Cheney meant journalists would liberated from having to wear shoes!

The pain that the Bush Administration inflicted on Iraqis is such that you probably can't make a sports joke. Please, let's not have any jokes that with an arm like that, the Detroit Lions should give a tryout to Muthathar al Zaidi. When you can't make fun of the 0-14 Lions, clearly, the terrorists have won.

(Hey, how 'bout those Vikings?)

Fool's gold...

The local newspaper playing an April Fool's Day prank has kind of fallen by the wayside.

Ours is not to question why. Cutbacks have sucked the life out many a newsroom. There is not enough time to plan a good prank. There is also a free-floating fear that some knob with a litigious bent will fall for it, and then turn around and sue for mental anguish and loss of enjoyment of life.

Reading this story from the Windsor Star, the dust should get blown off the practice tout suite. It's worth pointing this out now, just to give everyone plenty of lead time to engage their warped side.

Nineteen eighty-nine it was, and The Star put out the call to readers to come up with the best fake headline. A local teacher named Ron Jeffrey had a brainstorm:

"At the time, Windsor native Bob Probert was having troubles with the law, which threatened to end his pro-hockey career. Jeffrey suggested running a fake story reporting that the NHL had decided to let the Red Wings enforcer play in the National Hockey League — but only for the rival Toronto Maple Leafs.

"Windsor Star columnist and contest judge Karen Hall selected Jeffrey’s entry as most nutty. And in the spirit of the day — the story ran on April 1, 1989 — offered tickets to the most mythical of promises, the pending new arena which had till then been nothing but smoke and mirrors for decades.

"As reporter Ted Whipp wrote at the time about Jeffrey’s wacky win: 'One practical joke deserves another and his prize is two tickets to the first hockey game in Windsor’s new arena, whenever and wherever it’s built.' "

You know where this is headed. Windsor is opening its new arena on Dec. 11, replacing the venerable Barn which opened in 1924.

The Star has proven as good as its word, presenting Mr. Jeffrey with two tickets -- and as the story notes, he's never been to a Spitfires game.

For lack of anything original to add, it's nice to see, in this age of media bloodletting, a story where the local outlet lives up to the great Kingston sportscaster Max Jackson's adage, "If you can't play a sport, be one."

(And no, that was not on my voice-mail at any of my previous newspaper jobs. Speaking of which, back in the day at a small daily down in the 519 area code, in fact, yours truly and my counterpart our sister paper in Woodstock joked for several weeks about an April Fool's Day prank.

At the time, one of the junior hockey teams in his town had a dodgy ownership/management situation and played in a brand-new arena that was always half-empty. In the other town, a popular junior hockey coach had just been fired. Thus, the story would be that the gong show team was moving up from Junior C to Tier 2 Junior A, and that said coach would be taking over.

Well, due to a job change, it never came to pass, but a few months later, the same coach ended up taking over one of the teams near Woodstock. This really happened.)

Anyway, the gauntlet has been thrown down to newsroom across the nation. Bring back the April Fool's Day gag. Tough times are ahead, and the world needs the kind of laughter it can only get from reading about the Swiss spaghetti harvest.

This has potential, for sure. In Ottawa, first prize could be two tickets to the first MLS game in the city.

(Fist bump to Greg Layson for sending this along.)

Related:
April Fool's joke finally comes true (Craig Pearson, Windsor Star)

Waking up from history...

The only question that can be asked from the personal soapbox, "When did you know the world had changed?"

Was it when Ohio went for President Barack Obama? When the Greenwich, Connecticut electorate went Democrat for the first time since the Lyndon Johnson landslide in 1964?

Point being, a lot of us still had doubts, knowing America's byzantine voting procedures. On some level, we knew this day would come.

The gut feeling that Sen. Obama would pull this out has been here since mid-May, during the nomination fight (remember the media kept saying "presumptive nominee," even thought Sen. Hillary Clinton was mathematically eliminated), after reading a Politico piece on Jeffrey Berman, his director of delegate selection and his "detailed, Bill-Jamesesque approach to the game of politics."

"Analysts trying to explain Obama’s rise and Clinton’s fall tend to point to the big picture: Obama’s inspirational message, the drag of the Iraq war, the past and the future. But the heart of Obama’s victory has been technical and tactical — to the frustration and disbelief of Clinton’s inner circle."

