Hoserdome: Picking the Olympic hockey team, while chewing on a Fellate of Fish

Mike Fisher is to Canada in 2010 as Ron Paul was to American politics in 2008. A few people really, really like him. Most people don't know who he is, let alone his qualifications.

Like a kid who swigged down a large Coke before a long car trip, it's impossible to hold this in any longer. The Fisher-for-Canada campaign has bordered on being a maple syrup-drenched Canadiana porn. The weak argument, which has had the most sway in Ottawa, won't die despite being stuck in Hockey Clichés 101 (Senators winger Chris Neil on The FAN 590 today: "Every game, he shows up, he plays hard. He does it at both ends of the ice. He'd be on my team."). It almost makes you wonder where we are as a sporting nation when people gleefully go along with such shallow jockism.

Fisher is a solid two-way player on an Ottawa Senators club which is getting on decentlypost-Dany Heatley (as prognosticated last June). He is the nice down-to-earth hockey player, truer to his roots than his VBF is on her visits to the salon. Even guys with an unblemished record of staunch heterosexuality will note he is totally man-pretty.

With all that, it is understandable why some fans want to see Fisher in Vancouver. What harm could he do as the 13th forward? It is understandable why some members of the hockey writers' tribe and CBC Sports clown Don Cherry, have played to the crowd, treating Fisher the way a public relations person treats a client.

This is not quite on a shame-on-them. You have seen Cherry's suits. You know he has no shame.

It's more of a comment on the divide between the Fish mongerers and those who would like to see sports debate in Canada -- i.e., hockey debate -- dragged out of some bygone era. It's just amusing when you have Fisher getting serious consideration in some circles, while other outside-of-Ottawa sources such as Tim Wharnsby at CBC Sports, Puck Daddy, the Kurtenblog guys don't even take the idea of Fisher seriously.

Three of five Globe & Mail writers had Fisher on their team. Two of four Hockey Night in Canada personalities, Cherry and Glenn Healy, also picked the Senator last Saturday. Oddly enough, in a Canwest News Service poll where editors, columnists and reporters made their picks anonymously, only 7% selected Fisher.

That is as it should be, since there are probably 18-20 Canadian forwards who are more eminently qualified. A cursory scan of Behind The Net shows Fisher has not exactly dominated opponents. He's benefited from playing with strong wingers, Nick Foligno, Alex Kovalev (yes, really) and the aforementioned Neil. He has averaged only 50 points per season in the post-lockout NHL. He doesn't offer much as a faceoff man, unlike other bubble players such as the Boston Bruins' Patrice Bergeron and the Chicago Blackhawks' Jonathan Toews.

Fisher being in the mix just attests to the paralysis by analysis that has gripped Canada every four years since the NHL began shutting down for the Olympics in 1998. People believe Canada needs a few role players -- cue Chris Neil, he does it at both ends of the ice! -- to play on the fourth line. Talk about a march to folly, where smart people pursue an end contrary to their self-interest (assist: Barbara Tuchman). Canada believes it can't match the offensive creativity and firepower of Russia, so its solution is to take fewer players with some serious snipe. As William Houston notes with the 2010 squad:

"Canada? An excellent team led by Sidney Crosby, but, like virtually every Canadian entry in an elite international competition, it will struggle to put the puck in the net. That's why Canadian general manager Steve Yzerman should be putting a priority on offensive talent rather than checkers. You have to assume the scorers will care enough to back check and pay attention in their own end. If it’s a choice between Martin St. Louis and Mike Richards, you go with St. Louis."

That hints at why Canada's only men's hockey medal since 1998 was aided by an all-time fluke goal, thanks again, Tommy Salo.

Who knows. Perhaps Team Canada GM Steve Yzerman will nail this and avoid the same pitfalls his predecessors did in '98 and 2006. Meantime, God only knows what is says when smart people wish to believe the No. 2 centre on a mid-pack Senators team should be one of Team Canada's 13 forwards. Ron Paul was a more legit candidate.

Enjoy the selection show on Wednesday at noon ET, presuming you can figure out which of 13 channels to watch it on.

In the interest of trying to be constructive, here is a potential 23-man roster:

• Forwards: Sidney Crosby, Jarome Iginla, Vincent Lecavalier, Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau, Dany Heatley, Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry, Rick Nash, Jonathan Toews, Eric Staal, Brenden Morrow, Martin St-Louis.
  
  (Or Brad Richards, or Mike Richards, or Patrice Bergeron, or Shane Doan, or Patrick Sharp ... well, you get the point.)
  
  
• Defencemen: Dan Boyle, Jay Bouwmeester, Duncan Keith, Scott Niedermayer, Chris Pronger, Brent Seabrook, Shea Weber. (Niedermayer and/or Pronger should be left off in favour of Drew Doughty, but this is Canada. It won't happen. Whatever happened to Mike Green?)
  
  
• Goaltenders: Martin Brodeur, Roberto Luongo, Marc-André Fleury
  

Honestly, writing this called to mind the old This Hour Has 22 Minutes bit, "The Right Answer." Rick Mercer (funny in small doses) and Greg Thomey (the actually funny one) played two wingnut talking heads who would start off arguing but were really in agreement. They would shake hands and says, "And that's the right answer."

So, if Steve Yzerman actually selected Mike Fisher, and if Canada did not win gold, and if you take smug glee in that like you did when Canada with Todd Bertuzzi lost in Turin in 2006, what would that make me? An asshole. And that's the right answer.

Some Yuletide irony ...

No word of lie, TSN's Pierre McGuire says of broadcasting the world junior hockey championship, "The biggest thing is not to be a cheerleader." Of course, he's never heard himself broadcast:



Thankfully, most can withstand Miller and McGuire turning the sturm und drang up to 11 for the next week and a half. After all, we're Canadians, we're just better at some things.

Senators: 3,000 freebie tickets; paid attendance firm across most of NHL

Please keep in mind nothing with Ottawa Senators attendance is happening in a vacuum.

One part of the Ottawa Citizen report citing a "confidential report" that the Senators have had one of the biggest attendance drops in the NHL since last season lays bare that it's not just the economy. This really lays bare that what is happening with Senators attendance is unique even within the Wonderful World of Gary Bettman:

"In a memo accompanying the data, the NHL’s chief financial officer Craig Harnett wrote, 'It is worth noting that the 3.7-per-cent decline in paid admissions is mainly driven by three teams (Phoenix, Ottawa and Tampa Bay) that are each down over 21 per cent year-over-year. Excluding these three teams, paid admissions are down 0.8 per cent year-to-date."

You have your own interpretation, which is fine. Still, that basically says about the same number of people are paying to see NHL games this year as opposed to 12 months ago. One Canadian-based franchise in hockey-mad Canada is a major exception, right down there with two teams in based in U.S. states which have been devastated by the recession (both Arizona and Florida are right up there in the home foreclosure stats).

One reason empty seats are so commonplace at a lot of games in the big four ball-and-stick leagues is that teams have cut down on the free tickets (you'll remember this coming up in discussions about the Blue Jays). You don't give away your product in such times (which might actually make it worse).

Attributing the attendance drop to three franchises, granted, might be a major lily-gild on the NHL's part. This league has been known to offer up more than the occasional lame excuse. However, it was an internal report, so that would take away the incentive to sugarcoat. (If not, then the league really is in deep water.)

Here's the red meat of the Citizen article:

"The 22.8-per-cent drop is third-highest in the league, behind only the Phoenix Coyotes and the Tampa Bay Lightning. In the 30-team league, the Senators have fallen from seventh place in paid attendance to 19th.

"The Senators’ reported attendance has not fallen as far — only about seven per cent — because the number of free tickets issued by the team has increased dramatically.

"According to the report, the team handed out an average of 895 complimentary tickets per game last year. This year, that number has more than tripled to 3,047. Only two other teams, the Dallas Stars and the Atlanta Thrashers, give away more free tickets.

"The Senators have gone from using less than five per cent of their seats for free tickets to almost 16 per cent.

" ... And the Senators are the only Canadian team giving away such a large chunk of their tickets. Ottawa has six times as many complimentary seats as the next highest Canadian club, the Vancouver Canucks. And while the Senators are third highest, the other Canadian teams occupy five of the bottom six spots in the league for free tickets."

