Happy Happy Joy Joy

Remember the joy.

That’s what I tell my son before every hockey game, and it’s what I’m going to say before every ball hockey game when that season kicks off next month.

See, we have this ritual in the dressing room before the game, something I’ve done with all my boys. With Matt it was Play Hard, Have Fun, and that morphed into Play Hard, Play Strong, Have Fun with Cameron. When Jake started playing I added Be Awesome or sometimes Be Amazing. Or sometimes both.

Along the way I think I started putting too much pressure on the J Man by expecting him to be a star and shine every game. He certainly has the natural ability to do that: he was playing select hockey when he was six, before abruptly quitting the game after being cut in the rep tryout process shortly after his seventh birthday.

It was when I found myself chastising him following a game recently for not shooting enough, for not being first on the puck, etc., etc. that I realized I was putting needless pressure on him. I was acting like those hockey dads I’ve tried my best not to act like since Matt and Cam first laced up skates in 1999.

So I changed my tact.

I kept the Play Hard, Play Strong mantra for the dressing room props – it’s about being responsible for your teammates – but I took out the Be Awesome, Be Amazing stuff. “You’re already awesome and amazing every day,” I told him.

Then I reminded my 11 year-old of his younger days as an athlete. I told him to remember when he was six and scoring 66 goals in one season in three-on-three soccer. He would steal the ball, and being faster than the other kids, would just run down the field and score at will. Hell, he scored 15 goals in one game, with a big grin all day long.

I told him to remember his first year in hockey when he was five. It was just practices – instructional, it was called – until January, when they played a short slate of games. He scored 19 times in only nine or ten games and several were of the end-to-end, take the puck and just go, variety.

No pressure, just a stick, a puck and 60 feet of open ice between him and goalie.

“What did that feel like?” I asked him. “Remember that feeling,” I told him. “Remember the joy. Remember the fun.”

So that’s what I tell him now, and he responded with two of his best games all year in what turned out to be his final two games of the ice hockey season.

More importantly, the smile was back on his face. The fun was back.

Remembering the joy is a good life philosophy for anyone, and I figure it can be especially useful when dealing with the inevitable burnout that people experience when they’ve been in one career for a long time. Remember why you became a journalist, a child care worker, a nurse or a carpenter in the first place. So many things were possible back then, and they’re still possible if you remember the joy you experienced.

Just think of Ren and Stimpy and the Happy Happy Joy Joy dance.

I’ve been trying the philosophy on myself, because joy is universal and everyone can benefit from remembering what it felt like to be joyful and to have fun. I can still recall why I got into the newspaper business, though the joy of childhood is a little harder to remember.

But that’s because I’m getting old and my memory ain’t what it used to be.

The King James Show

It may all end tonight in Chicago, but with 27 consecutive victories it’s time I showed the Miami Heat some love.

They’re just six wins away from the all-time NBA record of 33 straight, held by the 1971-72 Los Angeles Lakers, a team that boasted some all-world talent in Wilt Chamberlain and Jerry West and would later win the city its first championship. They also had a serviceable small forward named Pat Riley, who would coach the Showtime Lakers a decade or so later to four NBA crowns and add a fifth title in Miami, where he now serves as president.

The Heat has some pretty good talent on display as well, starting with LeBron James, who is now, without question, the best basketball player on the planet.

I should say up front that I’m not a Heat fan and I wasn’t, until recently, a LeBron fan either. King James has always been a little too arrogant for my liking and his ‘Decision’ spectacle when he left Cleveland to sign with Miami two years ago was utterly dumb-ass.

But his play has slowly brought me ‘round. He’s already a three-time MVP, a Finals MVP, a six-time All NBA (first team), and scoring champ. And his arrogance? Well, it’s still there at times, but he’s learned to treat opponents with respect, and that new attitude has helped the Heat to better kick opponent ass and keep their streak alive.

Case in point was a couple of games ago when Miami was in danger of losing to Cleveland, of all places, until King James took it upon himself to make a 27-point Cavalier lead disappear in the final eight minutes. “We take no team for granted,” he said after the game.

After the Bulls tonight Miami visits New Orleans before rolling into San Antonio to face the always dangerous Spurs. So getting to that magic 33 consecutive win mark is going to be a difficult task.

But King James will have some help, notably by the other members of the so-called Big Three. Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh are perfect compliments to LeBron’s power game.

So why don’t I like the Miami Heat?

Certainly Wade and Bosh are likeable enough. I mean, who doesn’t like Dwyane Wade? Everyone likes D-Wade. I like D-Wade. And then there’s Chris Bosh. The former face of the Raptors has suffered his share of slings and arrows, but I’ve always liked CB4. Still do.

But I don’t like the Miami Heat. Go figure.

Great Expectations

With Sean Day set to become the fourth young man to be awarded ‘exceptional’ status for early entry in the OHL draft, it got me thinking about some of the players who have carried the sometimes impossibly heavy mantle of supreme expectation into the NHL draft.

Who were the most hyped players ever? And did they turn out?

