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Climate Change and Pigskins?

Posted by :James Howden On : February 7, 2007
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Category: All About Sports

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[This piece first appeared on the main “At First Glance” pane of the site, so that those allergic to sport might not miss it.]

It is surprising and encouraging when unlikely dance partners like these get together: global consciousness meets pro football?!  (For another similar example – which I also refused to place in JH.com’s jock ghetto — read about Canadian Olympic medallist Sara Renner’s outlook here.)

Leigh Steinberg is one of the top sports agents in the United States. (He is alleged to be the model for the film Jerry Maguire, if that helps you any.) He’s well known to sports fans because he has represented many of the top athletes, including many of the National Football League’s number one draft choices. I heard Steinberg on jock radio during the build-up to the Super Bowl. I hadn’t known until, oh, three minutes ago that he insists that all his clients include some form of community service or charitable giving in each contract they sign. So I was startled – perhaps as much as interviewer Jim Rome – when Steinberg veered from talking about the athletes he represents to a blunt and bright discussion of climate change.

“Global warming is here,” he said, and began talking about the numerous ways in which the monstrous stadiums of the National Football League could become more sustainable, even to the point of being net producers rather than consumers of energy. He is working at “putting athletes aggressively into environmental causes and efforts”. Sheesh. What’s the world coming to when football people jump on the ecological bandwagon?

Well, people are waking up, most importantly those of us living in the Privilege Zones of the planet. It’s a hopeful development, even if it’s not much more than a glimmer in an agent’s eyes. As for me, I sleep with EcoWoman every night – my wife Diana is an environmental avenger and a federal policy analyst – so climate change and other matters of planetary hygiene are standard fare. Suddenly, though, green freaks like us aren’t on the fringes anymore. Canadian newspapers and media outlets, including those leaning to the right, are filled with news and analysis on the threats posed by our consumption of energy and goods, and our bizarre levels of waste. Walmart, of all things, is dedicating itself to environmental leadership. (I know, I know, I was sceptical too, at first, but it’s real.) And think about it: if big business doesn’t get on board, the rapid social changes we need to make just aren’t going to be quick or thorough enough. We need everybody.

Even the NFL: it and other facets of the sports industry are enormous money machines, and have a large ecological footprint. They’re not renowned for walking lightly on the land, but maybe they’ll at least consider changing their shoes. Who knows? Maybe guys will take the bus to the game. Maybe they’ll recycle their beer cans. Maybe they’ll insist on stadium-mounted windmills. A man can dream.

[Other NFL reflections can be found here. Never fear. There’s more to life than sports, but then there’s more to SPORTS than sports…]

Super Stuff

Posted by :James Howden On : February 5, 2007
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Artie’s Megtastic Brontoplasm Heavy Definition MonsterScreen (not its real name) loomed at the end of the den. TechBoy was racing around fitting his EarPiercer MaxVol Screamers — these were not your dad’s stereo speakers — the better to further stun the cerebral nerve endings of the only geezer invited to the Super Party. (That would be me.) Eight trays of wings were on the table – one for each of us, as it groaningly turned out – along with crunchies, chewies and slurpies. We weren’t a beer-swilling crowd, but we were ready to assert our North American manhood in every other way we could. After all, da Colts wuz playin’ da Bears for the World Championship of the Excited States of American Football. Hooting and hollering ensued, especially during that wacky first quarter, and Sparky, one stressed-out and neurotic little pup, went canine straitjacket on us. Ya gotta love living room sports.

The commercials. I soon realized I was with a crowd that was at least as interested in the ads as the third-down conversion rates, and I’m not just talking about Artie’s wonderfully excitable Mom. (These guys were more into the technical aspects of the telecast reception than in any Manning-to-Harrison connection. Vafa meditated at length on how the virtual first-down line was generated). Somehow, we were able to get the American commercials – including a stunningly amateur one from Detroit replacement window installers who take fibreglass very seriously – instead of the Global Canuck substitutes. (Take that, CRTC!!) There was a busy and amusing series of Lord of the Flies work-is-a-jungle-riot ads for a job-search company. There was an uncomfortably homoerotic and homophobic (tough double!) spot that I can’t imagine will sell a lot of Snickers bars. As usual, Bud Light has some of the best creative minds in America helping it to sell insipid and slightly poisonous beverages. (Best line of the night: But he’s got a chainsaw!)

