3 Things to Consider About the Don Sterling Debacle
Doug Sikkema
May 2, 2014
Earlier this week Adam Silver dropped the full weight of his NBA-commissioner hammer down on Don Sterling for the hateful, racist comments he made in what Sterling most...
Games
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March Madness: Rooting for the Underdog
Doug Sikkema
April 4, 2014
Doug Sikkema writes on how the anticipation of spring, Easter, and March Madness all tell us a little bit about who we are by kindling, albeit subtly, some of our most basic desires.
March is a month of anticipation. We await the end of winter with the arrival of spring, the end of Lent with the arrival of Easter, and the end of a sport's drought with the arrival of NCAA's March Madn...
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Walking Away From Omelas
Doug Sikkema
January 10, 2014
The only way for Omelas to maintain its stoic happiness is to free itself from guilt. Easy enough, it seems, but for one problem. In the basement of one of the buildings in Omelas is an imprisoned child that everyone living in Omelas must confront. The child is never let outside, is never spoken to, and must sit chained in its own filth.
In Ursula LeGuin's 1973 short story, "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas," we are told of a place where everyone (well, almost everyone) is perfectly happy. The Summer Festival is upo...
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Baseball's Silence
Peter Stockland
July 16, 2013
According to the Wall Street Journal, the actual time in baseball when "everyone on the field is running around looking for something to do (balls in the air and runner advancement attempts)" takes five minutes and forty-seven seconds during a three-hour-plus game. That's 5:47 out of 3:00+. When it was just the players playing who were tracked, however, baseball could not break double-digits in the getting stuff done department.
I have dined out for many years on a comedian's observation that baseball is five minutes of action crammed into three hours. It now appears the quip is actually correct.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the ...
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Stone, Tablets, and Miracles
Peter Stockland
April 30, 2013
"In five years I don't think there'll be a reason to have a tablet any more. Maybe a big screen in your workspace, but not a tablet as such. Tablets themselves are not a good business model," Thorsten Heins was quoted by Bloomberg news service. Blackberry's attempt to get into the tablet game was, after all, among the worst corporate howlers of the century.
It seems the new CEO of Blackberry was being anything but ironic when he declared this week that tablet computing will be all but dead in five years.
"In five years I don't think there'll be a reason to have a tablet any more. Maybe a big screen in y...
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Gaming Out the Ambiguous Morality of Apocalypse
Robert Joustra
April 19, 2013
Gaming is not a bad way to think about the renaissance in geek culture. Gaming, or game theory, is fundamental to a whole range of forecasting. From domestic to international politics, to pop culture and cult sensations, gaming is at the heart of some of our favourite past times. NBC's Revolution is one big game theory experiment: if all the power shut off, how would people respond? Or AMC's The Walking Dead: what are the social and moral dynamics of post-apocalyptic survivors? Right down, of course, to Max Brooks' unsurpassed World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, great if only because of its use of actual, rather than caricatured, foreign policy paradigms.
"So, can my son, in good Christian conscience, head-shot a zombie to save the town?" You can take that answer to the bank. Kevin Schut, professor at Tr...
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If I Speak, But Have Not Respect
Peter Stockland
March 26, 2013
Word that Tiger Woods is back on top as the number one golfer in the world would definitely have made John scrinch his face as only he could when something unexpected and unacceptable and, well, ugly happened between tee and green. "He may come back a bit," John said. "But he'll never again be what he was."
Reading the sports news this morning, I had a sudden vision of my late, great friend John Gradon scrinching as if he had just shanked a drive off the first tee.
Word that Tiger Woods is back on top as the number one golfer in the world would definite...
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16 Days in February
Peter Menzies
February 21, 2013
The furnace room and I have been foes for several years now and every January—a dreary, dark, frozen, don't-go-outside sort of month here in northwest Canada—I determine to bring it to heel. This year over three weekends, I laid down a whole load of "Who's Your Daddy" on the furnace room and it is now an organized, tidy space still containing pretty much all the items above, guarded over by the silent sentinel of bunnies and bears and disturbed only occasionally by the cat.
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Glorious Adulation
Brian Dijkema
February 7, 2013
The history of sport is full of people who take drugs, lie about their age or gender, and use doctored equipment, pretty much anything short of murder to gain the glory of victory. Why do they do it? Well, glory is a tantalizing thing. Who isn't tempted by the glitz, the girls, the money and the sheer adulation that comes with being on top? The desire for glory, in politics as much as sports, is one of our deepest desires, and is a powerful influence on our action. It's the reason why the threat of cheating is so prevalent in politics as well. To paraphrase our former PM, Brian Mulroney: "we want the adulation" and we're willing to do a lot to get it. We know it's ugly, but we want it anyway. Iván Fernández Anaya was competing in a cross-country race in Burlada, Navarre. He was running second, some distance behind race leader Abel Mutai. As they entered the finishing straight, he saw the Kenyan runner—the certain winner of the race—mistakenly pull up about 10 meters before the finish, thinking he had already crossed the line. Fernández Anaya quickly caught up with him, but instead of exploiting Mutai's mistake to speed past and claim an unlikely victory, he stayed behind and, using gestures, guided the Kenyan to the line and let him cross first. "He was the rightful winner. He created a gap that I couldn't have closed." "I didn't deserve to win it, I did what I had to do. He was the rightful winner. He created a gap that I couldn't have closed if he hadn't made a mistake. As soon as I saw he was stopping, I knew I wasn't going to pass him."
