It's stuff like that which curries favour for the notion Canada is addicted to hockey (nothing this site's commenters and writers haven't said before).
Beer companies invent cheesy ads related to Canadians' devotion to hockey; fast-food chains sell NHL figurines with a meal combo and the Stanley Cup playoffs run into June making it an eight-month season.The San Jose Sharks' Jeremy Roenick bought a golf course near Boston. This will give his teammate, Joe Thornton, somewhere to hang out in the middle of May, when he always seems to have a lot of free time.
And Canadians eat it all up.
"That's an unhealthy addiction.
Other sports like baseball, basketball, soccer, among others, are pushed to the fringe to make room for the almighty game of stick, ice and puck. And that's not right."
Shame on Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski for saying President Barack Obama should "focus on the economy" because he doesn't have the Blue Devils reaching the Final Four in his NCAA bracket (him and a lot of people). Far be it to expect Coach K to realize he gets paid $3 million a year to coach 19-year-olds in part since Americans turn to sports for solace in tough times. Who wouldn't be happy to find out they did better with their picks than Obama, who went 11-5 on Thursday's games?
Besides, Krzyzewski sure didn't turn down an invitation to take his team to the White House when Duke won the Final Four in 1991, '92 and 2001. Wouldn't that have taken the President's focus away from serious stuff?
There are way too many timeouts in NCAA basketball. Also, 24 seconds to shoot instead of (yawn) 35 means the Canadian version of the game is 1.4583333333333 times better than the NCAA.
Referring to college basketball's NIT as the Not Invited Tournament never gets old.
This post is worth nothing, but this is worth noting:
- Jeffrey Loria is one vote away from getting his new ballpark for the Florida Marlins.
- Congratulations to a one-time Simcoe Reformer colleague, Monte Sonnenberg, who is nominated for a National Newspaper Award in the local reporting category.
- Kingston Whig-Standard reporter Rob Tripp's Cancrime site is a real treasure trove, if you're into society's seamy underbelly.
Posts
4 comments:
I went 14-2 yesterday. Can I be President now? :-) Of course Coach K is ticked -- he is an ultra competitive guy, and he feels like he just got dissed by the President of the United States. He didn't, of course, but guys like Coach K use perceived slights and injustices as motivational fuel -- it's just how they roll. It's a close cousin of the, "us against the world" motivational speech, an old reliable that works quite well under the right circumstances.
You can't really blame the sports bars for the TV choices. Casual fans won't start to care until the Sweet 16, and even then there will be a portion of patrons who would prefer to see the Coyotes play the Avalanche, if only to see Gretzky crying about yet another call from the officials.
"Two different sports-bar type places yesterday, one during lunchtime rush and one during dinner rush, and neither had the NCAA Tournament on any of their dozen or so TVs."
Move to the states, then. Or Toronto. Same difference.
I forget which Tournament game it was last night, but after that crazy, crazy pair of games last Saturday in Kanata, it just didn't seem right for these college teams to have an extra 11 seconds to stand and dribble.
Would the same argument apply to Canadian football, which would be 1.333 times better? (Hmm...we have 1.333 and 1.4583 to go along with 1.6 km per mile? That's not a coincidence.)
If hockey didn't drone on for 8 months (and we were able to actually follow other sports in this country - hey, what the hell, even soccer) I might still be interested in it. But I can't escape the fact that it just drones on and on and on (like me). Anyone still listening? That's my point.
Post a Comment