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)

The Trippers ...

It just doesn't matter! It just doesn't matter! ...Forget the "Milkerson" jokes, Brad Wilkerson, who retired Sunday, was a pretty fine ballplayer. He will always be the only Expo to have a 30-homer, 100-run, 100-walk season. You could look it up.

You know the drill: "It just doesn't matter! It just doesn't matter..."

... that NBC can dictate NHL broadcast policy even though it paid the same rights fee as your next-door neighbour (zero).

... that hockey announcers, please, have got to stop saying a goaltender who played a great game "stood tall." Technically, everyone stands tall to some extent, except for the goalies who play the butterfly style. They crouch.

... that the woman who got conked on the head by Bill Murray's tee shot missed a golden opportunity by settling for him signing a copy of Caddyshack. She should have made him reveal what he said to Scarlett Johanson at the end of Lost in Translation.

... that the New York Post thought it was it funny to have a headline, "Madonna bucked by horse." Everyone thought it, sure, but it still has not been funny since 1994.

... that drivel from Bleacher Report which is begging to get FJM'd comes up in Google News searches. Making fun of sabermetricians still has not been funny since 2004.

" 'Dear Diary, today I went to the baseball arena and watched a muscle-bound barbarian molest the ball with extreme ferocity. It was truly horrendous. He had three hits in four trips to the plate, but on his fourth attempt he swung at a pitch that was very near the outside corner of the strike zone and was ruled out by the official standing behind home plate. He did not draw a walk today, nor is he slow enough on the base paths to truly garner my respect. Well, that's all for now. Time to treat myself to footage of Steve Balboni getting on base.'

"Look sabermetricians, you can peddle your numbers all you want behind closed doors, or in the company of general managers and team executives. Just keep your math away from those of us who actually enjoy baseball.

"Oh, and curb the attitude as well. There's a reason you got picked last in high school, and the fact of the matter is no one likes you any better now than they did back then."

That's pretty original, playing the geek card. Noting Steve Balboni was not a great on-base guy (.293 career OBP), probably proves his point, so why did you go and look it up?

... what people say about the Leafs, including stretching one long Leaf joke what was apparently supposed to be a newspaper editorial. Making fun of the Leafs is as Canadian as maple syrup, cold beer and going to a cottage in May. There's nothing anyone can say to Leafs fans they don't talk about among themselves.

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

• The three Kingston Frontenacs playing in the world under-18 championship, Erik Gudbranson, Ethan Werek and Taylor Doherty, were denied a medal at the world under-18 hockey championship. Canada lost 5-4 to Finland in a shootout in the bronze-medal game.
  
• A tip of the cap is due to the Ottawa Senators intermediates, who won Provincial Women's Hockey League title by beating the Toronto Aeros 5-3 in the championship game on Sunday. Bryanna Farris, who's off to New Hampshire next season, had three points in the championship game for the Sennies.
  
  (It's a shame their NHL namesakes aren't still playing so the feat could be acknowledged.)

Eight is enough for women's hockey

The kooky nine-team format at the IIHF women's world hockey championship will not return for the 2011 championship, TSN noted during the Canada-U.S. broadcast today.

Dropping down to eight means you won't see Canada playing the U.S. with nothing at stake like they are today. In '11, with just two pools, the winners get a bye into the semi-finals, with the second- and third-place teams crossing over for the quarters. The "three pools of three" format has created confusion.

However, it might be a little shortsighted since it means one country's program will probably lose its national funding, including China (population of 1.3 billion), Russia (300 million) and Japan (130 million). On the plus side, hey, the format is easier to follow.

Incidentally, Canada and the U.S.'s pre-Olympic series next fall will include a game in Ottawa. The smart money is on some middle-aged sports reporter complaining about having to cover women's hockey.

(Canada won, 2-1, surviving a late American rally. Charline Labonté was excellent in the third period, so perhaps they come back with her for the final on Sunday.

Holly Horton put TSN's Dave Randorf and Cassie Campbell on the spot to come up with a nickname for Kingston native Jayna Hefford's line with Jennifer Botterill and Caroline Ouellette, which scored both goals. They said, "Bo line" (as in BOH) and "Hob line," but the obvious "HBO line" didn't come to them. As in, "It's not a forward line, it's HBO.")

There are other trophies, you know

Remember, if you care about a couple bubble-gum pop singers showing up at an Ottawa Senators game, you're obligated to at least be aware our national women's hockey championship finally has its trophy.

CALGARY — Almost three years after it was unveiled by former governor general Adrienne Clarkson, the Clarkson Cup will finally pass into the hands of female hockey players.

Clarkson has reached a financial settlement with the artists who designed and created the Cup. She will personally present the silver trophy to the winner of the national women's hockey champion March 21 in Kingston, Ont., according to her lawyer.

True story: The other night we remarked that we'd never heard any of Hilary Duff's or Carrie Underwood's songs, or seen any movie or TV show where they had tainted our collective unconscious. "You gotta get out more," came the reply. Not getting out enough has nothing to do with it, friend.

Related:
Clarkson Cup out of hockey limbo and into women's hockey hands (The Canadian Press).

CIS Corner: The scarlet letter for RMC is a W

Notes on our athletes/teams of interest from The 613, including football recruiting news...

HOCKEY

• Gee-Gees/Golden Gaels: Ottawa winger Dan McDonald had a hat trick in a season-saving 4-3 win over Toronto. It was an odd day involving current and former Kingston Frontenacs in the nation's capital.
  
  McDonald, an ex-Frontenac, scored twice in 72 seconds midway through the second period to help resuscitate the Gee-Gees; he scored the game-winner with 7:32 left. Strangely enough, while all this was happening, McDonald's former OHL team came back from two goals down to beat the Ottawa 67's 8-6. Crazy.
  
  Ottawa needs only three points from its last three games, or less depending how Queen's does in its season finale Friday against the quintessential spoiler, RMC.
  
  Queen's hopes practically rest on hoping Ryerson can upset either Ottawa or Toronto. The Varsity Blues just need a point eitherWednesday vs. a ranked Waterloo team or Friday vs. Ryerson.
  
  The Gee-Gees' comeback on Sunday all but dashed Queen's hopes. Saturday, Brady Morrison made 25 saves and Scott Kenway got the lone goal in the first minute of the third to help Queen's squaeak by RMC 1-0 in the Carr-Harris Cup. The Gaels have earned nine-of-10 possible points, but they've almost run out of rocks.
  