For sure, this win belonged to everyone, especially the voters who had been told implicitly for eight years that they were less than real Americans by the Bush-Cheney camp -- African-Americans, minorities, women, younger voters. It is a lot more fun to talk about the audacity of hope, or to harken back to a November night four years ago, sitting in a bar in Simcoe, Ont., with a political-junkie colleague and The Legendary Chris Thomas, feeling heartsick over the outcome.

However, it is one thing to believe. It is another to know -- like Emerson said, one person who has a mind and knows it can beat 10 who haven't and don't. Obama and his team were the smartest folks in the room, and isn't it great for that phrase to have an entirely different connotation. What's also great is being able to get away from discuss politics on a blog about sports for the next little while.

Related:
The Obama campaign's 'unsung hero' (Ben Smith and Avi Zenilman, Politico, May 12, 2008)
No We Can't, White Folks; Now that Obama has won, here are five things white people shouldn't do (Christopher Beam and Chris Wilson, TheRoot.com)
No We Can't, Black Folks; Our man is going to the White House. Now here are five things black people shouldn't do (TheRoot.com)
When history's unfolding, don't get in the way (Adam Radwanski)

Fronts: The dreaded vote of confidence

Kingston Frontenacs owner Doug Springer has generated a little Internet buzz by telling the local paper that his winless hockey team has "to find a way to win at least two of these next four hockey games."

Of course, Springer is Springer. Fronts fans are Fronts fans. The big matzo ball hanging out there is that in the same interview with Whig-Standard sports editor Mike Koreen, he said GM-for-life/permananent interim coach Larry Mavety "absolutely" has a vote of confidence. Da-uh?

Granted, about 12 months ago Springer also said he would do "whatever it takes" to have a "top team" -- and kept Mavety. He has yet to live that down, so perhaps he doesn't want another proclamation to follow him around for this season.

The Fronts, AKA the Limestone City's Light Brigade, is home to the red-hot Ottawa 67's tonight, then make the long, once-a-year trip to play two Michigan teams, Plymouth and Saginaw, then play the No. 1-ranked Windsor Spitfires im the third game of the weekend. Someone, please, tell us where the two wins are going to come from that run of games.

(Incidentally, one of the forwards the Frontenacs cut, Kyle Paige, has landed on his feet in the QMJHL.)

Update: Hey, hey, a victory tonight, 5-1 over the somnabulant Soixante-Septs, with Josh Brittain potting the hat trick, Mavric Parks stopping 39-of-40 shots, Ethan Werek picking up a couple assists and Erik Gudbranson going plus-2 on the blue line.

$300,000? That's exactly what Mav's marshmallow squares bring in!

Instead of a statue of Sir John A. Macdonald in front of the K-Rock Centre, Kingston will have to settle for one of John Turner ("He's history's greatest monster!"):

"Revenues at the K-Rock Centre are anticipated to be more than $300,000 short of the $922,000 budgeted for the 10 months the arena is open in 2008.

"... (Kingston city councillor Vicki Schmolka) said the Kingston Frontenacs hockey team will also have to do well to attract fans. The team, she said, is 'the bread and butter of the facility.'

" 'I'm optimistic. I want to believe it's going to be OK,' Schmolka said, "but ... we cannot assume that money is going to fly in the door here.' " -- Jordan Press, Kingston Whig-Standard

To be fair, from this vantage point it seems like a particularly virulent strain of buyer's remorse is going through Kingston city council. This gives us an idea of how the Springer Frontenacs need to get better at playing the game -- not hockey, but the ol' public image scrimmage.

Consider your eyes, ears, nose and throat warned...

"I had several glasses of Tiverton Dark and Premium Lager while chatting with Jim Kindree from the revived Steelback Brewery, who told me about the company's reduced line and the return of former brewery head (name not worthy of mention in any respectable forum), who has apparently found a sucker to financially back his return to the beer business." — ChartAttack.com, Aug. 8

Putting the dink in coincidink

Talk about crazy cross-referencing: The Supreme Court of Canada handed down a decision that expands the use of fair comment on Friday — the same day that reportonbusiness.com profiled the new CEO of Steelback Brewery, who couldn't have distanced himself more from the former CEO whose name doesn't rate a mention.

Let's drink to that -- although with all due respect to Jonathon Sherman, something-anything else will be the libation of choice this holiday weekend.

