We now switch our attention

As spring nears, but namely March, my attentions are shifted squarely over to basketball with university and college playoffs on the way. Nothing beats this time of year, really. If you can find anything in sports that rivals the NCAA's March Madness I'm fully prepared to call you a dirty liar.

Fully understanding that most people who happen to saunter by this little space on the web aren't overly interested in my thoughts on CIS basketball, I'll save you my feelings that the UBC Thunderbirds are going to undefeated into the national tournament.

What I will tell you, though, is that the annual all-Canadian high school game is just around the corner and the nominees have been named for the final two rosters.

The folks at HoopLife.ca are the ones that put this on year to year. HoopLife is a manifest of the former BasketballJones.ca, which I used to write for and contribute to. If you have any love for basketball in this country, HoopLife is something you should give love to. They've done a tremendous job covering so many angles of basketball in Canada and just the putting together of this game — a few guys committed to a big undertaking — speaks volumes.

The teams will be separated into East and West this time around. It's a particularly good crop of players in Saskatchewan and Manitoba this year. Likely represented in the all-Canadian game will be 6-foot-10 Winnipeg Adam Dobrianksy who has committed to play at New Jersey's Monmouth University next year. Potentially Nick and Dan Lother, the twin guards from Winnipeg Jeanne Sauve could be there as well. Perhaps look for one of, if not both, players to be Brandon Bobcats next season.

In Saskatchewan, 6-foot-10 Marc Van Burck of Regina's Luther was a provincial team member and a sure Div.1 prospect. Yorkton's Chris Heshka is 6-foot-5 and a solid athlete and Kai Williams, younger brother of Regina Cougar Jamal Williams, is another solid athlete coming out of "The Gap".

Watch for the game, April 8, to be on one of Canada's sports networks.

Fish lens

An additional post here today because one of my comments on my Canada post was from Sun photographer Christopher Pike. He's a young pup but he does real good work for us and I followed the trail of bread crumbs to his blog on here and I think people should see his work. This little punk (term used affectionately) is over in Turin shooting the Olympics and I'm jealous. But he's provided some really good art from there.

So, have a look here.

Seeing Red

Let's be honest about this right now, I have nothing to post here today. Except this ...

Last night, in my late-night slumber, I had a dream I was in Nebraska. I was at Memorial Stadium although it appeared we were there for a basketball game. Still, I heard the music of the Tunnel Walk and ... well that's the dream. Lame, I know.

Anyway, I slip on by huskers.com every so often and, out of nowhere, baseball season has started in the NCAA. Yikes.

I'm sitting up here cupping my pint glass with wool mittens in -30 C weather and Joba Chamberlain and the rest of the boys in red are playing pepper games and gnawing on Big League Chew. I know I've been there twice before, but where in the hell is Nebraska? Ball season? Really?

Joba is pronounced Jaw-buh, by the way, and the righty hurler is part of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska. I have nothing to say here except to mention I'm fully on board with this.

Anyway, it's a good feeling, you know, to know that there is some baseball going on and that somewhere on this continent snow and ice is replaced with grass and redsand. Don't get me wrong, I love my winter wonderland that is southern Manitoba — makes you appreciate the spring when it comes — but I certainly wouldn't be against trading my mittens in for shortpants and shades, a Kahlua and hot chocolate for a sweating bottle of Fort Garry Dark.

So kudos to the Big Red, they are once again a formidable foe for all comers who wish to challenge the juggernaut clad in scarlet. And, with all hopes, the No.7-ranked Huskers will be back in Omaha come June to take a run at the CWS.

---

Another note regarding the land of Lincoln, Neb.
The Powerball winner in this week's draw came in the form of eight meat-packing plant workers. Don't be surprised if Memorial Stadium has a new shine to its luxury boxes or a makeover to one of its facades in the coming months. Tickets are tough to come by but if some lottery winner who has spent his or her life dealing in Holsteins were to offer a friendly donation, I'm sure a couple of seats could be found.

That said, this story trumps it all.