  The Gee-Gees women's team had a nice night Saturday, getting all their goals on special teams in a 3-1 win over St. Thomas, which is having a good season (11-4-4) in the Atlantic Conference. Ottawa will lose coach Shelley Coolidge and forward Kayla Hottot to World University Games commitments; Sun Media had a nice article on Hottot on Saturday.
• Ravens: Carleton can clinch fifth place and a first-round matchup vs. either Concordia or McGill if it beats Ottawa on Tuesday. Their magic number is two.
  
  Attention is due to Carleton's big Andrew Gibbons-Brandon Maclean-Ryan Berard line for accounting for three goals in Friday's 4-1 win at Concordia that clinched a playoff berth.

MEN'S HOOPS

• Ravens: No real problems, with Stu Turnbull scoring a game-high 18 points Saturday in a 74-54 road win over Toronto. This was all about defence; Toronto had just 32 points after 30 minutes.
  
  The night before, youngsters Cole Hobin and Kyle Smendziuk each scored in double digits in a 36-point win over Ryerson.
  
  
• Gee-Gees: The bright spot of Ottawa's two road wins (80-72 over Toronto, 89-70 over Ryerson) was their 85.1% free throw shooting. Dax Dessureault totalled 37 points and 20 rebounds across the two games.
  
  Ryerson's all-everything post player, Boris Bakovic, scored 26 vs. Dessureault, but he needed 19 shots and turned the ball over six times. When the big man needs that many touches, it's a win.
  

WOMEN'S HOOPS: How about those Paladins?

RMC pulled off something it's been on the precipice of for a while, ending their 128-game women's basketball losing streak Friday with a 64-61 win over York.

Attention must be paid. One can only imagine what it feels like for coach Brad Schur and his players, including two rookies from the Ottawa area, Abby Edmison, who had 14 points and 10 rebounds, and Samantha Bayne, who chipped in seven. Thirty-four-year-old masters student (and mother of two) Sharlene Harding had 25 points and 12 rebounds, both team highs, to contribute to the great night.

The only regret is that first win did not come before Jennifer D'Onofrio, completed her eligibility. Inch for inch, she was the toughest player in the OUA over her time in Paladins scarlet and white, playing the 4-spot at about 5-foot-6.

One can only imagine what must be running through the mind of Schur and some of his veterans such as Anna Dupuis and Julie-Christine Lasalle. Anyone who's played on a bad team for a while knows about the feeling of being resigned to your fate, trying to keep your head up against the long odds of ever winning a game. They probably feel like champs, and now that they've won once, hopefully it won't be too much longer before they pull off another victory.

Mike Koreen not only wrote a story about the win, but he sent in a tip on Friday the moment it happened.

• Gee-Gees: Ottawa's split in Toronto was productive, since they moved closer to a second-place finish in the OUA East. Kelly Weir had 15 points in the Ryerson game (67-61 for the Gee-Gees), while Hannah Sunley-Paisley narrowly missed double-doubles in each game.
  
  Ottawa controls its destination for the playoffs. Win their final two home games next weekend vs. RMC and Queen's and they will host an OUA East semi-final, possibly vs. Carleton. You know the saying about how it's tough to beat a team three times in one season, but then again, Carleton's already beaten Ottawa twice, so they know what it takes.
  
  A 40-point first half on defence and 31% shooting did in the Gee-Gees vs. Toronto. Hey, that means they'll go into the playoffs believing they can beat Toronto if they play their best game.
• Ravens: Carleton has lost three of four since beating Ottawa in the Capital Hoops Classic, all close games, and will likely end up hosting Queen's in the 3 vs. 6 quarter-final.
  
  Please keep in mind it would be the first home playoff game ever for a Carleton women's team. It must be teeth-grinding to have lost so many close games.
  
  The Ravens will need help from Queen's next weekend to get a first-round bye, but at this rate one wonders how well they'd handle the Gaels. (Queen's is struggling in its own right. One wonders, looking at Brittany Moore's 4-of-19 shooting line vs. York, if teams are just defying the other Gaels to beat them.)

FOOTBALL

• Golden Gaels: The great CIS Football Recruiting Database has a list of Queen's prospective recruits. Granted, this is not the U.S. with Rivals.com, and there is something to be said for the schools who are hush-hush about their recruiting. The people with paying gigs can worry about that stuff. Queen's recruits include:

  Jerod McCrory, linebacker: He played for Team Ontario in the Football Canada Cup and he's athletic enough to hold his own on the basketball team at Burlington Assumption, which is ranked No. 10 in Ontario by TheHoop-la. The message board buzz was that it was either the Gaels or Western for him.
  
  Martin Colangelo, defensive tackle and Paul Miniaci, linebacker: Each of them helped St. Michael's College win successive Metro Bowl championships. They won the 2008 championship game by 30 points, topping the prediction of one Pat Sheahan, who had very diplomatically called a seven-point win.
  
  Steve Dennis, Brent MacDonald and Andrew Surya, defensive backs: They each played at Burlington Notre Dame, last fall's Golden Horseshoe Bowl runners-up. Surya is listed as a running back but he did make the game-clinching interception playing cornerback in the regional semi-final. Dennis also kicked the game-winning field goal.
  
  Curiously, all three were mentioned as headed to McMaster on cisfootball.org.
  
  Josh Prinsen, offensive tackle: The Whig reported in December that Prinsen, a regular Toledo-tipper at 6-foot-7, 290 lbs., had interest from more than 30 U.S. schools, including some teams in the Ivy League. It sounds like he would be a good get. He's from Napanee, as is another promising Queen's lineman, Derek Morris. (The hometown has not done so well providing Queen's with football players, just super-fans who blog until 4 a.m.)
  
  Andrew Mizzi, offensive tackle: He's 6-foot-3, 270 lbs., from Michael Power in Toronto. Beyond that, I got nothin'.
  
  Matt Lapointe, offensive tackle: He helped St. Peter in Ottawa win the city championship last fall, so he comes out of a good program.

• Kinger reports that $525 was raised for CFRC 101.9's funding drive during a special Offsides on Friday afternoon, where he interviewed CFRC alumni Neil Acharya of The Score (and OOLF), Richard Zussman of Citytv Edmonton (and cisblog.ca) and Calgary radio producer Peter Watts.
  
  On behalf of Kinger, thank you. The final totals should become available some time this week.
  
• Speaking of Rich Zussman, he has signed on cisblog.ca as its Western Canada reporter. He should increase the property values exponentially, although it is getting to be a real Queen's mafia (oh, and this site isn't?).
  

