Weekend bits: Evolution to elephants

Some things you may have missed this weekend in Maple Syrup Nation:

ESPN's Scott Burnside on the maturation - okay, let's call it the evolution of Darcy Tucker:

"You have to remember how much the game's changed in three to four years. There were so many more scrums in the game of hockey, whether it was during the play and after, and Darcy always found a way to be in the middle of those things," (Paul) Maurice said. "So, as a spectator, it maybe distracts you from watching the other things that he did offensively. Now, with the power play that we have and the way he plays the game, you start to realize that he has a really good sense of timing of when to bring it to the net and when not to. There's a lot more game offensively."

Toronto's Jonathan de Guzman scored the winner to salvage something out of a terrible week for Holland's Feyenoord Rotterdam.

Still on Euro footy in Holland, check out Dutch photographer Hans van der Meer's European Fields photo essay - fantastic (great catch by SportsFilter).

One more from over there: Thierry Henry says he's out for a month with a nerve problem, and perhaps there's more to the story.

The New York Times' Harry Hurt gets in touch with his inner George Plimpton, going under centre for three plays with the Jets:

The offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer waved me to the sidelines for a final dress rehearsal. Nick Mangold, a 6-foot-4, 300-pound rookie center, crouched over to deliver my first practice snaps. I was mortally afraid Nick would hike the ball so hard my hands would break. But he laid it in my palms like a pigskin pillow.
My second fear was that I’d suffer a 54-year-old’s senior moment, and forget how to call my three plays. I actually blurted the correct words, but my voice was so loud it could be heard out on the adjacent turnpike. “Keep your voice down in the huddle,” the starting quarterback Chad Pennington admonished, “like you’re having a conversation.”

For the video, which although a little long is quite well done and very much in the spirit of the dear departed Plimpton, go here.

Haile Gebreselassie, already among the all-time greats of distance running, cruises to his second marathon win in four months, taking the famed Fukuoka in Japan.

The Times Online gets up close and personal with elephant polo, while activists mount campaigns to end it and Scotland beats Sweden for the world title.

And finally, here's How to Say Nothing, as Hockey Night in Canada's Kelly Hrudey sets up Saturday night's Colorado at Vancouver tilt:

"This is hugely important but I don't want people to read too much into this, or make more of it than there really is. It's the first part of December, obviously, and although these are big points and you need them right now, you can make up ground later in the season."

Into the weekend: Long bombs to short putts

With winter arriving today, JABS Mansion is into full and festive mukluks-and-corn-starch mode, having sacrificed a perfectly good golf umbrella to the wind this morning and getting soaked to the skin, only The National's Abel blaring in the ears to ward off the chill. We're leaving early, in other words, to get outta these wet clothes and into a dry martini.

But first, a quick look around the week's bits, and to put another Canadian football season to bed, let's start with Sean Smith at sportsBabel, who along with Rod Murray wrote The Narrative of Long Bombs, a provocative, thoughtful look at football's military connection. Here's a taste, but read it all:

. . . What is ironic is that this sponsorship comes at a time when the Canadian military has waived its requirement of a minimum fitness level to join the service. While this is clearly one sign among many that the Forces are on a desperate mission to increase their numbers, apparently general recruitment has little to do with requiring fit bodies. The thrust to recruit soldiers via football suggests that there must be some congruency between military and sport cultures.
(snip)
Of course, the choice of an athlete, or any Canadian, to enlist in our armed forces is a deeply personal one that should be respected. But when the business of sports intersects so dramatically with the decisions of our political and military leaders, we should take pause. Canada should support its soldiers, but if war is a continuation of politics by other means, that support should begin before they are sent off to fight. In other words, when the slick marketing campaign is pulled back, are the right questions being asked? And if so, are the right answers being given?
Pat Tillman's family doesn’t think so.

