SPURS PUT BOOTS TO BLACKBURN

And other weekend sports highlights

My son, who convinced me to start this blog, used to chide me when I’d post long Comments on Facebook. “Put them on your blog,” he’d say. “That’s what it’s for.”

Of course the problem was often I didn’t mean to write a long Comment, it just turned out that way. (Of course there are many who would note that “Provick could never write short,” which in journalism wasn’t really a compliment.)

Recently I was preparing another Comment in a discussion of soccer (known as football, outside North America) and while writing it in my head, it kept growing and growing. So I decided that this time I WOULD post it here, and key to it in Facebook.

Of course the darn thing grew so long in my head, it became intimidating and I had to wait until I had some energy to try getting it typed out. I don’t know how long I’ll last. (Do I hear foolish voices in the background saying “Why not just keep it short and to the point?” Now I ask you, where’s the fun in that?) LOL

But I’ve been super stimulated, having just come from the midst of a raucous crowd, over 20,000 strong, at a Leafs-Senators game. Yes, it turned out that THIS, in the end, was the Tuesday in question for that game. But that’s enough of that, for reasons obvious to Sens and Leaf fans. (sigh) (g)

Any way, here goes. Let’s start with the conversation in question.

[From Facebook]

Bill Provick: Re. football (soccer) and the UEFA Cup. I used to prefer Fake Madrid to Real Madrid [editor’s note: a joke] but now that Real [pronounced “Ree-al] Madrid has one of my favourite players, Rinaldo, I was sort of cheering for them here. Guess if they don’t score in the last few minutes to go 2-1, they’re out.

Bettina Goodwin: Isn’t Rinaldo the cry baby? I may have the wrong guy but I thought he was the whiner. My favourite player is Modric who plays for Tottenham (Peter’s favourite team).

Bill Provick: I don’t get to see Rinaldo nearly enough, for my liking. But I don’t recalls seeing him whine, or hearing about him being a whiner. Of course I’m used to some of the best players in hockey — Gretzky, Crosby, etc. — being labelled whiners. It’s usually done out of envy and/or due to the fact they are also students of the game and know enough to question situations and rulings. As for Tottenham, sorry, never heard of them. Which division do they play in? (wg)

Bill Provick: Another of my favourites is former Calgary boy Owen Hargreaves who plays for Man U. Wait a minute. Calgary. Cowboys. Chaps. Spurs. Hot spurs. Oh THAT Tottenham. (Cue the music) “My name is Luka . . .” (wg)

Bettina Goodwin: Hey, I’m on repeating what was told to me by Peter and Allison, and Allison actually liked Rinaldo. As for Tottenham, they have managed to go from a mediocre team the last few years to a team that has done pretty well this year. They were usually bottom of the rankings but this year they are actually winning games. In fact they are winning a game right now against Blackburn. 🙂

[And now . . .]

It’s a good thing you didn’t tell me the score. Discovering that Sportsnet had picked it up from Sentata (which we don’t subscribe to) to air Saturday night as its Game of the Week, I recorded it on our PVR.

(For those unfamiliar with a PVR (Personal Video Recorder), they come from your cable company and allow you to record up to two programs at the same time on a hard disk, replacing one’s VCR, though you can record from a PVR to a VCR. Oddly enough, though there is no tape in a PVR, we still say things like “Did you tape that show?” or “Did you set that show to tape at 9 p.m.?”)

So while I the game recorded, I hadn’t watched it yet when I saw your post about them being in the process of winning against the (Blackburn) Rovers from Lancashire. Which made it a little weird when I finally did get to watch. The Rovers seemed to have the better of the play early on and each time they attacked on goal, I got keyed up expecting a possible score. Only to have to remind myself that if the (Tottenham) Hot Spurs were winning when you posted, it was unlikely that the Rovers scored first.

Also, if I heard right, the Spurs were striving to remain in the top four of the Premier League. (According to the March 16 standings, Tottenham is indeed in fourth place and Blackburn is 12th, out of 20 teams.) So they are indeed doing well this year.

Racing through the previously recorded

But before I got to the soccer/football game, I had a few other things to watch first.

I managed to sleep in Sunday — despite some nasty health complications that I, for once, WON’T go into/bore people with. (g) Of course my darling wife, Mariette, with no prompting from me, taped recorded the opening race of the new Formula 1 season, the Bahrain Grand Prix in arid Manama, Bahrain.