Absolutely right, and they were wrong

" 'What's the shelf-life for a website that only has women in bikinis?' McIntyre asked. 'Eventually, there needs to be substance to back up the fluff."
-- The Big Lead's Jason McIntyre, in Monday's L.A. Times

"A lot of the major sports blogs are just thinly veiled soft-porn sites with lightweight commentary sprinkled in between the bikini pics of the plastic-looking silicone sisters. So much for being firmly for the separation of sports talk and spankbank material."
-- Some guy, December 17, 2007

(Obviously, this only applies to The Big Lead, who was subject to a pretty good takedown by the savants at KSK, and many, many others.)

Related:
Bissenleitch For The Final Time; or, So You’re Saying I Was Right? (Sports On My Mind)

Taking credit for other people's hard work!

It's way too sticky, but a victory lap is called for when a talking point from last week is picked up by the country's largest newspaper:

"THE BAD: If Don Cherry hadn't spent so much time defending his admiration for Pittsburgh's Gary Roberts, which really wasn't the point of the criticism, he might have found time to praise Detroit's Swedish contingent the way he drooled over Anaheim's high Canadian content last year. Or did I miss that?"
-- Chris Zelkovich, Toronto Star

Previous:
Where was Grapes? (June 4)

SENATORS' BLUSHING BRIDES, PART 3

The Senators were able to beat the Florida Panthers the other night, but they were no match for the quote, unquote bomb-throwing feminists.*

"An Ottawa charity facing controversy over its anti-abortion philosophy says it does not want to hurt the positive image of the Ottawa Senators Foundation, and will therefore turn down funding raised at Ottawa Senators games.

"First Place Pregnancy Centre said it recognizes 'the incredible work and generosity' of the Sens Better Halves, the wives and girlfriends of the Ottawa Senators, who chose the centre as one of three charities they would support by selling raffle tickets at Senators home games between Nov. 29 and Dec. 22. -- CBC.ca

Glad this all got sorted out.

Related:
Ottawa charity declines Sens Foundation help amid anti-abortion flap (CBC.ca)

(Back in the day in the sacred confines of 208, "Bomb-throwing feminists" was a tongue-in-cheek expression favoured by Peter Peart, the moral foundation of OOLF. You'd remember P-squared from previous posts.)

SENATORS' BLUSHING BRIDES, PART 2

Suffice to say, the Senators routing fans' charitable donations toward an anti-abortion group has stirred up the the feminist blogetariat: Birth Pangs, Feministing, and Shameless Mag are all over it, and that was just what turned up in about 15 minutes of aimlessly wandering through a few sites.*

The group in question has also done some backtracking: It's excised some of the more contentious links on its website which had Sens executive Dave Ready's heart in his throat when he asked about it over the phone by Heather Mallick of CBC.ca.

We'll see what happens, but it might be harder for the Sens and the media outlets they enjoy a symbiotic relationship with to pretend this away than first believed.

The fundraising initiative is ongoing through the Sens' Dec. 22 home game vs. Chicago, so there is time for this to become more of a story. The irony, of course, is that's asking an awful a lot of a certain portion of the Ottawa media, which has often been accused of engaging in a traditionally female activity: Cheerleading.

As for the big gap in Mallick's CBC.ca column pointed out in the comments on Tuesday, Unrepentant Old Hippie parries it very well:

"It turns out that while FPPC (First Place Pregnancy Centre) isn't registered under that name, it is a registered charity under its real (but for some reason, disguised) name, 'Crisis Pregnancy Centre of Ottawa.' Would it be rude to wonder why they feel compelled to disguise their real name? Well, that's another post for another day.

"So the Sens Foundation can relax: they're not doing anything that contravenes tax law. They're just supporting a group whose sole purpose is to coerce women into becoming unwilling Fetal Support Systems. No problem, no problem at all... well, unless you're stuck on that old 'women's right to self-determination' thing."

* Isn't that just like a man, to not ask for directions? In the interest of equal time in the battle of the sexes, check out The Onion's "Man Finally Put In Charge Of Struggling Feminist Movement."

SO MUCH FOR NEVER SPEAK ILL OF THE DEAD

Thank you, Colin Cowherd, for unwittingly making the point about how the media judged slain Washington Redskins safety Sean Taylor:

"Well yeah, just because you clean the rug doesn't mean you got everything out. Sometimes you've got stains, stuff so deep it never ever leaves."

A man is dead. An imperfect man, but it was a horrid death. That's about all there is to say about that. One of Cowherd's bits of evidence is that Taylor spit on an opponent. Bill Romanowski spit on an opponent, and he gets bit parts in Adam Sandler movies.