One last e-mail. Wade Tomlin figures the notion of a Sam Mitchell watch in the media is vastly overrated - at least in the Toronto sports media (the Raptors are en fuego, as they say on the sports broadcasts, zooming up to 5-10 on November since Wade wrote this early in the week):

To me firing Mitchell is as straightforward a situation for Bryan Colangelo as you see in sports. You have a team that everyone seems to accept has improved its roster, yet the team is off to forget about a slow start, but a similar one to the horrible start a year ago (1-11, 3-9, there is no real difference) and you have a coach who is now on the verge of his third losing season, who has no previous track record of success as a NBA head coach, who just last year was voted the worst coach in the N.B.A. by league players.
It is getting embarrassing as a fan to hear this idea that the Raptors have some form of excuse for this sorry start, there called standards and the Raptors organization, and many of the people surrounding the team (the announce team, sportswriters following the team), seem to have none when it comes to winning. Fire Mitchell now or this team will continue with its mantle as the new Los Angeles Clippers.

DICK LOEK/Toronto Star file photo

Ballard warms up for '75 Latvia finals.

One last "Is on fire! Let's NBA!" I don't know who did this, but some wicked wit who goes by the handle of Lockdown on the RealGM board has a pretty take in Sam Mitchell: The Graphic Novel. (Just in: Part II.)

One last invitation. To journalists covering next spring's world hockey championships, from the International Table Hockey Federation (via Babelfish, I presume. Either that or Borat):

"Also it is significant that this tournament will be restored in Riga, Latvia. Latvia is not only famous with their noisy and ice hockey loving fans, but Latvia is the first country in the world where table hockey is recognized by country officials as sport."

Table hockey as sport? Now that's a country.

One last Official Golfer of JABS update. That'd be Miguel Angel Jimenez, he of the lobster arms, ruddy ponytail and pot belly, who headed out for nine holes with GolfMagic and demonstrated admirable sponsor loyalty:

AMY SANCETTA/Associated Press

Jimenez: Give me Ping or give me death.

As we crouched down to read a tricky putt on the penultimate green he was intrigued by the shape of the Elmer M1 putter I was reviewing for Golfmagic. But he refused to handle it.
"No, no I cannot be photographed with another putter. That would be wrong, it would be disloyal to Ping. I've been with them for 15 years. Besides they would kill me!"

Sports around town. One of the more intense college rivalries in the neighbourhood gets renewed this weekend as Humber Hawks hosts Sheridan Bruins at 7 p.m. tonight.

Watching. Super Dogs and Horse Relay (3 p.m., Saturday, TSN). Frankly, I was hoping to take in some Elephant Polo this weekend, but I guess this will have to do. Super Dogs? Are they wearing capes? Do they rescue the horses from a burning building?

Pooch Punts. From Super Dogs to Jinks the Viszla, who promises to go at least 1-4 with his kibbles-or-cookies picks this week and thereby keep pace with the other public handicappers:

CHICAGO (-9) over Minnesota
Tampa Bay (+7) over PITTSBURGH
NEW ORLEANS (-7) over San Francisco
GREEN BAY (+1) over NY Jets
Seattle (+4) over DENVER

'The Biggest Mouth in Sports'

This works as something of a bookend, at least I reckon, to yesterday's post on goals, fights and fine writing: ESPN.com's Scott Burnside on Don Cherry (via SportsFilter):

Cherry: A poet, and he knows it.

The popular perception is that what separates Cherry from almost everyone else in his position is that his internal wiring system does not include a fail-safe switch, that he draws an average of 1.4 million Canadians every Saturday night who believe what is about to follow is some kind of out-of-body experience, a raw, roiling, undiluted stew of anger and opinion, passion and outrage.
Cherry couldn't disagree more. "I know exactly what I'm saying," he says, "so that when I'm fired, it won't be a slip of the tongue. Everything I want to say, I say."

Some of what's in here won't surprise if you're a Cherryholic - the Lord Nelson at the bridge self-image, the inflammatory rhetoric and the fists-up approach. The Rush Limbaugh/Madden analogy really doesn't work for me either - except perhaps from the self-promotion point of view. Cherry is a unique figure, and although he infuriates at times, life (and HNIC) would be awfully boring without him. The only thing about him that seems contrived is his wardrobe. All caveats aside, it's still a must-read, and besides, it gives an excuse to roll out the latest from The Collected Works of Donald Stewart Cherry, which last season got regular space here:

This, my first Blue
Isn't she beautiful like this
Some lady
sent in this tie
and I can't remember
her name
and
I feel bad.

