hockey blog Aug08

Aug 28, 2009

Thursday was a travel day and we are now back in Oakville, another summer in Nova Scotia behind us.

The trip -- Westjet -- was thankfully uneventful. The boys were at the same time sad to leave and glad to get home. Pad disappeared within minutes to meet up with some friends; Chris was content to putter around home and get reacquainted with his stuff.

Usually we arrive home at like 11p on the Monday of the Labour Day weekend and I find myself standing in a 24-hour grocery store somewhere stocking up for school lunches the next day. So getting home on a Thursday seems a little civilized in comparison -- I was still standing in a grocery store to restock the cupboards, but it wasn't midnight and no one had to get up too early.

- - -

We played golf on Thursday at a little nine-hole track and as predicted, Pad finally beat me. I took a snowman on an easy par 4 and that gave him the lead he needed. I clawed my way back but ran out of holes.

No mulligans. He beat me fair and square.

I did tell him this one gets an asterisk; if we played 18, maybe I would have overtaken him. Then again, the margin of victory for him might have been larger.

In a way, it's a relief. Now he has to try to hold the crown.

And I'm not done yet . . .

- - -

When Laura and the boys left for NS on Aug 6, the next day our street was scraped bare of pavement. Everyone was happy to believe that in the three weeks they were gone, the streets of our neighbourhood would be resurfaced.

Fast forward to our return yesterday and the street is still a mess. One thin layer of asphalt, protruding manhole covers and curbs being demolished and rebuilt all over the area.

Starting at 6:30a, no less.

Anyway, the street is a scene from Beirut; at best it's an obstacle course and at the end of the day, the workers pile their equipment in front of our house.

It's a lovely sight and I'm thinking we will adorn our 2009 Christmas greeting cards with the scene.

- - -

In today's Globe and Mail, Roy MacGregor makes the case for Sidney Crosby to be the captain of Canada's Olympic hockey team in Vancouver.

Roy is a smart guy but on this one, I'm going to beg to differ.

Among the players who are drop-dead locks to make the team, I think the captain should be Jarome Iginla, and that's no knock on Crosby.

Iginla has been a year-in, year-out superstar for Calgary and he was a key member of the gold medal Canadian team at Salt Lake. And everyone knows the guy's a leader.

His play exemplifies everything Canadians love in hockey. He's earned it.

Crosby is a great player. Playing with the likes of Iginla in the Olympics -- Crosby should have been on the last team, too -- can only make him better. And he's going to wear the C for Canada in a lot of Olympics to come.

Anyway, you can read the Globe piece here. Another debating point for Canadian hockey fans, in August.

Just FYI, Steve Yzerman looks like he could lace them up and still play, too.

- - -

Archie and Veronica are going through with it.

So the question posed in today's Report on Business is, do they need a pre-nup?

Hmmm.

Can't say I thought about it. But I will now.

Read the story here.

- - -

It's the final Friday of August, which means minor hockey season is right around the corner. Rep tryouts are on or looming, house league kids are awaiting the call. Things will be getting busy very soon.

More soon on our own small spot in that particular universe.

In the meantime, a last weekend of vacation to enjoy (starting with a conference call this morning -- hey, it won't take that long, right?)

Enjoy your weekend. Hug the kids. Stay safe on the roads. Good luck in your games.

See you in September.

Aug 26, 2009

So, let me get this straight.

The guy the NHL hand-picked to bid on the Phoenix Coyotes drops out of the auction because he can't make a deal he likes with the city and the arena.

So, the NHL, afraid that Jimmy B. will be the only one with money actually in the auction, steps in to bid on the franchise itself. It feels like someone putting a house up for sale and then bidding against people at the open house.

If you have been wondering to what length the NHL will go to keep Balsillie out, the answer is becoming clearer.

Read more here.

- - -

Meanwhile, at the other end of the scale, it's worth pointing out that here in Halifax the city is still buzzing over Sidney Crosby's visit on Friday with the Stanley Cup.

He toured hospitals. He visited the troops and their families. He flew over the harbour with the Cup perched in an open door for all to see. He signed autographs. He smiled. He was patient.

He did the heavy lifting that comes with being an NHL superstar, but I'm sure the job didn't feel at all heavy to The Kid.

Kane and Crosby. Same planet, different worlds.

You can read about Sid's cool day with the Cup here.

- - -

And, one last word. Kane is supposed to be the face of the NHL on the cover of EA Sports' NHL 10.

Hmmm. Any guesses on whether that decision gets revisited?

Ask Joe Thornton, who was supposed to be on the cover of the same game in 2004 until he was brought up on assault charges. Enter Dany Heatley to take his place. Opps.

Heatley sadly went on to wrap his sports car around a tree, tragically killing teammate Dan Snyder. Heatley was replaced as well. Joe Sakic replaced Heatley, but not before many of the games were shipped.

This one isn't over, either, I bet.

Aug 10, 2009

Canada has three national sports.

Lacrosse is the official national sport, and a great game it is.

Hockey is the game of our hearts, the projection of Canada to the world.

And the third national sport is bashing Air Canada. Anyone want to play?

- - -

I have friends who work for Air Canada. Smart people. Talented, educated, helpful. Why are they always off when I travel?

On Friday afternoon Air Canada fired an automated email at me, encouraging me to check in electronically from home for my flight. So, on Saturday morning, I did.

For the first time ever, I opted to have the airline send the little upc code direct to my blackberry, instead of printing a paper version of my boarding pass. Cool, I thought.

Upon arrival at the airport Saturday, I dragged my suitcase, golf clubs and my carry-on bag to the baggage drop area.

The guy looked at me like I was a pirate with a dagger between my teeth who had just hopped the counter.

"You haven't checked in yet," he said, clearly irritated.

Oh yes I did. From home. At your urging. Electronically. And I have a black blob to prove it.

"Doesn't matter. You have to go to the kiosk to get the baggage tags."

Hmmm. Kind of defeats the purpose of checking in from home, doncha think? Can't you print the tags here.

"No, I can't," he said with distain, then adding sarcastically. "Why would I tell you that you need to go to the kiosk if I could print them here?"

Sarcasm? YOU want to be sarcastic with ME?

"Buddy," I said. "It's Air Canada. You never know."

So I humped my suitcase, clubs and carry-on to the kiosk, where, guess what?, the machine printed me a paper boarding pass with the same black blob as the one on my blackberry.

It then presented the requisite two (2) baggage tags before flashing and telling me it could not complete my transaction and to please ask for assistance.

A nearby attendant was waved over and she immediately started flailing around like a duck with one wing, lecturing me on only having two bag tags when I needed three and that was obviously the problem blah blah blah.

So when I finally got a word in edgewise, I pointed out I was only checking two bags, thus only needed two tag and was confused as to why the machine said my transaction wasn't complete.

Naturally, neither could she, but being well brought up I thanked her for her role in Air Canada's effort to make me grumpy, miserable and unhappy.

I finally returned to the baggage drop area, waited for different clerk than the knob I dealt with the first time, and everything was fine, what with the blob on my blackberry, my newly minted paper boarding pass, two bag tags, one suitcase, golf clubs and a carry on.

And a headache.

We were an hour late leaving Toronto. So we were late getting to Halifax.

Lesson 1: Westjet WILL print the bag tags at the baggage drop area. Stunning. It's called "service."

Lesson 2: The Westjet flight that was scheduled to leave Toronto at the same time as the Air Canada flight was on time. Gee, there's a surprise.

Lesson 3: We're flying Westjet home.

- - -

Hard as it is to believe, I'm not always as happy and smiley as I am when I'm with my boys. So, I wondered, maybe it's just me who is cranky. Maybe Air Canada is brilliant and I'm the problem.

- - -

I wasn't in Halifax more than three hours when an email landed from a friend who was flying AC from Toronto to Holland via Frankfurt.

After his plane pulled away from the gate -- after!! -- they had to return to offload one of their pilots, who was needed for a flight to South America. The flight to Frankfurt was 90 minutes late departing and my friend and many others missed their connecting flights. My friend spent four hours wandering the Frankfurt airport.

- - -

The Globe and Mail featured three brilliant letters to the editor on Air Canada last week. I couldn't find links. Suffice to say, it's not just me.

- - -

Nevertheless, I did get here. Laura and the boys met me in Halifax, driving down from Cape Breton. We spent a big chunk of Sunday on the water, from Bedford Basin out the harbour then down Northwest Arm and back, with a stop along the way for a barbeque of 'dogs and sausages.

The Halifax waterfront is a familiar scene, even if you've never been there. But here's a fresh look.

Pad and Chris tried their hardest to relax, when they weren't eating or fishing. The boys take a moment from their busy day to say hi:

It's raining today (welcome to Nova Scotia) so not sure what the day will bring. As it should be.

Whatever, we're not flying.

Aug 7, 2009

I warned you there'd be days over the summer when I wouldn't be here. Thursday was one of them.

- - -

A couple of sad items, but both interesting to me.

Donald Marshall Jr. died early Thursday. The Mi'kmaq man is best known for his wrongful murder conviction in 1971 in Cape Breton, later overturned, and later still he was completely exonerated.

I had barely crossed the street from the Halifax Chronicle-Herald to join The Canadian Press in 1987 when I was tabbed to cover the inquiry into the circumstances around Marshall's conviction.

The assignment meant spending a lot of time in Sydney where the inquiry unfolded in a church hall basement, gradually peeling back the vile layers that showed young Donald Marshall Jr was the victim of a racist, lazy police force, incompetent counsel and wide systemic failures in Nova Scotia's justice system.

Being one of the regulars at the inquiry I met Marshall, but I can't claim to have known him.

Imprisoned at 17 -- barely older than my own son is now -- for 11 years, for something he didn't do, and basically railroaded because he was a native Indian, Junior was ill equipped to function in society when he emerged from jail and he struggled with addiction problems.

And under the circumstances, what else would be expected? He was almost literally chewed up by the system.

But once he was comfortable around you, he had a quiet good humour under deep layers of shyness. He didn't want to be the centre of attention, but he enjoyed the company of others and could tell a good story.

He was the embodiment of "tough as nails." People who knew him far better than me talked in awe of his raw physical strength, which was hard to believe because he was rail thin.

The last story I wrote in Halifax before moving to Ottawa as a reporter in January 1990 was on the final report of the Marshall Inquiry.

I spoke that day with Junior's dad, whom I chatted with often during those long days of hearings in a church basement in Sydney.

His dad, now deceased, was a tradesman; handsome and classy, well spoken and polite, interesting and engaging.

And when he spoke of what happened to his son, his eyes would well with tears and he'd talk softly, without bitterness, about those lost years that his son would never get back and what it did to Junior. As a parent, it's hard to imagine living with that heartbreak, or handling it half as well as Mr. Marshall did.

Junior was no saint -- he was in that park when Sandy Seale was killed in 1971 for all the wrong reasons. He and Seale intended to rob someone. He was, as they say, well known to the law.

The man who actually committed the killing that night was the target of the robbery attempt -- Roy Ebsary, an offensive little troll of a man who had the look of a scrawny, demented Col. Saunders. A story for another day, perhaps. Ebsary died before the final Marshall report came out.

Junior didn't want the spotlight but it always found him -- later, his name was on a historic Supreme Court of Canada ruling on native fishing rights.

My work at the Marshall Inquiry was what launched me onto a road of opportunity at CP. I have great memories of weeks and months covering the event and becoming friends with a group of other reporters and lawyers similarly fated to the assignment. I remember rigourous deadlines and multiple filings of copy and learning my way at my new job.

I remember being in my hotel room in Sydney, standing on my bed in excitement on the September night Gretzky dropped that pass to Lemieux who buried the game winner in the 1987 Canada Cup final in one of the greatest hockey games ever played.

I actually got married in Sydney during a break in the inquiry -- there was a move by some of my colleagues to get Alex Hickman, head of the inquiry and later chief justice of the Newfoundland Supreme Court, to officiate at the wedding. We were married by a judge, by it wasn't Justice Hickman.

And somewhere in there I met Donald Marshall Jr., who wasn't at all what I expected.

You can read about Donald Marshall Jr. here.

- - -

The other sad item is the passing of John Hughes, the American film director and writer who created a slew of iconic films that will live forever. Ferris Bueller's Day Off. 16 Candles. Pretty In Pink. The Breakfast Club. Home Alone. Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Christmas Vacation. And more.

He was only 59 and died of a heart attack in New York visiting family.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, as I have written here before, I became a big fan of two writers at the old National Lampoon -- Hughes and PJ O'Rourke, who each went on to fame and considerable fortune, especially Hughes.

I was young and looking for interesting voices in journalism and what these guys did with satire, hyperbole and pure story telling was often hit or miss, but when they hit, it was a grand slam.

Hughes started as an ad copy writer -- he occasionally would joke that he would be remembered when he was gone for being the guy who created a commercial years ago for shaving cream, the one where the guy scrapes the credit card across his face to highlight the stubble left behind by an inferior razor and cream. You probably don't remember.

But I bet you remember Ferris Bueller.

My kids watch that movie all the time now and that's what John Hughes will be remembered for -- he was able to give voice to the angst of youth in the 1980s. He did it with fun and slapstick and unapologetic sentiment.

The night before GO Transit had the big meltdown this week, Pad, Chris and I watched Planes, Trains, and Automobiles and believe me, it was fresh in my mind on Wednesday night as I humped my way through Mimico looking for a way home.

Hughes' work was, mostly, brilliant.

The guy had more money than he could possibly spend and hadn't made a movie since 1991. He wanted to spend time with his family in Chicago and he bought a working farm in the midwest.

He's gone far too young. But he will be remembered as a giant in the business.

Roger Ebert reflects on John Hughes here.

- - -

The Oakville Hawks Tyke 1 and Tyke 2 lacrosse teams brought home silver medals from the provincial box championships this week. Way to go!

- - -

With any luck at all, tomorrow I'll be in Nova Scotia. The house has been cleaned and the house sitter is settled in. We're not keen on the dog that comes with the house sitter, but that's ok.

Laura and the boys are in Cape Breton and we'll all meet up tomorrow in Halifax for the first leg of the family vacation.

We are looking forward to time with friends, family and avoiding deadlines of any significant nature.

There will be blog updates as events warrant -- these trips usually generate a fair amount of fun and silliness. We'll see.

In the meantime, steamy weather is en route for Toronto and area, plus they're ripping the pavement off our street and preparing to resurface. We're happy to miss all of that, thanks. If the municipality would like to repave my driveway while I am away, I'm fine with that.

Enjoy the weekend and try to stay out of the humidity.

Drive safe. Hug your kids. Have fun.

Aug 5, 2009

As previously reported around the interwebs, GO Transit faced a bit of a challenge last night as torrential rains apparently made the track base near Long Branch unstable, not unlike my state of mind when using the train.

I was on a train that went as far as Mimico -- which is to say, not very far -- when we stopped for about 20 minutes or so and were told the operator had no other information.

I found that tidbit fascinating since I was getting automated GO updates on my Blackberry telling me exactly what the problem was.

Anyway.

They eventually threw us off the train where the options were to wait for GO buses to get us to Port Credit (much thigh slapping and hilarity over that notion) or to fend for ourselves.

At this point, I will throw in the obligatory derisive lacrosse commentary on the trepidation I felt being turned out into the high alpine meadows of Mimico. Black bears feed on berries and journalists in these parts in August. And the thin air made the probability of outrunning the bears low. But as anyone who has run from a bear knows, you don't have to actually be faster than the bear, you just need to be faster than the person with you. And there were enough women in high heels limping along that I was confident I'd be OK.

(Eds note: The nickname for the Mimico lacrosse association teams is, inexplicably, the Mountaineers. There's not even a good hill in Mimico let alone a mountain. Certain bloggers never tire of pointing this out in postings involving Mimico. This concludes that reference for this positng. Please continue reading.)

I started walking south down the craggy switchbacks of the eastern coll of the great Mimico range. Me, along with lots of other folks. I saw no point in calling a cab from the station because the odds of it getting to me were slim. I figured my best bet was to walk to Lakeshore and try and flag a hack, or, after I had separated myself from the herd a bit to call a cab. And that's what I did.

I knew Laura was off getting her hair done at this precise moment, but I called her anyway. Misery, after all, enjoys company and in my case, I insist on it.

If you know Laura, then you will know that getting her hair done is a project worthy of federal funding. She is blessed with long, thick hair that (I'm told) requires meticulous attention. When I called to ask if it was impossible for her to launch a rescue mission for me, I was told she had tin foil on her head.

I'm proud to say I don't know exactly what that means. But I think it was more to do with highlights in her hair and less to do with channeling the spirit of Elvis, but regardless I'm happy to leave that mystery on the shelf with the caramel in the Caramilk. Suffice to say, she wasn't coming for me.

I kept walking, realizing that I had less than four dollars in cash on me, so I stopped at two convenience stores to use the ATMs and both were down, no doubt also the fault of GO transit.

Having gotten well clear of the herd, I then called a cab and within five minutes I was happily tailgating an 18 wheeler on the QEW at 135 kilometres an hour.

I was cruising along the QEW toward Oakville when an email arrived from a co-worker who was on an earlier train but had been returned to Mimico and dumped. He lives in Burlington, which is bad enough if you've seen their hockey teams. But he had little hope of getting home before midnight.

So I told him to sit tight and I'd come back once I got my car, and I did. I think Buzz Lightyear once said "no one gets left behind" and my friend was grateful for the lift.

Now, while all of this was not a problem of GO Transit's creation, some observations.

First, they continue to be terrible communicators. Clearly, they knew exactly why the train was stopped -- I got emails from GO before the train crew told us -- but decided not to tell people until they had to. Dumb. Tell people what you know, when you know it. It gives you credibility.

Second, given the amount of rain we've had in the last three weeks, I am suspicious as to whether Tuesday's weather alone created the unstable track base. One wonders if the cumulative effect of repeated torrential rains is the actual culprit and perhaps a more rigourous, regular and attentive inspection process might have headed off the problem.

Third, as bad as it was, GO handled it better than they would have three years ago. But, that's setting the bar pretty low.

I was home and complaining with a beer in my hand before 9p, which included the cab ride to Oakville, the drive back to Mimico for my friend and driving him to Burlington.

There was cold beer in the fridge at home, and that was a good thing.

As far as I know, no one died. One blog reader has already blamed me for the incident because I commented yesterday on how quiet the trains were. Well, on the other hand last night they were even quieter.

This morning things were more or less normal -- some delays, but just the usual. The ride in gave me barely enough time to craft a saga about my trip home.

I hope your day was better. Regular programming will resume tomorrow.

- - -

Aug 4, 2009

The commute to and from work continues to be a bit of a summer ghost town, which is fine by me. I'm looking forward to being among that number of the missing soon.

In the meantime, um, there isn't much going on -- at least, not that I know about.

- - -

The Toronto Star had a piece in on the weekend on the number of cyclists who routinely ignore the rules of the road -- running stop signs and red lights, that sort of thing. You can read it here.

Of course, cyclists also act as if they own the roads, often riding two or three abreast.

And cyclists are also the first and loudest to moan and complain about rude drivers of cars.

And don't even get me started about the way they dress, kitted out in the gaudy colours (complete with sponsors' names they couldn't pronounce let alone recognize) of some Tour de France team or another.

For the record -- I think bicycles should get the same respect on the streets as cars and trucks. There's room for both. I think mutual respect would be good. I think cyclists should be fined for the way they dress.

But if a cyclist decides the rules don't apply to him/her, then I don't have to respect them anymore.

All of which is a windy way to tell you about how I almost got t-boned by a guy on a bike at a four-way stop on Monday afternoon. The guy had no -- zero -- intention of stopping and was pedaling at breakneck speed as I pulled out into the intersection when my turn to do so came.

The bike did eventually come to a full stop, and the cyclist's face was adorned with one of the most truly stunned expressions you'll ever see.

"Stunned twit," I think, was the way I described it to Pad, who was with me, which was fairly restrained by my standards.

- - -

"Stunned twit" is also a popular term in Ottawa for describing Dany Heatley, who has gone from being one of the most loved people in the nation's capital to being, as Maclean's points out, being regarded as a lot like Stalin but with a slight better one timer.

I'm not sure how many people Stalin killed in expensive sports cars, but Heatley is starting to accumulate baggage at a stage in his career where he should be accumulated goals along with paycheques.

You can read an entertaining mini-rant here.

Thank God for the Sens. Who would Leaf fans laugh at if not for the Sens?

- - -

One other bit on Monday silliness for you. Chris -- pay attention.

A new web site is catering to those film buffs who make the regrettable decision to buy the jumbo-sized soft drink before settling in to watch Megan Fox in tight white pants for 150 minutes in Transformers 2.

Sooner or later -- and probably, sooner -- nature will call and you're going to have to answer. And do you really want to leave the theatre before the giant machine rips the top off an ancient pyramid revealing a giant gun-thingy that will extinguish the sun?

Of course you don't.

And that's why -- I'm not kidding -- there's a new web site called RunPee.com that will tell you when the best time to leave a movie for a trip to the loo is -- thusly maximizing your Megan Fox-watching opportunities as she hides in the ruins from a mix master that turned into a robot killing machine.

RunPee even has a an app for iPhone.

You can click here to visit RunPee.com and see the best times to walk out on Transformers 2.

It's likely the creators of this site will win a Nobel Prize. Or something.

Aug 3, 2009

I've been sitting in the back garden on my patio since 7a (it was 14 degrees), soaking up the morning sun like the old toad I am. I've read the Star and the Globe, and checked in on some of the political blogs I follow, which in spite of the insight and talent of the proprietors still often read like old men shouting at the kids to get off the lawn.

I did manage to annoy a red squirrel though. I moved a hanging fuchsia plant to a place where the the creature couldn't jump into it from the fence and pillage the blossoms and blubs. He's now on an overhead branch yelling at me and will soon get a blast of water from a hose. Alert Greenpeace.

Otherwise, there's nothing interesting from my weekend to report, aside from two and a half hours in a rink yesterday and washing and vacuuming my car.

Elsewhere people are racing to various sporting events, but not us. Me and the boys may be off to hit some balls today. Or there may be a movie. Or all of the above. Or none.

The only thing for sure is that I'm going to make breakfast for Laura eventually, but I'm not going to rush into that project, either.

Enjoy the holiday, if in fact you're off.

- - -

If you want to see how a really good newspaper beats itself up over a botched story, you might want to take a look at the New York Times' public flogging over the mess it made of Walter Cronkite's obit. It's inside baseball for most people, but in a world of blogs and "me too" journalists, it defines the distance between the so-called mainstream media and patio typists throwing words at walls, mostly for their own amusement.

You can read it here.

- - -

Speaking of train wrecks, CNN talking head Lou Dobbs is in some hot water. If you're really bored, you can read about it here.

But honestly, if your long weekend has cratered to the point of reading about Lou Dobbs, get help.

- - -

If anyone has any suggestions for summer reading, send them to me here. I'm interested in knowing what people are reading, and I'm looking for something to hit my nose when I fall asleep on the beach in Ingonish very, very soon.

Seriously, don't be shy. My tastes run all over the map so don't worry about that.