On Sport

Check out this link, from the Oilers' game on Thursday. Sixteen thousand people singing O Canada together - I wonder when was the last time THAT happened. I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. Ron McLean knew how I was feeling when he said, "That, like all the things we love, never gets old."

But then I reflected on it, for just a moment, from another point of view. Where these people really singing because they are proud Canadians? A number of them, probably. But I would say that most of them are singing because they are Oilers fans, and they think this shows how great of fans they are. Personally, I don't need the Stanley Cup playoffs to inspire me to show respect for my country and its anthem.

Fortunately, I didn't stop thinking about it after that. And I actually came to a conclusion, rather than my too-often fallback position of fence-sitting.

This is far from the worst example of patriotism and pride - it is, rather, one of the best examples of the power of the good in sport.

We had a rough relationship for a while there, sport and I. When I got to university, I almost totally stopped playing team sports. Instead, I had to study it. I had classes in sport physiology. Sport ethics. Sociology of sport. Psychology of sport. Sport Administration. Sport injury, sport rehabilitation, sport history, and a whole schedule of others. I got pretty pissed off with sports in general, and I would try to avoid studying them any more than I had to. I even somehow got away with writing about the potlach for my sport history class; I guess that falls under the "sport and leisure" category. Anyway, having finished my classes and done what I thought was the more honourable thing to do in the field (working with the injured in the general population, rather than spoiled athletes), I found through my horrible disappointment in that field that there may be something good to sports - namely, motivation. While not forgetting this, it was soon overshadowed by the NHL lockout, which, according to my somewhat jaded view at the time, pitted a bunch of whiny millionaires against a bunch of whiny millionaires.

Luckily for me, and for everyone as far as I'm concerned, sport keeps coming back. Though sometimes you can get some of the positive effects of sport without the organization (as I have previously written), I must admit that nothing can compare to sport. Any sport.

What else is there in the world that makes me, alone in my room, jump off my bed screaming, pumping my arms in the air? Because some guy I have never met, putting a little piece of rubber behind another guy, 1000 miles away from me, has caused that reaction. Wearing the same jersey in a sports bar makes you automatic friends. Wanting to maintain the fitness to play will motivate people to eat just about anything, and do a ridiculous amount of preparation hardly rivalled by any other professional.

Yes, Sport can sometimes motivate too much. And sometimes the fans look past the reason for the competition.

And yet, it is still athletes who have to power to unite millions (I have never met as many Oilers fans outside of Edmonton as I have in the past few weeks). Sport provides inspiration for a child. If two people meet, having never met before, and they find that they both love to golf, they might as well have been friends for years by the sudden connection they can make. Sport can make participant and fan alike cry. It can give smiles. It gives broken bones and scrapes and sprains, and the athletes love to talk of these battle scars. Two participants, or two fans, can be going at each other for hours and still have the highest respect for the other. Taking on challenges and defeats in sport prepares those who know them for challenges in all other aspects of life. And the feeling - the feeling of competition; the hard hits; the big throw; the sacrifice for the team; and maybe, if you have worked hard enough and everything falls into place, the victory - it is unbeatable.

We're ok again, sport and I.

I'm famous

The other day, I was shown this magazine:


Now, I am not normally one to read its lies and misleading stories, but apparently...someone wrote in about me. For background see this previous post, number 1. Yeah.

The best job in the world

I was walking through a park yesterday. It is one of those parks where people drive their pimped out corvettes and cruisers, as well as their '04 Sunbirds with huge spoilers, around in circles for no particular reason. And what I decided during this time was that something was missing. None of these cars were doing it for me. They all looked rather ridiculous. Big and bulky. The side mirrors looking like little underdeveloped stubs sticking out to the side. Everything pretty much rectangular. Everything so heavy. I guess that's why I don't care too much if I drive a "cute" truck with an old-man canopy, because they all generally look the same to me. I don't know why.

Then I went to a movie last night, and I realized why. Because cars ARE slow and bulky and cumbersome. Compared to fighter planes.

I went to see Fighter Pilot at IMAX. Check out a quick trailer here. It was awesome. All of those planes and helicopters look pretty cumbersome and ungainly on the ground too. With their peg-leg landing gear and strange looking control surfaces moving around, they can't do much better than a car. But put any one of those aircraft in flight, and...wow, that is how machines should move. The engines are roaring, but the moves look effortless. No longer confined to 3 dimensions. The bulkiest transport plane up there has more grace than the sleekest sports car on the road, and the slowest helicopter looks smoother than a luxury sedan. Then there were at least 7 different fighters planes, the most powerful things in the sky. I could watch those things move all day.