It turns out that while scouts don’t get everything right, when they declare en masse that a player is the second coming of Gretzky/Orr/Crosby, they’re usually pretty close to the mark. For every failed first overall draft pick – think Patrick Stefan (’99, Atlanta) or Hailey’s big brother Doug Wickenheiser (’80, Montreal), there’s a Guy Lafleur or a Mario Lemieux to remind them that serious can’t-miss prospects seldom do.

Last year’s OHL draft exception, Connor McDavid of the Erie Otters, looks like he could be the real deal, but he has a couple of years to go before he’s even drafted into the big leagues. The first ‘exceptional’ player – John Tavares – certainly brought a trunk of press clippings into his draft year after a standout junior career with the Oshawa Generals and the London Knights. But did he make the list?

The following is my take on the Top 10 most hyped hockey players in history:

1.       Wayne Gretzky. The Great One was turning heads and making headlines from the day he laced up skates. When he was 10 years old he scored 378 goals in a single season, which was when I first heard of him. At 16 he was the top scorer at the World Juniors and was giving grown men fits at the age of 17 in the WHA. Considered the greatest player in NHL history, Gretzky – more than anybody else – lived up to his top billing.

2.       Bobby Orr. There was nobody like Orr, who simply revolutionized the game. The Boston Bruins recognized that very early, and bought the entire Parry Sound minor hockey organization just to ensure Orr – who would star for the Oshawa Generals in junior – would turn pro with them. Smartest decision Boston would ever make, I’d say.

3.       Jean Beliveau – The last of the pre-draft superstars on the list, the always classy Beliveau carried the weight of the entire province of Quebec when he was a junior, but Le Gros Bill spurned the Montreal Canadiens’ offer to play in the NHL, choosing instead to remain a star with the amateur Quebec Aces. Montreal’s solution was the same as Boston’s a decade or so later – spread the money around. The Habs bought the entire Quebec Senior League and turned it pro, effectively forcing Beliveau to sign with the NHL club.

4.       Mario Lemieux – There are some who would argue that Super Mario is the best hockey player ever. If they’re wrong, it’s not by much, and Lemieux had a spectacular junior career with the Laval Titans – smashing scoring records set 13 years earlier by #6 on this list – before launching his NHL career with the Pittsburgh Penguins.

5.       Eric Lindros – The Next One was a man among boys during his junior days with Oshawa, leading the Gens to the Memorial Cup championship in 1991. A little controversy helped ramp up the hype machine as well: Lindros said no to Sault Ste. Marie when the club chose him as the top pick in his OHL draft year and told the Quebec Nordiques to take a hike as well at the NHL draft, forcing a trading frenzy that saw him traded to two different teams at the same time.

6.       Guy Lafleur – The flower smoked a couple of packs of cigarettes a day and didn’t practice worth a damn, but he was worth every penny the Canadiens paid him (and every Ralph Backstrom they had to trade to the sad-sack Oakland Seals to draft him), electrifying fans with his play and leading Montreal to five Stanley Cups.

7.       Sidney Crosby – The first player on this list to have the internet and a million media channels to help pump up the promotion machine, number 87 has lived up to his end of the bargain after a standout junior career with Rimouski. Crosby has led Pittsburgh to a Stanley Cup, and scored a Golden Goal for Canada to cement his status as the world’s best player.

8.       Gilbert Perreault – Pity the poor Vancouver Canucks, who lost the spin of the roulette wheel in 1970 and had to settle for Dale Tallon, instead of Perreault.  The French Connection superstar went on to play 17 Hall of Fame seasons, all with the Buffalo Sabres, after his junior career with the Montreal Junior Canadiens. The first true first overall pick, Perreault perhaps pitied himself at the time of his selection: if he had been one year older he would have been protected by the Habs as a native son.

9.       Alexander Daigle – the first and only bust on this list, Daigle was projected to be the saviour of the second-year Ottawa Senators when he was chosen first overall in 1993. He did stick around for more than 600 NHL games, but never played near expectations.

10.   John Tavares – Yet another Oshawa General on this list, Tavares would probably rank even higher if he was drafted a year earlier, when he was scoring 72 goals and wowing scouts in every rink he played. But his final junior year was slightly underwhelming and there were rumours that Swedish defenceman Victor Hedberg would go first overall instead. The Islanders are glad they didn’t listen to those rumours.

For Honourable Mentions, I also considered Alexander Ovechkin (2004), Vincent Lecavalier (1998), Denis Potvin (1973) and Ilya Kovalchuk (2001).

For the record, six players on the list are already in the Hall of Fame, two are still active and one (Lindros) will get in eventually, despite what the haters have to say.

Daigle’s selection into the hallowed Hall appears unlikely.

The Beautiful (and humbling) Game

They say it’s never too late to learn something new but when that something is physical in nature – like, say, soccer – and that someone learning it – like, say, me – is old and falling apart, it does make it a bit more difficult.

