The Good Point piece and much more. Until then, here's a couple links to other pieces I wrote this week that you may not have seen and a few things from around the web.
- The initial instalment of my new weekly CFL column, The Whole 110 Yards, over at The Rookies.
- My weekly The Phoenix Pub column focused on the success of the B.C. Premier Baseball League this week.
- A piece I wrote at Canuck Puck on the elevation Mike Gillis to president and general manager.
- James Mirtle has a good take on the Coyotes' mess [From The Rink].
- Why The Denver Post thinks JR Smith's associated with The Bloods [Style Points]
- Eyebleaf pays tribute to Jeremy Roenick [Sports and the City]
- Skating Tomato on why the Michael Crabtree saga shows the problems with the NFL's rookie contracts [The Rookies].
- Check out BC Lions Den for everything on tonight's Lions-Riders matchup.
Here's some music to get you in a baseball mood for the weekend. Play me off, John Fogerty!
- The initial instalment of my new weekly CFL column, The Whole 110 Yards, over at The Rookies.
- My weekly The Phoenix Pub column focused on the success of the B.C. Premier Baseball League this week.
- A piece I wrote at Canuck Puck on the elevation Mike Gillis to president and general manager.
- James Mirtle has a good take on the Coyotes' mess [From The Rink].
- Why The Denver Post thinks JR Smith's associated with The Bloods [Style Points]
- Eyebleaf pays tribute to Jeremy Roenick [Sports and the City]
- Skating Tomato on why the Michael Crabtree saga shows the problems with the NFL's rookie contracts [The Rookies].
- Check out BC Lions Den for everything on tonight's Lions-Riders matchup.
Here's some music to get you in a baseball mood for the weekend. Play me off, John Fogerty!
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Back In Black
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 favourite fake umpires are on it! [The Rookies]
- My thoughts on the Canucks bringing back Kyle Wellwood. [Canuck Puck]
- A story on a group attempting to raise the profile of girls' hockey locally. Some interesting numbers on just how popular guys' minor hockey leagues are compared to girls' leagues. [The Aldergrove Star]
- My weekly column at The Phoenix Pub. This week, it's on why our ever-lessening amounts of free time favour football fandom over following baseball. [The Phoenix Pub]
- Not sports, but interesting: a story I wrote on the impact the recent heat waves and thunderstorms in the Lower Mainland had on a local fair. I even took the photo! [The Aldergrove Star]
- Also not sports, and perhaps not even interesting: my editorial in this week's paper on the recent restrictions on police Taser use in B.C. [The Aldergrove Star]
Sunday, July 05, 2009
A few links and some scheduling
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]
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]
Thursday, July 02, 2009
I'm back!
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.
Thanks for putting up with me during this absence! We now return you to your regularly scheduled Sporting Madness programming.
- 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.
Thanks for putting up with me during this absence! We now return you to your regularly scheduled Sporting Madness programming.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Where has all the writing gone?
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.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Turn and face the strange ch..ch..changes
Hello, readers! As you might have noticed, there have been a few changes around here. I'm now part of the excellent TheScore.com Sports Federation, which will be a lot of fun, and have a real domain name to boot (sportingmadness.ca)! Check out some of the other sites in the network if you get the chance; they're all listed by category in the black bar at the top of the page, but I figured I'd spotlight a few of my personal favourites. For you baseball fans, there's a lot of great sites in the network,including Drunk Jays Fans and Ghostrunner on First. For hockey nuts, check out the likes of Down Goes Brown and the Canucks Hockey Blog. In basketball, RaptorBlog and DinoNation are both excellent, and for soccer, there's some terrific stuff over at TFC Connected and Arsenalist. In general sports, Sports and the City is the best comprehensive Toronto sports blog out there and there's some excellent insight into the world of sports at The Tony Ambrogio Experience. If you don't mind sites sullied by my presence as a contributor, there's The 24th Minute, where I live-blog TFC and Vancouver Whitecaps games and chime in with other posts from time to time, and The CIS Blog, your comprehensive source for all things related to Canadian university athletics. Check out the other network sites as well and the great blogs on The Score's homepage.
Anyway, back to this site. The old Blogspot link should redirect, so there shouldn't be any need to change your bookmarks. The roster of sites I'm writing for has also expanded recently; you can find them all in the blogroll at the right, but I'll list them for the fun of it. In addition to my previous gigs at The CIS Blog (Canadian university sports), Out Of Left Field (Canadian perspectives on sports), The Good Point (a multi-sport webmagazine site where I cover the NFL) and The 24th Minute (Canadian soccer), I'm now writing for the sports humour site The Rookies and will soon be making my debut at the excellent Women's Soccer Weekly and the soon-to-be-launched Phoenix Pub. Given that most of my work for these sites is an every-once-in-a-while thing, I'll post links to it here from time to time, but you should definitely check out all of those destinations for the other excellent writers there.
