Let’s talk about goals and lumps of coal in the toy department

Yes, it’s a return of the Sunday smorgas-bored, but with a slight twist: Sports Santa arrives on Wednesday and he’s given us a sneak peak at what he’s tucked inside his bag, so let’s see if it’s Goal or a Lump o’ Coal for the good and not-so-good girls and boys in the toy department of life…

GOAL: The Winnipeg Blue Bombers ended the longest dry spell since prohibition, so all hosannas to the Canadian Mafia—Wade Miller (CEO), Kyle Walters (GM) and Mike O’Shea (head coach)—who brought the Grey Cup home to River City and turned Chris Streveler into a flesh-flashing party animal. I don’t recall Kenny Ploen getting half naked and noodle-legged during Grey Grail celebrations back in the day, but good on Streveler for letting his wolf loose. After all, this sort of thing only happens every 29 years.

LUMP O’ COAL: Andrew Harris. Ya, I realize the local product was top dog in the Canadian Football League championship game, but he became a tainted tailback by failing a mid-season pee test. Harris claimed innocence, but don’t they all when caught using PEDs?

GOAL: Dayna Spiring became the first female board chair in the 89-years history of the local three-down football outfit, and the lady is a champ. You might have seen Dayna down on the field at McMahon Stadium in Calgary, hoisting the Grey Grail after the Bombers had waffled the Hamilton Tabbies on the final Sunday in November, and that’s girl power, baby.

LUMP O’ COAL: Actually, make it an entire coal bin for Glen Suitor, the TSN gasbag whose swooning over singer-of-songs Keith Urban during the Grey Cup telecast registered 10 on the creep-me-out meter. We haven’t seen or heard teenage-girly gushing like that since John, Paul, George and Ringo worked their first Ed Sullivan Show gig. I truly believe Suitor wet his pants.

GOAL: All aboard the Bianca Andreescu Tennis Express. First she won the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells, then the Rogers Cup in the Republic of Tranna, then the U.S. Open in Gotham, where she slayed neighborhood bully Serena Williams in the final. Along the way, former world No. 1 Angelique Kerber called Bianca the “biggest drama queen ever,” and you know you’re doing something right when the claws come out.

LUMP O’ COAL: Apparently the ‘C’ on Blake Wheeler’s sweater stands for “cantankerous cuss,” because the Winnipeg Jets captain went full-on potty mouth at the close of business last April, telling Winnipeg Sun scribe Paul Friesen to “fuck off.” And don’t talk to me about a heat-of-the-moment comment after a tough loss. Fifteen teams were eliminated from the Stanley Cup runoff last spring, and only one captain told a news snoop to “fuck off.” Look, Wheeler doesn’t have to like the questions, he doesn’t even have to answer ever question, he doesn’t have to get warm and fuzzy with news snoops, but civility also starts with a ‘C’. Hopefully he’ll try it on for size when the Jets are ousted next spring.

GOAL: I’m not sure there’s anyone in sports more delightful than Brooke Henderson, our Lady of the Links who won two more tournaments to become the most successful hoser golfer on either the LPGA or PGA tours. That’s nine titles for Brooke now, and I hope we never take her for granted because there should be nothing ho hum about winning two events every year. Brooke is a bringer-of-joy and a national treasure.

LUMP O’ COAL: The U.S. women’s national soccer side established new, disturbing standards for rub-it-in-their-faces hoorawing during a 13-0 rout of lowly Thailand. The Yankee Doodle Damsels celebrated each of their scores as if they’d retaken France from Hitler’s Nazis, and their over-the-top, cringeworthy carry-on after goals eight through 13 was an ugly pock mark on an otherwise masterful World Cup performance in Paris and the surrounding French countryside.

GOAL: I have two words for the TSN World Cup panel of Clare Rustad, Kaylyn Kyle and Diana Matheson—c’est magnifique. Actually, I have more than two words for them: Brisk and blunt, feisty, fiery and unafraid to put noses out of joint, the trio provided commentary as insightful as it was entertaining, and it didn’t matter if they were talking about hand balls or Marta’s shade of lipstick. TSN gave three women a voice and they knew what to do with it. What a concept. Add Kyle’s killer hair to the mix and it all worked.

LUMP O’ COAL: Donald Trump picked a Twitter fight with America’s leading lady on the pitch, Megan Rapinoe. Seriously, what’s up with that? I mean, wasn’t Trump too busy separating Mexican mothers from their kids to worry about a fitba diva?

GOAL: Katherine Henderson, CEO of Curling Canada, wanted to bring equal pay to the pebble and she’s done it. Prize purses at both the 2020 Scotties Tournament of Hearts and the Brier will be $300,000, with each winning outfit collecting $105,000. Hurry hard to that pay window, girls. You’ve earned it.

LUMP O’ COAL: Auston Matthews of the Tranna Maple Leafs and some of his boozed-up buddies thought it would be a swell idea to act like damn fools and prank a female security guard at 2 o’lock in the morning last summer in Scottsdale, Ariz. They attempted to climb into her locked car, then got all leaky-mouthed when she turned them back. When last seen, Matthews had dropped his trousers and was mooning the guard. What a charmer.

