Lions’ loss hardly worst of a bad news week
From the home office of Glass Half Empty, Inc.:
Out here in overprivileged Lotus Land, where it’s not really warm enough these days to play golf until noon or so, we have a tendency to look inward at our misery and then project it on everyone else.
Those among us who still follow the Canadian Football League think there could be nothing worse than the B.C. Lions mailing it in against the Montreal Alouettes in the East semifinal Sunday — down 50-3 before scoring two late touchdowns, in the words of Postmedia News colleague Iain MacIntyre, “in what we’d call garbage time if that wasn’t an insult to rubbish.”
Nothing worse? How little we know.
The inevitable handwringing over such a monumental no-show quite properly casts some blame on everyone from Lions’ Hall of Fame boss Wally Buono to his anointed successor as head coach, Mike Benevides, to Benevides’ selection as offensive co-ordinator, Khari Jones, to Sunday’s chief author of the disaster, quarterback Kevin Glenn, to every last aging veteran who was sucked under when the ship sank.
Well, after all, the Lions haven’t won a Grey Cup since way back in 2011. Release the hounds!
But looking at those photos of a home’s exterior door opening onto a seven-foot solid wall of snow in Buffalo … listening to the notes of resignation/schadenfreude in the accounts of Toronto media (“Those pukes,” as Brian Burke described them) after the Leafs’ descent into hockey hell these past few nights … following the grim wasting away of two good men, Gordie Howe, from a series of strokes, and Ottawa Senators GM Bryan Murray, from cancer … reading in the New York Times the domestic abuse accounts of two former NFL wives whose ex-husbands were arrested, released by their clubs and now are employed in the CFL … it’s a useful reminder that not all suffering is created equal.
Burke’s regurgitation reference to reporters, issued after Leafs star Phil Kessel rudely declined to talk to the media after Toronto’s 6-2 loss to lowly Buffalo (but before their 9-2 shelling by Nashville on Tuesday), wasn’t even the worst broadside absorbed by ink-stained wretches this week.
On Tuesday, Tiger Woods took to the pulpit offered by Derek Jeter’s Players Tribune website to write a lengthy complaint entitled “Not True, Not Funny,” decrying a Dan Jenkins column in Golf Digest in which the revered World Golf Hall of Fame writer penned an admittedly fake interview with Tiger, who consistently has refused Jenkins a oneon-one.
It wasn’t Jenkins at his knee-slapping best — in fact, some of it was mean-spirited and distasteful, and Woods had every reason to be irate — but lecturing a distinguished author on matters like ethics and humour is a guaranteed no-win for a golfer who has never been noted for either.
The Maple Leafs’ recent meltdown is a tire fire of epic proportions, at least until they win another game, but in the meantime T.O. is the entertainment capital of Canada.
The Toronto Sun’s giant sports-front banner after the Nashville debacle blared: “Did someone say PUKE?” and below, a small photo of Burke was accompanied by: “A look back at Burkie’s Stanley Cup successes in Toronto. Page S33.”
Twitter exploded with notable variety, from Sun columnist Steve Simmons’ “UPDATE: There will be no emotional reaction to sad state of Leafs” to an apoplectic video rant from Leafs superfan @Steve_ Dangle that is nothing short of breathtaking, to TSN host Dave Hodge’s puckish: “Interesting to note that the Leafs’ analytics report from last night’s game was a bunch of unsolved Sudoku puzzles.”
As we speak, Leafs president Brendan Shanahan is wondering if maybe heading the NHL’s Department of Player Safety wasn’t the worst job in the world, after all.
Then there’s the New York Times. The two women interviewed for the latest NFL/domestic violence story, Mercedes Sands and Brandie Underwood, detail the trauma involved with trying to escape from abusive relationships.
Their exes, defensive backs Robert Sands and Brandon Underwood, are now with the Edmonton Eskimos and Calgary Stampeders organizations, respectively; Sands on the injured list, Underwood on the practice roster.
The Eskimos and Stampeders meet in Sunday’s West final. It’s not the most savory of sidebars.
Meanwhile, the CFL, enjoying a historic period of rebirth off the field, with new stadiums in Winnipeg, Ottawa and Hamilton and one on the go in Regina, has been pretty awful between the white lines and fans have begun to notice.
TV ratings are down, crowds were sparse for last week’s playoff games in Montreal and Edmonton and, with both the host city’s team and the ever-popular Saskatchewan Roughriders eliminated, more than 6,000 tickets remain unsold for the Nov. 30 Grey Cup game in Vancouver.
In shooting news, convicted murderer Charles Manson, 80, who’s serving out a life sentence in California’s Corcoran State Prison for his role as mastermind of the Helter Skelter cult killings in 1969, is engaged to be married to 26-year-old “fan” Afton Elaine Burton, who (naturally) is known simply as Star.
So there’s a little ray of sunshine for you.
You’re welcome.