Category Archives: Sports (MC Archive)

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

Ottawa’s Irreconcilable Differences

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By Jason Menard

Just when you thought it was safe to be a CFL fan. Where’s Paul McCartney and Brigitte Bardot when you need them? After all, each time a Canadian feels it’s safe to poke their head out and be proud of our national league, someone comes along and Gliebermans the fan.

It’s truly cruel and unusual punishment – especially for those long-suffering folk in our nation’s capital and it must stop.

Whether it’s the Roughriders or the Renegades, Ottawa fans have now twice faced a divorce from their beloved team. Sure, the first marriage lasted a heck of a long time, until 1996, which made the hurt all the more painful. And then, just when the old fans were feeling comfortable about expressing their love for the new arrival, they get left at the altar 10 years later.

And the league thinks the fans are going to welcome the team back after one year off?

Take one year, take 10 years, take however long you want. If once bitten, twice shy is the old adage, what’s the formula when you’ve had two chunks taken out of you? Oh yeah, it starts fool me once…

The league has to be insane if they think that the fans are just going to walk back into Frank Clair Stadium and pick up where they left off. There’s too much mistrust to get personally involved.

Look at the example set by the Montreal Alouettes. Despite a team that was consistently able to beat the bushes and find superlative talent, Montrealers refused to support the team in any substantive way and ended up losing Nos Amours to Washington. However, it wasn’t for a lack of passion in baseball or a lack of enjoyment of the spectacle – opening day crowds can attest to that. It’s just that fans were tired of being told that their team was going to leave.

The situation denigrated into a constant cacophony of how terrible the stadium was, how the team couldn’t compete in the fiscal environment, and how the players were just going to end up leaving anyway. Montreal’s own Gleibermanesque Jeff Loria promised the moon – a downtown stadium on land whose lease he allowed to lapse – before delivering the knockout blow and putting Montreal baseball to sleep for good.

While sports is a business, there’s so much more to it than just that. To run a successful sports franchise you need not only savvy business and personnel people in place, you need a fan base that feels attached to the team, feels a sense of ownership and pride in the organization, and feels invested in the product on the field. It’s hard to get the fans to stand firm when you keep pulling the rug out from under their feet.

Look at how Montreal has rebounded since the return of the Alouettes. When the Concorde left, the thought was that football was gone from that town for good. But with the failed American expansion behind them and the absorption of the former Baltimore franchise, Montreal’s CFL brass made all the right moves. They embraced the history of the team by reverting to the Alouettes name, instead of choosing the failed Concordes moniker or an all-new title. They moved to the cozy confines of McGill’s football stadium to turn a night at the football game into an event. And they encouraged their players to go out into the community and be a part of life in the city.

The Renegades? They should have Horned Mr. Chen and obtained the rights to the Roughriders title. And the last thing they should have done is shelved the team for the year.

The league’s commitment to finding solid, long-term local ownership is admirable. However, the decision to suspend operations and disperse the players through the league (and the unemployment line) is short-sighted at best. Like Toronto and Hamilton in the recent past, the league should have ponied up the dough to maintain operations.

Who’s to say that after a year off, the fans are going to want to come back? What will they be coming back to? Nothing more than an expansion team with new, poorer-quality players, and an immediate future that looks bleak. Why are they going to invest their time, money, and – most importantly – passion in a situation that’s proven to be folly in the past?

Like in any marriage, it’s easier to work things out together than to come back after a separation. Unfortunately for the Ottawa fans, this marriage appears to be going down the road to divorce because of irreconcilable differences.

2006© Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

What’s Wrong with Having Fun?

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By Jason Menard

Sure looks like the NFL is doing nothing to shake that No Fun League moniker, especially in light of the latest decision to restrict the scope of allowable celebrations in the end zone following a touch down. But what they’re forgetting is that what makes sports so appealing to us all is the fact that it’s a game – and we, as fans, love those who know how to play it.

In its typically convoluted way, the National Football League okayed celebrations as long as the participant remains on their feet, but doesn’t use anything as a prop. Spiking, spinning, and dunking the ball over the goal posts are still good. However, Cincinnati Bengals’ wide receiver Chad Johnson’s cheerleader proposal? Gone. Getting down on one knee and removing one’s helmet is now a no-no.

Call it the fallout from Sharpiegate. In recent years noted pigskin choreographers like Johnson and malcontent wideout Terrell Owens have made the end-zone their personal stage for animated celebrations of their scoring prowess.