LUMP O’ COAL: Many mainstream jock journos wrote off L’Affaire Matthews as nothing more than the yuk-it-up, boys-will-be-boys hijinks of youth, and that’s because too many mainstream jock journos are guys who relate to frat-boy hijinks. I imagine the narrative would have been different had it been their mother, sister, wife or daughter sitting alone in that car.

GOAL: Greg Fettes and Matt Cockell brought the Western Hockey League back to Winnipeg, playing out of a cramped Wayne Fleming Arena at the U of M. Nice. Now, if only Greg and Matt would do something about ditching the Sasquatch logo and changing the team name to something more River City-centric.

GOAL: When Murat Ates joined The Athletic to work the Jets beat, I feared he’d be too heavy on numbers and too light on storytelling. Turns out he’s found an acceptable mix. I still won’t read him if I need an abacus, because that’s just typing, not writing, but I don’t turn away when he’s spinning a good yarn. Murat has a nice way with words. Boffo addition to the beat.

GOAL: Bob Cameron. Blue Bombers. Ring of Honour. Brilliant.

GOAL: Jennifer Jones became the most successful skip in Scotties history, nailing down win No. 141 last winter in Sydney, and I really wish everyone would get past that whole Cathy O thing. C’mon people, can’t we just talk about Jennifer as the greatest female curler ever?

GOAL: The Seattle To Be Named Laters have yet to play a game, but they’ve already scored big by bringing Cammi Granato on board as a fulltime pro scout, a first for the very male, very old boys club known as the National Hockey League.

LUMP O’ COAL: Hockey Day in Canada is a celebration of our great game, which is supposed to be for everyone, but the tall foreheads at CBC and Sportsnet couldn’t find a way to squeeze a women’s match into their 12-hours marathon last February. Oh, sure, the natterbugs mentioned Ponytail Puck, but the Tranna Furies-les Canadiennes joust should have been part of the package.

LUMP O’ COAL: Never mind that Ron MacLean enabled Don Cherry’s pulpit bullying for 33 years, the Hockey Night in Canada host confessed to not recognizing “the structural racism or sexism that’s going on” in hockey. I don’t believe for a nanosecond that MacLean is truly that naive. He saw it and heard it. He just ignored it.

GOAL: Richie Hall had been the most maligned man in Good Ol’ Hometown since taking command of the Bombers defensive dozen, but it was Richie’s D that ruled the day in each of Winnipeg FC’s playoff victories. Winning the Grey Cup looked good on him.

GOAL: Anyone who purchased and scarfed down a Walby Burger at a Bombers game deserves a lifetime supply of Tums or Pepto. And maybe a cardiologist to be named later. I mean, that sucker was a heart attack in the making—six meat patties, six chicken strips, six wieners, six hunks of bacon, cheese, French fries, pickles, lettuce, onions, tomatoes and special sauce stuffed between two buns the size of an umbrella.

LUMP O’ COAL: CFL commish Randy Ambrosie has been flitting about the globe, making nice with Mexicans, Europeans and Aussies, but it seems he’s forgotten about his own back yard. The CFL lost more than 76,000 customers between 2018 and ’19 and, notably, even the longtime flagship franchise in Edmonton took a huge hit at the box office (minus-15,898). Commish Randy doesn’t appear to have a plan to make Rouge Football a happening again in Vancouver or the Republic of Tranna, but, hey, I hear he’s big in Frankfurt and Vienna.

LUMP O’ COAL: The Green Bay Packers-Oakland Raiders adventure at Football Follies Field in Fort Garry was a gong show from the get-go, and we have some dude named John Graham to blame for that. Ticket prices were $75-$340 (plus tax/fees), which was never going to work in a burg that only buys wholesale; Oakland punter A. J. Cole arrived wearing a Winnipeg, Alberta, t-shirt; the Packers sat 33 starters; they found potholes in the end zones, thus the field for the faux football game was reduced to 80 yards in length. Oh, and did I mention there were fewer than 20,000 customers in the ball park? Graham blamed it all on the media, naturally, and he had the bad manners to attempt to boot Paul Friesen from the press box. Friesen stayed, the National Football League didn’t. And four-down football will never be back.

GOAL: Paul Friesen continues to crank out his Night Before Christmas sports poem, a tradition started by Uncle Vince Leah back in the day at the Winnipeg Tribune. I resurrected it for the Winnipeg Sun in the 1990s (or was it the ’80s?), so I’m delighted that Paul picked up that pen. I assume it’ll be featured in the tabloid’s Tuesday edition and, like most of his stuff, it’ll be boffo.

