Happy Canada Day, Mats Sundin.

by jgr80

For some Canadians (I certainly feel a divide on this one), July 1st is a day to celebrate for a reason other than our nation's birth.

Those same Canadians may also be quite upset for the same reason.... Perplexed? Well, clearly it's unrestricted free agent day in the NHL. Something nearly as important as Canada Day to die-hard hockey fans.

Now a lot of people will be talking about Marian Hossa. A lot of people will be talking about Brian Campbell... and while I like both of these players, don't be fooled. The big name is my boy Mats.

I've had a lot of people annoy the crap out of me the last two weeks or so with the silly dialogue about Mats vs. TML vs. Montreal Girlymen. The headline and a few sentences in this article from this morning suggest Mats won't sign with Montreal, although there is clearly some doubt in the rest of the article. Hell, we may find out in the next couple of hours.

Well, I quite like the graceful slide of a Sundin stride down the ice towards a Montreal net. That is, while he's playing offense for the Leafs, rather than defense for Les Habitants (which is stupidest name in all of professional sports... even worse than all those silly Major League soccer teams like the New York Red Bulls, or the Columbus Crew, or the Football Club Dallas).

No. I will take the high-road on this one. Mats is/was an excellent player for Toronto and does/did a lot of great things for the team. The only negative thing I will say is that if he signs with Montreal he is a scum-sucking vaginoplasty patient who deserves to burn for deserting-- nay betraying-- the cause of all-things-Montreal-must-perish-from-horrible-sports-related-injuries. You already found out early in your career Quebec is not the place for a Swede. If you don't play for Toronto, go somewhere else or may all the wrath of Toronto fans follow you around like a plague throughout the league. There will be curses laid on all things Sundin and all things Montreal throughout the land. The permanent place you've earned among the verdant fields of Elysium will be replaced by the 8th circle of Hell.

But I'm not bitter.

In Korea, there are far too many people of the same name for Westerners to keep things straight. So rather than embarrass myself while I was teaching over there-- just like all the other teachers-- I gave them Western names. I named a lot of them after friends and family... named a lot of them after cartoon characters and comic book characters... but my favorite little guy didn't get an English at all. He was of Swedish-Korean decent and was named Mats. He didn't know a word of English when he started. He knew at least 13 words a lesson.

It would be a cold day in Elysium if I were not able to cheers for Mats Sundin.



More goals than Teemu Selanne, Ron Francis, Rocket Richard, Jean Beliveau, or Daryl Sittler.
More assists than Chris Chelios, Niklas Lidstrom, Larry Robinson, or Jean Beliveau.
None of it means a thing with that other sweater on.

A possible answer to the sneaky sea sneakers... with feet in BC?

I bet the B.C. Coastal feet come from Russia. I've heard the mob over there is particularly brutal.

Check this out.

Bonne Annivairsaire, La Bolduc

by jgr80

Today is the birthday of Mary Travers, La Bolduc's. She would be 114 years old. I know of La Bolduc from this:


This was always one of my favorite Heritage Moments because I noticed she sings over an Irish pipe tune.

The gal had no formal musical training. She got the tunes from her dad who taught her the instruments he knew how to play by ear. She could never read music.

Despite my fondness of the vignette, there are quite a few gaping holes in this heritage minute. The song in the video was from her 3rd recording. By then, Mr. Beaudry already knew her despite the surprise on his face.

Her first two recordings flopped. Then a 3rd recording, which had "La Cuisiniere" as the main song, changed everything. It was released for the Christmas shopping season, and before the holidays were over, she was a household name in Quebec. In the middle of the depression, on her first tour, she earned $2000.

In 1994, she was honored with a stamp by Canada Post. My first "when-I-was-your-age" moment... Stamps were 43 cents back in 1994?!




These commercials were dangerous. I remember sitting in front of that TV for hours waiting for them to come on during The Racoons...


In stead of sitting in front of the TV, I shoulda been out in the driveway practicing my slapshot...


Hmm... all this talk about what I was watching when I was a kid and I still haven't said anything about the greatest ongoing television commercial theme song ever... the Hinterland Who's Who...


Sssssplendid

Outrageous Land Masses

by jgr80

I noticed a street sign in Pittsburgh during the opening pictures of the hockey game.

Mario Lemieux Boulevard.