I loved playing soccer when I was a kid – I was pretty good, too – but stopped playing competitive sports when I was 12 or so. (Long story.) So other than a tryout with my college varsity team in 1981 and a year playing in a men’s league in Kenora, Ontario in 1984, I had been out of the game for a quarter century when I joined the Durham Oldtimers Soccer Club (over-45 division) three years ago.

It was a humbling experience, but I persevered and played a couple of seasons in the Sunday ‘official’ league with Oshawa Italia (as a kid from Downsview, I never thought that would ever happen lol), as well as three years in the Wednesday night loop, which is essentially the practice night for the Sunday players. Yellow versus White, slightly different teams each night (depending on who shows up), that sort of thing.

Along the way I re-learned the game – these lads, old as they may be, were all experienced guys who had been playing the Beautiful Game their whole lives. Some had semi-pro backgrounds and most had played at a high level at some point in their younger days. So it was tough company, but my goals were not lofty.

I just wanted to not be the worst player on the pitch. On most nights I think I accomplished that.

Then the injuries began. A torn meniscus in my left knee was operated on in 2010, and orthopaedic surgery was needed last December for the second time. My doctor – I have nothing good to say about the bedside manners of the orthopaedic surgeons I’ve met, I’m sorry to say – also gave me the news that my arthritis had gone from “early onset” to “full-blown” in those two years.

And my damn meniscus is tore up again.

I was always a fan of the game, but I’ve ratcheted up interest recently, thanks in large part to a friend of mine (and Jake’s old soccer coach) who has hooked up me and the J Man with TFC tickets on numerous occasions the past two summers. And I took all three boys down to BMO Field last year to cheer ourselves hoarse when Canada took maximum points from Panama in a crucial World Cup match.

Of course, that kind of emotional investment has its price, especially when TFC missed the playoffs – again – and our national team followed up that home win with a shocking and embarrassing 8-1 thrashing at the hands of Honduras in a do-or-die match played in the hostile surroundings of San Pedro Sula.

That’ll tear a chunk out of any fan’s heart, I tell ya.

But Canada soccer will be back, TFC will eventually reach the promised land, and I’m hoping I’ll be back on the pitch this year as well. But with limited mobility in the bad knee and a fair bit of pain, it may take a cortisone shot and a whole lot more fitness for that to happen.

Wish me luck.

A Cast of Characters

On the off chance I actually sit down and finish some more Pizza Dude tales (for those who actually read them) I should take the time to introduce some of my characters:

Vern - The sole proprietor of Vern’s Property Maintenance and Landscaping, Vern Sawyer is a Canadian redneck from the hamlet of Raglan, located some 20 minutes north of downtown Oshawa. Big, brash, black and bald, Vern never let his ignorance of big words stop him from having all the answers. Take xenophobic, for example.

“I don’t know what the fuck that means. I just know I hate everybody who don’t look like me,” he answered. Then he roared with laughter as he hoisted his 300-pound bulk out of his chair, bellowing for us to “get it all, or you’ll be going and doin’ it again, on your own time!”

As he was leaving the shop, he stopped to pull out his wallet. “If any of you need any cash, best ask me now, ‘cause this gets locked to my ass in two minutes. If you still need money, you’ll have to go in the back way.”

Then he roared with laughter again, clearly pleased with his joke. That was the thing about Vern. He was as crude as a dog’s how-do-you-do and as subtle as a show shovel to the back of the head, but he was always good for a twenty when you were short. His generosity was duly noted in his account book, however, and too many of his workers, hooked as they were to one vice or another, were lucky to have enough left for rent by the time payday rolled around. 

“Not my fucking problem,” he would say when this was pointed out, and to his credit, occasionally a loan or three would never make it into the book

Do Wad – appeared as an extra in a porn flick once; still refers to himself as a porn star. Claims his super-sized ‘equipment’ makes him a chick magnet. Lives by himself in a basement apartment on the wrong side of the tracks. With his mother. Real name is Peter Poverelli.

Yo-Yo - real name is Cooper but is called Yo-Yo by everyone in the shop (especially Vern) because of his use of somewhat outdated street slang. “Yo, Yo, that’s my shovel, homie.”

Albert Trotter – a mysterious giant of a man with a massive, scraggly beard who speaks about as often as he bathes (infrequently). Despite his living arrangements – he splits his time between a trailer park located an hour’s bus ride away and a cot in the back of the shop – he is rumoured to be worth millions.

Eddie Rumsfeld – American-born Eddie is a Gulf War deserter who was once a member of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. A brilliant man who is generous to a fault, Eddie is a full-time drunk who occasionally makes an appearance at work.

Jacques Laraque – Foreman. Speaks with thick French-Canadian accent despite 20-plus years in Ontario. Stands barely five feet tall but his prodigious strength is legendary, so commands respect in the shop.

J.P. (short for Jean-Pierre) Laraque – Jacque’s 19 year-old son. At six-foot and change, towers above Dad.

Danny O’Doherty – Eddie’s drinking buddy, with a fierce temper and a history of jail terms for assault. Nice fellow on the job and like Eddie, generous with his money. Except he never has any and is always hitting up Vern for between-cheque loans.