Interestingly enough, part of the rationale behind restricting these demonstrative celebrations is the feeling that they focus on the player, not the team. San Diego head coach Marty Schottenheimer went so far as to say, “The game is about the team, not the player.”

Oh, how quickly we forget… Why, was it not just a couple of seasons ago that the Indianapolis Colts’ kickoff team were threatened with unsportsmanlike conduct penalties should they engage in their pre-kick sway. That was an example of a team coming together in a show of unity. The fact that it came from special teams – often the most underappreciated third of the game – made it even more special.

What’s forgotten by these leagues that want to legislate the fun out of sports is that most fans appreciate these gestures. Looking back historically, we remember those players who stood out for their celebrations. Whether it’s Tiger Williams riding the stick after scoring a goal, Barry Bonds admiring his own home runs before slowly trotting off, or Michael Jordan’s wayward tongue hanging out on his way to the rim, these images stick in our mind long after the memory of the game or the event has faded into the past.

Many reading this won’t remember the game, the score, or the event, but the image of Theoren Fleury bulging the twine and racing across the ice in a fit of youthful exhuberance, arms raised, before falling to the ice, spinning out and crashing into the far boards is indelibly etched in our minds.

Many more don’t give a wet slap about rugby. Yet how many of us are familiar with the New Zealand All-Blacks Maori-inspired Haka? Is there any harm in engaging in a pre-game ritual designed to pump up the team? No. These displays can even make an otherwise-to-be-forgotten player a lasting touchstone for a generation. Ickey Woods anyone?

Football’s got it backwards. The CFL frowns on obviously choreographed routines featuring more than one player, yet the fans love the image of six players falling in unison around a ball that’s symbolically transformed into a bomb.

Sports are supposed to be about fun. They’re also about diversity and personal expression. We admire these athletes because they can express their bodies and talents in ways that we can only dream. For every person who is offended by Steve Smith’s diaper-changing football routine, there’s another fan who was bored to tears by retired Detroit Lions’ running back Barry Sanders’ handing the ball back to the ref. In many cases, Sanders is deified for his display of class, while modern players are pilloried for their excesses.

The thing that people forget about sports is that the players themselves find a way to establish accepted limits. They don’t need outside help. If a football player is hamming it up too much, someone on the sidelines will make it abundantly clear that the behaviour shouldn’t happen. In hockey, an over-the-top celebration that has the effect of belittling an opponent will be dealt with in a future shirt – either with a stiff check or something more nefarious.

But is there anything wrong with having fun? Was not what made the 1985 Chicago Bears so appealing at least, in part, inspired by their Super Bowl Shuffle video? But as fast as Jim McMahon’s ego was inflated, was it not just as rapidly deflated by fan backlash? And that’s the great equalizer in sports – the fans will determine what they want to see and what they don’t. If Joe Horn jersey sales spiked after his cell-phone touchdown celebration, would that not indicate that fans enjoyed the spectacle. When fans tired of the Dennis Rodman sideshow, is it any wonder that he slipped into obscurity?

These games are played out in the field – not the boardroom. If the fans wanted to watch stuffed suits, they would. In the meantime, let the players play. After all, it’s only a game, so what’s wrong with having fun?

2006© Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

An Unqualified Masters in Bracketology

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By Jason Menard

It’s March Madness again and, like many of you, I’ve filled out my brackets and eagerly check on the scores to see how my picks are faring.

Also, like many of you, I have no idea what I’m doing.

There are 64 teams in the NCAA tournament and I’m hard-pressed to name any of the players. Not one. In fact, I can only name a handful of coaches. Yet, I sat down and actually thought about my picks, justifying them in my mind, before committing them to paper. I am in three – count ‘em – three on-line pools! But, to be fair, all of them are free.

I may be delusional, but I’m not crazy.

It’s all just a crapshoot. For the most part, the big favourites end up winning, the Final Four is comprised of at least a couple of number-one seeds, and the world keeps spinning on its axis. And, you know what, I’ll probably do fairly well with my picks.

On the other hand, when it comes to picking sports that I do know, I’m abysmal. I’ve tried ProLine-ing hockey and all I end up doing is making a donation to the lottery fund. I consider myself well-versed in the Canadian Football League, but my annual foray into a prediction pool ends up finding me drowning half-way through.

NHL playoff pools? Football fantasy? Basketball rotisserie? All met with varying degrees of success. But NCAA? I’m in it to win it each year.

NCAA Pools pop up everywhere both in offices and on-line. The Final Four tournament is one of those events that even non-sports fans can appreciate. Like the Super Bowl and the Olympics, these are bandwagon events that have enough room for everyone to jump on. And because there’s a structure to the event people can easily get involved in the game.