Lance Armstrong is a cheater and a liar. Mark McGwire is a cheater. Sammy Sosa is a cheater. Roger Clemens is a cheater. And let's not forget that great Canadian cheat, Ben Johnson. I could go on.
The history of sport is full of people who take drugs...
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More than a Sports Story
Ray Pennings
January 9, 2013
You may have noticed the Toronto sports media going a bit ga-ga today. Yesterday, the Toronto Blue Jays introduced recently acquired pitcher R.A. Dickey in a media conference and, almost universally, the reports focused as much on his intelligence and personality as they did on his pitching skills.
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Window Taps
Peter Menzies
January 4, 2013
This is especially so later in the evenings around Christmas when the white noise of the city softens and the temperature falls. Then, the smack of sticks on ice and the ricochet of frozen rubber discs zipping off the boards rattle around my brain like flash card memories of high school girlfriends that—unsolicited and about which we may not speak—refuse to disappear from the subconscious.
Sometimes when it's quiet the sounds from the outdoor rink over by the Catholic school carry across the snow after dark and tap on the window outside my bedroom.
This is especially so later in the evenings around Christmas when the white noise of the...
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In the place where the NHL's heart should be
Peter Stockland
December 11, 2012
Every morning when I read the sports pages, and during the day as I browse the web for news updates, I feel enormous relief—nay, deep satisfaction—that the NHL lockout continues.
I have a confession that may lead to me following the lead of Conrad Black and abandoning my Canadian passport. Nothing criminal, I must hastily stress. But definitely something that would currently qualify as un-Canadian.
Every morning when I read t...
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Where is this Ship Headed, Captain?
Brian Dijkema
October 12, 2012
The watchwords of his speech are intended to be non-threatening and romantic; inspirational even. It started with the quote from the father of German romanticism and continued in that stream—love, trust, listening, open minds, big dreams (his and yours!), and youth. I got a sense that Canada was the Dead Poets Society, with Justin as O Captain! My Captain! This is, of course, good politics. It's hard to motivate the masses with a level-headed realism.
As you cut through the hype and horror of the daily news cycle surrounding the daily movements of Justin (no formal titles among friends), and read his opening speech, you get a picture of a candidate who—des...
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Rory's Keeper?
Peter Stockland
October 2, 2012
For those who missed it, McIlroy needed an escort from the deputy chief of police, complete with flashing lights on the cruiser, to get on the tee box at 11:25 a.m. on Sunday. It was the final day of the tournament that pits Europe's best against America's top golfers. Had he arrived minutes later, the world's number one player would have forfeited his match. He would have cost his European teammates their improbable comeback victory over the U.S. But he made it. He won his match.
There are enough holes to fill a golf course in Rory McIlroy's excuse for almost missing his Ryder Cup tee time. What m...
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The Journey
Josh Reinders
August 23, 2012
Hardcore 10-12 mile obstacle courses designed by British Special Forces to test your all around strength, stamina, mental grit, and camaraderie. As the leading company in the booming obstacle course industry, Tough Mudder has already challenged half a million inspiring participants worldwide and raised more than $3 million dollars for the Wounded Warrior Project. But Tough Mudder is more than an event, it's a way of thinking. By running a Tough Mudder challenge, you'll unlock a true sense of accomplishment, have a great time, and discover a camaraderie with your fellow participants that's experienced all too rarely these days.As described above, the event is more than a physical challenge. It's designed to push you to your limits, and to be more than a single person fighting for the lead. It's not a competition, it's a group challenge. And when you take a look at some of the obstacles, you see why: jumping into a tank full of ice and water and swimming underneath a bar below the ice; running through a field of fire; crawling through pipes buried under the ground; and finally, running through a 20-foot-long area with thousands of live wires hanging down, some with thousands of volts coursing through them. By no means an easy challenge.
This past weekend, hundreds of people descended upon Toronto for a unique event. Named "Tough Mudder", the event is the adult's extreme version of the obstacle courses you ran through as a child. From the Tough Mu...
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Overdoing the Olympics
Peter Stockland
August 14, 2012
When I asked that question what now seems like several epochs ago, it brought a heap of opprobrium for its alleged cynicism and left over journalistic jaundice. Indeed, one headline that caught my eye claimed that the nation's soul had been restored because our women's soccer team won one of the medals after apparently being "robbed" by the Americans a few days before.
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Who's Serving Whom?