Senators president Cyril Leeder counter-point that might contain traces of BS: "We're already doing better in December. They have had only three home dates in December, a game vs. the Montreal Canadiens (announced attendance: 18,866) and two games that drew in the 16,000s, vs. Buffalo (16,917) and a Saturday night tilt vs. crappy Carolina (16,229). Bear in mind there might have been fewer freebies dished out for those games, we don't know that.

The other defence is there were fewer premium-price games against rivals such as Toronto (such as that is a rivalry). However, the Maple Leafs and Canadiens have each made one visit to SBP, the same as this point in 2008. The Pittsburgh Penguins, defending Stanley Cup champions, have already made both of their visits (last year the Pens' second one came in the new year) and the Alex Ovechkin-led Washington Capitals have been in once. Call that point a wash, at best.

Again, these are tough times. On a broader, macro level, there may be a seismic shift in the public's willingness to pay top dollar for to attend games of the Big 4 ball-and-stick leagues. Still, it's a bit of a sticky situation for the Senators.

Related:
Banner year eludes the Senators; The team is hot, but sales are cool; 22.8% drop third-highest in NHL, according to confidential report (Ottawa Citizen)
Previous:
Senators attendance drop should raise red flags (Nov. 9)

Blog blast past: The politics of the Lou Marsh Trophy

Sidney Crosby today won the Lou Marsh Trophy as Canada's top athlete of 2009. It is a small step forward the self-proclaimed "diversified group of sportswriters and broadcasters" who always assure us their discussions were "long, detailed and passionate" but resist being transparent at least considered Canadian athletes such as UFC welterweight champion George St-Pierre, who was not even considered in 2008. That means we are getting somewhere, as you'll recall from last year:

By George, if you give a Whit , it's not as simple as Simon (Dec. 9, 2008)

... but it's something to mull over while Wotherspooning out some cereal and pouring a glass of O.J. ... oh, why don't you Buttle out!

Chances are you screamed yourself hoarse cheering on Simon Whitfield in the Olympic men's triathlon.

You might not even able to say what Oshiomogho (O.J.) Atogwe does, since the possible Pro Bowl safety plays for the dismal St. Louis Rams. How about Julián de Guzmán -- do you mean the architect? George St-Pierre, to some people, doesn't count as an athlete, although the ticket sales for his fight in Montreal would say otherwise.

This is really about the politics -- one hates to use that word, given how it's been devalued in Canada over the past couple weeks -- of the Lou Marsh Trophy and Lionel Conacher Awards, the country's top athletic honour now that the Leafs can no longer give Mats Sundin a new set of wingers every second week. The Toronto Star rolled out its Lou Marsh nominees last week (men and women can win it. The Canadian Press separates the Conacher and Bobbie Rosenfeld honours).

Atogwe, of Windsor, Ontario, wasn't included on an expansive list that included a guy who rides a horse (Eric Lamaze), an actual horse, a couple of curlers and myriad silver and bronze medallists from the Beijing Olympics. Atogwe, who might be an All-Pro for the way he plays safety, was playing left out on this list. St. Pierre, the UFC welterweight champ, was conspicuously absent. So was Jason Bay, who had the best season of any Canadian ballplayer.

There is a lot of apathy, judging by how many matches for "Lou Marsh" and "Lionel Conacher" came up in a Google search last night. The lack of interest leads to lazy thinking, which come to think of it, has some application to the gong show on Parliament Hill.

As an illustration, over in England where they speak really good European, The Guardian last weekend took the starch out of the BBC Sport Personality of The Year award, which actually is a big deal to the Brits. Trouble is, the criteria of the award is murky beyond belief. Sub in "puck" for "football" -- or sub in "baseball" or just picture more than one kind of football -- and you pretty much have the problem with the Canadian awards.

"According to the 40 sports editors from around the country who drew up the short list ... we are asked not only to compare swimming and boxing, tennis and motor racing, but we are to ignore their sex.

"Consequently, the archive of winners reads like something out of the Eagle Book of Sports, compromises at every turn, all squeaky clean and harmless and jolly fine, rarely a football in the frame, but a river of swimmers and tennis players and athletes, championed by the arch sick-making choice of them all, Princess Anne on a horse, ahead of George Best and Barry John in 1971."

(In Canada, analogues would be harness racing driver Hervé Filion over Cy Young Award winner Fergie Jenkins in 1971. Jacques Villeneuve over Larry Walker in 1997. Mike Weir over Eric Gagné in '03. Cindy Klassen over repeat NBA MVP Steve Nash in 2006.)

"... It is as if the judges are struck annually by some sort of be-nice bug: let's pretend, just for one day, that there is no difference between these sports and these men and women. Let's carry on comparing apples and pears.

"... This not meant to diss the deeds of the finalists. The thing is, though, any one of them deserves to win. They have all performed brilliantly in the same 12 months but are expect to accept that their heroics, the pinnacle of each of their careers in most cases, will not be good enough to win the acclaim of the public because of this truly daft system, sporting Oscars with not enough envelopes. We and they deserve better."

It's not that much different in Canada, except in our case it's not open to public balloting. Every year, the ballot has to be balanced, with the right mix of millionaire pros and amateurs, females and males, individual and team-sport athletes, as well it should. Diversity is important. The problem is that there's maybe not enough diversity among the selectors -- and this is a problem.

The bias comes in with the idea that the winner must stand for something beyond her/his sport, representing the way we would like to see ourselves. We want to see us, staring right back at us in the person of Klassen, Nash Sidney Crosby or Mike Weir. It's supposed to be about more than who's just the most talented person, or who had the best year.

The Canadian media has been slow to adapt to the changing face of Canada or its changing sporting tastes, present company included. These type of awards often come down to what you did when people were somewhat paying attention.

That means JDG, GSP nd O.J. are SOL. Ew, soccer, ew, blood and ew, hard-to-say-and-spell foreign name.

De Guzmán, whom our soccer guys can speak more about with more authority, has conquered terra incognita for a Canadian, playing in one of the world's best domestic leagues with Deportivo de La Coruña of Spain. He received 45% support in a Star poll, but that's hardly scientific and hardly indicative of what support he'd get in a nationwide poll. He was Deportivo's MVP this season, but Canada's failed World Cup qualifying run hurt his chances.

St-Pierre? This is coming from someone who has no interest in MMA (but believes it's high time Ontario licensed it), but he's important. He is the No. 1 welterweight in his sport and an icon in Quebec. He upstaged the Montreal Canadiens in the middle of a Stanley Cup playoff series against the rival Boston Bruins. At the end of the day, though, it's doubtful most journalists would be open to voting for a MMA fighter when they can make the safe choice and vote for Simon Whitfield.

Any consideration of Atogwe is academic. However, it seems like he doesn't get much notice in Canada -- although it might be as simple as the fact he's from Windsor, which is more part of Michigan than Ontario. He also plays defence in a league that builds its marketing around offensive stars. Only NFL nuts or people from the vicinity of his hometown, Windsor -- which culturally and geographically, is more aligned with Michigan than Ontario -- are really aware of what he's all about.

What is known is that it is odd how some athletes from some sports aren't in the discussion.

What some reaction to Brendan Burke really says

Presumably you saw the John Buccigross feature on how Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke's 21-year-old son, Brendan Burke, who is gay, hopes to work in the hockey industry.

Please excuse the eye-roll at the well-intentioned but empty sentiment. It's understandable if this changed your opinion of the elder Burke "because of his reputation as a hard-nosed, black-and-blue executive who extols the virtues of fighting in hockey," but now that you have had time to digest the news, ask yourself if it should. It reeks of the media getting caught up in the persona it's assigned to a sports figure and perpetuating those generalities. You could even say it plays into old stereotypes that anyone who is gay, or doesn't find gay people evil, is weak or not a person in full.

Brian Burke, by all accounts, is a sharp dude (just ask him), he's educated and has been exposed to a fair bit of the world, since he's always moving to a new GM gig every few years. He is also loyal. One could argue that would make him more likely to develop a stronger bond with his son than some average Joe. Most bigotry comes of out being sheltered or not very smart (gee, can't imagine why sportswriters would be oblivious to this concept).

