Moral of the story: Think before hiring a 'Barbie blonde' who blabs about going to Dr. Anthony Galea when your marquee sport just had a doping scandal

Only in Canadian Interuniversity Sport do you get this good of an ironic epilogue.

This summer, yours truly was fairly consumed by pointing out the Waterloo Warriors doping scandal was exacerbated by a bush-league approach to collegiate sports in Canada (there are exceptions to the rule, which one should be grateful for). It was, to my mind, blown out of proportion since it was the only point of reference many media consumers had to Canadian university football. Meantime, CIS has moved aggressively to increase drug testing, but it's only a half measure if they don't start to market it better.

Anyway, so over the summer Ontario University Athletics, with a team shut down for the season by doping, needing to continue to take those steps, went about hiring a new PR person for for media relations.

Presumably those factors would rule out giving the senior communications job to a 24-year-old who blogged about being treated by Dr. Anthony Galea during the period while she was interviewing for a job with the OUA.

Yep, Laura Bridgman, a self-described "Barbie blonde" and "occasional vixen," whom I'm told has been hired as the OUA's communications and social media coordinator, claims to be a patient of Galea. The Toronto physician is is facing "separate U.S. and Canadian criminal investigations for, among other things, alleged smuggling and drug-related offenses."

It's irony, on a base level. There's nothing wrong with going to Dr. Galea. However, a big part of being a communications professional is realizing what needs to be dealt with seriously. Much of spin control is knowing what you should not say. And here is the OUA, hiring someone who not only lacked the self-awareness to realize she shouldn't say that about Dr. HottiePants while applying for a job with a league that's been doing damage control over doping all summer, but was amused by his notoriety. Did the OUA check that out? That's all.

"The man who injected my ankle, Dr. HottiePants, is actually Dr. Anthony Galea. He founded his clinic (ISM Health & Wellness) when I was 4 years old. My love of old men wins again!

"The name sound familiar? He's the doctor that's treated Tiger Woods, A-Rod, and others in the states without a license to practice in the US. Read the telling story about him in The Washington Post from June. Oh even without trying, I'm all drama, drama, drama!" (Aug. 11, 2010)

Nineteen member schools, countless numbers of newspaper journos looking to abandon ship and this is who the OUA hires to help increase its media presence? This is about who hired the person, not the person who was hired.

Some might question quoting Ms. Bridgman's blog, but it was discovered in about, oh, 10 seconds of Googling. Her LinkedIn professional profile links to a Twitter account connected to her blog. That makes it fair game. Many an employer does an Internet search on a job applicant, just to see what comes up.

Also, Twitter followers ain't everything, but Ms. Bridgman only has 231. At least two cisblog.ca contributors have several times more.

I don't presume to know what's in the minds of female athletes aged 18-22. Surely, there are some progressive women who play sports in the OUA and might be interested to know their interests will be represented by someone who uses phrases such as "PR chickies" on her blog.

You really have to wonder about the due diligence and thinking-it-through elements on the OUA's part. Bridgman, by the way, is a recent grad (2007) of the University of Windsor, where OUA president Gord Grace is athletic director. She was a communications assistant for the conference in late 2008, so she has some experience, just not a lot.

Ultimately, if the OUA wants to be looked upon at big-time, there are standards. One is having a resident communications specialist who doesn't raise concerns by failing to cover her tracks online. People have to keep their fun and professional sides separate, or it could be bad for credibility.

No one is saying you cannot hire a young woman, but hire a experienced communications professional. Instead, a sporting concern with an upstream swim to to earn credibility with a sadly still male-dominated sport media went and hired a young woman who's blogged about having her panties exposed ("navy lace boyshorts for all those walking on a different street this morning and are curious to know") by a chance gust of wind.

Ms. Bridgman's blog also contains misspellings of simple words ("with out" and "miss-read"). To quote Toby Flenderson, "Is that enough? Do you want me to go on?"

Of course, in that same episode of The Office, Michael Scott shoots back, "Why are you the way you are?" To answer the question, it's about wanting the OUA and CIS to grow. An organism only grows if it exposes itself to light, turning to people who think about the league critically, bring new ideas. Not sure that happened here.

There were some reservations about getting into such an obscure topic, and full disclosure, some of the unsuccessful applicants are acquaintances. Sometimes you have to call in your cards, though.

One has to believe the OUA had applications from people who were better and more mature than this — female, male, 20-something, 30-something, 40-something, whatever.

The point is the obvious, though. It's all inter-related. A lack of professional standards contributed to the Waterloo debacle blowing up real good. Now it gets reinforced by hiring someone who doesn't filter very well. This isn't an personal attack, and I'm deeply sorry if it's construed as such. The sticking point is Grace's screening process.

It's not so much a literal connection. Still, people in the same realm of sport which has become super-serious about steroids have turned around and hired someone who did not seem to grasp why Dr. Anthony Galea is in legal trouble, to work in media relations. That beats just about all.

Blog blast past: Semenya was such a freak, you heard it a thousand times that week (and NOW?)

South African runner Caster Semenya has been cleared to resume competing. Remember all the controversy late in the summer of 2009, all the wannabe biologists making jokes she was a man? Of course you do. Here's a told-ya-so post from Nov. 19, 2009.

From the department of "told you so," the South African runner Caster Semenya is keeping her gold medal from the world championships.

Or have people already forgotten about how, for a couple weeks in late August and early September, suddenly everyone fancied herself/himself an expert on gender determination? The temptation is to paraphrase from Jon Lajoie's Michael Jackson Is Dead video ("You fuckin' hypocrites," extremely NSFW). Anyway, point being, whatever is still to come out about Semenya, the fact remains the way some people who should know better reacted is kind of mortifying.

Anyway, a quick google turned up a blog post from U.S. runner Jill Geer, "The myth of fairness meets the question of gender," which is pretty illuminating. She notes that now-infamous photo of Semenya flexing at the finish line (which is just strange since a runner's stock-in-trade is her legs and lung capacity) and her choice of coach did not do her any favours. But still...

"Reading about (Semenya's) case has been an eye-opening education for me as I've learned about the incredible varieties of genetics that cause huge variations in what is male and female. It's like learning that it's not always day and night; it's often dusk and dawn. Until you read about and understand the science, it is hard to understand why the case isn't clear-cut.

"Of course, the uncertainty only makes the issue more tragic. If I were an athlete who finished behind Semenya, I would feel bitterly angry and cheated. If I were Caster Semenya, I'd feel equally cheated, and perhaps even more so: I'd feel I'd been cheated not out of a medal but out of my right to enjoy my life. Not only has her performance been called into question, but her entire life has been made the subject of intense public debate, cruel jokes and salacious rumor-mongering. In a classic bit of side-show grotesquery, she was even trotted out in sequins for a South African women's magazine.

These are just a few reasons to feel angered by the whole affair, but if Semenya was put in a position to compete when people close to her knew there might be an issue regarding her sex, it is even more infuriating.

"... Erin Buzuvis of the Western New England School of Law in October delivered a paper entitled 'Caster Semenya, Sex, and the Myth of a Level Playing Field.' While I don't necessarily agree with many of her assertions, that she attempts to lay out a rational argument as much as possible is to be lauded.