It's an exciting time here, and it's great to be taking this site to another level. The focus is going to be pretty much exactly as it was before, with coverage from a wide variety of sports but an emphasis on going beyond just the surface and developing detailed, nuanced opinions on the big issues in sports, rather than just trying to shout the loudest about why I'm right and everyone else is wrong. If you haven't read it yet, this post on the shades of grey that should be involved in sports analysis is pretty much my mission statement in that area. I'm also a big fan of doing new and interesting things with the site and going beyond the conventional ideas of what a blog can be. To those ends, I'll have plenty of live blogs, Twitter updates (follow me here), interviews and other content here as well. I'm also always open to suggestions on what you'd like to see covered; the readers are what make this site, so I'm always happy to talk about what you like and dislike about it. Leave comments below or e-mail me at andrew_bucholtz [at] hotmail.com. Hope to hear from you! Until then, I leave you in good hands with Mr. David Bowie:
Anyway, back to this site. The old Blogspot link should redirect, so there shouldn't be any need to change your bookmarks. The roster of sites I'm writing for has also expanded recently; you can find them all in the blogroll at the right, but I'll list them for the fun of it. In addition to my previous gigs at The CIS Blog (Canadian university sports), Out Of Left Field (Canadian perspectives on sports), The Good Point (a multi-sport webmagazine site where I cover the NFL) and The 24th Minute (Canadian soccer), I'm now writing for the sports humour site The Rookies and will soon be making my debut at the excellent Women's Soccer Weekly and the soon-to-be-launched Phoenix Pub. Given that most of my work for these sites is an every-once-in-a-while thing, I'll post links to it here from time to time, but you should definitely check out all of those destinations for the other excellent writers there.
It's an exciting time here, and it's great to be taking this site to another level. The focus is going to be pretty much exactly as it was before, with coverage from a wide variety of sports but an emphasis on going beyond just the surface and developing detailed, nuanced opinions on the big issues in sports, rather than just trying to shout the loudest about why I'm right and everyone else is wrong. If you haven't read it yet, this post on the shades of grey that should be involved in sports analysis is pretty much my mission statement in that area. I'm also a big fan of doing new and interesting things with the site and going beyond the conventional ideas of what a blog can be. To those ends, I'll have plenty of live blogs, Twitter updates (follow me here), interviews and other content here as well. I'm also always open to suggestions on what you'd like to see covered; the readers are what make this site, so I'm always happy to talk about what you like and dislike about it. Leave comments below or e-mail me at andrew_bucholtz [at] hotmail.com. Hope to hear from you! Until then, I leave you in good hands with Mr. David Bowie:
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Regarding newspapers, attribution and links
This is a bit of a continuation of my post on anonymity the other day, focusing on the mainstream media's relationship with the blogosphere. One of the big stories this week was about New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd apparently lifting a paragraph [Craig Silverman, Regret The Error] from Talking Points Memo writer Josh Marshall via a shady friend (Alex Rodriguez's cousin, perhaps?) and then apologizing for it afterwards. To Dowd's credit, she's been much more apologetic than certain other plagiarists, but her inclusion of a paragraph word-for-word from a friend without any mention that it wasn't her original work is still very troubling.
The Dowd situation is just one extreme example of a larger problem, though. One of the things that's troubled me for a long time is the indifference shown by many traditional media outlets towards proper citation of others' work. A particularly egregious recent example comes from that noted bastion of journalism, the New York Post, which lifted Tony Kornheiser quotes directly from the great Dan Levy and attributed them as "Kornheiser told a blog". To be fair, they did include a link (which is much better than most papers tend to do), but "told a blog" is an incredibly stupid citation. As Levy remarked on Facebook afterwards, "Thanks! Should I refer to the story as 'reported a dying rag?'"
The Post should have at least mentioned the blog title and hopefully the author as well. It's not like it's adding a ton of words to your story, and it certainly enhances the story as well. "Told a blog" tells the reader nothing; "told Dan Levy of On The DL" gives the reader exactly where this information is coming from and allows them to explore how reputable it is.
To their credit, though, at least the Post linked to the story. This is perhaps the biggest failure of traditional newspapers in adapting to the web; they're trying to make a living in a link-based economy, but are incredibly reluctant to give out links to other sites or publications. That in turn makes bloggers more reluctant to link to and properly attribute the newspapers' material, which hurts the newspapers' traffic. It's not the old days any more, guys; there aren't many people who will read one paper and one paper only on the Internet.
A another bad example of this is the reporting of Kevin Nesgoda's piece on the Indiana Pacers possibly moving to Vancouver, which I interviewed him about yesterday. Every outlet from The Province to CTV to the Indianapolis Business Journal to Newsday picked up on Nesgoda's work, but their citations of it ranged from bad to horrible, as shown below:
Unknown Author*, >Newsday: "But a recent rumor, which started (where else?) on the Internet and has been perpetuated up north, that said Canucks owner Francesco Aquilini had expressed interest in buying the financially-troubled Indiana Pacers turns out to be bogus."
*As an aside, I really hate it when papers don't put authors' names on their stories. This is often because they don't see them as too valuable or only based on material that's already out there, but it's counter-intuitive to suggest that reports just spring into existence. Adding the name of whichever reporter or layout editor collected the information would increase accountability as well by providing someone readers could contact if they had a question about the report.
Bill Benner, Indianapolis Business Journal: "As I drove to work May 12, I listened as local talk-show radio host, WXNT-AM 1430’s Abdul Hakim-Shabazz seized on a blog report that the owner of the National Hockey League Vancouver Canucks was considering a bid to purchase the Indiana Pacers and move them to the Canadian city."
Mike Killeen, CTV: "The internet is swirling with speculation that, for the first time since 2001, Vancouver could once again be home to an NBA basketball team. An American sports website has reported that Vancouver Canucks owner Francesco Aquilini has expressed interest in buying the Indiana Pacers in order to bring the team home to British Columbia."
Unknown Author, The Province: "Vancouver has been without a National Basketball Association franchise for eight seasons since the Grizzlies packed up for Memphis prior to the 2001-02 season, but the rumour mill is suggesting the city might not be a graveyard for the world's finest professional hoops league forever. The latest talk on Tuesday had Vancouver Canucks owner Francesco Aquilini reportedly interested in purchasing the Indiana Pacers and moving them to GM Place, the former home of the expansion Grizzlies from 1995-96 through 2000-01.
Aquilini could not be reached for comment, but insiders, like the Internet sports site The Bleacher Report, say he has expressed an interest in bringing a second major team into a building he also owns."
There are so many failures here it's tough to know where to start. "An American sports website", CTV? There's only a couple hundred thousand of those. Benner is careful to get the radio guy's identification, but can't be bothered to do a simple Google search to attribute his source any further than just "a blog", which is even more vague than CTV's useless attribution, but less stupid than Newsday citing the entire Internet. The Province at least mentions the site involved, but anyone in the world of sports knows that Bleacher Report is just a huge collective (somewhat like a sports-only version of Blogger); citing websites instead of websites and authors is problematic enough when it's a one-author site, but it tells you absolutely nothing about the credibility of a piece if you just mention that it's from some massive entity like Bleacher Report. Would it really have killed these guys to take two seconds, cite the report properly with its author and website and throw in a link (as I did in my initial piece)?*
*By the way, I find it very interesting that most of these sites were quick to mention this report and then instantly refute it based on a vague, "not at the present time" denial from Aquilini. Of course these kinds of sensitive negotiations are going to be tough to confirm, and those involved with them aren't going to be eager to talk about them in public. Many of the reports (especially the Newsday piece) basically accused Nesgoda of unfounded rumourmongering without ever looking into his story a bit more, so I figured I'd try and track him down. His contact information was easy enough to find through links to his own site on Bleacher Report and he promptly responded to an e-mail I sent. In my mind, his answers to my follow-up questions added a lot of credibility to the report and certainly brought up some interesting extra details. It's too bad that the traditional media types left the actual journalism to the bloggers in this case.
Anyway, attribution isn't only a problem with reports based on blog information; newspapers and other sports media outlets do it to themselves as well. One of the offenders is The Associated Press, which takes time from its quixotic crusades against bloggers [Jennifer Harper, The Washington Times] to damage its own media outlets with poor reporting. The AP will rarely, if ever, cite a non-traditional site in their stories, but they (and the outlets that run their stories) don't even help traditional sites.
For example, consider this piece (from The Globe and Mail's site) on Patrick Roy: "Hall of Fame goaltender Patrick Roy denied being offered the Colorado Avalanche's coaching job, a position currently held by Tony Granato. The Denver Post reported Monday that Roy had received an offer and was mulling it over. The Avalanche declined comment on the report, which cited anonymous league sources."
This isn't bad, but it could be much better. The piece came from the Post's Adrian Dater, a well-known name in the world of hockey blogging. Adding Dater's name to the report would have increased its credibility and let fans know where this was coming from. Moreover, "anonymous league sources" isn't terribly convincing, and certainly not as impressive as Dater's citation of "multiple NHL sources who are close to Roy". Only citing the paper is generally standard practice, but should it really be in this day and age? Why not communicate as much information as possible instead of making the readers do the work?
Most importantly, though, sites that run this report should have linked to the initial piece. Most of the people who looked at this report would be quite interested in reading what it's based on. It's still possible to do that, but without a link, it requires a Google search and probably two to three clicks. Just citing a specific newspaper is fine for print editions, but online newspaper sites could be greatly improved by adding relevant links whenever possible. Demonstrating a willingness to link to others' content also makes it much more likely that they'll return the favour. It's not traditional newspaper style, but it's how the world of the Web works, and newspapers should realize that. Every newspaper is trying to embrace the Internet these days, but many of them are still trying to make the Web play by the traditional rules. That isn't going to be successful. They'd be much better off learning a few things about the Internet and then applying them effectively instead of trying to translate the old dead-tree style seamlessly to a new medium.
The Dowd situation is just one extreme example of a larger problem, though. One of the things that's troubled me for a long time is the indifference shown by many traditional media outlets towards proper citation of others' work. A particularly egregious recent example comes from that noted bastion of journalism, the New York Post, which lifted Tony Kornheiser quotes directly from the great Dan Levy and attributed them as "Kornheiser told a blog". To be fair, they did include a link (which is much better than most papers tend to do), but "told a blog" is an incredibly stupid citation. As Levy remarked on Facebook afterwards, "Thanks! Should I refer to the story as 'reported a dying rag?'"
The Post should have at least mentioned the blog title and hopefully the author as well. It's not like it's adding a ton of words to your story, and it certainly enhances the story as well. "Told a blog" tells the reader nothing; "told Dan Levy of On The DL" gives the reader exactly where this information is coming from and allows them to explore how reputable it is.
To their credit, though, at least the Post linked to the story. This is perhaps the biggest failure of traditional newspapers in adapting to the web; they're trying to make a living in a link-based economy, but are incredibly reluctant to give out links to other sites or publications. That in turn makes bloggers more reluctant to link to and properly attribute the newspapers' material, which hurts the newspapers' traffic. It's not the old days any more, guys; there aren't many people who will read one paper and one paper only on the Internet.
A another bad example of this is the reporting of Kevin Nesgoda's piece on the Indiana Pacers possibly moving to Vancouver, which I interviewed him about yesterday. Every outlet from The Province to CTV to the Indianapolis Business Journal to Newsday picked up on Nesgoda's work, but their citations of it ranged from bad to horrible, as shown below:
Unknown Author*, >Newsday: "But a recent rumor, which started (where else?) on the Internet and has been perpetuated up north, that said Canucks owner Francesco Aquilini had expressed interest in buying the financially-troubled Indiana Pacers turns out to be bogus."
*As an aside, I really hate it when papers don't put authors' names on their stories. This is often because they don't see them as too valuable or only based on material that's already out there, but it's counter-intuitive to suggest that reports just spring into existence. Adding the name of whichever reporter or layout editor collected the information would increase accountability as well by providing someone readers could contact if they had a question about the report.
Bill Benner, Indianapolis Business Journal: "As I drove to work May 12, I listened as local talk-show radio host, WXNT-AM 1430’s Abdul Hakim-Shabazz seized on a blog report that the owner of the National Hockey League Vancouver Canucks was considering a bid to purchase the Indiana Pacers and move them to the Canadian city."
Mike Killeen, CTV: "The internet is swirling with speculation that, for the first time since 2001, Vancouver could once again be home to an NBA basketball team. An American sports website has reported that Vancouver Canucks owner Francesco Aquilini has expressed interest in buying the Indiana Pacers in order to bring the team home to British Columbia."
Unknown Author, The Province: "Vancouver has been without a National Basketball Association franchise for eight seasons since the Grizzlies packed up for Memphis prior to the 2001-02 season, but the rumour mill is suggesting the city might not be a graveyard for the world's finest professional hoops league forever. The latest talk on Tuesday had Vancouver Canucks owner Francesco Aquilini reportedly interested in purchasing the Indiana Pacers and moving them to GM Place, the former home of the expansion Grizzlies from 1995-96 through 2000-01.