And get in the game we do. The best part about participating in these pools is when you watch those self-important few, who can name the starting five of all the NIT-level schools blow a gasket over the guy who lets his three-year-old pick the results ending up winning the pool. The beauty of the NCAA tournament is that anyone can win it and there’s just no rhyme or reason most of the time.

One serendipitous game. That’s all it takes for a one-seed to fall by the wayside in the first weekend. A couple of unlucky bounces one way and a hot hand going the other and the favourite is watching along with the rest of us. It’s that one-and-out finality that draws us to the games. This isn’t a long, slow build-up, like most fantasy pools – this is instant gratification at its finest.

What’s great is the liberating feeling that one has picking these brackets. I know about as much about the Final Four as I do about the Bolivian election. The only difference is that I have an opinion on the NCAA tournament – and it matters just as much as the guy whose life is dedicated to catching college hoops on the tube.

Overall, it’s shocking how much most of us who fill out these brackets don’t know about college hoops. Not that I’m advocating ignorance, but I’m just as happy not knowing. I have my sports of interest and college basketball isn’t one of them. However, when it comes to events of interest, the Final Four is right up there.

In truth, what I know about college hoops is pretty much restricted to the things I hate about it: Duke (although I really don’t know why I hate them, they just seem to elicit this feeling) and Dick Vitale (and I do know why I hate them.) That’s about it. I read a great biography of Michigan’s Fab Five once – does that count?

I enjoy basketball at its highest level – the NBA. And, while I appreciate the dedication and talent of these *cough* student *cough* athletes, for the most part I’m not invested in their fortunes. I can’t tell my Iona from my Gonzaga, but I’ve picked one of them to make it to the Final Four!

So, when the end of the tournament finally comes, I’ll be checking with interest to see who cuts down the nets. And, although I may not recognize the player, I’ll sure be smiling if the team is in my bracket.

2006© Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

Commonwealth Games Too Common

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By Jason Menard

You may not have thought it was possible, but there is – in fact – something less relevant to our lives than the Olympics. Perhaps you may have missed it but Melbourne, Australia is proudly hosting the 18 th Commonwealth Games.

Or, as I like to refer to them, the Notably Absent of Well-Funded, Talented Athletes Where We Can Actually Dominate and Feel Good About Ourselves Games.

Much like the schoolyard kid who is too weak to compete with children his own age, yet revels in dominating the kindergarten kids on the basketball court, the Commonwealth Games lets us watch as we rack up medals against such luminous competition as Belize, the Falkland Islands, and the powerhouse Papua New Guinea club.

Forgive me if I don’t rush to set my PVR so as not to miss a second of this riveting action.

All it takes to compete is to come from a country that was once a colony of Britain. That’s it. And, thanks to a quirk in geography, we Canadians step up to the games as one of the bigger fish in this artificially smaller sea. Along with England and the host country Australia, we get the pleasure of sending our athletes to kick a little Melbourne sand into the faces of our geographically weaker Commonwealth buddies.

Because of this, the Olympics run rings – pun fully intended – around the Commonwealth Games in terms of the level of competition in the events. The only thing these events enable us to do is gauge how our future Summer Olympians are faring against lesser competition. I suppose if we’re losing to Cyprus and Tongo, it’s time to revisit our funding and coaching.

The proof of the Commonwealth Games’ lack of relevance is evidenced simply by the fact that few of us can remember any of the past champions – not to mention any breathtaking moments. These games come and go, with barely a blip on the athletic radar. At least the Olympics, as hypocritical as people are in watching and supporting them, are spectacle enough to receive – if not warrant – mass media coverage.

The Olympics are the big show. The Commonwealth Games are on the level of the Pan-Am Games as events that you can safely miss without a tinge of regret.

Now, let me state that I don’t want to denigrate the effort and dedication that the athletes that compete in these games have shown. In fact, they’re to be admired for attempting to compete at the highest level possible, in spite of a notable lack of interest from their home countries.

But where are the Petro-Canada tie-ins for our Commonwealth athletes? Where are the endless loop of commercials dominating our television screens drumming up support for our proud Canadians competing under our flag for our honour? Where is the water-cooler talk in the office about how many golds we’ll win?

It’s not there. Because, in general, we don’t really care about our athletes – at least not for three years and 50 weeks. Many of us become armchair experts during the two-week Olympic period and live and die with the fates of our Canadian athletes. Yet it’s a hypocritical, vicarious pleasure that we allow ourselves to enjoy because we haven’t earned it. We don’t support these athletes at any other time of their training.