Until I can get in one. Three more months. I can't wait to get up there again.Note: No, I won't be flying one of those

Prairie Hot Spots

I had a free weekend. My buddy from here in Winnipeg and I decided we should go meet up with our friends that have moved away. So where would we meet? Why, in the number one party place on the Prairies - Regina, of course.

I unfortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your point of view) didn't get any pictures of our escapades. Therefore, I will have to describe them.

We took the guy's girlfriend's sweet grocery-getting Vibe at 150km/h down the Transcanada to arrive at the hotel by 8pm. The others arrived minutes later, and together we started off the festivities by dining on a few liquid barley sandwiches. Deciding to go to the "cool" Regina bar, the Pump, we set off on foot. A stop at MacDonald's was necessary, where everyone else added to their caloric intake by wolfing down a couple double cheeseburgers each. We made it to the bar to find, much to our surprise, a ridiculously long lineup. In Regina? Seriously, nobody even likes this place, why is the lineup so long? And there weren't even very many cowboy hats. How disappointing. So after waiting for an hour and moving up to a position very near the door, we decided we should go to another bar. The wait in line was highlighted by some drunk guy getting thrown out and yelling at the bouncer, "DO YOU THINK YOU'RE FAT? HUH? YOU THINK YOU'RE FAT OR SOMETHING?" Ha. Yes, I'm sure that is what he thinks.

We get to the other bar. This is more like what I had in mind for Regina. There is a hot chicken finger-eating contest, a really bad local band playing AC/DC, and some dude walking around with a Viagra skidoo jacket on. After many drinks and some of the guys wanting to fight, we took a taxi to yet another bar. The taxi ride was highlighted by the passengers giving advice to each other on various ways to avoid fathering a child. "Rusty coat hanger!" "Sex her, and then WAM punch her in the stomach!" Gross. I'm sure the taxi driver was impressed. And after all that, he yelled at ME. For closing the window.

And after that, we went back to the oringinal bar. We found it very easy to get in. Just use the "out" door. Near the end of the night, the beer-tub girl was trying to get rid of her beer, so we got 15 bottles for $25. Not bad. Leaving the bar, the seven of us approached one pair of girls. One of the guys said, "Oh man, I'm so wasted, we've been doing coke all day, man!" The girls didn't like that. They started to run. One of the guys ran after them at a full sprint. Those girls ran pretty fast in heels.

It was at this time that we decided we needed Burger King. Tried to go through the drive-thru, without car. No luck. I guess the kid working had served these guys before, and almost lost his job. He suggested we try the MacD's. So that's what we did. Can you imagine 4 grown men jumping up and down on a magnetic sensor, trying to get it to activate so an order could be placed? Believe it or not, that doesn't create a magnetic field of any sort. Anyway, we got in formation like we were in a car, and followed the other cars forward. One guy had his hands on the imaginary steering wheel. Another kept on rolling down the imaginary window and yelling at another guy who was standing on the grass. "GET IN THE CAR, KYLE! GET BACK IN HERE RIGHT NOW." A guy from a car in front of us came back and told us that he was a cop, and that there were police cars already on the way. I guess it is illegal to stand in line. He advised us to leave. We didn't listen. It was about this time that the 14 year-old kid in the window started yelling at us and telling us to leave. We claimed we just wanted food. He said he couldn't give us any. We said we had money and they had food, and we just wanted to make an exchange. He said we needed a car. We said we were drunk. He asked if we had money. We said yes. He told us we should put our money together and buy a car. Smartass. So one guy starts yelling demeaning things at him, and we know we're not getting burgers. So we start to leave.

Just then, some kids who had been watching from nearby got off their bikes. And pulled out a firecracker.

One guy put it on his shoulder and aimed. The other guy lit it.

And the firecracker went flying. Directly through the drive-thru window and into the MacDonald's.

Now THAT is more like the Regina I imagined.

America

I stole this link from Jay's blog, because it is absolutely ridiculously hilarious. It is Stephen Colbert's monologue at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. Enjoy.

Budget

Animateur: "Est-ce que Le Bloc soutiendra le budget du gouvernement conservatuer?"
Gilles Duceppe: "Oui..."

So there you have it. No summer election.