Category Archives: Sports (MC Archive)

Sports columns that appeared on Jason Menard’s previous Web site, Menard Communications.

Pride or a Paycheque?

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By Jason Menard

Pride or a paycheque? To which force should athletes be beholden? And is there really a right answer in all of this?

The Dominik Hasek situation at this year’s winter Olympic games in Torino, Italy just added a few more sleepless nights to the schedules of National Hockey League general managers and coaches. Their greatest fears were realized with the slight strain to the Czech goalie’s adductor muscle.

It’s the age old question – do you play for your country or your employer? The easy answer, especially for guys like me who don’t have millions riding on every shift, is that the pride of playing for your country outweighs any financial gain. But the realist in me knows that I’m talking out of idealism and national pride.

Things have changed since 1972 – the watershed mark for national representation. During that Canada-USSR summit series, a nation stood riveted as “our guys” faced off against “them.” This series was less about on-ice prowess than off-ice idealism. What should have been simple exhibitions between athletes from two countries quickly evolved into an on-ice battle for social and political superiority.

And this us-versus-them mentality continued on into the 80s and every contest was a pitched battle where ideals were fought for, not with words or guns, but rather with sticks and pucks. These were events and every player: whether they were Canadian, American, Soviet, or other nationality, was willing to drop everything to play/fight for their country.

Alas, with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the us-versus-them nature of the games just seemed to matter less and less. How could we, as Canadians, stoke the flames of societal passion when our TVs were flooded with images of displaced Russians lining up for hours just for a loaf of bread? When the entire Eastern Bloc was struggling through the chaos of overwhelming societal and cultural reform, attaching cultural superiority to a hockey victory began to reek of Schadenfreude. It was hard to gear up for a Cold War battle when one side’s supporters ran the very real risk of freezing to death.

Starting with Sergei Priakin in 1989 and continuing with the arrival of the former members of the KLM line — Vladimir Krutov, Igor Larionov, and Sergei Makarov – to the NHL landscape, our once on-ice enemies became just another hockey player. Former ideological enemies were now playing side-by-side with North Americans for the common goal of winning a Stanley Cup.

And with that, International Competition became less of a passion and more of a source of pride. With players free to play anywhere in the world, international competitions like the Canada Cup (and its successor, the World Cup) became the location to see the best of the best play against each other. But instead of ideological supremacy being at stake, nothing more than bragging rights were on the line.

Now average NHL players from around the world are earning healthy salaries to ply their trade. And, despite the cachet of the Olympics or international competition, the National Hockey League is still considered the highest level of play. The Stanley Cup is truly hockey’s Holy Grail. So, for a Dominik Hasek, he has to balance his loyalty to the Czech Republic with his loyalty to his regular employers – the Ottawa Senators – who fill his bank statement with all those zeroes.

Despite any national pride, to NHL general managers the game is a product and the players are their assets. While winning a gold medal is nice, remaining gainfully employed is even nicer. The best way to keep their jobs is to win games – and the easiest way to win games is to have their best players playing at their top level.

That’s why there’s always a risk of allowing players to participate in these games. Sure, there’s insurance, but that only covers the financial loss – no insurance can replace the effect of a top performer on a squad.

For NHLers, whose careers are generally short, they have to balance their desire to play for their country with the risk of undermining their long-term ability to earn a top-level salary. Certainly injuries can happen anywhere, but running the risk during a game in which you’re paid by your employer seems more acceptable than any risk assumed in what is essentially and unpaid exhibition.

Pride is a very powerful force and I’m pleased to see so many athletes sacrifice themselves for the honour of playing for their country. But as international competitions become less and less relevant, the day may not be too far away when a player’s loyalty to his country is superseded by his responsibility to his employer.

And, as people just trying to make a living, will we really be able to blame them when they make that choice?

2006© Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

Sports Watching With my Wife

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By Jason Menard

Forget The Apprentice. If you want to see real wheeling and dealing at its finest, then look no further than the average household when the great debate is on. I’m not talking about politics or religion – no, the great debate in my house, and many others like it, revolves around one question – “Honey, can I watch the game tonight?”

To all you single men out there, please consider strongly any desire you may have to settle down if sports is really and truly a priority. Fortunately, I love my wife more than I love sports – but that doesn’t really make things any easier.

In my youth, I was the biggest sports fan around. I could rhyme of meaningless statistics, name the Stanley Cup winners from the past 50 years – in order, and talk insightfully about any number of sporting topics. My TV could have had only two channels, but as long as it picked up Hockey Night in Canada and TSN, I was a happy man.