"... Even if competition is divided along the lines of sex, she argues, there is inherent natural variation and "unfairness" within the sexes. What is fair, and is it possible and desirable to try to create fairness when there is no such thing as a truly level playing field in sport? To wit, some women have naturally higher testosterone, and more strength, than others. Some runners have grown up at altitude and therefore have an advantage in distance running. Some athletes are wealthy and can afford training aids that others can't."

Whatever happens, happens, one would hope the reaction is a little more mature next time.

Losing that fake concern about drugs in sports, made easy

At first blush, it was like someone didn't see Run Ricky Run.

It was tough to stay reined in after reading Winnipeg Sun column pointing the CFL's new drug policy is toothless and PR-motivated. (Rob Pettapiece has tackled the CIS angle over at cisblog.ca.)

Seeing "illegal drugs" and having marijuana lumped in with steroids was almost cause to go off after a long three weeks of seeing much of the drive-by media cock up the Waterloo War-roids story.

Plus it poked fun at Ricky Williams. Who does that anymore? The Washington Times, which is obviously run by liberal guilt-ridden propper-uppers of permissiveness, describes him as "a guy who just wants to spread the love."

"With a policy like this, Ricky Williams might want to come back.

"Actually, the use of marijuana, the former Toronto running back's drug of choice, isn’t even covered in the CFL policy. Neither is cocaine.

"The message to players: if you find the NFL's policy on 'recreational' drugs too stifling, come on up! The Cannabis Football League has a job for you!

"Wouldn't team presidents and GMs, most of whom claim to be so eager to connect with their communities and their fans, particularly families, want to know if their players are abusing illegal drugs?"

A sober second thought is that is actually a great takedown of how old media pander to a 21st-century answer to reefer madness with steroids and PEDs, the shorthand term. As a whole, it talked a lot about the Waterloo debacle, but didn't listen or learn.

No one wants to chat about how CFL and CIS football players using steroids is just a sports-of-the-times thing. The reality a a newspaper column is a 600-word sprint makes it even harder to approach. One might as well go the other way and be satirical.

For the last time, what happened at Waterloo was no shock. Look around. Big Pharm has a hook into about everybody and nutritional supplements can be bought by any student, fact. That has almost been a fourth wall in much of the Waterloo coverage. Steroids bad ... over-the-counter stuff that might work like a steroid pretended away.

Of course, we can't have that conversation. It would force OMDs to confront their own bias and cease and desist from being governed by their hang-ups and need to judge a younger generation. They're not going to give that up, especially when falling back on shallow snark out of uber-defensiveness is available.

That means the above from Paul Friesen is brilliant, and that is said in full sincerity.

He pointed out how print journalism is so self-limiting when it comes to examining anything complex. It was hook-line-sinker on this end, to the point an e-mail had to be sent just to ask for explanation. On further review (a phrase that is apt after the Saskatchewan Roughriders' wild win over the Montreal Alouettes), it works on several levels.

It skewers our dated attitudes about how sports should uphold some notion of muscular Christianity instead of athletes outwitting and outplaying each other for our vicarious joy.

The same goes for how people get in a bunch about illegal drugs. Meantime, they pay no mind all the readily available legal ones that have created a trendy career for women who look a lot like the breadwinner at Mike Fisher's home.



Using Williams as an Athletes Behaving Badly straw man hits on an irony in sports fandom that we don't talk about much. Why does the marijuana-smoking Miami Dolphin have such a stickiness, while jocks who have committed heinous crimes that made life difficult for at least one other human being go straight down the memory hole?

Dollars-to-Doritos says if we walked into a bar showing a CFL game and asked people about Ricky Williams, all could ID him as a halfback who is a lover of the herb. How many could tell you about Trevis Smith, a Saskatchewan Roughriders linebacker whom in 2007 was sent to prison for knowingly exposing his sexual partners to the HIV virus?

That is effed-up that we remember Ricky and forgot Smith. You might halfway seriously wonder why we obsess more over what male athletes put in their bodies than what some have put in a woman's body against her will, excuse the crassness.

That last graf calls out that collective effed-upedness:

"Wouldn't team presidents and GMs, most of whom claim to be so eager to connect with their communities and their fans, particularly families, want to know if their players are abusing illegal drugs?"

Feigning concern about for "families" and using "illegal drugs" as an all-purpose blanket term are classics out of a career politician's handbook.

It shows concern without addressing the matter. As such, each has become a common media trope that could and should be retired faster than the Blue Jays' 3-4-5 hitters on most days.

Families?

A sports team may be family-friendly, but it's not a morality cop.

The Trevis Smith saga actually illustrates this very well. Family-friendly really just means a family of four can still afford to watch a competitive team play a game amid a raucous atmosphere. That's it. That is the connection the CFL (and CIS football) has to make.

The crowd in Regina at the Riders' CFL 54-51 overtime win over the Montreal Alouettes on Thursday is a proof.

The Riders are one of the most profitable teams in the CFL and the most passionately followed. Their fans, like all fans, have voted with their time and disposable income that their support begins and ends with the product.

Having a player convicted of a crime was embarrassing for the Roughriders organization in 2006. Then-GM Roy Shivers was fired while all this was before the courts, but it was for a variety of other reasons. Point being, it passed. However, abject behaviour by players, coaches, or team execs (see Eric Tillman) has little sway with rank-and-file sports fans. They can sort it out on their own and continuing living their lifes without any media moralizing.

That should make it clear we have little to no need to extend the nanny state to the performers in spectator sports. It's like some people want that in order to screen out contemporary life from creeping into their notion of the world of fun and games. Oh, not stupid reality again! It's the damned modernity which shapes the fun and games, pal.

Denying it makes you as a big a goof as Stephen Valeriote. He is a former Waterloo football player who tried to blame the adverse tests at his alma mater on almost all things CIS except the testees (and the two players who have been arrested and charged).

"So you ask yourself: ‘Why were so many players at UW on steroids?’ Was it because that the only way to compete with older, heavier, stronger players out east and out west was to bulk up?

"I don't like to criticize without offering a solution. In order to purify men’s university athletics, I suggest that they adopt the following rules:

"Ban ex-OHLers or Jr. A hockey players;

"One year in junior football or Quebec prep school equals one year of university eligibility."

Purify? Who believes anything is pure now? We find a peace within a state of compromise, so GTFOY, sir. Get. The. Fuck. Over. Yourself.

Far be it to point out CIS men's hockey has not had a positive doping test in almost forever. Never mind asking how the average age of football players at out-of-province schools could have influenced behaviour among players at Waterloo. The Warriors could only meet those teams in a national semifinal or Vanier Cup. (Hah!)

Since Valeriote is a school teacher, one can only presume he'll swallow it wholeheartedly the next time a student fails to turn in classwork and blames it on someone else.

Any culture of prohibition is a rearguard action. Legislating morality is a losing battle. The only line is when drug use is a symptom of a discipline problem that affects one's job performance. Stereotypes aside, it might not in all cases.

Whose job is it to instill the personal responsibility which keeps one on the straight and narrow? The people who look after you for the first 18 years of your life. Parents, the main part of the family unit.

