“We all flew back to Yankee Stadium for a game against Baltimore,” Murcer recalled in a 1983 article for The Times. “None of us wanted to play, but we did, and I batted in all five runs and we won, 5-4. I never used that bat again. I sent it to Diana (Munson's wife).”
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July 30, 2008 My comment yesterday about how hot it was at the Kinoak Sports and Entertainment Palace generated a couple of emails from readers who enjoyed the irony. Complaining about the heat at Kinoak is sort of like yelling at Jessica Simpson to put on more clothes (well, to male readers anyway.)
But Kinoak's reputation as the coldest, most inhospitable piece of
sports real estate in - - - The midget 2 Hawks play Brampton in Brampton tonight at the almost-as-luxurious-as-Kinoak Memorial Arena. Brampton's Memorial Arena has what you'd call "character." What it doesn't have is a lot of room on the floor for midget-aged lacrosse players. So, it will be an interesting evening I'm sure. - - - Teenage woman golfer, former teenage prodigy, Michelle Wie, is skipping the women's British Open to play in a second-rank PGA tour event against men. Wie's career -- such as it is now -- has been in free fall for two years and this is yet another indication that she's getting really, really, really bad advice. Blessed with awesome talent and physical gifts, she came close but never won on the LPGA Tour. And then someone had the bright idea that she should try competing against men. She's never made a cut competing with men, let alone win. I just don't get it. While other young women like Paula Creamer have exploded onto the scene to become true superstars, Wie now struggles to break 75 -- or even 80 some days -- but chooses to pass up a major so she can continue her exercise in futility against male golfers who are stronger and more talented and better able to cope with the longer courses. It's like she is knowingly turning herself into a novelty act at the expense of the big picture. She's only 18 and has lots of time to get back on track. But skipping the British Open to play in the Legends Reno-Tahoe Open (now there's an important tourney) is a bad move. Anyway, read more here if you care. - - - The Transport Canada report is out on that horrific crash last winter in New Brunswick that killed eight people, including seven high school basketball players. It's a disturbing read. Most of the kids were not wearing seat belts. The vehicle was equipped with worn all-season tires on a very slippery, slushy road. The bus itself was in poor repair. Awful. More details here. - - - The Blue Jays have an afternoon game today and there's a move afoot to bolt from the office and take in the game. It would be a great idea except for work getting in the way. I tried to find the clip from Ferris Bueller's Day Off (which, by the way, is on the list of Gerry's 25 Greatest Films Ever) with Ferris and Cameron playing hooky at the Cubs' game. But I couldn't. So instead amuse yourself with this one, the parade scene where Ferris lip-synchs The Beatles' Twist and Shout. Sometimes, aren't we just supposed to go to a mid-week ball game, eat a $10 hotdog, yell "swing batter-batter" and forget about the other crap for three hours? Aren't we? What's happened to me? What's happened to us all?
July 29, 2008 Chez Reavie wasn't the only winner at the Canadian Open on Sunday. While the young American was busy keeping his head while all about him were losing theirs, he was also sporting some pretty snappy duds. Sponsored by a little known sportswear company, Quagmire Inc. of nearby Mississauga, Reavie's face time on CBS on Saturday and Sunday made the company's $10,000 sponsorship look like the bargain of the year. Marketing guys with really big brains say this is the sort of breakthrough that can launch a firm into the big leagues of sports apparel. You can read more here. I just hope they make XXL sizes. - - - As for Reavie himself, when he teed up his ball on Thursday he was ranked 362nd in the world. Winning a tournament will change that, and now he's moved up to 184th spot, a jump of 178 places. That's still a long way from the top, but it's light years from where he was. Plus, he gets to play in all the majors next year, including the Masters, as well as the PGA Championship later this month. It's great to see a young guy break through. - - - Speaking of local success, a Toronto company manufactured the bike that the winner rode at the Tour de France, and that's the first time a Canadian company has done that in the face of all those high-falutin' European bicycle builders. Read more here. Of course, the bike racing may be the highest-profile sport which has virtually every result of every competition compromised by a drug or doping scandal. But that's not the bicycle's fault. - - - Do you watch reality TV? When someone asks me how I'D solve a problem like Maria (other than maybe begging her to shut up, for the love of God please just SHUT UP), the answer is simple. I change the channel, if the TV is on at all. Until Maria learns to skate, can bomb a drive 310 yards, or can run a 9.9 100, I'm just not interested. Can she play D? Will she cut through traffic in front? What about backwards crossovers? How's her release? I've never watched an episode of American or Canadian Idol, or Survivor, or Big Brother, or The Apprentice, or Making the Cut, or (Eds. Note: OK, we get it.) Garbage, all of it. Sorry. I do enjoy the little clips they show in commercials of one judge or another telling some hapless, talentless smuck that he/she is a hapless, talentless smuck. THAT'S a show I could get behind. I just can't stand the intervals in between where they prove they are talentless. - - - I had a dinner in Toronto last night so the scheduling worked out well to pick up Pad after his lacrosse practice at 11p at the beautiful Kinoak Sports and Entertainment Palace. I got there at 10:30p and the coach had just sent the boys to the dressing rooms. The heat inside was stifling, and it wasn't even that bad last night. I commented to the coach that it was really hot in there. "It's not that bad," he said, "when you're standing in one place talking and no one is listening." I guess it kind of creates its own breeze. If there's a bigger challenge in the world that coaching 14 and 15 year old boys to do anything other than sleep or eat, I cannot imagine what it is.
July 28, 2008 Happy Monday. Me and Pad finally made it to Glen Abbey for the Open yesterday, our plans to attend on Saturday short-circuited by the rain and lightning. Overall, Sunday was a long day. Chris and I were up at 6:30a to head to the rink for shinney and afterwards we maintained the ritual of stopping at Tim Horton's for his usual early-morning après skate snack -- medium hot chocolate, hash browns, and a chocolate-dipped donut. Hey, it works for him. I had strategically put our golf clubs in the car along with the hockey gear and it turns out that was a good move. We went to the range after Tim's and pounded balls for an hour. The adventure that is the mission to figure out my new irons is finally gaining some traction. It was a wonderful morning -- clear and not too warm and there was hardly anyone on the range when we got there just after 9a. From there it was home for brunch, a quick shower, and then off to The Abbey -- which is only a short walk from our place. We entered from the north gate on Upper Middle Road which puts you right behind the 17th green. And there was one of those big diamond-vision info screens rolling a bunch of data -- leaderboard, who was one the green, and hot rounds of the day. Under "hot rounds" it said Fred Couples was -5 after nine so I said to Pad, "Let's go see Fred." Maybe it was us. After shooting 30 on the front, Fred went cold when we arrived. We caught up to him as he was putting on 10 (bogey) and then we followed him down into the valley holes (it doesn't seem so steep when you're riding in a cart playing the Abbey. Walking down that hill is entirely different.) Fred Couples is a fan favorite and that includes us. He hit an amazing fairway bunker shot on 11 but missed a makeable birdie putt. Then on 12 he pushed his drive left and had to try a knock-down low iron under a tree that went in a bunker and he ended up with his second bogey in three holes. (I'm not expecting a thank-you card.) A routine par at 13, a 15 foot putt to save par at 14, and a routine par at 15, followed by a nearly vertical climb out of the valley (a climb only for the gallery, the golfers were driven up in BMWs) and a Fred Couples drive into a another postal code on 16. As we were standing on 16 a big roar went up from across the way and we looked at each other and said: "Weir." We were right -- Mike had just birdied 8 and while he was too far back to make a serious run, we figured we'd better follow the home team for a bit and yes, it was back down into the valley again. (Gasp, gasp.) Weir was game but his putter wasn't and some balls that might have fallen on another day lipped out. By the time he birdied 18 to finish at -12 as low Canadian, he had no chance of winning. Pad had enough walking and wanted to settle in at 18 and watch the final few groups, as we did in 2004. But the thing is, the RCGA has pretty much completely pimped out the 18th green. If you had an RBC logo tattooed on your head you might get a spot but otherwise, don't count on it. The open hillside space across the pond from the 18th green -- where we and several thousand other ordinary folks watched from in 2004 -- is now completely covered by corporate boxes for Pengrowth and RBC and others. I would guess the viewing area around 18 for non-VIP types was reduced by 75 per cent from four year earlier. The passes we had (they were given to me, I didn't buy them) included access to the Rooftop Lounge (yes, a restricted area for those spending extra $$$) so we went there and had a limited view of the 18th green. We stayed till the end and applauded the new champ, Chez Reavie, and then trekked home. We really enjoyed the afternoon -- we were on the grounds for probably five hours and saw a lot of golfers, some up close, some from afar. While sitting on a small shady hill having a burger, Billy Haas pushed a drive that almost landed in my Diet Pepsi, but we had really good seats for his second shot from the rough. And we saw Jerry Kelly mugging for the gallery, dragging his driver back and forth across one of the bridges, saying he was practicing his curling sweep, because he knows what we do up here. The most fun was watching them go from brute power -- TV does not justice to how far these guys can hit a ball -- to feathery "touch" where they drop a ball six feet behind a pin and spin it back perfectly. Like the slogan says, "These guys are good." The yellow-shirted volunteers were great, the blue-shirted RCGA people were too often a little too officious and self-important -- but not always. And in my view, the RCGA folks have a problem at 18 if there's no way for ordinary folks to sit and watch the heroes of the game finish up. Maybe that's something they could discuss the next time they pull on their matching white shoes and white belts (and white hair.) But don't count on it. It's all about corporate dollars. My creaky knees were tired but we had a great dinner and falling asleep was no big chore last night. - - - Fred Couples isn't the only big hitter out there. The Dalai Lama? Big hitter. Long. Bill Murray recalls . . .
