Category: Sports

Where's Andrei Kovalev?

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Sorry, busy lately. Bad, bad blogger.

.:.

Here’s why the Toronto Maple Leafs are just like the Republicans: they claim to be victimized, oppressed everyday joes who just want a fair break, when in fact they already get every break in the book. But by whining, bitching, moaning and crying foul at every given opportunity, they convince everyone that they’re the poor put-upon underdog and get preferential treatment. Witness the 12 minor penalties called against the Canadiens last night, including 7 in a row. The Leafs, meanwhile, got away with stuff like Bryan McCabe cross-checking Chris Higgins into the net, resulting in Higgins’ cheek smashing into Ed Belfour’s skate blade. No call, of course, and the Canadiens were called for another minor just when they were threatening to get close in the 3rd. Did the Canadiens deserve to win? Probably not. But when you’re playing your third game in four nights and the refs hand your opposition four power play goals on twelve chances, it’s pretty much impossible to pull one out. In general, the game was shit; the penalties called on the Leafs were equally ridiculous, just fewer in number.

Still on hockey, the Canadiens traded Jose Theodore to Colorado today. I, and every other Habs fan on earth, are remembering the last time Montreal traded their superstar goalie to Colorado and praying that history will not repeat itself.

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Two more basketball injuries, but nothing major. My big toe got cut last week — I think I broke the nail about midway down and it cut into the nail bed — and it got stepped on enough this week that I bled through another sock. I also pulled my tricep while working with a friend; I was pretending to guard her, slipped on the dusty floor and stumbled backward for a few steps…you know, those few seconds when you know you’re going to fall but just keep stumbling backwards, and it seems to last for an hour…anyway, I knew that I was about to run headlong into the wall so I kind of let myself fall, but my right arm kind of twisted as it bore the impact and I strained the muscle a bit. Still, I got it worked out before we started to play.

Some younger guys showed up with Miggles; they started off on fire, jumping all over the place and running up and down and just oozing energy…that lasted about 10 minutes. By the end of the night one of them looked like he needed oxygen…

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Wal-Mart, graduating from tacky to evil, has enlisted bloggers to say nice things about the company. They can all blow me, them and their little flying markdown happy faces.

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I’ve listened to the first 1/3 of the not-yet-released Fiery Furnaces disc Bitter Tea, and I fear what we have on our hands here is Blueberry Boat v2.0. It’s too bad; I had such fuckin’ hopes for us.

Beast Confessor

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A follow-up on yesterday’s post about the Enron documentary: Andy Fastow testified today that both Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling were aware of all his funny business, and approved it.

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Hooray for eMusic. They had the new albums from both Mogwai and Neko Case (Mr. Beast and Fox Confessor Brings The Flood respectively) available for download today…and download them I did. Unless something goes really awry, I suspect both of these will end up on my year’s end top ten list.

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Even though I feel like ass, I’m playing basketball tonight. Gotta do somethin’; I’ve been a lazy, lazy man of late.

Low-tech

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Now that I have a short reprieve from economics, and I seem to have kicked my magazine habit, I’m enjoying reading an actual (gasp) book again. Not that I’ve strayed far from my school work; I decided to finally read Freakonomics.

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After my work computer mishap last week a colleague sent me a utility from Intel that would tell me whether my CPU was running hot. That’s handy, I thought, and brought it home. I installed it on my machine. Didn’t run it, mind you, just installed it. Some message flashed across my screen about “Now checking…” and then my screen went blank. The computer just froze up, and I couldn’t get it to come back. I believe the Intel utility may have given my BIOS the black plague. Sigh. I should’ve known better. And right now, I’m just disgusted enough with computers that I don’t even give a shit. I’ll fix it tomorrow; it’s sunny outside, so I’m going for a walk once the Raptors finish coughing up this game to the Nets.

[UPDATE: unplugging the computer for a minute and getting rid of the charge seemed to do the trick. Booted right up after that.]

Hey Mr. cab driver, can you take a look at my leg?

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I’m encouraged by this story in the Globe about Stephen Harper’s intention to talk about credentials for recent immigrants. There are entirely too many skilled professionals in this country who’re caught in a quagmire of bureaucracy, unable to work in their field.

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We tried Veda last night, the new Indian takeout place just up the street. Not very impressive at all; I tend to agree with Steven Davey’s review in Now. I mean, it’s pretty hard to mess up butter chicken, but it was pretty bad. Don’t think we’ll be going back. Trouble is, our local indian options are dropping off now that Banjara‘s closed up shop.