Acknowledging that means baby boomers have to really look at how their four decades' of self-indulgence have trickled down to millennials.

Just thinking about that would make their collective lips numb. There's probably something you can take for that. Which brings us to:

Illegal drugs?

Using wacky-tabaccy-loving Williams as Mr. Bad Example, tongue in cheek, spoofs how careless some in the Canadian media are/were about in providing context on this matter.

Dogging Williams obviously doesn't hunt. His drug habit is far from the worst among NFL castoffs who have come to the CFL in the past 15 years. Remember Todd Marinovich? He was a former first-round flameout who told Esquire writer Mike Sager (no relation) that he shot heroin at halftime during his short-lived stint with the B.C. Lions in 1999.

"Todd retrieved a premade rig out of his locker and went to the bathroom to shoot up. Sitting on the toilet, half listening to the chalk talk, he slammed the heroin. As the team was leaving the locker room for the second half, he struggled with the screen in his glass crack pipe — he wasn't getting a good hit. Then the pipe broke, and he lacerated his left thumb. By the time he got out onto the field, his thumb wrapped in a towel, the game had already started. He took up the clipboard, his only duty. 'I didn't even know what play they were calling,' Todd says. 'Nobody looked at the shit I wrote down anyway.' "

Todd Marinovich did heroin at halftime. Do you need Norm Macdonald to repeat that for comic effect?

And that segues into the drive-by media's blind spot, that aforementioned fourth wall about nutritional supplements, a highly unregulated industry. The prevalence of prescription drugs in everyday life is barely mentioned, too.

People know. However, it gets in the way of keeping a column or story simple(istic).

Rob put it best:

"Now that we have a list of banned substances, and the use of any of them in CIS counts as a first strike with respect to the CFL's policy, an enterprising reporter could take Appendix D from this PDF, then go to the well-known supplement franchise with several locations in the country (some close to university campuses) and whose website lists product categories like 'anabolic agents' and 'pure creatine powders,' then find something with lots of levels of one of the banned substances in it, then ask how many of those products have been sold recently to young men. But I guess that's too esoteric a task."

Of course, that ain't gonna happen.

Who wants to read that drug use in Canadian university football might only be only marginally more prevalent than it is among males ages 15-34 who exercise regularly? That is not sensational or sexy.

It would also jeopardize the concept any athlete who has not tested positive for a banned substance is by deductive reasoning a clean athlete.

Perhaps someone is getting by on eating well and getting eight hours' sleep each night.

It would probably be more honest to just accept most high-level competitors have their little helpers. Every profession has something. Imagine a newspaper put out in a world without caffeine.

That would be much more honest about where we are as a society. That's all this is, a plea for a little more honesty, which means to stop scapegoating athletes, especially the ones in CIS who make an easy target.

The obliviousness to how all drugs reshape our lives is just tiresome. (As a friend put it: "Do you eat meat? Well, you took a steroid.") By the way, the aforementioned Eric Tillman, the former Roughriders GM who had to leave after he was convicted to sexually assaulting his family's 16-year-old babysitter? He attributed his actions to the effects of prescription medication. No irony there.

In closing, it is sickening the University of Waterloo used a criminal investigation of a couple players as a kneejerk excuse to whack its football team and throw 53 players under the bus.

One may only wonder if other Ontario universities are wondering why they couldn't be so lucky to have a gift-wrapped reason to not compete in CIS football, during an an era when the calibre of play is on a huge upswing. (So, so Canadian: it's getting tougher to win, so why try?) It is equally nauseating to see the same 53 players received the angel treatment, too.

Honesty replacing fact-plus-fiction and truth-minus-facts (Chuck Klosterman's characterizations of most news stories) would involve the media not seeing everything as so cut-and-dried.

Specifically, is it that wrong to think the CFL not testing for cocaine and marijuana is barely worth a mention, since neither is the issue?

One, not testing for it might reflect a quaint view there is still some right to privacy left in the world. Two, it might be an admission it is hypocrisy to bust players for that when there would be no pro football worth watching if not for stronger legal drugs used during training and recovery periods. (Those are taxed drugs, so the government doesn't fret about them as much.)

The CFL, by its actions, essentially said:

"Look, we realize people decided we were expected to come up with a doping policy like all the big boy-pants wearing leagues, even though we always have been and always will be an independent minor league with oddball rules. So this is the best we can do. It's not going to catch everybody, but it'll help us sleep at night. Now go work out your moral and ethical dilemmas on your own instead of expecting to find answers to them between the lines of a football field."

The world where a sports commissioner could say that is the world I one day to want to live in.

In not so many words, the CFL kind of did address fans and media as if they were adults. Fans are so there. The media not so much.

That "Cannabis Football League" crack, even if it's sarcastic, is reminiscent of the exact kinds of remark that kill in a newsrooms that are bastions of old-media hubris. It does not reflect trying to challenge one's own set of assumptions, let alone so-called conventional wisdom. It just reinforces it.

Old media got old for reasons beyond technology, people. That's why there's not a snowball's chance in hell it can discuss such a topic seriously.

Ottawa radio station secretly hates 53% of its market

It's a little funny, but 89.9 times more stupid.

Make no mistake, an Ottawa radio station trading on a misogynistic, vulgar term as part of a contest is only humorous since it is so grossly adolescent and puerile.

Few in the Ottawa media seemed to have weighed in on the No. 1 station in town among anglophone listeners -- one for which impressionable youth also make up a huge chunk of its demographics -- calling itself "HO 89.9" on air. As in that kind of ho, synonymous with other sexist slurs that demean women. It's kind of striking that's allowed to slide in a town where a grocery chain yanked a clothing flyer after a local broadsheet wondered if its underwear ads were "sexifying" teenagers.So basically it's a story when you can run accompanying art of the underwear ads, but when a radio station is using a sexist slur on air, in advertising and on the web, there's a delayed reaction.

On April 1, last Thursday, the Ottawa station stripped the T from its logo, taking it off its website and its vehicles (their exterior sign at the station was taken down). The morning show has been renamed The Morning Ho Tub (really?). On Monday, the station revealed where listeners have to collect clues to find the missing T.


Playing this off as harmless and an attempt at having some fun is idiocy writ large.

Much of 89.9's listenership is made up of adolescents, girls and boys age 11 and up who are at a critical age for developing positive social attitudes and understanding the connotations of gay or sexist slurs. An over-the-air radio station with that kind of reach among young people using "ho" as if it is acceptable in casual conversation is really irresponsible. It's also a classic instance of white people appropriating black slang in order to perpetuate ghetto stereotypes and feel free to call that an overthink.

Please excuse the imposition of, what's that called, standards.

It's all about the message. When Howard Stern does his thing, it's niche, people are paying to hear it since he's now on satellite radio, and the message comes through that its appeal is to those who are in a state of arrested development (G.A.C.).

This radio station's ill-conceived idiocy is that it is mainstreaming the word "ho," making it seem like a term to be used casually. That's a terrible message to send to young females and males alike. Here one thinks of the Tina Fey character in Mean Girls saying, "You all have got to stop calling each other sluts and whores. It just makes it OK for guys to call you sluts and whores."

