Fear and Loathing in Vancouver: Ignoring the real problem

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. However, shortly thereafter, the IOC changed their tune dramatically, blaming Kumartiashvili for his own death [Jere Longman, The New York Times] after a brief investigation. Arthur accurately called their news release on the matter "a truly heartless and despicable missive", which about sums it up. Georgia president Mikheil Saakashvili nailed it in his comments at a news conference [Donald McKenzie, The Canadian Press] shortly thereafter, saying "No sports mistake is supposed to lead to a death. No sports mistake is supposed to be fatal."

Blaming the tragedy on Kumaritashvili is missing a big part of the picture. Yes, Kumaritashivili made a mistake, and yes, that led to his death. Clearly, the course can be navigated without tragedy, or we would have seen other deaths. What the IOC is overlooking, though, is that these kind of sports by nature are a delicate balance between speed and safety, and the Whistler track falls on the wrong side of that line [Jeff Passan, Yahoo!]

As Jeff Blair of The Globe and Mail wrote a week before the crash, many concerns had been raised about the track's incredible combination of ridiculous speed and tremendous G-forces long before Kumaritashvili's death. The New York Times reported today that Venezuelan athlete Werner Hoeger had been trying to warn Canadian and international luge officials of the track's dangers since he suffered a concussion on a race there in November, and Misha Dzhindzhikhashvili of The Associated Press wrote that Kumaritashvili had called his father shortly before his death to relay his concerns about the track. Other athletes had commented on the track as well, with Australian luger Hannah Campbell-Pegg being one of the most outspoken [ The Daily Telegraph]. "I think they are pushing it a little too much," Campbell-Pegg said before the fatal crash. "To what extent are we just little lemmings that they just throw down a track and we're crash test dummies? This is our lives." Unfortunately, her comments and the comments American luger Tony Benshoof made to NBC [Blair] turned prophetic: "When I first got on this track, I thought that somebody was going to kill themselves."

The worst part about the luge tragedy is that the IOC has completely overlooked the inherent flaws in the track. Yes, they made some changes, but as Yahoo!]'s Trey Kerby commented, those changes should have been made beforehand. "I'm not a professor of luge safety, but doesn't it seem as if these extra measures should have been installed when the track was built?" he wrote. "Isn't it common sense to pad steel beams and to try to eliminate the possibility of a slider flying off the course? It's terrible that a life was lost to learn these lessons."

Even that would be more acceptable if the IOC admitted they got it wrong, and they were now fixing the problem. That wasn't how they approached it, though; the safety changes were depicted as unnecessary changes made only to reassure athletes. As Longman wrote, "Olympic officials insisted that the changes were not made for safety reasons, but rather to accommodate the emotional state of Kumaritashvili’s fellow athletes — a bogus notion." They've also announced that the track at the 2014 Olympics will be slower [AP], but won't admit that there's anything wrong with the track in Vancouver. They've tried to cover up the problem, and you can bet they're happy that everyone's moved on to more trivial complaints about the weather and the security. In the end, a man's life has been lost needlessly and the IOC has done their best to blame him for the tragedy. That's the real shadow that hangs over these Olympics.

Tragedy, and why it needs to be discussed

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" and "macabre", two statements I strongly agree with. There are even reports (from CFL Manager of Digital Media Jaime Stein) that CTV has been removing comments critical of their coverage of the crash from their website. Trying to sweep tragedies under the rug is never the right approach. To be fair, we probably shouldn't expect better from CTV, given that their entire buildup to the Olympics (including having their own staffers carry the Olympic torch) shows that they're more interested in propaganda than journalism. This is still disappointing from them, though.

This crash demands more coverage because, like most sports-related tragedies, it isn't an isolated incident. Jeff Blair of The Globe And Mail had an excellent piece last Saturday on the Olympic sliding track, which will be used for luge, skeleton and bobsleigh events. The track is so steep that it set records for the fastest speed in both luge and bobsleigh on the World Cup circuit. It also features turns of up to 5 Gs, and sleds routinely average 2.5 to 3 Gs on their way down the track.*

*For those who need a physics refresher, g is the gravitational constant of acceleration, or how fast you'd accelerate towards Earth in free-fall if there was no air resistance. It's approximately 9.81 metres/second squared. Thus, three Gs is three times the normal acceleration due to gravity, and about 30 metres/second squared. It's also about the amount of maximum acceleration encountered during a Space Shuttle launch. The effects of G-force, and how much humans can tolerate, depends on the duration of the acceleration and the direction it's coming from, but suffice it to say that 3-5 Gs is a hell of a lot.