Now, my TV has over 200 channels, we have time-shifting, and world broadcasts – yet it seems that somehow my wife has been able to install an S-chip without me even knowing it! I knew about V-chips that blocked violence from your screen, but I had no idea that there was a chip in development that eliminates even the hint of athleticism from the airwaves. At times, the most athletic activity that graces our screen is when the homeowners dash to their neighbours’ house in Trading Spaces…

I know there are other husbands just like me. In fact, I’ve seen them at work. When our single brethren ask us if we catch the game, our eyes shift about, we mumble something semi-coherent about being busy last night, and wonder to ourselves how it all came down to this. If we’re lucky, we’ll sneak a couple of minutes of highlights, or you’ll see us lingering in the TV section of the store on shopping excursions.

And this time of year is especially torturous. With Canadian and NFL football dominating the airwaves, basketball on its way, and hockey… well, during a normal year… we feel the same way as we do when we lose the car in a parking lot – we know what we’re looking for is nearby, but we can’t find our way to it! Like Tantalus, what we want is maddeningly close, but just out of reach.

I’ve tried to share my enthusiasm with sports with my wife, but she grew up in a household where organized sports weren’t a part of everyday life. So, try as I might, I can’t get her to see the joys of sport. “It’s just a bunch of overgrown man grabbing and hitting each other,” she’ll say.

I’ll try to explain the intricacies of football, or illustrate the speed and beauty of hockey, or get her to appreciate the athleticism of basketball players, but the response is the same. I suppose if the players went off and redesigned their dressing rooms between periods it would be a different story.

My favourite line of hers is, “Well, you watched sports today.” As if all manner of athletics can be lumped into one athletic stew to be ladled out judiciously. And I, like a modern-day Oliver Twist, must humbly hold up my remote saying, “Please ma’am, may I have some more?”

I am thankful to have two TVs, but that can be both a blessing and a curse. First, the bigger TV is never available for sports – I think it may be allergic to them. And when I ask why my wife won’t go in our bedroom to the smaller TV, the answer is invariably, “Well, that one doesn’t get all the channels.”

So, you may say, what’s the problem? Just get up and go to the other TV. Which is an option, but – as you may recall from a couple of paragraphs above – I do love my wife and enjoy spending time with her, so that’s not an option I’d really like to pursue.

Like an athlete in his older years, the game begins to get away from us. Yet, the joys of family far outstrip the pleasures derived from sports. Priorities change and the more important things in life come into focus as we mature. So, while I may look back fondly on my youthful engorgement in sports, I wouldn’t trade a moment of it for what I have today.

But the second she drops that remote…

2005 © Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

An Ode to Helena Rudy

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By Jason Menard

In many cases, image is truth – and we have been witness to a tale of two realities of late.

October 12, Helena Rudy crosses a picket line in Toronto her path obstructed by an angry mob gathered around to intimidate her into joining fellow strikers. A chorus of “Scab, scab, scab” seemingly keeping time with each impeded footfall.

October 13, the first of many NHL games are officially missed due to the lockout. Yet there are no grand displays. Not with a bang, but with a whisper are these games lost. And where are the players? Why are they not standing at the gates of arenas across North America, showing that they want to get in to ply their trade?

Why is Helena Rudy vilified for making the difficult decision to cross a picket line to do her job, while we seem to have no resentment for NHL players choosing to take the path of least resistance in heading overseas to play in European leagues?

Why will Helena Rudy have to deal with the ramifications of her actions for years to come? Why will she be subject to being ostracized by her peers? Why will she endure the sideways glances and comments made under breath as retribution for her action? Why will NHL players, when this labour impasse has ended, be welcomed with opened arms? Their actions forgotten in the collective joy of a return to the ice?

Why is solidarity so important for one group of employees – to the point of attaching social stigma to one who breaks ranks – while it’s almost an afterthought to the other, far-more-affluent, group?

Image is everything in our society. The major battles in the NHL labour war have not been fought over the future of the game, but rather they have been skirmishes to win fan empathy and approval. Fans, who already feel an emotional disconnect from their beloved ice idols now are feeling a physical disconnect as these same players ply their trade elsewhere.

NHL players, instead of standing in solidarity, showing the fans that they want to get back to the table, have dispersed to far corners of the globe in search of games. Instead of a striking visual of NHL players standing at an arena gate, willing but unable to play due to the owners’ lockout, we are presented with no image whatsoever.