And Coke poured more megabucks into helping us to associate sugar, caffeine and gas with our psychological well-being. The incredibly expensive video-game styled ad, in which Joe Cool rights all the wrongs of the street and inspires a giddy festival of urban happiness, was one that I quite liked. It’s a 2007, hyperactive version of the old I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony / I’d like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company. (I know it’s a tooth-rotting soft drink, but I’m a sucker for brotherhood and global harmony.) The chiselled young men I was with didn’t appreciate the “Wonderland in the Coke Machine” ad much, but I could see it through the eyes of the little boys that have lived in my house for so long. It was imaginative, incredibly expensive, and pretty darned cute. I waved a sourpuss white flag, though, for the salute to Black History Month, which appeared to link Holy Coca-Cola with all the most heroic moments and characters in the African American story. Yecch. That was but one expression of the Dungy/Lovie factor, the aren’t we a wonderful country to have black coaches for the all the dark young men that we pay so well to entertain us sentiment. Not to mention that CBS Cares, apparently, about much more than ratings, although the accompanying series of images of beautiful black children and noble black elders seemed, well, just a little too self-congratulatory. But maybe I shouldn’t be so harsh: even clumsily celebrated racial progress is racial progress. (I think.)

The game. I like football. My playing days are a foggy image in a cracked rear-view mirror. (The older I get, the better I was. What a great line. Wish I’d written it, wonder who did.) I don’t even watch it that much anymore, though I read more pigskin commentary than is healthy. It was my first time seeing the Lovie Smith Bears, but I’ve seen the Colts several times over the last few years. I’m a great admirer of Tony Dungy, and was anxious to have all the call-in sports radio meatheads stop braying about Peyton Manning being over-rated. (Envy grows like a titanic and atom-powered cancer among low self-esteem sports fanatics.) I was pulling for the Colts.

Early on, it looked like I was rooting for the white-hatted cowboys who were about to be chewed up by the baddies. What a crazy, sloppy, interesting first quarter, so unlike the usual tense blandness. By halftime, though, a Colts victory was looking pretty inevitable, as long as they refused to kick to Devin Hester. I stayed tuned in to the play, though most of my younger brothers had gone to cyber-geek guy talk that I can barely understand. I was a little disappointed (how greedy can I be?) that the Horseshoes couldn’t translate their skill and power into a more dominating final score. It’s a bit mean-spirited, I admit, but I was pleased to think of Edgerrin James – the former star runner for the Colts who left them for extra millions – watching the SB in a football desert. I loved the cleverness of Joseph Addai, James’s replacement, with his quickness and subtle spins and shifts. I was thrilled by that gorgeous toe-dragging sideline catch by Marvin Harrison; one of the unfilmed highlights of my football “career” was an eleventh-grade grab a little bit like that. (In my mental video library, anyway.) The Sanders interception of a one-winged duck thrown by Bears QB “Bad Rex” Grossman reminded me painfully of the worst ball I ever threw to a wide-open, touchdown-ready teammate. (It was grade 12, and that quacking attempt at a long pass was in the air so long I could’ve almost run and caught it myself. The coach switched me to linebacker soon afterward). And I was grateful that the deeply Christian Dungy didn’t echo the Colts’ owner’s proclamation — did you hear it? — of the Universal Creator’s undivided interest in the gridiron success of the Colts. (Such a little God! No wonder so many people find it hard to believe.)

When I was a kid, the ferocity of football was attractive, though it was always the sweet catch, the nimble cut, the tightly spiralling throw or punt that really thrilled me. As an adult, I came to see that football is the best TEAM game there is. In a high school, say, it has the potential to do more for the spirit of a large group of (possibly) undermotivated and emotionally isolated young men than anything short of wars and revolutions. Sorry to go all socio-political on you, but I guess I’m glad that the Colts won without the worst of the in-your-face, look-at-me macho freakshow posturing that takes so much away from the team feeling of football played well. And despite all those fumbles, there was some good football to watch last night, in between the main attractions. Thanks for the High Def, Mr. B. It was good to pretend I was 22 for awhile.