It's not just that the track is fast; in fact, Kumaritashvili was clocked at 144.3 km/h, well below the track record of 153.9 km/h. The problems arise from combining an extremely fast course with high G-force twists and turns. According to the above Montreal Gazette story, the crash came on the final turn, Turn 16, known as "The Thunderbird", when "Kumaritashvili hit the track's inside wall, flew in the air up and over the outside wall and struck the girder". His crash is far from the only one, though; we've seen tons of athletes crashing on the course during World Cup events and during this practice week. The track is so intense that according to Blair's story, the IOC has already told organizers for the 2014 Olympics in Sochi to keep their sliding course more restrained.

The question is now what should come next. Chris Chase has a well-reasoned piece up at Fourth-Place Medal arguing that the track's too dangerous for luge, and the entire event should be cancelled. I'm not sure that that's the correct solution, but it absolutely has to be considered. If the luge event is to go on, there must first be a careful investigation and precautions taken to avoid a reoccurence of this tragedy.

In my mind, this tragedy and the others mentioned above speak to a broader dilemna in sports, though. There are fine lines to be walked, and many questions that must be asked. In luge and bobsleigh, there must be a balance between speed, thrills and safety, but where should it lie? In football and hockey, there has to be a distinction between physical play and head shots, and the need to reduce concussions has to be balanced with the need to deliver a hard-hitting product, but which side should we err on and where do we draw the line? Should all athletes be tested for heart conditions, and if so, at what age do we start? If an athlete is found to have a heart condition or some other defect, should we ban them from sports to preserve their safety, or should we let them play at their own risk?

In my mind, there are no black-and-white answers to any of these questions, and they all need to be looked at, researched, analyzed and debated. We need more detailed coverage of these tragedies, not less, even if it damages our goal of escapism. That's why CTV made the wrong move, going from a depressing story that needed to be covered to a potentially uplifting one that didn't need to be focused on. In my mind, we need to take a hard look at these situations despite their tragic nature, rather than sweeping them under the rug and moving on to the next feel-good moment.

Luc Bourdon killed in motorcycle crash

Another tragedy has struck a promising hockey prospect with a great future in front of him. Not even four months after the death of Calgary Flames' prospect Mickey Renaud, Canucks' defenceman Luc Bourdon dies in a motorcycle crash in New Brunswick. According to the Globe and Mail's story, the police have said that a motorcycle hit a transport truck head-on. They didn't release the victim's name, but Bourdon's sister confirmed it was him.

This is terribly sad. Bourdon, a first-round draft pick (10th overall) back in 2005, had so much potential, and really seemed to be entering a phase of his career where he could be an everyday NHL defenceman. In fact, if he hadn't been in the Canucks' organization which boasts one of the deepest defence corps in the league, he probably would have played a full season at the NHL level last year. It's a big loss for the team, as he was probably their most promising minor-leaguer last year. More importantly, though, it's a reminder of our own mortality and a loss of a talented young man to the world. Bourdon was only 21, one year older than me.

Obviously, this is a different situation from Renaud's death, where exactly what happened still doesn't seem to be clear. This is perhaps even more sad, because it easily could have been avoided if Bourdon wasn't out riding his motorcycle, or if any number of things had gone differently on the road. As such, it's probably going to lead to a flood of renewed calls to ban athletes from riding motorcycles (similar to those heard after Ben Roethlisberger's crash). However, I'm not sure if that's warranted. Sure, riding motorcycles can be dangerous, but shaking hands, ironing shirts and looking both ways can also cause injuries. As much as most general managers would probably like to, you can't encase your athletes in protective glass bubbles. They're young, they're rich, and of course they're going to live on the edge and make some bad choices, but that's their right.



Motorcycles are like many other things in life: used properly, they can be a great deal of fun, but there's always the potential for disaster. An older, early-twenties acquaintance of mine was killed in a motorcycle crash when I was in high school, and of course it was a tragedy. It didn't inspire me to become an anti-motorcycle crusader, though: in fact, I hope to own my own motorcycle some day, and I still do after this crash. In some ways, it's like flying: far less people are killed in plane crashes than car crashes every year, but many people are more worried about disaster in the air because it's big news whenever a plane goes down, but auto accidents have become so commonplace that they're barely reported any more. Similarly, motorcycle crashes are big news, particularly when they involve famous athletes, but the dangers of more mundane travel options like cars are overlooked. I'm not arguing that motorcycles are inherently safe: clearly, there's a lot of potential for things to go wrong, and you don't have much of anything in the way of protection. The point is just that we shouldn't go overboard and start proposing bans on all motorcycles for athletes or the general public because of a tragedy like this.