Ron Metz – the oldest member of the crew by far, Ron is a former minor pro hockey player who quit the game halfway through his first season to fight in Korea. The next 20 years of his life is a mystery, though he tells stories of being in Berlin on August 12, 1961, in Dallas on November 22, 1963, in Memphis on April 4, 1968 and in Montreal during the fall of 1970. As these dates meant nothing to the crew members (with the notable exception of Eddie, who despised Ron, and myself), Ron’s rants were generally dismissed.

Junior – Real name Billy Nowicki, but Vern gave this 18 year-old advertisement for the need for Ritalin the name Junior, so Junior it is.

Pizza Dude – Me, also known as Doug Knight. I never actually worked at a pizza place, but I brought in a couple of pizzas from Domino’s during my first week (in a fruitless effort to suck up) and the name stuck.

Derek Leatherdale – the business editor at the Toronto Sun and my occasional boss. I am, I am told repeatedly, the bane of his existence, yet he continues to use me for freelance assignments. Derek suffers – sometimes in silence, sometimes whimpering like a whipped puppy – at the hands of his sadistic boss, the infamous Margaret McFaddy, a former ultra-right columnist and now wife of the eccentric octegenerian business tycoon (who just happens to be the majority owner of the newspaper), Derek McFaddy.

Derek McCown – My best friend at the paper, Derek knows more about the stock market (I know little and care even less) than anyone I know. Always trying to get me to invest, Derek seems to have little regard for the rules on insider trading, or for any great degree of integrity as a business reporter, for that matter.

Sven Rodmenneske – Fellow journalism graduate from Humber College. We have seemed to follow each other to several jobs in the past and we are still competing for writing jobs today. Good writer and the funniest man I know. I hate the bastard.

T-Dot - Tania Frost. Beautiful and dangerous woman both Sven and I had brief dalliances with in Brockville. Turned up in Toronto soon after my divorce, but died suddenly after a lunch date when she was struck by an anvil.

Harry Benoit - can best be described as unloved, unwashed and smelling faintly of formaldehyde. The unwashed part was apparently a matter of personal choice. The unwanted and unloved? Remember what I said about unwashed. As to the formaldehyde, you got me. Maybe because he was always a bit pickled. Maybe he bought his por pourri from funeral parlour yard sales. No matter. On April 13, Harry Benoit smelled like formaldehyde because he was lying on a slab of concrete in the basement of Oshawa General Hospital. Somebody had bashed the back of his head in. With a snow shovel.

Keeping it Metal

I am not a metal head.

I keep telling myself that, yet every time I see my son Matt’s band Into Exile play, it gets harder and harder to convince myself of that.

It started out slowly, of course. All the great forbidden love stories do, don’t they? I would go see Matt play out of love and support, and I would concentrate on my son’s guitar skills (he’s bloody amazing) and try to tune out the screaming that is such an integral part of thrash metal’s soul.

Then I would go see the band again, and this time I would really listen to Bobby (No Fear) sing. That’s gotta hurt, I would think. Then I would listen some more. After a few gigs, I was hooked, but just Into Exile, you know?

Then it happened. I was at a show in Oshawa a month or so ago and I found myself having a great time listening to a trio of metal bands and Exile hadn’t even performed yet. This past weekend I saw Matt and the boys in Ajax at a Battle of the Bands competition and I had a blast again listening to screaming metal band after screaming metal band.

What the hell happened to me?

I am a rocker at heart, but I was more inclined to listen to progressive bands like Yes, Genesis and King Crimson in my high school days, and I would morph into a lover of punk and ska bands during my college years. My taste in hard rock usually went no further than Deep Purple and Nazareth and, eventually, AC/DC.

Metal? No way.

I should take some time and introduce the boys of Into Exile, a band that has its roots at Father Francis Mahoney, a little Catholic elementary school in Oshawa that is now the site of a Greek church. Matt, fellow axe man Tiy and drummer Josh were all classmates there and at Monsignor John Pereyma High School, hooking up later with Bob, the charismatic little powerhouse on vocals.

Josh, who shares the same birthday as me, has been a friend of the family since he moved here from Bristol, England when he was seven. He never did learn how to use the doorbell or knock at our house, and with a smile that never seemed to leave his face, we never minded. Tiy, the quiet one, was the original guitar player in the neighbourhood and if he wasn’t Matt’s inspiration to learn the instrument, he certainly was one of his motivations to excel at it. Bobby, who is a certified crazy motha and a born leader, is one of those guys who would give you the shirt off his back. Which is usually not a problem, as he rarely wears one. Do you even lift, bro?

Dylan, the third bass player in the band’s four year history, is a more recent addition. I don’t know him well enough to insult him. Yet.

The band has had its ups and downs since 2009, breaking up for a while last year before reforming with most of the original line-up. They won a huge band competition a couple of years ago and have established a large and energetic fan base – their mosh pits are legendary and great theatre (from a safe distance) – which follows the band from show to show.