Despite some new rules to add some excitement, it was still a bit of the dreaded “conga line” for which F1 has become known. One interesting change meant here’s no longer any refuelling in the pits allowed during the race, so pit stops are incredibly fast. Like a mere three seconds to change all four tires and they’re right back out.

I liked watching pole sitter Sebastian Vettel put the pettel to the mettel, but just when second-place Fernando Alonso, in his first race for Ferrari, seemed about to catch and challenge Vettel, driving for Red Bull, Vettel dropped back a few positions from what was reported as a cracked exhaust system. What I found interesting was that the Red Bull team had apparently designed a new exhaust system that vented out the back of the car. (Meaning anyone following too close had to be careful their car didn’t overheat in Vettel’s scorching slipstream.)

Apparently, to keep competitors from noticing the change during pre-season practice sessions, team Red Bull put decals on the car whose graphics simulated regular exhaust vents in the regular spot on the car.

The race was also Michael Schumacher’s return to F1 after a three-year retirement. He now drives for Mercedes.

The other significant return was Felipe Massa in the other Ferrari. Massa was seriously injured last July and had to be replaced for the rest of the season.During qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix, a part fell off Rubens Barrichello’s car on a high-speed part of the track and struck Massa in the helmet. He was airlifted to hospital in “life-threatening but stable” condition. Fortunately he improved rapidly in hospital, though he eventually had to have a titanium plate placed in his head to strengthen it for racing.

He showed no signs of any problems Sunday in a successful return to F1, finishing second to teammate Alonso. (Lewis Hamilton finished third and Vettel finished just off the podium in fourth.)

Straw power

The most interesting thing about the race I found out later while reading the Ottawa Citizen which informed me that part of the fuel used in the victorious Ferraris comes from Ottawa. And you know how I love noting local connections.

The paper told how a farm south of Ottawa, Double Diamond Farms, collects straw from surrounding farmers and ships it to a biofuel manufacturer, Iogen Corp., of Ottawa. Iogen uses the straw to produce “cellulosic ethanol” which it supplies to Royal Dutch Shell, which adds it to the gasoline it sells Ferrari. Shell has the contract to supply all of fuel this F1 season to Ferrari for its F1 cars.

F1 rules say biocomponents must make up 5.75%, by weight, of the gasoline. And Iogen is apparently the only one in the world making such large amounts — “We’re talking about several thousand litres of fuel here — of cellulosic ethanol.

What’s really neat is that this form of ethanol doesn’t divert any crops from the food chain. The straw is what’s left over when the grain has been harvested for food. Also, Iogen burns other components of the straw fibre to produce electricity to run the plant. Burning part of the star provides 80 to 90 per cent of the power required to run the plant.

Who would have thunk it? Those blistering fast Ferraris running — and winning races — on Ottawa Valley straw. Coool!

Women drivers

Mariette also recorded for me the first race of the new Izod Indy Car season, the Sao Paulo Indy in Brazil.

This street course race was, as usual, much more competitive than the F1 race.

One of the funniest moments had nothing to do with cars and racing. The announcer, cutting to commercial, made a Freudian slip (pun intended) when cutting to commercial. He reminded viewers they were watching this Indy car race from “Sao Paulo, Brassiere . . . uh . . . Brazil.” I even rewound and played it for Mariette when she came by the living room. (g)

The slip may have been due to the number of women in the race — four, twice the usual number. The two established female drivers were Milka Duno and Danica Patrick. You may have heard that last name, even if you only know her as the Go-Daddy Girl. Danica finished well back in 15th spot, and for once it wasn’t all Danica, Danica, Danica, as it has been in the past and is quickly becoming in NASCAR’s Nationwide Series.

The two rookies were Simona De Silvestro and Ana Beatriz.

Silvestro actually lead the race for a while, before having to drop back, then drop out, with technical problems. She finished 16th. Duno finished 19th. And Beatriz was the top woman, finishing in 13th place.

The race was punctuated with a brief rain storm right in the middle of all the action. Those drivers who switched to rain tires early enough did alright, while those still on slicks tended to spin out all over the track.

The race was stopped, just about as the rain stopped, so crews could remove the standing water (puddles) from the track.

Unfortunately Canadian driver Alex Tagliani, after running up near the front, crashed before rain became a factor. Coming down a straight stretch and just before a sharp right-handed turn, he was smashed into from behind by Dan Wheldon. Tagliani’s car was hurled against the wall before sliding into Tony Kanaan’s distinctive 7/11 car, pushing both of them down the run-off lane.