Snark break ... drop the hockey shtick and walk away, Renée

The Florida Panthers are rolling with Pete DeBoer and Jim Hulton behind the bench. Meantime, in the 613, the teams which respectively could be employing them, the Ottawa Senators and Kingston Frontenacs, are third-last and dead last in the NHL and OHL, respectively. (It's like their owners, Eugene Melnyk and the Fronts' Doug Springer, are on the same Ork cloud.)

One suggested nickname for the Senators' owner: The Eunibomber.

One sportswriting trope which must be allowed to die is segueing into a feature on a Canadian athlete by referencing his hockey experience. It was cute once and now it's just tired, like Renée Zellweger's acting shtick.

Not to nitpick, but the "grand total of the Canadian content in Super Bowl XLIII is wrapped up in the well-travelled right leg of Pittsburgh punter Mitch Berger?" The Cardinals' Sean Morey makes his off-season home in Toronto with his spouse, who played hockey for the Brampton Thunder (she was known as Cara Gardner) before "she broke her femur in a snowmobile accident and decided to have a family." (New York Times.) It doesn't get any more Canadian.

If MMA training can help the Minnesota Vikings' Tarvaris Jackson improve as a quarterback, then it should be legalized in Ontario.

Two words which can never again appear together in print: "Star punter."

A Yale student was taken aback that author Buzz Bissinger "swore often" during a talk he gave there recently. It pisses the shit out of me to know some people are so well-adjusted that they don't follow sports obsessively, thus missing out on Bissinger-Leitch.

TSN's Gord Miller and Pierre McGuire are great on most nights and McGuire's anti-fighting stance is admirable, but then there's the times when, no doubt by some producer's edict, they have to jazz up a mid-season game, like the Panthers' pounding of the Habs.

The low boiling point was reached somewhere between McGuire describing a play as "fantastically good" (forgetting Rick Reilly's ASS rule, Adjectives Sorta Suck), praising a referee for having the "courage" to award penalty shot after a (uh, he made the correct call, and it favoured the home team) and Miller saying, "These are not your father's Florida Panthers," and repeating it during the next intermission.

Of course they aren't your father's Florida Panthers. When my pops was the age I am today, it was 1984. The Panthers did not exist.

This post is worth nothing, but this is worth noting

• An online sportsbook had to close betting on Bruce Springsteen's setlist for the Super Bowl halftime show.
  
• Argos coach Bart Andrus' son, Travis Andrus, has committed to play wide receiver for the Montana Grizzlies, who are coincidentally Kinger's favourite Football Championship Subdivision team as of this morning.
• The XMp3 radio got another solid review, this one from Sun Media. Incidentally, XM channel 27 (The Bridge) is pretty sweet.
• Charlie Murphy (the funnier Murphy brother) is going to publish an autobiography later this year.
  

Please tune in to hear Kinger's sports show, Offsides, today at 4 p.m. on CFRC 101.9 FM and cfrc.ca elsewhere. The campus radio station is in the middle of a funding drive. Don't make them have to send in the muscle. Kinger hates it when he gets his knuckles all lined up for nothing.

Johnson's the man in Van for Team USA

Former NHLer Mark Johnson will coach the Team USA women's at the 2010 Olympic hockey tournament.

As The Canadian Press puts, "He's a man familiar with beating the odds in Olympic hockey." The emphasis might be on the first three words. (And won't the U.S. actually be favourites in Vancouver?)

Previous:
The right whoever for the job (Jan. 21)

CIS Corner: Football at Carleton, Sooners rather than later?

Notes on our athletes/teams of interest from The 613...

• Ravens: The obvious jumping-off point from the story about the Ottawa Sooners'
  plan to join the junior Ontario Football Conference is to wonder how this might affect any plans by Carleton to revive football.
  
  It would be a huge undertaking for Carleton, but with the Sooners' crowds helping to generate a football atmosphere on campus, it can't hurt momentum. The presence of an OFC team isn't a be-all end-all, but if Ottawa's let into the league, it would help their recruiting efforts.
• Carleton shooting guard and fifth-year tri-captain Stu Turnbull is getting a lot of attention. The school just noted that he's going to be profiled on CBC Ottawa's afternoon show Living In Ottawa. The segment will air Tuesday, Feb. 3 at 3 p.m. Eastern.
  
  It doesn't need to be pointed out that Turnbull is having a great senior season and deserves every bit of the spotlight. He and Carleton's other two tri-captains, Rob Saunders and Aaron Doornekamp, got near-saturation coverage from their hometown Kingston Whig-Standard on the weekend when the Ravens were playing RMC and Queen's.
  
  It's kind of funny, since two weeks ago, it was a toss-up which two of four Carleton basketball players to profile for an Ottawa Sun feature. It was either the two Ottawans, Mike Kenny and Kevin McCleery, or Kingstonians Saunders and Turnbull. It is an Ottawa paper and Kenny and McCleery's stories haven't been told as much, so the move was to go with them, knowing there would be plenty of media coverage coming for Turnbull.
• Gee-Gees: A tip of the cap is due to Ottawa U swimmer Zoe Kamenz, who is off to Zurich, Switzerland for a week-long training camp with the Ontario Future Stars program.
• Women's hockey: At some point, these two might warrant a feature. Dominque Thibault of L'Orignal and Brittany Wilson of Nepean helped the UConn Huskies sweep the Hockey East women's player of the week honours.
  
  UConn is No. 8 in the NCAA. It's a fair leap to get from that position into the Frozen Four with all the schools in the Midwest, though.
  

T-minus 50 hours until the Capital Hoops Classic. There are plans to do a liveblog of both games, it's just a matter of which site.

Related:
Sooners launch bid to join OFC; Football club elects new board, hopes to build on momentum from '08 season (Don Wilcox, Ottawa Sun)

CIS Corner: The Chias is on at Crashed Ice

It turns out this site has a connection to Red Bull Crashed Ice, the X Games-esque "combination of downhill skating, hockey and boarder-cross" that takes place this weekend in Quebec City.

Liz Chiasson, who was an all-Canadian women's hockey player at Queen's and a long-time minor hockey teammate of Trina Sager, Official Sister of Out of Left Field, is one of 20 contestants in the women's division.


(The Kingston Whig-Standard has an article on Chiasson today. One of the male racers says, "Now we have women racing? I'm not trying to be sexist, but I hope they don't get hurt." Don't worry, pal, you didn't have to try to be sexist.)

