He's a Dowbboy who lives in a bubble

You sort of have to admire what Bruce Dowbiggin has done with the place since he moved into William Houston's former digs as sports media critic.

Dowbboy has done a reno. The place has been converted to one part bully pulpit to use on people who didn't graduate from his school of journalism. The other half is an echo chamber for people who want reassurance they are not living through a media revolution.

• Erin Andrews calling 911 because a couple paparazzi were skulking around her home after dark "demonstrates that the ESPN star ... clearly has no idea how people in her business chase a story." (July 31)


• The Score tweaking its format to focus on "the chatter, the personalities" means that the network "has in mind what TMZ and Deadspin and a raft of social websites have done to redefine the relationship between those being covered and those doing the covering," (Aug. 5) since those sites are so, so evil for giving people what they want to see. Plus there are all those stupid young people who want to know whom Reggie Bush is dating.
  


• Most recently, Chicago Blackhawks hockey star Patrick Kane being arrested and charged with assault last weekend "was not exactly a shining moment for the integrity of bloggers" (Aug. 12) because people joked, passed judgment and gossiped about it on blogs, Twitter, Facebook and the like, just like they have always joked, passed judgment and gossiped.

It's pretty clear: Dowbiggin's generation has a monopoly on good taste and substance. We get it.

Sorry to pop that secure little bubble of boomer conceit, but that is hogwash. Next to no one is prattling on about the "blogosphere" in 2009, really. The two sides came together. They locked swords. No one really got anywhere. They called a truce. Eventually, they realized they actually had a lot in common, kind of like Canada and the U.S. since the end of the War of 1812.

One should be grateful for the good sports journalists who share the experience extends to their audience. It might have been best to let this slide for that reason alone. Besides, who knows what if any overlap there is between who reads this and who reads a sports media column on globesports.com. Nevertheless, batter up:

"While Usual Suspects commiserates with Andrews' fragile state of mind after being spied upon, the tape demonstrates that the ESPN star, who has struggled to overcome the reputation as a sideline cupcake, clearly has no idea how people in her business chase a story. Gated community or not, reporters are supposed to go and knock on doors of celebrities, relatives of car-crash victims, defrauded investors, fraud artists and, yes, people who’ve had their privacy violated. It’s called getting the other side of the story."

Erin Andrews calling 911 to get rid of some paparazzi could have had more to do with only wanting the good stuff which comes with being famous during a period when she was also feeling vulnerable.

"Levy has in mind what TMZ and Deadspin and a raft of social websites have done to redefine the relationship between those being covered and those doing the covering. With Twitter and camera phones, fans can engage their heroes in new and - sometimes - frightening ways for traditionalists ... It also means putting younger people on the air who may not have experience but do connect with the target audience.

"... And having both Cabbie (Cabral Richards) and Al Strachan working in the same format is often too jarring a concept to contemplate for Usual Suspects."

Frightening for traditionalists? Too jarring? That's not an M.P., that's a Y.P, your problem. There also seems to be an assumption that everyone in that 18-34 demographic is interested in whom is dating whom and what Chris Bosh Tweeted. Personal experience suggests the contrary.

There are many sports writers born after 1970 who can go in depth about a topic with humour and wit, and without putting themselves above the audience. Just to a name a few, there are Jeff Pearlman, Jonah Keri, Kurtenblog, Jerry Brewer at the Seattle Times , and so on. The same goes for the writers in their 20s, like those at cisblog.ca (present company excluded).

Then there's those bad, bad bloggers unleashing a "torrent of abuse" on poor Patrick Kane:

"The question of whether independent bloggers should have equal status with mainstream media is a hot topic in the industry. But the alleged Patrick Kane robbery and battery of a cabby was not exactly a shining moment for the integrity of bloggers. The release of the police charges Monday morning (actually, it was Sunday) brought an immediate torrent of abuse in the blogosphere for Kane, who was accused of beating a hapless Buffalo cabby for a 20-cent tip. Before Kane could explain his side, sites were saying 'How could Kane be this stupid?...

