The league has chosen to do things the right way, with tremendous integrity and a great product
Being a sports fan is interesting. There are certain teams and athletes to whom we willingly give the utmost devotion, and others we despise. Some sports we find thrilling, others are baffling, and some we just cannot connect with. I’ve always loved basketball, as a player, as a coach, and as a fan. There is…
Paralympian Danielle Peers questions how to eliminate barriers that prevent athletes from getting involved in parasport
The 2022 Winter Paralympics will shine a brief spotlight on Canada’s elite athletes in China over the next 10 days. But much more is needed at the community level to get athletes involved in parasport before they can even dream of competing at an elite level, according to former Paralympian Danielle Peers. While changes are needed at the…
Unvaccinated NBA star won’t be welcomed back to the Nets until he’s fully able to participate in all team activities
The Brooklyn Nets have said thanks but no thanks to Kyrie Irving’s offer to be a part-time player for their National Basketball Association team. Due to public safety concerns regarding the pandemic, the unvaccinated Irving won’t be allowed to play games in New York. According to the city mandate, anyone entering an indoor gym/arena –…
We need a lot more ‘we’ people than ‘me’ people – in professional sports and everywhere else
National Basketball Association training camps are in full swing and 50 or so players (of about 530 total) have yet to receive a single COVID-19 vaccine dose. That’s an issue NBA executives and coaches were hoping to avoid. This summer, league officials proposed a mandate requiring all players to be vaccinated against COVID in order…
The policy appears to be ‘the show must go on,’ no matter what the health consequences are
U.S. college basketball’s March Madness is one of my favourite sporting events of the year. The upsets are fun. The one-loss-and-you’re-gone format of the national championship tournament is much more exciting than the long playoff season the National Basketball Association gives us. The bands. The crazy student sections. Switching back and forth between tournament games…
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown us how connected and interdependent we truly are as a global community
I’ve been blessed with many great sports experiences in my life. Since I was seven years old, I’ve loved playing and watching sports. I enjoy many aspects of sports but what I love the most is the camaraderie. More specifically, it’s the sense of fulfilment that comes from being part of something bigger than myself,…
The man who is trying to give college athletes their due inexplicably doesn't appear in Chicago Bulls documentary
Sonny Vaccaro is to basketball what Marvin Miller was to baseball. They both have had a profound impact on their games; they both fought valiantly for athletes’ rights; and each of them had to deal with a power establishment that tried to rub them out. The latest example is ESPN’s The Last Dance documentary about…
We have surrendered far too much control of the economy to the Chinese, from sports equipment to broader supply chains
We’ve apparently reached halftime in the media’s battle against COVID-19, and the savants are doing highlight packs of the big plays and terrible mistakes made so far. It’s not a pretty picture. It would be nice if we could use the sports system of replays to go back and correct a few things from a…
The late basketball legend became a model husband, father, citizen and businessman. But a dark incident in Colorado can't be forgotten
I was walking off the tennis court last Sunday when I saw several texts saying Kobe Bryant had been killed in a helicopter crash. My first reaction was disbelief, then shock, then sadness. As I got in my car, I wasn’t sure why I was so sad. While I definitely respected his athletic ability and…
Fans are staying away from stadiums in great part because the games take too long to play. The new XFL is trying a number of modifications to cut the length of games
Football fans have spoken: the games last too damn long. Delays, reviews, timeouts and injuries turn 18 minutes of action into three-plus hours. At least that’s the results of research done for the new XFL, a football league that starts play on Feb. 8, right after the National Football League’s Super Bowl. The startup league…