On the men's side, Ottawa Gee-Gees forward Corey Thibaudeau is competing. The qualification list is online, which should serve as a helpful betting aid.

If memory serves, Liz was awfully hard to knock off her feet on the ice in those days, so she should do fine this weekend. She has the support of the Sager family — Dad, Mom, Amer, Trina, Shawn and myself.

(That headline is a total cheat, since the Chiassons pronounce their name differently than the late defenceman Steve Chiasson did. Nevertheless...)

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)

Canada is always the underdog, right?

Someone else can better judge what this means for women's hockey, with the Winter Olympics coming up in 13 months.

Outside the Olympics, there are four major international events in the women's game -- the worlds, the Four Nations tournament, the MLP Cup U22 tournament and the world U18 championship. Canada is not the title-holder in any of the four. The U18 team ended with silver on Saturday after a 3-2 overtime loss to the U.S. on Saturday in Fussen, Germany. It was a one-shot game, obviously, but Team USA never trailed.

The U22 team ended up second after losing to Sweden in the MLP Cup final on Tuesday, a reversal of the outcome from the world junior gold medal game in Ottawa the previous evening -- and giving a certain someone a reason to rock the Tre Kronor that day. Sara Grahn, who was also in net when Sweden's senior national team beat Canada for the first time ever at the Four Nations in Lake Placid, N.Y., in November, was the goalie of record in that game too.

One does have to wonder if the sports-admin types in this country are starting to take the success of the women's national team for granted. The mainstays who have served Canada so well for a decade-plus such as Hayley Wickenheiser, Jennifer Botterill and Jayna Hefford are not going to play forever.

USA Hockey already has their veterans, the players who are out of college, playing together in a residency program (New York Times, Dec. 21). Granted, there is an argument over the efficacy of residency programs for national teams (it hasn't always helped Canadian in international soccer), but you could also say the Americans are ramping up their efforts for Vancouver.

"...postgraduate players faced a stone wall in their development.

"... Some, like Molly Engstrom, a University of Wisconsin graduate, joined a Canadian women's team, but she said she found the competition and intensity lacking.

"... On the days between games, players spend four hours working out in the morning at the complex’s Herb Brooks Training Center, a mix of on-ice drills, power skating, yoga and weight lifting ... USA Hockey refurbished the team’s dressing room last month, so players no longer have to lug their equipment from home.

" 'We’re playing 70, 80 games a year, some of us,' (national team veteran Angela) Ruggiero said. 'The amount of games we’re going to get is making us all better hockey players. We’re getting more games than the college kids. That’s something that will help all postgrad players.' " (emphasis mine)

Canada's national team will live and train together for several months before the Olympics, where they will also have the emotional lift from playing on home ice. However, one wonders if expecting the vets to train on their own and play with their club teams, while counting on major NCAA schools to train the younger players is really wise.

Speaking of which, the best team in women's college hockey, Minnesota-Duluth, is actually draws its leadership Scandinavians, with Turin heroine Kim Martin in goal, compatriots Pernilla Winberg and Elin Holmlov as its top scorers and Finnish Olympian Saara Tuominen as its captain. Evidently, it's a natural fit, considering that UMD has players named Fridfinnson, Mattila and Olson who are not among their four Swedes and two Finns.

It seems worth wondering about, and one hopes the media in Canada would take a similiar look like The Times did -- and not two weeks before the Olympics, soon.

The bottom line is it's a welcome sign that women's hockey is more competitive. However, that rational side has to give way to wanting reassurance Canada is going to win. A U.S.-Sweden final come February 2010 would be no fun at all, even as an intellectual exercise.

Top 5: Other Miracles on Ice

The Slovak junior hockey team had its "Lake Placid moment," quoth TSN's Pierre McGuire, whose take on hockey must always be taken as ex cathedra, upsetting Team USA in the quarter-finals of the World Junior Hockey Championship. The Slovaks were lucky and good, although this was just as much about Team USA living up to its rep as the leading linen-soilers at the tournament — complete with some appallingly poor sportsmanship by Team USA defenceman James Shattenkirk, who reached out from the bench to hit a Slovak player with his stick. In Slovakia's honour, here is a Top 5 of international hockey upsets — and as penance for Team USA, whose get-up-and-go got up and went after their loss to Canada, it will be Miracle on Ice-free.

A key condition for this list is that it has to have the quality of being out of nowhere, where years later, you could look back and say, "Kazakhstan actually beat Canada in hockey?" or "Canada once beat the U.S. in basketball?" (They did, way back when.) Even Switzerland beating Canada at the 2006 Olympics can be ruled out. The Swiss had a handful of pros and Martin Gerber as its goaltender, before he became Public Enemy No. 29 in Ottawa.

Belarus' quarter-final upset of Sweden at the 2002 Olympic semi-final should not even count. Belarus had beaten Russia at the world two years earlier.

Here's a list, by no means definitive.


1995 World Juniors: Ukraine 3, USA 2
1996 World Juniors: Ukraine 4, USA 3

Don't call today a miracle — the U.S. has been doing this for years. Ukraine played in the main world juniors only twice and hasn't been heard from again, but it beat the United States in back-to-back years. The second time, it was even in America at the 1996 tournament in Boston, which remain infamous for sparse attendance.

The win in '95 ranks first. It should have been a 2-2 tie, but Oleksa Lazarenko stole the puck inside his own blueline in the final seconds and went in to beat U.S. goalie John Grahame on a breakaway. Losses like that were probably what caused USA Hockey to take the event a little more seriously.

2006 Olympic women's semi-final: Sweden 3, USA 2

All the chattering class talk during the Turin Olympics was about how women's hockey didn't belong in the Olympics (and one game might not have changed too many minds). The Americans were 102-0-2 against countries other than its northern neighbour, but the Swedes turned to a time-honoured upset formula — ride a hot goalie (Kim Martin, whom CBC.ca called "the Miracle Worker") bury the chances you go get, and get into a shootout. It worked and 16-year-old Pernilla Winberg got the winner in the shootout.

1998 World Juniors: Kazakhstan 6, Canada 3

As Greatest Hockey Legends related, the Kazakhstani team was rag-tag as all get out — outdated equipment, only seven spare sticks, and their best player on their maiden voyage into the World Juniors was Nik Antropov.

It was the seventh-place game and Canada was disillusioned and disspirited after being bounced from contention for a sixth straight gold medal. It still happened. Kazakhstan ruled throughout, and it was actually a 6-2 game since Canada scored a window-dressing goal with two seconds left.