Related: Neate, Alanah, James and Sean all have good posts up on this.

Update: 4:41 P.M. ET: Jason Botchford of the Vancouver Province has more details.

Avery in hospital?

Just saw this update from the Globe's David Shoalts. Apparently, Sean Avery was rushed to a New York hospital this morning in cardiac arrest. I detest the guy, but you don't want that to happen to anyone. Get well soon, Avery: the league depends on you to get it some headlines. It says a lot about him that there aren't any hockey pictures of him other than fights until the third page of Google Image Search (Photo credit: Ed Betz/AP, from New York Times site).

Update, 7:23 PM: Not a heart attack, an apparently ruptured (or maybe not ruptured?) spleen. Still very severe, but it seems difficult to mix up the two, particularly as Avery apparently walked into the hospital under his own power instead of being carried in unconscious and not breathing. Serves me right for believing a report published by that paragon of journalism, the New York Daily News. In fact, as Alanah and Eric McErlain have pointed out, the Daily News hasn't even admitted their mistake yet and just changed their story without bothering to tell anyone or call it an update. David Singer of hockeyfights.com has a nice screen capture of the original (since-removed) story and a good post on the subject. As he writes, "The NY Daily News post about Avery is all sorts of different now. There are subtractions, additions, and not one mention of an edit. I understand a story like this breaks, and everyone can’t nitpick all the facts as there’s a race to report, but the original sourced story around the web right now is from the News and it looks like we’ve all quoted phantom material. The timestamp is different, that’s about it. It’s alright to post edits and updates, it doesn’t make your organization look weak, it makes you look like you’re continuously reporting, and certainly helps your readers understand what’s correct." Looks like some mainstream media (if you can call the Daily News that) could benefit from blogger ethics.

Update, 10:20 AM May 1: The fallout from Averygate continues: check out the pieces at Regret the Error and James Mirtle's blog. The Daily News may have wanted attention, and they got it in spades, but perhaps not of the kind they'd have liked.

Another athlete dies too soon

Just a week after I wrote this piece about heart failure and athletes dying young, another student-athlete has died. Neate has more on the tragic death of 19-year-old Ereck Plancher, a receiver at the University of Central Florida.

As the Orlando Sentinel's Andrea Adelson writes<, , this is anything but an isolated incident. "The same story seems to play out every year: a seemingly healthy college football player dies suddenly as the result of a workout, and there are no immediate answers why," she wrote. "The last year there were no noncontact college football deaths was 1999. Since 1966, there have there have only been seven years when there were no noncontact college football deaths." The Sentinel also provides a list of athletes who have died recently after workouts.

Those are some scary numbers, up there with the ones I found from the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation's national registry of young athlete deaths. Their researchers estimate there are 125 athletes under 35 who die every year, mostly due to heart failure.

The real problem is there aren't any easy solutions. Defibrillators are one of the best methods for preventing these deaths, but UCF had one, and using it didn't make a difference. Initial autopsy reports were inconclusive, as they always seem to be: no one's figured out exactly what killed Mickey Renaud yet either. The school gives its players a physical exam, but it's unclear how much that helps either, as many conditions go undetected. As Dr. Andrew Pipe, the medical director of the University of Ottawa Heart Institute Minto Prevention and Rehabilitation Centre, told me last week, even physical exams for all athletes haven't been proven effective yet.

Italy has a law that anyone who participates in competitive sport must undergo a physical examination. Pipe said that would be difficult to implement in Canada due to the doctor shortage, but even compulsory physicals don’t necessarily reduce deaths.
“In Italy, there’s a surplus of doctors, so there clearly are ways in which that can be accomplished,” he said. “The question has been raised and has been looked at very carefully as to whether that is likely to actually reduce the incidence of these kind of deaths, and there’s an ongoing debate about that.”

Even electrocardiogram testing, as is done at some universities, is problematic due to the high number of false positives generated. Dr. Willem Meeuwisse, a professor at the University of Calgary’s Sport Medicine Centre and a clinical physician who was the Calgary Flames’ team doctor for six years, told me this brings in the question of if we're willing to ban healthy people to ensure no one dies.