Pretty good chunk of land he's got there. I don't have any land named after me. I might not have anything named after me, actually. Some people are luckier than others on this one. Mario has a little work to go...

Here's the top 6, as far as I can tell (every one of these folks probably have more than what I have listed).

6. Christopher Columbus - Italian explorer
Colombia - 440,830 sq. mi.
British Colombia - 365, 950 sq. mi.
Colombia Plateau (U.S.) - 100,000 sq. mi
10 U.S. Counties (combined) - 6,720 sq. mi
Colon (Honduras) - 3,430 sq. mi.
Colon (Panama) - 3,150 sq. mi.
District of Colombia - 70 sq. mi.
Total --- 923,350 sq. mi.

5. Abel Janzoon Tasman- Dutch explorer
Tasman Sea (Pacific) - 900,000 sq. mi.
Tasmania (Australia) - 24, 900 sq. mi.
Tasman Peninsula (Australia) - 200 sq. mi.
Total --- 925,100 sq. mi.

4. James Weddell - British Seal Hunter
Weddell Sea (Antarctica) - 1,080,000 sq. mi.

3. Maud - Queen of Norway
Queen Maud Land (Antarctica) - 1,080,100 sq. mi.
Queen Maud Mountains (Antarctica) - 15,000 sq. mi.
Queen Maud Gulf (Nunavut, Canada) - 6,000 sq. mi.
Total --- 1,102,000 sq. mi.

2. Victoria, Queen of Britain
Queensland (Australia) - 666,790 sq. mi.
Victoria (Australia) - 227,620 sq. mi.
Great Victoria Desert (Australia) - 127,000 sq. mi.
Victoria Island (Canada) - 83,000 sq. mi.
Victoria Island (Antarctica) - 60,000 sq. mi.
Lake Victoria (Africa) - 26,000 sq. mi.
Victoria Strait (Canada) - 6,000 sq. mi.
Victoria, British Colombia - 210 sq. mi.
Total --- 1,188,310 sq. mi.

1. Amerigo Vespucci, Italian Explorer
North America - 9,360,000 sq. mi.
South America - 6,883,000 sq. mi.
Total --- 16,243,000 sq. mi.

Important Day in Canadian History - Part 2: PEI

by jgr80

May 27th 1873 - The colony of PEI, which had been governing itself for over 100 years at this point since cutting administrative ties with Nova Scotia in 1769, votes to enter into Confederation. Six years after the day the four original provinces decided to huddle together, PEI was made the fifth province on July 1, 1873.

PEI was bankrupt in the years leading up to confederation, after running out of British funds from trying- quite obsequiously- to build a railroad. The government didn't want to join Canada, but needed to go somewhere or face ruin. The United States had sent envoys who parlayed with the Island, desperate for a beautiful Island territory. They would have to settle for Hawaii.

The British were tired of having to support such a tiny fraction of what remained in British North America and scaled back their finances.

And John A. MacDonald had no interest in American expansionism on both sides of Canadian soil.

MacDonald offered to buy up the railroad debt and financed the provincial government to rid itself of absentee landowners. MacDonald could have been one of the first people to use the phrase "I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse." And considering how slow and drunk MacDonald was, it's likely he sounded like Don Corleone... only Scottish.

By no means am I a PEI history expert. This was something I noticed here and looked into a little bit. The reason I wanted to post this was because the government's telling of PEI history is pretty bad.

I've also been thinking of a way to get some Histor!ca vignettes into a post... and this overdubbed gem commemorates events that happened right around the same time, even if they are completely unrelated.

Hmm... I'm thinking of a drinking game.

Important Day in Canadian History.

by jgr80

Today, way back in 1879, stands as an important day in Canadian history. It was not, as far as I can tell, important to Canadian history before about 2001. Obviously, it wasn't important to the 2 3/4 year old country of Canada at the time. May 26th, 1879 is the day when Russia and England signed the Treaty of Gandamak, which set out the borders and officially recognized Afghanistan as a nation-state. That's right, two European countries decided where and what Afghanistan was.

...the Crusaders, the Mongols, the Turks, and even earlier-- the Middle East has always been a violent place. But before the British became financially involved with the Ottomans in the 1700s, the Middle East was fighting among themselves the same way Europeans and their descendants fought in revolutionary wars and the like.