LUMP O’ COAL: Mad Mike McIntyre turned the Drab Slab into gossip central by telling us that the Jets changing room was “rotten to the core.” He mentioned something about “multiple sources,” but neglected to tell us what his “multiple sources” actually told him. Thus, galloping gossip among the rabble ensued. That was April 5. On April 17, he advised us that there was “unity among teammates, both in the room and on the ice,” but by April 20 the players apparently couldn’t stand the sight of each other again. In May, he informed us that any “ruffled feathers” in the room belonged to Rink Rat Scheifele, and in June he once again told us that the Jets were “a fractured bunch.” But wait. In August, he advised us that there was “nothing going on that winning couldn’t fix.” Confused yet? So was I. More latterly, which is to say last week, he insisted that AWOL defender Dustin Byfuglien was the root of all evil, because was was siphoning too much alpha oxygen out of the room. Meanwhile, his stooge-in-laws at the Freep, Steve Lyons and yesterday’s man Paul Wiecek, told us that captain Blake Wheeler was the rottenest of all apples in that barrel. All that and, nine months later, they’ve yet to provide a shred of evidence to support the “rotten to the core” narrative, other than one late-season, closed-door-meeting, which is commonplace in the NHL. Apparently, innuendo and back-fence gossip trump facts and anecdotal evidence at the Drab Slab.

And, finally, GOAL: To everyone who indulged an old lady by stopping by for a read of the River City Renegade. We hit 48,000 views this year, and that’s a high-water mark. So thanks. Happy Christmas, happy New Year, and happy trails to you.

Let’s talk about Megan Rapinoe and the gay Yankee Doodle Damsels…turn down the volume, Kate…a death watch in The ROT?…the rouge…Mike Reilly’s panic attacks…Kawhi and Shane, please don’t go…and les Habs by the numbers

Monday morning coming down in 3, 2, 1…and the best female soccer player in the world is a lesbian…imagine that…

A lot of people don’t like Megan Rapinoe because she’s loud, proud and gay.

I like her because she’s loud, proud and gay.

It isn’t easy being part of the LGBTQ(etc.) alphabet. Yes, even in 2019. Too many among the rabble still believe being gay is sinful and unnatural and as wholly contemptible as child porn, and it makes them blanch and climb atop soap boxes to hurl fire-and-brimstone condemnations and dire warnings of an eternal inferno.

Which means the spectacle that was Rapinoe in France likely had the homophobes choking on their Cheerios.

The purple-haired U.S.A. co-captain became the face of women’s soccer during the 31 days of the World Cup, in part because she kept hoofing balls into the back of the net (six of them), but also because she kept getting in everyone’s face. Sometimes intentionally, other times not so much.

Donald Trump, for example, tried to pick a fight with her on Twitter.

“Megan should never disrespect our Country, the White House, or our Flag,” the Bully-in-Chief harrumphed.

Megan Rapinoe

Piffle. As if a scornful tsk-tsking from the resident in the big, white house on Pennsylvania Avenue would convince her to sing along and place a hand over her heart during the playing of the Star-Spangled Banner. In your face, el presidente. Megan remained mute, hands clasped behind her back, in silent/loud protest against social injustice in America. Besides, she had another use for her hands—to reach out and collect trinkets.

Give that girl the Golden Boot.

And the Golden Ball.

And the Women’s World Cup Trophy.

Rapinoe won them all in France. Top goal-scorer. Top player. Top of the world.

She scored five times in knockout tests, including the only goal the Yankee Doodle Damsels required in a 2-nil dispatching of a game-yet-overmatched Netherlands side in Sunday’s final, and along the way Piers Morgan made note of Megan’s “stupendous ego” and called her “smug, arrogant, entitled and annoying.” The British broadcasting blabbermouth and confirmed Trumpite was just warming up. “I don’t like footballers being extreme activists. Just play football. Seriously…nobody wants to hear it,” is how the second verse went.

Well, he certainly didn’t want to hear Megan say, “Go gays. You can’t win a championship without gays on your team. It’s never been done before.”

“Yes you can,” Morgan begged to differ on Twitter. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, Ms Rapinoe…football competence isn’t linked to sexuality.”

No, but that might have been the ultimate “in your face.”

Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe.

Rapinoe, you see, isn’t the only out lesbian among these Yankee Doodle Damsels. Jill Ellis, the coach, is married to Betsy Stephenson and they have a daughter, Lily. Five other players—Tierna Davidson, Adrianna Franch, Ashlyn Harris, Ali Krieger and Kelley O’Hara—are out gays. Harris and Krieger are engaged and will exchange vows later this year. After the final, O’Hara sought her girlfriend and they exchanged a kiss at the edge of the stands at Parc Olympique Lyonnais. Ditto Rapinoe and girlfriend Sue Bird.

Oh, and five of the conquered Dutch are lesbians.

So, ya, if Megan Rapinoe tells me no women’s side has ever won the World Cup without lesbians on the pitch, I’ll take her word for it and Piers Morgan can talk to the hand.

Kelley O’Hara and girlfriend.

Should any of that matter? No, it shouldn’t. But it does matter—and will continue to matter—as long as those under the LGBTQ(etc.) banner are discriminated against due only to their choice of romantic/sexual partners and are considered lesser-thans.

Megan Rapinoe is no lesser-than. She might not be your cup of tea. Too brash. Too cocky. Too arrogant. To full of herself. Too defiant. Too aggressive. Too political. Too gay.