"Patrick Kane is a stuck-up, rich, spoiled, bratty punk... this punk kid needs a ass beating... The best possible light for Kane is that he is a mean drunk, a guy who is not above physically abusing a 62 year old man after a stupid prank went awry.' You get the flavour."

That is what people do when hit with bits of uncomfortable news. They make jokes. The cracks people post on Twitter are in the same ballpark with the sick jokes people told after the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded in 1986, when I was nine. It is the culture, for good or ill.

With respect to sports discussion, what Dowbiggin seems unwilling to reconcile is that the barriers have come down. That's TS for anyone who feels threatened (note that the good ones do not).

With regard to only bloggers looking bad on the Kane story, please. Some would say the thrust of the headlines on James Mirtle's post on Monday and Steve Simmons' Sun Media column on Tuesday were virtually identical: "Patrick Kane: A reputation ruined in an instant" and "No doubt Kane will pay; In court of public opinion, young star's reputation is tarnished by cabbie incident."

That is not to disagree with either Mr. Mirtle or Mr. Simmons. The younger cross-platformer and the older columnist (who does some TV) each said his piece very well and anyone is free to agree or disagree. It's simply that there is no us and them, and it's tiresome to have the "blogosphere" being treated as a bogeyman.

Mirtle also linked to a piece from Second City Hockey which cut to the heart of how "the Kane story ... could be useful in shattering some stories and myths we tell ourselves":

"The big one is 'hockey players are different.' No, they're not. Sorry. You know why you don't see as many athlete/criminal stories about hockey? Because there's less attention. There's less people following them to clubs, recognizing them, flashing pictures on their phones. The gossip pages tend to stay away, because no one cares about hockey players. But to suggest these guys are a different breed, that's asinine. They're rich, young kids, and those can add up to be bad combinations ... These guys are not angels, they're just people. People with freakish DNA and more money than you or I. Sure, maybe there are less of these stories in the NHL than other sports, but it's percentage points, not a wide chasm."

That might come closer to the truth than anything else published on the subjuct of "20 Cent." Hey, guess what? It was on a blog. If anyone had that kind of nuanced take in a newspaper, it passed by like a warm summer day.

Perhaps Kane and the Senators' situation with Dany Heatley each belie the culture of exceptionalism that is part of Canada's Hockey Reflex.

One would think Dowbiggin, having written a really well-received book called The Meaning of Puck, might take this into account instead of playing shoot-the-messenger. It's like what a film critic (this came across the ol' Google Reader during the process of putting this together) said about the tendency of veteran film critics, even Roger Ebert, to indulge in get-off-my-lawn techniques: "Often, the old guard sees the new guard as suspect, their tastes as lacking, and culture waning, no matter what the reality is. In the end, the thing that disappoints me most is that Roger used this moment to take what I consider a profoundly cheap shot."

Meantime, it is understood that perhaps a younger writer should not worry about Dowbiggin. The people on the blogs should just forget what's in the paper. The excellent Toronto Sun Family recently stated "aging baby boomers who grew up with print newspapers in their hands should be considered the demographics of choice ... Canada's 10 million or so baby boomers should be sufficient to carry print newspapers that are adequately staffed and focused on community affairs."

That reasoning is not entirely off. One might wonder about the argument that you should only be paid for your work if you pander to a certain demographic. What happens to anyone who wants to stay current and with it? Do they just get left with the scraps?

Point being, if Bruce Dowbiggin wants to pander to the older audience which still gets the paper, fine. He can do it without cheap shots and condescension. It would be a riot.

Snark break ...

Roberto Alomar has a girlfriend, named Maripily Rivera. You can all relax now, shame on you for being uncomfortable. How about that Bears game last week? Helluva game, helluva game. Bears got a good team this year.

Don't worry. If you're looking out the window and a falling figure goes shooting past, it's probably just the Montreal Canadiens.