This mostly rates attention due to the status of the father. The tail wags the dog. What sort of got buried is that the Miami Redhawks, a college hockey team full of 18- to 22-year-old jocks, accepted Brendan Burke as he is. Perhaps the sports world is more forward-thinking than behind-the-curve sportswriters would have you believe. Buccigross was able to show without telling, bless him:

"In between the first round and the Frozen Four, you tell one of the Miami players you are gay. Another player figures it out on the morning of the national championship game, and you have to pull him aside and tell him not to tell anyone before the game. You don't want it to be a distraction. You ask him to wait 12 hours after the game; then he can tell whomever he wants.

"After the heartbreaking overtime loss to Boston University, and mainly by word of mouth, your news gets around to the whole team. There isn't a big emotional sit-down talk, although you do speak with some of the guys personally. The general response is 'OK, Burkie's gay. Who cares? Pass the beer nuts.'

"About a week later, you approach your boss, the director of hockey operations for Miami, Nick Petraglia, and tell him. Then, a few days later, you tell Coach Blasi. You are pretty sure one of the players told them both in advance to give them a heads-up, but neither cares, and both are incredibly supportive.

"Blasi says that having you as part of Miami's program is a blessing and everyone is much more aware of what they say and how they say it. He says he is as guilty as anyone and everyone needs to be reminded that respect is not a label but something people earn by the way they live their life. Coach Blasi says you are a great student and an even better person. You say Coach Blasi is a great coach and an even better person."

That's the real story, far as this high-tech redneck is concerned. Ask yourself if you can see that happening with a major junior franchise team. Perhaps it has already. We don't know, since all the sports columnists who are now compelled to write, "There are gays in sport, gays in hockey, gays in society. I know of many who have served in front offices and scouting capacities. They shouldn’t have to hide, now or ever," have seldom if ever bothered to write that column on a day when it was not convenient or current. Note he said nothing specific about a gay player. And who is so pathetically naive he thinks he's being profound by pointing out there are "gays in society?"

True, you might not have read that 10, 15, 20 years ago in a daily newspaper, so it does represent progress to a limited extent. Don't miss the point. You should resist putting people in tinier and tinier boxes where if they believe in A (fighting in hockey = good), then they must believe B (gay people = not good). There are gay people who vote Republican or Conservative because they want lower taxes, a stronger military or are just stupid (assist to J.S. Mill). There are NDP voters who go hunting. You should never assume a singularity to anyone's personality, even though we're all guilty of it sometimes.

Accepting his daughter is gay and being in favour of gay rights did not make the former vice-president of the United States any less of an asshole or stop him from shooting a man in the face. The same would go for Brian Burke.

Meantime, all the best to Brendan Burke and the people on the Miami hockey team, who did the right thing without expecting a medal or a pat on the back. (You may argue that if he works in hockey, it's more of a tribute to nepotism than a repudiation of homophobia.)

That's where change happens in this world, not in trading on outdated stereotypes. Besides, when it comes to old-school admirers of truculence being comfortable around gay men, Don Cherry long ago retired that trophy:

Deju vu all over again...

Obsessive just have to suck the fun out of everything. Puck Daddy posted a clip from the season premiere of How I Met Your Mother, which will air Monday after it wins Emmys for best comedy and best supporting actor in a comedy.

"How I Met Your Mother Season 5 Premiere - Scene at NY Rangers Game @ Yahoo! Video

Of course, the type of person who would make a list of HIMYM's Top 5 sports-related episodes would also remember the series has already had a season premiere with a gag that involved the videoboard at a sporting event. In the second season, Ted Mosby takes a mopey, depressed Marshall to Yankee Stadium to try to cheer him up after he broke up with Lily. A guy about sitting ten rows down proposes to his fiancée on the scoreboard. Seeing this, Marshall snaps and throws his hot dog at them, splatting the poor woman with mustard.

Hoserdome: Kevin Weekes on 'Hockey Night' cannot be understated

Most of the reporting on Hockey Night in Canada's new hires have focused on Glenn Healy returning to TV and Guy Carbonneau finding a way station to bide time between coaching jobs.

It feels like a significant story is being underplayed. Kevin Weekes, the former goalie who has worked for NHL Network, will be the first Afro-Canadian commentator on HNIC. That matters since it was kind of the last barrier for Canadian sports broadcasters who are visible minority, plus it shows that has finally dawned on CBC Sports that maintaining the illusion that the Canada of 1981 still exists is a sure path to obsolescence.

About a year ago, the Toronto Star's Chris Zelkovich, during a radio interview with my friend Tyler King, said the rub with HNIC is that you know what you're getting. That has two sides.

The NHL has opened a season in Stockholm, a team with seven Swedes has won a Stanley Cup, a player may tweet his own trade and the league is micturating all over antitrust law to keep Jim Balsillie from owning a team and do the bidding of some corporate crooks, but goddamn it, Hockey Night in Canada must sustain an illusion of permanency. It should feel like not all that has much changed since the days of the Original Six.

That has its good qualities, although like in anything, if you do something the same way you did five, 10, 20 years ago, it doesn't mean you're stable, it means you're stuck in a rut.

The flip side is lot of us feel like outsiders looking in on the conversation which takes place every Saturday between a bunch of white guys named Ron, Don and Mike. It feels like a bunch of guys having a bull session down at the Legion in Anytown, Canada, in 1975. That has its pluses, but perhaps that created the vacuum that led to Mike Milbury's idiotic "pansification" comment last season. Granted, Milbury's track record with the New York Islanders suggests his idiocy was a pre-existing condition.

Point being, it is also glaring who HNIC's has put on the air (and don't forget the hue-and-cry when Cassie Campbell pinch-hit as a colour commentator one night three years ago when Harry Neale was snowbound).

Almost every other broadcast outlet i Canada has commentators who are visible minority: Jock Climie and Duane Forde on TSN's CFL package; TSN reporters John Lu, Farhan Lalji and Jermain Franklin; Rogers Sportsnet's Ian Mendes and Paul Jones; Leafs TV/Raptors NBA TV's Adnan Virk; The Score's D.J. Bennett and Cabral (Cabbie) Richards.

Not to put words in anyone's mouth, but HNIC is still the holy grail, even if TSN does a better job of staying current with the NHL. . Perhaps it has changed, but back in the day the 18-year-old who dreamed of doing play-by-play said, "I'm going to be on Hockey Night in Canada," not, "I'm going to be on TSN."

That's why it is huge Weekes has been hired. He has to be judged on his own merits. One could certainly detect a sickly scent of the jockocracy since Weekes is stepping straight from the ice into a TV role (then again, Tie Domi did it three years ago and no one objected, until they actually saw him on the air).

We also know CBC Sports and Maple Leaf Sports Entertainment, Ltd., are oh-so-joined at the hip. MLSE has lost a lot of the generation coming up to other sports.

Ultimately, though, the big positive is that an important door has been opened. Weekes wrote a column in February that talked about Caribbean and Afro Canadians becoming a bigger part of the mainstream in Canada.

"Finance, government, arts, hospitality, community service, medicine, architecture and design, education and media are just a few of the sectors in which we've made inroads but certainly have yet to maximize our growth and impact. We can and must continue to advance in these and many other 'non-traditional' sectors.

"There are countless examples of us paving the way in these sectors: Governor General Michaelle Jean, Toronto Deputy Chief of Police Keith Forde, Executive Chairman of AIC Limited, Michael Lee-Chin, Musician Kardinal Offishall, V.P of Blackmont Capital Steven Conville and retired Toronto Argonauts Player and Current President 'Pinball' Clemons."

Well, what's more mainstream than Hockey Night in Canada? That is why any "great, another goalie getting an analyst job" reactions miss the point.

Related:
New Voices At Hockey Night In Canada (Toronto Sports Media)

Hoser hoops heaven... Canada worlds-bound

Canada Basketball needed Friday night the way a man engulfed in flames could use a glass of water.

That's is a best stab at capturing the meaning of Canada earned a spot at the 2010 world basketball championship with an 80-76 win over the Dominican Republic at the qualifier in San Juan, Puerto Rico. As Doug Smith of the Toronto Star wrote, "The magnitude of the win cannot be overstated. With solid development programs at the under-19 and under-17 levels, Canada desperately needed to see some success at the senior level to give the teenagers something to aspire to."

There is hope, to borrow that overused one-word aphorism. It was furnished by Jermaine Anderson, Carl English, Levon Kendall, Andy Rautins, Jesse Young and a Carleton Raven, Aaron Doornekamp. None are household names with the rank-and-file Canadian sports fan, although Aaron might be pushing for the status of being Ernestown Secondary School's most famous alumnus after those two cooler-than-freon three-pointers he drained in the fourth quarter to keep the Dominicans at bay. Whatever is to come — and there is lots more to come — for Canada on the court, Friday felt like a catalytic event.

