Gone to Texas

I'm reading the Jan.31 SI this morning and I stop at the Editor's Letter (for once), entitled "Gone to Texas". Terry McDonnell writes about the annual Superbowl "reunion". For who? Media! That's who!

"...this year more than 5,000 credentials have been issued to a raggedy assortment of media people from 26 countries, most of whom will be holed up at the 1.840-room Sheraton Dallas Hotel, where the over-under on the elevator wait will likely be Topic A by Friday."

Uhh, that's me!! Terry is talking about me. Well, the "raggedy" part of assortment anyhow. Credential #4999 maybe? He goes on to list all kinds of media and other social events happening throughout the week which left me drooling. I've been given a rough itinerary for our evenings which includes the Gene Simmons-Shannon Tweed party, The Fray at Bud Light Hotel, dinners at some famous chefs' restaurants (??? Justin from work would kill me for not knowing those chefs' names), and Pamela Anderson's party. I'm not in charge so I have no input....I'm just tagging along like a happy drooling little Canadian puppy dog.

Celebrities aside (well entertainment celebs anyway), am I super nerdy to be tunnel-visioned about the media celebs I might meet? Peter King, Jim Rome, Tim Layden, Adam Schefter???? Pam Oliver!!!! Oh Pam! If I'm stuck in an elevator wait with Pam or ANYONE, I'll call it a good week. I'm going to work my butt off down there. I'll relax on game day.

3 days and I'll be back to my country roots. Boots are packed.

Countdown!

Super Bowl

Women Are Authentic Too

This is right about the time of year I get into hockey. NFL regular season is finished, playoffs have begun, the NHL season is just passed the halfway mark, and my busiest season at work is complete. My NFL obsession and 82 (!!!) NHL games in a season combine to defeat my attention span. Not to mention my NFL fantasy and suicide survivor pool schedule. FYI, I won my survivor pool this year, rookie season. Long live The T-Bones!!

My hockey fever could not have started at a more perfect time this year. My beloved Calgary Flames are playing the Senators at Scotiabank Place tomorrow night! Calgary and I have been in a long distance relationship for 12 years since I moved East. But thanks to the long-awaited NHL schedule change a couple of years ago, I can now look forward to a one-night-fling with the Flames once a year in Ottawa. I got word the boys got into town last night and I can already feel the heat melting the deep freeze here.

I ordered my new jersey last month. Part bday present to myself, part foreplay for our upcoming tryst, and part necessity to replace my other one. I don't normally like to be a bandwagon person in general, so I had waited to buy my other jersey until Calgary signed Dion Phaneuf. Amazing player, loved him. I like the guys who aren't the obvious great, the captain, the big money man. 6-year contract! Woot!! Put the order in right away. Crap! Traded. To the Leafs, of all teams, and about 2 weeks before Calgary visited the Senators last season. I wore the jersey to the game but made a cardboard (#3)White nameplate to cover Phaneuf. There was, obviously, nowhere in Ottawa to buy one and no time to order one.

When I say nowhere in Ottawa to buy one, I mean for women. Women must shop in the team store in the city of choice, or buy online. Until some years ago, women couldn't even get team gear that actually fit them. Now I have hockey, football, and soccer jerseys (and I'm sure other sports do it too) that fit my size and shape! The sports world is incredibly sexist. No 2 ways about it. If a woman wanted to buy fan gear, she had basically 2 choices. It was either reminiscent of something Pamela Anderson might have been wearing when she was plucked from the crowd at a BC Lions game or like she had stolen her boyfriends jersey from his closet (no need to wear pants I guess) because don't we just cheer for whoever our boyfriends cheer for anyway?? So I suppose some improvements have been made, hopefully thanks to women demanding authentic sports gear tailored to them. BUT, 2 things we're still bothering me. Breast cancer aside, which is recognized yearly in many sports, I DO NOT like pink jerseys. Apologies if this offends any pink-lovin'/wearing women. Pink is NOT a team colour. Not of any team in the NHL, NFL, MLS or any other league that I know of. I'm sure there must be a team out there that has pink as a team colour, so be it. I am not against pink being a team colour. I am against the idea that "because you're girl, you must want to cheer wearing pink". I personally believe women do themselves an injustice by wearing pink jerseys, including young girls. I think ALL fans should cheer in their team colours. There, I said it. Also, my Phaneuf hockey jersey was completely "authentic": team colours, NHL/Reebok issue, lace-up, CAN/AB flags on arms. But the logo, name and number plates were silk-screened on. Silk-screened! Why? I want standard issue sewn-on. I want to "look" like my favourite player. Isn't that the point?

WELL, you can imagine my shock and glee when my new jersey, #12 Iginla (yes I did it, the captain. I realized people love them because they really are the best), arrived with logo and name/number plates sewn-on!!! It looks amazing. And might I add it's the throwback Flames jersey? Oh yes, no lace-up, red, yellow and orange. Official NHL/Reebok, authentic issue, tailored to my size and shape. Absolutely beautiful. Gosh, if I had bought a large and some pads, I could jump on the ice tomorrow night if Iggy would like a shift off. Kudos NHL and Reebok.

Have authenticity in your fandom and knowledge of sports, ladies. It pays off.
GO FLAMES GO!!