“The numbers tell us the risk of a sudden cardiac death in that age group [under 35] is probably one in 200,000," he said. "We know with the current methods we have, with screening with ECGs, you probably have about a two per cent positive rate. If the rate of sudden deaths is that low, almost all of those are false positives. If you use ECG and then find an abnormality and say you can’t play sports, the question is, are you willing to exclude 2,000 healthy people from playing sports to catch the one that might have a sudden death?"

That is the $64,000 question. Personally, I think it's better to let the 2,000 people play. Universal electrocardiogram testing would be great if it was cheaper, just to give people an idea of they might be at risk, but using that to ban people from the sport they love is a poor idea in my mind. The other thing is, as Pipe and Meeuwisse both pointed out, people can get a better idea of if they're at risk of heart problems just from their family histories. Technology may be the answer in the future, especially with the new echocardiograms that provide a much better picture of the heart's functionality via sound waves than an electrocardiogram does. At the moment, it isn't providing any solutions, though.

One thing that can be addressed is the need for and the intensity of these off-season training sessions. As the Sentinel's Mike Bianchi wrote, these workouts have caused too many deaths over the years.

"Almost always it happens during offseason workouts," he wrote. "This is the time of year when football players are programmed to give absolutely everything they have. To leave it all out on the field.To pay the ultimate price. Sadly, yet another one did just that Tuesday when UCF freshman wide receiver Ereck Plancher passed out after completing a conditioning drill." Bianchi later quotes former UCF wide receiver Jimmy Fryzel, who said, "The offseason workouts are usually hell. That's when you have to really push yourself to get better." The question begs asking, how much pushing is too much?

One other point is that these deaths should perhaps scare people from working themselves too hard in athletic training, but they shouldn't stop people from training altogether. As Pipe told me, the majority of young athletes are far better off than those who don't play sports. "Overall, there’s a death rate of about 1 per 200,000 young athletes," he said. "These are very tragic, but relatively rare events, which understandably get a considerable amount of publicity. Ironically, we should also recognize that for the majority of young people in Canada today, a sedentary lifestyle is far more hazardous than participating in sport."

In the end, all the analysis and rationalization can only take you so far, though: it can't get you away from the stark reality of a life full of potential that didn't have to end. As Bianchi wrote. "An athlete dying young -- is there anything more devastating than unrealized hopes and an unexplored future lying motionless on a cold floor?" I'm not sure there is.

Three tragedies

Much ink has been spilled this week on the death of J.I. Albrecht by such worthies as Neate, Stephen Brunt, and Earl McRae. One of the prices of young age is missing the chance to appreciate and understand legends firsthand, instead relying on secondary sources. Still, said secondary sources did a marvelous job of filling a young sportswriter in on what exactly will be missed. If you can read those pieces and not be moved, you're a tougher man than I. McRae's piece in particular shows the dichotomy at the heart of
sports fandom: we like our athletes and heroes to go out at the top, and have a hard time combining the bedridden old man with the legendary general manager.

"This is the figure of physical power, of dominating presence, I remember," he writes. "I am not prepared for the J.I. Albrecht before my eyes. His sunken body covered in a white sheet from his neck to his toes. His unshaven face thin and pale. His good eye red and hurting. His left arm and hand immobilized from the stroke. His toothless mouth misshapen by the stroke. His aching legs unable to walk. The catheter so that he can urinate. The diaper for his uncontrollable bowel movements. The oozing bedsore on his buttocks. The medication he's on since the heart attack. The pain killing drugs for the damaged prostate, the pain of which makes him scream out to God during the day and in the middle of the long, dark night."

Andy Rooney's 15 minutes of fame can last for years of a sporting career, but for most, once the glory days of the gridiron are behind, the spotlight never shines again until after the final darkness falls. We don't want to see our legends reduced to sad, pitiable old men. Consider Muhammad Ali, quite likely the greatest boxer whoever lived: we prefer to visualize him at the triumphant heights of the "Rumble in the Jungle" or the "Thrilla in Manila", not the old man whose pugilistic Parkinson's syndrome, an unwanted byproduct of the glory years, has reduced him to a mere shadow of his former self. As Neil Young wrote, "It's better to burn out than fade away."

That logic itself requires some analysis. This week, I wrote a piece for the Journal on the deaths of young athletes Mickey Renaud, Shannon Veal and Rene Ayangma. All of these deaths were truly tragic, and certainly disappointing given the potential of these athletes, both in sports and in life. Yet, the sad fact is, along with others like Dale Ernhardt and Owen Hart, they've probably gained more fame because of their tragic death than they ever would have in life. Look at Bill Masterton, who now has a trophy named after him and became the poster boy for the NHL's helmet campaign. Renaud could have gone on to a great career in the NHL, but unless he cracked that first tier of superstars, few would probably remember him down the road.