Ice Dreams

Posted by :James Howden On : January 17, 2007
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I grew up in a little Canadian town where we played ball near cornfields or in leafy squares, and got the hockey sticks out in late September. For reasons that I still can’t entirely explain, I became a hoops hostage in my mid-teens. I officially became a Basketball Guy, I think, during the UCLA Bruins’ astounding 88-game winning streak. I was a fan of Bill Walton and his Gang (and, later, of their coach, the legendary John Wooden), who were by early 1974 pursuing their third straight undefeated championship season. I remember my anguished disbelief when Notre Dame knocked off the Bruins in February to end the streak – it was a big enough game to actually be on television – and again two months later, when NC State (and the gloriously soaring David Thompson) beat them in the NCAA finals. (Or was that the semis?)

I had played the game for about a year and half by then. I was a grade 11 and thought I was getting good, but Haldimand County clay didn’t exactly ooze with hardwood competition. Or hardwood, for that matter: I played mainly on tile and that sort of parquet floor where the fingers of wood are always coming loose. I’ll bet there weren’t more than ten people in my town who even watched the Final Four that year, and most of them were the oddballs on my team whose skates were dusty, who believed that playing basketball was The Thing.

But before all that – with my Red River cereal and Riverview Dairy milk (home delivered!) – I ate and drank other sports: Hamilton Tiger Cat (and four-boy) football, Montreal Expos baseball (and endless games of “scrub” on the town square) and, especially, hockey (every kind, everywhere). I worshipped Gordie Howe from afar and the impossibly big and fast young men of the Junior D Caledonia Corvairs from as close as I could get. (I’d stick my nose right through the iron fencing that ran around the end boards.) The Sutherland Street Hockey League was fabulous in those days, and the games never stopped for long.

I don’t watch a lot of hockey in the regular season anymore, though I still pay attention. (I know the Ducks are no longer Mighty, and that Alexander the Great plays wing for the Washington Capitals.) But when CBC ran its annual Hockey Day in Canada last Saturday, I had cranked our coal-fired television up to watch. The Canadian hockey Goliath has often been something I wanted to take my slingshot to, but there’s still so much to love about the sport. I saw parts of all three games, but what grabs me by the heartstrings is what comes in between on Hockey Day: the grateful words of NHL players remembering their roots, the interview with that grinning guy who kept outdoor hockey alive in his Quebec town for 40 years, the rink that is the best hope of a struggling northern Saskatchewan community. I eat it up. It moves me to my sports-loving core. Gosh, I even got misty over the Tim Horton’s ad — yes, I insist on the comma! — with Sidney Crosby laughing and stickhandling with all the little fellas. I used to be one of those wee sprouts on skates, before Timbits or full facemasks had even been invented. And now, at an age where I should perhaps have outgrown these things, this ol’ basketball coach still has occasional hockey dreams: all that speed, the cool wind on my face, maybe one more great glove save from my goalie days…

Back in my hometown, there is a new twin-pad arena complex that has the town pretty excited. (Somebody had the smarts to get a new library built in the bargain. Come on, boys, you can read, too! ) I hope kids smile when they play, that they’re taught the speed and skill of that wonderful game, not just systems and corner grit. I hope the parents have some perspective. (I often had too lofty ambtions for my basketball coaching back in what folks always insisted was a hockey town, but there was one benefit: nobody thought their kid was going to the NBA.) The great Canuck poet Al Purdy described professional hockey as “this combination of ballet and murder”. True. But at its purest, and in the deepest caves of my memory, it’s a cool and an ever-gorgeous game. (And there are no goons, and no uptight, gum-chomping coaches. And I get to play forward whenever I want. And man, I can really fly out there…)

Class Action, Nash and Klassen.

Posted by :James Howden On : December 11, 2006
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And a Prairie Woman Shall Lead Them…?

First things first: this is not like baseball star Larry Walker being National League MVP and getting “beat by a car” for the Lou Marsh trophy as Canada’s outstanding athlete (that car, a very fast one that season, was driven by Jacques Villeneuve in Formula 1). Today the TorinoFabulous Cindy Klassen was given the award, and I applaud her heartily. For reasons that the Globe’s Stephen Brunt outlined on Saturday, it was a brilliant year for sweaty Canucks but, like him, I hold out for Steve Nash. (I wrote about him, with appropriate playground bedazzlement, here.)