Aussie basketball legend Shane Heal is playing his final pro game Saturday. It means nothing, other than a chance to recall Zander Hollander's summation of Heal's one full season in the NBA, where he shot 26.8%: "Maybe the ball rotates differently in his hemisphere."

You are not alone in thinking the Globe & Mail and TSN are word-flogging the Olympics so badly that everyone will have five-ring fatigue before they even light the flame. Two columns in the same day from Stephen Brunt is more obvious than a three-dollar bill. (Granted, two Brunt columns are better than 200 from a lot of writers.)

Mike Wilner, Sun Media's Steve Simmons, in a brawl to settle it all. It has happen. Wilner noted last night that Simmons' suggession "that a distinction has to be made between (Alex) Rodriguez and (Barry) Bonds because Bonds 'abused' steroids, but Rodriguez only 'used' steroids ... might just be the most ridiculous thing that I have ever read."

And they say newspapers don't know their readers anymore. The Hamilton Spectator notes the Hammer's $94-million contribution to a stadium for the 2015 Pan-Am Games could buy "195 Tim Hortons franchises or 43,300,000 medium coffee and donut combinations."

It is ridiculous when college basketball coaches don't trust a player to stay on the court despite foul trouble.

More great moments in fantasy sports: Manu Ginobili scored 32 points against the Raptors, but missed the game-winning shot with 10 seconds left. The beauty of being a Canadian playing fantasy hoops is you can blame your team's record, if need be, on the TSN2 controversy. Granted, it hasn't hurt the other 11 owners in the Rockhard Fantasy League.

Last but not least: Try to get, "How was your time with the Unabomber?" into conversation at some point today.



This post is worth nothing, but this is worth noting:

• Toronto-area hoops hotshot Cory Joseph (Devoe's brother), who's playing high school ball down in Nevada, scored 20 points last night. He had a better night than fellow Canadian up-and-comer Tristan Thompson, who's been thrown off his New Jersey high school team.
  
• The Score has cancelled The Score In The Morning, the show that was co-hosted by good Kingston lad Adnan Virk and Nikki Reyes.
• Down Goes Brown has some random early 1990s Leafs playoff memories. Guy Hebert would be the goalie for the Pierre Garcon All-Stars (pro athletes with French names who aren't French-Canadian).

Afternoon snark break ...

Today's theme, "You'd be excused for thinking ..."

... Senators owner Eugene Melnyk and the crying Giants fan are one and the same. ("Anybody that says we should blow up this organization should get their own bomb and go blow themselves up." Brutal.)

... Nothing Doug Gilmour — Dougie! — did before he played for the Leafs matters . It's forgotten that he was nails in the greatest hockey series ever played, the 1987 Canada Cup, which seems to have been left out of the official hagiography (give Steve Simmons credit for noting he was just as good in Calgary as he was in Toronto).

... The biggest Super Bowl story is how many or how few middle-aged sports columnists have been sent there by their newspapers. No disrespect to the heroes on Prime Time Sports who chewed this over for far too long yesterday, but it's a non-issue. Super Bowl coverage is paint-by-numbers pack journalism and the best stories are found someplace else.

... All the sportswriters who referenced John Updike's famous essay about Ted Williams probably never read any of Updike except his famous essay on seeing Ted Williams' last home run. Poz is a glorious exception. Anyone who would call it "the Ted Williams article" (Maclean's) needs to do more reading.

... the shorter version of CBC's defence of Mike Milbury using the word "pansification" was that, "People are so stupid they don't even realize it's a gay slur."

... Everything about the Detroit Lions organization has to be changed, but they must not touch the Honululu blue colour scheme.

... Friday Night Lights is the one prime-time show which is most willing to dig into the effects of the recession on average Americans, but it will probably be cancelled before it can.

... The reason the press conference announcing the end of Ottawa's 51-day transit strike was delayed was because everyone had to walk. Apparently, the drivers' union reps left for the press conference in a 40-foot-long limousine — well, they couldn't take the bus!

This post is worth nothing; this is worth noting

• Check out The Tao's thoughts on William Houston leaving The Globe & Mail.