Another case is shown by Bill Simmons' moving column this week on the funeral of Jamiel Andre Shaw Jr. Shaw's death is another tragedy, and definitely deserved the full treatment (which Bill delivered in great style: for those who question the man's sportswriting talent, please read this piece). However, the unfortunate fact of life is even if Shaw had lived out his dream of playing in the NFL, it's a pretty slim likelihood that he would have gotten a whole Bill Simmons column devoted to him (unless he led the Patriots to victory in Super Bowl L, but that's another story). It's the age-old myth of Achilles, who chose dying young as the most famous warrior in the world over living to old age as an obscure coward. Sadly, these athletes weren't offered the choice, though.

Another salient aspect to consider is from the Kingston Frontenacs - Oshawa Generals game I attended Tuesday night, where I picked up a souvenir program. Myself and my friend, both being hockey geeks of some description, quickly proceeded to the back pages where the list of franchise alumni who made it to Tom Cochrane's "Big League" is proudly displayed. There are plenty of recognizable names from the current era, such as Chris Gratton, Chad Kilger and Craig Rivet, as well as names out of the past like Mike Gillis, Ken Linseman, Bernie Nicholls and Tony McKegney. Yet, one jumped out by its total inconspicuousness: Jay Wells, who played a terrific total of 1098 NHL games (second only to Nicholls among franchise alumni) and won a Stanley Cup. Until Tuesday, I had never heard of Wells: his Wikipedia page shows that he was a pretty darn good player (a first-round draft pick defensive defenceman who was part of the Rangers' 94 Cup win, but was traded the next year as a reward for his yeoman service). Defensive defencemen don't tend to get the press clippings, though. They toil in obscurity, never hitting the heights . Wells never burned bright enough to go out in a blaze of glory: instead, he kept the coals glowing until the last spark of his career sputtered out. Compared to such spectacular NHL bests as Alexandre Daigle, his legacy is amazing: far fewer people know his name, however.

In the end, there's no real winners and losers. Dying young is tragic: so's being forgotten about in a nursing home, asking writers to stay to provide some desperately needed companionship. Is it better to be an Achilles, who goes out at his peak, or one of the unnamed foot soldiers in that war who made it back unscathed? To drive like the Intimidator and embrace the terrible consequences of doing so, or to peacefully finish in the middle of the pack? Who's better off, Daigle or Wells? Above all, is it really better to burn out than fade away? A.E. Housman, in his famous poem "To An Athlete Dying Young," wrote that it was.

"Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose."

Simmons begs to differ, though, arguing that the true tragedy is the lost potential.

"When it's a star football player with a chance to make something of his life? It matters to people who didn't even know him. Maybe he would have starred in college. Maybe he would have starred in the pros. Maybe he would have injured a knee next season, and that would have been that. There's no way to know. What mattered was the promise that something could happen, that something might happen."

Who's right? Ours not to reason why. In the end though, the blaze of glory and the slow sputter have one thing in common: all that remains afterwards is ash. The sad thing for those of us left learning about the Albrecht, Renaud and Shaw deaths via our computer screen is we never got the chance to meet these amazing people and never experienced their passion for the game. In the latter two cases, we didn't get to see what they'd become; in the first case, we missed out on one of the CFL's great characters. In the end, both missed opportunities are tragedies.

Sonics: A last chance to save a historic franchise

Note: this is another piece on the Sonics that was originally earmarked for my Journal blog, but got pulled from there due to an upcoming column on the same issue. Thought I'd put it up here: this situation deserves all the coverage I can give it, in my mind.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer finds himself in an unusual position this week. Instead of the usual vilification and curses that accompany mentions of his company, he’s now seen as a potential saviour—at least in Seattle. As the Associated Press reported Thursday, Ballmer and three other local businessmen—Costco CEO Jim Sinegal, Seattle developer Matt Griffin and wireless magnate John Stanton—have agreed to put up $150 million towards a $300-million renovation of Seattle’s Key Arena, the home of the NBA’s SuperSonics. The rest of the cost would be publicly funded. The cash would go towards adding new restaurants, stores and club space. The money’s desperately needed: owner Clay Bennett has repeatedly threatened to relocate the team to Oklahoma City, and is set to do so if the league approves the move at a meeting next month.