The Lou Marsh voters, sportwriters all, tend to prefer international athletes, those not getting the usual Canadian buzz for whichever homeboy leads the NHL scoring parade. (Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux combined for 16 Art Ross trophies as scoring champs and 12 NHL MVPs, but “only” five Lou Marsh awards. They were beaten, for example, by Olympians like Gaetan Boucher, Susan Nattrass (target shooting!), Carolyn Waldo (synchro swimming!!), Myriam Bedard (betcha can’t name her sport) and Silken Laumann. Oh, and by a guy called Ben Johnson. Twice. Oops.) Villeneuve was a bit of a departure from this tradition of honouring competitors in sports with a lower profile (and lower salaries), and I won’t start ranting about the dubious athleticism of car jockeys. The choice of Klassen, though, who will continue to be the focus of high-pressure expectation and excitement as the Games come to Vancouver in 2010, is one that honours a great athlete and addresses, in small measure, the usual disregard for female sport. Bravo, say I.

I can’t get much righteous indignation going, though, at the selection of a marvellous Olympian like Klassen. She was a powerhouse at the Torino Winter Games, the most outstanding athlete there and the leader of a superb crew of Canadian women athletes with her five medals, including an individual gold and two silvers. She’s the most decorated Canadian Olympian ever, the 2006 speedskating World Cup champion., and bubbled radiantly with grace and joy at her accomplishments and, wonderfully, at those of her teammates. (I wrote about her with great enthusiasm here last February.)

But I can’t help but say this: how many basketball players are there in the world? Of all those many millions, how many times will a Canadian be judged, for the second straight year, the most valuable to his team at the highest level? Fine. And how many competitive female speedskaters are there on the planet at any given time? Would there be more than ten thousand? I feel like a jerk for pointing out numbers like that, because Cindy Klassen represents much that is most honourable in sport, including the chance for young women to see a wonderfully strong role model and young men to (briefly?) cheer a strong, accomplished and fully-clothed woman. The Olympics are one of the few occasions when female athletes can take centre stage, albeit too often for events with sequins and swimsuits. So it is a sweet thing for this attention to a superb competitor to continue. But the greatest accomplishment by a Canadian athlete, in this or nearly any other year, is that of Mr. Nash.

Through a Skier’s Eyes: Global Warming

Posted by :James Howden On : November 30, 2006
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There’s a good story in The Toronto Star today about the point where the ski wax hits the snow. Or doesn’t, as it happens…

Two of Canada’s best winter athletes, the alpine skier Thomas Grandi and his Olympic silver-medallist wife, cross-country star Sara Renner, have outed themselves. They are environmentalists. They have a broad social consciousness that may have been pricked by their chosen sports, but which extends far beyond the winter playground to a greater concern for the way we live, especially in the wealthy Western hemisphere.

Grandi’s World Cup season is in jeopardy because of a lack of snow. Snow-making (and preserving) equipment is now critical to international meets, though it was rarely needed two decades ago. Many of the world’s top cross-country ski teams train together now because there are so few places with reliable snow cover. Renner skied through a driving rain at a meet well above the Arctic circle in Finland this year. The United Nations even proclaimed it a few years ago: skiers may be an endangered species.

What’s encouraging about Renner and Grandi is that they see beyond their sport. Athletes are young and they are focused. Elite competitors often live narrow and self-interested lives, and may be required to do so by coaches and associations that insist on Olympian levels of concentration as a prerequisite to success. But here’s the thing: especially for athletes in the well-paid professional ranks, how do they fill the other 18-20 hours a day beyond their training and competition? How much X-Box can they reasonably be expected to play?

No problem for these Canadian stars. They’ve seen An Inconvenient Truth. Not only do they know who David Suzuki is, they’re working with him on a public- awareness campaign on greenhouse gases and climate change. Their sport, and the industry and municipalities that support it are threatened. But for Thomas Grandi and Sara Renner, it’s not just about sport, either. They work hard – biking, cutting household energy use, buying sustainably – to reduce their own environmental footprints, and they even purchase carbon credits to offset the greenhouse gases produced when they must fly or drive. It’s everybody’s air; it’s everybody’s water, they say.

Bully for them for saying it, and for walking their talk. Now, when Sidney Crosby starts to express public concern for the increasing difficulty in building an outdoor rink, or when LeBron James begins to buy back the carbon offsets for his basketball road trips, we’ll know that the jock world is waking up to smell the global warning. (It’s about Climate Change, smarty!)

Why He Didn’t

Posted by :James Howden On : November 29, 2006
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After hearing Sheldon Kennedy interviewed by Jim Rome a couple of weeks ago, I wanted to read his book, the finally I’m ready to tell about all this stuff publication of his memoir of his hockey career but especially of the years-long sexual abuse he endured from a trusted coach. One of the bitter ironies of Kennedy’s life is that only now, after a very successful junior career and a journeyman’s eight years in and around the NHL, is he rediscovering the love and joy in the game that he had known as a child.

