The Old Ballgame…

I used to love going to the ballpark as a kid.  I was a HUGE Gary Carter fan.  Loved the Expos,  I spent my 18th birthday at Olympic stadium with my Uncle Mitch watching the Mets, then watching a Mets fan gets pwned by Expos fans when he said “we americans own you canadians”.  Lesson learned?  Only say that when you’re at a Habs game.  Just makes better sense. I know some Canadian ball fans will jump up and say Blue Jays!!!  To them I say WHAT?  Like I could ever cheer for any sports team from the GTA.

But like a lot of ‘spos fans, my heart was broken by Major League Baseball in 1994 when they pulled the plug on the season, with the Expos having the best record in all of baseball. Once that was done, I checked out. You’d think that a guy named Cub would follow the Cubs. You’d be wrong. To me, it was all about Tim Raines,  Andre Dawson,  Warren Cromartie,  Steve Rogers,  the Spaceman Bill Lee,  Delino Desheilds,  Dennis Martinez and for one season in 1984, Charlie Hustle himself, Pete Rose, who recorded his his 4,000th hit at Olympic Stadium.  The only other pro to hit 4000?  Ty Cobb, who was one miserable SOB and quite the douchebag.  I miss Youppie (I know he’s with the Habs now, but it’s not the same)  & I miss steamed hot dogs from Olympique Stadium.  I even miss the strange music they used to play in the stands,  like frenchified versions of motown hits.  Now days, this is considered entertaining. At least he didn’t fall on his head while trying to catch a ball… Too soon?

I’m hooked….

 

Don’t know about your neck o’ the woods, but in the past three weeks around the Metro Halifax, we’ve had about 40-60 cm’s of snow. That’s at least the size of one young unicorn, easily.  That’s science, that’s a FACT. Normally, the site of all this snow would send more lower back into hibernation, but thanks to a fun night out @ Martock last Friday, all this snow has jump started something that I hadn’t done in a long time. Snowboarding.

I’ll admit it, I was a kid of the 80′s, waking up early Saturday mornings to watch GI. JOE:

He-man:

and from time to time, when the cable was out, the Littlest Hobo:

When we weren’t watching Michael J. Fox on Family Ties, or playing on a wacky invention called a “computer”, we were being bombarded by tons of television commercials. I know, it must be hard for kids today to imagine, but sadly, this part of human history is indeed true. One of these “commercials” was for a snowboard you could buy at Zellers, or Canadian tire. The earliest models didn’t even have metal edges, just hard plastic bindings that fit your Cougar boots! All my buds had one, this was well before you were allowed to ride on actual ski hills. This was thumb a lift out-of-town, back country, hop the fence semi-legal snowboarding.  Local ski hills banned snowboarding back then. Man, that changed!

A few years later, I tried it again. I don’t know why, maybe too many little snot nosed jerks ruined it, but it didn’t take the second time, a little older, a little stiffer than I was at 14, but the third time? Third time’s the charm, rode a Burton for the first time in a looooong time, fell in love again with the feeling of carving down a hill and this time, I’d say the boards outweighed the skis. It wasn’t pretty on Friday night, but for a guy who hasn’t been on a board in 5 years, I think I did pretty damn good! Even as I sit here with an ice pack on my left wrist (final run too that night go figure!), frig it,  I’m doing the very same thing tomorrow @ Martock! Hopefully without all the falling down and the pain and stuff..

 

We’ve got 10-20 cm’s of fresh powder and temps around zero, hookey anyone?

 

 

 

Dear Dany Heatley….

 

As the hockey world sits and waits mere hours from one of the most anticipated match ups of the 2010-2011 NHL season, of course I’m talking about the Ottawa Senators fans VS Dany Heatley, what? You thought this game was about two hockey teams? You poor misguided fool! Nah, this is about as personal as it gets. It’s not the first time a player gets on the bad side of a sports town. The words Eric Lindros and Quebec City come to mind:

 

 

And more recently, how about a little basketball player by the name of Lebron James?

 

 

With all due respect to the fine people of Cleveland and to paraphrase Allen Iverson, this is Canada, we talkin’ ’bout hockey, not basketball! Some people might see the disdain Senators fans have for Dany Heatley and say, guys, get over it. But it’s not that simple, you see, people in Hockey Country live and die with this team, players are instantly absorbed by the community, taken in as one of their own. The reason why so many fans in Ottawa are taking this so personally is because they took in Dany Heatley as one of their own when he needed a fresh start. The city adopted him, the media gave him space, time to get his head right, even when his play on the ice was shit, to coin a phrase. What this comes down to Heatley’s inability to provide a reason as to why he wanted to leave. That’s all Sens fans want. They want him to say sorry. That’s the answer, the secret to this mystery. Sens fans just want to hear him say sorry for once. And to never, ever touch Lord Stanley’s mug. Or, get some sort of veneral disease….

C’mon Montreal, you’re classier than this…

I grew up as a fan of les Glorieux in my hometown of Aylmer, Quebec. To be honest, I didn’t know a single person who cheered for anybody else. I refuse to acknowledge certain members of my family who may or may not cheer for a random group of clowns called the Maple Leafs:

I’ll admit it, being a Habs fan was in my blood, my Grand Uncle, Leo “Le Gazelle” Gravelle played for Montreal back in the late 1940′s. So suck on it. I was at the Montreal Forum for Guy Lafleur’s final game in the NHL, I remember my Mom got me his autograph on the back of her pack of Rothmans while the Flower made an appearance at Les Galleries D’Aylmer. The joint was packed! I remember bawling my eyes out the first time the Nordiques eliminated the Canadiens in the playoffs:

I know that wasn’t the clip of the Nordiques knocking out the Habs, but to hell with it. While I hope they get another team in Quebec City, the Habs fan in me still thinks they suck.

But c’mon Montreal, you’re better than this:

Think this image is good for the NHL? Idiots. Not the true fans, but the parasites who thought the best way to celebrate was to smash a window on St. Catherine and grab as much shit as they could find. What the hell were the cops doing? Did they not think that this could happen? Did they just move to the city? Did they forget this?

Too bad, cause they’re on a hell of a run. Go Sens Go however and stay classy.