Please remember, if you are so inclined, which group of quote, unquote obscure Euro-ballers helped with this big step forward. Canada had only NBAer at this tournament, the Miami Heat forward Joel Anthony. The team was still celebrating when Leo Rautins told TrueHoop that he wants to have a few more NBA players next summer in Turkey. He's hoping Steve Nash will take time out from saving the world to lace up for his country one last time. The San Antonio Spurs forward Matt Bonner, an ex-Raptor who is married to a Toronto woman, is taking out citizenship. Bonner would be a good fit into the FIBA game, which prizes a big man who can shoot. Rautins is hopeful of getting Jamaal Magloire (don't hold your breath).

Meantime, as Smith alluded to, Canada has a lot of young talent coming up such as Junior Cadougan, Mangisto Arop, Kelly Olynyk, Cory Joseph and Tristan Thompson. Some of the guys who were on the floor Friday will be pushed out in the years to come, such is the nature of sports.

Perhaps the San Juan crew will stand out in time the way Blue Jays fans remember Doug Ault and Bob Bailor. They got it started.

It is understandable if people do not consider Canada earning its first world berth since 2002 as a big deal. The only Team Canada most people across this great country care about, let's be honest, is the one with skates and sticks which will hit the ice in Vancouver next February at the Olympics. That is fine. However, some do believe being a proud Canadian and having a serious basketball jones can overlap, no matter what is implied by Molson's ads.

Maybe there is no deeper meaning to that beyond just loving basketball. Cheering for Canada on the hardwood, with the U.S. having such a larger player pool and so many resources devoted to hoops, is a lesson in being an underdog. It also seems to evoke the doubt Canadians are always going to face. That's why it's awesome, speaking as someone from the same corner of the world, to see that Doornekamp played a significant role in the final minutes with those two threes. He's had doubters all along, being from Odessa, having played at a smaller high school, making the national team from a CIS school, and he has come out shining.


It is almost seems like living in the past to play up that Aaron is an ESS grad, but then again there are not many Eagles even compared to other Kingston-area high schools, so attention must be paid. Imagine some young baller, maybe in Toronto, or Vancouver, who will grow up to represent his country. He might never hear of places such as Odessa, or Patrick's Cove, N.L., Carl English's hometown, but a small debt will be owed to those places. And that's pretty cool.

Hoserdome: Theoren Fleury; two minutes for hero worship

Reading about Theoren Fleury affirms why one hates-loves sarcasm.

Honestly, the knee-jerk reaction was, "He must really be hard up for money," when it hit the wires that Fleury wants to make a comeback six years after he last played in the NHL. Lo and behold, From The Rink has revealed that is pretty much the case. A divorce, a bad investment and likely the collateral damage from a chemical dependency problem apparently left him in a huge hole. Tyler Dellow from mc79hockey dug out a story from February about Fleury unsuccessfully trying to get an Alberta court to award him a $130,000 rebate on his child support. He did get his payments reduced by 80 per cent. Grrrrrrreat.

Of course, someone would barely know if that if they relied on the newspapers. One Calgary paper made no reference to financial problems and played it as a cheery underdog story. The other was more realistic but financial issues were not mentioned until the 18th paragraph and then only briefly.

Perhaps Theoren Fleury needs to be close to hockey to feel valuable, but that is also what led him into trouble. One hopes that happens, but it's kind of weak to gloss over why someone who is older than recent retirees Jeremy Roenick and Joe Sakic is trying to come back. Imagine the typical reaction when a 41-year-old boxer announces his comeback plans years after he has passed his best-before date as an athlete. The reaction is one of sadness.

Hoops: Canada pulls major upset, somewhat tinged with irony

There is half a mind to get bumper stickers of the image below made up and then go stick them up around Sport Canada's headquarters today.


Canada Basketball recently had to shutter its National Elite Development Agency residency program for lack of funds, since the highers-up in Canadian sport have decided to put everything into whatever offers the shortest, cheapest course to the Olympic podium and have said to hell with competing in any truly global sport whose popularity isn't based on a cold-weather climate and/or affluence . So what happened? Today in Bangkok, at the FIBA Under 19 World Championship for Women, Canada, with a nucleus of players who trained at NEDA, went out and beat a serious summer sport nation, Australia, 50-49, to reach the event's semi-final for the first time.

How about that? Perhaps it was one of those any-given-Friday scenarios. Outside of their leading scorer, the Australians missed 41 of 49 shots, so that might have been the case. However, the Aussies are regularly in contention for the medals at the Olympics and world championship and is currently No. 3 in the FIBA women's rankings, a full 10 spots ahead of Canada. It didn't matter. Canada pulled the upset, with Guelph native (and Notre Dame-bound) forward Natalie Achonwa matched her tender age with a sweet 16 points (Doug Smith noted recently she'll probably be joining the national team in a few weeks).

Six-foot-four Kayla Alexander also had a game-high 15 rebounds, as Canada went plus-6 on the boards against what was probably a bigger team. The pair of them also helped reduce Australia into a one-woman show. Their centre, tourney scoring leader Elizabeth Campage (who in the team picture is the middle of the back row, a head taller than anyone else) had half her team's points, scoring 26 along with 10 rebounds and five blocks, but getting her touches must have taken Australia out of its rhythm.

So much of international sport is about funding. Well, Canada beat China to get into the quarter-final, so this team has beat two countries which recently hosted the Summer Olympics.

Anyway, it's a simple point. A Canadian team being among the last four standing at a world junior championship is a semi-big deal. It sort of puts the lie to media-inculcated myth about being a hockey (only) country. There is clearly some burgeoning basketball talent, male and female, in this country. Some onus does fall on Canada Basketball to be able to scare up more sponsorship, of course, but the point is a sporting country worthwhile tries to give all of its athletes a fighting chance, rather than making a value judgement that the relative easy medals galore Winter Olympics matters more.

Anyway, great job by that Canadian team, including its three CIS players, one of whom, point guard Jenny Vaughan from the Western Mustangs, hit a three-pointer at the first-half buzzer to give Canada the lead after 20 and hit another with 3:13 left which put them ahead for good. The risk in saying this is to turn a group of teenaged athletes into a political football, but it's fair play when TSN, et al., do that every year during the Christmas holidays. One would hope this is not a tease, some triumph tinged with irony. Canada's junior men's national team was a respectable seventh at its worlds a few weeks back. Hopefully, some heads will start to turn toward a developing Canadian sports success story. Triumphs tinged with bitter irony are not too much fun, eh?

Hoser hypocrisy: We stand on guard for being followers

A true Canadian would laugh this off since our sense of humour is what we're known for, eh? That said, good on Minnesota Twins slugger Justin Morneau for sounding off about Major League Baseball not having a vocalist for O Canada at the all-star game.

"I wasn't very impressed with that to tell you the truth ... You figure they could find somebody to come and sing the song. They have a hockey team here, the Canadian teams play here.

"It's something that didn't really go over too well. I think if it happened the other way around, if they were playing in Toronto and they did that, it would have been a lot bigger deal. But nothing you can do about it."

The rub is, though, getting indignant over such a trifle does not make you patriotic. Shame on media outlets who pander to the Great Canadian Inferiority Complex by running a poll asking the leading question that begins, "Do you think Major League Baseball disrespected Canadians and the Toronto Blue Jays..."

The reality is there was no outcry in Canada when it happened last year at Yankee Stadium. Secondly, it's nice to be acknowledged, however a country finds validation within, not from Bud Selig and FOX Sports' Americana porn on an idyllic summer night in St. Louis.

Deep-down, a true patriot would not care too much. It stung at first during last year's all-star game when on top of the anthem omission, FOX's Joe Buck mispronounced Roy Halladay's name and Tim McCarver incorrectly identified the Blue Jays' stadium as "the Rogers Dome," but it just doesn't matter. In hindsight, maybe that wasn't a snub, maybe it was just honest mistakes by one man who would rather be mediocre at seven media gigs rather than master one and a colour analyst who is well past his best-before date.

Making this out as even a mild international incident is facts-plus-fiction. The fiction is that MLB has to give Canada any acknowledgement simply because "for now, at least" (fist bump: Bob Costas) one of its 30 teams is based in this country.