Why I Didn’t Say Anything: The Sheldon Kennedy Story is very affecting reading, and answers most of the quiet wonderings I’d had about this episode, a tale which I mainly knew from sensational headlines and brief interviews. His voice comes through strongly but reasonably and without bitterness, though his co-writer and editors have allowed many grammar errors and typos to remain. (Kennedy tells of a healing encounter with residents of the Morley Reserve during his cross-Canada skate to heighten awareness of sexual abuse. The meeting was so emotional, he reports, that “everybody was balling” after it. What, a 3 on 3 hoops tourney broke out?) This is certainly not high literature, but the raw sincerity of Kennedy’s prose is a revelation and a challenge to anyone who cares about sport, about children, or about the personal and societal damage caused by sexual abuse. It’s a quick read and a useful one.

Sporting Equality

Posted by :James Howden On : November 27, 2006
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It’s not so easy to follow women’s soccer, but I’m inclined to try. The plucky Canuck women, about whom I wrote last Thursday, came achingly close to beating the mighty Americans – two-time World Cup champs, second-ranked team in the world – in the finals of the Gold Cup yesterday in California.

Both teams are headed for the 2007 World Cup, but this was another chance for the Canadian girls to break the domineering spell of Big Sister to the south. We’ve only ever beaten the Yanks three times in women’s play, compared to a long sheet of losses. Just a month or so ago, the States won 1-0 in the final of a Korean tournament, and yesterday was a 2-1 result decided by a penalty late in overtime. Canadian coach Even Pellerud had already been booted from the match in regulation time when Kristine Lilly hit the American winner in the final minute before going to penalty kicks.

The red and white are getting closer. “We produced more pressure than ever before,” Pellerud said. “They needed 120 minutes to beat us on a doubtful (penalty). I am very proud of what [we] did. It was fantastic.” With both teams advancing anyway, Canada obviously has more at stake in a game like this. Every time they play the Americans, it’s like a World Cup final, whereas the motivation of the dominators can’t be quite so great. Still, a revamped American team has managed to lengthen its record international undefeated streak to 32 games.

In women’s hockey, a similar dynamic is present but inverted, with Canada as Queens of the ice castle and a very good American squad ever ready to knock them off it. One big difference: nobody else in the world can really compete with the U.S. and Canada. Part of the greatness of the soccer rivalry is that it takes place in the context of world play which, though not yet as widely competitive as men’s football, still has at least five teams (maybe half a dozen, if you include the red ‘n’ white) that can realistically compete for a World Cup.

The greatest opportunities for sporting girls and women exist in North America, but the trend is spreading. (But how long will it be before African women’s sides can compete as their male counterparts are beginning to in world soccer? There are so many obstacles specific to women, and so much to be done in so many places before girls playing becomes possible, let alone a priority. But soccer is the game for the poor.) European sides are very strong, with the Germans and the Norwegians having won a Cup, the East Asian countries are rapidly improving, and the women’s soccer world can hear the South American women coming on. (But will they ever be as dominant as they are in beauty contests? Pardon me for noticing, but a Chilean woman just won the Miss Earth contest — beauty and environmental consciousness, apparently — and the Latinas rock the tiara world these days. Okay, back to the game.)

The growth of gender equality when it comes to giving girls “a sporting chance” is one of the good things the world has going for it. Kudos to the Canadians for helping to lead the way.

Speaking of Maple-Flavoured Sport…

Posted by :James Howden On : November 23, 2006
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While we’re on the subject of Canadian sporting stars, how about our remarkable Women of the Foot? They just knocked off Jamaica, emphatically, yesterday in the Gold Cup competition, which got them through to the next World Cup of soccer, something the Canucksky men haven’t managed in twenty years (and only once ever, I think). These girls are good.

This will be their fourth straight World Cup appearance, having missed only the inaugural women’s event in 1991. In 1995, they managed a tie with Nigeria in pool play and were blasted 7-0 by the eventual champion, Norway, who had narrowly lost in the Cup final to the USA in ’91. The following year, Canadian soccer did a bold thing, hiring away the architect of Norwegian soccer dominance, Even Pellerud, to lead our national team program. Results were similar in 1999 – another pasting by Norway, another round-robin draw (with Japan) – but the cavalry was coming. When Canada hosted the inaugural Women’s Junior World Championships in 2002, they shocked most observers by taking the silver, and budding superstar Christine Sinclair was the leading goal-getter and MVP of the tournament.