1947 Worlds: Austria 2, Sweden 1

For decades, the world championship was a true round-robin. There were no playoffs, no single-elimination games. Whoever finished first got the gold. The Swedes appeared to have it locked up — they only had to beat Austria in their final game. King Gustav had already sent a telegram of congratulations. Somehow, Austria rose up and knocked off the Swedes, and the Czechs fell heir to the gold medal as Sweden slipped to the silver.

1976 Worlds: Poland 6, USSR 4

Since whoever has the TV footage writes the history, this one will never get mentioned. The Big Red Machine was at the peak of its powers. Poland — which these days is nowhere near a playing in a top-shelf hockey tournament — was living under the Soviet boot, but they had home ice for an opening game against the best team outside North America, which had beat it 20-0, 13-2, 15-2 and, at the Olympics where the Russians won won their fourth consecutive Olympic gold medal, 16-1. Already in 1975-76, the nucleus of the Soviet Big Red Machine had tied the Montréal Canadiens on New Year's Eve before going on to Olympic gold. However, the Poles had a hometown crowd in Katowice behind them, and the Russians took them lightly.

Vladislav Tretiak, in his memoir, figured that the puck was in the Soviets' zone for no more than eight minutes that night. Somehow, Poland cashed in whenever it got the chance, and considering the political history between the countries, it deserves to be No. 1.

Snark break...

Year-end lists and best-ofs are pointless busywork, that's why.

The NHL might hold its awards show in Las Vegas. You just know someone will end up winning the Phoenix Coyotes in a craps game.

James Mirtle's suggested lyrics for the Barenaked Ladies' version of The Hockey Theme:

Chickity China, the Chinese chicken
The TSN execs' brains stopped tickin'
Bought the song for a cool $2-mil
Didn't ruin it — but they soon will

You know what was most amusing part of taking in Russia's 8-1 World Juniors win over Slovakia? The Russians scored to make it 7-1 with 4½ minutes left and then there was a mass exodus for the exits. It was as if everyone still thought Slovakia might make a comeback.

The MLB Network launches today and it's already in more U.S. homes than the NFL Network. in Canada, thought, it's a shutout for football.

Mike Shanahan was fired by the Denver Broncos. It's hard to believe that could happen to a coach who has won one playoff game in the past 10 seasons.

Mats Sundin sure knows how to make a declarative statement: "I'm going to do what I can to help the team get into the playoffs." Ya, that will give the Canucks a return on their investment.

God bless Scott Burnside at ESPN.com for making a comparison you would never hear from a hockey writer in Canada:

"Early on, the (world junioor) tournament is reminiscent of the women's international slate, which features a small group of teams that are committed to the sport (and thus to producing competitive squads) along with a bunch of others that show up simply because the International Ice Hockey Federation tells them they must."

By the way, anyone who watched any of the third period of Canada's first two games is hereby obligated to start watching the next women's world championship. It's only fair.

"Not so much" is on the list of banished words and phrases. Wait, someone still says that?

(Personal opinion: "Race card" should have been retired long ago. Oh, it would be nice if your race was just something you pulled out of your pocket when it was convenient. Only white people could come up with race card.)

This post is worth nothing, but this is worth noting

• Regina football writer Rob Vanstone has a book due out soon on the 1966 Saskatchewan Roughriders. That team was so special that the franchise decided to go another 23 years before it won a second Grey Cup, lest it crowd the legacy of the first-timers.
  
  (Right after Ron Lancaster's death this fall, CBC aired an old Life & Times profile of the Little General. He recalled an old joke. "They say in Saskatchewan, there are four seasons, and the wind blows in the winter, the spring and the summmer -- and in the fall, Lancaster blows playoff games.")
• After reading this, you might want to make the Rice Owls your college football team.
  

Someone plans to rock the Tre Kroner today at the Sweden-Russia game at the World Juniors. See you in 2009.

CIS Corner: It's Als good for Giff; some after-the-fact analysis)

Notes on our athletes of interest from The 613...

FOOTBALL

The upshot of Kingston's own Mike Giffin signing with the Montréal Alouettes being confirmed -- The Whig-Standard had it a while ago -- is that the word "fullback" is barely in his new team's category.

The Als like their versatile backfield men. Dahrran Diedrick and Kerry Carter, each of whom played tailback in college, are fullbacks in their grand scheme. One would also trust their ability to manage young talent a lot better than one would with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, who drafted Giffin last spring). The Alouettes also had 17 free agents when teams submitted their lists to the league last month.

Point being, speaking as a follower of Queen's football, there should be some positivity that Giffin is going to get a fair shake from the Als. That did not happen with the dysfunctional Ticats organization last spring, when they told him he was a fullback but didn't bother to try to teach him how to play fullback.

Others can take a crack at what Giffin's chances are of making the one good team in the CFL's East Division. A positive spin is that although some people would say it would be easier to make the roster with Hamilton or Toronto, that's not necessarily the case. It's oftentimes better to go to a team that will let you know where you stand and give you as much of a chance as can be expected to succeed or fail on your own merits. Not every player out of a Canadian school gets the chance to try his luck with another CFL team, since jobs are scarce with only eight teams in the league.

Go get 'em, Giff.

HOOPS

Jesse Sazant, who coaches basketball in the UK, sent along word last night on some former Canadian university players now playing abroad (cross-posted to cisblog.ca):

• Ravens: The uber-guard, Oz Jeanty, is averaging 14.2 points in 36 minutes a game for Nördlingen, which is now in Germany's top league. He's first in the Bundesliga in three-pointers made. Ryan Bell is playing major minutes for Schalke in the Pro A (second tier), averaging 29 per game. He's averaging 5.7 points and 3.2 assists, but as you know, he earns his keep with his defence.
  
  Daron Leonard is playing in the top tier in the Swiss league with Lugano, averaging 2.1 points in 14 minutes.
  
• Golden Gaels: Former Queen's swingman Simon Mitchell, of Navan, is averaging 6.0 points and a league-high 5.6 assists for the Kent Crusaders in England, a third-tier team.
  
• Gee-Gees: Former U of O standout Ali Mahmoud has helped Al Riyadi get off to a 3-0 start in Lebanon's top league, averaging 9.7 points.
  