Granted, it is a smaller fiction next to the way FOX presents baseball as something uniquely American. The sport would be screwed if it wasn't for players from the Caribbean, Latin America and Asia. They should play the national anthems of the Dominican Republic, Japan and Venezuela.

Using a taped version of O Canada has been standard at the all-star game for some time. The pregame ritual of trotting out sundry baseball legends, topped off last night by President Obama throwing out the first ball and squeezing in a ton of commercials is very tightly scripted. Something has to give. That's the reality. A celebrity speaks up, though, and suddenly everyone's a patriot.

(There is a talking point that should no national anthems played at all, but please. It's a logical, rational thought, especially since the practice is largely limited to North America. However, you live in this world — do you really see a day when that won't happen? Part of loving sports is resisting logic and rationalism.)

Related:
B.C. slugger not impressed with instrumental O Canada (CTV.ca; via Circling The Bases)

The Danys of our lives: In which we go broke appealing to the highest common denominator

Ottawa Senators fans are right to fume over DanyDebacle '09. The point remains, as noted yesterday, that the "endless flame-fanning and rip-jobs in the Ottawa media ... got really old really fast."

Call it naive, whatever, there was a time this cowboy would have been one of the 450 get-a-lifers on the Fuck Dany Heatley Facebook group. It is just hard to see the gain in slamming Heatley day after day for not just surrendering his "negotiated right through the no-movement clause to have a strong say in where he gets traded." (Pierre LeBrun, ESPN.com.) It's negotiated. Contrary to what some bar patron quoted in the Ottawa Sun, the Senators cannot actually "stick him in the minors and let him rot." This came to mind before Jason Spezza stood by his wingman in an article posted on the website, by the way.

Being a fan is not expressed by venting the kind of rage typically seen on cable news (please don't take that last part literally, it's just a good article). There is no desire to side with Heatley (AKA Joseph Stallin) side for the sake thereof. It would just be nice if the city's rank-and-file looked a bit better informed about sports. There is an exemption if you write half-funny, like Scott Feschuk at Macleans ("A small number of Ottawa residents are still keen to give him the key to the city, though only if he agrees to accept it rectally.")

Anyway, it's not a defence, but Alanah McGinley at Kukla's Korner has an all-things-considered post on the whole mess that reasonable-minded Senators fans ought to read.

"... most of the rhetoric floating around seems to go off the charts.

"And why? Well, the justification for this is clear, we're told. First, Heatley went public with his desire to leave Ottawa. Next, he turned down a possible escape trade to Edmonton, making the situation infinitely worse.

"However, being that I’m willing to give Heatley the benefit of the doubt, I’m also willing to believe in at least the possibility that there were other factors at play in the choices he’s made in the last few weeks. After all, it wasn't so long ago that a goalie named Ray Emery was in the hot seat, getting blamed for all the destruction around him as his once-mighty Senators took an abrupt and unexplainable plummet into the crapper. And back then, everyone whispered all sorts of unsubstantiated and shocking gossip blaming Emery for the team’s fortunes.

"But then Emery left and seems to have done reasonably well since then. And yet Ottawa is still... Ottawa.

"So isn’t it remotely possible — just an tiny bit possible — that the problems in Ottawa might have more to do with the Senators organization itself than any one player? If so, then maybe Dany Heatley's comments to Darren Dreger last night, implying he felt he was getting deliberately screwed around by the team, are at least reasonable from his point of view. (Not that I have any reason to believe he was, simply that I'm no more likely to let the Senators off the hook than I am to let Heatley off for this mess.)

"On the other hand, Heatley is the one that made this public and that wanted out of a contract that HE willingly signed in the first place, so he has plenty of fault in this no matter what. And I’m not saying the Senators are the 'bad guys' in this drama, either. Only that we don’t necessarily know the whole story. And since Heatley strikes me as a reasonably smart guy able to anticipate he'd look pretty bad in all this, I can only assume he felt he had good reasons to take this path.

"Whatever the truth, it seems likely there's far more back-story to this than simply 'Dany Heatley is an evil psycho,' and everyone's sanctimonious moaning about how terribly Heatley has treated the 'poor Ottawa Senators' strikes me as an infantile over-reaction. At the end of the day, it's just business, and conflicts aren't unheard of in business, especially given the amounts of money at stake.

"... until some clever and gutsy Ottawa hockey journalist writes a tell-all book about Heatley and/or the Senators, I'm reserving judgment."

Point being, it's a little much to hear people making statements such as, "He's hurting the city's reputation." Hurting the city's reputation is supposed to be Larry O'Brien's job ... at least for the next couple weeks.

Meantime, LeBrun's column is a pretty balanced take on the ramifications of Heatley killing a trade. Freudian slip fans will note he refers to the Ottawa media as "the Senators' media," which is odd. Self-serving though it might be, agent J.P. Barry told LeBrun the Senators kind of screwed themselves:

"I specifically told (Bryan Murray) two days ago, long before the trade happened, 'Do not trade him to Edmonton until you have other options.' And he turned around and consummated the trade despite my request. The result of which is that I get a phone call from a guy that I really respect in Steve Tambellini, who was excited, and I had to inform him what happened.

"I think it was completely mishandled by (Murray). It was a pressure tactic. He loaded up the gun and put the gun against our heads."

"We advised Bryan continually that Dany requires more than one option (team) to make a decision and, as of last night, we still only had one option, so he still wasn't able to make a decision, given that there still was only one option in front of him."

Meantime, fans have a right to be livid. They also have an option to play it smart and unlike the option Heatley had, it doesn't involve having to pack for Edmonton. Bonus! Oh, sorry, shouldn't use that word.

Remember, we're all in this together.

As a post-script, Down Goes Brown imagined how a conversation between Heatley and Oilers president Kevin Lowe might have unfolded:

"Lowe: Now, just so I'm clear on your side of things, you're demanding a trade because...

Heatley: ... because I can't spend another day in Ottawa. I'm miserable beyond any measure of human understanding. Every day I spend in Ottawa is the worst of my life, and the only joy I find is in the knowledge that every day wasted in that god forsaken town brings me one day closer to the icy relief of death.

Lowe: I see. And you're not waiving your no-trade clause because...

Heatley: ... all that still sounds better than spending the winter in Edmonton."

Mornings with Mr. Canoehead

It's all raisins off an Oldsmobile. None of this should have kept you up at night.

... Knowing today is not the day when you will finally go a full 24 hours without feeling embarrassed by Canada. The NHL Free Agent Special starts on TSN2 at noon.

... Sarah Palin telling Runner's World she could beat Barack Obama in a footrace. It didn't work out so well the last eight years when the U.S. had a president who was tryin' to be the best at exercisin', instead of governin'.

(About Canada Day. Fair is fair, though, and you're dead inside if you don't love the clip of Chandra Crawford singing O Canada at the Olympics three years ago.)



... those nonsense stories you see every year around Canada Day about how a shockingly high percentage of Canadians can't identify "famous faces." Do you think any other country measures patriotism by the ability to ID someone from a 125-year-old photo?

... wondering how long it will take the Toronto Blue Jays to get the scent out Paul Godfrey out of the good linen (see Vernon Wells' contract and nostalgia hire Cito Gaston burning out his best hitters).

... realizing one of the Toronto Argonauts and Hamilton Tiger-Cats will be 1-0 tomorrow. Great, now they'll probably tie.

... the CFL not making the Montréal Alouettes appear at the stadium in Calgary yesterday to promote the second half of tonight's CFL season-opening doubleheader, "forcing the media hordes to battle downtown traffic" to get interviews (Calgary Herald). Think about it. The CFL is such a slick, professional operation that it induces feelings of nostalgia when it does drop the ball. Where is Murray Pezim when you need him?

... Vibe magazine folding. What happened to the money from Peter Gibbons buying 40 subscriptions? (Wait, that was in Office Space.)

Nazem Kadri and the Hockey Reflex

It might be a stretch, but whatthehell.

The way some media portrayed the Leafs drafting Nazem Kadri, a young man who is Muslim, might be a symptom of what a friend calls the Hockey Reflex. It's an umbrella term for a much larger identity crisis which envelops the national obsession. Canada is evolving faster than ever as a nation, albeit not in ways that can be 100% anticipated. That has stoked angst hockey will one day concede some of centre stage to other sports. If that happens (stress, if), it will be because it is cost-prohibitive and a sport of the middle class, which has been shrinking for more than 20 years.