Junior hockey is uncool; what are you gonna do about it?

Reducing a sporting issue to a spitting contest between Toronto media personalities is an easy way out, even when it is Mike Toth and Steve Simmons.

Junior hockey players get the rock-star treatment for two weeks during the world juniors and are afterthoughts 24 hours later, especially in the GTA. Toth, of Rogers Sportsnet and the FAN 590, had his say a week ago today. Sun Media's Simmons, on the following day, had a column headlined, "Apathy greets juniors," which began, "It is Thursday night at the Powerade Centre and for every seat that is occupied at least five are left empty."

(You can almost picture Rainn Wilson as a Rolling Stone editor in Almost Famous -- "Mmmmm, dark. Lively.")

Simmons' column was referred to as a "disgrace" during a rather pointed editorial reply during a subsequent Rogers OHL broadcast. Please leave personalities out of this, since it's a good topic (and our own Duane Rollins made a point to go see for himself when the Brampton Battalion and Mississauga St. Michael's Majors played at 12 noon on a weekday so classes of schoolchildren could witness major junior hockey in all its splendour).

Simmons was blasted a bit. Presumably some people would not mind hearing him accused of ripping the attendance when he had "never been in the Brampton Centre prior to that game."



That being said, Toth at least dared to run his hand along the fourth wall of every story about low attendance at OHL games in Toronto -- namely, how well these franchises do to turn first- and second-generation Canadians on to hockey? Simmons, no disrespect, goes on about "tak(ing) the easy highway drive for the least expensive entertainment you'll find everywhere," which seems to gloss over the fact that most Toronto sports fans, especially younger ones, rely on public transit when they're going to see the Raptors, Leafs, Blue Jays or TFC. It also assumes people who live close by Brampton's arena, which is located in a huge South Asian enclave, won't.

It's not even apparent that those transit options are handy for either the Battalion or Majors. Toth, who granted has come on a little strong on the subject in the past, at least waves hello to the elephant in the room, the question of growing the fanbase:

"Toronto is completely multi-cultural and sporting allegiances include everything from soccer to cricket. Brampton and Mississauga also have huge ethnic populations and many people from the two communities have never been inside a hockey rink.

"To their credit, both the Battalion and Majors are reaching out to new Canadians. For example, the two teams staged a special game for school kids earlier this year, featuring a 12.00 p.m. face-off on a Wednesday afternoon."

It is something of a common opinion among younger media types that stepping into an OHL arena often feels like a time warp. The crowd skews older and more homogenous. Between the incessant playing of Jock Jams '95 over the P.A. and the fact Larry Mavety is still GM of the Kingston Frontenacs, it is something straight out of another century.

There's no excuse simply accepting that it won't change. Look at it this way. It's not mandatory you should adopt the favourite sport when you're relatively new to a country. However, if you were a sports-mad Canadian who had relocated to England, what would you check out first: The local soccer team's game, even if it was down in League Two, or a game between the Coventry Blaze and Hull Stingrays?

People look to sports as a cultural touchstone and will turn to what's popular -- socially approved mass movements and such. People come to Canada, they do take to the NHL. It's only right to wonder why that doesn't carry over to the major junior teams in the country's largest city, instead of going on about the Battalion's "disturbingly ugly green uniforms" and inveighing against teenagers being traded in junior hockey (although it's hard argue the players are not pawns in the grand scheme).

At least Toth tried to move the debate forward. It is also worth asking if how the OHL's a keep-your-helmet-on rule, which will probably reduce fighting, might affect attendance. There might short-term pain. It might also change some impressions of the sport among people who are missing the hoser gene that makes you stand up and cheer when two 19-year-olds start whaling on each other at centre ice, although granted, fighting has not been banned.

Point being, the whole low attendance issue is worth getting into. It happens to involve two media personalities who have sizable jeering sections, so there's a little something for the haters, plus knowing that Rainn Wilson was in Almost Famous will win you drinks at bars and cocktail parties.