Kanaan managed to keep his car firing and returned to the race, finishing 10th. Tagliani’s damage was too severe, and he was out, finishing second-last at 23.

Up and over — Mario “tops” Marco

Mariette missed recording the start of the race but I saw the replay of the scary accident that sent Marco Andretti out. It was your typical first-lap, first-corner multi-car pileup but Marco got the worst scare when when the car of Mario Moraes went right over Marco and his car. Apparently at one point one of Moraes’s tires was in Marco’s cockpit, but he was OK. (See http://www.indycar.com/news/show/55-izod-indycar-series/34773-quick-response-creates-exciting-racing/ for video.)

In the end, Australian Will Power finished 1st for Team Penske, American Ryan Hunter-Reay was 2nd for Andretti Autosport and Brazilian Victor Meira finished 3rd, driving for A. J. Foyt Enterprises. My personal favourite, Scotsman Dario Franchitti finished 6th, for Target Chip Ganassi Racing, after having started from the pole.

If you’re wondering about the name Dario, Franchitti WAS born in Scotland — and has the accent to prove it — but of Italian descent. Unfortunately I didn’t see any shots of his wife, American actress Ashley Judd, pit-side, which is usually a highlight for me. (wg)

Blades of fury at Paralympics

After auto racing came Sledge Hockey at the Paralympics in Vancouver. Now THERE is an intense sport.

Sledge Hockey is played by players who lack use of their legs. They sit strapped to streamlined sleighs resting on two sets of parallel skate blades — one up front, one at back under the player’s butt, with a gap between front and back pairs. The players use two smaller and MUCH shorter hockey sticks, one in each hand. The butt end of the sticks have spikes to dig into the ice as players use the sticks to propel themselves about — a bit like using ski poles. The blades of the sticks are used to control (or try to control) the puck and to shoot.

Oh, and this is DEFINITELY a contact sport. Checking, otherwise known as slamming full force into each other, is not only allowed but encouraged.

In the part of the Canada vs. Sweden game I got to watch, Canada built up a 10-1 score. However, there was NO sign of shame, humiliation or even let down on the Swedish players. In fact so fierce was the game, if you didn’t know the score, you’d assume it was a highly competitive, CLOSE game.

We will ROCK you!

While on the subject of the Paralympics, I should note that on Saturday I watched parts of the Opening Ceremonies that Mariette had also recorded. I have to tell you, the parts I saw were quite dynamic. Since they were mostly musical in nature, I can only compare them to similar segments of the Closing Ceremonies of the recent Winter Games. These performances were FAR more dynamic.

I didn’t catch his name but the one-legged rock singer from Montreal, who made a dramatic entrance racing all around the stadium floor on a three-wheeled motorcycle before mounting the rising platform in the middle, was absolutely terrific.

It didn’t matter that his arms were deformed and he had to use special canes/crutches — I like to call them walking sticks — to get around. So assured was he that in mere moments you didn’t see these handicaps, you just saw this amazing guy belting out a song that rocked the whole stadium.

I LOVE when that happens. I love when someone merely works with what they have, totally ignoring their handicaps, making them invisible to us because they act like they don’t see them. Only one leg? All the better to do spins and show off these leather pants.

This one guy was so electrifying that he made Nickleback, at the Closing Ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics, seem totally, well again, pardon the pun, but the best word is lame.

There was another guy, I think from Toronto, who apparently lacked the use of his two legs and also used special walking sticks. And boy could he move on those babies. Which was good, because he’s a hip hop dancer. Not just that, but an exceptional one.

Also performing on the central raised platform, he was surrounded by able-bodied dancers combining hip hop and break dancing and I’m not sure what all else. This guy had no trouble keeping up with them. He was easily the star of the show NOT because of the obvious handicaps he had to overcome but simply because he was THAT good at his chosen means of artistic impression.

Both these guys truly rocked the place and the huge crowd, with simply couldn’t sit still, loved them. As did we.

I can’t underline enough that it WASN’T their handicaps that made them and their performances special. It was their obvious talent and exciting performances that made them truly special.

Hey, didn’t I just see you 25 years ago?

I think it was somewhere around then, after the Sledge Hockey, that we took a break for dinner. Thankfully this week Mariette took over cooking duties while I was slightly out of commission.