Decent Proposal

The World Series is long over now. The Yankees won, blah blah blah. I've mentioned before, I'm not a huge baseball fan. But during the playoffs, I did read an interesting tidbit in SI's For The Record. Susan Finkelstein, 43, was arrested and charged with prostitution and other offences for "offering sex for World Series tickets".

What?!?!?!?

And I don't mean "What??!? A woman offered sex for tickets??" I mean, "What??!?!? A woman was charged with prostitution for offering sex for tickets??"

I did some intertubes searches and found the report of her Craigslist ad:

"DESPERATE BLONDE NEEDS WS TIX (Philadelphia) Diehard Phillies fan--gorgeous tall buxom blonde-- in desperate need of two World Series Tickets. Price negotiable--- I'm the creative type! Maybe we can help each other!"

So the Bensalem Township police baited her and she allegedly offered to perform unnamed sexual acts for an undercover officer.

After her arrest and charges, her name (sorry, here too) and her picture were plastered across television and the internet.

As a diehard fan, if I thought I could get final playoff tickets for my team, any team, by offering my best assets, wouldn't I do it? Would you do it? But more importantly, it should be allowed.

Rant For the Day

The sudden death rule is bullshit. Both teams should have equal chance at possession. A quarterback rallies back and plays an amazing 4th quarter and watches from the sidelines while the other teamgets the glory in OT....for winning a coin toss??!! I'm not saying the NFL should adopt NCAA rules, but they have got to put the kybosh on sudden death. Players make millions a year and only play 16 games a season. A few extra quarters in the off chance of OT once or twice a year wouldn't kill them. And especially to know that this rule might ruin a team's (rhymes with Hotlanta) chance for a wild card spot. To a team (rhymes with mallice) who beat the Redskins 7-6!!!!

Send me to the Olympics!

I wrote the piece "Warm Heart in the Frozen Tundra" for a Journalism contest with the Globe and Mail. I had to shorten it significantly to submit it. You can read the edited version and VOTE FOR here!!

Thank you!

Warm Heart in the Frozen Tundra

We left Chicago at 7:00 am on a Sunday. We drove north along Lake Michigan, into Wisconsin. By the time we hit Milwaukee, every radio station was fixated on one thing. Kickoff was at 1:00 pm. We were in Packer Nation. When we arrived in Green Bay, the town was painted in green and gold and I was wearing red and black. I was a long way from home, but the Atlanta Falcons were much further from theirs.

It is truly remarkable that a city, population only 100,000, and its team can captivate NFL fans around the continent. It felt like a pilgrimage of sorts. Green Bay, the mecca of American football, and the winner of the first two world championships after the merge of the AFL and the NFL.

Up until that year, I had never seen the Atlanta Falcons win a game on the road, or even at home in Atlanta. People at home in Ottawa had warned me about being a visiting fan in Lambeau Field. I scanned the crowd of over 72,000 people for my fellow cheer section. We looked like a thin string of red Christmas lights on a towering green tree. The friends I travelled with were rooting for the Packers. To keep us in good rapport with the locals, they claimed.

My quarterback, Matt Ryan, was a rookie and the leader of a team deep in the rebuilding process. I wondered what it might feel like to come to a field such as Lambeau, as a rookie, to play against a storied team with fans as loyal as Packer Nation. Could it be the American equivalent of a young Canadian boy dreaming of lacing his skates to play in the NHL? Could it be the same as walking into Maple Leaf Gardens or the Montreal Forum to play a team that’s humble beginnings were over a century ago?

Ten minutes into the scoreless first quarter, while I’m making friends with the cheeseheads surrounding me and the Falcons are marching up the field, they score a touchdown on a goal line pass. The Falcons are on the board first and the game is on. A field goal for us and a 44-yard touchdown for the Packers ended the first half with a score of 10-7. Leadership was proven for the Falcons with a 90-yard, 9-play touchdown drive in the 3rd quarter. The Packers answered with a field goal in the same quarter and a touchdown in the 4th, to tie the game with only seconds more than 10 minutes to play. Though Packer penalties and special teams errors were the demise of their game, the Falcons proved themselves winners with strong defense and vision from their rookie quarterback and offensive line who kept possession of the ball throughout the end of the game to score the winning field goal.

After 60 minutes of trying to ruffle the Falcons’ feathers, it was over. I stood up, clapped, and took it all in. I looked around at the famous names on the stadium boxes: Vince Lombardi, Willie Davis, and Curly Lambeau, among others. There I was, 87 years later, watching the Falcons win for the first time. As people started filing out of the stadium, a man tapped on my shoulder. I turned and he was standing with a boy maybe 10 years old. They were dressed in green and gold and holding their Packer flags that staff had given to every person entering the stadium. He said, “Good game.” I smiled and replied, “Thank you, yes it was.” “We’re from Green Bay and it’s my son’s first time at Lambeau Field. It’s hard to get tickets, you know.” I looked at the boy and pondered the idea that he likely lived a walk or short drive from the field and had never been inside. “Are you from Atlanta?”, he asked. I laughed and said, “No, I’m from Ottawa, Canada.” “Well, we’re glad to have you. Do you mind if I get a picture of you with my son so he can remember his first game?” You can imagine my amazement. I sat and posed and got a shot with my camera as well.
We carried on with the festivities surrounding the stadium that day. I was happy to be getting back to urban life in Chicago, and then home, when we left. I couldn’t help feeling, though, that I was leaving the Frozen Tundra with a warm heart.