In the 250 odd years since Britain became involved in the Middle East, Western powers have in some shape or form occupied Middle Eastern lands. Most grandparents in the Middle East don't have any stories to pass onto their grandchildren of better times or of hope or of anything different than being occupied in some form or another. They have always lived under worry, stress, and despair.

Until fairly recently, Western powers were always in the Middle East for Western interests. Maybe this isn't the case with Canadians in Afghanistan. Maybe a term NATO chooses not to use is 'occupation.' Either way, be it positive or negative, we, as a Western country, are in some manner perpetuating a grizzly 250 year tradition.

I recently met a serviceman who had just come back to Canada from Afghanistan. For this post, his name can be Jim (his name was not Jim). He was in Halifax at the time, a military city, and had not made his way back to his home province of Ontario, because of his duties to the military.

Over a few drinks, he explained to us (four of us in the room) his reasons, and what he believed were our military's reasons for being involved in this war. Our military is performing amazing humanitarian acts in a place that needs someone to come in and do these things. Jim told story after story of the help he and the other servicemen and women were doing, from building much needed infrastructure, adapting outdated education to the modern world, restoring law and order, and just creating a sense of normalcy.

Despite agreeing with everything Jim had to say about his experiences and beliefs about Afghanistan, there was a fundamental divide across the room between the half of the room that agreed that Canada should be in Afghanistan and the half of the room who believed the opposite.

Without getting into a long rant on the more complex idealogical beliefs circling in my head about the actions of our military... I think they are doing good things in Afghanistan, but that they should not be there, especially in the underfunded fashion that our government sends them there.

Further reading (from a variety of political backgrounds):
Michael Neumann for Counterpunch
Canada in Afghanistan: Top Ten Under-reported facts for Globalresearch.ca
Government of Canada: Rebuilding Afghanistan
CBC In Depth: Afghanistan
Thomas Walkom for TheStar.ca: Afghanistan was never Canada's War
The Globe & Mail: Canada's Mission in Afghanistan
History of Afghanistan from Wikipedia- I read a few books for a course in university about Afghan history. There is a disclaimer concerning the validity of the Wikipedia article, but it seems to be fairly accurate compared to the other things I've read.
Kevin Sites in Afghanistan

The World's - Part 5

by jgr80

A few days ago I blogged a rather cynical remark about Canadian fans at the hockey games. Here's some pictures from the Canada vs Norway quarter final game. The last game Team Canada was to play in Halifax.

I took these pictures during gameplay in the first period. EDIT: I was told that five or so minutes into the game, the Metro Centre or the IIHF or TSN or someone of such power made the decision to give tickets away. Thousands of them. Meaning barely anyone bought tickets to see the game in the first place.

Many of the international fans that were going to every game-- lots of Latvians, gaggles of Germans, a slew of Slovenians, for example-- had left the city to go back home. Each game had a few hundred of these folks.

And sure, the game was on a Monday during a regular day's work schedule. I spoke to a lot of people who were taking work off to go to the game though.

It's funny that when an event of this caliber comes to Canada - the first nation of hockey - and our team is playing, we can't fill a 9000 seat stadium.

This comes from a so-called "hockey crazed" city that begs for huge events, especially concerts, to come to them every summer-- fighting it out with the other cities in the region, creating unnecessary rivalries about municipal governments. If I were a promoter looking in the stands at this event, I wouldn't be thinking of lots of people coming out to The Commons to see Celine Dion or The Eagles.

Once they did get a few more bums in the seats, the fans were pretty good. They cheered and jeered as one would expect.

At the end of the game, Team Canada - as they had throughout the tournament - thanked the fans. They thanked a little longer this time, as it was their last game in Halifax. Overall, the fans were pretty good when the team needed them. There was a big penalty kill against the USA --lasting nearly 6 minutes-- that would have been real tough for the Canadians to kill without the fans.

The biggest thing about the fans for me, was that they were so negative about everything compared to international fans. The international fans cheered their team no matter if they were winning or losing. The Canadian fans didn't cheer for their team so much as they booed the refs and booed other teams.

As you can see, the stands filled up a bit more by the end of the game.

The World's - Part 4

by jgr80


Stephen Harper was at the Canada vs. Finland game.

At the 2nd whistle or so (because the first whistle was a Canada goal) they showed him on the jumbotron so that everyone could be in awe of his presence. Some people booed. Others looked around to find where he was.