By the 2003 World Cup, Canada was a force. They lost to eventual champion Germany in pool play, but notched two convincing wins over Argentina and Japan to qualify for the quarter-finals, where they stunned China 1-0 on a goal by Canada’s most decorated international player, Charmaine Hooper. (129 caps. 68 goals. Stalwart career.) They lost to Sweden in a tight 2-1 semifinal, and finished fourth in the tournament after a 3-1 loss to the two-time champion Americans in the bronze medal match. Youth was served, as young stars Kara Lang and Sinclair provided the last two goals.

Let’s pause for this quick résumé on Ms. Sinclair, whose accomplishments are rather astounding. She’s 23. She’s within striking distance of Hooper’s international goals record for a Canadian, as she already has 53. In the NCAA, doubtless the best developmental level in the world, Sinclair was national Freshman of the Year, a three-time Conference Player of the Year, a two-time NCAA Player of the Year and star of two national championship teams at Portland, and in 2005 was only the third soccer player to be named NCAA Women’s Athlete of the Year. She’s special, and she’s not alone.

One of the few dark spots on this radiant success for women’s soccer in Canada is the controversy that may have ended Hooper’s national team career. In recent months, Mr. Pellerud’s expectations and Ms. Hooper’s sense of fairness have collided, and it appears that a younger team led by Sinclair is more than ready to move on. The next World Cup is in China in 2007, and Canada remains in the running to host the 2011 tournament. We largely ignore their male counterparts, but Canadian women are bringing a real northern lustre to the world’s game.

Justin Morneau’s Mighty Bat

Posted by :James Howden On : November 22, 2006
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I pay enough attention to baseball that I knew about the kind of season that Justin Morneau was having. I am, after all, the owner of a fairly sane Canadian patriotism and was once the custodian of a fairly sweet portside swing (and warning track power). So I’d heard that Our Man Justin was in the mix, but even The Globe and Mail’s excellent Jeff Blair wasn’t picking him to win.

When ‘Big Papi’ David Ortiz came back with another superbly (absurdly) clutch-hitting season, I figured that maybe the a DH doesn’t deserve to win MVP argument might have run its course. And even more compelling, the isn’t it about time Derek Jeter won an MVP blast carried a lot of weight with me. It seemed sure that, with the Red Sox, the Yankees, and the Twinkies in the running, it wasn’t going to be the kid from hockey country (who plays his baseball in the State of Hockey, Minnesota) that the sportswriters selected.

But it was, and I’m mostly happy. Canucks have had Larry Walker winning the National League MVP award in ’97, Jason Bay as NL Rookie of the Year in ’04, the ridiculous Steve Nash topping the NBA voting for the last TWO seasons, and any number of Howes, Lafleurs, Lemieux and Gretzkys (and Joe Thornton last year) who have won the NHL’s Hart Trophy. (Lest we forget: Howe won it six times. Gretzky won NINE.) And now, Justin Morneau has become the first Canadian to win honours as the American League’s top player. Particularly because of how loyal he has been to our national baseball team, that engaging humility, and because his salary is about 5 percent of Jeter’s, it’s hard not to like Morneau’s selection.

Unless you appreciate the defensive side of the game: apparently, not only do chicks dig the long ball but sportswriters do as well. Though he plays for the Evil Empire, there’s a lot to admire about Derek Jeter, and I liked the idea of a magnificent all-around player – and someone with his leadership and class – getting recognized individually. Shoot, a mashing first baseman is next door to a DH, and the National League choice was also a long-ball, bushel-basket-glove sort of guy, Ryan Howard. Whatever happened to “strength down the centre”? When was the last time a shortstop was MVP? (I’m thinking Cal Ripken.) Or a catcher? (Johnny Bench?) Or even a centre fielder? (Hmm. Surely we don’t have to invoke Willie Mays?)* Not that I’m complaining. Congrats to Mr. Morneau. New Westminster, B.C. is the capital of Jock Canada today.