Fine. But she’s also almost too good to be true for a community still struggling for acceptance. The most visible, most talked-about footballer on the planet today is an out lesbian. Imagine that.

As Megan said after a quarterfinal victory over the French: Go gays!

Best quote, by far, during the post-match revelry was delivered by play-by-play broadcaster Steve Wilson, who, upon seeing Rapinoe greeted warmly by French leader Emmanuel Macron, said: “There is a president she’s happy to meet.”

Kate Beirness, Clare Rustad, Kaylyn Kyle and Diana Matheson.

I didn’t think anyone on TV could talk louder than James Corden, the late-night gab guy who’s forever yelling, but Kate Beirness makes him sound like a street mime. Host of TSN’s excellent all-female soccer panel featuring Clare Rustad, Kaylyn Kyle and Diana Matheson, Kate’s high-volume delivery is an assault on the ear drums and the sole negative note struck during coverage. Tone it down, girl. We get it. It’s a big event.

BMO Field

So this is how bad it’s gotten for the Argonauts and the Canadian Football League in the Republic of Tranna: They refuse to reveal the head count at BMO Field. The best I could dig up for the Boatmen’s skirmish vs. B.C. Lions on Saturday night was “sparse.” That could mean 10,000 or fewer fans. It could mean between 10,000 and 12,000. Whatever, given the shockingly low quality of play it’s safe to assume that much of the “sparse” audience won’t be back for more on Aug. 1, when the Winnipeg Blue Bombers trot into town. If, that is, the Argos are still in business.

What does a sportswriter call it when he’s assigned to work an Argos home game? The graveyard shift. Seriously, that’s a death watch.

The Argos-Lions joust ended on a rouge. I love the rouge. It’s as Canadian as a Gordon Lightfoot concert, a Pierre Berton book, or the Littlest Hobo eating poutine. But I don’t like it on a wayward field goal attempt. Rewarding failure is just wrong.

Mike Reilly

Bravo to Mike Reilly, the Lions quarterback who’s stepped forward to discuss his battle with mental health issues. It’s a powerful, enlightening story that, hopefully, will help others gripped by anxiety and panic attacks, and Reilly isn’t shy about sharing the gory details.

“It hit me as soon as my head hit the pillow,” he tells Chris O’Leary of his first panic attack. “The only way I can describe it is a full-blown panic attack.

“I can’t even say that my heart was racing. It was like it was trying to beat its way out of my chest. It was racing faster than I’d ever felt before. It felt like everything was kind of closing in around me. I couldn’t breathe. I honestly in that moment thought I was going to die. It was the scariest thing I’ve ever felt in my entire life.

“I felt frozen, like I was stuck in my bed. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t do anything and I thought that was going to be it. I thought I was going to die.

“Emily (his wife) came in from the bathroom and I remember thinking, ‘I don’t know what caused that, I’m still feeling the effects of it and I don’t want to close my eyes. If it happens again I’m going to die.’ I remember telling her, ‘Let’s turn the TV on and let’s pick a show and just watch it.’ I remember thinking, ‘I just don’t want to lay back down. If I lay back down and close my eyes, I will die right there.’”

Been there, felt that and I don’t wish it on anyone.

So, Kawhi Leonard is taking his ball and going home, and the mourning continues in The ROT, where no one—not even the impossible groupie Drake—is feeling it more than Steve Simmons, the Postmedia columnist who long ago showed signs of a serious man-crush on the hoopster.

It began with an open love letter: “I’m writing this with the hope you’ll consider remaining with the Raptors after this season, making Toronto your basketball home, because in many ways, it makes sense—for you, for the city, for the basketball team, for Canada.”

Shane, come back…and bring Kawhi with you.

Later, there was this: “If this is it for Kawhi Leonard, one season of mystery, magic and memories in Toronto, one year and one unexpected and exhilarating NBA championship, then, really, all you can say is thanks. Thanks and you’ll never be forgotten.”

And the latest: “You can’t dislike anything about what Leonard brought in one calendar year to the Raptors and to basketball across this country. We will be walking on air, living with this, celebrating the championship, for years. Maybe our whole lives.”

Oh, my. Walking on air our whole lives. We haven’t read or heard that much melodrama since teary-eyed little Joey Starrett begged his hero not to go in the final scene of the western classic Shane. “We want you Shane, Shaaaaane!…Come back! And bring Kawhi with you!”

Minnesota Whitecaps have signed just seven players for the 2019-20 National Women’s Hockey League crusade, but season tickets are already available for, get this, $420 (between the bluelines), $315 (inside the bluelines) and $210 (standing room). That’s for 12 games and it breaks down to $35, $26.25 and $17.50 per. I’m a fan of female shinny, but 35 bucks a pop is excessive. Actually, it’s crazy. Or maybe not. The Whitecaps sold out every date at the 1,200-seat TRIA Rink last season and, with those non-refundable sticker prices, it’s little wonder they were the first NWHL outfit to show a profit.