Peter Menzies
August 13, 2012
For instance, Canada's women recently lost their Olympic semi-final football (soccer) match to the USA (4-3 after extra time), due in large part to a couple of quaintly creative decisions by Norwegian referee Christiana Pedersen. My initial reaction to this was that Canada should scramble the CF-18s pronto and launch an invasion of Norway or at the very least make some bold incursions into its airspace as an expression of outrage. Given the sense of injustice I was feeling at the time, this felt like a moderate approach. What did inspire, however, are some thoughts about service that were prompted by the fact Canada's team contained one dual Canadian-American citizen, Chelsea Stewart, while the American team contained another, Sydney Leroux. This is not unusual. Canadians have for years played hockey and other sports for foreign countries and as we are all aware, Team USA swimmer and gold medalist Missy Franklin is also a Canadian citizen with Canadian parents. I don't think these matters should be controversial, particularly in the case of Franklin who was born and raised in the USA and always dreamed of representing the land of her birth; the nation that nurtured her.
The beautiful game, as it is known, can inspire some frightfully ugly reactions.
For instance, Canada's women recently lost their Olympic semi-final football (soccer) match to the USA (4-3 after extra time), due in large part to a couple of quaintly ...
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America Is Not The Greatest
John Seel
July 19, 2012
Aaron Sorkin is an Academy and Emmy award-winning American screenwriter, producer, and playwright, whose works include A Few Good Men, The American President, The West Wing, Sports Night, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Charlie Wilson's War, The Social Network, and Moneyball. He has presided over some of the greatest moments in TV and he did it again recently in the opening episode of The Newsroom.
"Why is America the greatest country in the world?" a coed asks the assembled media pundits on season opener of HBO's The Newsroom.
Aaron Sorkin is an Academy and Emmy award-winning American screenwriter, producer, and playwright, whose works ...
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The Limits of Our Merit
Ray Pennings
July 18, 2012
As Andrew Coyne pointed out in his column this week, this ideal is an illusion. He dismisses much of what is about to happen in London as a predictable consequence of economics. When economic variables can predict the medal standings, the spectacle is debased to that "of the rich kid in the movies who gets daddy to buy him the trophy." Coyne muses about an Olympics "equalizing the support available to athletes of comparable ability, no matter which country they represent" as more fair and exciting.
[caption id="attachment_1251" align="alignright" width="306" caption="Alexandre and Frederic Bilodeau"] ...
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The Olympics: A Religious Conundrum
Richelle Wiseman
July 9, 2012
The London 2012 Olympics may prove to be the venue not just for competition between the world's greatest athletes, but also for an even more interesting contest: an epic church/state battle. The Occupy movement has gone fairly silent since it seemingly petered out in March, but it has by no means gone away. Instead, it is making preparations for major protest activities in London. Occupy Olympics will draw attention to the extraordinary expense of the games to Londoners, to Great Britain, and to the many British people who have suffered dramatically from the austerity measures. They will also complain about the extravagant amounts of money that have been poured into the Olympics by controversial corporate donors such as Dow Chemicals, and about Olympic merchandise made by child labour.
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What Else Lives to 100?
Peter Menzies
July 5, 2012
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For 10 years of my life it was an annual duty to write—or make someone else write—an editorial praising the tradition of the Calgary Stampede. (I am thinking, by the way, of footnoting the word "editorial" so that future generations may understand what such...
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Healthy, Wealthy, Respawning
Josh Reinders
June 6, 2012
The discussion was centered on the digital economy, and specifically the gaming industry. Topics included women in video games, why video games are successful, and how video games can be used in conjunction with the health industry. The talk piqued my interest, as I often enjoy the pleasure of playing video games.
Last week I ventured out of the shackles of my internship and went on a field trip into the fabled land of Research in Motion (RIM), OpenText, and Wilfrid Laurier University. Congress 2012 of the Hu...
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The Games of Yanks and Canucks
Robert Joustra
March 23, 2012
Not long ago I was enjoying an evening meal with the monks at St. Gregory's in Three Rivers, Michigan, and the text being read for the evening was a cultural history of the Cold War as told through Monopoly. Over their spartan supper, I learned that Monopoly has become one of the most powerful, influential games in the world. The concomitant rise of its narrative, competitive capitalism, has mirrored American cultural and political ascent. It is a game predicated on the fictions of level playing fields, impartial chance, limited intervention, and the ingenuity of market competition. Victory in Monopoly also spells disaster for capitalism, an ironic tension that now seems to be eternally nestled in the American psyche.
If there are two cultural artifacts that showcase the distinctives between Americans and Canadians, it is surely these two board games: Monopoly and Poleconomy. What the devil is Pole...
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Government Addictions
Brian Dijkema
March 15, 2012
It's a good question, but it's the wrong one. Ontario's finance minister, Dwight Duncan, should have asked, "What is a Crown corporation doing taking revenues from a casino at all?" As Adam Radwanski notes in the Globe, "The new vision for OLG adds up to something radically different—a tough-minded (some would say cold-blooded) business plan without any of the usual moral squeamishness."
"What expertise does a Crown corporation have in running a hot dog stand in a casino?"
It's a good quest...