Please bear in mind this is not directed at any individual. It's more of an attempt, as someone on the outside, to try to figure out what is at the heart of the Saturday Star describing Kadri as a "symbol of change" (beat writer Kevin McGran's story) and a sign "the cultural tectonic plates of the GTA just shifted a little bit." (Damien Cox's accompanying column.) The Globe & Mail also got in on the act ("The new face of the good ol' hockey game"). Here you thought the Leafs drafted Kadri because they thought he might be a potential 35-goal scorer whom you can already see skating on a line someday with Taylor Hall. Suspend your disbelief and presume that Leafs GM Brian Burke is waiting for next year to make a big move to snag a phenom from the OHL, instead of just talking about it so much).

Kazem being Muslim is part of the story, certainly. One could not get away with not noting it when only one other Muslim, early-2000s journeyman Ramzi Abid, has played semi-regularly in the NHL (68 games). There are certainly fans who are going to identify with a player who's of a similar background to them, or commit it to memory like his height, weight and junior team (case in point: On Newsday's blog item about Kington Frontenacs forward Ethan Werek being drafted by the New York Rangers, the first comment makes reference to Werek being a "dual Canadian-Israeli citizen").

This comes back to the Jason Whitlock saying that social agenda does not trump truth. One way to get away from a loaded word such as "agenda" is to say that labelling and packaging — Leafs draft Muslim player! — should not stand in for honest dialogue.

Think about it. It as if there is a nettle tugging at the heart that mandates reassuring people that newer Canadians are taking up the game en masse, even when they are not. It comes off as a Hail Mary, hoping there something will just magically happen to off-set trends which are working against sustaining the elitist youth hockey model in Canada.

That would include, off the top of one's head, urbanization, an aging population, the decline of the manufacturing sector in smaller Ontario centres (if the family breadwinner now works at a big-box instead of on an assembly line, it will be tougher to afford new skates for little Logan) and last but not least, the fact the cost of youth hockey is divorced from sanity. You can only count on families being willing to make a sacrifice for so long.

However, The Globe's Jeff Blair had a point when called BS on the Kadri coverage in his Monday column, writing, "Look, I like to sing Kumbaya as much as anybody but it's a stretch to see anything remotely altruistic behind the Maple Leafs drafting a Muslim player of Lebanese descent. Really." The Star, once it had time to flesh out a sober second thought, moved from "symbol of change" stuff to following up with a story headlined, "Immigrants won't flock to hockey for Nazem Kadri." The money quote probably came from minor hockey organizer named Paul Maich:

"We are still not seeing the numbers from the visible minorities that represent the percentages in the local population. I really don't think the short term effect will be that great but I'd like to be proven wrong."

Not to presume anything of some random minor hockey guy, but I'd like to be proven wrong is not far off from, It'd be nice, but I'm not gonna actually make an effort.

Point being, citing Kadri as a "symbol of change" is unfair. This is not out of concern for Kadri. It's presumed he has the head on his shoulders to handle being a hyped-up high draft pick and a Leafs prospect from Southern Ontario, plus being the team's first Muslim. That's for the Leafs and sports psychologists to handle.

The unfair part with some of the Kadri coverage is that it wrongly assumes a person who is a visible minority needs that role model. It's a little too close to the old liberal canard, add-minorities-and-stir. It is pandering. Just because your parents were born in another country does not you need a role model to get into a sport.

We can all find it on our own. Many already do this in Canada. The demographics of a Leafs crowd are distinctly different from Toronto's other teams, but it's a far cry from what it looked like at Maple Leaf Gardens in the 1970s and '80s. People from all walks of life are discovering hockey in Canada since it is the No. 1 sport, although it's overcovered. (There is even a side point that having the world junior here almost every year might be a good entry point, since it's the most publicized hockey event whose format is similar to the World Cup, with group play followed by knockout rounds. That is just a personal observation.)

The Kadri-to-the-Leafs love-in glosses over a larger truth. No matter what your cultural makeup is, you play a sport because there is an opportunity. It's like the riff Chris Rock did on blacks dominating U.S. sports — "and as soon as we get a heated hockey rink, we'll have that too!" (Oddly enough, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's story about the Thrashers drafting Evander Kane did not mention that Kane is black.)

Opportunity hinges on the values of one's family, community and society's ability to pay. On a macro level in Canada, that means there is a push to keep men's hockey on the front burner, even to neglect of other sports, which has passed the point of satire. Meantime, the way it works in this country is that if you want to be great at a sport, your family is expected to go out-of-pocket (unless said sport has a very thin field at the Winter Olympics).

That puts hockey beyond the means and interests of many families, pure and simple. That dictates a day is coming when the drop-off between No. 1 and whatever is the No. 2 sport will shrink. Exercising the Hockey Reflex only prolongs the inevitable.

(As a footnote, some recent examples of the Hockey Reflex. It is a gross generalization, to be fair, but you can see it in the sports section every day.

You can see at play with Canada Basketball having to scrap its successful beyond belief National Elite Development Agency or the fact our national women's basketball team's summer schedule is being subsidized by China and Cuba. Dave Feschuk, writing in the Toronto Star, noted sarcastically, "Thank goodness for Communists."

It's even prevalent within hockey. Earlier this month, ctvolympics.ca posted a story headlined, "Hockey schmoozers to gather at Olympic centre" which outlined how there will be a 80,000-square-foot entertainment and hospitality complex for rich folks and hockey players to hobknob during the Olympics.

On the same day, no less, the Calgary Olympic Oval scrapped its women's hockey program where national team mainstays such as Cherie Piper, Gina Kingsbury, Carla MacLeod, Colleen Sostorics, Delaney Collins, Tessa Bonhomme and Gillian Ferrari train. At least the schmoozers' needs are being addressed, eh!

As a second post-draft footnote, for any Sennies fans — love the choice of Jared Cowen — did you see this from the Columbus Dispatch:

"It's hard to believe how far the Ottawa Senators have fallen, and how fast they went from Stanley Cup runner-ups to one of the most dysfunctional clubs in the NHL.")

Related:
Newest Leaf's hockey-mad home; Kadri's father made sure son could play the sport his own parents couldn't afford for him (Kevin McGran, Toronto Star)
Immigrants won't flock to hockey for Nazem Kadri; New face of Leafs might help introduce the sport, but cost still a big factor (Lois Kalchman, Toronto Star)

Lions back to Empire? Thankfully, it never rains in Vancouver

It's acknowledged the CFL loves playing to nostalgia, but the B.C. Lions temporarily returning to Empire Stadium takes it a little too far.

"(The B.C. Lions) are considering moving at least some games in the 2010 season to a temporary facility at the site of old Empire Stadium in east Vancouver during construction of the new roof (at B.C. Place)." — Vancouver Sun

Long story short, it's B.C. Place or no place when it comes to CFL-worthy stadia west of the Rocky Mountains. It's important to make too big a deal of this from a football point-of-view, since if worst came to worse, the Lions might end up with fewer than nine home games (then you get into the whole comprising-the-league's-integrity thing, but no more so than having people find out one owner was bankrolling another club, hey-oooooo!).

The subtext is this points out how in some ways, sport is almost foreign to Canada's culture. That is unless the sport is played on ice and only about 10 countries in the world happen to care (and if the athletes can be predominantly Caucasian, so much the better). Across Canada, you have major cities without a suitable stadium or trying to make do with an old one, even in Toronto, where Rogers Centre is exactly what we deserve, not necessarily in a good way. You know the refrain: "There's more important things to spend money on!"

Still, the hyper-pragmatism (GJH's term) wears thin after a while. Take a look around. It took forever and a day for the Montreal Alouettes to get the go-ahead on renovations for Molson Stadium (will that include actually having urinals in the men's washrooms?).

In Ottawa's case, it's ridiculous that intelligent people are nattering on about "process" because the city, to cop a phrase from the Citizen's awesome Randall Denley, has the temerity to "tak(e) the appropriate steps to review in detail an intriguing offer from a respectable group of city business people," with respect to Lansdowne Park. The same goes for people who summarize the situation with the baseball stadium on Coventry Rd. by saying, "Well, at least we got almost 20 years out of it."

Far be it people would get mad at the lack of leadership, as expressed by a couple Vancouver Sun users.