Related:
A Toronto thing (Mike Toth, sportsnet.ca, Jan. 8)
Previous:
Forcing them to care. That always works (Nov. 13, 2008)

Snark break ...

First things first: Our own Duane Rollins will be on ThatChannel.com's It's Called Football, today at noon Eastern. The rumour is that they might talk about soccer.

Mats Sundin has been likened to a "slow-moving mountain." The Vancouver Canucks wanted the Sundin the way he played in Toronto and got Eric Lindros, the way he played in Toronto.

Did Bill Romanowski really think he had a chance of coaching the Denver Broncos? He has to the dumbest NFL player who attended Boston College, but that's only because Mark Chmura knows assault has two S's.

Here's a prop bet: The Ottawa transit strike will be over before the Kingston Frontenacs get their next win.

(The Detroit News referred to the Plymouth Whalers "winning at Frontenac, 2-0." Apparently the team no longer merits being attached to Kingston.)

It honestly wasn't clear if this was from The Onion or the New York Post.

Strange as it sounds, it's disappointing that Corky Simpson recanted and said he was sorry for not voting for Rickey Henderson for the Baseball Hall of Fame. Damn him for having grace and backing down.

Gerry Dee on the inspiration for those bits he does on The Score, as told to Kurtenblog: "“We decided that my character would become the worst sports reporter in the world that actually thinks he’s the best. I wanted the character to be different and have lots of imperfections. It also irks me to see people like Steve Simmons who has probably never bounced a ball or skated around a rink have so much to say about sports."

Last and certainly least, that is Kingston's own Brett Angel running the goalie to start this minor-league hockey brawl (via Puck Daddy)



This post is worth nothing, but this is worth noting:

• TV Feeds My Family is asking readers to vote for the best show on TV. It is dirty pool to demand all you click through and vote for a certain drama that revolves around a high school football team in Dillon, Texas and returns to NBC next Friday?
  
  (Mad Men is also in the mix, but it has enough votes already.)
• The World of Junior Hockey sees the Kingston Frontenacs' Nathan Moon and Ethan Werek as possibilities for Team Canada at the 2010 World Juniors. Werek, maybe.
• No one asked, but for the NFL playoffs this weekend: Baltimore, Carolina, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.
• There is no cynicism about Steve Sullivan's comeback with the Nashville Predators. He's been out of the NHL since the Senators were last Stanley Cup contenders. That's how long it's been.

Raps: Why this Triano post took so long

The giddiness over Jay Triano will have to wait.

There is much happiness for Triano. Words fail at describing the arc of his hoops odyssey that began long ago in Niagara Falls. For the people old enough to remember the glory days when Canadian ballers dreamed big dreams (thank you, Mike Hickey, your book is great), it must be a trip to see a disciple of Jack Donohue, a great Canadian even if his accent and birthplace said New York City, being one of the 30 men coaching a NBA team.

The resistance is twofold, eh. Hoser Nation has outgrown the First Canadian phenomena and (b) you have to look at the circumstances with the Raptors and Canada Basketball.

No doubt was a time when it would have been unthinkable that on some Sunday afternoon, there would be a NBA game in Toronto with one of our own coaching the home team, with a NFL game taking place right down the street. That era is long gone, thankfully. The point is that Jay Triano did not get this job because he's Canadian. His fellow coaches, in the NBA and in international basketball, one would hope, don't see him as Canadian. They see him as a coach who happens be Canadian.

The same feelings can be projected on to Douglas Coupland, Feist, Seth Rogen, O.J. Atogwe, the St. Louis Rams strong safety from Windsor who's likely going to the Pro Bowl, Jim Balsillie, or Ro Russell's Grassroots Canada program. They don't expect to be told they're "pretty good for a Canadian." They want to be the best — and still have people realize where they're from.

(Digression: Some people will say this is contradictory, coming from the biggest CIS fetishist around, but that's different. All I have ever wanted is for collegiate sports here to enjoy something like the attention that they do in the States. The Houston Chronicle, chron.com, for example, has five blogs dedicated to college football.)