Apologies for going off-topic, but someone had to say why these so-called media professionals shouldn't be saying that on air. Total fail, as the kids would say, and who knows what some Grade 4 or 5 pupils who heard "ho" on the radio all weekend were saying at school today.

You can't spell "blithering, witless opining" without "Tiger's penis"

Praise the great forces in the universe for bringing this to attention ...

"We’re at that point in the Woods scandal where the news is so pervasive that a lot of smart people feel like they’ve got to weigh in or be left behind in the cultural conversation — it would be like trying to pretend Monica Lewinsky didn’t exist in 1998. But there’s a danger for those smart people in that trying to say something smart about something very silly, they’ll just end up looking silly themselves."

... right as a certain old-media dunderhead just had to use his Globe & Mail space for a take on Tiger Woods and another OMD just had to have hers in the Toronto Star.

As a FYI to those who do not swing with post-hoc deductive reasoning, Diane Pucin points out some of Woods' sponsors reflexively stopped running ads Nov. 29, before all the reports about mistresses hit traditional media. One has little to do with the other.

It is 2010. People can take it if you told them the greater shocker would be if Tiger Woods didn't have some side action (Jason Whitlock is now saying this in not so few words: "The high-character values and morality we've ascribed to the male and female athletes who entertain us were a myth in the 20th century and a flat-out impossibility now ... Tiger operates in a cesspool. He's never portrayed himself as a religious holy roller. His values appear, like most, sexular."). The man is on the road, what, 275 nights a year. There are jock-sniffers and hangers-on of dubious virtue at every turn. A man might be able to get what he wants from Tiger by offering some hero worship, or financial incentive, a speakers' fee, a comped hotel suite, etc. A women mostly can only offer companionship (a polite term for "convenient hole"). Besides, from what we know about jocks, Tiger Woods is so in love with himself that in his mind, taking a woman-not-his-wife back to his room practically qualifies as an act of compassion.

You don't need to be told Tiger Woods' penis is no business of ours and what he does with it is, at worst, a victimless crime (sorry, Elin). Shame on anyone in the media for pandering to self-righteous moralizers and North America's juvenile attitude toward sex. Honestly, do you think this will matter in one, two, five years? It won't. Just ask Kobe Bryant or Bill Clinton.

Jeff Pearlman said the most profound, no-BS comment: "Why haven’t I taken a stance? What do I think? Truthfully, I think very little."

(Best non-sequitur from Deadspin: "(I) wanted to believe what we are shown on tv.")

Golf in the Olympics? No.

A post about the IOC deciding which sports to add to the 2016 Summer Olympics is off-topic ... it is also in the wheelhouse of a male feminist/Seamhead/golf hater.

"The buzz is that golf has an excellent chance, especially given its backing by the likes of Tiger Woods. But choosing golf and rejecting softball would be another slap in the face at women, since the Olympic Golf Committee also includes Augusta National Golf Club and the Royal & Ancient Golf Club, both of which do not allow women as members."

Golf is completely antithetical to the Olympic movement, which explains why the IOC would love it so much. The the Olympics does not need it and it does need it the Olympics, save for replacing sponsorship dollars.

It is worth speaking up for the softballers now rather than in November. The Olympics is the one time for Danielle Lawrie to appear in Canadians' living rooms. Mike Weir is there every week.

To walk the walk about supporting women, IOC must pick softball for 2016 (Philip Hersh, Chicago Tribune)

Don McPherson, proof the good guys will win (and why you should respect the WNBA)

Be the change you want to see.

That is one thought that has spun out the the story about ESPN's Erin Andrews (you're sick of hearing about it). One can believe fully completely what happened to Ms. Andrews was simply indicative of a sick nut and a criminal act, but treat it as a jumping-off point to express hope some of the sexism in sports perpetuated on the web won't last forever. That's not the same as blaming people for what happened.

It is germane that Don McPherson (pictured) has been in the news while all this is going on. McPherson, who was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame last week, has found a post-football calling as a spokesman against domestic violence. Writing a post about him would have been a bit of a stretch for this site (and to be crystal-clear, no one is trying to draw a parallel between what happened to Andrews and domestic violence). Thankfully, this country's ace football reporter, Dave Naylor, not only wrote a post about McPherson's work but re-posted a 2004 article he did on the former Syracuse QB:

"McPherson has always had a strong interest and awareness of social issues. Part of that came out of his experience as an African American quarterback at a time when the position was mostly open to whites. And part of it came from the uneasiness he felt in the role of a star athlete, everything from the special treatment he received to the impressions the public had about how star athletes were supposed to act.

"When he retired in 1994, he had difficulty moving on with his life and began exploring the reasons why, eventually focusing on the issues of masculinity as they applied to athletics and society in general."

"What came out of it was a career as one of America’s most prominent spokespersons on the issue of domestic violence and the ways in which men deal with the pressures and expectations related to masculinity. Don has spoken to U.S. Congress, been on Oprah Winfrey and crossed North America speaking to audiences of all sorts.

"And with the profile of a retired football player, he is able to reach new audiences with these kinds of talks. He is also the founder and former executive director of the Sports Leadership Institute at Adelphi University on Long Island."

McPherson is not the first person nor the last player who was ambivalent about certain aspects of pro football. It was a big theme in North Dallas Forty. There was a quarterback around the same age as McPherson named Timm Rosenbach, who walked away from the NFL in the early 1990s because "he began to 'despise,' as he said, the dehumanizing aspects of football that 'can turn you into an animal.' " (Ira Berkow, The New York Times, Oct. 3, 1993.) One of McPherson's teammates at Syracuse, defensive end-turned-author Tim Green, also wrote a book called The Dark Side of the Game.

That is relatable. Everyone is ambivalent about certain things in their professions. Typically, one just learns to go along to get along.

There is a lesson in reading about McPherson's work. Here is a person who is trying to engage people and make it clear individual acts of idiocy (and a man striking a woman is idiotic) don't happen in a vacuum. Oftentimes, it is a reflection of a society which will look the other way about such behaviour. As Naylor related in 2004, the gist of McPherson's message includes:

"The good guys must meet the challenge. Male silence is unacceptable.

"All men have women in their lives they care about. Yet male language often casts them as lesser beings. Telling a boy that 'you throw like a girl' insults both him and girls. The impression can last a lifetime."

Eradicating domestic violence, of course, is way more important than changing how women are represented in sports media. However, the "silence is unacceptable" part should strike a note with anyone who has ever wanted to change anything about her/his profession.

As you can guess, on this end that would entail how the sports media in North America depicts women. This is coming from a male feminist, but one who is also a What Is guy.

There was little arguing when Bruce Arthur wrote in The National Post, "This is an industry of men, writing and talking about the exploits of men. Women's sports don't sell, not really, unless sex appeal is involved. Outside of women's tennis — where Anna Kournikova was the biggest thing in the sport, and not for her play — women are largely destined to be cheerleaders, or sideline reporters, or ignored."

Arthur, who's a fine writer, was just stating What Is. It's a minor point to note Women's Professional Soccer has had a successful launch or that the WNBA might add another stand-alone franchise (one that doesn't share an arena with the NBA) and that its has increased sponsorships and stayed lean and mean, much like the CFL, another niche league (an entire WNBA team's payroll is less than $1 million for an 11-player roster). If you believe betting action signifies a groundswell of support for a sport, it's noteworthy that Covers.com, a sports betting site, offers advice on WNBA games, which is proof the league is getting more respect or that gamblers will bet on anything.