And, finally, terrific Montreal Canadiens story from longtime shinny scribe Dave Stubbs: “Roman Hamrlik asked for No. 4, his Calgary number, when he signed in 2007,” Stubbs tweeted. “Equipment mgr Pierre Gervais: ‘I’ll give you Mr. Béliveau’s phone number. If he agrees, I’ll give you a long ladder and you can take down his banner.’ Hamrlik opted for 44.”

Let’s talk about those ugly Yankee Doodle Damsels…a home run for TSN…Kaylyn Kyle’s hair…a Bronx cheer for Sid Seixeiro…writers ignoring the Raptors…terrific tweets…Trudeau’s nuts…and play it again, Sam

Serving up a special mid-week smorgas-bored…and if you thought Hope Solo was an ugly American, check out their World Cup soccer team…

The Yankee Doodle Damsels officially arrived in France on Tuesday and, boy, are they ugly.

Ugly Americans

I mean, there’s butt cleavage ugly, then there’s American ugly, and I don’t think I’ve seen Americans quite as ugly as in their women’s World Cup debut, a 13-nada paddywhacking of Thailand at Stade Auguste-Delaune in Reims.

Score 13 goals? Sure. Go for it. There’s no mercy rule at that level of soccer.

But celebrate goals six through 13 like you just landed on the moon? Lame in the extreme.

You don’t squish an ant or pluck the wings off a house fly then hold a block party to celebrate. Five-year-old kids might do that, but the American soccer elite are not five-year-old kids. They just act like it.

“This was disgraceful from the United States,” said TSN analyst Clare Rustad, a former Canadian national team player. “I would have hoped they could have won with humility and grace.”

Still celebrating after all those goals.

Humility and grace are not the American way these days. Just look at the primary resident in the White House.

“I’m all about passion, but as a Canadian we would never ever think of doing something like that,” chimed in Kaylyn Kyle, also a former Canadian national, sitting next to Rustad on the TSN panel. “For me, it’s disrespectful, it’s disgraceful.”

Yup.

But wait. Here’s Abby Wambach, former American captain and the all-time leading goal-scorer in the women’s game.

“Would you tell a men’s team to not score or celebrate?” she asked.

Good gawd, woman. This isn’t about gender. It’s about being rude. It’s about being unsportsmanlike. It’s about acting like you’ve been there before instead of like a bunch of tools.

Nancy Armour

Nancy Armour provided Wambach with some backup vocals.

“Take the pearl clutching and righteous indignation somewhere else,” she snarled with righteous indignation in USA Today, proving Americans can be just as ugly in print as on the pitch. “This is the World Cup, not a rec league tournament. There are some who seem to think the U.S. women’s 13-0 thrashing of Thailand on Tuesday night was piling on, that their celebrating of every goal was unseemly. Tough. You want the Americans to impose the slaughter rule or patronize their opponents by pretending they didn’t just tack another goal onto the scoreline? Go join the six-year-olds in the park. Maybe you’ll get a participation trophy and an orange slice while you’re at it. Getting players confidence, getting momentum are the names of the game at the World Cup and that’s what the U.S. did.”

Oh, just shut the hell up, Nancy.

The Yankee Doodle Damsels might go on and successfully defend their World Cup title, but they’ll be wearing this disgrace while a FIFA official is wrapping gold medals around their necks. It’s going to stick to them like guilt to O.J.

I didn’t think it possible, but these American women actually out-uglied Hope Solo.

Kate Beirness, Clare Rustad, Kaylyn Kyle and Diana Matheson.

TSN has really hit it out of the park with its soccer panel of Rustad, Kyle and Diana Matheson. They’re insightful, intelligent and extremely blunt. Kyle is the most passionate of the trio, and she isn’t shy about expressing honest feelings. On Canadian captain Christine Sinclair she said this: “I have a massive woman crush on her.” I cannot imagine Jeff O’Dog or any of the boys on the various TSN hockey panels confessing to a man crush on Sidney Crosby or Connor McDavid.

Fashion note: I mentioned the other day that Kyle has hair to die for, but I found her mane to be extremely distracting on Tuesday. She had it done up in a top knot, and it looked like a fire hydrant growing out of her head. I couldn’t stop staring at the thing. And, no, that isn’t being sexist. I’d say the same thing about Bob McKenzie if he had a fire hydrant on the top of his head.

What a pleasure it is to watch soccer when it isn’t bogged down by needless play-acting. The women do it right. There are no Neymars in their game, at least none that I’ve noticed.

Moving back to the ugly theme, it’s about Sid Seixeiro of Tim & Sid fame on Sportsnet. This was his take on fans in the Republic of Tranna cheering when Kevin Durant of the Golden State Juggernaut was felled by injury in Game 5 of the National Basketball Association final:

“I don’t know exactly how many people in that building last night were cheering the injury, because people were cheering the injury. Anyone who suggests no one was cheering the injury is either lying or stupid. Anyone who booed that kid, whether or not they knew the severity of the injury is scum. Period. I don’t wanna talk about it. There was a lot of people in that building doing it. Now, the other part of this…if that game last night was in Philadelphia, how would they have reacted? If that’s the reaction in Toronto last night, what do Philly fans do? What do Celtic fans do? In any Eastern Conference building last night, that exact same thing would happen.”