That's what any of us should want. At the same time, you do want people to understand the realities of trying to make it in a creative or competitive enterprise when you're from, to update Mordecai Richler's phrase, the multicultural ghetto of the north. Opportunites are fewer and farther between in Canada, a country of 33 million people, living alongside a land of plenty of 300 million. We should realize that, given those odds, yes, Jay Triano coaching the Raptors is remarkable.

However, that Captain Canada routine is not patriotic. Realizing that it is not enough is patriotic. That is one way to segue into the current state of the Raptors and our national team program.

At this hour, Triano just become the first Canadian to coach a NBA game on Canadian soil when the Raptors tip off vs. the Portland Trail Blazers. Of course, as you know, the Blazers boast Brandon Roy, whom Bryan Colangelo had available to him when he drafted Andrea Bargnani No. 1 overall two seasons ago. The wisdom of drafting Bargnani is starting to advertise itself a whole lot better, but as greater minds have already noted, Roy plays shooting guard, which is the Raps' biggest weakness in Year 3 of the Great Raptor Redesign.

The Raptors, as Newsday noted today, could have had Mike D'Antoni as coach if Colangelo had acted quicker with Sam Mitchell. They probably need to make a trade like yesterday (seriously, if they could have Steve Nash, why not?).

(About Smitch ... it was tempting to say that the same casual fans who are interested that the Raptors have a Canadian coach are the same ones who said, "but wasn't he coach of the year?" when you would expound on why Mitchell needed to go. It just seemed cruel.)

There's a lot of uncertainly over where the Raptors are headed, not to mention their place in the Canadian sportscape (although, does it really matter if they don't have much footprint outside Southern Ontario? Toronto is 6 million people, that's plenty big enough). If we had a federal broadcast regulator with any teeth or a federal government that wasn't completely dysfunctional — and gets away with being dysfunctional because Canadians don't care — Raptors fans might actually be able to see all of the team's games on TV.

Anyone who's remotely acquainted with Canada's fortunes over the years in international basketball also knows about being teased, about dreaming of things that never were. Canada will likely face a tough road trying to qualify for the 2010 worlds and the 2012 London Olympics.

It's in million-times-better place than it was when Triano was fired from the national team in '04, but there's still a lot of work to be done. If you're looking to impress friends and win drinks at cocktail parties, you should start mentioning Ettore Messina as a possible coach for either the Raps or Canada — it just sounds impressive, not that anyone will remember when you're proven right.

To sum up, yes, one should happy this is happening, but keep your eyes open. Of course, one hopes when all is said and done, Jay Triano has done more to put Tillsonburg and Niagara Falls on the map than Stompin' Tom Connors and the Falls themselves.

Related:
Donohue would be proud as his student makes history (Steve Simmons, Sun Media)
New Toronto coach hoped for Stockton's spot (Jody Genessy, Deseret News)
Fast Break (Paul Jones, sportsnet.ca)

Blog blast past: A Frosty reception in K-Town

Former hockey coach David Frost's sexual exploitation trial began earlier today in my hometown of Napanee, Ontario. It's been covered by ESPN.com. The author Laura Robinson is apparently going to be there. Not to claim any connection to this sordid story, beyond having played the odd hockey or ball game in Deseronto as a youth, but from Aug. 9, 2006, here's one of our posts about the reception Frost received when his spouse opened a business in Kingston.

So David Frost, the Rogue Agent and short-list candidate for sketchy character of the century, is apparently involved with a newly opened juice bar in none other than yours truly's adopted hometown of Kingston, Ontario. Fan-freaking-tastic. How lovely is that?

For the uninitiated, Frost is the ex-hockey agent who was so controlling and manipulative toward his clients and players that ex-St. Louis Blues player Mike Danton felt he had no choice but to try and have him killed.

According to one report, Frost isn't the owner or proprietor of this new juice bar in Kingston's downtown. Far as anyone knows, his wife is running the show.

Just like how, on paper, the Rogue Agent (the words of the investigative journalists at CBC's the fifth estate), didn't have anything to do with the Pembroke Lumber Kings, the Junior A team part-owned by one of his other "Brampton Boys," ex-NHLer Sheldon Keefe. Regardless, he was still caught by the fifth estate's cameras being around the team last season. He wasn't the owner, the coach or the general manager, but he was hanging around.

Fans who bravely came forward to talk to the CBC said he was pretty much up to his old tricks, controlling and manipulating young men through threats and intimidation. The kind of treatment you generally get when you join a cult.

This new Frost-related venture came to light through an e-mail that's been forwarded from one Kingstonian to another over the past few weeks. By the time it landed in my inbox with the subject line "slimy grease ball," it had been sent to about 100 addresses.

There's no telling how many more people might have forwarded it since then, or told people about it. Aside from leaving the names of the people and the business itself out, there's no ethical dilemma in revealing how Kingstonians feel about David Frost being associated with a business in their town. It's one man's opinion, sent to dozens and dozens of people who may be inclined to feel similar sentiments:

The 'new place' is billed as a nightclub, eatery. I have not been to this fine establishment and won't ever. I read an article in a local paper stating the proud owner is none other than David Frost's wife. The article went on to say that he has nothing to do with the business. I was downtown last night for dinner and who do I look over and see walking out of the [name of the establishment in question deleted] but the slimy grease ball himself. Interesting to see how long the business will last when people find out who is affiliated with it. (The italics and the link are in the e-mail.)

One of the initial set of recipients has told the original writer, "good call," adding "a friend of mine from work saw him (Frost) sitting in there when he went to check the place out a couple of weeks ago. he turned around and walked out. that guy gives everyone the creeps."

There's nothing to stop Frost, or his spouse, from trying to earn a living. A juice bar in Kingston has a chance to be a successful business, what with all the Queen's University students who always want to be trendy and never read the newspaper.

Still, what does the outrage of one e-mail tell us about David Frost, and what he did or didn't do to Mike Danton and his family? Danton is now in jail, his life ruined. His family, the Jeffersons, has had one son torn away from them and had a younger son essentially molested in a 2000 hazing incident where Frost apparently pointed a rifle at him. The whole sordid saga is shrouded in mystery, but Frost is there, always.

It says that the general public in the Kingston area, which unfortunately for everyone else Frost seems to have made his home base, is damn right to want to have nothing to do with anything that might bear this guy's taint.

The courts couldn't stop him, since he was tough to pin down, even though as far back as 10 years ago when he coached Danton with the Junior A Quinte Mohawks in Deseronto, Ont., people in that Eastern Ontario community knew something was very, very wrong, but were too intimidated to rock the boat.

A lack of oversight by the powers-that-be in the hockey world allowed him to run roughshod over players. Sure, there was disciplinary action and a court appearance after he allegedly assaulted one of his own players in full view of hundreds of spectators, but at the end of the day, the courts and the hockey people didn't seem to do enough.

From the time in 2001 that a psychologist turned over photos to the authorities that depicted child abuse against Danton's younger brother, it took the NHL Players' Association four years to remove him from its roster of agents. That's cold, hard fact.

The only group who could deliver something remotely resembling justice were the journalists, including but not limited to the fifth estate's Bob McKeown, a fellow alum of the Queen's Journal, Greg McArthur, then of the Ottawa Citizen and now of The Globe and Mail, Sun Media's Steve Simmons and ESPN The Magazine's Bruce Feldman and Gare Joyce (who also wrote about it for Toro magazine.)

Frost's wife is free to run her business, of course, but at the same time, people in Kingston have the power not to help it succeed by voting with their feet and refusing to support it. More than a few already seem dead-set against getting in line to sample any of the establishment's Kool-Aid, to borrow Danton's immortal phrase. Can't disagree with that for a second.

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.