• Ottawa native Achuil Lual, who of course helped Acadia end Carleton's five-year title reign last March in the national semi-final, is averaging close to double digits in scoring in one of Germany's top leagues.
• Another Gee-Gees note ... they'll play in Winnipeg at the Dec. 28-30 Wesmen Classic. Their first game is vs. Saskatchewan.

Kill the pig! Bash his head!!

All Sean Avery! All the time!!
Below the jump. Updated constantly.

See if you see anything missing from the Dallas Stars roster.

Edit: As I type we are about 30 minutes away from the start of Sean Avery's meeting with Gary Bettman in New York. It's likely an hour or so from when the suspension will be announced.

I've heard some experts predict that he will get as much as 15 games, which would make it one of the all-time longest suspensions.

With that in mind, it's useful to look at the history of how the NHL has handled racial slurs (the closest parallel to what Avery did. Today's progressive feminism is a new thing for the league, I guess) . Bnet has a nice little summery here.

Three games has been the max. And, that was with Chris Simon, a man that was about as popular as Avery. Speaking of Simon, I'm still looking for a history of how the NHL has handled incidents of of racism towards natives. I suspect I'll be looking for a while.

Edit 2: No word yet as of 12:20 p.m. EST. About 10 minutes ago Hockey Central at Noon's Daren Millard had these two gems back to back.

First: "I hope they give him 15 games," said with disgust dripping off the tongue.
Then: "(paraphrasing) The only thing I've heard is maybe they should have let him play against Calgary so that justice could have been served on the ice," said with barely hidden regret.

So, let's review. Using the term "sloppy seconds" is grounds for the 12th longest suspension in NHL history, yet openly wishing that the Flames had the chance to beat the snot out of him — something that would, it always needs to be said, land you in jail if it happened on the street, is perfectly reasonable. It's puckhead thinking at its most embarrassing, illogical best.

Sloppy seconds is more stupid than it is truly offensive (although there is an element of flippancy to the term that is offensive. It's saying that women have no worth other than as conquests for men. She's nothing but someone I once had sex with...). A suspension in line with what others have received for similar things (see above) is likely in order. Some sensitivity training? Why not. But, 15 games? It simply isn't justifiable. Not with the NHL's past history it isn't.

Edit 3: (Puck Daddy has a very comprehensive post.)

Edit 4: So, it's 5:11 p.m. EST and I've yet to see a NHL press release show up in my inbox with the title "League suspends Dallas Star..." So, it might be tomorrow before we get a ruling on this. Late tomorrow, as one can expect with any touchy press release.

Of course that means we have to listen to the puritans in the working puckhead media for another day. So, what a delay accomplishes God only knows.

The other possibility here is that the league's lawyers are working overtime to find a way to justify a lengthy suspension. 'Cause, as stated, it isn't really justifiable and Avery doesn't strike me as a good soldier that will lie down and take it if Bettman and co go all medieval.

Edit 5: Did everyone see that the Ottawa Sun's Bruce Garrioch wrote that it is, "Time to ban Sean Avery from the NHL for life ...

"Make an example of this guy. Ban him for life. Classless. Conduct detrimental to the game is about the least of the worries. Enough of Avery already. Bad actor. Bad act. Time for him to go. For good."

Edit 6: God love Colby Cosh:

A surprising number of sportswriters have had no problem with the league’s instant invention of a retroactive campus-style speech code to deal with Avery’s outburst. Perhaps it’s because their own freedom of speech is hostage to abusive NHL front offices; your average hockey writer bites his tongue so much that the damn thing drops right off about a week into his career. The rest of us, however, have no trouble understanding what is wrong with a business that is not in the opinion trade monitoring an employee’s off-duty speech and punishing him for it

How refreshing to see a MSM article -- albeit from a guy that only writes about hockey peripherally -- that actually tries to defend Avery a bit. Yes, he's an tool at times, but my God...by the reaction you would have thought he had hunted down an opposing player in a premeditated fashion, jumped him from behind and slammed his head into the ice so hard it broke his neck. It's a good thing you never see that type of behaviour in hockey and the worse thing Gary Bettman has to deal with is Avery's (who has never been suspended before, by the way) potty mouth.

Edit 6.5: Glove tap to Mr. Cosh himself who sent me this link in an e-mail exchange. Some are starting to break through the Group Think.

Edit 7: It's six games. By three games, it's the longest NHL suspension for non-violent behaviour in history. It likely won't satisfy the majority of bloodthirsty puckheads in the media and in society.

It goes without saying that if the league treated actual violent behaviour this seriously there would be a lot less players with eight-month long headaches.

More reaction to come, I'm sure...

Edit 8: Here is the NHL press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE / DECEMBER 5, 2008


STARS’ AVERY TO SEEK PROFESSIONAL ANGER MANAGEMENT EVALUATION SUSPENDED FOR
SIX GAMES

NEW YORK (December 5, 2008) -- Dallas Stars forward Sean Avery
has been suspended for six games, without pay, as a result of inappropriate
public comments that he made Tuesday in Calgary. Avery has agreed to seek a
professional anger management evaluation and, if necessary, structured
counseling in response to a pattern of unacceptable and antisocial
behavior.
Avery met with Commissioner Bettman at a hearing in New York
yesterday. Also in attendance were NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly, NHL
Senior Executive Vice President and Director of Hockey Operations Colin
Campbell, NHL Associate Counsel Jessica Berman, Dallas Stars co-General
Manager Brett Hull, NHLPA General Counsel Ian Penny, NHLPA Director of
Player Affairs Glenn Healy and Avery’s agent, Pat Morris.
“Mr. Avery has expressed remorse for his recent comments and has
sought a professional anger management evaluation,” Commissioner Bettman
said. “I will require that he follow through with that process as a
condition of his returning to the ice and that he complies with any and all
recommendations.
“Mr. Avery has been warned repeatedly about his conduct and comments,
which have too often been at odds with the manner in which his more than
700 fellow players conduct themselves.
“Playing in the National Hockey League is a privilege, requiring a
high standard of personal behavior. Mr. Avery forfeits that privilege for
six games.”
Avery was suspended in accordance with the provisions of NHL By-Law
17 and Article 6 of the NHL Constitution for conduct "detrimental to the
League or game of hockey.”
In addition to the two games already served, Avery will miss
games Dec. 5 vs. Colorado, Dec. 10 vs. Phoenix, Dec. 12 vs. Detroit and
Dec. 13 at Nashville.

Edit 9: People close to the game, of course, have always held deeply progressive feelings about the place of women in and around it:


So, the league's reaction to Avery is just really keeping in that tradition.