No, Canada

The hypocrisy is unbelievable to me. Although, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by the Canadian media's quickness to jump down the collective throat of the men's Olympic hockey team.

We went through this in 1998. Nagano, Japan. A loss to the Czech Republic left the Canadians without a gold medal and everyone in this country lambasting Hockey Canada, fretting about the future of the sport in our country and going so far as to suggest that the sport needed an overhaul from the youngest levels. How else would we ever compete with the rest of the world, after all, if we didn't start from the ground up and improve this old jalopy?

Then, 2002 happened. The psyche of the Canadian hockey fan was repaired by an inspirational and glorious run to gold that ended with the perfect storm, a chance to beat the U.S. in the gold-medal game on American soil. We were back on top, Wayne Gretzky was deified for his part in putting together the championship team and Hockey Canada was lauded for (suddenly) being the brilliant minds of the international hockey world.

Now, here we are in 2006, the Canadians have suffered a devastating quarter-final loss to Russia on Wednesday that eliminated them from a tournament they had been favoured to win. And, right on cue, the national media, the talking heads all over television have jumped on board to once again pose the question no one should be asking.

"Why?"

If we are to be truthful with ourselves, just as we're not as bad as everyone thinks here in 2006, we weren't as good as everyone thought in 2002. Differences? Yes. Night and day? No. Different circumstances, different players, different performances, but still the same old Canada: Good enough to beat anyone on any given day, competing with teams capable of the same.

Lance Brown, on CTV Newsnet, (I have no idea what his credentials as a hockey analyst are seeing as how I have never seen him anywhere near a hockey broadcast), did his best to speak for Canadians and suggested that Hockey Canada needs to better address the preparation of these players prior to coming to the tournament.

He says, and I paraphrase, these players have very little time together, the NHL season goes right up to the Olympics, they're put on a plane and then expected to jell, and we just can't have that and hope to be competitive.

Now, Lance's comments would not be without merit if it weren't for the oh-so-slight oversight that this is in fact what every team in this tournament was forced to do. Canada isn't the only team in the Oly tournament that had NHL players. Seems to me Russia has handled this adversity quite well. Sweden also. And Finland? No worries for them. In fact, you could argue that Canada has it even better than the overseas teams because they can at least get on the ice together prior to the NHL season starting. But pardon me, I'm nit-picking.

Lance also goes on to point out — when asked what he would have done (because that's what we're all thinking) — that the defence wasn't very good. The defence, along with goaltender Martin Brodeur of course, that gave up six goals in three games. Let's be frank, shall we? If you are holding teams to two goals per contest, you will have a chance to win a lot of games. Let's not suggest that our defensive core let us down, because nothing could be further from the truth.

What is accurate is the Canadians scored three goals in their final three games and went scoreless in 10 of their last 11 periods of hockey. They never clicked, they never seemed invincible and, in fact quite the opposite, they looked utterly beatable at every turn.

Lance also was so kind to point out that — news flash everyone — playing Olympic hockey and NHL hockey is quite different. When you put on that maple leaf, blah blah blah ... Insinuating in no uncertain terms that the Canadian players just never got that "umph" from wearing the red and white, while other teams did.

Baloney. Never suggest an athlete "didn't get it" or didn't compete with a fervour to win especially when they are doing it for their country and especially when that country is Canada where you could stand to be be-headed if you don't score a couple goals and register a plus in the plus-minus rating. It is an ignorant stance to ever say "they just didn't want it," and it's one that is most often taken up by the people on the sidelines. The ones who talk about the games, rather than competing in them.

And what is more accurate — just as it was in 1998 and 2002 — is the other countries are pretty damn good. (Well, except for the U.S. this year, they were gawd-awful and if any nation needs to analyse its position in hockey, it is the Americans. But I digress).

Why is it we have such a hard time computing this? Has Sweden, Finland, Russia, the Slovaks, the Czechs et. al. suddenly snuck up on us? Were we not aware that there is a tonne of good hockey teams and hockey players throughout the frozen world?

What's more, can we not simply accept — like any team from any sport playing in any tournament — we just didn't bring our A-game this time around? You hear constantly players saying we just didn't get it done during NHL games, NBA playoffs, the World Series, heck, even the World Poker Tour I would wager, yet our loss here somehow equates to a massive failure on all levels of the Canadian hockey heirarchy?

However, a setback on the sports' greatest stage will invariably bring all the so-called experts back to the fore to once again, quite self-righteously, proclaim all that is wrong with hockey in Canada and the people who are involved with it. We are far from reasonable when it comes to our hockey.

In Canada we have an expecation that we are the best in the world at hockey and, y'know what, we basically are. Calgary's loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning in the 2004-05 Stanley Cup was portrayed by some as the U.S. beating Canada for our country's holy grail of trophies. Suggested, of course, by some who didn't apparently look at the nationalities on the rosters of both teams. The success of our nation in the sport is not determined by one result every four years. It is determined more by the thousands of quality players we continually churn out, the consistent success of all teams that wear our maple leaf on the chest (juniors, under-17s, Spenglers, worlds) and — please don't forget — the astonishing success of our women's program.

Ah, the women's team. How quickly we gloss over the 46-2 goals for/against they put up en route to another gold and, more importantly, what that team's success has done for the sport for girls within our borders in the past 15 years.

There should be no second-guessing, there should be no riot acts read and there should be no suggesting that suddenly we've slipped from our perch. Truth be told, it's always been a precarious loft we've sat on at the top of the hockey world and, realistically, we've rarely been there by ourselves.

The fact remains that, despite a disappointing showing in Turin, anyone who chooses to look way up at the top of this hockey tree, will find there will always be plenty of maple leaves.

#99 — Levon Kirkland

Levon Kirkland, for no particular reason, rounds out the Five Jerseys in Five Days Tour. Kirkland, who left the Steelers in 2000, wound down his career — perhaps in this case ironically — rather unceremoniously in Seattle. Kirkland was a long-serving linebacker who was an absolute terror defending the run. He was the perfect mould LB that the Steelers have so long been known for and I liked him.

My brother told me he lost respect for Kirkland because he had heard he had said he didn't want to be in Pittsburgh anymore, but I never heard that, found any information to confirm that he had ill feelings towards the Steelers or his time there. I bought Kirkland's jersey for 20 bucks after he had left Pittsburgh mostly because I'm a sucker for a jersey and I didn't care, 20 bucks is 20 bucks, so that was a lock.

What I like about the Kirkland, and the Woodson one as well, is that it still reminds me of the old Steelers jersey without the italicized numbers and it reminds me of old Three Rivers Stadium, which represents one of my sporting regrets: That I never got to watch a game in that relic. My introduction to being a Steelers fan came when they were still playing in Three Rivers and I loved the requisite announcer comment, when coming back from a commercial and seeing the overhead view of the stadium:

"Back at Three Rivers Stadium located at the confluence of the Ohio, Allegheny and Monongahela rivers."



(Don't underestimate how much geography you learn from sports, by the way.)

So now, it's time to look ahead to next year ... and what other Steelers jerseys I should get.

In no particular order, here's what you can consider buying me, just for the heck of it.

Heath Miller
Joey Porter
James Farrior
Troy Polamalu or even his AFC Pro Bowl look.

That's it for now folks. Spring game for Nebraska is just around the corner and the NFL combine is next week in Indy. I'm sure I'll have more to talk about on those topics.

All I can say is I really look forward to bring you the Five Jerseys in Five Days Tour again next year right around this time.

#26 — Rod Woodson

One of my favourite all-time Steelers, I always loved how tough Woodson was and, at his peak, how ridiculously unbeatable he could be. Lightning quick, a total burner if he got in the open field, and a blanket in coverage, Woodson was likely my favourite Steeler in the early-90s and the first Steeler jersey I ever owned.

Side note: Woodson also wanted to watch his ACL reconstruction surgery in 1996 (I believe that was the year). That's a tough SOB.