"We have lost Triple-A baseball because of facities that are antiquated and too old never to be upgraded to potential. We have an owner (Greg Kerfoot) who wants to pay out of his own pocket, a new soccer stadium but can't because of politics. They tore down Empire Stadium, one of the prettiest sites in North America, and made it into a park. This city and Province are spending millions of dollars on B.C. Place located in a very congested area. How come the city of Seattle has two beautiful facilities and we can't even have one. Luckily the Griffiths built GM Place otherwise we wouldn't have pro hockey here."

"Is Canada not the most pathetic country in the world ... How in heck a city the size of Vancouver ... only has one stadium is ridiculous... The fact that a city the size of Quebec City and Ottawa have no stadium at all proves how pathetic this country is... We have stadiums in Calgary, Winnipeg, Regina, Hamilton and Montreal that are laughable at best... All of those stadiums should of been torn down in the 1980s... In Montreal...they are sinking more money into Molson Stadium ... What a joke ... the stadium is 100 years old!!! Build a new one!!! .... This country is sooooo messed up...what is more important? Putting a bunch of taxi drivers in Vancouver out of work.... or building a foundation for the CFL in Canada that ,the last time I checked, was one of very few institutions that this pathetic country has to be proud of!!!"

Be that as it may. Arguments can be entertained that the NFL has gone way too far with building new stadiums and that the great college football powerhouses in the U.S., your USC Trojans and Alabama Crimson Tide and Ohio State Buckeyes all pretty much play in the same stadia that they did when The Bear and and Woody Hayes were coaching. Meantime, though, if you're a taxpayer who loves sitting out in the summer quaffing a libation and watching professional sport, it's a little tough to see the politicians always tossing blades of grass up in the air like a kicker trying to gauge the wind. They were elected to show some leadership and vision, eh.

Meantime, the Van Sun Mike Beamish noted people should curb their enthusiasm about the Lions playing outdoors temporarily:

"Football history happened there and may yet again. But re-creating the past on the former CFL site might be not as starry-eyed as the romantics envision. Call me unromantic if you want. But I see monstrous headaches ahead. And thousands of full bladders, doing the Mexican hat dance while queuing up for relief, is just one of many."

Related:
A return to old Empire? (Vancouver Sun)
B.C. Lions may return to original site of Empire Stadium; Team might play some 2010 CFL games at old Empire Stadium location while B.C. Place gets new roof (Vancouver Sun)

John Tavares, Reggie Bush redux and the Gretzky no one remembers

One question du jour is whether Garth Snow will really take someone whose name does not rhyme with "avares" for the New York Islanders with the No. 1 overall pick.

Actually, it's three questions, posed the way Homer Simpson did when he and Apu met the head of the Kwik-E-Mart: Are you really not going to take John Tavares? Really? You?

Ours is not to divine the intent of Snow, who has warned he "won't be ruled by popular opinion." (Newsday.) One point that might not have been as emphasized as it should have been is that what's happened with Tavares over the past several weeks also goes back to something a young Wayne Gretzky pointed out 30 years ago.

The rules in hockey for players under the age of 20, which tend toward the one-size-fits-all, make sense for 99.9 per cent of the players. As you know, Tavares ended up with four seasons of junior before becoming eligible for the draft, instead of the standard two. He had an extra season at the front end, when the OHL let him into the league as a underaged 15-year-old in 2005. The OHL acted logically. There was no budging the age cut-off for the NHL draft, even though Tavares was clearly one player who had overcome early-year bias to become regarded as Everyone's First Overall Pick.

You likely know that Gretzky turned pro at age 17 in 1978, signing with the World Hockey Association, which folded a year later (the Edmonton Oilers and three other teams from "the Waaaaaaah" joined the NHL in an expansion which the league called a merger, but was really an expansion). What is less remembered is Walter Gretzky's version of how that came to pass, as he told it in Gretzky: From the Back Yard Rink to the Stanley Cup, a memoir published in the mid-'80s.

As the elder Gretzky put it, Wayne suggested going after his junior team, the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds, made a mid-season coaching change. He called home and asked his father to call the late John Bassett, Jr. Bassett, who owned the Birmingham Bulls, was a bit of a precursor to Jim Balsillie, a rich guy from Southern Ontario who was not above firing a shot across the bow of the NHL. In Bassett's case, that meant signing players before they were old enough for the NHL draft (at the time, the league drafted players at age 20)

"... in the very year the two leagues had agreed to go ahead and keep hands off under-age players, he'd gone and signed Ken Linseman, an 18-year-old playing for the Kingston Canadians. The way Wayne had it figured, if Mr. Bassett would sign one under-age player, maybe he'd sign two.

"He was really upset. I tried to clam him down and said I'd call Mr. Bassett. Twenty minutes later the phone rang again. 'Did you get him?' Wayne asked. 'What did he say?'

"Now, I had no intention of calling Mr. Bassett. I just let on I had while I tried to settle Wayne down. 'Stay in junior,' I said. ... 'You've got three more years of junior. You can play one year as an over-age ... In four years ou can go just about wherever you want and name your price!'

" 'If I stay here four more years," he said, "I'll never play pro. The longer you stay the more fault they'll find. Call Mr. Bassett! Please!" (Emphasis mine.)

That seems to shed light on what's happened with the public perception of John Tavares. The two extra seasons in junior gave everyone a longer window to conduct their fault-finding mission, pick at his skating, his dedication to defensive play. They simply had a better chance to build a case that he's less The Franchise than a premier offensive talent.

(It's also fair game to ask what playing a half-season for the London Knights, whom some call "The U of junior hockey," did for Tavares' rep. The Knights, in certain puckhead circles, are a bit like the Miami Hurricanes in college football back in the day. They're talented, but tend to let people know it, which doesn't play well in hockey.)

The point Gretzky made 30 years ago is something to consider as background to whatever you have/will read about Friday's NHL draft. Everyone has just had so long to size up Johnny T. the way one would an apple, and start paring off pieces. For pity's sake, even an estimable hockey writer such as Pierre LeBrun stresses, "I really don't know the gap between Tavares, (Swedish defenceman Victor) Hedman and (Brampton Battalion's Matt) Duchene other than what NHL scouts tell me," so who really knows with certainty which of them should be the first pick?

Like LeBrun says:

"The average hockey fan has been hearing about Tavares for a few years, the same way fans were warned repeatedly of the eventual arrivals of Alex Ovechkin, Sidney Crosby and Patrick Kane in recent years.

"If Snow doesn't select Tavares, he better be sure of himself. The backlash in his market, I think, would be sizable; Isles fans have been talking up Tavares since Christmas."

One does wonder how analogous this might be to the lead-up to 2006 NFL draft and what happened with USC teammates Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart. The average football fan heard more than her/his fill about those two from 2004 through '06.

There was talk Leinart might have been a No. 1 overall pick after his junior season. In the fall of 2005, as he led USC to a 12-0 regular season, it became evident Leinart was little more than, "a gutsy Heisman winner who doesn't have the physical ability to succeed when the guys on defense get bigger and faster." (Josh Lewin, Slate, Oct. 17, 2005.)

The talk became that Bush, who ran like like the second coming of Gale Sayers for three seasons at USC, was the drop-dead No. 1 pick. The above-linked article concluded, "in a few years, the accountants will be lining up outside Reggie Bush's door." All the wiseguys were making Bush Bowl cracks when the Houston Texans and San Francisco 49ers, who were vying for the worst record in the NFL, met in a late-season game.

You know the rest of the story. The kneejerkers howled when the Houston Texans took Mario Williams, a pass rusher from North Carolina State. Doing so meant passing on Bush, not to mention a Texas Longhorns QB named Vince Young, who was a Houston native. (Leinart, meantime, dropped all the way to the 10th overall pick.) Meantime, three years on, Williams is an All-Pro defensive end. Bush, who went No. 2 overall to the New Orleans Saints, has gained fewer rushing-receiving yards in his first three seasons than the Minnesota Vikings' Adrian Peterson has in his first two. Young is a head case. Leinart is a punchline.

That might be an apples-to-pears comparison. Different sport, eh. There are a few common threads. One is that fans and by extension the media had heard a lot more about one player than another. Another is that both involved a franchise struggling to build an identity and brand awareness. The Houston Texans were (and are) an expansion franchise which has never made the NFL playoffs and they share a state with the Dallas Cowboys.