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The Olympic closing ceremonies might be more painful to sit through than the Oscars. Yeesh. Still, pretty exciting to see Vancouver get the handoff and get ready for their day in the sun. Or snow, as it were.

Own the podium

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Another event, another medal for Cindy Klassen (she finished third; Clara Hughes won the gold). Five medals in one olympics. Pretty incredible. Speaking of incredible, and speaking of Clara Hughes, not many people could win two medals in olympic cycling and two medals in speed skating.

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Still on incredible women: MacLeans talks to Neko Case. She loves her some Canada, and Canada loves her back.

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We’ve had a really easy winter so far here in Toronto. I can barely remember any sustained snowfall (certainly nothing like this storm in St. John’s; I hope they got all their curling-inspired partying over with before it hit!) and very few days of really numbing cold. Still, it’s been really grey and dreary, so I can’t wait for spring.

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The Raptors tanked another one today, blowing a 28-point halftime lead over the Mavs. Well, I guess they didn’t tank it so much as Dallas just caught fire from beyond the arc. Chris Bosh is good, but he’s just not as clutch as Dirk Nowitzki. Yet.

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Economics is almost done. One last bit of reading to do, and then one last assignment; if I finish it by the middle of next week, I’ll have three weeks off before the class starts. Good thing, too; I have a trip to New York and a ton of March Madness watching planned in there.

Hoop dreams

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I just saw a clip on The Hour that freaked me out. It was about an autistic high school student in Rochester, NY named Jason McElwain who helps manage his high school basketball team. In the team’s last game of the year, with the large lead late in the game, his coach put him in the game, so that Jason could have a team jersey.

With four minutes left, the kid went six for seven from beyond the arc. SIX FOR SEVEN!!

Check out the video clips; you’ll see his teammates lose it every time he scores. And check out the quotes:

His coach: “I’ve had a lot of thrills in coaching. I’ve coached a lot of wonderful kids, but I’ve never experienced something like this ever in my life…I couldn’t stop crying.”

His mother: “This is the first moment Jason has ever succeeded and been proud of himself. I look at autism as the Berlin Wall. He cracked it.”

Wow. You can be cynical about a lot of things, but it’s hard to be cynical about that.

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Via Spacing: Howard Moscoe wants condo developers building near subway lines to buy Metropasses for buyers. I think this is a great idea. In fact, I hope someone enforces it before we move into our building next year. 🙂

Russia 2, Canada 0.

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That’s it. Canada’s out. I could talk about how the referee fucked Canada in the last 5 minutes when he blew the whistle too quickly and Canada put the puck in the Russian net an instant later. I could talk about how stupid penalties — Bertuzzi’s and Pronger’s, both late in the game — killed the canadian chances. I could talk about how badly the defense — especially Chris Pronger and Bryan McCabe (in what little time he was actually on the ice) — played throughout the tournament. I could talk about how much the gambling scandal or Bertuzzi lawsuit might’ve distracted the team. I could talk about how the only players that actually looked good were Doan, Smyth, Richards, Sakic, Bouwmeester and Brodeur. I could talk about all that, but what it came down to was that the Canadians only managed to score a goal in one of their last twelve periods.

I wonder if this will set off a round of soul-searching like the loss at Nagano did.

Gold #4 [updated]

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OK, how awesome was Chandra Crawford this morning when she won gold? Dancing on the podium, giving ecstatic interviews, getting mobbed by her teammates at the finish…she’s really become the face of the Canadian athletes at these games. Nellie pointed out that she’d make a good flag bearer at the closing ceremonies; unless Cindy Klassen wins another medal, I think she’s right.

[UPDATE] Klassen just won gold in the 1500m, her fourth medal. I think she’s got to be a lock for flag bearer now.

Thank god for Germany and Italy

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It’s an unusual feeling, watching Canada suck at hockey. I guess this is how countries like Norway and Latvia have felt in the past when they played Canada, as if their team really shouldn’t even be in the same tournament as their opponent. Finland flat out dominated Canada today, in a way that Switzerland didn’t yesterday. The Swiss had a hot goalie; the Finns just beat Canada like a rented mule. Canada couldn’t get into the zone, iced the puck, went offside, lost faceoffs, lost footraces, gave pucks away, and so on, and so on. The Finns, meanwhile, were perfect; as much as I despise the trap for being the most boring hockey tactic ever devised, it wins games. And the Canadians couldn’t even string two passes together, let alone break the trap or win a dump-in. They deserved to lose. The only hope they have for a medal — any medal — is the famous Canadian ability to turn it on when it matters, but so far in this tournament they’ve not even been in the same league as a team like Finland.