Now, like Woodson, my jersey has past its prime. Although Woodson is holding up much better in retirement I would presume than my jersey is. The number is peeling, the letters are worn and let's just say it was a good fit for 1994 Dave, not so much 2006 Dave.

Woodson works the NFL Network and was field-level to interview a number of the Steelers after the Super Bowl win on Sunday and, maybe I'm just a crazy optimist, but it felt like Woodson was happy to see his former team — the team he really belongs to — finally win that one for the thumb. He had a chance in 1995, but I was glad he was on site to at least be some part of the festivities.

My Woodson jersey hasn't been retired yet, but it probably should be. I might let the ol' guy go out in style now (I mean, I have five jerseys after all) and frame him up for the wall. I'll let you know of the retirement ceremony. We can celebrate with Primanti sandwiches and a six-pack of Rolling Rock and finish it all off with feats of strength in the honour of a guy who wanted to see his knee gutted and scoped.

#86 — Hines Ward

Today's blog, is a simple one:

What are you gonna do next?"

I've watched this clip roughly 35 times in the past two days. I think we can all agree that this is the best Disney ad of all time.

Hines Ward, my second-favourite Steeler behind Jerome Bettis — soon, of course to become No.1. How can you not like the guy? Looking forward to having six more seasons with No.86.

#39 — Willie Parker

Fast Willie.

He was responsible for the second-most exciting play in Super Bowl XL and arguably the turning point of the game, a 75-yard fireball off right tackle in the third quarter that made it 14-3.

Willie was kind of forgotten in the lead up, and wind down, of the Super Bowl. Not surprisingly, I suppose, considering he was all but forgotten in college, after college and through his NFL career to date.

Parker, an undrafted free agent out of North Carolina where he carried only 48 times in nine games in his senior year, came into 2005 as the fourth-string running back before injuries to Duce Staley and Jerome Bettis surprisingly thrust him into the starting role on Kickoff Weekend. Sixteen regular season games and 1,200 yards later, Parker had made his name known as a game-breaking back, a guy who could go off at any minute and flash his ridiculous 4.28 speed.

Sunday, 10 million people watching the game on TV, got to see it. Tuesday was Willie Parker day for me in my "Five Jerseys in Five Days Tour" that is sweeping southwestern Manitoba.

Parker still has to learn how to be an every-down back in the NFL, but he's certainly showed that he has the potential to be that guy even if he is the first Steeler with that kind of skills set.

Furtherto Monday's rambling about the refs in the Super Bowl and how Seattle fans, and some media members, bawled about how the Steelers were handed the game by shoddy officiating. Total bunk and Gene Wojciechowski agrees. Maybe now we can get over this.

After all, there was this:



The Steelers ticker-tape parade, their first since 1980, provided a number of lasing images not the least of which was Troy Polamalu crowd surfing.

Something else was 250,000 people descending on downtown Steel Town in the middle of the day to celebrate something a city has lived to see for the past two-and-a-half decades.

#36 — Jerome Bettis

If anything can inspire five blogs in five days, it is the greatest moment in my sporting fandom.

So it is with that, I honour the week that follows the Steelers victory in Super Bowl XL — a moment I wondered for weeks what would feel like. This week, I wear all five of my Steelers jerseys, one for each weekday, in continuing on the celebration of an event I can't drag out long enough.

Today, I wore the Bus. I wore it Sunday too. And every Sunday the past eight weeks. As the Steelers went on a must-win streak straight into Detroit, I didn't touch a thing. I wore the same jersey on game day — and only game day — and it didn't see a washer and dryer the entire time.

There could be no better jersey to wear the day after. And after Bettis retired on Sunday — clutching the Vince Lombardi Trophy in his right hand and making his walk into the sunset official — I knew I didn't want to take the jersey off then — and not today either — wanting more to just feel like it was still Sunday night.

Bettis, my favourite athlete of all time, ended his career with his trademark grin, gripping the ultimate football trophy for the first time in his life in front of family and friends in the city he was born and raised. His speech was simple but touching, and I sat there nearly in tears, happy for a guy I wanted so badly to go out a champion.