This is the perfect chance to check Bennett’s sincerity. When he bought the franchise, he told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer he would keep it in town if a suitable arena was found. Co-owner Aubrey McClendon later told the Oklahoma Journal-Record what many had suspected all along: the group had no intentions of ever staying in Seattle. "But we didn't buy the team to keep it in Seattle; we hoped to come here,” he said. Bennett tried to distance himself from the comments, and the league fined McClendon, but a poorly kept secret wasn’t even a secret anymore. Throughout this process, Bennett has been holding a gun to the city’s head to try and force them to build him a new arena or upgrade the existing one. It has now been shown there are local interests willing to contribute the money Bennett won’t. It’s clear he doesn’t particularly want to keep the team in town, but it would be only reasonable for him to sell to a local group willing to put up this kind of cash. Ballmer and his partners have the deep pockets to pay any reasonable price Bennett asks for. If he turns down this offer, it becomes particularly obvious that he was out to move from the start.

Ballmer, Griffin, Sinegal and Stanton are proving to be local heroes in the best sense of the word. As Griffin told the Post-Intelligencer, none of them particularly wanted to buy a team in the typical manner of millionaire playboys. "These are people with other jobs and lives to lead,” Griffin said. "Being a Sonics owner isn't their objective in life. But knowing we have to save the team and fix Seattle Center is important to them." They saw a need to step up and save their city’s beloved team, and they admirably filled the void. The other great advantage of having Ballmer at the helm is it would further enhance the team’s biggest rivalry—the I-5 duel with the Portland Trailblazers, owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who left the company after clashes with Ballmer and Bill Gates.

There’s a time crunch, though. As a story in yesterday’s Seattle Times pointed out, only half of the public money is coming from the city, which has already stepped on board: mayor Greg Nickels is a strong advocate for keeping the franchise in Seattle. The rest would come from the state legislature, via the extension of a King County-only car rental and restaurant tax that’s currently used to pay off the debt on Safeco Field, the recently built home of the Seattle Mariners baseball franchise. This seems like a reasonable proposal, and according to the Post-Intelligencer’s Chris McGann, the legislature and Washington governor Chris Gregoire are far more favourable towards it than they have been towards the previous solutions advocated, largely driven by the massive up-front commitment from Ballmer and company. Unfortunately, the legislature’s slated to adjourn next Thursday, and it seems unlikely a bill could be passed that quickly. Gregoire hasn’t ruled out the possibility of addressing the issue this session, but it will likely take substantial public pressure to cut through the normal bureaucratic red tape. Fans rallied at the state capital Saturday to draw attention to their team’s plight: hopefully, this will get the legislature to act quickly. As the Times' Steve Kelley wrote, unified action is desperately needed. "Now, let's see some action from the legislature," he wrote. "Let's find out who the lawmakers with courage and creativity are. Let's find the politicians who aren't willing to take the easy way out by telling us their "shot clock" has expired." Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like that's too likely at the moment.

There’s yet another villain in the mix—NBA commissioner David Stern, the Emperor Palpatine to Bennett’s Darth Vader, cleverly manipulating events from behind the scenes. Stern’s ties to Bennett run deep, and he served as the presenter at Bennett’s introduction into the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame in November. As Post-Intelligencer columnist Jim Moore rightly pointed out about the Bennett-Stern collusion, “I'm not sure what this reeks of, but it reeks of something.”

Stern has other evil motives at work as well: he would surely hate to see a city refuse to pick up the majority of a tab for a not-really-needed new arena or renovation, as that would set a dangerous precedent for professional sports. Taxpayers are supposed to not only fling their wallets open for team tickets, merchandise and overpriced beer, but also throw money at billionaire owners to buy them new arenas free of charge. As ESPN sportswriter Bill Simmons pointed out, this is a ludicrous idea that, if fulfilled, means any team’s owner could pack up and leave if he didn’t get the arena deal he was looking for. “Why should citizens spend tax money paying for a new arena just to make a billionaire wealthier than he already is?” Simmons wrote. “If the precedent is set here—‘Pay for my new arena or I'm leaving’—then really, the same thing could eventually happen to your favorite NBA team.”

The Seattle situation is important for anyone who has ever felt a connection to their local team. Fans in Seattle have been there for 41 years, through the glory days and the dark times. They deserve more than having their team pack up and walk away in the dead of the night. Simmons captured this brilliantly in his column. “I think it's reprehensible to watch someone hijack a franchise away from the people who cared about the team and loved it and nurtured it through the years,” he wrote. “It belittles not just the good people of Seattle, but everyone who loves sports and believes it provides a unique and valuable connection for a city, a community, family members and friends.” I couldn’t agree more.