It's not clear how one brings about change. On a personal level, while writing features for Sun Media on high school and university-aged athletes the past two years, there has always been an effort to give the young females and males equal space. Write a feature about a girl from the west end one week, then try to find a boy from the east end the next. Similarly, on cisblog.ca, Rob Pettapiece came up with the idea of eschewing the label women's basketball on posts and just using basketball.

Those are small moves, but maybe it's better than directly challenging people. Local actions have universal repercussions, right?

In a sense, the person who violated Erin Andrews was a grotesque. That's a literary term for a reprehensible being who points out a society's hypocrisies. No one is to blame for what happened save for the perpetrator ). Perhaps wanting to believe it ends with the perpetrator is because people don't want to challenge their beliefs. And that is fine. You're not required to use sports for introspection.

However, to some extent, it does "lay bare the Internet culture ... that preaches everything is designed for entertainment." (Chris Zelkovich, Sports Media Watch.) We also know that in Arthur's "industry of men," many conversations take place about women that leave people "mortified," in Jeff Pearlman's phrasing. Perhaps that has to change, little by little.

Maybe if you're a guy, you don't see why you should have to care. Think of Don McPherson, though, who saw something he couldn't abide and has spoken up. There's someone being the change he wants to see. It's probably not easy.

(McPherson's work had come to attention before Naylor wrote about him, but it seemed like a stretch for this site. McPherson played at Syracuse, but that 1987 season was ahead of my time and I am an Orange basketball fan who never paid much attention to the football team even when Donovan McNabb was leading them to the Orange Bowl. You know that was a long time ago.)

Update: Oddly enough, a few hours after this post went up, Ben York wrote a piece for Dime magazine, "Why You Need To Pay Attention To The WNBA."

"The general knock against the WNBA (usually from people who haven’t spent a single minute watching it) is that it’s less fun or enjoyable to watch; the players are faster, better, and flashier in the NBA. To that I have to pull the 'true fan; card. Yes, there is probably more flash, showmanship, and dunking in the NBA … but does that really make it a better league to watch? On the contrary, too often it becomes solely about that and the basic foundations of the game are lost. Hey, I enjoy seeing an amazing dunk or athletic play as much as the next person, but I also love to see good, team basketball. If you’re honest with yourself, this has been lacking in the NBA collectively for years. However, the WNBA is built upon damn near perfect fundamentals and structured (but no less fun) team basketball. Plus, there is so much competition for minutes and a recurring roster spot that no player can afford to take a night off."

Related:
McPherson gets his due (Naylor's Sideline View, July 20)

OK, fine, about the Erin Andrews story; read Nicks' take

Honestly, the Erin Andrews peephole story was something you shouldn't touch with a 39½-foot pole while wearing a hazmat suit.

Whoever is responsible for it acted alone (maybe ). You write about this, inevitably you're going to end up trespassing on the moral high ground that should be off-limits. No one wants to be that guy and besides, manufactured outrage is dead. Since the traditional media are all over this, there a couple takes worth relating. One is Erin Nicks' at The Universal Cynic on her reaction as a woman trying to be taken seriously while opining on sports.

The other, obviously at the other end of the spectrum and definitely not safe for work, is from the girlie photo site Don Chavez and makes it very clear why it's weird how ESPN's legal eagles called attention to a video that had been on the web for more than four months. The phrase "inside job" is making the rounds, since it all blew up right before the ESPYs. (ESPN's new slogan, you just know, will eventually be: "We're pure evil, but better than what else is on.")

Anyway, here are E's salient points:

"The fact of the matter is, that while not all men are capable of doing dangerous/criminal things, most are more than capable of objectifying women to some degree -- be it publicly or privately. The spotlight is on her in such a male-dominated business, and her appearance adds to that. Anything — and I mean ANYTHING that can be perceived as questionable (a hand on a player's shoulder or a dress cut to mid-thigh) can and will lead down a slippery slope.

"One of my biggest outcries regarding this issue incidentally came right before this drama took place. Andrews was spotted at the ESPYs wearing a black Herve Leger strapless dress with cutouts down the front. This dress had previously been spotted on other celebrities, and has been repeatedly been crucified in the press for causing its wearers to look like, well, $5-dollar whores.

"Did the dress suit her? She certainly has the body to pull it off. But that's not the point. This is a night where the attention would undoubtedly be on her, and she could have chosen to wear something far more sophisticated. Instead, she went for full-on sexpot. Why? It's not necessary.

(snip)

" ...for a woman, you're more likely to be taken seriously in print as opposed to the other two mediums (TV and radio, presumably — Ed.). I believe print offers the greatest opportunity to neutralize one's gender — in short, if you can make readers forget that they're hearing from a woman, there's a better chance of being taken seriously. Granted, print is also where the money is the sparsest, so I understand the need to push towards television. No matter what your appearance, this is no easy world to deal with. In nearly ten years of messing about in this industry, I've been told to 'sound sexier,' 'wear something pretty' and 'think about being a golf cart girl or a cheerleader for a day — it'll be a good story.' Keep in mind that I'm a relatively average-looking woman who doesn't (expletive) around with work and seriously wants to discuss a team's defensive foibles — and not which of the blueliners I may find 'cute.' "

The only quarrel with that is the premise it's a positive to neutralize gender in sports coverage. Females and males are wired differently and as noted in the only post on this site that ever examined Erin Andrews, the old boys club' mentality in the sports media probably is detrimental to the storytelling. Other perspectives get lost.

A classic case in point was two years ago when the big pre-game story before a Florida Panthers-Ottawa Senators game was defenceman Cory Murphy, who grew up in Kanata a stretch pass away from Scotiabank Place, playing in his hometown after years of bouncing around European leagues. The stories mentioned his parents, his family, but some did not even mention his spouse, a Kanata native who had been with him through his peregrinations through pro hockey abroad. But I digress.

Anyway, Randball noted with respect to a lot of the Andrews adoration on the web. "... that there was always a wink-wink undercurrent that was unsettling. You can't just post pictures or videos, or write a headline with a vague double entendre, then walk away and pretend only the people reading or watching had dirt under their fingernails." Nor can one do a self-righteous jig,unless that's your gig right, Gregg Doyel of CBSSports.com? Please bear in mind this is coming from a self-described male feminist who has howled at the moon over not having the traffic numbers of some sites which pretty up posts with some Maxim-genre photo of "some chick from Entourage." The objection there was less than it was sexist and more that it was a lazy, parasitic way to give your numbers a goose, plus Entourage is a crappy show that has not evolved since its first season. The season premiere should have had a scene of Vincent Chase water-skiing while wearing a leather jacket.

Perhaps the fratboy mentality in the blogeteriat jumped the shark last week.
There are probably larger points (suggestion: Read the book Guyland), but let's leave it there. No doubt even though it has little to no connection to Canada, a lot of papers up here will run it since it's an excuse to use a picture of Erin Andrews. That kind of proves the point, but who's fit to judge?

