Phil Kessel Rules: Put Sports Writers on Waivers

Posted on March 5, 2015 by McPhedran

Phil Kessel is to be admired for more than his stick work and scoring touch. He’s also good at saying it like it is, even in the face of harsh criticism. “I’m embarrassed for you (sports writers). It’s disgusting the way people treat (Dion Phaneuf).” The sports writers surrounded him, and he stared them down. “I’ve had it. I think this city is a great city. I love Toronto. I love playing here. but I’m just tired of it. I’m sick of it. I don’t think it should go on any more. I think it needs to stop.” The likelihood of Kessel’s advice being heeded is as good as as seeing snakes fly.

Or maybe it’s less likely than that.

Steve Buffrey of The Toronto Sun did his best to spin Kessel’s words: Dumping on the media makes for great copy and sound bites on sports radio. And don’t kid yourself, media types love it when players dump on the media.

The truth is, no matter how Buffrey and his cohorts try to smirk it off, these rumor-mongers are none too pleased. Cathal Kelly, of The Globe & Mail, tried to take the challenge head on: “Once (a player treats reporters with respect), you’ll never rip that guy in print. You’ll criticize, but the ripping days are over. He’s not just someone you cover any more. He’s someone you know.”

The irony here is that Kelly admits to ripping people, which is Kessel’s exact point. The job of a reporter is not to rip, but to report. (Stunning as that may be.) And the idea of Kessel of becoming invested in the personal lives of those looking to attack him just to make them write good stories about him is foul indeed.

Indeed this hubris of the sportswriter is pathetic because they have nothing to have hubris about. They lack skill, ability, insight, empathy, in fact any of the characteristics that make one human. All they seem to know how to do is stand in a clump and rip people – and maybe eat a donut at the same time. They give nothing back. Whereas, Mr. Kessel does give something back with his skill, talent and straight-forward demeanor. Phil Kessel is right. Sports writers are embarrassing. They should all be put on waivers just so they can see what they are actually worth for themselves: nothing at all.

Fandom: Not the Right to Be a Jerk

Posted on January 28, 2015 by McPhedran

As is readily apparent to anyone reading this blog, I am an avid fan of the Toronto Maple Leafs. As a kid, I kept a scrapbook of every Leaf game. I remember exactly where I was when Wendel Clark was traded for Mats Sundin – looking down at a sad-looking plant on a small wooden table in a tiny Roman hotel. My mood shifts from win to loss and win. I look forward to absolutely every game and get anxious for the season to start over the summer months. However one thing I never miss in July – in fact abhor – is the way so many of the Leaf followers use the Leafs to vent and criticize. It’s one thing to have to listen to moronic sports reporters dribble and spew – after all they get paid to write stupid things – but entirely another to hear supposed supporters spout their vitriol.

As much as these people claim to be fans of their teams, the truth is they’re not. Their anger has nothing to do with support, but instead reflects their pathetic isolation and bitter self-reflection on lives ill-led. Nothing more.As frustrated as I might get with the Toronto Maple Leafs, I always support them, yes, through the six-game losing streaks, the disappointing seasons and the 47-year Stanley Cup drought. While I can be critical, the Leafs are my team. It’s not a complicated thing. Go Leafs Go. (And to you fickle fans, I say “Go away.”)

Dave Feshuck: Idiot Toronto Star Reporter Strikes Again

Posted on January 7, 2015 by McPhedran

Dave Feshuck, Toronto Star sportswriter, made news for himself yesterday by attacking Phil Kessel: “You’re the best player on the team, and the coach is fired…are you difficult to coach?”
Kessel turned to the others. “This guy’s such an idiot; he’s always been like this.”

Mr. Kessel is, in fact, quite correct; Feshuck has always been like this. Even as an elementary school student, Feshuck enjoyed baiting others, once demanding of a Grade Four classmate: “You’re the best student here, the school burned down…are you difficult to teach?”

Feshuck gave international reporting a swing after college but had to be escorted back to Canada after he posed the following to Prince Charles, “You were supposed to be king, Princess Diana is dead…are you a difficult prince?” Feshuck had a brief reprieve under Mayor Rob Ford, because he seemed to like these questions. “You’re a heroine user, people laugh at you…are you a difficult mayor?”However Feshuck had to be escorted away again when he demanded of President Obama, “You’re a black guy, the police are killing black people…are you a difficult president?” It is believed that Obama muttered, “This guy is an idiot.”And so, Feshuck, being dumb, aggressive and lazy, found he was qualified only for one thing: reporting on sports.

Reason #29 Why Sports Journalists Aren’t Really Journalists

Posted on October 23, 2014 by McPhedran

Watching Beckett One-Acts on Leafs Opening Night

Posted on October 8, 2014 by McPhedran

Not I: What? . . the buzzing? . . yes . . . all the time the buzzing . . . dull roar . . . in the skull . . . and the beam . . . ferreting around . . . painless . . . so far . . . ha! . . so far . . . then thinking . . . oh long after . . . sudden flash Footfalls: Not enough, what can you possibly mean, May, not enough? May: I mean, Mother, that I must hear the feet, however faint they fall. Rockaby: So in the end/close of a long day/in the end went and sat/went back in and sat.

Ben Johnson: The King of Scapegoats

Posted on September 10, 2014 by McPhedran

The public’s recent kangaroo court ruling on Ray Rice reminds me of one of the greatest scapegoats in memory: Ben Johnson. For years, Mr. Johnson was seen as Canada’s great hope in Track and Field. He was watched by millions as he trained for the 100 meter dash, sprinting, flexing and smiling day in and day out. He went on to set a world record in the event. Canada had the world’s fastest man.