They didn’t win Friday night at Sgt. Peppers, which surprised the hell out of me because they brought the energy, they brought the skill and they brought the moshers, but it does show that Durham Region has a thriving and highly competitive metal scene.

That’s something I can finally appreciate, but when I hear the screaming vocals I still want to ask: doesn’t that hurt?

Told ya I wasn’t a metal head.

Revenge of the ... Jocks?

Fan Expo, an already massively huge late summer celebration of nerd culture, is getting a whole lot bigger this year with the addition of a sports section, and have enticed some pretty heavy hitters for their first go-round.

Already on board for the four-day event in August is Joe Montana, Gordie Howe, Bobby Orr and Hulk Hogan, among others, who will compete for autograph hunter attention with the usual celebrity guests from the worlds of comics, sci-fi, horror, gaming and anime.

It’s all good, right?

No way say Geek Nation, who are afraid that letting the jocks loose in their party will lead to high school all over again.

The people who make up the core audience of comic conventions like Fan Expo – which attracted more than 80,000 people last year – took to social media platforms like Facebook to vent their anger over the decision to add sports this year.

“Nerds and jocks do not mix!!” shouted one, while recommending that they should “discriminate” jocks “just as they discriminated (against) nerds everywhere in the past.”  Another warned that cosplayers – those who dress up as their favourite characters – “can now look forward to catcalling, grabasss playing jocks who will treat them like strippers.”

Protection from the ‘jocks’ who are expected to mingle with the regular convention goers seemed to be top of mind for the posters, despite the fact that the sports expo will be housed in a different hall at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

“This is a really, really bad idea. I hope you have, like, 10 times the security for us cosplayers,” pleaded one fan, with another citing an incident at an anime convention where some “evil jocks” assaulted cosplayers.

Seriously?

I’ve been to a few comic conventions and one or two sports shows as well and frankly, I don’t see much of a difference in the people who attend. Sure, there will be a few extra jocks – that is to say, people who actually play sports – at this year’s Fan Expo because of the star-studded line-up, but most sports fans that go to these kinds of events are into sports cards and memorabilia. They’re geeks, just like the gamers and sci-fi dudes, just with different interests.

Besides, I see more muscles among the artists and exhibitors at comics cons – there’s something about Superman t-shirts – than I’ve ever seen walking the convention floors at sports shows.

Not all the Facebook posters were complaining about the changes at this year’s Fan Expo. Some suggested that instead of staying home to avoid the jocks, they should show up and stand up for themselves. “It’s like they think the sports fans are going to give wedgies to everyone looking at comic books,” said one. “Since when does liking sports and respecting athletes make you a jock? You guys are mixing up jocks and bullies,” chastised another. “Not every jock is a bully and not every bully is a jock.”

While the concerns expressed by cosplayers and friends do seem overdramatized, their fears should be taken seriously. In this day and age when we pay special attention to bullying, the nerds and geeks that make up the traditional – and to a large degree, clichéd – base for these conventions remember high school all too well. Most of the posters have been out of high school for at least a decade, but clearly old wounds, and old fears, linger.

Hopefully they can “embrace the Fan Expo newbies” and “chill out,” as one self-proclaimed geek advised.

“Relax,” he added. “No one is getting beat up at this show just because they add sports.”

Pwned by Whitby

Whitby and I have never really got along.

It’s not that I don’t like Whitby – I lived there briefly and worked downtown for several years – it’s just that we never bonded. We weren’t bros, you know?

I was trying to figure out why we weren’t good buddies – we are neighbours after all – and I came up with a few reasons, though they’re mostly lame.

There’s the downtown, for one. It looks like something suited for a little town of 10,000 or so, not a metropolis of more than 100,000 people. And while we’re on the subject of towns, what’s with the aversion Whitby’s political leaders have for calling it a city? Like I said: 100,000-plus. You’re not a town, people, no matter what you call yourself. The City of Whitby. Get used to it.

Getting around the city is a bit of a pain as well. A lot of roads stop and start and there are residential streets that seem to go on forever. I hate delivering there.

The slightly superior attitude some Whhhitbeee residents have towards Oshawa is a bit off-putting too. The government decides where the social services agencies go, but they’re your people too. So stop with the holier-than-thou.

And that’s all I could come up with. Like I said, mostly lame.

There's lots of good stuff in Whitby. The library downtown is awesome, though I do have a bias in that Lene, one of my mothers-in-law, was one of the lead interior designers on the project. And the AMC complex (sorry, Empire Theatres now) is a great place to hang out. Then there's Lynde Shores, where magic happens.

And then it hit me. The real reason for my disconnect with the traditional county seat of Durham is jealousy.

Yah, I said it. I’m jealous of Whitby’s success in sports – at our expense. Mostly I’m sick of getting pwned by Whitby in damn near everything.

My boys have played some form of rep in hockey and/or soccer for years and the number of wins against our rivals could be counted on one hand. Or maybe less. Cam was playing in his third or fourth year of rep/select hockey before his bantam AE team kicked some Whitby butt – assuming control (for a short while) of first place in the league in the process. I remember the occasion being a cause for celebration.