More weekend bits: Goals vs. fights

Lots of links sent to the email basket this morning, with yet more stuff hanging over from the weekend:

Check out this goal from Francesco Totti, during Sunday's Serie A menu. Then go back and review the weekend Ronaldinho evidence (this time, with the commentary from GOLTV - just a warning, that). Totti vs Ronaldinho. Discuss (and thanks to Peter for the latter pointer).

Next, an eternal question: What's pro hockey gotten itself into now? Is it about skill, or is it about brawn? Regular J-Rich sends along a link to this Boston Globe piece from Kevin Paul Dupont that longs for the good old days of fights, intimidation and Freddy the Fog:

TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO

The good old days.

Note to NHL: Bring back the fighting, as fast as possible, I'm begging you.
In the spirit of full disclosure, it is without question that my sentiments are influenced by watching what most often has been an emotionally bankrupt Bruins team here in 2006-07. Even when there is the rare case of group indigestion along the boards, I have taken to murmuring in the press box, "Please, don't anyone get mad down there. Whatever you do, don't throw a punch! Gentlemen, above all -- manners."
(snip)
Think anyone down here in the Lower 50 today would turn away from one of the buckets o'blood we witnessed in the early '70s? Can you imagine the ratings that something like the Bruins' first-round sweep of the Maple Leafs in 1969 -- Pat Quinn's likeness hanged from the second balcony after his hit on Bobby Orr -- would bring today? Absolute guarantee: that kind of NHL would not be on the Vs. network. No, sir. We'd be watching that kind of hockey strictly via pay-per-view. And the third period might cost more than the first.

So that's what the NHL needs to boost its invisible profile in the U.S. - more fights. There's something to what Dupont's arguing - most nights, blood and thunder have vanished from the NHL game (from everywhere but the highlights shows, as Chris Zelkovich points out). It's all surface, and no depth. And I confess, I like a good scrap as much as anyone - but it has to be one that happens because of that passion, and not as a substitute for it absence. There's a huge difference between a thumping bodycheck and a bench-clearing brawl as the ne plus ultra of the passion that's gone missing - or worse. The Flyers of that 'buckets o' blood' era were the end product of a hyper-expanded (NHL and WHA) hockey world that didn't have near the international talent pool to draw upon that it does now, and where deliberate intimidation became a strategy to make up for the diluted product. Go back there? No thanks.

But lest you think it's all a starless void in the U.S., there was this illuminating and very readable profile of the Capitals' brilliant young Alexander Ovechkin, in the Washington Post Magazine:

PAUL CONNORS/ASSOCIATED PRESS

The good new days.

On September 17, 1995, Alex turned 10. Two days later, his oldest brother, Sergei, 22, who'd been recuperating after a car accident, died suddenly of unforeseen complications. The next day, Alex's youth team was scheduled to play a game. "His brother wasn't even in the ground yet," the father recalled. "We decided he shouldn't skip the game. He played while tears were flowing down his cheeks. He cried the entire game, but he played. He wanted to play. We were obviously not thinking about hockey that day. I don't even know what the score was. We didn't really think of it as a lesson. We didn't want him to sit at home and dwell, and to cry and to poison himself with his thoughts."
(snip)
To capture the hockey world's attention Alex had forsaken almost every soft distraction of youth. He had done nothing but play hockey. It was a price he was happy to pay, he said. Just being on the ice with his teammates was always, "sort of a high for me," he said through an interpreter. "It's like a child getting his most secret dream achieved. For example, if you always dreamed about a toy transformer robot and you finally get it. That's what I feel on the ice."
Scoring, of course, feels even better. "You can imagine a situation when you are running away from an angry dog," Alex explained. "You've got a bit of adrenaline in your blood, right? Combine that with a sense of accomplishment, and you've got a goal."

I'd love to excerpt more, but go and read it yourself. This is the sort of in-depth, extended feature coverage of the NHL that just isn't done that often anymore - here or in the U.S. Superb stuff.

Weekend bits: Video hits and misses

Some flakes here in case you missed 'em while shivering through the Vanier Cup:

Video replay: Sepp Blatter doesn't believe in it - "We have to help referees and have correct control but we must never stop the match with videos or monitors to look at what has happened" - but Ronaldinho surely does after this wonder goal.

It's ski season, John Kucera and Manuel Osborne-Paradis enjoying career best weekends at Lake Louise. But in Europe it's situation critical: No snow.

New word of the day, courtesy of Pistons GM Joe Dumars: Paradocrity.

Their trumpets confiscated, their complaints lampooned, their team humiliated at the "Gabbatoir" - life's rough for a travelling England cricket fan.

The case of the vanishing basket. Courtesy of emailer Andrew Kwong, Here's the video evidence (wait a minute; where were the referees in all of this nonsense?)

One I missed when (too hastily) putting together Friday's post on the gay Leaf movie, so I'll put it up here now: Life in the NHL Closet.

Into the weekend: More Raptor numbers

Wrapping it up for another week, and this one is almost worth its own post, but let’s just make this a little longer than usual thanks to an email gem from Michael Brandon:

I looked back at your Nov. 21 blog entry, referencing 82games.com, a site I appreciate.
Also, I was looking at the stats of minutes played by players that are either rookies or new to their teams, and comparing them to the Raps. Of all the teams the Raps have played this year, new players to the team have accounted for an average of 19% of the playing time, and rookies have only accounted for 5% of total minutes.
In the case of the Raps, 63% of their minutes are played by players new to the team, of which 16% of total minutes are played by true rookies. Anthony Parker, who has not played an NBA minute in years accounts for 13% of team minutes.
No other team the Raps have played come close in new player minutes (Hawks 33%, Bucks 35%).

To me, that underlines the subjective notion expressed here and elsewhere that lack of familiarity is part of this whole debate. But there’s more from Michael:

I also looked at the W/L records of the league for further insight.
As near as I can tell, the East only is winning 28% of their games against the West (in part because the lower-ranked teams by W/L record have been West loaded early), and they only win 54% of their home games against any opposition.
The Raps have won 60% of their home games (3-2), and probably should have won one out west, maybe two if the stars were aligned (or California fell into the ocean).
So, we have people screaming for the head of Sam Mitchell, because a team with 62% of their minutes eaten up by new players, is one game behind the average this early in the season. I thought that consensus was for the Raps to be average this year (41 wins) or less (30-40 wins).
I don't want to quibble with the numbers on 82games.com. There is nothing to quibble about. However, there is more to the story.

Good points. Thanks, Michael.

Early pre-vegetarian pie-eating contest.

One more email. Regular Tim Farrell weighs in with another Raptor-related observation:

Garbajosa suddenly can't shoot . . . could it be . . . the curse of Vince Carter's jersey??

Not only that, Tim, but T.J. Ford is wearing Rafer Alston’s old number and Chris Bosh has Vincenzo Esposito's. You may be on to something.

One more helping. Here’s a sport where expansion is not only encouraged, but inevitable – until this year, that is, the world pie-eating championships, gone from a marathon to a sprint and now including a vegetarian option (from Times Online):

"They’ve taken things too far this year - pies are supposed to be meat and potato and anything else just isn’t normal," said Dave Smyth, 48, a painter from Hindley, who won the first contest in 1992 when he ate an impressive four pies in three minutes.

One more question. Is this the future of newspapers – making ballplayers even richer? Jon Friedman spells it out in DJI's Market Watch (thanks to DD for the linkage):

Your newspaper operations are a mess and your baseball team is a disaster. So, what do you do? Why, invest heavily in the baseball team, of course.
On Monday, Tribune confirmed that it would pay free-agent slugger Alfonso Soriano $136 million over eight years. It's spending more than $200 million total on many players this off-season, as well as hiring a new manager, veteran Lou Piniella.
As the late, great Cubs announcer Harry Caray might shout in disbelief: Holy cow!

One more press release. Don’t know how this was overlooked, but the Detroit Red Wings have been disbanded. VCOE has the release the world missed.

Sports around town. Look no further than the Air Canada Centre Tuesday, and the Metro Hoops Showcase (6:30 p.m. tipoff), apparently the first-ever high school basketball doubleheader to be played on the hallowed, history-laden hardcourt where Negele Knight once trod. Seriously, they'll put on a better show than many of the recent hoop nights the place has seen.

Watching. The Vanier Cup, live from Saskatoon (Saturday, 3:30 p.m., The Score). Saskatchewan vs Laval, and it should be a hooly. And as is the custom around here, Neate Sager’s got the preview (including the weather forecast - cold, very cold).

Pooch punts. Yup, he’s back, tail between his legs after a piddling 0-5 record that puts him squarely in the league of many of the world's best public handicappers – it’s Jinks the Vizsla, scarfing down another set of kibble-or-cookie plays of the week:

Jacksonville –3 over BUFFALO
New Orleans +3 over ATLANTA
Chicago +3 over NEW ENGLAND
Philadelphia +9 over INDY
SEATTLE –9 1/2 over Green Bay

Gay blades

Lots of action this morning on the website poll off Randy Starkman's story in the petroleum-based product this morning:

RUSS MARTIN PHOTO

A hockey coming-out party: Tom Cavanaugh in Breakfast with Scot.

Actor Tom Cavanaugh plays a gay ex-Leaf in a comedy film Breakfast With Scot currently being shot in the GTA and Hamilton. He's one-half of a homosexual couple — his partner is the team lawyer — whose lives are turned upside down after becoming guardians of Scot, "a budding queen of an 11-year-old boy," according to the storyline.
What makes this movie even more unique is that the NHL and the Maple Leafs — part of a sport where no player has ever come out of the closet — have given the filmmakers their blessing to use their logos and uniforms. The Leafs have even agreed to let them do some filming with them at the end of a practice next month.

The question on the poll - Do you think a comedy about a gay Leaf will help gay athletes gain acceptance? - is running nearly two-to-one negative as I write this.

Meantime, there are a host of other questions that come to mind, one of them familiar and long-running: What's holding back an athlete in one of North America's big four pro sports from coming out of the closet? The arguments against usually surround ostracism from teammates, negative marketing and sponshorship impact, fan reaction (perhaps confirmed by the early returns on the poll) and the like. Some have come out after their careers are over, but as of yet, no one active in men's pro baseball, hockey, football or basketball.

The question I have: With the NHL and the Leafs apparently throwing their wholehearted support behind the film - including the use of logos and its practice time -does it necessarily follow that those arguments against don't apply anymore, or at least are lessened? I'd say, yes, they have.

Related: A gay jock's fears (Outsports.com).

Goal celebrations

Simon Hattenstone in the Guardian sportblog wins Post of the Morning honours - now there's a new regular feature here to ponder - with this one on footy goal celebrations:

CP FILE PHOTO

Now that's a goal celebration.

It is remarkable what a celebration tells us about the scorer. Alan Shearer's macho outstretched arm is so Alan Shearer that he patented it. The brilliantly understated Colin Bell just about raised a hand in acknowledgment - a bashful thanks rather than a victorious salute. Denis Law celebrated with one finger in the air - stylish but modest - until he scored for City against United to relegate them and marked it with a grief-stricken tear. Samuel Eto'o followed a goal at Real Madrid's Bernabéu with a Black Power salute.

 

So let's think here. Playing off Simon's tee shot, what can we come up with for hockey? Corey Schneider put this Youtube compilation together (skip ahead to about the 1:45 mark for the actual top 10 hockey goal celebrations, unless you want to sit through another dose of hits and fights and *cringe* Chumbawumba).

Of that bunch, Milan Hejduk gets my nod. But what about this one? Here's a hint - Signature moment, and the in-the-air flourish looks on one level to be merely the finishing move - but the puck's already in the net. That's a celebration, even if it's not as separated from the actual goal as Hejduk's, or Tiger Williams, or Sean Avery doing Jack Palance (pick it up around the 3:30 mark, and RIP, Jack).

Bobby Orr winning the Cup (nice touch, the cheezy period soundtrack at the end; here's Dan Kelly's original call) - No. 1 choice here for best hockey goal celebration.

Photo of the Day: The tipping point

DAN RIEDLHUBER/REUTERS

Detroit's Joey McDonald gets unexpected cover in Edmonton Saturday night.

Into the weekend: Grey Cup libations

Lots to ponder as we head into a strenuous weekend of armchair sports, chief among it this proposition up on the JABS odds board: Kobe Bryant's points tonight vs. Frank Thomas's RBIs next season vs audience for the MLS expansion draft live on ESPN4.

Shot of beer nuts? Check.

It's the Friday roundup. But you knew that already. And while you mull over that last bet, which is almost lifelike, a little treat arrived in the email basket this week: The Gibson's Kicker, billed as the official cocktail of the Grey Cup: "Part smoke and part fire with a hint of fresh lime and paired with a shot of beer nuts". Sounds a bit like a Flaming Mo. I'll pair it with the fish sticks and get back to you.

Meantime, better make do with that Kobe vs Hurt vs. MLS expansion draft prop, because the government gambling shop has done it again. The Grey Cup line is B.C. -7 1/2 in the books, a little light according to my original reckoning. But folllowing along with the theme of almost lifelike, you won't be able to play it on Pro-Line's Point Spread game. Biggest game of the year, one that even casual fans notice, and there's no betting against the line. They're looking out for us. Everybody, now, raise your Flaming Mo or your Kicker or your Champale and toast 'em. Toast 'em good.

One last read. From the Guardian's Sports Blog, the best thing I've read on world footy since all those Zizou rumours. It's Marcela Mora y Araujo (no relation to Haffa, I presume), hanging with Boca's la Doce:

The thrill of the terraces and the beauty of the display of affection hardcore fans offer their team is not unique to Boca, nor indeed to Argentina. But it has an intensity there that has few equals. I once met a Malvinas war veteran in the Boca terraces and asked him if he thought there was a connection between the intoxication and loss of self of the terraces, and the atmosphere of a battlefield. No, he said. "Nobody hates war more than a soldier," he explained, before surveying the scenes on the terraces and concluding: "This is about love."
Later that same day, after Boca had lost 2-0 to River Plate, two River fans were shot dead. Around the city the following graffiti appeared: River 2-2 Boca.

One last piece of blogosphere news. Congratulations and good luck to Raptorblog ringmaster and footstool regular Scott Carefoot, on the move to Sympatico MSN's Sports Channel. That means, of course, that he'll have access to a press pass, poor guy.

One last curling update. George at the Curling News sends along this on those blog-favourite rockin' Norbergs.

One last view. This has been around a bit, but if you've missed it: Aries Spears does Mike and Shaq. (And if you liked that, check out this one sent over from TBJ.)

One last James Bond namedrop. Not much time for Bond. But I do like this.

One (two) last sponsorship deal. An English footy club has signed a marketing deal with Motorhead which includes an all-black uniform with the skull logo (which is just a cheap excuse, really, to revisit this QT-friendly video). And a link to Tom Benjamin for exposing this new NHL award for the runny nose that it is: "Is there anything Bettman won't do to squeeze out a few extra dollars?"

One last warning. This is pigskin freakout weekend, so if you find yourself on the couch a lot this weekend, do try to build in short breaks between the cheezie nibbling. It all starts with the CIS semifinals starting at noon Saturday. That OSU-Michigan thing goes midday (it'll be DVR'd in my house, so please, no giving away the ending before Saturday night). NFL all day Sunday and of course, the Grey Cup Sunday night.

One last Sam Mitchell laff. Two, actually, from TBJ, who I should just hand over the Friday roundup to, because it seems like every one of these has something from them -Coal Region Recipes with Sam Mitchell, and Searching for Sammy Mitchell. I'll miss this stuff when he's gone.

Sports around town. If you can tear yourself away from the couch - and you really should - U of T got its game on last weekend, and now it's York U's turn to start the party Saturday night. The Lions (got it right this time) host Waterloo up at the arena on the edge of forever, a doubleheader with the women at 6 p.m. and the men at 8. Bring your own pajamas. Honest.

Pooch punts. It's true - Jinks the Vizsla really is just as bad as all the other public handicappers out there. After another 2-3 weekend, here's the latest set of kibbles or cookies picks (bonus points, though, for the Grey Cup gobble):

Montreal (+7 1/2) over B.C.
St. Louis (+6 1/2) over CAROLINA
St. Louis-Carolina OVER 44
PHILADELPHIA (-13) over Tennessee
CLEVELAND (+ 3 1/2) over Pittsburgh

Have a great Grey Cup weekend.