I knew he was in attendance before the game began. So I didn't jump on this right away. I had announcing stuff to do. But it was one of those things I was told for encouragement.


IIHFGuy This is important. It's the Canada Finland game. They both finished first. Do a good job.
JGR80 OK.

IIHFGuy The Prime Minister's here, so you have to do a good job. Don't be nervous.
JGR80 OK. That would make me more nervous if I voted for him. But I don't care.

At about two minutes into the first period, a wayward puck goes into the stands about 10 rows over my right shoulder.

The first thing over the radio is panic.

RADIO the puck hit the prime minister. (pause...)

JGR80(soliloquy) Oh geez. This should make for funny news tomorrow. Did the Finnish player shoot it? Could be an incident.

RADIO (still pausing...) The guy's a right-wing. He shouldn't have been on that side of the ice.

Hardy har har.

...

First intermission rolls around though and I figured it might be neat to get a picture since he's doing non-stop photo-ops when the game is not on. I am the announcer after all. Maybe I can skip the line-up.

I get real close to the head of the line. And the most bizarre thing happens.

My phone rings. Fine. Whatever. The phone rings all the time. I'm in line to get the picture. I'm not answering it. Then one of his handlers makes it his business.

HARPERBODYGUARD Could you please answer your phone, sir?

JGR80 I'll call em back. I don't want to bug the other folks in line.

HARPERBODYGUARD Answer your phone, sir. Please step over here.

He shuffled me out of line. I didn't get my picture. This was the best I could do.


















The puck didn't hit him. He did sit right beside Rodney MacDonald who posed for a total of 0 pictures during intermissions.

The World Hockey Championships - Part 1

by jgr80

The World Hockey Championships are being held in Halifax this year. I stumbled upon this gig, a few weeks ago, where I get to make announcements during the games. There was a bit of an audition and stuff, and I got the job.

During the week, I had been helping my uncle get ready for the lobster season 2.5 hours out of town. I had to correspond over email about the announcing and make trips back to Halifax when I needed to be at the arena.

Then there was the practice game. The TV guys are all there to make sure everything runs smoothly, the performers are doing mic checks, the referees are making sure the ice is up to snuff, the announcers are going through the scripts, etc.

And then I lost the job.... only really finding out when I got back to Halifax. Having been on the water that morning, it was a rushed trip back to the city, only to find out I wouldn't be working.

A crushing defeat.

And then on the second day of the tournament, I was reinstated. the 3rd stringer role. Meaning I do a lot of watching hockey from the front row at centre ice while someone else makes the announcements in the chair beside me. And I do a little announcing as well-- there's like 25 games in Halifax, I work about 4 of them.

The tournament is a two week cluster of hockey, celebrities, parties, etc. I find myself thrown into the middle of it without having done much to get there or doing a whole lot to stay. This provides tons of time to observe......

1. John Ferguson Jr and Lindy Ruff would rather sit in seats with the fans at this event than the primo boxes or primo VIP seats.
2. Steve Yzerman walks with his head down in what appears to be either a lack of confidence (unlikely) or he's trying not to be recognized (more likely). He was recognized, and his hand was shaken. He was not wearing any oversized championship rings.
   
3. Pat Burns likes beers at hipster bars. Not sports bars. Not meat markets. He told me so. Over a beer. He was wearing oversized championship rings.
4. Jean Beliveau is an incredible person to see. Just to see. No hand shake. No shared experience. Just a hello. I think my jaw dropped and I responded with an awed primordial grunt of some kind. He did not wear oversized championship rings. Although, I find this reasonable since I only counted 12 fingers.

   From Wikipedia - "Beliveau's name appears on the Stanley Cup a record seventeen times, including seven times as an executive for the Canadiens 1973, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1986, 1993." [1]

5. Drunk fans smile a lot more while on the Jumbotron than sober fans. (these links have nothing to do with hockey, btw)
   
6. 2/5ths or more of the attendance misses the opening faceoff, even when Canada is playing.
7. Pro Hockey players are much dirtier in real life than on TV, figuratively and literally.
8. Int'l fans love their country's team; CDN fans dislike teams from other countries.

I got a bit of a promotion after the last game I announced. Rather than announcing a game with teams who's countries names both end with '-ia', I will be announcing Canada vs. Finland on Monday. A slight change of pace, indeed. The teams both finished first in their pools.

Person Jean Beliveau

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