A funny thing happened as we were trying to finish up our plates. A red mini-van pulled up out front. The doorbell rang. Mariette answered and after a few words, I think they were in French, ushered in a friend we hadn’t seen in 25 years.

I know it was 25 years ago because Robert and I were Beaver leaders together when our sons were 5, then 6, then 7 years old. Our oldest just turned 32 last month, so 32 minus 7 gave me 25. (g) (Beavers are one level below Cub Scouts.)

Robert and his wife still live in Barrhaven and he said he was out and about and thought he’d check to see if we were still at this address. Which we obviously were.

So we got caught up, on families and work and such. And I’m afraid since I don’t get to talk a lot — except to the cats — I tended to rattle on at times. They were the same old views I’ve expressed on government, big business, the economy, the importance of jobs, jobs, jobs for a stable society, and yadda yadda yadda.

Hey, I was on autopilot most of the time. And why not? I’ve probably bored people to tears over the years repeating all these stories and opinions but hey, Robert hadn’t heard me say any of this. LOL

So we had a nice, lonnnng chat and agreed to try and keep in touch now.

TV on demand, via PC

Now back to our underlying theme today — if you’re still with me — catching up on sporting events and programs via the power of PVRs.

Unfortunately, earlier in the week, I’d accidentally erased our recording of last week’s episode of The Amazing Race. At first Mariette never watched this show, thinking it was MY kind of reality series — like Survivor which she has always refused to watch a moment of — and not her kind — like So You Think You Can Dance (American and Canadian versions) and Ty ‘I like to shout’ Pennington’s Extreme Makeover (which I secretly dub the Sears infomercial. wg).

Anyway, a few seasons back I convinced her to give it a try and now it’s not only must-see TV for both of us, but we record it and love to watch it together.

(I also convinced her to try The Mole, which she ended up liking, but alas it was post-Anderson Cooper and didn’t return the following season.)

Now the American networks we get, via cable, make a big thing of offering episodes of their top shows online. Canadians soon discover you can visit those sites but NOT view the shows if you live outside America.

Fortunately Canadian networks, who carry many of the same shows, have made similar strides to make episodes available after their air dates. Some, like CTV and Global, even carry episodes as part of the cable company’s On Demand service.

Unfortunately we couldn’t find The Amazing Race under CTV On Demand, where it should be as CTV carries it and makes other shows available.

So after our visitor, we quickly watched the previous week’s episode of The Amazing Race on CTV’s website on my computer. Hurray for my wide-screen monitor and premium quality video card. (g) While watching on the computer, the new episode was recording on the PVR and we easily moved from the computer in the dining room back to the widescreen TV in the living room to watch that episode. (Jeff and Jordan from Big Brother, another show Mariette WON’T watch, are starting to get on my nerves and I think now I won’t mind if they are eliminated.)

Hurry! Hurry HARRRRD!!!

Now did I get to watch the soccer/football match? Not yet. As you’ve probably surmised by the subhead above, next came curling — the final game in the national men’s championship, known simply as The Brier.

Some sporting events lend themselves to skimming via a judicious use of the Fast Forward button. I can even get a good rhythm going in football games where I just watch the QB come to the line of scrimmage and run the play. At the end of the play, as players are picking themselves up off the field, it’s FF again to the QB once more coming out of the huddle.

Even hockey can be condensed, though not as much. Looks like that’ll be icing? FF before the puck crosses the blue line and don’t stop till the linesman about to drop the puck for the ensuing face off.

If I haven’t put together my own series of small highlight segments during a game, Mariette will often FF while keeping an eye on the score at the top of the screen, stopping and briefly re-winding to watch when a change signals a goal has been scored. This lets her watch a game, and one or two of HER shows I never bother to watch, before going to work in the morning.

Baseball does NOT lend itself to fast forwarding. I mean the leisurely pace with the possibility of something interesting popping up unexpectedly is a big part of the game’s charm.

While Mariette’s FF-till-the-score-changes method can be adopted for soccer/football as well, this game also doesn’t lend itself well to FF — except during those fake injury mini-dramas that often involve players writhing on the field in obvious agony for seemingly forever, until the trainer applies the “magic water” and they are miraculously healed.

(Funny thing, I NEVER dove in hockey, and I could NEVER fake an injury in soccer. I don’t know if it made me a lesser soccer player, but my first (second and third) inclination was to play on, especially if hurt. Might be a Canadian thing, I guess.)

“Sweep. Sweep!” . . . CRASH! . . . FF

While the cat and mouse aspect of curling means its sometimes leisurely pace can be something to savour, it DOES lend itself to a judicious use of FF. Like skip the sometimes seemingly endless strategy conversations and just FF to the rock coming out of the shooter’s hand and don’t FF again until all rocks come to rest. OK, Mariette’s a little gung ho on the latter. If she’s pretty sure she knows where it’ll end up and it’s not a key shot, she’ll be back on the FF button before the rock(s) stop.

Anyway, we hurried, but not too hard, during this championship game, cheering for the Glen Howard rink representing Ontario which had made it through the week-long round robin play, and their one playoff game, undefeated. We knew Glen — who used to play Third for his brother Russ before Russ moved to the Maritimes — was quite disappointed when he narrowly lost out to Alberta’s Kevin Martin rink in the Olympic trials. (Martin’s rink went on to win Gold for Canada at the Olympics.)

We were all disappointed when Glen and the boys lost to Alberta’s Kevin Koe (pronounced Koo-ee) on the very last shot of the extra end. Glen didn’t have last rock but his rock was shot rock with a bit of a bite out of the button (the centre dot). Koe not only had to draw to the button, but have his rock take a bigger bite than Glen’s. That’s what he did and suddenly Glen and the boys were bridesmaids again.

“Now where is my napkin?”

Now where was I? Oh yes, Tottenham Hot Spurs vs. Blackburn Rovers. At last. (OK, I feel a little bit guilty of making you wait this long.) (g)

Now where is my napkin with my notes on the game? LOL

OK. At first had a little trouble finding Tottenham midfielder Luka Modric (pronounced Mod-rich). It didn’t seem he was getting any touches on the ball because I didn’t here his name mentioned. When he was finally identified as No. 14 for the Spurs, I still didn’t think he got many touches. He did make two nice passes in the first half, but neither lead to anything.

I confess I became more focused on the dramatic attacks on left wing by Gareth Bale of the Spurs. And the spirited defending of Michel Salgado of the Rovers. It might have been the long hair and lack of height that reminded me a bit of me when I played men’s soccer here, before my first heart attack.

(There were mostly British guys on the team I was on, so, oddly enough, with my broomball background, I was able to adapt to their style of play. From them I learned expressions like “hard lines” and a few others I can’t seem to recall at this very moment. There were Canadians of other ancestry on the other teams and I quickly learned their different styles. For instance there was this fairly older veteran player from Argentina who would rather play keep away from two or three players than pass to ANY of his teammates.) LOL

I wasn’t impressed when on a Spurs corner, Salgado DIDN’T take two steps forward off the line to mark a Tottenham player who ended up slamming home the deflection from the corner kick, to give the Spurs their first goal.

Some of the players that caught my eye out there were Morten Gamst Pedersen and Christopher Samba for the Rovers and Roman Pavlyuchenko and Jermain Defoe for the Spurs.

What? No nil-nil draw? LOL

In the second half I was a bit surprised when Mordic actually broke into a bit of a run with the ball. Not only that, he then sent a beautiful long pass down field to Defoe who passed to I forget who in the centre for a nice goal for Tottenham.

I confess that since it was rather late in a long day of TV watching, I then FF until the score changed, thanks to a beautiful header by Samba to score for Blackburn on a corner kick. That one I slo-mo’d the broadcaster’s slo-mo (slow motion) to study and savour. Boy did his eyes light up as he leaped so high above everyone else to head the ball into the net. And I agree with the announcer. What was the goaltender doing trying to push through a handful of players in an ill-advised, ill-fated attempt to get at the ball? And I also agree that had he stood back on his line, it may well have been a fairly easy save.

But that’s the beauty of soccer/football and most sports. You never know what’s going to happen in the heat of battle. A bounce here, a bounce there and the game can change on a dime.

Speaking of bounces, I think good old Pav for Tottenham got a lucky bounce when the ball ended up coming back to him AFTER he’d flubbed an easy shot a mere yard or two from a mostly open net. I think he was lucky to get a chance to slam home a second pass for the third goal.

All in all, I thought it a pretty good game. And hat’s off to Peter, despite all my kidding, Tottenham is indeed a pretty fine team this year and I wish them continued success.

And I’m left with one final question, the same one that haunted me all game: What the heck is with that PINK (and white) ball? LOL

[Un-proofed version. (It’s late.) Notification of typos and any other errors welcome. Comments of ANY kind also welcome.]