The Islanders are so lost in the shuffle in the New York media market that, as George Vecsey reflected in a great piece for The New York Times last month, it's reasonable to wonder if "hockey has come and gone on Long Island."

Anyway, who knows what Garth Snow is thinking going into the final 96 hours for draft night. Chris Botta, the team's former public relations staffer turned blogger, has been a first explainer, hinting that something crazy might go down on Friday night. Again, who knows. The point is the obvious, the longer a player is in the spotlight, the greater chance to disprove the hype. It will probably happen next season with Kingston's Taylor Hall, who like Tavares had to wait an extra year to be drafted due to where his birthday falls.

That is why it keeps coming back to what Wayne Gretzky supposedly told his dad three decades ago. It turned out No. 99 had nothing to worry about, but he sure was on to something about the folly and wisdom of talent evaluators, though.

(As for the NHL draft, the main interest for this site is when the Kingston Frontenacs' Ethan Werek is taken. Bob McKenzie has him ranked 41st.

Hoserdome 2009: Malkin from Mlodinow as Pens collect Cup

The Pittsburgh Penguins are walking around with Stanley Cup-sized hangovers and meantime, we should all be reading The Drunkard's Walk.

That Stanley Cup final which wrapped up last night is a good chance to reflect on randomness, which ruled this series. Randomness is good in sports. You don't want the odds-on fave winning all the time, it would be boring. So randomness it is for choosing a tell-all for the decider, where the Penguins beat the Detroit Red Wings 2-1. Why the hell not?

The road team won — which had not happened in Game 7 of the final since 1971. The Penguins beat the Red Wings, who almost never lose at home at the playoffs. The Pens were outscored 17-14 in the series, including 12-4 at Detroit's Joe Louis Arena. They won even though Sidney Crosby had many points in the final series as non-factor Marian Hossa. Crosby was also knocked out of Game 7 halfway through after his left knee was squished between the Wings' Johan Franzen and the boards. That should disabuse anyone of the notion the Penguins winning was some inside job orchestrated by the NHL to keep NBC happy.

The offensive hero of the decider, Max Talbot, who scored both Penguins goals, was not mentioned in a pregame Yahoo! Sports column on which listed twenty-seven potential Game 7 heroes. In the final two minutes, the Red Wings nearly forced overtime; a shot by Niklas Kronwall pinged the crossbar and ricocheted out instead of into the net and Pittsburgh goalie Marc-André Fleury made the save of his life, sliding cross-crease to deny Nicklas Lidström with one second left.

For this ass-talker's purposes, random is as much of a descriptive for this series as great. The choice here before Game 1 two weeks ago was "Pittsburgh in 7." It was not borne out of believing that Pittsburgh was the better team. It was steeped more in a passage from Leonard Mlodinow's best-seller, The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives, which sports economist David Berri posted at The Wages of Wins Journal a couple weeks back:

"... if one team is good enough to warrant beating another in 55% of its games, the weaker team will nevertheless win a 7-game series about 4 times out of 10. And if the superior team could beat its opponent, on average, 2 out of 3 times they meet, the inferior team will still win a 7-game series about once every 5 match-ups. There is really no way for a sports league to change this."

It seemed like a good bit of back-pocket knowledge, especially since well before the playoffs, James Mirtle had written something along the lines of, "I'm starting to think this will be a year where we see a random Stanley Cup champion." It also provided basis for going against the grain beyond being, shudder, a contrarian for contrarian's sake.

Detroit seemed like the superior team, but not vastly superior to the Penguins, especially to someone who had no way of knowing for sure about each team's injuries. The Penguins were good enough to win a Stanley Cup and as Outliers argued, you don't have to be super-qualified, you just have to be qualified.

Berri's predictions for the NBA's conference finals indirectly (or perhaps not) illustrated the point. His analysis backed up what everyone who only half-follows hoops knew, that the Cleveland Cavaliers and L.A. Lakers were supposed to win in a pair of walkovers, five games maximum. You know the rest of the story. The Cavaliers were upended in six games by the Orlando Magic. Berri penned a follow-up called, "Fooled By Randomness," explaining,well, shit happens. As sports fans, we shouldn't run from it. We should embrace it.

"The small sample we see in the playoffs imposes an element of randomness on the outcome. This randomness makes it interesting, but it also makes decision-making complicated."

The New York Times' review of The Drunkard's Walk explains how people don't appreciate randomness when they're making predictions:

"... Anyone who has ever bought a mutual fund because it has been on a roll or bet that a racehorse will extend its winning streak has fallen into the same confusion. Chances are the champion will regress toward the mean and another will have its glory day. In all life's games, some players are better than others, but randomness maintains the upper hand.

Hardest of all for our blinkered brains are cases involving Bayesian statistics, where one must gauge how the probability of one event hinges on that of another."

One event hinging on that of another? That sounds much like the hockey media's tendency to form an opinion of what's going to happen in the next game based on the last game, or the last one in the arena of the team which has home ice. The way the Stanley Cup final played out certainly left everyone covering the series totally bumfuzzled.

The Red Wings won the first two games in Detroit, which was taken to mean that the Penguins were too young and and immature. The young and immature Penguins bounced back by winning the next two games, which indicated the Red Wings were old and tired. The old and tired Red Wings then blew the Penguins off the ice in a 5-0 rout in Game 5 last Saturday, chasing Fleury halfway through the game, hence the Penguins were done. At that point, the Anna Faris character from House Bunny (oh, don't act like you didn't download it) would have chimed in, "Ya, hence!"

Of course, Pittsburgh won three nights later at home to force Game 7. No one really knew what to believe anymore. It's not clear if the predictions for the winner-take-all game broke down along any blogger-vs. MSM lines. Puck Daddy surveyed eight hockey guys who write mostly for a web audience and five chose the Penguins.

Maybe everyone was just tired of Detroit winning. There are also straightforward hockey explanations. For one, Pittsburgh's rookie coach Dan Bylsma made some adjustments in Game 6 (James Mirtle, From The Rink). Marc-André Fleury had one hell of an evenout in Game 7 after struggling terribly in his previous outings in Detroit.

Secondary scoring also helps. Scratch a hockey coach whose team just lost a tightly contested series and he'll often tell you it could have been different if someone off the second and third line could have just popped a couple goals. The Penguins' winning goals in Games 6 and 7 came from Tyler Kennedy (15 goals and 35 points in the regular season) and Talbot (12 and 22). Meantime, the Red Wings also had five forwards who were, in hockey parlance, squeezing the stick exceptionally hard. Hossa, Tomas Holmström, Hart Trophy finalist Pavel Datsyuk (who was dealing with a foot injury), Jiri Hudler and Mikael Samuelsson all went goal-less in the final, finishing with scoring droughts ranging between eight and 19 games.

There's a randomness to that. Could anyone have foreseen Talbot scoring four goals in the final after scoring two in the first three playoff series? Could have anyone have predicted all five of those players going stone-cold at the same time? Likely not. Mlodinow's point about what can happen when one team should beat the other 55% of the time seems to apply.

It would be nice to say yours truly had the courage of his convictions throughout the past two weeks, but I turtled. On Kinger's sports talk radio show on CFRC 101.9 in Kingston, I stuck by the Pittsburgh pick, simply saying, "I'm going to ride it out, like George Costanza when he had that bad stock." It turns out that was the smart play (and in that Seinfeld episode, George ends up with a financial windfall after deciding to "go down with the ship.")

The Penguins were full value for their effort. Writing this is just a way to point out that while everything is so black-and-white in how sports are presented, with winners and losers, really it's not. There was some randomness to how this went down; that's one simplification among dozens.

At the very least, it is one way to disabuse anyone who says the Red Wings are over the hill when, as Mirtle says, "Detroit's got the top minds in the game in the front office and behind the bench, and I have no doubt they'll be back in the finals in the near future."

In sports, sometimes the winning team is the one that executes when an opportunity comes along. It can be completely random, like outcomes in everyday life. It sure made for a hell of a series.

P.S. Did anyone else have an issue with Hockey Night in Canada's Don Cherry referring to the season as "nine months of war" last night? War metaphors in sports are usually a no-no and it seems kind of hypocritical coming from someone who's always talking about Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan. It's almost like Cherry, a smart man, should be more aware of the distinction.

Related:
Playing The Odds (George Johnson, The New York Times, June 8, 2008)