“We beat Whitby, we beat Whitby...”

Check the OHL draft list. It seems half of the ‘AAA’ Whitby Wildcat minor midgets get drafted each spring, while it’s a good year when more than one Oshawa Minor General gets an invite to a Major Junior camp. And that’s no surprise when you have a look at the rankings – published weekly – of triple ‘A’ teams across Ontario at all age levels. It’s a shock when just one Whitby squad doesn’t make the top ten. Oshawa teams? Nowhere to be found.

It’s not just hockey. When Jake played U8 soccer a few years ago his team struggled against Whitby’s ‘B’ team. The ‘A’ team was on another level entirely.

The only sport where we didn’t have any trouble with Whitby was ball hockey, which is sort of the family sport. Cam and Matt have represented Oshawa proudly at the provincial championships many times over the years (the J Man’s turn will come) and I’ve never seen a team from Whitby there. Of course, that could be because they don’t have a minor ball hockey organization.

And I hope they never start one.

The Man Without Fear

I was getting off the train at Union when I saw my first one: a red Power Ranger.

The colour was right, anyway.

By the time I got to the Metro Toronto Convention Centre I saw plenty of other costumed heroes parading around. There were Spider-Mans and Batmans and some chubby dude wearing a cape, briefs and little else (commence mental cleansing); there were Dr. Whos, various Star Trek stars, Supergirls (better) and a whole cast of characters from ... well, I had no idea where they were from.

But Daredevil – the Man Without Fear – was nowhere to be found. More’s the pity.

Daredevil, Marvel’s blind, tortured superhero is the reason I read comics; the reason I used to walk down to Moffat & Gardiner Pharmacy in Crang Plaza – twelve cents clutched in my skinny 10 year-old hands – to buy the latest issue.  There’s been a lot of water under the bridge since then and I’ve turned away from comics on many occasions, but when I returned, I always returned to Daredevil.

The man is blind, yet has superhuman senses that enable him to ‘see’ far better than normal humans can. He is a devout Catholic (his mother is a nun) who dresses up in a red devil suit and plays vigilante by night, while donning ten-thousand dollar suits and defending the (mostly) innocent as a Manhattan lawyer by day. 

The son of a prize fighter who was killed by the mob for refusing to throw a fight, he’s a super ninja who defends his Hell’s Kitchen turf from super baddies, crime bosses and everyday muggers and thugs.

His success with the women of Marvel is legendary. Regrettably, many of his loves meet tragic ends, adding to the guilt he carries with him as a daily penance.

What’s not to love?

Daredevil has had his success, to be sure. The Frank Miller run of the 1980s made him a star for a while and the writing has been mostly first rate in the years since. (End of Days, a Daredevil mini-series on the shelves now, is the best comic series I’ve read in many years.) But the character has always operated on the fringes of the big stars, like Spider-Man, the X-Men and most of the Avengers. A so-so movie starring Ben Affleck didn’t help his case either.

So I guess I wasn’t too surprised with the absence of red devils at Toronto ComicCon. Maybe there will be some love for Daredevil at the much bigger FanExpo show in August, though I fear the Man Without Fear may be a no-show.

No doubt there will be a Power Ranger or two. Just so long as there won’t be a chubby dude wearing a cape, briefs and little else. I’m all out of mental cleanser.

Genosha B`gosh and the Holiday Inn Express

Oshawa’s downtown got a major boost last month when developer Abdul Rehman and The World’s Innkeeper announced plans for a downtown Holiday Inn Express, with construction to get underway next spring.

This is great news for a downtown core that has enjoyed some good times in the past decade or so, starting with the GMC and the Consolidated Courthouse and moving on to UOIT-led projects like the Alger Press building; the renovated Regent Theatre; and the Scotiabank-turned Faculty of Education, to name a few.

All those projects have brought – besides hockey players, criminals and students – jobs and more importantly, energy to the city centre, as well as a little style. The Alger Press building, for example, was run-down, tired and abandoned and putting a damper on the property values of its neighbour, the General Motors Centre. Today, with very little effort made to the exterior, it`s a funky, retro-chic home for Criminality and Justice students and a big part of UOIT`s downtown footprint.

Rehman wants an even bigger splash with his proposed six-storey, 125-room hotel, with restaurant, pool, fitness centre and small conference centre, to be built at Queen`s Market Square, currently a municipal parking lot and former weekend flea market, at the corner of Simcoe and Richmond streets.

The deal is chock-full of incentives, with Rehman catching a $90,000 break in building permit fees, as well as cashing in on a special facade improvement grant worth $124,000. There’s also $2 million in tax breaks, spread over 13 years.

I really don`t have a problem with this. We need a hotel in downtown Oshawa and this deal makes it happen. The City risks only its credibility if the deal falls through and that shouldn`t happen because, well, Relax, it`s Holiday Inn. The developer, however, risks a great deal more, so incentives offer a small measure of protection.  It`s the way business and government work and taxpayers will start seeing direct payback over the next 20 years, while the spin-off returns should be more immediate.