And these athletes, so anonymous in their toil at the Commonwealth Games, will be front-page news and first-and-foremost in the minds of the average Canadian in two years when the Summer Olympics roll around. But where is our support for them now, before the bright lights cast off by the Olympic flame illuminate their faces?

A search on the official games’ Web site indicates that we’ve sent a total of 144 athletes to the event, with the most notable name being young diving star Alexandre Despatie. But I’d say its safe to say that few Canadians will remember these athletes’ exploits over the next few days in Melbourne the moment the games over.

Heck, most of us won’t remember them by the time we wake up.

The Games’ official mascot is Karak, a South-Eastern Red-Tailed Black Cockatoo. With only 1,000 of these birds remaining they’re on the precipice of extinction. This is all somewhat appropriate considering that’s this is where the Commonwealth Games should be – extinct.

2006© Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

CBC Olympic Coverage On Target

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By Jason Menard

Oh, the pundits are out in force, suggesting that the CBC has been too hockey-focused throughout this Olympic Games. But, really, is there any reason to argue with giving the viewers what they want – and what they’ve proven to want in the past?

How have those competitive luge ratings been over the past three years? And what were the overnights on biathlon from 2005? Oh, non-existent, OK. Pass the microphone back to Mr. MacLean now.

If the CBC wanted to dedicate all of its programming to the men’s Olympic hockey tournament and only run a crawl of the other events along the bottom of the screen, would there really be any reason to complain? These same columnists, pundits, and talking-heads – have they used their valuable air time and ink to promote these same sports that they’re now lamenting as suffering from a lack of coverage?

No. The point is, in large part, we don’t really care about these secondary sports. Some of us will jump on the old Olympic bandwagon and take some undeserved pleasure from our dedicated Canadian athletes bringing home medals. Those same fans will be the first ones to lament the loss of a medal from an athlete of whom they previously hadn’t shown any interest in.

But hockey, ah… there’s the rub. It’s the reason why the CBC clings so tenuously to the rights to broadcast these games. There’s gold in them thar rinks and, whether or not it hangs from the necks of our players, as long as the pros are playing in the Olympics it will be ringing in the national broadcaster’s coffers from Turin to Vancouver.

The hand-wringing over the CBC’s men’s hockey obsession is just a small part of the greater, unsaid debate about the broadcaster’s mandate. If we look at the broadcaster as an advocate for fair public representation responsible for showing the depth and breadth of the Canadian experience, then coverage should be meted out equally for every event and every athlete. We can let everyone have their 15 minutes of fame and then all get together at the end of the day for a big group hug.

But the CBC is hesitant to fully embrace their role as a public broadcaster – especially if tightening that grip means they have to loosen their grasp on the ideal of commercialism.

The CBC isn’t at this time just a northern PBS, preparing quality programming without being concerned about ratings. It isn’t a channel that’s dedicated to quality and diversity just for quality and diversity’s sake. It’s a network competing with others like CTV and CanWest Global for advertising dollars and viewers’ eyes. If, for the past three years, viewers have shown a marked apathy for watching non-marquee sports, why change a programming focus when the goal is to get the remotes clicked to your stations?

The simple answer is, there is none. Life isn’t fair and while bobsledders, ski jumpers, and biathletes work and train as hard, if not harder and in far less luxurious conditions, than their professional hockey counterparts, the simple fact of the matter is that those sports just don’t seem to resonate with the fans.

As a competitive broadcaster, the CBC has to dedicate air time to the events that will bring in the ratings. However, wearing its public broadcaster’s hat, it has a responsibility to help build an audience for other sports and highlight the complete mosaic of Canadian athletes. CBC hasn’t exactly blacked out these other sports and has given its viewers an opportunity to experience a wide variety of events, competitions, and disciplines. But now it’s time for the average citizen to vote with their wallets and their support.

Skeleton or Snowboard Cross pique your interest? Then spend the intervening three years between Olympics going to local competitions, supporting the athletes, and watching it on TV. If an event isn’t televised, contact your local affiliate or the broadcasters themselves and say that you, as a viewer, are interested in these events and would like to see more air time dedicated to their coverage.

That way, the next time around, when a broadcaster goes about defining an on-air schedule, they’ll know that there’s value in dedicating resources and assets to events that previously may not have warranted as much attention.

After all, while the Olympics are all about gold, silver, and bronze, for the broadcasters the only colour they care about is green. And the viewers’ eyes and the advertisers’ dollars are the only groups that they’re interested in soliciting.

2006© Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved