Sporting Madness

Our society is becoming more cynical and jaded all the time. Nothing is pure any more. You can't enjoy food without thinking about its calories and trans fats, you can't wholeheartedly support any political party when you're aware of their scandals and betrayals, and you can't even buy a coffee or a shirt without thinking about where it came from and who made it for you. This isn't necessarily a bad thing; after all, it tends to allow us to see the shades of grey I'm so big on and consider the consequences of our actions. Still, it makes it tough to feel sheer elation and exhilaration about anything. This transition from a shining ideological paradise to the dirty and grubby world of realpolitik has also happened in sports. Perhaps the best example is baseball's steroid era and the resulting Mitchell Report, the final illusion-shattering document I wrote about here . It's why people were so incensed about steroid use in baseball but willing to tolerate...

The Vancouver Whitecaps are expected to announce a deal with the provincial government today to build a $30 million training facility/national development centre at John Oliver Park in South Delta [ Phillip Raphael , South Delta Leader ]. This is quite an interesting move and may considerably affect Canadian soccer. For one thing, this kind of new facility will only further shift the balance of Canadian youth development to the West. The Whitecaps already have the most comprehensive youth academy in Canada and are producing and developing a lot of Canada's young talent; this facility should help them attract even more of the top prospects. The climate also favours a Western shift, as the B.C. soccer season goes year-round, unlike much of the rest of the country where snow prevents extensive play in the winter. I don't have many details on this yet, but it certainly sounds like a move that would aid Vancouver's youth development system and Canada's youth development a...

This is interesting. After the media flurry the other day about apparent threats [ Friends of Soccer ] by the party to axe the proposed retractable roof for B.C. Place, which I wrote about here , the NDP has come out with a statement calling the whole thing a " Liberal lie " and claiming that they've always been at war with Eurasia in favour of a retractable roof. That does seem to be a bit of a reversal in my mind thanks to the ads they have ran and the lack of specific provisions for B.C. Place in their platform, but it could also have been a misinterpretation. Regardless of who's to blame, the important thing for B.C. soccer fans is that both sides in the election now are committed to the renovations, which is a great thing for both the Whitecaps and the B.C. Lions. That's as it should be in my mind; this team and their move to MLS are too important to be used as political pawns. Regardless of who takes the election, the future of the renovations now appears ...

The upcoming B.C. provincial election has invaded many areas of life, but sports wasn't really a key issue until now. Tyler Green and Mike Martignago from The TEAM 1040 reported on their blog this afternoon that the provincial New Democrats are threatening to scrap the planned retractable roof for B.C. Place, which of course was a key element in the Whitecaps' successful bid for MLS status. According to the TEAM's sport business commentator Tom Mayenknecht , their goal is "to scrap the plans for a retractable roof and proceed with a simpler replacement fixed roof." With a retractable roof, as I've written before , B.C. Place could actually become a solid soccer stadium. The renovations are based on Commerzbank Arena in Frankfurt, home to Eintracht Frankfurt of the Bundesliga and a stadium that hosted World Cup matches in 2006. The new design for B.C. Place follows the lines of Commerzbank Arena quite closely and has a lot of potential. Without that roof, B....

Wednesday's announcement [ Geoffrey York , The Globe and Mail ] that the Dalai Lama will be barred from visiting South Africa until after the 2010 World Cup was rather interesting. After all, as the Globe pointed out in their editorial on the matter, this is a country famous for producing civil-rights advocates like Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu . This move seemed a step back from the recent success of South Africa, and more in tune with the country's ugly past under apartheid. Government spokesman Thabo Masebe told the Globe the move “would not be in South Africa's best interests.” That depends on the interests you're considering. There's a good reason "Follow the money" is one of the most memorable lines from the film version of All The President's Men , one of my favourite journalism books of all time. You can often learn quite a bit from the greenback trail. Let's try and apply that methodology here and see where it takes us. South Af...

Some interesting news came out today. The Vancouver Whitecaps, who have been trying for ages to give the city a privately-funded new showcase stadium (supposed to be paid for entirely by Vancouver multi-millionare Greg Kerfoot, the team's owner who has been a key financial backer of the growth of soccer in Canada) with little success, may have finally made the breakthrough needed on a stadium of suitable size to support their Major League Soccer ambitions. However, the potential breakthrough has come from an unexpected direction that may cause as many problems as it creates. According to local radio station CKNW, both the Whitecaps and Lions will be represented tomorrow morning at a news conference called by B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell , which is believed to be on the subject of a new retractable roof for B.C. Place. The Whitecaps told CKNW last week that they'd consider playing in B.C. Place with the new roof if it helped their chances of landing an MLS franchise. On the fac...

Good for former Canadian Olympic swimmers Shannon Shakespeare and Nikki Dryden, who delivered an open letter to Chinese President Hu Jintao at the Chinese Mission to the United Nations today. I've written about this before , but in my mind, politics are inextricably linked with sport, and it's far too late to pull them out now. Kudos to Shakespeare and Dryden for taking a stand on an important issue using their athletic status: I'd much rather see that than just another ad for sneakers or Gatorade. This also shows the futility of the Belgian Olympic Committee trying to impose a "gag order" on their athletes. As James Christie's Globe and Mail story linked above points out, the IOC already has relegations to allow athletes freedom of speech while at the same time ensuring the entire games don't become about politics: attempts by individual organizations to try and clamp down even harder are over the top. It was also nice to see Steven Spielberg back out ...