Well, not whatsoever. The image we are left with is one of total selfishness. It’s an image of a group of players so concerned about protecting their employment status in the NHL and willing to fight for it, that they seemingly have no problem taking jobs away from other people in other leagues.

The 200 or so roster places around the world that are now occupied by NHL players were not created out of thin air. They were 200 or so roster spots occupied by those who made their living playing hockey, at a substantially lower rate than their NHL brethren. Those are now 200 or so marginal players without a paycheque. They are 200 or so people with a dream to play the game they love for a living without the opportunity to do so, because these locked-out millionaires have decided to take a “working vacation.”

Yes, this is a lockout – by definition owner-imposed — and the NHL players did not choose to have their place of employment taken away from them. However, these players are already on shaky ground with the most important stakeholders in this whole debate – the paying fans.

Already fans have a hard time relating to the modern player. They get paid millions to play a game that anyone sitting in the stands would do for free if given the chance. They live lifestyles beyond our imagination. They earn more in a season than many of the paying public will do in a lifetime.

However, fans can relate to the semi-pro athlete. It’s an inverse proportion, really. The less money a player makes, the closer a fan can feel to understanding that player. And now these NHL millionaires are shoving aside the less fortunate. So the fan resents them more for that.

In this war, the NHL players missed a golden opportunity to get fan support on their side. Image is everything! Standing before a locked-out arena would have shown the fans that the players still care. It would have shown that they understand what the fans want. Instead, they’re earning a paycheck somewhere else. And, as the old adage states, out of site, out of mind.

So we come back to Helena Rudy, whom we vilify as a scab just for wanting to do her job. Her situation is just the other side of the NHL players coin, but each seems to hold different currency.

2005 © Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

The Hockey Strike is the Fans’ Fault

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By Jason Menard

So the NHL and the NHLPA have decided that since they can’t share the big ball of wealth that they’ve got to play with, they’re simply going to pack up and go home.

Everybody who is passionate about the sport seems to have an opinion about who’s to blame in this mess. There are those railing on about the greedy players and others talking about the mismanagement of the owners. And then the common refrain is heard, “The only one’s who are really suffering are the fans!”

Ah, but the fans are not as innocent as they have been portrayed. In fact, the fans are probably as much to blame – if not more – than either the owners or the players for this mess. The fact of the matter is that, despite increased ticket prices, indifferent treatment by both players and owners alike, a poorer quality game, and exorbitant rates for everything from parking to souvenirs to refreshments at an arena, the fans continued to go to the games, drop their hard-earned coin, and pay these salaries.

We, the fans, have become enablers for the very activity we despise. I’ve been asked by many non-hockey fans why teams charge so much for (insert item here: tickets, apparel, beer), and my simple answer has always been, “Because they can.” They’re simply charging what the market will bear and, unfortunately, the market’s been willing to bear too much.

I’m no economist, but I know that if someone was willing to pay me a million bucks to write a column, I’d be typing so fast my fingers would bleed! The word no would be out of my vocabulary for a while, in this case. So why do we begrudge the owners for charging top dollar for what’s essentially junk?

People across this great nation of ours lament the poor quality hockey to which we’re subjected. Their love of hockey is more rooted in the past than any sort of present. But still, instead of showing their dissatisfaction, they continue to flock like lemmings to the Air Canada Centre, the Bell Centre, or any other steel and glass hockey shrine (usually one that’s been funded by taxpayer dollars.)

There’s a lot of talk about the lack of fan interest for the southern US teams. But can this really all be attributed to a lack of interest? I think we should actually be proud of those fans who aren’t allowing themselves to be ripped off! They’re putting their money where their mouths are. Why pay for a product that’s inferior?

We’re the ones that are held hostage by our passion for hockey. You wouldn’t think twice about not going to a restaurant that charged you top dollar for poor quality food, but asking you to give up those cherished season’s tickets is akin to asking you to give up your first born! It’s only those of us in the “traditional” (which I believe is a euphemism for gullible) hockey markets who chose to ignore the product, the service, and the entertainment value, and shell out more and more of our hard-earned money each year. Maybe the time has come to look at our collective ravenous appetite for hockey and temper it with some common sense.

Now that the NHL is gone, hopefully these same people that are outraged by the owners’ and players’ actions will now support other options like Junior and University hockey. The excitement is building for the Memorial Cup. Fan support of the Knights has never been higher and this should happen right across this great land of ours. True hockey fans should stop worrying about what they’re missing, and discover what they’ve missed for all these years. Junior Hockey (or AHL, or any number of leagues) provides entertaining hockey at a fraction of the cost.

Support these leagues, and even after the NHL comes back with their empty apologies and hollow statements of love, continue to support them. We live in a market-driven society. When we stop paying the prices that these teams demand and, instead, give our money to a more affordable option, then the NHL will get the point.

Then ticket prices may start coming down. Then a beer may not cost you a second mortgage. Then maybe we’ll be as smart as those fans in the Southern U.S.

2005 © Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

Good-Bye Nos Amours

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By Jason Menard

The Montreal Expos are officially (well, more or less) leaving town for good this year. The field of Olympic Stadium will no longer play host to Nos Amours. It appears to finally, once and for all, say goodbye to Canada’s first professional baseball team.

I should feel sad. I should be angry. But the problem is, I don’t feel a thing. I said goodbye a long time ago and never looked back.

I grew up an Expos fan during the glory years of The Hawk, The Rock, Cro’, Tim Wallach, Steve Rogers, Black Monday, and on into the divine “Year That Never Was” in 1994. I even stuck around to see the one who may be the greatest Expo ever – Vladimir Guerrero.

I was angry at the fire sales, the inept and deceiving ownership, and the constant jokes from outsiders who didn’t understand. I shook my head at lazy sports columnists who referred to Montreal – with over three million people within 15 minutes of the island – as a small market.

Spending a few years in Ontario as the Blue Jays rose to prominence, I spent many a day defending Canada’s First professional baseball team from its upstarts to the West. Most of all, I resented the expressed belief that Montrealers didn’t support baseball. But that’s all in the past, now.

What I choose to remember are the good times. For years I would take the Métro to the Stadium and take my seat in the left-field bleachers for Opening Night. In later years, I would take my son, when he began to take an interest in sports – and could stay awake longer than the fourth inning! And what I remember most is this – baseball in Montreal works.

I’m not a fan of Olympic Stadium by any means. In fact, the only times I’ve seen the stadium alive was for the Grey Cup and on Opening Night. When you packed 50,000 screaming fans into the stadium, you got an atmosphere. The feeling was electric and everywhere you looked you saw the smiles lighting up each and every face – young and old, male and female, French and English.

And then came game two. For the last decade, like a cresting wave, crowd size would crash until 5,000 people was considered a good draw. Sure, people would come out for $1 steamie (hot dogs to those devoid of Quebecois) night, but rare was the day that I couldn’t buy walk-up tickets and have my pick of the lot.

Where did those 45,000 fans go? Well, the simple answer was that they knew they weren’t wanted, so they didn’t go back. The Spectacle was over, life goes on…

For years Montrealers were told that Olympic Stadium was a terrible place to watch baseball and that the sport couldn’t survive in such a venue. So, people started to stay away. After all, if you’re told how terrible it is to go someplace, why would you go. And then there were discussions about the downtown stadium that would revitalize the sport in Montreal. But that died.

People would stay away, and then the ownership would get rid of the best (read: most expensive) players and get futures in return. This only compounded the problem. After all, why would you go watch baseball in a terrible venue, just to get attached to players that would end up leaving anyway? And still the sportscasters would find cause to criticize Montrealers for not supporting this team.

So the spiral continued down, eroding fan support. But the fans weren’t gone – they were just in hibernation, waiting for the bit of good news that never came. Then MLB takes over and the team is left playing with one hand tied behind its back. Rumours of moves to West Virgina, Las Vegas, and Washington became annual events. So why should you go to a game, when they’re just riding out their time with a less-than-competitive team in a stadium that kind of looks like a toilet bowl.

Appropriately, the fans flushed the Expos.

I stopped going to Opening Night. I stopped going to games. I stopped watching baseball altogether. And while the pundits will now polish their boots to kick Montrealers while they’re down — making their snide comments about Montreal’s lack of support and small market mentality, I’ll know better.

Because I was there. Me and 50,000 others at Opening Night, the thousands who followed the team in The Gazette and La Presse, the countless masses who gathered around TVs in living rooms, pubs, and bars to watch the games – we know, in our heart of hearts, the truth.

We never got a pitch to swing at. Baseball just gave Montreal a decade-long Intentional Walk.

2005 © Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved