Language shouldn't matter and it's movie time!

In today’s paper we have a general Raptors preview and a player-by-player look at them and what they have to do and five Raptors games you might want to watch and a general NBA preview and five NBA games you might want to watch and five NBA players you might want to pay attention to and five NBA storylines you might want to follow.

I’m basketballed out, I’m afraid. At least for a day.

So, with apologies, there’s not much in here today. But there’s more than enough to read.

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I’m quite late to the dance on this one but …

Been reading all week that the big issue in Montreal and Quebec – and I heard yesterday that even the zany politicians are getting in on the act – is that the Habs are in hot water because – egads!!!!! – they’ve hired a unilingual Anglo as their interim head coach.

I tell ya, that’s some kind of political correctness or something run amok.

I understand the nationalist sensibilities of that province pretty well, I kind of get it but, really, does it matter whatsoever what language the coach speaks as long as the players listen and he wins?

I know the media will scream blue murder because some of them will have to translate and work a wee bit harder and that’s tough.

But shouldn’t it only be about whether or not the guy can coach? And win? And make the team better?

Sure, maybe Patrick Roy would be the perfect solution (I read his name linked the gig somewhere, it’d be even cooler if he brought his kid to beat up other goalies) but this is not a perfect world.

Randy Cunneyworth may be a good coach, he may be a bad coach, he may be in over his head with this job but for the people to bay and whine and get up in arms because of his linguistic abilities seems, to me, to be rather ridiculous.

You hire the guy you think best helps you, you take into account his coaching abilities, not his speaking abilities or his willingness to cowtow to the media.

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A quick HOTH thing, and there’s another one coming later on.

There are limits each training camp to the number of two-a-day workouts teams are able to have (it was three before, it’s four this year on, I believe, a one-time deal) and most coaches like to get ‘em out of the way early, when teaching is at a premium.

Dwane?

Not so much.

He’ll have the lads in the gym two times today, mostly because he knows better now what he needs to work on after two pretend games.

It would have made much less sense, to me, to rattle off four in a row or four in six days early in camp because it would have worn the players out and left him with limited chances to teach after seeing what needed to be taught the most.

Yeah, it’ll make a long day for the players – and even a longish day for me – but it’s a smart move.

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Okay, you had to know this was coming, right?

And since I’m not entirely sure what’s going to go on here this weekend with news or mail or whatever, today’s the day.

Ta-da!

The Very Best Christmas Movies

Put ‘em one on top of the other by the DVD player or Blu Ray or computer or TV or VCR or whatever it is you have these days, settle with the people you love and watch ‘em on this countdown.

Guarantee is a great night.

Miracle on 34th Street

Of course there’s a Santa Claus; who else eats all those cookies and drinks all that milk.

The Bishop’s Wife

Under-rated; vastly under-rated. Cary Grant, Loretta Young, David Niven. Angels and a nice little story.

White Christmas

If for nothing other than the crooning.

A Christmas Carol.

Forget Alastair Sim.

Kermit!!!!!

And, of course

It’s A Wonderful Life.

No, they don’t make ‘em like that any more, do they?

I guess if you had to do, you know, modern ones, you’d have to think Die Hard, Home Alone, Elf and, well, that’s about all I’ve seen. Don’t tell anyone I’d put Love, Actually on that list, okay? Thanks.

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Since I was sitting and typing about a kabillion words of various NBA and Raptors previews yesterday, there wasn’t a lot of time to sit around the arena and wait out practice.

Seems like a wise move now since they did about 90 minutes or so of video review of Wednesday’s game before hitting the court.

I would think that video instruction is going to be a huge part of this season since there are only going to be 20 or so days when they can really practice.

What’s a video session?

Well, it varies from coach to coach and team to team but basically what it is is a breakdown of each player, a handful of plays, close examination of good team defence and bad team defence with a whole lot of “hey, it might have worked better had you done this” thrown in for good measure.

I know good coaches – and I put Dwane Casey in that category already – use it as much as for positive reinforcement as they do to point out the various errors that occur in a game.

To me, that’s the only way to do it. I can imagine a team would tune a coach out very quickly if all he did was hammer them while watching television and the impression I’m getting from everyone I talk to on the team is that Dwane is fair, firm and respected.

It’ll be a topic of a story for another day but he’s really got them on the right track.

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Thanks, Alert Irregular.

If the Knicks sign Santa next year, Jonas will dominate them.

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Mail?

Hardly any, folks, and I’m at least going to need one day to fill this space this week.

Get to it. Here. Please.

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And, finally ...

 

 

 

Comments

[AT]

I respectfully disagree.It is not so much about political correctness as it is about the culture that surrounds the Habs. Hiring an anglophone coach is like ordering a hamburger in a Chinese restaurant, sure it might be ok, but something with it is not quite right...
Merry Christmas!!!

[Geoff Read]

Thane - then I assume you'll be sensitive to the feelings of your fellow Quebeckers.

[SheikYurbouti]

I'm a reasonably bilingual (not as a kid growing up in a Scottish/Irish family) anglophone who grew up for my first 30 years in Montreal. Perhaps I have a little more accurate insight than most because I lived in a 50/50 neighbourhood, married a francophone from a large family and experienced the divide even within a family. I also heard passionate arguments from both sides, including in weekly intellectual gatherings (I was just a spectator :) and wound up with a pretty clear picture of the very long history that created the passion toward the language issue. This issue runs far too deep, and has far too many factors, to do it justice in this forum, but I'll say that there are some very ignorant, arrogant comments being thrown out here. I'd like to throw out Aesop's "two truths" lesson, but someone has to care to understand the other side of the coin in order to get it.

[Mike kovacs]

Some of the best hamburgers are made in Chinese restaurants. It wouldn't be on the menu if they weren't happy to make it! Just the same - if you'd rather lose the Stanley Cup in French than win it in English then so be it.

[SheikYurbouti]

@sportchick
I know some will have arguments that it's not quite the same, but with all due respect, your soccer analogy would carry weight when Croatia hires a Serb coach, or Palestine hires a Jewish coach, or Greece hires a Romanian coach, or Toronto hires a totally unilingual francophone coach.

[Peter G]

Doug,
MERRY CHRISTMAS to you and your family. Thanks for your blog. It helps me keep the proper perspective in the way I watch sports. I printed your piece from Oct.27, 2010, and re-read it from time to time when I am tempted to take "the kids game" a bit too seriously. Enjoyment of sports is a hobby, and we should always remember that. Thanks for keeping it real.

[SheikYurbouti]

Ugh, I should have known better than to wade into the language discussion. I've dealt with enough red-neck at worst, provincial at best, attitude in AB for 30 years to know how fruitless it is to get into this stuff.
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peace and understanding to all

[sportschick]

@SheikYurbouti, a francophone Habs fan and I already had this discussion, and the soccer analogy worked for him. He doesn't feel strongly that they should have a francophone coach, but would prefer that they have more French Canadian players. Now *that* bothers him.

Cheers.

[doug]

all I have to say about this Montreal coaching situation is this....2 of their most successful weren't born in the province, one could speak French, but the other couldn't,,,their names Toe Blake, and Dick Irvin Sr,just saying.....and to miss Christmas Story, shame, double shame....ok Season Greetings to all,and to all a good night...

[GM]

* Not just soccer teams. Many a national basketball program hires American coaches. Do you think they speak Chinese or Japanese or Russian or whatever? Doubtful. Anyway, I don't think this is a *practical* issue. That is, it's not so much that most of their fans wouldn't understand the coach; it's an issue of principle. I guess I'm just more practical. But if the Raptors hired that Italian coach, as many suggested, and he didn't speak English without a translator, it wouldn't bother me in the slightest so long as he could communicate his ideas to his players and they understood him.

* Am I the only one never to have seen A Christmas Vacation? Should I really see it? I thought the original National Lampoon Vacation was awful so I'm guessing the Christmas one would be, too.

[SheikYurbouti]

Too much time on my hands today.
@doug the poster
During the vast majority of the period (1940-68) you speak of, a francophone member of the majority of the population could walk into downtown Eaton's, Hudson Bay, Simpson's, Ogilvy's (all the big department stores of the day) and be unable to find a single sales clerk that spoke French, or go to work in majority of factories and find a single machinery manual printed in French: facts, just saying. It was a very different world back then. Would the opposite have ever been accepted in Toronto? Besides, one doesn't have to be a francophone, born in the province to be revered by Habs fans in Montreal. Dickie Moore, Doug Harvey, Bowman, Dryden, Gainey, Robinson, Shutt, Jarvis, Koivu, and more are gods in francophone Montreal. They also all respected the fans enough to learn the language to some extent. Just saying.
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@sportschick
I appreciate that you've extended your analogy to one francophone Habs fan and it works for him, but he no more speaks for the majority of his kind than I speak for all anglophone Canadians. As I've pointed out in a previous post, I've personally been enmeshed in a serious divide within one family toward the language debate, so I have no doubt that some have different views. Just like us! :).
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cheers! peace and happiness to all!

[SheikYurbouti]

@GM
Basketball in China, Japan, Russia, or even Toronto is not hockey in Montreal. Not even the same universe. Do you think there might be a bit of an uproar if the Celtics or Lakers hired a Russian HEAD coach that didn't speak a word of English? Neither of these places have a language history that exists in Quebec, but still.

[Ian]

As a daily reader of this blog I've got to ask... why so much angst about it not being only about the Raptors? I check in every morning to see what news there is about the team and if it's only one paragraph so be it. I've long realized that this blog isn't catered to my age group (only a kid of 31 years old) but that doesn't bother me. I skip what I don't relate to or have interest in and leave it at that. Doug seems to break all the important news regarding the team before anyone else and that is the reason I'll always check here first.
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Happy holidays to Doug and all the irregulars!!

[sportschick]

Am I too late to post this link?

http://www.toronto.com/article/708217?bn=1

I'm sure your bosses would like the cross-linking, and I think some of the Irregulars would enjoy the Christmas movie trivia!