Sporting Madness

Thanks to finally having a bit of time, I've brought back my The Whole 110 Yards CFL column over at The Rookies . My latest installment, a playoff preview, ran yesterday ; it might be worth a read if you're interested in looking at how my predictions compared to what actually happened. I'll hopefully have another installment up Tuesday breaking down yesterday's playoff games, and I'll be covering the CFL playoffs here and there all the way through the playoffs to the Grey Cup, which I'm headed to Calgary for. If yesterday's games are any indication, we could be in for a great ride!

Along with the rest of the staff from The CIS Blog and Arden Zwelling of the Western Gazette , I'll be live-blogging the Yates Cup at 1 p.m. Eastern today. Come join in the fun! <p><a href="http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php?option=com_mobile&task=viewaltcast&altcast_code=8add9d124d" >Yates Cup - OUA Finals - Western vs. Queens</a></p>

Today was Remembrance Day (Veterans' Day in the U.S.), so I've been doing a lot of reflecting on soldiers, wars and history. Ryan Gallivan has a good round-up of some excellent reading for the day, including this tremendous piece from Matt Ufford of Kissing Suzy Kolber fame on his experiences in Iraq, so I encourage you to check that out. However, there's one other story that always comes to my mind around now, and it's one that truly deserves to be remembered. If you haven't yet, I urge you to read Gary Smith 's excellent stories on former Arizona Cardinals safety Pat Tillman . If you have read them, go back and look at them again; they're well worth it. Tillman gave up a lucrative career in the NFL to go serve his country in the wake of the September 11 attacks and tragically lost his life doing so. What impressed me even more than his decision, though, was the outstanding person he was from all accounts. I love these pieces because Smith doesn...

I'll be discussing the Canucks' season so far over at Canucks Hockey Blog this evening with Richard Loat , Hosea Cheung and Guts McTavish . We'll kick it off at 10 p.m. Eastern/7 p.m. Pacific. Feel free to stop on by and check it out!

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

Join us in the live blog below! Thanks to Arden Zwelling of the Western Gazette for hosting! <a href="http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php?option=com_mobile&task=viewaltcast&altcast_code=f1dd57622f" >OUA Semi-Finals — Western vs. Laurier</a>

Join us in the live blog below! <a href="http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php?option=com_mobile&task=viewaltcast&altcast_code=fcdeda428e" >OUA Semifinal live blog: McMaster-Queen's</a>