Snark break...

As you were ... getting a charge out of making people run to the dictionary, even though the rest of us got it out of our system by the age of 22.

From Daily Norseman: "...the Chicago Bears are no longer owned by the McCaskey family. It turns out that the Chicago Bears are now owned by Adrian Peterson." (Well, actually, they're owned by Jared Allen; six of one, half-dozen of another.)

The Blue Jays are probably going to offer A.J. Burnett arbitration. It's their best chance to get back two first-round draft choices, along with J.P. Ricciardi's Punisher War Journal 6, his copy of Fletch and the remote to the clubhouse TV.

It's nice of the Buffalo Bills to start playing like the Argos the week before their game in Toronto. An officially sponsored tailgate party? Only in Toronto. Feel free to complain there are no vegan alternatives.

(And 49ers-Bills should have been the game to get moved to Rogers Centre.)

Jack Todd on the hiring of Brian Burke: "I don't think Sam Pollock and Scotty Bowman together could win in Toronto." Of course they wouldn't -- they wouldn't be able to trade with the California Golden Seals.

(By the way, the media-coined Pope Brian label is irony, on a number of levels. The Vatican hasn't had a lot to hold its head high over lately, either.)

The Patriots' white wide receiver Wes Welker can take a hit like a champ:



The preceding was worth nothing, but this is worth noting:

• Talk about being the presence of greatness ... talking about Ottawa native Erik Gudbranson getting to be interviewed by Kinger during yesterday's Frontenacs-Ottawa 67's game, not the other way around.
  
  
  
  Your goal today is to tack on "at least for now" into every sentence without anyone noticing.
• A tip of the cap to a few Ottawa-area women's hockey players ... Cumberland's Jennifer Chaisson got the go-ahead goal for the UConn Huskies in their win over Yale at the Nutmeg Classic tourney. She had two points in a win over Wayne State where Melissa Boal of Pakenham scored her 99th career goal. putting her one way from being the fifth player in NCAA history to score 100.
• The ol' alma mater, Ernestown Secondary School in Odessa, Ont., is having a fundraising drive for its football program You will donate, not just for the young men and women (well, one young woman, cornerback Sydney Compeau) who play for the Screaming Eagles, but for all the graduates of mid-'90s vintage who never got to pad up and lay out some Frontenac Falcon.

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

Blog blast past: The hockey establishment should not skate on David Frost

As you heard, ex-hockey coach and agent David Frost was acquitted this morning in Napanee on four counts of sexual exploitation stemming from incidents that occurred when his coach the defunct Quinte Hawks team in the 1990s. The presiding judge says the case "exposed a dark and very unhealthy side of hockey" that is "extremely offensive and must be denounced." It's pretty clear that the prosecutor failed to understand that reality. and that Frost, even in victory, is has inspired a new word, "scumball." From Nov. 4, here is the site's take, after the trial concluded.

The hockey mafia, quote-unquote, will easily be able to put some plausible deniablity between itself and David Frost's criminal trial in Napanee, Ont.

Frost, plain and simple, is a grotesque -- the figure whom by his mere existence highlights the hypocrisies of the society than shuns him.

The hockey establishment, though, will get off and that's a shame. Some of the stuff that came out in court happened as far back as 1996. Let's be honest, most media outlets and most sports fans would rather read about who's in first place or who's leading the NHL scoring race than what has amounted to a "very thin case against a very creepy defendant," to quote today's National Post. This ties in with what the late David Foster Wallace once wrote about the insular world of the modern elite athlete: Sometimes it's better not to know.

Perhaps people do know and don't want it staring back at them over their morning coffee. This suggests deeper examination is needed. Player agent Gilles Lupien told the Globe & Mail today, "The culture of junior hockey has to change."

Hockey goes through a bout of hand-wringing every decade or so. Ten years ago there was a national summit over in the wake of Canada losing to Kazakhstan at the 1998 world juniors and failing to medal at the Nagano Olympics. We can have a royal commission over losing some gold medals, but not over the damage that is potentially being done to young men and women for the sake of the chosen few who break into the NHL and the a couple of thousand armchair coaches in the stands..

Sick is probably too strong a word for that syndrome. There are other pressing concerns in society in general, but people should not bury their hands in the snowbank now that Frost's trial is done and he will soon crawl back under his rock as soon as the fraud charges he is also facing make it through the system.

The game is forfeiting its right to, as they say, police itself. Granted, who has the legitimacy and unimpeachable credibility to stand up and reform it? (Sit down, Dick Pound.)

"I found too many cases where the 'justice' system propped up the hockey mythology and abandoned girls, blind to the cyclical nature of sexual abuse because such ugliness could not be part of hockey. In a subculture presided over with an iron fist, where, as players testified earlier this month, garbage and garbage cans were thrown over players who didn't play well, and players were even punched in the face, everyone became a victim." -- Laura Robinson, Oct. 31

"A lack of oversight by the powers-that-be in the hockey world allowed (Frost) to run roughshod over players. Sure, there was disciplinary action and a court appearance after he allegedly assaulted one of his own players in full view of hundreds of spectators, but at the end of the day, the courts and the hockey people didn't seem to do enough." -- some fat, dumb and bald guy, Aug. 9, 2006

A big plank in the defence lawyer Marie Henein's argument is that what happened at Room 22 is commonplace enough in hockey world. In effect, it's like a society unto itself, with its own mores, conventions and rules and anyone who enters into is consenting -- even at 16 or 17 years old. Her job is to create enough reasonable doubt that her client goes free, bottom line.

"She argued that group sex goes on commonly in the hockey world, not just around the Deseronto team.

" 'Hockey is not on trial,' Henein said. 'It may not be a good thing, it may not be a nice thing, but it happens, and Mr. Frost didn't invent it.' " -- Kingston Whig-Standard

Fair enough. It should not happen again. Thinking it will not is naive by a factor of 10. The other side of the coin is that, on balance, junior hockey, from the OHL all the way down to Junior C, offers something positive in a lot of smaller communities in Canada. It fills in the gaps during the long winter.

Sometimes you have to compartmentalize, not unlike the anonymous commenter who weighed in here yesterday.

Here is my two cents. I played under Frost for several years.

One of the Best Coach's.

Bad Roll Model.

However, he did give me some tools in life which have helped me excel.