Bruce Springsteen opened the first of three concerts at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ, last night. I know this because one of the dads at hockey yesterday morning suggested that if we left -- right then and there -- we had enough time to make the show. He assured me his friends (already there) would secure tickets. And our kids -- well, while they are only 11, but they are resourceful and could find their own way home. It would be a like a test of their skills. Someday, they would understand why we left them at the rink at 7a and drove to New Jersey. I declined. But think of the blog opportunities if we'd gone: A concert! The Boss! A border crossing! American beer! Divorce lawyers! Maybe next time. - - - While waiting around Saturday for the lightning to stop I spent some time helping Chris with a computer problem. Chris is a filmmaker a heart -- he has lots of short entries on youtube -- but for some reason was having technical issues converting his Windows Moviemaker files to uploadable WMV file. Anyway, we got him fixed up and within two hours he had posted four short (and silly) new films. The role of IT Specialist is not one I wear easily -- last week Laura's email had one of it's legendary crashes (she works from home and her email is what IT guys would call 'mission critical' -- and it quite literally took all of of one evening and most of another for me to fix it. I'm now shopping for what is called a hosted enterprise solution. One more email crash and I may be on a one-way bus to Jersey. - - - Last word from the provincial "A" lacrosse qualifiers on the weekend in Whitby had the midget 1 Hawks with a 3-8-0 record and one result left to come in. The peewee 1 Hawks were 4-6-1. I may be mistaken, but I think that means the season is over for both squads as the top six teams from peewee and top eight from midget advance to provincials. - - - The midget 2 Hawks play their final pre-provincials game Wednesday this week, after a two hour practice tonight. After that, the schedule kind of quiets down in a hurry. We're starting to think about the trip to NS.
July 25, 2008 We didn't attempt Blue Rodeo last night. Too much rain, too wet. And naturally, the sun came out. But the golf was so far behind schedule that our friends couldn't reliably know when the concert might start and that had to be coordinated with a babysitter so we said, bu-bye. We went to dinner though and had a great time in a non-golf related venue. - - - Mike Weir is among a cluster of guys at -6 atop the leaderboard. The low scores are no surprise as the course is so wet it is basically defenceless. Weir said if you can hit the ball straight, that's all you need to do. Hmm. Sounds easy enough . . . Read more here on the soggy first day at the Abbey. - - - You may not believe it, but sometimes the news media make mistakes. No, seriously. It happens. Smart and responsible media outlets own up to their errors quickly, and move even more quickly to fix them. That's how you retain credibility. There are different degrees of mistakes. If you are a reporter covering the federal finance department and you get the nuance wrong in the interpretation of the projected flow of transfer payments for the next fiscal year, that's one thing. If you spell the name of your newspaper wrong, in the masthead, on the front page? Well, that's just stupid. Or as they might say at the Valley News in New Hampshire, that's just stoopid. Read more here. - - - Blogging For Dummies: Gerry Did It, So It's Not That Hard The one question I get asked more than anything else -- more than, "why are you always at the Glen Abbey Rec Centre?" or, "what's the deal with your hair," or, "why did Laura marry you?" -- is about blogging. How? Why? Can I do it too? I always reply: "Yes, you can and you should. You're the most interesting person I know!" I end up addressing this here in bits and pieces every six months, so regular readers have heard some of this before. But there's never enough time to tell people how I got here, how they can too, and how they might make it work for them. So, here goes. Warning: this is a long post:
People love to talk to me about stuff I write here; usually they like to talk about the stuff that made them laugh and that they can relate to. I get lots of email from all over the place. The stuff that occasionally passes for news -- like the MOHA stuff -- is what we in my business call inside baseball. It appeals to a very small number of people and has no echo. It doesn't resonate. In my limited experience at this blogging thing, it's the funny quirky blather people like. They like knowing they aren't the only ones walking into walls, or run off their feet with the kids, or whatever. As much as I call it a hockey blog, it's really a family dairy in a sense. When I wrote about putting hand sanitizer in my hair at the gym, instead of hair gel, I got so many emails I thought I'd get invited onto Letterman. Ditto the stuff about when we lost our hot water and I mused about Laura walking around the rink with her hair in a towel. Go figure. There are blogs for stock tips and Iraqi war commentary and any topic you can name. This blog (obviously) isn't one of them. It's about, um, hockey and sports and family, not always in that order. It's meant to be light and fun and occasionally informative. For instance, if I said I'd rather let Brittney Spears baby sit for my little nieces than have to attend another hockey meeting (I'm notoriously meeting-adverse and my nieces, well, they would need to acquire a taste for Starbucks and driving recklessly in a big SUV) people find that funny. People also like the good-news stuff. Rocky-like stories of the little guy prevailing, or sportsmanship in the face of adversity, or of local minor hockey coaches finding cases of beer in their driveways (ok, that's a story that I would like.) But I'm getting off point. I started doing this web site in the fall of 2004 to have a place for my kids' house league teams to post their schedules. The next fall, Pad made rep and the team section became more elaborate. And I also started doing league-wide standings and stats for the MOHA 1996 cohort that year, which I've done since. That's been fun too. I've actually been in line at McDonalds and heard kids talking about reading their stats on Teamoakville. That makes you feel that maybe you're being useful. Over the years I've added pages for school band trips, school sports, lacrosse teams, and just about anything else we were involved in. I don't really know what I'm doing, but I don't let that slow me down. In December of 2005, I unilaterally declared myself (to my wife) as Oakville's most beloved humorist (tm) and started the blog. Actually, I started it as a tool to keep family back in Nova Scotia informed about what we were doing, and as an experiment to see if I had anything to say that anyone else would find interesting. On the first count, it's a success. If I go a day or two without checking in with the folks, they know why from reading the blog. My siblings read it and mock me. On the second count, it's middling, as we say in NS. I have many more readers than people I actually know and some months the traffic surprises me. It's nice to have a readership. But the numbers are very small compared to say, the traffic the New York Times gets. And make no mistake. My goal is to bring down the whole New York Times empire. Now, to get back to the original point that people raise. Can you do it too? At the risk of sounding like a bank commercial, yes, you can. Or, YES! You can!! One way to do it is the way I've done it, which I will put in the category of "the wrong way." Which is to say, I have my own domain (teamoakville.com) and a page in the site that is simply called a blog. I pay a fee to have someone host the site on a server, which is how you are able to read it on the web. Wayne has done the same thing over at www.minorhockeyfan.com . (And BTW, now that there are two of us in Oakville doing this, I can't lay claim (to my wife) to also being Oakville's most beloved blogger -- which I wanted to put on my business cards but my boss said no. But I am the most popular blogger on my street, or at least in my house. I think.) Anyway, the other, smarter way to do this is easier and cheaper. Sites like www.blogger.com, or www.wordpress.org give away the software and tools for blogs. And they come with cool toys like RSS feeds and direct links to posts and comment sections and all sorts of stuff I don't have. Why did I do it this way? I guess I'm not that smart, or, I already had teamoakville.com and if I'm going to cripple the New York Times empire, I'd better support my own brand. The teamoakville thing will hold up well until we move to The Bahamas. The trickiest part of a blog is -- surprise -- the content. And from experience I'll divide it into two pieces. First, you have to have something to say. It doesn't matter if no one else reads it. Or just your dad. Or just you. But sitting in front of a keyboard with nothing to say is a tip that maybe you aren't ready for this. A theme of some kind, however loose your devotion to it, is good too. In my case, it's sports and family and the intersection of those things. For you it might be hang gliding, or a bottle cap collection, cooking, or your effort to make golf an Olympic sport. Whatever. Second, assuming you have a reader or two, you have to be committed to creating new content. If the Oakville Beaver delivered the same news three times a week (and to their credit, they really only do that on Saturday) they'd have a problem. As soon as the New York Times starts repeating the same front page, I've got them on the run. And your readers -- whether you get 30 or 300 or 3000 or 30000 a month -- will stop coming to your site if you don't update it. Often. Because readers have choices. A new blog is created ever second. Seriously. The number of blogs doubles every five months. (Note: I'm reading them all. I sleep less than 90 minutes a week. True story.) At this pace, our fish will be blogging by Christmas and I won't even be the most popular blogger on my street anymore. Because the stories Spike the Beta Fish could tell . . . Don't get me started. Admittedly, most of those blogs don't last long and go virtually unread. But as an experiment, go to blogsofnote.blogspot.com . Click on any blog on the page. Now, at the very top you will see a button that says "Next Blog." Just keep clicking it. You'll get a flavour of how much is out there. Much of it is awful. But there's a lot. Blogging is, at its core, a vanity press, as in, "I'm think I'm witty and relevant and you should too!" Readers vote with their mouse and if you're neither witty nor relevant, you'll know soon enough. If you start blogging, be aware that the laws around libel and slander apply on the web just as they do in newspapers or anywhere else. The Internet is brings no immunity from prosecution for poor behaviour and bad judgment. And wear a helmet. Not all your email will be love letters and invitations to appear at Just For Laughs. And to me, that's fair game -- it's supposed to be a conversation as much as it's a sermon. If you do start a blog, drop me a note. I want to know. I want to see it. I want to send YOU email complaining when you don't update your blog. Ha! Sweet revenge . . . Anyway, there you have it. Free blogging tools. Free advice on what I learned and what to avoid. The value proposition here is amazing.
My last piece of advice is to be patient. If you build it, they Have something to say. Be engaging. Be witty. Avoid being crude. Wit and sarcasm are good. Don't take yourself or anything else too seriously. Update often. Roll with the punches. Take criticism gracefully. Don't insist on having the last word. Respect your audience. Have fun. If you follow this advice and become wildly successful, I want a cut of the action. If you fail and incur debt, you're on your own. PS -- quite seriously, one true benefit of this exercise for me is that our family now has a near-daily record of what we were up to for the last four years. I have a feeling that in my dotage -- after I've swept all four major senior golf championships, won the Masters, taken control of the Leafs and crippled the New York Times empire -- I'm going to enjoy recalling some of the adventures we had with the boys and our friends and teammates and their families and I'll be grateful I took the time to write about it. We've had a lot of fun and it's easy to forget a lot of the detail. Some days I already am grateful. - - - Oh. One other thing. I'm assuming you can write. Small detail. If you want to learn how to write I recommend reviewing this page. You can say what you want about Kurt Vonnegut (funny hair, off centre view of the world, wild imagination) but the guy could write. And his advice is as sound as any you will come across, including his advice to get more advice, which is always good advice. My advice? Try writing 300 words about something. Try hard to keep every sentence to 12 words or less. Run on sentences are tricky things and honestly they work well for comic effect only if you know what you're doing but otherwise they can explode like a bad canned ham and stink up your prose and ruin the mojo you were going for and generally -- but not always -- are a device best left to professionals wearing protective literary equipment and armed with at least two really cold beers. Short sentences rule. Like: Jesus wept. She sighed. A shot rang out, a dream died. I'd like 24 Corona, please. Try it: 300 words, no sentence longer than 12 words. Edit yourself ruthlessly (unless your name is Ruth.) Good luck. (See?) - - - Canadian Open golf. Some shinney for the boys. Maybe some time on the range. Down time with the family. In other words, a quiet weekend for us. Good luck and safe travels to the Oakville teams traveling this weekend, including the peewee and midget 1 Hawks continuing the saga of provincial qualifiers in beautiful Whitby.
July 24, 2008 The midget 1 Hawks played their final home game of 2008 last night, rallying from a 2-0 third period deficit to tie Halton Hills 2-2. In Brampton next Wednesday night and then the provincials in Hamilton where this crew will have to dig very deep to do well in the face of a tough draw. - - - News for lacrosse nerds: The Burlington-Akwesasne junior "A" series is tied at 3-3. The news nugget is that Burlington lost game 2 of the series, then won a protest based on Akwesasne having used two ineligible players. Akwesasne then appealed that ruling, apparently on the basis of evidence that Burlington knew before the game that the players were ineligible and should have addressed the matter then. The OLA agreed (make your own judgment on the quality of that ruling) and ordered the game replayed. It was replayed last night, and Akwesasne won. Game 7 is tomorrow night in Akwesasne. Lawyers will be in attendance, no doubt. - - - No, it's not just your imagination. This is the wettest summer on record in southern Ontario. The wettest since Home Depot sold lumber by the cubit. Wet. Wet. Wet. How wet? Read more here. - - - The Canadian Open starts today in lovely Oakville. And -- it's raining. The course is wet, wet, wet. Weather permitting, we may venture over tonight to attend the Blue Rodeo concert because Laura really likes Blue Rodeo. A long, long time ago when my now six-foot-two, 14-year-old son was literally a babe in arms (and not a guy who runs down a lacrosse floor with his mask pressed hard against the mask of some kid from Halton Hills and the two of them yammering at each other like testosterone-fuelled goons waiting for an excuse to exhibit behaviour that makes his mother bury her head in her hands) Laura actually covered the Edmonton Folk Festival for the Edmonton Journal and that's when she started really liking Blue Rodeo. And it rained that day, too. So, if it rains we're thinking dinner out is better than mud up to our ankles. I did the whole mud-and-music thing decades ago. Seemed like fun then. Not so much now. - - - Still with the Open, it is an open (no pun intended) secret that the pros are not exactly in love with Glen Abbey. Or Angus Glen. It's a national championship and they will tell you the event should move around the country, which is blessed with a lot of great golf courses. The pros loved playing at Hamilton. And Royal Montreal. And Yes, the Canadian Open has a tough date for attracting a top field, coming as it does a week after a major. But playing the tournament on the same track(s) too often makes a national championship feel more like just another stop on the tour grind. Read more here.
Actually, speaking of mud, in 1978 or maybe 1979, I was a part-time reporter for the Halifax Chronicle-Herald, working my way through university and covering everything from local municipal politics to boy scout jamborees to, yes, folk festivals. And one humid, soggy weekend I spent at the Atlantic Folk Festival writing about that event for the paper. And man, it rained. It was wet, wet, wet. On the Saturday night, the headline act was Valdy (remember, this was -- geez -- 30 years ago.) So Valdy comes out and surveys the sodden crowd and talks a bit and everyone's mood brightens. And then he launched into one of his songs and the rain kept falling and in the middle of the song he started singing "Rain, Rain Go Away" and be damned if the rain didn't slow down and then stop. And by the time he finished the clouds broke and the setting sun was actually lighting up the sky and there was a spectacular sunset and . . . well, it was just a cool moment on an otherwise wet and lamentable weekend. Maybe Jim Cuddy has the same magic. - - - Hey, if you were planning on trying to catch Roger Federer at the Rogers Cup . . . you should have gone last night. He was bounced in the first round. Not good. More here.
July 23, 2008 It's raining sports. Actually, it's raining rain, which is playing havoc with some of the sports, but if you live within complaining distance of downtown Toronto this may be the busiest week on the calendar in 2008 for sports nuts. Not sure what to do? Come to Glen Abbey and watch Fred Couples and the rest of the PGA Tour pros at the Canadian Open. After the golf, head for north Toronto and the Rogers Cup tennis, and try to get in to see Federer or Nadal.
If the rain keeps coming down, head for the Care for some footy? Come see the Major League Soccer all-star game featuring poster boy David Beckham and a whole bunch of other fairly talented guys. That's a pretty full week on the sporty calendar. If you wanted to do all of those events you better have deep pockets and a week off. Ready, set, go! Read more on Toronto's most excellent sporting week here. - - - The Globe and Mail has an interesting take on the life of a PGA golfer today. Yes, I know we all think it's slavish devotion to the basic food groups (beer, wings, natchos, red meat and chocolate) and an exercise regime that includes paying someone to tie your shoes. Actually, nothing could be further from the truth. Most of the players today are true athletes who train and practice daily for hours looking to develop an edge that will propel them to greatness. The difference between great and losing your tour card is basically about two -- maybe three some days -- strokes a round, at most. A guy who can shoot 69 or 70 every day and sometimes go low will get rich. A guy who struggles to shoot 71 or 72 and sometimes goes higher will not be on the tour long. Put another way: Red-hot Kenny Perry's stroke average so far this year is 69.4 and he's tops and has made $4.5 million this season. Todd Hamilton's is exactly two strokes higher, at 71.4. He's in 145th place and has made $380,000 -- which is nowhere near enough to be comfortable about your future as a touring pro. Cruel world. Read more here. - - - Last night, in between spending virtually my entire -- and I mean, ENTIRE -- evening trying (thus far unsuccessfully) to fix a home-based IT problem, my lovely wife sent me out to cook hamburgers in the rain and lightning. And she offered me an umbrella. "You want me to stand in the backyard, under a tree, in a lightning storm, with an umbrella over my head?" Do you think she was trying to tell me something? (She assured me she wasn't, because she said she really needs the computer problem straightened out.)
July 22, 2008 OK, I'm back. Thanks for visiting the site and keeping things tidy while I was away. I'm particularly impressed by the people who came back several times yesterday even after I said I wasn't going to be here til today. If I had t-shirts, you'd get one. But I don't, so you won't. Nonetheless, your loyalty is impressive. And I'll warn you now, nothing interesting has happened to me lately. No crazy airline stories. No lost luggage. No visit from Elvis. No interesting minor hockey buzz. Nada. So, read on at your peril. - - - My plans to zip off to Ottawa on Sunday went a little sideways for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was the weather. That was a goofy amount of rain which meant playing golf wasn't going to happen. Chris and I were up early and standing in a humid rink, and then I had to decide whether to stay or go and make a bunch of last-minute changes to reservations. So instead, I got up at 5a yesterday and hopped the shuttle to Ottawa where I did some business and still managed to squeeze in some golf, and got home just before midnight covered in sun screen and dead flies. Nothing says sexy like Coopertone and squished blackflies. And now it's back to the routine. Ottawa in summer can be a fairly spectacular spot. Lots of green space, an amazing network of bike paths, the rivers, the downtown architecture, and as Springsteen would say, the girls in their summer clothes. And lunking, oversized, middle-aged white guys dragging golf clubs off the lunking, oversized baggage section at the airport. On balance it was a good day, although I did miss the finale of Swamp Hockey 2008, as well as a midget 1 lacrosse practice (which I have to confess in my heart of hearts, I didn't really "miss" in the yearning-to-have-been-there kind of way. I missed it in the someone-else-can-drive-you-home-from-practice kind of way.) - - - My dad and Mick Jagger share a birthday later this week. Mick is younger than my dad but other than that, well, they're two peas in a pod, those guys. Mick is turning 65. - - - Since I didn't go to Ottawa on Sunday I did watch most of the final round of The Open Championship, and like a lot of other people I was hoping Greg Norman would have something in the tank for a few more hours of magic. And even though he was the leader early on the back nine of the final round, it just was not to be and the 53-year-old swing (and brain) cracked under the pressure. The right guy won -- Padraig Harrington was the most deserving of those left standing -- but the end was something less than compelling. More on Greg Norman here. - - - Otherwise, there's just not a lot cooking right now or anything I feel compelled to comment on or otherwise mock or satire. The Canadian Open begins on Thursday, assuming Glen Abbey isn't underwater like it is now. The soggy grounds make the prospect of walking around the course and tracking the performance of future hall of famers like Cliff Kresge somewhat less appealing than it might otherwise be. OK. So maybe I can still be a little sarcastic. It's no secret that the Canadian Open's scheduling a week after the British Open does nothing to encourage the top golfers in the world to come to Oakville. A major is a grind. A major on the other side of the ocean is a bigger grind. But having said that, there will be some interesting names at Glen Abbey. Like Fred Couples. Mark Calcavecchia. Ben Curtis. Steve Elkington. Jim Furyk. Retief Goosen. Todd Hamilton. Lee Janzen. Larry Mize. Corey Pavin. Bob Tway. Mike Weir. All of those guys have won majors. Couples, Furyk, and Goosen are big draws, Furyk is the 10th ranked player on the planet and two-time defending champ. Weir and Stephen Ames will carry the bulk of Canadian hopes for a home-side win. And the fact is that even the B-list and C-list players who fill out the field in events like this in between the season's final majors are very, very talented. They don't let chumps play in PGA Tour events (I asked.) But if the grounds don't dry out if might not be a great way to spend a chunk of your weekend. I'm predicting Retief Goosen will win. Stephen Ames will have a top-five finish. Pad and I attended the open the last time it was in Oakville, because I've always said the only way I'd go to a PGA event is if they play it on my street. Close enough. Read a flashback piece on the 2004 open and Mike Weir's playoff loss here. No disrespect to the RCGA, but the real star power in Toronto this week is at the Rogers Cup tennis event with -- you guessed it -- Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal both in the draw. That would be like Tiger and Phil hitting flop wedges in my backyard. Read more on the Rogers Cup here. - - - Mimico eliminated the Oakville Buzz on the weekend, so the Buzz season is over. I may go to Glen Abbey and just sit there by myself on Friday nights for a couple of weeks to try and ease out of the habit. The Buzz had a strong regular season but injuries seem to have taken a toll -- and there are lots of injuries in lacrosse -- over the playoffs. Wait till next year . . . - - - The midget 1 Hawks practice again tonight, then host Halton Hills tomorrow night. Is it just me, or are we always playing Halton Hills? Last game before provincials is next Wednesday night in Brampton. The season is winding down, just in time for the town to put the ice back into the rinks.
July 21, 2008 Too busy to be witty so, regular posting to resume tomorrow. Maybe, probably. Have a great day.
July 18, 2008 It was a humid, hot evening last night and Pad was scheduled to referee three lacrosse games -- a peanut (little, little kids) game, novice rep and bantam rep. I dropped him off at Glen Abbey for the peanut game and said I'd be back for the next two games (I know kids on the novice and bantam team and like to watch and talk to the parents.) So after the night is over at 9p, Pad is hot and tired but in a good mood. I ask if the games went well and if there were any problems (from watching the novice and bantam games, things seem to have been very smooth.) He said it was great, except for the peanut game, during which the coaches did little else than yap, chirp and scream at the refs. Remember, these are grown men yelling at14 year olds. Constantly. In a game with five and six year olds. That doesn't count or matter. Peanut lacrosse is the equivalent of Timbit hockey. It's an introduction to the sport. It's meant to be fun. It is not competitive. There's very, very little that can happen to create controversy because the skill sets are not there. It's mostly kids chasing a small bouncing ball. But anyone who has been to a rink or ball field or soccer field knows that age is no barrier to parents acting like morons. Fortunately, my kid is blessed with a very smart head and really good coping skills. His solution? "Oh, I'm never reffing a peanut game again." I don't blame him, either. Nice going coaches. Chasing young referees away from the game is a really terrific outcome. You should be really pleased. Perhaps some of you will go out and take the courses and invest the time to become referees so you can save everyone the bother -- that way, you could just scream at yourselves. But you won't, which is probably just as well for the rest of us. Clowns. - - - Still with lacrosse, a wild turn of events in the junior A lacrosse playoffs. After the fuss that encompassed the junior B Oakville-Akwesasne series, there was some anticipation about what the Burlington-Akwesasne junior A series might bring (Oakville and Burlington are affiliated teams.) Burlington lost game one on the road, then lost again at home Wednesday night - - - UNTIL it was discovered Akwesasne used two ineligible players in game two, and they forfeited. And then Burlington won last night at home, so suddenly a series that they trailed 2-0, they lead 2-1, heading back east for game four. Wild. - - - Meanwhile the Buzz face elimination tonight in Mimico, trailing 2-1 in their series. More on that series here. - - - Well, yesterday I predicted that if the weather was bad the golfers at The Open would be fodder for the blender. I was right. I also predicted that Mickelson would have a bad day and Els would be brilliant. I was half right -- they both sucked, with Phil carding a 79 and Ernie an 80 (both, in their defence, in awful conditions that awaited the early tee times.) Vijay Singh also shot 80. Mike Weir was a good news story, firing a solid 71 in moderating weather, and 53-year-old newlywed Greg Norman (who married tennis icon Chris Evert after settling his divorce to his ex-wife by giving her $103 million) was also near the top. And then there was Rocco Mediate, who shared top spot. Rocco says nothing this week -- even winning -- could top his experience at the US Open last month where he lost to Tiger Woods in an 18-hole playoff. But I bet he'll change his tune if he's holding the claret jug on Sunday. How cool would that be? - - - Remarkably, I don't think we have any "scheduled" events on Saturday, so I expect I'll be otherwise occupied doing things with the boys and maybe -- maybe -- sleeping a little later than 6a. Sunday will see some early morning shinny for Chris and then then I have to bolt to Ottawa for two days of meetings, which kind of punches a hole in a summer weekend. The plan is to squeeze some golf in too, so I'm hoping the weather cooperates. - - - So, a man walks into a doctor's office and complains that he's not feeling well. After the examination the doctor tells him not to be too concerned, he just has a touch of Tom Jones Disease. "Tom Jones Disease!" exclaims the man. "Is it rare?" The doctor replied: "It's not unusual . . . "
Have a good weekend everyone.
July 17, 2008 Midget 2 Hawks dumped Mimico 8-1 last night in a game that could charitably be called uneventful. Pretty much took an entire period for the Hawks to come to life and they didn't look sharp against a clearly weaker opponent. - - - The Open Championship starts today and the weather is supposed to be iffy. If it is, expect the golf course to do to the players what blenders do to tomatoes. It might not be pretty. In the first Tigerless major in more than a decade it will be interesting to see what sort of drama is generated for Sunday. I picked Ernie Els to win and Phil Mickelson to explode. - - - Speaking of golf, I showed Laura the new Taylor Made r580 driver. She asked if I got funny looks bringing it home on the train. Funny looks? Are you insane? "Guys looked at me like Jessica Simpson was sitting on my lap." - - - It's the time of year where you might see a lot of dads teaching a lot of teens how to drive. It never really occurred to me, but I guess with slower schedules and better weather, that only makes sense and if I cast my mind back 70 years, that's when my dad first let me drive his car (with him in it.) In the parking lot of the Monastery Bakery yesterday there was a young woman in a minivan with her dad. He was pointing at the mirrors and showing her how to adjust them to suit her and she had that look -- she was hanging on every word. You could just tell and you could see the excitement and anticipation. When I came out of the store she was still there, now holding the steering wheel in a death grip locked in the prescribed two-o'clock/10 o'clock position. If Bo Bo Brazil <obligatory time-stamped reference to something from my youth> showed up and tried to move her off that wheel, he would have been slapped down into a pulp. If you see kids out there learning to drive, be patient, give them the benefit of the doubt, and treat them the way you would have liked to have been treated when you were 16. And if you're 16, remember it's a car, not a weapon. - - - I know there's a God, and I know He has a sense of humour. Because why else would the Detroit Red Wings be raising their 2008 Stanley Cup banner on Oct. 9, at home, when they host . . . you guessed it, the Toronto Maple Leafs. He's mocking us. And who could blame Him, really. Read more here (about the Wings, not Him.) - - - Back to lacrosse for a moment for this week's feel-good story. Unlike hockey, rep lacrosse teams don't play in a league, per se. Basically everyone plays a schedule of exhibition games and at the end of that you are evaluated and slotted into a category for the provincial championship tournament. So what always happens is that a team like the midget 2 Hawks, for example, will inevitably play teams that are much stronger and some that are much weaker. The big thinkers then use these results to slot teams into a competitive level (A, B, C, or D) for provincials. Usually, the decisions make sense in about 80 per cent of the cases and the other 20 per cent leaves parents wondering if they are on crack. But that's another story. The point of this story is that sometimes there are mismatches, some much worse than last night's midget Oakville-Mimico game. And this is the story of one such mismatch between the novice Kitchener Braves and Elora Mohawks. Sometimes the games are lessons in themselves because sometimes, it's not about the score. Occasionally it's about having the awareness to recognize that the other guys are doing the best they can, and showing more character than you are, even in losing. It's respecting them for that, and respecting the traditions of the game. You can read more here.
July 16, 2008 The Buzz lost 8-4 to Mimico in junior B lacrosse last night and now face the prospect of their season ending Friday night in Mimico. The home team was down 2-0 after the first 100 seconds and it was pretty much an uphill battle after that. They did manage to knot the game at 3-3, but undisciplined play led to some really dubious penalties and . . . well, you can't do that in the playoffs and the final score shows you why. With the score 7-4 and about five minutes left, me and a couple of other dads started a pool on when, exactly, the first fight of the game would occur. The dad of one of Pad's midget Hawk teammates came within about 15 seconds of nailing it, and I missed out on calling the time of the second fight by about 20 seconds. The ritual in junior B lacrosse seems to be that if you're losing by three or more goals late in the game, you start fights. The Buzz didn't win those, either. The first one went to the Mimico player, the second was a draw. An odd statistic on the Buzz and Mimico: last night was the sixth time this year the two teams have played and the home team has yet to win a game. The Buzz are hoping that stat holds up on Friday night. - - - There was a big crowd at the game last night, many of them minor lacrosse teams who came to support the home side. And during the warm up the fans got treated to watching one of the Buzz personnel walking on the arena floor and chewing tobacco, and spitting repeatedly into a clear bottle. Now, there's a role model for the kids. To me, nothing isolates a commitment to athletics like a mouth full of chewing tobacco and a bottle of cold spit. Very classy. I'm sure it was inspirational to all the kids in the stands. Tobacco, it seems, plays an integral role in junior lacrosse. Several of the Mimico players were outside smoking between periods of the game. Hey, it worked for Guy Lafleur, who smoked between periods of Canadiens' games. What do I know, right? - - - The midget 2 Hawks faceoff against Mimico tonight at home at 9p, Glen Abbey. There will be no tobacco. The Hawks have two more games after tonight before provincials in Hamilton Aug. 8-10.
July 15, 2008 Monday is usually the biggest day for traffic to this site. And when I say usually, I mean always. Except yesterday. Traffic was down noticeably, more than I would have thought given recent traffic patterns, even for a slow time like July. Then I started getting emails from readers asking why my site had been taken off line. Had I given up the blog without so much as a goodbye? Um, no. Turns out there was a big explosion and underground fire at a construction site in downtown Vancouver early in the afternoon eastern time. Among many other inconveniences, it also knocked out all the power, including the power to the company that owns the servers that host my site. So, all was dark here for several hours during the afternoon and early evening. For me, that's no big deal. But I'm sure there are others with contracts with that firm whose sites are significantly more significant commercially and corporately than mine. I bet they are not having a great day managing those clients today. - - - Everyone arrived home last night, tired from the journey but in great spirits and sporting nice tans. Chris was especially happy to be home and chattered endlessly about not just what he had done for the last 11 days, but what he wanted to do before leaving for NS again in August. Golf. Fishing. Summer hockey. Sleepovers. Fishing. Did I mention fishing? Pad retreated to the basement and his guitars, and Laura and I just kinda hung out and watched the home run derby at Yankee Stadium. Yes, the romantic in me is timeless. - - - I note that the leash-free dog park on Neyagawa Drive north of Dundas is now gone, replaced by a big sign touting the site of the new Oakville North park -- four ice pads, soccer fields, and more. The site looks like surveying is well underway. On with the show, as they say. Site prep and construction seems imminent. - - - The Globe and Mail is running a series of reader-contributed essays this week on various recollections of summer, called Lost Summers. It's quite good and today's offering, here, struck a chord with me. It is about two friends who would start each day as a blank slate: no agenda, no bagged lunch, no programmed events. Long-time readers are now rolling their eyes waiting for me to riff on the sepia-coloured memories of summer spent in Windsor Junction, wandering from lake to stream to sandlot to wooded hiding place. I think I'll save that for another day, but yes, I could go on and on. Those days were not perfect -- as a teen I chaffed at the isolation of the place -- but in fairness, it was pretty good. But I will inflict one quick recollection upon you, saving the deeper stuff about the humid August nights for another time. Last week while everyone in my house was away, a local grocer had a special on berries. Any combination of three containers of blueberries, raspberries or blackberries for $5. I bought $10 worth, which is a lot of berries for one guy, even me. The recollection in this instance is of the towering maze of blackberries bushes behind my aunt's house, practically next door to us back in Windsor Junction. A quick walk down the rock wall through the woods behind our property, then a hard right turn into "first field" (there were three fields, each further away into the woods and more mysterious than the previous) and on the eastern perimeter of the field just past the old apple trees were the blackberries. They hung like dark golf balls, all you had to do was shake the bush (carefully so as not to skewer your fingers on the thorns) and they would tumble off. Or so I recall. I was not much of a berry picker -- I was more of a consumer. My sisters were far better at it than me. But nonetheless those berries were almost a miracle of summer. I asked my parents the other night if the bushes are still there, and they are. But encroaching civilization and suburban sprawl means there are more people competing for those berries. They are a hard secret to keep. One needs to step lively, or risk finding nothing left at all. A shame, that. More than once my lunches were entirely foregone because of a late morning splurge spent gorging at the blackberry bushes, shooing away the hornets and plotting the next big adventure for the afternoon with a cousin. My kids, I will admit, have jam-packed schedules that often require bringing a bagged lunch. They are a necessity of city life. Parents work, kids get restless, and running around an urban area left to their own devices is not an option. The weeks of summer spent in Nova Scotia are a chance to get out from under that routine. They know how lucky they are and we're already looking ahead to our annual week in Ingonish in Cape Breton Highlands National Park. Here's hoping you and your kids get a chance to explore somewhere before the leaves turn and winter pushes aside those vacation blue skies. Don't be afraid to try the blackberries for lunch. - - - Game three, Oakville Buzz vs. Mimico Mountaineers tonight at Glen Abbey, 8p. Pad will be working the door, I'll be in my usual place. Go Buzz. - - - The baseball all star break is a summer highlight for me -- just because it reminds me it's summer. Sadly, one of the ballplayers from my youth who I followed with interest died on the weekend. Bobby Mercer, former Yankee outfielder and long-time broadcaster, was 62. As a kid I had Bobby Murcer's baseball card and I always thought the guy looked like a perfect ballplayer with the perfect baseball name. In a weird bit of synchronicity that seems typical of a legendary franchise like the Yankees, Alex Rodriguez hit his 537th career home run on Sunday to pass Mickey Mantle on the all-time list. Murcer -- who died just hours earlier -- had succeeded Mantle in centre field for the Yanks and was always dubbed "the next Mickey Mantle," a label no man should have had to wear, especially in New York. Anyway, Murcer may not have been Mantle (off the field, he was better), but he was still a great player and was much loved. Five-time all star, Gold Glove winner Murcer delivered the eulogy at the June 1979 funeral of Yankee captain Thurman Munson, who had died in a plane crash. All the Yankees attended then flew from Canton, Ohio, to New York for a game that night that no one wanted to play. From The Times' obituary:
Read more about Murcer's life here.
July 14, 2008 After 11 sun-soaked days in Cape Breton on the shores of East Bay of Bras d'Or Lake (it's actually an inland sea), my family returns to southern Ontario later today, just in time for more heat and smog in the days ahead. I expect they will be sporting tans, smiles and Cape Breton accents. I'll be glad to have the company around home. Parts of the weekend were spent returning the house to some order -- general tidying, clearing out newspapers and pizza boxes, stocking up on fruits, milk, and things for them to eat. All the laundry is done. All the beds are changed. I'm ready. I think. - - - Because he was in Nova Scotia, Patrick missed the midget 2 Hawks jaunt down the 401 then south past Kingston to Sackett's Harbor, NY. I'm told the team had a lot of fun, if not a lot of success. They dropped three of four games to older US teams. And, just to make things even better, it rained non-stop all day Sunday for the field games. Lovely. Sorry I missed it. Um. Sincerely. Really. - - - I repeated my home-alone ritual Sunday of going to the driving range, going to the grocery store, and then going to a movie. Yesterday's pick was Hancock, with Will Smith. Very entertaining, but not on the level of Iron Man. Still, it's summer. Lot's of action, some laughs and good overall entertainment. Some language, if that offends you. Last night on TMN On Demand, I watched The Last King of Scotland. Very powerful insider view of the regime of former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. Parental discretion advised. Do I know how to have fun? - - - The Oakville Buzz evened their Ontario junior B playoff series with Mimico at a game apiece, with a 9-8 road win last night. I didn't go, but I'm guessing it was entertaining. Game three is Tuesday night at Glen Abbey. Yes, I'm going. - - - Kenny Perry won the PGA stop in Illinois yesterday, his third win of the season -- his third win in his last five starts. He is, for the moment, the unlikely poster boy for the Tigerless Tour. At 47, he's of a vintage that at least one Oakville blogger can relate to (me). And there's an interesting story behind Perry's career. Even though he's now won a dozen times on the PGA tour and collected more than $25 million in prize money, there was a time when the road ahead wasn't all that clear or rosy. No, 21 years ago he was married with two small kids and he was broke. He had failed to crack the PGA Tour in two previous attempts and he lacked the money for the entrance fee to make one last run at it. A church elder in Perry's hometown of Franklin, Ky., agreed to lend him the money -- with one condition. If Perry failed, the loan would be forgiven. He would not owe a penny. But, if he made the Tour, he had to agree to donate five per cent of everything he would earn on tour to David Lipscomb University, a small Christian college in Nashville. Hundreds of kids have gone to university with their tuition paid, in full or in part, by Kenny Perry. Sounds like a sweet deal for everyone. Read more here. - - - They crowned a new Miss Universe last night. Have you ever noticed (to use a joke from some comedian whose name I honestly forget) that someone from Earth always wins? One would think the green women from Mars and the one-eyed babes of Saturn might have had enough of this lop-sided judging. Earth rules, I guess. For the second year in a row, the American candidate fell down during the formal wear part of the show -- take whatever symbolism from that you can find. Miss Venezuela won. If you really care, you can read more here, plus see video of a handsome woman slipping and falling.
July 13, 2008 I went to watch the Oakville Buzz junior B lacrosse game last night, and it wasn't a great night for the home team. They lost 8-6 to Mimico. Now, on the one hand, the biggest factor in the win for Mimico was the play of their goalie, who stopped a lot of rubber. He was the difference and the no-brainer first star. And to give credit, the Oakville goalie was almost as good, making several highlight reel saves while desperately waiting for his team to score some goals. It seemed to me that the Buzz out shot the Mountaineers (lord that's a ridiculous nickname for a team from Mimico) but all the energy in the building emanated from the Mimico bench. Their kids were pumped up, excited and ready to play. There's an axiom in lacrosse -- run on, run off. Meaning you sprint onto the floor at the start of your shift and you sprint off at the end. Even when the Buzz had closed the gap to 7-6 with a couple of minutes left, the shift changes lacked the urgency of a team trying to win a game. But, what do I know, right? The two teams go at it again tonight in Mimico. I'm not going. I don't want to risk navigating those tricky mountain passes at night. - - - In addition to giving my new driver a workout yesterday, I also went to see the new movie, I, Ron Man! No, wait. It's Iron Man. Quite seriously it ranks among the best movies I've seen in a couple of years. It is certainly an action movie, but it is much, much more than just an action movie. Robert Downey Jr. simply jumps off the screen with his portrayal of the tormented genius behind the mask. Gwyneth Paltrow does a sexy turn on the Miss Moneypenny-to-James-Bond thing as Downey's seemingly mousey assistant. Jeff Bridges deserves an Oscar nomination for his role as Downey's mentor and secret double-dealing evil doer. No bad language. No nudity or sex. Lots of violence and stuff blowing up. This is a can't miss winner if you're looking for a movie. - - - TMN On Demand is a wonderful thing when you're home alone. Other movies I watched, or tried to watch, too late in the evenings over the last week: Superbad: Funny, proverbial coming-of-age flick in suburbia about teens in the timeless pursuit of sex and beer. Many good moments, but no danger of comparisons to Felini. Dream Girls: Terrific film tracking the rise to fame of The Supremes, based on the stage show. Lots of singing and dancing. Nothing blows up. Eddie Murphy like you've never seen him. Evan Almighty: I found this one oddly charming and whimsical, even if the premise -- God picks the protagonist to build an ark -- is a bit goofy. Steve Carell is clearly very talented. Sorry if I'm late to this parade. Good family viewing. Grindhouse: God awful to the point of unwatchable, and I bailed out. Quentin Tarantino & Robert Rodriguez wrote the two horror flicks that make up the double header in this one. I couldn't think of a single redeeming feature of either. Simply too stupid for words, it would appear this work is the inevitable result of guys with too much clout and too much money having too much time. Smart guys keep people around them to say stuff like, "this is a really bad idea." Quentin needs a few of those guys. Mr. Bean's Holiday: I tried. Gave up after 17 minutes. The charms of Rowan Atkinson are lost on me, but I acknowledge his fans are legion. I'm just not one of them. - - - At the Ontario provincial lacrosse "A" qualifying tournament: Oakville peewee Hawks are 1-2-1 through yesterday. Oakville midget 1 Hawks are 1-3-0. - - - The midget 2 Hawks are on site in Sackett's Harbor, NY. One family got all the way past Pickering and discovered they forgot their passports and had to return home. Same family got to the hotel last night to discover their reservation was lost, their confirmation number wasn't in the system, the mom needed a drink and got carded at the restaurant. Last communication last night was that they love their kid, but they are starting to love whiskey more. And I'm missing it!! Later all. Off to the range.
July 11, 2008 Grey, rainy, dreary day here in the shadow of the big tower, but in my little corner of the world, we needed rain. Everything looks greener already, but that may simply be because the crud has been washed off the leaves. - - - A couple of local hockey notes: - - MOHA and Mitron have reached agreement to terminate their 12-year relationship. During that time, Mitron served as the template for the training regime for MOHA's rep teams. The agreement with Mitron -- set to expire April 4, 2008 -- was renewed for another three years in March, but the agreement was never taken to the board. After the association election in May (and subsequent resignations, another election, more resignations, etc. etc.) the board voted on June 24 to terminate the agreement. Agreement was reached shortly afterwards with Mitron, who agreed to release the association from the contract with a couple of minor stipulations -- that some training manuals that had been ordered be paid for, and that Mitron's name be removed from the association's August hockey camp. Details are expected next week on the August camp and who the head instructor will be, but the camp will go forward.
- - Also, I'm told that MOHA is in the process of finalizing -- for want of a better description, and these are my words -- a mentoring panel for the association's coaches, to be made up of some very qualified local hockey people with elite-level credentials -- ie, former NHLers, people with international experience, etc. The panel would help design a hockey program for the rep level while offering advice and oversight. For now, it's wait and see on what that will look like, but it sounds terrific.
- - Still with MOHA, I'm also told the association is considering changes to the honoraria it pays to volunteers, though the change would be limited only to eliminating "term bonuses" for executive members. Convener honoraria (full disclosure: as a convener last year I was given $360 by the association) would remain in place as a goodwill incentive to keep volunteers interested. The "term bonuses" for executive members basically increased their basic honoraria by $500 annually for every completed term. That is what is headed for the chopping block, I'm told. As I have outlined here before (in May) the president of MOHA is entitled to receive $6000 in honoraria. The rep VP $3500, the house VP, $5000 and the treasurer $2000. - - - OK, so THIS is the weekend that the midget 2 lacrosse Hawks are off to Sackett's Harbor, NY. I screwed up the dates last weekend. My Hawk is still sleeping, eating, swimming and swinging his way through Cape Breton with his brother and won't be there, so neither will I. But good luck to the team, and safe travels. - - - The Oakville Buzz open their conference semi final against Mimico on Saturday night at Glen Abbey, 7p. These two teams were very evenly matched during the regular season so the series shapes up to be a winner. If you can, come out and make some noise and support the Buzz. They advanced to this round with a 3-2 series win over Akwesasne in the opening round. - - - I didn't buy any more golf clubs or otherwise spend money on eBay yesterday. The counseling seems to be paying off. But really -- have you seen the price of golf balls on eBay? Why would anyone ever buy retail?!! Have a great weekend everyone. I may or may not scribble on the weekend but since weekend traffic in July falls way off from weekday levels, I won't be losing sleep if I don't. Meanwhile if you're driving or boating instead of staring at a computer screen, stay safe. Hug your kids. Enjoy the summer. Get outside!
July 10, 2008 The evening kind of got away from me last night so I never made it to the midget Hawks game. I'm guessing that somehow, they managed without me. But the evening wasn't completely without merit. I successfully landed a brand new set of Callaway X20 irons on eBay, for less than half the advertised sale price at a major golf retailer. So, that's two eBay golf purchases this week, and Laura's not back for a few more days yet. Who know what else I might find? Maybe some weapons-grade plutonium? Think of the BBQ I could have! With a new driver and a new irons, I plan to go over to Glen Abbey today and pay my $25 to enter the Open. That's how it works, right? Right?? - - - Yesterday, I pointed out that the brainy sales wizards at Bell and Telus decided it would be a smart thing to start charging people for incoming text messages. Meaning, that even if you don't want the message, you pay for it. Smart business or short-sighted, craven cash grab? You decide. But if dummies like me are well aware that spam text messages are going to be part of the next big thing in digital direct marketing -- click here for a really depressing overview of the ways you are going to get digitally carpet bombed with advertising -- you can be darn sure the smart guys at Bell and Telus know. So it's a short leap from there to think, "gee, how do we turn an annoyance for our customers into a revenue opportunity for us?" And presto, you get a fee added for incoming text messages. The fact is, some of the smartest guys out there will tell you with a straight face that the biggest misstep in the development of the Internet was not instituting a fee for every email sent -- even a micropayment of a fraction of a penny per email would translate into hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars annually. It's called foregone revenue. So, maybe they think they don't want to make that mistake again. Anyway, yesterday I boldly predicted that people had not heard the last of this. And, oddly, for once I was right. Federal Industry Minister Jim Prentice has decried the fees, and further has written to the CEOs of Bell and Telus to do some 'splainin'. The damage done by negative coverage of this announcement will take a lot more to undo than a couple of Beavers yammering at me about great deals. Read more here. Telcos love getting questions from the Industry Department. I just know it. - - - It's the moment every reader of this blog has been waiting for. No, I'm not retiring or giving up typing. It's the OTHER moment you've been waiting for. The chance to nominate someone you know as the Most Mediocre Canadian. Go ahead. Vote for me. In a town of plenty, I think I'm pretty ordinary. You think you're ordinary? Ha! I mock your ordinariness and trump you with banalities. Anyway, it's a funny site. Check it out here and nominate someone really ordinary if you want, or just check out who's already been nominated. - - - I've already raved about the men's Wimbledon final ad nausem, so just for balance here's a different take on it. And actually, it's not on tennis alone. The piece, from the LA Times, asks an interesting question. Summarized, it is thus: Twenty years after the Ben Johnson humiliation, and all that followed from Barry Bonds and steroid addled ballplayers and HGH fuelled Tour de France winners and on and on and on . . . the question is, can we ever really trust a moment of seemingly pure, athletic magic -- like that witnessed in London on Sunday -- at face value? Or will we, and every other generation after us automatically assume the athletes are cheating but just haven't been caught? It's a depressing, sobering question for all of us who truly love sport and athletics. And sadly, I think the guy has a point. Read more here. - - -
Musical interlude: with everyone away, I've taken advantage of the time
and empty house (Spike the Beta fish notwithstanding) to take some of
the kid's music, put it on my iPod and And I have to say, I really like some of it. Linkin Park and Three Days Grace are bordering on fabulous. I recommend Linkin Park's Meteroa CD, and One-X by Three Days Grace. I'm also listening -- in bits and pieces -- to Seether and Saliva, and even -- hold the phone -- some rap, including Kanye West, Baby Bash, Mannie Fresh, Fort Minor and 50 Cent. I am under no illusion that this makes me cool. It's tough to defend a position of "cool" relative to rap music when you're jazzed about new Callaway irons. Because nothing says "ghetto culture" like spiffy new irons. But I also think it's not a bad idea to try new things on for size sometimes, and to listen to the messages your kids are listening to in music. Change is good, and sometimes parental awareness is better than parental guidance. Some of it stinks. Some of it's brilliant. And there's lots in between. So, like. Yo! Try it.
July 9, 2008 Last summer me, Pad and a buddy there who I play golf with when we're home trekked to Golf Town near Halifax. I'd never been there before but for guys (and gals too) who like golf, it's a quite a toy box. My friend bought a couple of new clubs -- hybrid irons -- and once he started using them he declared they were so easy to hit, it was like cheating. So, fast forward to last night and me sprinting to the range to test drive my new 400cc Taylor Made driver. Bear in mind that the clubs in my bag now were bought when Ronald Reagan was president and Quebec and Winnipeg had NHL teams. After warming up through the low irons, I pulled out the big club. The first few drives were nothing special. And then, like a burglar feeling the tumblers on the vault's lock fall into place, things started to click. Effortless swings produced (by my low standards) great shots. I was giddy. Whether I can capture the magic on a course remains to be seen, as many a golfer has won a green jacket on the range only to lose it come Show Time. I am currently stalking a set of Callaway irons, because the driver confided in me that it is lonely and the irons in my bag are a bit geriatric for its tastes. And the driver must be obeyed. At least until Laura gets home next week. - - - The Oakville Buzz beat Aksesasne 12-7 in Clarington last night to win their opening round junior B lacrosse series 3-2. The action in the boardrooms was almost as heated as the action on the floor in this series, which is why the deciding game was played in neutral territory. It's a complex story of he-said, he-said. Read more on that here. The midget 2 Hawks are in action tonight at home, hosting Mimico Mountaineers. Yes, the mountains of Mimico. Who hasn't ridden the GO train into Toronto from the west and marveled at the alpine vistas of Mimico . . .(EDS note: enough already!!) Actually, I think they play Brampton, come to think of it. Right. anyway, I may wander over if I'm back from the range and the Taylor Made says it's ok. The driver must be obeyed. - - - Still with golf, the Canadian Open -- which starts two weeks from tomorrow practically across the street from my house at Glen Abbey -- will feature more than just golf this year. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights will feature concerts for Open ticketholders. Thursday night is Blue Rodeo, Friday is 54-40, and Saturday is Oakville resident Tom Cochrane with Red Rider. Read more here. - - - The Leafs have hired three-time cup winner Joe Nieuwendyk as a special assistant to the general manager. Never mind that they haven't actually hired a general manager yet -- you negative thinkers, there's just no pleasing you. I have no problem with this hire, assuming people in the know see some hockey smarts there that can be exploited, the way several other on-ice stars have moved in recent years from the locker room to the front office, notably Steve Yzerman with the Wings, Brett Hull with the Stars, Al McInness with the Blues, Gretzky with the Coyotes, Cam Neely with the Bruins, Soctt Stevens in New Jersey, Ron Francis with Carolina and Mario Lemieux in Pittsburgh. But, really. Hire a friggin' GM already, OK? I'll bet dollars to donuts this whole "wait for Brian Burke" strategy, if that's what it is, will blow up in their faces. Wait and see. - - - I wrote on Monday about the Federer-Nadal final at Wimbledon. In an era where the media and especially TV hype everything as a classic for the ages, this one actually was, exceeding all expectations and setting a benchmark for drama we won't soon see again in tennis. The New York Times actually wrote a short editorial on the match -- I can't imagine when the last time was that the Times editorialized on a tennis game, but the moment was right and the Times fired an ace. As I said to a co-worker, I wish I had written that. It's pure poetry and succinctly says it all. It's worth your time to read it here. - - - Every now and then, phone companies and cable companies and the like do something really, really dumb to annoy their otherwise loyal customers. The decision -- oddly announced at the same time yesterday by Telus and Bell, if you like coincidences -- to start charging customers for incoming text messages, is one such decision. And the announcement by Rogers that it won't charge customers for this same thing is tactically brilliant. Wait and see. We have not heard the end of this one. Read more here. - - - The tragic events on the highway at Milton yesterday are a horrible and sobering reminder of what happens when cars are treated carelessly and stupidly become weapons in traffic. While the circumstances are still under investigation, one thing is clear. One man is dead, another's life is ruined, and the families of all involved are left to pick up the pieces of what is surely a completely needless and miserable tragedy. A few years ago I came the realization -- late in life, but I got there -- that it just doesn't matter whether I get to the hockey game in Guelph seven minutes faster, or to the lacrosse game in Whitby 15 minutes earlier. It just does not matter. It does not matter to me if the guy in the souped-up Civic wants the 20 feet of asphalt in front of me. He can have it. There is nothing you can do to me on a highway that is worth -- even remotely -- the safety of my cargo. Like my family. Like, frankly, me. And of course, my new Taylor Made driver. Drive like a maniac if you want. Enjoy life in lane four, five or six. I'll be in lane two or three. It's just not worth it. Slow down. Save money on gas. Save a life or two. Get there when you get there because no one will care what time it is if you kill yourself or someone else. Enjoy the summer. Hug your kids. Slow down. Details on the mess in Milton are here. - - - July 8, 2008 When I was a senior in high school, everyone in our biology class had to do some kind of a big year-end "project." Me and two other guys did ours on the Joggins fossil cliffs, and to this day it remains seared in my mind as one of the few truly worthwhile things I did in an otherwise lackluster academic high school performance. Perched on a cliff overlooking the Cumberland Basin and Chignecto Bay -- all part of the larger and better known Bay of Fundy, Joggins is famous for high tides and fossils. And boy, did we find fossils. Not that it was any special skill. Stevie Wonder could find fossils on that beach. But more spectacularly, you can look up at the cliffs and see fossils in the face of the cliff, a sort of time machine that takes you back 300 million years. Even three smart-alecky teenagers were impressed the to point of speechlessness. Too often science is remote and obscure and if you're lucky you might see a fossil in a classroom (no, not the teacher) the size of a loonie. In Joggins, I saw entire fossilized trees in the cliffs, and various fossilized varmints and critters with too many legs for my comfort, oftent the size of dinner plates or more. All this is relevant because yesterday the United Nations organization that does these things declared Joggins a World Heritage site -- the only other one in Nova Scotia is the old town of Lunenburg, and there are only 13 others in Canada. If you ever get the chance to see Joggins, it is worth it. It's way off the beaten path, there are no resort hotels or outlet malls. There are high tides, fossils and nice people. Read more here on yesterday's news. - - -
Well the cops finally busted Madame
Marie for tellin' fortunes better than they do
Regulars here know that I'm a big fan of Bruce Springsteen. A central figure in one of The Boss's most memorable songs, 4th of July Ashbury Park (Sandy), died on June 27. Madame Marie, a Jersey icon and Boardwalk soothsayer, was said to be in her 90s. The song was from Springsteen's early, pure rock n' roll days when he wrote often and passionately about the working class life on the Jersey shore. I've listened to this song -- correction, we've listened to this song -- so many times, in so many places, I can't begin to tell you. It's practically an anthem of coming of age and yearning to escape, as so many of Springsteen's songs are. Springsteen, upon learning of her death, said he often would sit with her on the boardwalk, and she told him his future looked pretty good. No lie there, Madame. Read more here. - - - I started the process of rebuilding my golf club collection -- if not necessarily my game -- yesterday by buying a Taylor Made driver off eBay. I pick it up today, and I'll be humiliating myself in sweltering conditions after work. The hunt continues for appropriately priced irons. EBay is a wonder, a potential world heritage site in my opinion. Better yet, the guy I bought the club from lives in Toronto and is meeting me downtown today -- so no shipping costs. Beauty. Meanwhile back in Cape Breton the boat is in the water and much of yesterday, under sunny skies, humid air and 30+ temperatures, was predictably spent in and on the water. The boys are having fun and sleeping late and the nightly calls are usually excited but short, as they are pretty bagged. To extend the Springsteen theme one last time: Glory Days.
July 7, 2008 I said it would be a classic, but I had no idea the Federer-Nadal showdown at Wimbledon would be a match that is destined to be recalled years from now as one of a small handful of the greatest tennis matches ever played. If you missed it, you really missed athletic greatness. It was a gigantic sporting event. And it may have been the beginning of the end of the Federer era. Whatever. It was fun to watch. With this win and last weekend's triumph at the Euro Cup, it's been a good week for Spain. Read more here. - - - Other than watching a gazillion hours of tennis on TV, my Sunday was quiet. I ventured out to the driving range to hit some balls and interact with other people for a couple of hours. But otherwise I was a lumpm remote control nearby, laptop open doing some emails, but nothing too strenuous. My boys participated in the annual Ben Eoin (pronounced BEN-YAWN) ritual of putting the dock in East Bay at their grandparents' place. I'm told the water was chilly, but they are in the grip of the same weather we have and that will change fast. Today, the boat goes in and more swimming -- the game is to leap from the dock into the bay, then run up the hill and jump into the much warmer pool, and repeat until bedtime -- to be followed by fishing. I asked Chris last night if he missed me and wished he was back home. He said um, yeah, I miss you dad, but I wish you were here. Good answer. Pad is sleeping late, eating, and generally behaving like a teen on vacation. Laura is at a convention at the other end of the province. And I'm sitting on a GO train that isn't moving. GO apologizes for any inconvenience.
July 6, 2008 I'm sitting here watching the men's Wimbledon final and browsing the Sunday Star. Yesterday and today, the Star is running an interesting series examining the near monopoly on beer sales in Ontario, virtually 100 per cent controlled by three large breweries that are in fact, owned by foreign brewers. Six in 10 Ontario residents surveyed think The Beer Store is owned by the provincial government, like the LCBO -- where you have to go to buy wine and spirits and overpriced six packs of beer. It's not -- it's owned by foreign-controlled breweries. It's a scandalous situation that the government allows a monopoly on retail beer and alcohol sales and there's no rationale reason for it. Imagine, as one Star story points out, if there was one place in Ontario to buy cars -- The Car Store, and it was owned by Ford and GM, people would not stand for it. It's pretty much the same thing. Make no mistake, The Beer Store is a model of efficiency, they boast one of the world's most successful recycling programs and they are good corporate citizens. But we live in a democracy, so why not allow competition? Why force me to buy my beer from the three multinationals with a vested interest in keeping competition low and prices high? Why can't I buy it at the store on the corner or Wal-Mart or any other retail outlet I want? A friend of mine is a blog reader and Beer Store executive, so I'm sure he's read the Star stories with interest. But at the risk of offending my friend, some observations based on my experience. Service at most Beer Stores is appallingly bad. You line up at a cash register with people returning their empties and wait and wait and wait. When it's your turn, you have to give your order and wait for someone to go into the back of the store and bring out your beer. Even in the few stores where you can pick up your own beer, the store layouts are horrible and inevitably lead to a bottleneck (no pun intended) at the cash. Usually, there is only one cash open, again handling both sales and bottle returns. Third, too many of the staff are young, poorly trained, glib and inattentive. They often seem more interested in shouting inanities back and forth at one another than doing their jobs. Yes, I'm making some generalizations here -- there are lots of dedicated employees who are helpful. But you remember the other ones. The culture on the retail floor of the Beer Store is not a good one. It is the culture of a place that knows you can't go anywhere else. So, I'm glad to see the Star shine a light on this. We lived in Alberta when Ralph Klein, in one of his first moves as premier, privatized alcohol sales, virtually overnight. In short order he also privatized the warehousing and distribution business. If the brewers wants to set up a retail store, they were welcome too, but so was anyone else. It wasn't exactly open season -- you had to apply for licences to sell and distribute alcohol -- but suddenly people had CHOICE. All the concerns expressed by the hand-wringers never came to pass -- teens weren't suddenly getting easy access to booze. Consumers got competition. What a novel concept. The main story in the Star series can be found here. It's called "The reason your beer costs more than it should" The second story is called, "Cornering the beer market." Click here for it. It's about people in Ottawa driving across the bridge to Quebec to buy the same beer at lower prices, in corner stores. The third story is on where small brewers fit in -- read it here. Click here to see a graphic showing where your dough goes for a 24 case of beer, and why in Quebec it can be up to $9 cheaper. Click here to see a graphic that breaks down who owns The Beer Store. It's interesting reading.
July 5, 2008 All that stuff I wrote yesterday about lacrosse and Sackett's Harbor? Never mind. It's NEXT weekend. I'll still be here, my kids will still be in Cape Breton, but Sackett's Harbor is NEXT weekend. Please resume regular programming. - - -
Busy day here. I'm doing laundry. The golf shorts are clean. Life on the
edge, baby. I may go to Poppycock!! It was good enough for Bobby Jones . . . - - - Me and the Swiss Chalet guy are back on a first-name basis. He was annoyed at first -- "you never call" etc etc. But we're back on good terms now. Never take the Swiss Chalet guy for granted. - - - Saturday is the slowest day of the week for blog traffic -- it's the day that most people do things other than sit in front of a computer. All I can say about that is, well, those people's families didn't leave them home alone and run off to Nova Scotia to eat lobster, swim, go boating and generally frolic (it's 26 and sunny today in Ben Eoin, NS, if anyone other than me cares. Ben Eoin is a suburb of Big Pond, and yes, it's as exciting there as it sounds, which is the entire attraction of the place.) Anyway, for those of you who bothered to check it today, here's a painful piece of Youtube video, from the French version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. It's cringe-worthy. It's hard to watch. It's a good explanation of why the French space program took years to get going and why it will probably never find the Moon. It's several minutes long, but it's worth it to see the translation, "Sophie's not happy." School teachers -- and I know there are several of you reading regularly -- you have to watch this right to the end. Without further fuss, I present le idiot. (Editor's note: the title of this Youtube entry is actually, Le Idiot. But that's not fair. Because when this chump used one of his lifelines and "asked the audience" a majority of them got it wrong, too. So, let's call it Les Idiots.) Hal, please queue the tape . . .
July 4, 2008 Americans are celebrating Independence Day today, but back in Windsor Junction, NS, there will be a celebration of a different stripe. The guy who is my oldest friend -- perhaps I should say, the friend I've known the longest -- is celebrating his birthday. Since his birthday is the 4th of July it was always easy to remember. And since he married a smarter, better looking person (spot a trend among Windsor Jct. guys?) who has the same birthday as him, it made it that much easier to remember. When we were younger we'd mark the day by heading to Queensland beach, whatever the weather, behaving poorly, eating a lot, sitting around a fire and and enjoying Nova Scotia in the summer. I hope they do that today. - - - If everyone were at home with me this weekend, I'd be excitedly telling you that my weekend plans revolved around a field lacrosse tournament in Sackett's Harbor, NY, on the eastern end of Lake Ontario. But since my kids are in Cape Breton, enjoying their grandparents' pool, helping put the dock in East Bay, and no doubt putting the boat in the water, I won't be watching field lacrosse this weekend. Good luck and safe travels to the midget 2 Hawks. I'll miss the boat tour of the Thousand Islands and the tour of the 1812 battlefield. Somehow, try to have fun without me. Maybe I'll just sleep in on Sunday! - - - Or, maybe I'll get up and watch tennis. I've told my boys on a couple of occasions that they live in an interesting era in sports history. Tiger Woods is the greatest golfer -- perhaps greatest athlete -- of his generation and he may yet be judged to be the greatest in history. Time will tell. This weekend, another candidate for world's greatest athlete will be going for a record. Roger Federer will attempt to win his sixth consecutive Wimbledon singles championship. No other athlete has done that in the modern era -- Bjorn Borg and Pete Sampras came close, but never got to six. I have played many sports (all badly) and I'd have to say that tennis is the hardest. Hitting -- with precision -- a ball travelling at 100 MPH while sprinting back and forth across a court while trying to guess where your opponent will next hit the ball requires a wide range of eye-hand co-ordination, fitness, mental discipline and concentration, not to mention the technical skills it takes to play the game at all. It's an individual sport. No one is there to bail you out. And depending upon the circumstances, it can go on for four or five hours. A round of PGA golf can last five hours, but the only time golfers run is to the bar after the game is over. Baseball fanatics like to say that the hardest thing in sport is hitting a baseball. Round ball, round bat, and you have to hit it square, etc. etc. Please. Baseball is fun. It's great to play. Fun to watch. And many of it's professional stars over the years have been in worse shape than men's league curling participants. Football? Great, great athletes mixed with major-appliance sized men with the mobility of boulders, and everyone gets a minute or two between plays to catch their breath. Among team sports, hockey, lacrosse, rugby and basketball require the biggest mix physical and athletic rigor. Soccer is on that list too. But none of those, in my view, match the athletic demands of tennis. Assuming Federer gets past Safin in today's semi final (and Safin literally said earlier this week he is no match for Federer) he will almost certainly face Rafael Nadal in Sunday's final. Nadal is a great, great player who desperately wants a Wimbledon championship on his resume. It should be a classic. The women's final on Saturday will be Williams vs. Williams, the first time sisters Serena and Venus have played in a major final since 2003, and the seventh time overall they've decided the outcome of a Grand Slam tournament. They have defined their generation's tennis for women. Read more here on Wimbledon. - - - Interesting day of NHL signings, with Markus Naslund signing with the Rangers. One would have to assume that that means the Rangers have no interest in waiting for Mats Sundin to decide what he wants to do, and they're out of that race. And it also means Jaromir Jagr is going to be going somewhere else, possibly Russia. Meanwhile the Pens sign Marc-Andre Fleury for seven years, and Rob Blake changes California ZIP codes, going from Los Angeles to San Jose. The Leafs continue to tinker, picking up Mikhail Grabovski from the Habs for a fifth rounder and next year's 2nd round pic. Read more on the Leafs' day here. A roundup of NHL signings is here.
July 3, 2008 (Updated) -- 9:53p. Home from golf/banquet etc. Great day spent in great company for a great cause (the Toronto Community Housing Corp.) We laughed and hacked and our foursome was a very respectable six under par (and that's gross, not net.) I'm going to have a couple Mexican sedatives (aka Corona) call my folks to see what's new then hit the rack. Back to the rat race Friday! PS -- the gang is all well in Cape Breton. Tired, but happy and well. - - - Short of time right now, but in light of pestering emails, here's a small offering: -- Drove to Orangeville for a 9p midget lacrosse game last night. Orangeville decides we'll play three 20 minute periods instead of the usual 15s. Normally I could care less, but since Pad has to be on a plane at 6:20a to Cape Breton (with his mother, brother, aunt and cousins -- no, it's not a personal charter, it just looks like one) it's going to cut into beauty sleep. -- Cape Breton cousins had large evening at Medieval Times. Everyone happy. -- In retribution for three 20s, we beat Orangeville 7-6. -- Get home at 11:45p. Have pizza for dinner. Go to bed. -- 3:30a. Get up. Walk into wall, act casual.. -- 3:36a. Other people walking into walls. No one happy. -- 4:30a. Drive to airport. Manage not to drive into any walls. Everyone deposited safely. -- 5:11a Drive home. -- 5:30a Await text message that everyone got through security etc ok. -- 5:32a Message arrives. -- 5:33a. Go back to bed. . -- 8:34a. Awakened by beeping Blackberry PIN message from reader asking why blog hasn't been updated. -- 8:35a. Throw Blackberry. -- 8:36a. Go back to sleep. -- 9:30a. Wake up. Shower, get message via BB that all is well on Cape Breton bound journey. In a GREAT mood. -- 10:12a. Discover that golf shorts I was told were clean and waiting for me, in fact, never washed. -- 10:13a to 10:24a: Walk through house looking for things to kick/clothes to wear. Mood in deep nose dive. -- 10:29a. Update blog.
I'm leaving shortly for a corporate golf thing I was invited to. I'll be the poorly dressed, rumpled-looking, tired, grumpy guy who can't hit the ball out of his shadow. I think that covers it. Today's Quote of the Day: "I obviously imagined that I washed them." -- well-known Oakville life partner/laundry guru
July 2, 2008 Another day without updating my drivel! It's becoming a trend, and I'm finding that writing nothing is much easier than writing tons. But I'm back on the GO Train. So . . . - - - "Shortly." See you "shortly." We'll be along "shortly." I'll deal with it "shortly." One thing that I've learned from the Invasion of the Cape Breton Cousins and the takeover of the house by women is that shortly takes on new meaning. And sadly for Chris yesterday, I made him pay the price! For me (and my famous pathological need to be early for events) shortly usually means, "immediately." It is not thus with the other gender. We were invited to spend Canada Day with friends at the country place north of the city. Golf. Swimming. Walking. Talking. Eating. It was to be a great day. Given that there are now seven of us in our house, and we had coolers and golf clubs and sundry other things to transport, we had to take two cars. Pad and I would load the clubs and some coolers in my car and hit the road first, so we could play golf with our host immediately upon arrival. Laura, her sister, the girl cousins and Chris would follow -- um, shortly. Pad and I arrived about 10a, socialized for 20 minutes and then us and our host hit the links. We played for more than an hour when young Will appeared in a golf cart, alone. (By now I had expected him to be playing with Chris, who is not a great golfer but loves to play, especially with Will.) So I call the smarter, better looking spouse to ask where they were. They were about halfway to where they needed to be. but they would be along, shortly. My first thought: poor Chris. I imagined a torrent of showers, a cacophony of blow dryers, and enough curling irons plugged in to bring Darlington to a crawl. And I imagined Chris sitting somewhere, waiting. Waiting. Waiting. In my own defense, Chris wasn't even out of bed when his older brother and I headed out. But still. Band of Brothers, right? No one gets left behind, etc etc. I'm told that when Chris arrived at our friends' place, he sprinted from the Laura-mobile to my car, grabbed his clubs and disappeared onto the course with pal Will. No one -- no one -- likes having fun the way 11 and 12 year old boys do on an almost perfect summer day under a vacation blue sky with 92 acres of fun at their disposal. It was cool to see him so excited, on the rare moments our paths actually crossed over the next few hours. Pad and I played 18 holes, nine of them just us. At 6 foot 2, though only 14, he is has athletic gifts and the natural fearlessness of youth that produce moments of greatness for even an occasional golfer. And it's getting harder and harder for me to keep up. It's quite enjoyable, actually. 'Twas ever thus in the world of fatherhood, I imagine. The girl cousins read books, swam, walked the property and fed the fish in the trout ponds. There was swimming, and a feast fit for a King (pun intended) and tall tales and not once, not one time, did we talk about minor hockey, which in hindsight seems weird but hopefully progressive for our well being. Hockey, under the warm cloak of that gentle country sky, seemed as distant as the stars that started to poke through night's dark canopy as we prepared to leave. On the drive back Pad was in a great chatty mood -- rare moments among teen lads -- and we listened to his iPod and the strange noises that come from it and I think we saw -- without exaggeration -- at least two dozen fireworks shows. When we got home around 10:30p our street crackled for a good hour with the popping of pyrotechnics. It was almost a perfect day in every way. It was certainly a great Canada Day. - - - The Vancouver Canucks want to pay Mats Sundin $20 million for two years, making him -- at 37 years of age -- the highest paid player in the NHL? LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL. Don't get me wrong. He's a great player. Or, actually, he WAS a great player and is still a good one. But $10 million per? Over and out Mats. You've won the lottery. Mats says he hasn't made up his mind on whether he will even play next year. But, really. Come on. Enjoy Vancouver. PS -- They don't play playoff hockey there either. - - - I'm honestly not up to speed on all the free agent stuff. No one called me to offer a contract, but I figure if the Canucks are offering to make Mats the highest paid player in the league (LOL LOL etc etc) then there still might be hope. Anyway, if you want to read up on who is going where, and for how much, click here. - - - I noted here the other day about the stupid fracas in Midland between a dad and a yappy youth in the stands. Well, not every such incident resolves itself without violence. Five kids from Edmonton face criminal charges for allegedly beating a parent after a soccer game. The man had to have three plates inserted in his face to support is fracture bones, he could lose sight in one eye, and his jaw is wired shut. Incredible. More here. - - - Laura, Chris and Team Cape Breton are off to Medieval Nights today; Pad and I are off to Orangeville for midget lacrosse this evening. And tomorrow will be a long, long day. More later on that. |
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