Thank goodness for both that what the likes of Cowherd does apparently has no relation to actual journalism. Lord knows how many idiots -- people working in the media and people consuming it -- take him as their paragon of rhetoric.

If that's true, we are so fucked.


Related:
Colin Cowherd sure is classy (Awful Announcing)
Colin Cowherd on Sean Taylor (D.C. Sports Bog)
Our Last Ever Mention of the Schrutebag (Deadspin)

LABOUR OF LOVE FOR OTTAWA'S NO. 1 FAN

Good friend Carl Kiiffner, who was integral in getting the good word out during the Miles Wolff-led drive to bring the Can-Am League to Ottawa, launched his Unofficial CanAM Ottawa Blog earlier today.

It's a lot of work for Carl, and a modest suggestion is that the new ballclub -- the Sam Bats? The Capital Crushers? The Maples? -- should feature a blog written by a couple dedicated journalists on its website. (If they're looking for a contributor, they know where to find me.)

Ottawa Lynx Blog is still extant. Mr. Kiiffner's fly-on-the-wall chronicle of Wolff's day pitching city councillors on Sept. 13 is worthy of reading. It's really incredible what the two of them, along with the man known as Deep Fly, did to bring a new team to town. (Especially considering that Deep Fly was dealing with a new addition to his family at the time!)

Related:
How the hot dog was made (Ottawa Lynx Blog)

OTTAWA GETS BACK IN THE GAME

On Sept. 13, the sunsoaked afternoon that Can-Am League commissioner Miles Wolff came to Ottawa to make his pitch for his independent baseball circuit settling in this city, a series of city councillors came into a meeting room, in pairs, in threes, to listen to the man make his pitch.

Some were skeptical, with good reason, that a team could rises from the ashes of the Lynx-cum-Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs. At the end of one session, though, councillor Rob Jellett stood up, slapped his hands on his thighs in a no-BS way, and said, "I just want to say that I am a baseball fan; I believe in baseball."

It seems like a small thing, but that moment was something to cling to across these past 10 weeks. Heavens knows one would take whatever he could get while Wolff, another man with a baseball-loving boy who would prefer his name not be used and Carl Kiiffner worked tirelessly to plow through a snowbank of legalities, technicalities and some hard heads down at City Hall to keep baseball alive in the nation's capital.

It seemed to make too much sense not to let the Can-Am League in, yet it seemed like a longshot for so, so long. More than once it seemed like it wouldn't happen, but somehow, some way, opinions shifted.

Anyway, it's all happening: The welcome news, first reported at Ottawa Lynx Blog, is that the city has given its blessing to the Can-Am League negotiating an agreement to play at the Coventry Rd. ballpark next season. Forgive the excessive emotional attachment.

Lord knows that us diehards fell prey to some moments of weakness. Sometimes we sprayed invective like a skunk more than once over the politics-as-usual that seemed to be scuttling the process. But we meant well.

It has taken months, but it looks like it's a lock. Much of that was Wolff, who simply won people over with his belief in this city. Another big part of it was an advocate working behind the scenes -- call him Deep Fly -- who would not give up, all because he has a young son who wants to see baseball in the summer. Neither would Carl.

Their energy prevailed and it led to people with the right amount of pull, including but not limited to councillors Jellett, Rainer Bloess and Bob Monette, working for what was right. They didn't have to lift a finger for us; it's three years till the next election and there was probably no political hay to be made by catering to a small, scattered constituency of baseball nuts, but they did. You know you guys are the champs.

Who knows what tipped it in our favour. What is known is that common sense prevailed in Ottawa with regard to a sports facility, and that alone is often reason to celebrate. The departing Lynx brass, general manager Kyle Bostwick and owner Ray Pecor, probably deserve a ton of credit for remembering the fans they are leaving behind, no doubt with heavy hearts.

Of course, it would have best for the Triple-A Lynx to stay, or to have been able to give a proper farewell, but this is making the best of the situation. It's hardly a fait accompli that independent baseball is going to survive, let alone thrive in this market. The upshot is that the people in this area who have the baseball bug will have some new friends to make at the ballpark out on Coventry Rd., starting next May. Christmas has come early, and it's going to come again around May 22, 2008.

Related:
Baseball a go for Lynx Stadium (Sun Media)
Ottawa won't be without pro baseball come spring (Laura Drake, Don Campbell and Darren Desaulniers, Ottawa Citizen)

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