But if developers and the City want to start Pleasing People the World Over – or at least in Oshawa – then the next major business announcement for the downtown will have the words `Genosha Hotel` in the headline. Or at least Genosha. I don`t care if it`s a hotel. Just do something.

Most of us know a bit of the history of the Genosha, the city`s first classy hotel. It was the place to be in the late 1920s and into the 1930s (and again during a brief renaissance in the 1950s), though it was a money loser through most of its existence. Before the century was out it had become a seedy strip club – remember the Million Dollar Saloon? – before the City put a stop to peelers in Oshawa by passing a bylaw in 2003.

Since then the hotel has gone through several owners. There was the Korea Exchange Bank of Canada, there was ICC Global Group and then Richard Summers (who has forged a good reputation as a downtown landlord in recent years) and Richard Senechal bought the place in 2009 with a dream of turning it into student housing. Now, apparently, it`s just Senechal, but the building, with its boarded-up windows and desperate, crying need for a good sandblasting, sits back on the market with no nibblers, no progress and little hope.

John Borsberry, the guy who built the Genosha, was described as a man with ``unbounding faith in Oshawa.`` Maybe we need one of those guys. Just don`t tell him Borsberry died four years after the hotel opened, with only a pile of debts left behind.

I just don`t want to hear that The Best Surprise is No Surprise. Go ahead. Surprise me.

Generally Speaking

I covered Junior ‘A’ and ‘B’ games early in my newspaper career (back in my sports editor days), but the first Major Junior hockey game I ever saw was in Oshawa in 1997.

That was an Oshawa Generals team led by Marc Savard and John Tripp which, against all odds, captured an OHL championship and went on to play in the Memorial Cup.

This year’s edition of the Gens looks like it might be that kind of squad.

I don’t want to get ahead of myself here. There are a few teams with equal or better pedigrees who have Memorial Cup dreams of their own, so if I was a betting man I would hesitate just a little bit before getting too excited and putting anything down on them booking a trip to Saskatoon this May.  But you know, they have a fighting chance, and that’s enough for me.

They have a balanced and finally healthy attack, which starts with team captain (and two-time national junior player) Boone Jenner, and also includes NHL draftees Tyler Biggs (Toronto), Scott Laughton (Rangers) and Lucas Lessio (Phoenix), as well as overager Scott Sabourin, and young guns Michael Dal Colle and Cole Cassels.

The defence, led by Matt Petgrave, Geoff Schemitsch and veteran Colin Suellentrop is sound and the trio has contributed 111 points as well. And with Daniel Altshuller (Carolina) in net, the Generals have no worries about their goaltending.

But there’s the little matter of the Belleville Bulls, the team that doesn’t want to lose.

Oshawa, second in the division, is on a five game win streak and is 8-2 over their last ten games, which should be enough to start gaining some ground on the leaders. But Belleville, with Malcolm Subban between the pipes, is 8-1-1. Every time Oshawa goes on a roll, the Bulls match and are now nationally ranked, a position Oshawa held as late as January 26.

A month ago Oshawa thumped Belleville 8-2 at home and the Bulls will get a chance at revenge next week at Yardman Arena, where they’re almost unbeatable. With just a handful of games left, however, the result will be mean nothing more than bragging rights, as both teams are virtually locked into their playoff seedings.

The Generals will open against the Niagara Ice Dogs, the team that eliminated Oshawa the previous two years, and will more than likely face a very strong Barrie Colts squad in the second round, with the winner – assuming there are no major upsets – playing Belleville for the conference title.

After that? Probably the powerful London Knights – the third ranked team in the country – for the OHL championship.

It’s no wonder they call the Memorial Cup the toughest trophy to win in sports. The Generals, which boasts such distinguished alumni as Bobby Orr, Eric Lindros and John Tavares, have won it four times – the most of any current CHL team – so its fans know that as well as anybody.

Playoff tickets are already on sale. You know what to do.

Birthday Boys

I know I rave an awful lot about the J Man, my youngest son, but it’s his birthday today, so I’m going to rave about him some more.

Jacob Hendry is awesome. And amazing.

Those words are actually part of the pre-game ritual we do before I leave his hockey team’s dressing room. It’s “Play hard, play strong and have fun.” Followed by “Be awesome” or Be Amazing” or lately, both.  Followed by props, and then he tries to whack me in the head with his glove before I can get the heck out.

The message I’m trying to get across is that he should be responsible to his teammates, but at the same time I want him to be creative and take a few chances, because that’s how you learn and that’s how you unlock your potential. But above all, I want him to remember that it’s a game, so have fun.

Having fun is what Jake enjoyed yesterday at his party at North End Bowl. He’s a lot like me in that he’s basically shy, but when you put him in his comfort zone with friends and family he lets loose and has a blast. 