He arrived at the 1988 Seoul Olympics with a country’s hopes on his back and won the gold medal – annihilating the competition, including hated rival Carl Lewis, and setting another world record. He was immediately coronated by the country, as much a Canadian sporting king as Paul Henderson or Terry Fox. And then…Mr. Johnson tested positive for steroids. Suddenly there was no medal, no record and no coronation. Mr. Johnson was transformed – in less than 9.8 seconds – into an immigrant Canada never should have allowed in. He was branded a traitor. In due course, the critical eyes turned to the doctors and coaches. However the spotlight lost focus when it came to the real problem, on why Mr. Johnson was on a mission to win at all costs. Whose idea was all that? The coaches? The Canadian Track and Field Association? The media? The public? As odd as it seems to me, even today, 25 years later, Mr. Johnson is considered with a collective shame. Even now. As guilty as Ben Johnson was, as guilty as Mr. Rice may be, the real crime committed here is not by these individuals, but by a society that craves blood, the crime of reveling in a public execution.

Under Video Review: Ray Rice and the National Football League

Posted on September 8, 2014 by McPhedran

Ray Rice is guilty of domestic violence. No one, including Mr. Rice, disputes that. His guilt was established weeks ago when a video was released showing Mr. Rice dragging his unconscious fiance out of the elevator.

Under Video Review: Ray Rice and the National Football League

Ray Rice Video #1 (courtesy of TMZ)

The National Football League subsequently did a video review and, after Mr. Rice supplicated appropriately, gave him a paltry two game suspension.

However this decision was dramatically reversed today when videotape was released – a reverse angle as it were – showing Mr. Rice actually throw the punch that knocked her out.

Ray Rice Video #2 (Courtesy of TMZ)

The NFL’s reversed decision was radioed down to the field and Mr. Rice was terminated by his team, the Baltimore Ravens, and suspended indefinitely by the league.

The odd thing about this reversal is that the second videotape does not reveal anything not already known; he had admitted to striking her and the videotape had shown her unconscious from that blow. However Mr. Rice’s crime of domestic violence is not in fact at issue here, but rather the perception that the league endorses the crime. The league understands that, if they didn’t take drastic action that it isn’t Mr. Rice who punched that poor woman and knocked her out, but the NFL itself. Which begs the question of Ray Lewis, a former NFL Baltimore Raven who served time for obstruction of justice – a plea deal to avoid murder charges – and yet recently had a statue erected in his honor.

Indeed what if Mr. Lewis’ crime had been videotaped? Would that statue have been erected or Mr. Lewis ever allowed in the television booth? The sad truth is that, as guilty as Mr. Rice is of assault, he is a scapegoat, someone for the rest of the league to heap scorn on, so that the NFL can be left to commit business as usual. (Fantasy Football owners will just have to bite the bullet and let Ray go.)

Bob Pollard Plays Mark Twain at The Stone Pony

Posted on August 24, 2014 by McPhedran

Micaela says I’m pushing it, but while watching Guided by Voices last night at Asbury Park’s famed The Stone Pony, I was thinking that Bob Pollard was a Mark Twain superstar kind of guy.

Click the image below to see him nail Tractor Rape Chain. True, he got so drunk that he not only told the audience to “Fuck off” more than several times and played I am a Scientist twice, but also fell down in a heap at the end. But I stick to my theory, based not only on his out-spoken, sardonic nature and belligerence, but Bob as an exhaustive, creative force. And he drinks a lot too.

Mark Twain: Cursed to Live a Fascinating Life

Posted on August 22, 2014 by McPhedran

Mark Twain: A Life by Ron Powers is an intimidating work not only from its physical weight (3 pounds of text) but more from the iconic burden of the man. Mark Twain, as he himself wrote, lived “in the midst of world history”, charging through an epoch of change, realizing many of his dreams, and yet suffering through as much misery. He captained steamboats at the outset of the American Civil War, mined for silver in Nevada during the Comstock Lode, and went on speaking tours world-wide, all the while developing the “American” voice in literature, a life famously beginning and ending as Haley’s Comet appeared in the sky. He was a witty, demanding man and deeply reflective, offering rebukes to governmental policies that would ring true even today. “I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.” But most interesting of all, he had plans for many unrealized books, including a follow-up to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Twain wrote in his journal: Huck comes back, 60 years old, from nobody knows where & crazy. Thinks he is a boy again & scans every face for Tom and Becky.

Tom comes, at last, 60 from wandering the world & tends Huck & together they talk the old times; both are desolate, life has been a failure, all that was lovable, all that was beautiful is under the mould. They die together.

Sadly, Twain outlived much of his immediate family, surviving his wife and three of four children.

Bad News Bruin of Hockey

Posted on May 15, 2014 by McPhedran

I’m sick of the bad behavior in hockey these days, especially from Boston Bruiin Milan Lucic. Not only did he threaten Canadiens players in the handshake after the game last night – apparently he’s going “to fucking get them next year” – but far worse, he deliberately tried to injure Danny Dekeyser in the previous series by stabbing his stick into his groin. As amusing as some might find all of this – to say nothing of water bottles being sprayed to insult and mock – it is terrible for the game of hockey.

Lundqvist mocks Crosby

Indeed this garbage is reminiscent of the dark days of the 1970s, the Philadelphia Flyers – the self-proclaimed bullies of the league – and Bobby Clarke, infamous for breaking Russian Valery Kharlamov’s ankle in the 1972 Summit Series. None of this is a matter of “boys being boys” – as some are chuckling – but rather is a terrible embarrassment for the sport and must be eradicated. It’s not a difficult task. Suspensions of 5-10 games would work for the first infraction, 20-40 games for the second incident and a lifetime ban for the third. There are other leagues in the world, and perhaps Lucic would be a better fit somewhere else.

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