* Okay, how did I do? (And how ’bout you?) Shortstops. Yikes. There’ve been three since Ripken: Barry Larkin (1995 NL), Miguel Tejada (2002 AL) and Alex Rodriguez (2003 AL), though the last two were picked mainly on big home run numbers. Catchers. Bench in 1970 and 1972 (NL), but I’d forgotten Thurman Munson (1976 AL). Centre fielders? There have been a few since Mays. Robin Yount (who also won as a shortstop, and is therefore the greatest all-around player in history) got it in 1989 (AL), and was preceded by Fred Lynn (1975 AL) and Willie McGee (1985 NL) and followed by Ken Griffey Jr. (1997 AL), whom I thought would win several. Many other outfielders have won, but few of them were better than average defensively and some were highlight reels of ineptitude. George Bell comes to mind. (And if I don’t shut up soon, somebody will mention that Wonderful Stevie Nash ain’t exactly a defensive stopper, either!)

Courage and Kennedy

Posted by :James Howden On : November 15, 2006
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I listened to the smack-festive verbal sparring of The Jim Rome Show yesterday and a hockey chat broke out! (Rimshot.) More important, it was one of those serious and heart-building conversations that Rome loves to slide in among the banal star interviews, general jock-sniffing and one-up “takes”. Normally, a Rome interview with an athlete takes up 8 or 10 minutes of a 12-minute program segment, but with Sheldon Kennedy yesterday, he went on for four full segments, a commercial radio hour, and with good reason. (At his site, I think you can hear old shows. It started in hour two.)

Many Canadians, even non-hockey fans (Surprise! There are millions of ‘em…), know about Sheldon Kennedy. His book came out last spring in Canada, and maybe it’s just been published in the States. Certainly, the story is not so well-known there, but back in 1996, near the end of an eight-year NHL career, Kennedy was the public face of a prosecution of his former junior hockey coach, Graham James, for sexual abuse. Imagine: in the closed-mouth, macho world of pro sports, Kennedy openly said that he had been his coach’s sexual prey on hundreds of occasions. James was convicted, and went to jail for 18 months; unbelievably, he still coaches in Europe. (Working with young people? Don’t know. Shudder.) Kennedy shook the hockey world and became another Canadian hero in the mould of Terry Fox or Rick Hansen: the victim of a cruel fate who cannot be beaten down by it. He even rollerbladed across Canada to bring light to this dark subject, because “I always thought, when it was happening, that I was the only one, and I couldn’t do anything or tell anybody.”

Of course, the book was to be next, everybody wanted it, but Kennedy was a basket-case. Self-medication, despair and demons that would not go away nearly killed him, but he finally got straight and got ready. The book is called Why I Didn’t Say Anything: The Sheldon Kennedy Story. He spoke with Rome yesterday, not for the first time, and what a stirring thing it was. He’s a Canadian prairie farm boy, now 36 years old, who speaks as sincerely and feelingly as ever, but now more eloquently and with greater knowledge of the wider social fact of sexual abuse. It’s painful but ultimately inspiring to listen to him. His breaths are deep. The struggle he still endures, after all the interviews, to tell his story again is obvious. Beside the obvious poignancy of so much that he says, I was particularly moved by two things.

He’s a dad himself (he has a young daughter, I think), and one of his core activities in life is to beseech parents to “pay attention to your kids!” Spend time with them. Know who they know. Don’t turn them over to anybody else – hockey coach, drama teacher, Scout leader, anybody – without being sure of this person’s character, motivation, methods. I have four sons, and that’s a scary and challenging thing to hear from a voice like that.

I was also moved by a simpler thing. Sheldon Kennedy is now playing hockey again for fun with a Calgary Flames alumni team. It’s incredible, startling, to hear the wonder in his voice as he speaks of a long-blunted love for this game that he was so good at, but which was not always good to him. “I don’t know how I played in the NHL,” he says. (Talent, for one. Even in the midst of his junior hockey nightmare, he twice had 50-goal seasons, and scored over 40 one year between Detroit and its AHL farm team.) “I never felt this way about the game then. I wish I’d been able to play with the passion that I have now…” And for this brave man, that’s far from the greatest of his losses. It took him nearly ten years to heal enough to write this book. (With Rome, he thanked the work of AA and elsewhere, he has given great credit to Aboriginal friends, their sweat-lodges and their spiritual support.)

Rome was moved this day, and so were his listeners. It was the worst and the best of sport all in one radio hour. Wow. Wow. What a man is Sheldon Kennedy. (If only JR hadn’t had to follow this pathos with a bland football coach. When will Byron be able to play again? How did you feel about losing to the Texans? The show goes on, and must, I guess, but I got whiplash.)