Yesterday he certainly had a blast and it’s good to see him smiling and having fun with his pals. And kicking butt as well – he bowled a 157 to win easily, though some of his buddies were bowling between their legs or releasing the ball whilst on their bellies or other such shenanigans.

They are just kids after all.

So happy birthday, Jake.

And while I’m on the subject of birthdays, there’s a couple of other boys near and dear to my heart celebrating milestones this week. Both my oldest son Matt – the rock star I’ve talked about before – and my dad, Bob, will blow out birthday candles this Saturday. Matt is turning 23 and will probably celebrate like most rock stars by jamming with his band mates and downing a few wobbly pops. Or Crown Royal. Or whatever he feels like on Saturday night.

Dad, however, will probably make his birthday celebrations a little more low-key. Not because he’s old or anything – he’s only turning 80 – but because he will have just returned the day before from a two-month cruise with my mom to Brazil and other exotic equatorial locales.

The man needs to rest and recuperate and get back to all that busy retirement stuff. And stop spending my inheritance.

So happy birthday Matt and happy birthday Dad. The J Man had a blast on his day. Now it’s your turn.

Wipeout (and Albert Trotter's Big Balls)

Albert Trotter stood at the top of the course, staring at the Big Balls that stood between him and the object of his fantasies. His wild, chest-length devil-spawned salt and pepper beard was already covered with foam, even though he had yet to fall into the churning surf below.

I think it was foam, anyway.

I was still in shock that we were even here, though I helped Albert fill out the application, had personally smoothed things out with the game show staff and even traveled to California with him to help him fulfill his dream.

The Mall Monster was where he said he would be all along: on the Wipeout obstacle course, with just those big balls and assorted other obstacles separating him from his (as yet unrequited) love – Jill Wagoner.

***

Albert always had strange tastes in women. Indiscriminate, but strange nonetheless.

The fact that he had any luck with the ladies at all came as a surprise to the other guys in the shop, but not to me. He was in pretty good shape for a drunk and in the seedy bars he frequented, he was probably quite a catch. The fact that he would have sex with any woman who said yes, no matter what they looked like or what state of coherency they enjoyed at that moment, certainly helped increase his odds.

But whenever we met one of his ‘friends’ – he would bring them to his cot in the back of the shop on occasion, much to the horror of the early arrivals in the morning – they would always appear to be shining examples of barflies gone bad. Really, really bad.

So when he announced one morning that he wanted to appear on the Wipeout television show just so he could meet Jill Wagoner, the very beautiful co-host of the show, we laughed.

He ignored us and insisted he was going to do it.

“She won’t have anything to do with you,” I told him. “She’s holding out for me,” said another. “She’s gorgeous, you’re ugly,” said another. (It might have been me, but this was a few years ago.)

He continued to ignore us.

I watched the show – a big hit in my family – so I knew all about it. I knew about Jill, too, and could completely understand Albert’s infatuation, but seriously, here. We’re talking about Albert. He may have the gift for the, um …ladies of his neighbourhood, but this is Jill Wagner. This is the big time.

And this is Albert here. Six-foot three with that insane Bad Santa beard. A crooked grin – more of a leer, actually – that remained perpetually on his face whether he was happy, angry (almost never) or sad. The man also showed an unhealthy aversion to bathing and considered jeans to be sub-standard if they couldn’t withstand the rigours of picking up garbage for at least two weeks.

The latter two traits gave Albert a certain pungency that at the very least always let us know when he was around.

So, no, I didn’t fancy his chances with Wagner, who earned a number 90 ranking on the Maxim magazine Hot 100 Women of 2004 list, a sure-fire reliable measure of sexiness as exists in this world.

But Albert was determined, so I figured I should help him by doing a little research on the show. I ^[had read something about Wipeout, and I seem to recall that you had to be American and – if I remember right – a California resident as well.

Last time I checked Albert was Canadian, with no U.S. ties that I knew about, and that he lived with his aging mother in a trailer park sandwiched between a super highway and train tracks, thirty miles east of the shop.

“Not true,” he mumbled when I informed him of these facts.” “You don’t know everything about me.”

That’s true, I agreed, remembering visits – quarterly, like clockwork – that the local police made, usually at his home but sometimes at the shop. Awkward questions, mumbled answers. 

“It’s best for both of us that you keep some stuff to yourself,” I said.

Albert insisted he qualified, saying he had a brother in California – in the movie business, he boasted – as well as a couple of his children who had moved out there. As he claimed some dozen or so kids and didn’t have a relationship with any of them (as he said himself), his explanation wasn't resonating too well with me.

Albert persisted. “My brother will vouch for me; say I live there. I’m gonna do it.”

The boys laughed when they heard this and kept on howling after I told them that Albert was serious. The only one who stopped laughing was Eddie, who (after he wiped the tears from his eyes), looked at me and said: “Fifty bucks says he doesn’t even make it to Toronto.”

I thought about Eddie’s offer for about two seconds. And looked at Albert, who was watching us with the same crooked grin he always had, but with a crazy-ass look in his eyes I hadn’t seen before.

“You’re on,” I told Eddie.

It’s on.