Related:
Erin on Erin: Through the sports media peephole (Erin Nicks, The Universal Cynic)

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)

Batter up: Colorado Rockies

It's that mystical, wonderful time of year where you commit to a baseball team who you know fully well won't win. This season, in honour of an popular Internet meme, we'll present 25 things that are tangentially about each team. At bat: The Colorado Rockies.

1. Rookie centrefielder Dexter Fowler (pictured) will make Rockies fans forget Juan Pierre and Willy Taveras.
   
   
2. First baseman Todd Helton had disk surgery in the off-season and was tearing off the cover off the ball during spring training. It's safe to assume he'll bat about .463 this season, then?
   
   
3. Tampa Bay right-hander Jeff Niemann would be a good pickup in a trade; he gets his fair share of ground balls, always a good thing at Coors Field.
   
   
4. It's arguable Huston Street got miscast as a major-league closer because he did it in college at the University of Texas. America has quite enough problems caused by legacy picks from Texas.
   
   
5. If you own a previously driven car, start calling it a Brad Hawpe: Reasonably priced, dependable and doesn't lose value on the road (only 20 points' difference in OPS, which is rare for a Rockies hitter).
   
   
6. Oh-nine should mark the first time shortstop Troy Tulowitzki and catcher Chris Iannetta both play at an all-star level. Tulowitzski was set back with injuries while Iannetta is among the majors' most improved players. Colorado will always have something so long as they have that pair.
   
   
7. Lefty Franklin Morales is poised for big things, maybe not until 2010, since he'll be turning 24 on Jan. 24. That makes it his lucky year.
   
   
8. They had one of the all-time evenouts in 2008: Swept Arizona in the '07 playoffs, then went 3-15 vs. the Diamondbacks the following season.
   
   
9. They must never be allowed to forget they traded Greg Reynolds (14 home runs allowed in 62 innings last season) ahead of Evan Longoria in the 2006 draft. It is Denver's version of Tulo-gate.
   
   
10. Ubaldo Jimenez, in the
    
    
11. Reynolds only struck out 22 in 62 innings last season, while Arizona's Mark Reynolds struck out 204 times. So what happens when they face each other?
    
    
12. Taylor Buchholz is an effective seventh- and eighth-inning reliever, but that .225 BABIP should raise eyebrows, since it's hard to stay that hit-lucky.
    
    
13. Manager Clint Hurdle is in the final season of his contract. Back-to-back losing seasons in the wake of a pennant in 2007 does not job security make. Baseball Prospectus 2009 calls him on of the "buntiest" managers in MLB.
    
    
14. He never played for the Rockies, but Luis Medina might still be the source of bitterness. He won the Triple-A home run title in 1988 with the Colorado Springs Sky Sox, then got a September call-up to Cleveland and slammed six homers in 51 at-bats, which mean all sorts of 12- and 13-year-olds were snapping up his rookie card.
    
    If only someone had been there to explain about park effects, or that someone who didn't get to the majors until he was 26 really wasn't a serious prospect. Medina hit only four homers the rest of his career. He works for the Royals now, according to his Wiki.
    
    
15. Canadian left-hander Jeff Francis won't pitch this season. Obviously, one hopes he gets back and doesn't become the next Jason Dickson (another Canuck chucker who blossomed early, developed arm troubles and soon vanished).
    
    Francis' alma mater, the University of British Columbia, has a nice new baseball field.
    
    
16. The most popular athlete in Denver is probably the potential replacement for the replacement for Jay Cutler on the Broncos. That has nothing to do with the Rockies, but a Vikings fan has to have an outlet for unleash anger over Cutler ending up on the Chicago Bears.
    
    
17. The Beep says third baseman Garrett Atkins (.286/.328/.452 last season, with sketchy fielding at third base) "fills a gap ... but you are always looking for something better, like the girlfriend you had a few years ago." Don't worry, only a total twitbag would find that sexist and inappropriate (why are unflatting comparisons to women always a go-to in sportswriting?).
    
    
18. Toronto fans probably never heard about this, but the Jays could have drafted Troy Tulowitzki in 2005 instead of left-hander Ricky Romero.
    
    
19. The team's best prospect outside of Fowler, right-handed pitcher Jhoulys Chacin, has five pitches. If he learns one more, his catcher will have to take off his glove to put down the sign.
    
    
20. The best leadoff man who's not in the Hall of Fame, Tim Raines, played in Denver with the Triple-A Bears in 1980, when he was 20. He led the American Association in hitting (.354) and stolen bases (77, a league record; he would have had more except the Expos called him up for three weeks in the middle of the season).
    
    
21. The late Warren Zevon's Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead will be a required listen for Rockies fans around mid-July.
    
    
22. Larry Walker for the Hall of Fame induces some squeamishness. He was more than just a heavy-hitting corner outfielder, since he was a first-rate defender and a good baserunner. He also hit .348/.431/.637 at home, compared to .295/.370/.495 on the road. It would really take more research to establish if he was a Coors Field creation, but Hall of Fame voters will have a tough time sifting through the stats of Arena Baseball-era players.
    
    
23. People would support a constitutional amendment that would prevent any opposing team's announcer from mentioning that Todd Helton played quarterback for the Tennessee Volunteers at the same time as Peyton Manning. It's in the press notes. You have to fill time. We get it.
    
    
24. Iannetta would be backup catcher on the all-time team of major leaguers from Rhode Island behind Gabby Hartnett, the 1930s Chicago Cubs catcher. Wait, this isn't Batter's Box.
    
    
25. The Rockies' Double-A team is in Tulsa, Oklahoma. There will never be a better time to proudly note that the Tulsa University rowing team's recruiting class includes Meredith Papps from Ernestown Secondary School in Odessa, Ontario (my mom taught her!),
    
    The press release from Tulsa says ESS is in Bath. That's good enough for Oklahoma.

Finally hope for Canadian soccer again

Even though Carolina Morace's appointment as the next women's head soccer coach was the worst kept secret in Canadian sport, it was still a shock to see her walk out to be announced at today's press conference at BMO Field.

Hiring the best candidate and giving her the power to operate on her own terms isn't typically the CSA's way. I doubt that anyone would have been shocked if Ian Bridge had ran out midway through the presser -- maybe with a B.C. flag wrapped around to the tune of The Boys are Back in Town al la the WWE -- to claim his rightful place as the latest CSA good ole' boy to join the coaching ranks. Instead we stood by dumbfounded that the CSA didn't screw it up. They actually got their woman.

Time will tell whether what appears to be a great move actually will pan out, but the early signs are there. Morace's English is not all that strong yet, so she had difficulty handling questions of depth. Still, she seemed to indicate that he bad old days of boot and chase soccer will be put in the past.

"Tactics are important," she said.

Well there ya go. That shouldn't be refreshing, but, well...it is.

It's, as most know, been a tough few months for Canadian soccer fans. Today, however, represents the first real piece of hope in a long time. It was time for Canada to move forward on the women's side four years ago, but now is better than never. The country is still ranked No. 11 in the world. Unlike the men's side, it has yet to fall into the abyss. Morace and the CSA said that their goal is to win, period. Full stop. Here's hoping that they are good for their word because soccer in this country needs something to grab hold of now. Maybe a Morace led Canadian team -- playing winning and attractive football -- will be just that.