And what? Because Philly fans are boors that makes it okay for fans in The ROT to be dinks too?

Using that logic, if the Jurassics lose the NBA final, it’s okay for the rabble in The ROT to torch the town because, hey, that’s what they did in Vancouver after the 2011 Stanley Cup final.

Get a grip, Sid.

Media in the Republic of Tranna can talk all they like about Canada being swept up in Raptors fever, but I’m sorry, it isn’t an official national party until someone rides a horse into a hotel lobby.

Jack Todd

So, are the flowers of sports journalism across our vast land into the Jurassics like we’re led to believe? Nope. On Monday, with Tranna poised to win the National Basketball Association title, here’s what they were writing about:

Terry Jones, Postmedia Edmonton: The Edmonton Eskimos.
Ed Willes, Postmedia Vancouver: Led off his weekly musings column with a take on building a Stanley Cup champion and mentioned the Jurassics at the tail end.
Paul Friesen, Winnipeg Sun: Khari Jones, new head coach of the Montreal Alouettes.
Rob Vanstone, Regina Leader Post: The Saskatchewan Roughriders.
Postmedia Calgary: Front page story was equestrian.
Jack Todd, Montreal Gazette: Fast car racing.

Todd, in fact, took a snarky swipe at all the Jurassics hype, pooh-poohing it while praising Formula 1’s Canadian Grand Prix: “Montreal has its answer to Toronto, where the Raptors are almost certain to win the NBA championship sometime this week. Overnight, Toronto the Insufferable will become Toronto the Extremely Insufferable. Glasses of skim milk will be raised to the queen. Drake’s mug will replace that of Sir Wilfred Laurier on the five-dollar bill. To all of which, Montreal will reply with a world-weary Gallic shrug, another glass of wine and the distinctive yowl of (Sebastian) Vettel’s Ferrari as it leaps out of the Senna ‘S’ at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.”

Rob Vanstone

Great tweet from Rob Vanstone of the Leader Post re the upcoming Canadian Football League season: “I’m picking the Schooners to finish ahead of Montreal.”

Best tweet so far this week was delivered by Bob Weeks of TSN, following Rory McIlroy’s victory in the Canadian Open golf tournament:
Q: Do you wish the US Open started tomorrow?
Rory: No because I’ll be hung over.”

Also got a kick out of this cheeky tweet from Terry Jones of Postmedia E-Town: “I’d like to see the Raptors win it in seven. Just like to see Toronto squirm a little more. So sue me.” Not surprisingly, hostiles with zero sense of humor surfaced to brand Jonesy a “hater” and “bitter” and “obese.” If I know Jonesy, he’s still laughing at the mooks.

U.S. speaker Nancy Pelosi and Trudeau the 2nd have one of those silly politician wagers on the NBA final. If Golden State wins, Pelosi gets Atlantic salmon, chocolates, bagels, bison meat, Nanaimo bars and beer. If the Jurassics triumph, Trudeau the 2nd receives chocolate, wine, almonds and walnuts. I don’t know about the chocolate and wine, but the nuts will come in handy for Trudea. You know, to replace the pair that Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott took from him during the SNC-Lavalin scandal.

I sometimes forget that this is my blog and I can write about whatever catches my fancy. So, this tweet from Ricky Gervais has nothing to do with sports but it piqued my interest: “What five albums have you listened to most in your life? Be honest, not trendy.”

These are mine:

Sinatra at the Sands (with Count Basie & the Orchestra)—Frank Sinatra
Classical Barbra—Barbra Streisand
Old Ways—Neil Young
Cowboyography—Ian Tyson
Greatest Hits—Steely Dan

I plunked each one of those platters on the turntable this week and I’m pleased to report they’re still brilliant.

And, finally, I like to think of all these musings as original thoughts, but how can I be sure when I don’t know what anyone else is thinking? And if you do think the same as me, be afraid. Be very afraid.

Kaitlyn Lawes, John Morris, Canada’s figure skating team and Steve Simmons…which one doesn’t belong in South Korea?

It would be so easy to trash Steve Simmons today. And, lord knows, he deserves a serious paddywhacking. A wedgie, too.

But what’s the point?

The man is a mook. Always has been, always will be. He isn’t going to change. He’ll continue to file dung heaps disguised as sports columns for the Postmedia chain of newspapers, and they’ll continue to be a betrayal of facts and tilted heavily toward the nasty side of any discussion.

His most recent epic would be the ultimate example.

Simmons, based in the Republic of Tranna but given a national platform under the Postmedia banner, has piddled on our mixed doubles curling gold medalists, the delightful Kaitlyn Lawes and the intense John Morris. He paints them as the bearded ladies of the five-ring circus known as the Olympic Winter Games. Strictly a sideshow. And those medals they won? Fool’s gold. Worthless, like a pub without pints.