Things are looking dim for the Sonics, but there’s still a chance they can be saved. Ballmer’s gone from a role in everyone’s favorite evil empire to an unlikely leader of a small band of rebels who won’t accept the unilateral seizure of their team. Stern’s boldly making pronouncements about the inevitability of victory for the dark side, but the fight isn’t over yet. "It's apparent to all who are watching that the Sonics are heading out of Seattle," Stern told the Associated Press during his annual all-star weekend press conference Feb.16. "I accept that inevitability at this point. There is no miracle here." That’s the thing with miracles, though: they tend to show up when you’re not looking for them, especially after someone has just declared their invulnerability. All plans this dastardly inevitably have a fatal weakness—here’s hoping Ballmer and company can find it before it’s too late.

Scribblings of the Scribes of Sport: Gare Joyce's reflections on a tragedy

The recent death of Windsor Spitfires captain Mickey Renaud hit pretty close to home for me: when an apparently-healthy young athlete inexplicably collapses at the breakfast table, it's tough not to think about both your own mortality and the role athletes play in our lives.

Writing about a tragedy like this is a tough task, and it takes a special talent to portray someone accurately through the reminisces of friends and teammates.
It's also an incredibly difficult topic to tackle, especially given the insular nature of sports in general and junior hockey in particular: these already close-knit communities tend to close ranks even more after this sort of tragedy. Fortunately, Gare Joyce has what it takes to do the job, and turned out a tremendous piece for ESPN's Page 2, more than worthy of further analysis here.

Consider the title, "O captain, our captain," an allusion to Walt Whitman's poem about Lincoln's assassination, which was later famously referenced in Dead Poets' Society). It's more than a surface allusion, in my mind at least. Whitman's poem talks about how the ship's achieved its goals and come back to port safely, but the captain isn't there to see it. As he writes, "The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done/From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won...But I, with mournful tread/Walk the deck my Captain lies, fallen cold and dead." There are certainly similarities to the Renaud situation here: the Spitfires are doing well (35-15-11, third-best in the OHL's Western Conference) and have already clinched a playoff berth, but their captain won't be there to see any success that comes from his efforts.

The article continues on from this promising start in good fashion. Joyce begins with a poignant image of Spitfires' GM Warren Rychel shakily lacing up his skates while discussing the situation. As Joyce points out, it's interesting to see a former tough-as-nails player so deeply moved by this situation. "He had been a tough guy in the NHL, 400 games and dozens of brawls against the league's heavyweights, and now he was fighting back tears," he writes. "Again. No counting how many times over the past 10 days." This brief glimpse past the usual gruff and solid facade put up by many hockey players powerfully conveys the uniqueness, emotion and tragedy associated with this story─coming so early in the feature, it's a perfect answer to the ever-present question often leveled at sports features, "Why should we care?" The unexpected reaction shows there's a crucially important story here, and draws the reader's attention to what's to come.

A particularly interesting segment of the article focuses on one of Renaud's legacies: a pair of enormous work boots he came up with the idea for, to be awarded to the hardest-working player on a given night. The boots provide an insight into Renaud's character, as a leader, motivator and scrappy player, always looking for a way to give his team the edge.

Leadership is absolutely crucial in major junior hockey, perhaps more so than at any other level. At lower levels, many of the players are local, and the game isn't taken as seriously. At higher levels, it's a group of professionals. Sure, captains are still an important element in the NHL, but motivational speeches and inspiration likely don't play as big of a role among adult pros. University hockey needs leaders as well, but there's much less of an uprooting effect: many university players choose their school for other reasons than hockey, and those from out of town are often in the same boat as many other students. Hockey's also only part of their lives, as academics and social events occur outside the team bubble as well.

In major junior, as Joyce points out, the majority of the players have to leave their hometowns, their families and their friends at the age of 16. Hockey becomes a huge part─many would argue the central part─of their lives, and their social networks and day-to-day routines adjust accordingly. Also, most of the guys probably have the all-consuming desire to do well individually and attract NHL attention, perhaps spurred on by the knowledge that only a few of them will succeed. Synthesizing these diverse uprooted personalities, each with their own dreams and goals, into a cohesive unit is a difficult task for anyone. It's made even more difficult when the captain, expected to keep the team together and on the same page, is an adolescent himself dealing with many of the same issues.