Related:

• Carolina's here, and a thumbs up to the CSA (Canadian Stretford End)
• My slightly more soccer specific take at The 24th Minute

The right whoever for the job

The endless debate about women's teams having male coaches is being played out with the U.S. Olympic team.

Canada has had at a woman behind the bench at the past three Olympiads (Melody Davidson in Turin, Danièle Sauvageau in Salt Lake City and Shannon Miller in Nagano in 1998). Team USA had a man, Ben Smith, behind the bench all three times. However, there's a chance that will change in Vancouver: Two front-runners, Harvard's Katey Stone (pictured) and Ohio State's Jackie Barto, are female.

The other, though, is Mark Johnson, who was on the 1980 Miracle on Ice team, which still has some cachet in U.S. hockey circles. Johnson would be a sentimental choice to coach, especially since he's the son of the late "Badger" Bob Johnson, whose impact on U.S. hockey is right alongside that of Herb Brooks. Mark Johnson coaches the women's team at the University of Wisconsin, where he once played for his father before going on to be a star in the Olympics playing for his daddy's rival, Brooks. It is an obvious storyline. The director of the national women's team is female, so would she try to balance the ticket in order to avoid a backlash?

Stone coached Team USA to the gold medal at the Four Nations Cup in November. Barto guided the Yanks to victory at the worlds last spring in Harbin, China. Johnson, for his part, guided the U.S. to the gold at the women's world under-18 in Germany earlier this month.

It is odd how Hockey Canada, since women's hockey became an Olympic sport, has typically had a female coach (Peter Smith, skipper of the defending CIS champion McGill Martlets, had the top job for a while but has been assistant lately). Over the same span, USA Hockey has always gone with a man.

This has come in an era where, as Time reported a year and a half ago, the percentage of women's college teams in the U.S. with a female head coach is at an all-time low, which is fraught with potential problems. It cannot be reduced to a glib interpretaton, but it's like once women's sports proved viable and started getting support from corporations and universities, suddenly male coaches were interested.

The athletes themselves would no doubt say they want a coach who gives them the best chance of winning. That might be the most practical view. On an academic level, it is a concern if a disproportionately low number of women in coaching are getting a shot at being a head coach.

There is also some mild sexism in citing Mark Johnson's status as a legacy (Pat Borzi's word). Female athletes and coaches, especially in women's hockey, which is still in its nascence, aren't always able to play up a family tie, or trade off the family name. Johnson has the coaching chops, having guided Wisconsin to the NCAA championship in 2006 and '07 (Kanata native Jasmine Giles was on the second title team). It would not be wrong if he gets the nod, but please keep in mind he doesn't have the same encumberances as at least two women who are eminently qualified.

Related:
Olympic hockey decision could have ripple effects for U's Frost (Pat Borzi, MinnPost.com)

Hockey violence: New meaning to left-wing lock

The old line about how youth condemns, maturity condones seems germane after reading a semi-screed about hockey violence in the Saturday Star.

Most of us who are thinking, feeling people realize there is something a little twisted about cheering when two 19-year-olds fight at a major junior hockey game. The guilt is evident in how many synonyms exist for it — donnybrook, punch-up, brouhaha, mêlée, tussle. That doesn't constitute a "venomous, backward support for brawling," as the Star screedster, Sarah Barmak, claims.

It's an understanding that there is only what is, not what should be. Once again, for people who think they can pontificate on the Canadian zeitgeist even though they've never stepped out of their Toronto mindset (Barmak is a former editor at the U of T paper, The Varsity): "The notion of clean hockey in Canada is a pipe dream, unless the sport drops sharply in social import."

One would hope that some day that wouldn't be the case, but Barmak's bombast about hockey being a "bar room-style bloodsport" is not going to serve that purpose. It's only going to make a bigger wedge between the people who still defend fighting and those who have an open mind about banning it.

Change comes gradually, not from belittling people and quoting academics who actually claim that, "The NHL has not had a history of violence until quite recently." Gordon Russell of the University of Lethbridge, has evidently never heard of Eddie Shore or Red Horner, both of whom set records for penalties — and are both in the Hockey Hall of Fame. He's never heard of Sprague Cleghorn, either.

Do some research, people. The major misunderstanding of pieces of Barmakian bombast, beyond the obvious left-of-centre literalism, is not appreciating that every game has a view of the world attached. It's not like someone sat down one day and wrote out the rules of hockey and said, "Hey, let's allow fighting."

Hockey came into being in the late 19th and early 20th century, which was a time of social tension that goes way beyond our contemporary understanding. Canadians — and perhaps Barmak's apparent failure goes to show how poorly Canadian history is taught — weren't always so nice and genial.

In those days, there was virulent English-French tension (ever heard of D'Arcy McGee?), the Riel Rebellion, the struggle for women's suffrage, the Winnipeg General Strike and so on. Life was tough if you weren't a white man and we are so much better off that is not the case anymore. The idea that sports was a healthy release for male aggression, for boys to be boys, was also in vogue in that era in between the Civil War in the U.S. and the First World War. Of course, that was later discredited a thousand times over, but that doesn't mean it can be discounted for shaping the hockey mentality.

That helps explain why hockey has evolved differently in the U.S., Scandinavia and continental Europe. It is not media-inculcated; it's not because of big money, except to people who like to hate on the media and big money.

As for the apologists who point out that Canadians watch the World Juniors en masse even though it has no fighting, please. The short duration of the tournament, the automatic ejection for fighting, the unwillingness of U.S. and European players to drop their gloves and the panopticon effect of saturation media coverage all act to keep a lid on the rough stuff. No one fights at the World Juniors because there is so much emphasis placed on the games and so many people watching; it's a little different than a Saturday night game in Salmon Arm.

The fact also remains that the tournament took on a cultural significance for Canadians after one of our teams lost a gold medal for fighting. It would be too glib by half, but you could take from that the World Juniors have come mean so much because we want to prove we can win a major hockey tournament without resorting to the lowest common denominator (well, there's that, plus what else is on during the holidays?).

The point is, you change in drips and drabs, not through badgering. Not to be a condescending dickhead about it, but a writer such as Sarah Barmak will get a lot farther by trying to understand instead of thinking the worst of anyone who doesn't read from her songbook.

This notion of hockey free from skulduggery is way, way off, but if people gradually get less and less animated when there's a fight, if the leagues increase the penalties for it, it will start to disappear. The fact two OHL players were each suspended a game this week for removing their helmets before a fight will do more good (although it's only a modest start) than anything so doctrinaire.

Related:
Canada, we have a problem: Our national game has become inextricably linked with brutal violence (Sarah Barmak, Toronto Star)
OHL takes a stand on helmets (Terry Doyle, Loose Pucks, Jan. 8)

Snark break ... that was quite Ruud of him ...

No word of a lie. For years, the Ottawa 67's had the slogan "Hockey With Bite." Their NHL counterparts have co-opted it; that it also Jarkko Ruutu was doing, plus a Finn would never miss a chance to parody something a Swedish player was accused of doing.

