From Auston Matthews to Antonio Brown, the spotlight never seems to waver. Making a mistake can be very costly
It doesn’t take much to send Toronto Maple Leafs nation into a tizzy. As the 2019-2020 season dawns, the supporters of the acer saccharum are consumed with whether their young franchise star Auston Matthews should be the club’s next captain. Distilled into a single sentence: can Auston wear the C when he’s acted like an…
Those who booed retiring Indianapolis Colt Andrew Luck should be ashamed of themselves. Athletes aren’t warriors created by central casting for our weekend enjoyment
Too many sports fans view athletes as robots designed to play games for their entertainment. They sit in the stands or on their sofas, a cold beer in their hands, and yell at injured players for being “too soft” and “not tough enough.” They think jocks should just “suck it up” and get on the…
Professional male sports teams are a cross-section of many cultures. But the idea that they agree about much beyond winning is a fabrication. It's time to open up.
One former pro athlete recently observed that an athlete doesn’t mention three things in the dressing room: His playing time. His salary. And the first name of a teammate’s wife. He might also have added whether your favourite jock likes guys or girls when he gets home from the game that night. This prohibition has…
Trevor Doerksen of ePlay Digital is opening doors around the world for interactive gaming
Trevor Doerksen is CEO of ePlay Digital. What is ePlay Digital and what does it do? Doerksen: ePlay is one of Calgary’s growing number of game publishers. We have created a celebrity-filled, Pokemon Go style game platform for sports, e-sports, and entertainment. We will soon launch the first location-based title from the augmented reality mobile…
We can't go back to spitballing the big calls. For the teams and the fans, too much depends on getting it right
Yogi Berra is notorious for saying “It ain’t over ’til it’s over.” Yogi was warning about jumping to conclusions in close contests. But he never foresaw a contest that never ended. For reference, consider the he 145th running of the Kentucky Derby. That race will probably never be over for those who participated in or…
Far too many odious owners haunt the world of professional sports, preying on ticket-buying fans
It takes a lot of talent to screw up a National Hockey League franchise in a Canadian city. But Senators owner Eugene Melnyk is up to the challenge. The Melnyk misery tour has reduced Ottawa to the frozen equivalent of an Albanian shoe factory. The Sens are four points clear in the Titanic Cup, my…
Every time MLB moves away from its history, tradition and nostalgia, the game doesn’t improve a little, it dies a little
Baseball is a significantly different sport than football, basketball and hockey. It’s that uniqueness, and the tradition that comes from the fact that baseball has changed very little over the years, that accounts for a lot of its popularity. “There’s no crying in baseball!” said Jimmy Dugan (played by Tom Hanks) in the movie A…
Analytical detail determines winners and losers. So why do coaches insist on winging it at crucial moments?
I’m reading Ted Barris’s book The Dam Busters, about the epic 1943 raid by Royal Air Force and Royal Canadian Air Force flyers on the Möhne and Eder dams. The raid was famous for its risk – 53 men were killed, 18 of them Canadian – and for the new technologies used by the bombers…
With billions now being bet legally on sports, the simple outcome of the Super Bowl game will no longer be the only story
It’s late in Super Bowl LIII this Sunday. The driving New England Patriots, favoured by a field goal, have a three-point lead in the game. Hundreds of millions of dollars worldwide ride on whether the Los Angeles Rams can keep them out of the end zone or whether quarterback Tom Brady will push it in…
The NFL’s officiating video review system needs to be fixed. And overtime comes down to who wins the coin toss. How is that fair?
I don’t know why some people aren’t sports fans but I’m certainly glad I am. Sunday’s National Football League games reinforced that feeling. What great drama and entertainment the NFL gave us with the conference championship games. Elite athleticism and clutch performances were on exhibit by players from each of the four teams. Sadly, the…