BAD NEWS, LEAFS FANS: MATS SUNDIN AND YOUR GRANDMA MIGHT HAVE SOMETHING IN COMMON

Sun Media's Steve Simmons appears to have the exclusive: Leafs captain Mats Sundin apparently needs hip surgery. This is a real blow to the Leafs, who in the past were known to indicate that they wouldn't mind keeping a player in the lineup well beyond his 65th birthday.

Oh, and this is terrible for Mats Sundin, whose window for winning a long-sought Stanley Cup was small enough before this bit of news.

Simmons (link via the indispensable Mirtle) notes that Sundin's condition might be osteoarthritis, the condition which short-circuited former Leaf Alex Mogilny's career.

ROGUE AGENT FACING FEWER CHARGES

Reports in Sun Media and the Globe & Mail say charges against rogue agent David Frost involving three girls and an assault charge against a young male will be dropped Tuesday at the courthouse in Napanee.

Just to be clear, David Frost is innocent until proven guilty, but that is separate from him what you may think of him as a person. Ever after everything that's been written and said about Mike Danton's destroyer, Steve Simmons' column in the Sun today overloaded the shockproof shit detector Hemingway talked about, particularly the quote from the unnamed young male's father.

It was known all along that the Crown's ability to build a case against Frost would be complicated. They had to stickhandle around the whole omertà culture which occasionally thrives miserably in junior hockey and small towns. Breaking through that is always a challenge in any sex scandal that involves children and adults in position of power.

Anyway, Back in August, two weeks before Frost was charged, it was noted here that Frost was hanging around a family member's juice bar in downtown Kingston and some townspeople were pretty unhappy about it. After that appeared, I got a string of e-mails from journalists who'd helped shed light on what happened in Deseronto a decade ago and from complete strangers who'd caught Frost's act at various arenas across Ontario. Those e-mails were written in confidence, so it doesn't seem kosher to relay what was said, but believe you me, it was shocking.

Related:
Another twist in the Frost case (Mirtle)
Frost case falling apart (Steve Simmons, Sun Media)
Danton's father says Frost will not face some charges (David Shoalts, globesports.com)
Previous:
Sheldon Kennedy's Important Reminder (Nov. 14, 2006)
Rogue Agent Gets A Frosty Reception In My Hometown (Aug. 9, 2006)

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.

RAPTORS MAKE 'NET GAINS...

Memo to over-45 newspaper columnists writing about fan interest in a sport which is anywhere below No. 2 in its own market: In 2007, you really should have something about whatever web culture has grown around it high up in the article.

The Toronto Sun's Steve Simmons wrote a column today saying the TV audience for Toronto Raptors telecasts "borders on the pathetic."

Can't argue that. You can't. Still, Simmons doesn't acknowledge anything relating to the web until the next-to-last graf, where a MLSE muckamuck is quoted saying "we have the second busiest website in the NBA."

That is the hook: The Raptors' core audience may be on the web more than it's in control of the TV clicker. Imagine a household with a 40-something dad and a 13-year-old kid who likes the Raptors. On Sunday, when the Raptors-Mavs game was up against a NFL playoff game, who wins an argument over what to watch? The dad's probably going to watch the football and the kid is going to retreat to the computer and follow the game on ESPN.com or Yahoo! Sports while chatting about it with her or his friends over MSN, or go to the skatepark (which you could have done in southern Ontario on Sunday before we got all this snow) and then come home later and talk about it on a blog or message board. That doesn't make it into TV ratings which columnists love to fetishize, especially if they may be looking to justify their bias for or against a particular team or sport.

(It's also noteworthy that Scott Carefoot of RaptorBlog has parlayed his knowledge and love of basketball into a paying gig as a sports editor for Sympatico. It took four-plus years, but Carefoot built a huge following and was rewarded.)

This relates to the rebuttal that ran here after Mark Spector of the National Post wrote a column two weeks ago about Canadians' apathy toward university sports in this country.

The point I want to make, politely, is that TV coverage/ratings and newspaper column inches are not the only measurables for a team or sport's audience. Neither is the be-all end-all. The columnists and their illustrious ink-stained ilk have to reorient their thinking.