The Senators players are beyond mocking, although did you see Eugene Melnyk out on the ice celebrating with the world junior team after it won the gold medal on Monday? Granted, it was a proud moment for Canadians from Barbados to Vancouver Island.

The topic to turn your nose up at today: Tonya Harding is scheduled for a mixed martial arts fight in Detroit. Spare the wisecracks. It was 15 years ago and God forbid there ever would be a woman in figure skating who didn't conform to the stereotypes. She should be thanked for actually making Nancy Kerrigan relevant for three months back in 1994.

Julián de Guzmán has never been shy about criticizing the Canadian Soccer Assocation. Calling it "a cancer" in an interview with The Canadian Stretford End has some serious damn factor, though. (Our senior men's national team should have a score like the one Sam had with that inteview.)

The Globe & Mail has its sweeping take on hockey violence.

As Jason Giambi returns to Oakland, six words that make neck hairs stand on end: "Jack Cust as an everyday outfielder."

Today is the 15th anniversary of the release of Cabin Boy. Count yourself lucky that is not being broken out for a full post, although the day is young.

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

• Is anyone up for taking bets that John Tavares ends up playing the season out with the Oshawa Generals?
• Wish former Niagara IceDogs star Stefan Legein well in his return to hockey. Have a heart.
• Ottawa native Tyler Holmes did his part to help the Tulsa Golden Hurricane win their bowl game -- they rushed for 439 yards vs. Ball State in a blowout win in the GMAC Bowl.

Making a long leap into Herstory

We probably should have covered this by now. The battle of female ski jumpers to get into the Olympics seems like something OOLF should be all over.

So, it's with guilt that I come to the party a bit late tonight.

For those unaware a law suit was filled in B.C. in May compelling VANOC to include women's ski jumping in the 2010 Olympics. The women jumpers say that if they can't jump in the Games, neither should the men (which isn't the best approach at trying to bring male athletes to their side, but it's their fight and they'll do it how they please).

It's a Charter issue, the jumpers say. They claim that their exclusion is in violation of a woman's right to equal benefit under the law. That's guaranteed in the Canadian Charter of Rights.

For its part VANOC says the women are going after the wrong people. It's putting on a Games that are sanctioned by the IOC. It can't just go adding events.

Both sides have a point.

The IOC is not the most progressive organization. It took a long time for it to add many women's sports. For years females weren't permitted to run distances longer than 800m (because of the delicateness, you see). Anyone that took gym class prior to 1990ish has likely heard how the triple jump is bad for women's reproduction organs. One tries to understand that you have to view history through the thinking of the time, but, at times, the stupidity can be staggering.

The IOC says it is keeping the female jumpers out because there is not enough depth in the field to ensure a proper competition. Putting aside the fact that one way to increase the depth of field is to make it an Olympic sport, keep in mind that women's hockey is still on the schedule.

At any rate, the court case is not likely to do much more than (try to) embarrass the IOC (its members are pretty shameless though). But that doesn't mean this battle is done yet.

We've been late to the discussion, but we will be following this one a lot closer as the Games approach...now just 14-months away.

Takes one to know one: Two minutes for unoriginality!

Anyone who uses a word such as "breastophobic" shouldn't get the time of day.

One is loath to link to something which has been Deadspinned. Long story short, it's hard not to laugh like hell seeing the American reaction to some Vancouver columnist named Mark Hasiuk calling the NBA "ghetto garbage," especially after you read his eponymous website.

It all comes back to a basic principle of writing online, not to be a pedantic putz about the whole thing: Consider the source. Ten minutes of Googling reveals that Hasiuk, God love him, seems to be a big of fan of wingnut tropes. Siding with hatemongers on the principle of free speech? Check. Warning of Canada becoming a Third World country due to immigration and the erosion of a "Euro-centric" culture? Check. Invoking the slippery slope -- that's a classic -- whenever possible, such as in a column about a clothing store in Vancouver allowing customers to breastfeed on the premises:

"But what about H&M's duty to its other customers? The staunchly religious, whose particular sect forbids public nudity. The squeamish or breastophobic, who prefer a definitive line between off-the-rack retailer and nursery. What about their expectations of comfort?

"H&M also set a dangerous precedent and exposed itself to future aggrieved groups of all stripes and persuasions that may choose H&M outlets to practice their own brand of necessity. Imagine a group of Salafi Muslims kneeling before Allah in H&M's men's clothing section. Or a woebegone narcoleptic who seeks shelter at H&M for his afternoon nap."

He used the word breastophobic without even a hint of irony. Far be it to wonder why he would go from the phrase "dangerous precedent" to the image of Muslims kneeling for prayers. For Allah/Buddha/Christ's sake, even George W. Bush conceded that Islam is a religion of peace. Question: In exactly what scenario are a group of Muslims going to end up needing to pray "in a clothing store known for two-for-one T-shirts and Madonna-inspired design," in Haisuk's phrase?

Way to think it through, sir, while you were busy crawling up your own arse.

Believe it or not, this is written in sympathy. The writer in question seems to be a fairly young guy who hasn't learned two basic rules of opinion writing. One comes from Don Henley -- "the more I know, the less I understand." The other is from W.B. Yeats -- "the best lack all conviction, the worst are full of passionate intensity."

This is written with full awareness that it's hacky to fall back on someone else's pithy phrase to back up your own bias. Haisuk seems fond of it, and you have to communicate with people in language they understand.

It is amusing to see someone drag out the same tired stereotypes -- "NBA players wear saggy shorts, roll in posses and cuss on camera" -- and people become indignant. Consider the source. For pity's sake, the man called Allen Iverson the greatest basketball talent of his generation, which sort of overlooks Ray Allen, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, Dwight Howard, Dwyane Wade, Brandon Roy and Dirk Nowitzki, who obviously grew up in the ghetto in Germany.

It's understandable if people in Canada turn up their noses at the NBA. The season runs concurrently with the NHL, where half the players and 20% of the teams are Canadian, as opposed to a handful of players and one team in Canada witht the NBA. That is plenty good reason to make a decision and say, hey, time is valuable, there's only enough of it to follow one league. That's acceptable, although could people please stop saying they "only like college basketball," it's annoying.

At the same time, don't hate on it and call it the "worst of America." Look at the NFL. It doesn't offer guaranteed contracts or look after players who leave the game with a permanent disability -- ask Brian DeMarco.

Boxers have nothing to fall back on once they're past their best-before dates -- no pension plan, nothing. Evander Holyfield is still fighting, that's obscene. Basketball players, starting from about age 12 or younger, get shuffled through high schools and colleges. They might end up with their degree in communications, but are on their own when it comes to how to learn (aren't we al). Michael Lewis' The Blind Side laid out the student-athlete hoax in big-time college football.

None of that is any reason to become NBA fan. The point is, get some perspective. As an entertaiment venture, the NBA is doing pretty well. It's hilarious someone would rather focus on the "thug culture" than on what Van City might have had if the Grizzlies had not left in 2001. They would have got to see Steve Nash play meaningful games in his home province. Chinese-Canadians would have had two visits a year from Yao Ming.

It's just too bad all those African-American players had to wear those saggy shorts, eh Mark?

Related:
NBA: a ghetto gutter run by money grubbers (Mark Hasiuk, Vancouver Courier)