He also aims his poisonous darts at the seven fancy skaters who struck gold for Canada in the team event at South Korea. Another circus act. Bears riding bicycles. Clowns squeezing into a VW beetle.

It is a disrespectful, hurtful and acrid essay. It is mean in spirit, fraught with glaring inaccuracies, and horse-and-buggy in tone. In other words, totally what you’d expect from an opinionist who believes the loudest voice, not fact or reason, wins any argument.

Simmons writes…

Gold medalists Kaitlyn Lawes and John Morris.

“Mixed curling, invented in form for these Winter Games, does not belong on the big stage. You know that for this very reason: Most Olympic athletes train their entire lives just to qualify for the Games, let alone wind up on any podium. Yet John Morris and Kaitlyn Lawes stood on a podium with gold medals around their neck having practiced once for half an hour in Winnipeg, before dominating the field here. Once.”

(Totally incorrect. Both Lawes and Morris have spent a lifetime prepping for the Olympics. She first slid from the hack at age four, he at age five. Together, they earned their ticket to South Korea and their spot on the top step of the podium by emerging from the Canadian mixed doubles Olympic trials. It was an 18-team, six-day tournament. Lawes and Morris played 13 games before arriving in PyeongChang. By way of comparison, the Canadian men’s patchwork hockey team had just three dress rehearsals prior to the opening faceoff in South Korea.)

“The world championships of mixed curling is not played by two curlers. It’s played by four.”

(Totally incorrect. There are two versions of mixed curling—two-curler and four-curler. The two-player world championship (one woman, one man) has been in existence since 2008. The field included 39 countries last year, with the Swiss tandem of Martin Rios and Jenny Perret claiming the title. Lawes and Morris beat those same world champs to earn gold in South Korea. The four-player world championship (two women, two men) has existed since 2015.)

The Canadian gold medal-winning figure skating team: Patrick Chan, Gabrielle Daleman, Kaetlyn Osmond, Meagan Duhamel, Eric Radford, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir.

“Mixed curling is not alone in its place as an Olympic sport that should be edited out of this already bloated event. Canada has a gold medal in team figure skating. Do you know anyone who grew up wanting to be a team figure skater? Anyone? Figure skating has been an Olympic sport for 110 years. It is a fabulous, heart-breaking, dramatic event that has produced some of the greatest moments in Olympic history. The battle of the Brians. The drama surrounding Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan. The excellence of Katarina Witt. You know what they all have in common? Not one of them owns an Olympic medal for team figure skating, which has been in the last two Games, and for 100 years nobody thought there was any reason to include it in the program. It’s a made-for-TV nonsense sport, proving next to nothing.”

(Actually, it does prove something: It proves that Canada has the finest collection of fancy skaters in the world. But, by all means, let’s keep everything the way it was 100 years ago. Actually, the Winter Olympics didn’t exist 100 years ago. They began, officially, in 1924 at Chamonix, France. Sixteen countries competed in 16 events in five sports—men’s bobsleigh, men’s curling, men’s hockey, men’s speed skating, men’s Nordic skiing, and men’s and ladies’ figure skating. That’s right, it was basically an all-male event. Of the 248 athletes, only 11 were female. Perhaps Simmons would have us all go back to watching silent movies and take away a woman’s right to vote, too.)

“(Medals won by Mikael Kingsbury, Alex Gough, Kim Bautin, Max Parrot, Mark McMorris and Ted-Jan Bloemen) are more meaningful than two curlers who barely knew each other taking on the world and a group of figure skaters — most of whom are contenders when it matters — bringing home gold.”

(Totally incorrect. Lawes and Morris have known each other for years.)

“(Patrick) Chan told people after the team victory that his gold medal win made up for the disappointments from previous Games. That is hokum.”

(Insulting. Simmons is telling us that Canadian Patrick Chan is a liar.)

“Not all medals, gold or otherwise, are created equal.”

(Totally incorrect. A gold medal is a gold medal is a gold medal.)

If Postmedia wanted to do the right thing, they’d haul Simmons’s big butt back to Canada for his shoddy, shameful work. Immediately. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. But, no, they’ll keep him in South Korea until the bitter end. And, with him, it will be bitter, because he only knows how to write from a position of bitterness.

(Footnote: The quotes above are from Simmons’s original column. Editors at Postmedia thought it would be wise to remove some, but not all, factual errors so Simmons wouldn’t look any dumber than necessary.)

About female footballers…pants on fire…gay medal winners…body shaming…Caster Semenya and creepy tweets…and other Olympic things on my mind

I cannot survive in a 140-character world, so here are more tweets that grew up to be too big for Twitter…

I love our soccer team, distaff division. Those women have a remarkable ability to make tap water taste like wine. Good wine. $150-a-bottle wine. They did it in England in 2012. And they did it again in Brazil on Friday. Bronze-medal bookends.

Bronze is beautiful for Canad’s female soccer side.

Except those Summer Olympic Games trinkets they’re bringing home to the True North have the glitter of gold, rather than the blandness of bronze.

