Are you ready for some hockey, football, basketball and baseball? by Apollo

Well it appears that the frequency of posts is beginning to dwindle, which I suppose I should have foreseen given the lack of timely posts on Wongoz's own website. I myself was away for a while but with the coming of September, expect a lot of sports related posts as it is now, arguably, the best time of the year in sports.

There's always a debate between what time of the year is the best in sports and it generally varies between fall and late spring. The fall boasts the season openers of european football, or soccer as it is called here in North America, american college football, the NFL, the NBA, and normally the NHL. In addition, the fall enjoys playoff and season ending contests in baseball and tennis. This fall is all the more special with the World Cup of Hockey, the Ryder Cup and World Cup 2006 soccer qualification matches in the mix.

The spring brings the beginning of the baseball season, playoffs in basketball, soccer and hockey (usually) and major tennis and golf tournaments. In any event, it's indisputable that the fall is a good time for sports, and leads to increased debate and discussion on sports related topics.

Which leads me to the World Cup of Hockey currently being played here in Toronto. While normally I would be rather excited about this event, and admittedly I've been following it pretty closely, the fact that the NHL lockout is looming does take something away from this tournament. I can suspend my disbelief long enough to watch the games without thinking that this tournament is really just a cash grab by the players and owners before the league is shut down. A beautiful 5-0 Canadian victory over Slovakia can go a long way to restoring my faith in this tournament though. A few things I've noted during the last two weeks:

1) The European group: Forget for a moment how wrong it is that both Russia and Slovakia were forced to play their round robin group games in North America while the Czech Republic, Finland, Sweden, and Germany all enjoyed home games in Europe, it is a far departure from past international professional hockey tournaments where all teams would play games in Canada and be subjected to pro-Canadian crowds and venues. I find it almost amazing that any of the European teams were allowed to play in their home countries at all. A long overdue move which hopefully will lead toward further European based games in the future. Now, if they could only do something about the CIBC ads placed on the boards in Helsinki and Stockholm.

2) The fickle Toronto fans: I've said it once and I'll say it again: Montreal rules! The first few round robin games were played to loud sold-out crowds at the Bell Centre in Montreal, the largest arena in the NHL. The last few games have been before non-sell out crowds at the smaller Air Canada Centre in Toronto and even the Toronto-centric media have gone out of their way to note the difference in atmosphere. Now, the games are technically sold out, however the corporate customers who own the preciously overpriced World Cup tickets are either not showing up or passing the tickets off to people who aren't bothering to show up. This is a pure travesty. How can anyone justify empty seats at the Air Canada Centre when there are fans across eight countries who would love to be there? The corporate model has made the Maple Leafs rich and usually guarantees standing room only crowds, but hopefully for Toronto's sake the semi-final and final will be sold out.

3) Mario Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky: Team Canada is undefeated when these two men are both involved. Lemieux was deemed too old and too injured to be effective at this tournament, and while the effort and heart were obviously there, the lack of production from him and linemates Joe Sakic and Jarome Iginla led some to speculate that the Magnificent One just did not have another great tournament in him. Two unbelievable backhand saucer passes later, Mario & Co. are looking like one of the most talented lines Canada has ever seen. One need only point to Sakic's gorgeous wrist shot goal last night off pinpoint passes from Iginla and Lemieux as evidence that Gretzky once again made the correct decisions with his staff. Prior to the tournament, many, including some of my close friends, were bemoaning the Team Canada lineup. Kirk Maltby? Brendan Morrow? Robyn Regehr? Jay Bouwmeester? What was Gretzky and his staff thinking? Where was Paul Kariya and Bryan McCabe and Keith Primeau? So far so good for Gretzky's management team once again, although they really should be thanking Steve Yzerman for his eye injury, otherwise Vincent Lecavalier would be watching this tournament from his cottage and Canada would likely not be undefeated.

4) Jose Theodore's "Dragon" mask: Martin Brodeur has a beautiful red Maple Leaf mask but you have to admire Theodore, the third string goalie, for customizing his own mask featuring a red Dragon head and the Team Canada logo, despite the fact he probably isn't going to play.

5) Team Sweden losses again: Wait a minute, you mean if we stack a team with a bunch of amazing forwards and one outstanding defencemen but goaltenders who don't even start in the NHL, we won't win (again)?

Enjoy the tournament while you can, even if you have to watch it on ESPN2, it will be the last pro hockey we see for a long time, unless you have satellite and want to watch Joe Thornton highlights from Switzerland or Peter Forsberg and Markus Naslund play together again in Sweden.

On a follow up to my last post about spending on amateur sports in Canada, the Canadian Men's Soccer Team is likely not going to qualify for the 2006 World Cup. Not only will this deprive Wongoz of seeing the national team in Germany that year, it will mark the 20th year since the 1986 World Cup in Mexico since Canada last qualified for sport's greatest spectacle. Now, I realize soccer isn't the most popular sport (or even close) in Canada, but not being able to score goals against Costa Rica and Guatemala is bordering on the ridiculous. Soccer is the highest participation sport in Canada and while the national team program is hardly on par with the European and South American countries, there is no reason why Canada cannot be a consistent Top 50 nation in soccer. As it is now, Canada is in danger of dropping out of the Top 100 in the FIFA rankings. Recently, the only legitimate Canadian professional player, striker Tomas Radzinski, complained that players had to fly coach class from Europe back to Canada because Soccer Canada was too cheap to pay for them to fly first class. Now, while that might sound like whining, some Canadian players had to spend over 16 hours in transit from Europe to Canada for the recent World Cup qualification matches. It's bad enough we barely have enough quality players to field a competitive team, but to take the few decent players we have and not give them the tools and resources to be successful is inexcusable. When's the last time you heard Ronaldo or Thierry Henry fly coach to play for their countries? I don't even think that those players even fly on commercial airlines! As the government tries to purge funding from some fringe sports in order to spur greater athletic success for Canadian athletes, there's no reason why soccer should not be one of the more heavily funded sports. If Soccer Canada is getting appropriate funding, then there's a systemic problem that ought to be fixed immediately. The Canadian Women's Team is among the world's best, there's no reason why the men's team cannot be put in a position to duplicate that success.