Joyce shows that Renaud had his own set of unique issues to deal with as one of the few to play in front of his hometown crowd. As he writes, this brings its own set of challenges. "You get home-cooked meals, but that doesn't help with the unrelenting pressure of performing in front of those who know you," he writes. "Some struggle with it but Renaud thrived."

Joyce then uses some quotes from Spitfires' coach Bob Boughner to illustrate what an exceptional person and leader Renaud truly appears to have been, able to unify his fellow players and turn a group of individuals into a dynamic team.

"He was pulled in a lot of directions," Boughner said. "He had his friends on his team and his friends from his neighborhood. He had the kids he went to school with, too. As the captain, he tried to do things in the community -- if there was an event that a player had to attend, if someone had to get up and speak, it was Mickey. And he wanted to do that. If a player was traded to the team, he was the one who picked him at the station and drove him to his billets' house and introduced him to his teammates. Mickey looked for a way to lead."

That's a fantastic description for a 19-year old, particularly coming from a former NHLer of Boughner's reputation. No wonder the Calgary Flames wanted this guy. It's incredibly tragic that his life was cut so short, but he certainly made an impact on his team, his friends and his community, as the outpouring of support from those he touched demonstrates.

Joyce finishes off the story with a unique touch, an interview with Spitfires' centre Matthew Bragg, who was given the boots after the Spitfires' first game without their captain.

"It was Mickey who was in charge of the music and I used to get on him," Bragg said. "He used to play this awful rap or hip-hop or whatever. I'd get in there and try to sneak on some of my music. Some Irish stuff. Some Newfoundland music, like the band Great Big Sea. I might take over the music in the room from now on. Maybe that's what I can do."

The conclusion follows on from this perfectly, summing up the article neatly and again demonstrating the irreplacable void Renaud's left in the organization.

"At practices and before games there'll be music the rest of the season and maybe Bragg will put on Great Big Sea," Joyce writes. "But no one is going to replace Renaud, their captain -- someone will wear his boots but no one will put on the Spitfires' C."

A fitting conclusion to a great piece. Stylistic analysis can only take you so far, as great elements don't of their own always make for a solid whole. Joyce injects more than this, a cohesive soul to the piece that deeply moved this reader at least. There's heart in this story: it's not an abstract tale, but rather a strongly personal one that relates the true significance of Renaud. Joyce makes you realize the human tragedy here, and shows how this will forever affect everyone who coached, played with or was just friends with Renaud. It's moments like this that break the barriers between athletes and the rest of us, that force us to step back and see the person as a whole, not just their on-ice personality. The music has fallen silent for the moment, and even if Bragg puts on Great Big Sea, it will never again be an ordinary day for the Windsor Spitfires: on the deck their captain lies, fallen cold and dead.

When tragedy strikes

In Truro, NS, for a few days, which is why updates have been a bit sporadic (also, covering three different games Saturday didn't help, but more on that later). Saw something I felt compelled to talk about, though. The Windsor Star is reporting that 19-year old Windsor Spitfires' captain Mickey Renaud collapsed and died in his home today.

This is a huge tragedy for the Spitfires, the OHL, and Canadian hockey as a whole. It illustrates the here today, gone tomorrow nature of sporting potential and fame. One moment Renaud was a fifth-round pick of the Calgary Flames, captain of a respected junior team, and one of the team's best players with 21 goals and 41 points in 56 games: the next, his bright future inside or outside hockey is suddenly stripped away. The Romans perhaps summed it up best: sic transit gloria.

It's these events that break the "fourth wall" between athletes and regular people. There are far too many of them: one of the best cases is soccer, which has had four athletes die during games since last August: Sevilla's Antonio Puerta, Hapoel Beersheba's Chaswe Nsofwa, Motherwell captain Phil O'Donnell and FC 105 Libreville's Guy Tchingoma, who died just nine days ago. Lately, there was also the Bathurst tragedy. Perhaps what this evokes more than anything is the Swift Current crash, one of the last big tragedies to strike major junior. The junior and high school disasters are especially poignant, as these teenagers had so much potential still unfulfilled. These events require us to step outside the sporting lens for a moment, and reflect on the loss to the wider human community.

Related: The Globe's Allan Maki has a good story up on the subject. I first found out about this via a Canadian Press brief on the Globe's website, which has since been taken down. Also, Neate has an interesting post , with a link to an Associated Press story after the New York Marathon tragedy this fall pondering if athletes' heart testing is sufficient.