Some of the faces changed in the four years between the two crusades, but the ingredients that we like to think define us as Canadians remained intact. We are modest and passive by nature yet fierce when suitably aroused. Forever the underdog, except on the frozen ponds of the globe, our successes oft are the product of a strong-willed, bulldog-determined mindset.

And so it is with our female footballers. Ranked 10^th in the world, they beat three of the top five and four of the top eight nations—Germany (2), France (3), Australia (5) and Brazil (8). Zimbabwe (93) was another casualty. The sole setback came in a semifinal match, at the boots of the German side that carried on to strike gold. Our girls soothed that wound with their energetic, 2-1 success over a Brazilian outfit that perhaps was not properly engaged at the outset but warmed to the task in plenty of time to provide the bronze-medal match with an edge-of-your-seat climax.

It is easy to admire the Canadian women. Diana Matheson is my favorite, a 5-feet-0 burst of energy. Ashley Lawrence is electric and adventurous. Christine Sinclair, the captain, has a regal bearing and carriage.

Unfortunately, they now will disappear from our sight lines until 2020, because that’s the nature of the beast for female summer sports and the media. The Fourth Estate takes note of, and celebrates, their good deeds every four years, then largely ignores them between the lighting of the Olympic torch.

I must say that I enjoyed the bluntness of soccer color commentator Clare Rustad, a former member of our national side. Rustad was very unforgiving in the matter of swan diving and particularly harsh in citing numerous German players for embellishment. And she was correct in her indictments. In the semifinal, I hadn’t seen that many Germans hit the deck since I last watched Battle of the Bulge. Germany was full value for its 2-nil victory, but also gets the gold medal for bad acting.

Liar, liar Ryan Lochte.

Liar, liar Ryan Lochte’s speedos were on fire, but the gold standard for Ugly American was established by Hope Solo, not Lochte and three of his swimming pals who got all liquored up, vandalized a gas station and flat-out fibbed about their drunken, frat-boy hijinks. I assume Solo, keeper with the U.S. women’s soccer side, was sober when she branded the Swedish 11 as a “bunch of cowards” after they’d eliminated the Americans in a shootout. Lochte apologized. Solo hasn’t been heard from since. Which, come to think of it, is probably a good thing.

According to Outsports.com, there were 53 openly gay or bisexual athletes at the Brazil Olympics and 25 won medals—10 gold, 11 silver and four bronze. Among teams with LGB athletes collecting medals were the Canadian and Swedish women’s soccer sides, the U.S. women’s basketball outfit and Great Britain and Netherlands women’s field hockey collectives. So perhaps the homophobes can tell us one more time how a team cannot win with openly gay players on the roster. Or does that bogus theory only apply to men’s team sports? By the way, the breakdown of those 25 LGB medalists by gender is three gay men, 22 lesbians.

The gold for body shaming goes to Rosie DiManno, the Toronto Star columnist who, in an A-to-Z of the Games piece, described Ethiopian swimmer Robel Kiros Habte as “rather paunchy for an athlete—beer gut midriff spilling over his swimsuit.” Had a male scribe written a similarly stinging critique about the physical appearance of a female athlete he’d have been drawn and quartered. Rosie, in fact, would be among the first to call the cad a chauvinist troglodyte.

Someone must have piddled in Ramblin’ Rosie’s Corn Flakes, because she didn’t stop at body shaming in her Games wrapup column. DiManno also whinged about “the snarky commentariat ‘colleagues’ not here, who sniped at reporters’ work from the comfort of their TV sofa.” Oh, the poor dear. Is someone not treating her and her overworked, underfed colleagues like the sacred cows they believe themselves to be? Get over yourself, Rosie. If you make a living critiquing every mother’s son and daughter, you and your kind are fair game.

Caster Semenya: What is it about her that Steve Simmons would like us to discuss?

Tackiest tweet during the Olympics was delivered by Steve Simmons of Postmedia. He wrote: “Caster Semenya is easily through to the 800 finals. Talk amongst yourselves.” What would you have us discuss, Steve? Her incredible athlete skills? Or is it her appearance you would have us talk about? Or maybe her voice? Or her hyperandrogenism? I have a better idea for Simmons: He can give us his opinion on all of the above, then we’ll have a discussion. Except he won’t go there. Doesn’t have the gonads. He’d rather hide behind a cryptic, creepy tweet. I can only take that to mean he silently believes that Semenya, the gold-medal winner from South Africa, is too manly to be running with the real girls. Sad.

Patti Dawn Swansson has been writing about Winnipeg sports for 45 years, longer than any living being. Do not, however, assume that to mean she harbors a wealth of sports knowledge or that she’s a jock journalist of award-winning loft. It simply means she is old and comfortable at a keyboard (although arthritic fingers sometimes make typing a bit of a chore) and she apparently doesn’t know when to quit. Or she can’t quit.
She is most proud of her Q Award, presented in 2012 for her scribblings about the LGBT community in Victoria, B.C., and her induction into the Manitoba Sportswriters & Sportscasters Association Media Roll of Honour in 2015.