Thanks Dave

That might be truer than anything that has come from the chattering class during the past couple weeks. Change is coming in these small Canadian towns. Robinson writes of how hockey is a ticket out for boys in small communities, but there is nothing commensurate for females. One irony is that this very week, Napanee happens to be hosting the Canadian under-18 women's hockey championship. Girls hockey in the community was only started a few years prior to Frost's arrival in the area. Now it's seen as a tourism draw.

Changing is coming, in some ways. It's just not happening fast enough.

Related:
Sex, lies and hockey tape (Patrick White, Globe & Mail)
Hockey's seamy side on display (Father Raymond J. De Souza, National Post)
'Hockey is not on trial,' judge told (Kingston Whig-Standard)
What about the girls? That the women testifying at the David Frost trial are not considered victims tells us a lot about sex, power and junior hockey (Laura Robinson, Ottawa Citizen, Oct. 31)

Snark break ...

Sure, your car can go 1,000 miles per hour, but does it have Yosemite Sam mudflaps?

Daunte Culpepper will not be a Kansas City Chief, apparently. The Chiefs handed him a contract to sign it, but he fumbled it.

Remember Saturday, when the only debacle in the World Series was Taylor Swift's rendition of The Star Spangled Banner?

It is stunning that the Atlanta Thrashers could be having attendance problems. Gary Bettman, you put franchises in places where ice is only seen in mint juleps. What's the worst that could have happened?

The National Post's Eric Koreen gets a hand for his line on the Oklahoma City Carpetbaggers Thunder: "(Kevin) Durant grows; will anybody watch or care?"

Eva Avila has a new album. Finally, a solution to the local shortage of drink coasters!

More great headlines that cannot be written ... "Charles Dubin: Dead at 87, forever associated with '88."

Stephen Colbert on the U.S. election: "John McCain has Barack Obama right where he wants him -- 15 to 20 points ahead with a huge African-American turnout." Colbert also noted that when McCain said Sunday that he was going to win, he was in a place called Waterloo.

The Ottawa Citizen has a look at the four pillars of the community who want to bring back the CFL.

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

• Yes, you should buy a copy of Rolling Stone to get the full version of, "The Lost Years & Last Days of David Foster Wallace."
  
• Crazy Luke Schenn fact: He was the 20th overall pick in the Western Hockey League bantam draft three years ago, which seems like a pretty good argument against drafting boys into juniors at 15 years old.
• That post about OOLF's big soul-search for a NCAA football team will probably be completed about the same time Chinese Democracy is in stores ... nevertheless, it has been noticed that UConn Huskies really like their Canadians. Jesse Joseph, a D-lineman from Montreal's Vanier College, committed to UConn over the weekend. The coach who recruited him, Mike Foley, also had a lot to do with tight end John Delahunt, of Kanata, ending up in the Nutmeg State.
• Jeremy Franklin, of Bath (west of Kingston), is apparently going to play college hockey at Mercyhurst, according to Chris Heisenberg.
• Larry Mavety never has many new ideas: Forward George Lovatsis told the Whig-Standard that the Kingston Fronteancs permanent interim coach basically told the players "play or get outta here" on Sunday.
  
  One player who did get outta there, Jason Guy, was just named OHL goalie of the week with the London Knights. Taylor Hall, of Kingston, was player of the week.
• The Ottawa Senators provincial women's hockey league team has five players skating for Team Ontario Red at the national under-18 championship in Napanee next week: goalie Cassie Séguin, defenders Bryanna Farris and Stefanie McKeough and forwards Isabel Ménard and Jamie Lee Rattray. Good for them.

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

A Bulldog on skates beats a pitbull with lipstick

Funny how it worked out: While all us menfolk were debating the political connotations of "hockey mom" during the U.S. election, few bothered to seek out the opinion of women who are involved in hockey. Suffice to say, Toronto native Michelle McAteer, an assistant coach with the reigning NCAA champion Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs, isn't holding anything back. It's worth a look-see.

"Women's hockey struggles for support and respect, and while men's hockey is marginalized on a national scale (in the United States), women's hockey fights even harder for a piece of the pie. In addition to inadequate financial support and respect, women's hockey players battle stereotypes that force them to defend their 'feminity' as they play a 'masculine game.'

"... pit-bull Palin doesn't seem to understand the complexities of women in the women's hockey world. It's safe to say she wasn't trying to associate herself with me, my community, or my experiences. I'd also wager that the large subset of gay women in the hockey world never crossed Palin's mind as she branded herself part of the hockey minority.

"... Palin's claim to authority as a 'hockey mom' is useful to her because this paradoxical phrase symbolizes the essence of Palin's brand. The unflinchingly patriotic masculinity associated with hockey allows Palin to take on a powerful position, but by fusing it with motherhood politics, she's kept within her God-given role as a submissive wife, mother, running mate, and perhaps even as a sort of First Lady. So, if I could chose between having my sport plugged nationally through Sarah Palin's frame of reference, or return to the status quo of being overlooked, let's just say that I'd watch bowling any day without complaint.

(CHeck the comments Anderson Cooper's blog is getting from women voters.)

Related:
The Puck Stops Here: A Hockey Coach Analyzes Palin’s Brand (Michelle McAteer, Beacon Broadside; via Women's Hoops Blog)

Campus corner: Burnes good to go after appendix acts up

Notes on our teams/athletes of interest from The 613 ...

Golden Gaels: We're late to the game, but Canadian Olympic archer J.D. Burnes, Queen's class of 2010, has been cleared to compete after a bout of appendix trouble.

That's a huge relief for him. (If you click through, check out the first comment on the CBC's story, from a former archer.) You can leave a message in support of Burnes here.

NCAA: There's a glowing report out of Houston on Montrealer Arnaud Gascon-Nadon's progress as a freshman rush end with the Rice Owls.

... the surprise is AGN, who has an impressive burst off the edge. The staff wants AGN to improve his technique, but if he is slow to do so, he possesses the natural ability to serve as a pass-rush specialist. AGN also provided a laugh when he and countryman Scott Mitchell locked horns during a spirited blocking drill.

Women's hockey: Four players with Ottawa ties are on the national under-18 team that will face Team USA in a 3-game series from Aug. 20-23 — goalie Cassie Seguin, defender Stefanie McKeough and forwards Jamie Lee Rattray and Isabel Ménard. That doesn't mean they're assured a spot for the under-18 world championship team, which takes place early in the new year in Germany. The team will be picked after the under-18 nationals, which are, wait for it, in Napanee.

(There's a great story about how it came to be that Jayna Hefford's mother got girls hockey off the ground back in the day.)