Aquilini could not be reached for comment, but insiders, like the Internet sports site The Bleacher Report, say he has expressed an interest in bringing a second major team into a building he also owns."
There are so many failures here it's tough to know where to start. "An American sports website", CTV? There's only a couple hundred thousand of those. Benner is careful to get the radio guy's identification, but can't be bothered to do a simple Google search to attribute his source any further than just "a blog", which is even more vague than CTV's useless attribution, but less stupid than Newsday citing the entire Internet. The Province at least mentions the site involved, but anyone in the world of sports knows that Bleacher Report is just a huge collective (somewhat like a sports-only version of Blogger); citing websites instead of websites and authors is problematic enough when it's a one-author site, but it tells you absolutely nothing about the credibility of a piece if you just mention that it's from some massive entity like Bleacher Report. Would it really have killed these guys to take two seconds, cite the report properly with its author and website and throw in a link (as I did in my initial piece)?*
*By the way, I find it very interesting that most of these sites were quick to mention this report and then instantly refute it based on a vague, "not at the present time" denial from Aquilini. Of course these kinds of sensitive negotiations are going to be tough to confirm, and those involved with them aren't going to be eager to talk about them in public. Many of the reports (especially the Newsday piece) basically accused Nesgoda of unfounded rumourmongering without ever looking into his story a bit more, so I figured I'd try and track him down. His contact information was easy enough to find through links to his own site on Bleacher Report and he promptly responded to an e-mail I sent. In my mind, his answers to my follow-up questions added a lot of credibility to the report and certainly brought up some interesting extra details. It's too bad that the traditional media types left the actual journalism to the bloggers in this case.
Anyway, attribution isn't only a problem with reports based on blog information; newspapers and other sports media outlets do it to themselves as well. One of the offenders is The Associated Press, which takes time from its quixotic crusades against bloggers [Jennifer Harper, The Washington Times] to damage its own media outlets with poor reporting. The AP will rarely, if ever, cite a non-traditional site in their stories, but they (and the outlets that run their stories) don't even help traditional sites.
For example, consider this piece (from The Globe and Mail's site) on Patrick Roy: "Hall of Fame goaltender Patrick Roy denied being offered the Colorado Avalanche's coaching job, a position currently held by Tony Granato. The Denver Post reported Monday that Roy had received an offer and was mulling it over. The Avalanche declined comment on the report, which cited anonymous league sources."
This isn't bad, but it could be much better. The piece came from the Post's Adrian Dater, a well-known name in the world of hockey blogging. Adding Dater's name to the report would have increased its credibility and let fans know where this was coming from. Moreover, "anonymous league sources" isn't terribly convincing, and certainly not as impressive as Dater's citation of "multiple NHL sources who are close to Roy". Only citing the paper is generally standard practice, but should it really be in this day and age? Why not communicate as much information as possible instead of making the readers do the work?
Most importantly, though, sites that run this report should have linked to the initial piece. Most of the people who looked at this report would be quite interested in reading what it's based on. It's still possible to do that, but without a link, it requires a Google search and probably two to three clicks. Just citing a specific newspaper is fine for print editions, but online newspaper sites could be greatly improved by adding relevant links whenever possible. Demonstrating a willingness to link to others' content also makes it much more likely that they'll return the favour. It's not traditional newspaper style, but it's how the world of the Web works, and newspapers should realize that. Every newspaper is trying to embrace the Internet these days, but many of them are still trying to make the Web play by the traditional rules. That isn't going to be successful. They'd be much better off learning a few things about the Internet and then applying them effectively instead of trying to translate the old dead-tree style seamlessly to a new medium.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Joining the Twitterati...
Everyone and their sister seems to have joined the Twitterati recently, including Steve Nash, Shaq, Will Leitch and Jeff Blair. Normally, I try to resist jumping on the bandwagon, but I saw quite a bit of potential in what Neate has been doing with his feed, especially the links. I'm a long-established fan of throwing out links, but haven't had a lot of time to write those kind of detailed posts recently, so this seems like a good way to get those out along with a few quick observations here and there that I don't have time for an entire post on. Thus, I'll be adding the Twitter feed to the right-hand bar for the time being. We'll see how it develops; feel free to e-mail (andrew_bucholtz at hotmail dot com) or tweet me suggestions on what to do with the feed!
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Talking with Tavares...
Friend of the blog Norman James of A-Channel London has posted his interview with OHL hockey phenom John Tavares on his site. It's definitely worth a look.
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