So what did Monday feel like? Somewhat unfulfilling, actually.

While I was wanting to enjoy as much as possible the first Steelers Super Bowl, for all intents and purposes in my lifetime, instead much of the media attention one day later was in the "poor Seahawks" vane, suggesting Seattle was robbed by the referees.

I'm a fair man, so you can read the arguments here and here.

This absolutely kills me. One thing I will always say after football games in which a player, often a kicker, makes a game-breaking mistake (i.e. missed field goal) is that the game — and any sport — never comes down to that one play. It is the play that people remember, but the game isn't hinged entirely on it. In football, your team probably ran 80 other plays and very likely somewhere in those 80, something happened that people are probably forgetting in their rush to blame the kicker, or whoever the goat is.

Bottom line is, there are literally dozens of plays in a football game that can change the game. Opportunities made or missed.

But now, 24 hours after the Seahawks lost, the crying on the coast has nothing to do with that team's ineffectiveness and everything to do with the referees who fans and media accuse of costing them the biggest game of the year. Hey, have another read if you want.

(Just for the record, Romero says in his Seattle Times piece linked above that "only after (Steeler safety Chris) Hope complained did the official produce a flag." Utterly, entirely, 100 per cent false. On the replay from the end zone, you can see the official reach for his pocket, actually grab for his flag but fumbles it and doesn't pull it out. He reaches right back for the flag again and that's when it comes out. It just so happens that was when Hope protested.)

Two calls stand out in most people's minds as being raw towards the Seahawks. Jackson's push off in the end zone that cost a touchdown and Shawn Locklear's holding call that snuffed out a play that would have had the Seahawks at the Pittsburgh two-yard line.

First, D-Jack. I'll admit it's a touchy foul to call. I'll also admit that if things went the other way I would have sucked it up and agreed with the call. I would have hollered about it at the time, for sure, but the fact remains you can't do it. Television colour guys will tell you ad nauseum on pass plays, if a referee sees a wide receiver extend his arms into a defender, as Jackson did, they'll call it every time. Jackson pushed off, cut at the same time, and created separation between him and Hope. Call it ticky-tack if you want, it's a penalty and it happened early in the game. The Seahawks had 40-plus minutes of football left to remedy the fact they came away with just three points on that drive. And, you know, as I think of it more, if that play had gone the other way, I would bet a lot of money that analysts during the game and after (if it was significant enough in the end result) would be saying something akin to "Ooooh, Jackson got away with a bit of a push off there."

Next, Locklear. Y'know the old adage in football that says you can pretty much call holding on any play? It's true. This time they called it. Hand into the face, hand on the back. Holding. If that wasn't, please define what holding is in the rule book.

The Seahawks returned to Seattle today and had a rally with some 3,000 people at Qwest Field welcoming them back. What happens next is appalling and amateurish. Head coach Mike Holmgren, addressing the crowd, said: "We knew it was going to be tough playing against the Steelers, I didn’t know we were going to have to play the guys in the striped shirts as well.”

Well done, Mike. You're almost enshrined already into the Overrated Coach Hall of Fame and your team pissed away numerous opportunities in the first half to put Pittsburgh away, but you decide that you're the victim here and take your forum to publicly cry about it. Holmgren is the HEAD coach of this team and, with that job, comes some sense of responsibility and professionalism. Instead, he reacted like a schoolchild who lost the tetherball championship when his opponent grabbed a piece of the rope. (Incidentally, if Holmgren made those comments during the season, he would have been fined.)

How about you take some acceptance for the fact you didn't make enough plays? How about your quarterback, Matt Hasselbeck, taking some responsibility for throwing a back-breaking interception on a late drive instead of highlighting two penalties he didn't like. Or, one of you — either of you because you were both a part of this comedy of errors — take responsibility for one of the most God-awful two-minute drills in football history, the late "drive" at the end of the first half in which you had well over a minute left and couldn't advance the ball closer than the 30-yard line.

See, for all the crying and complaining that the referees messed everything up for Seattle, lost in the mix are two things: 1) You don't think any calls could have gone the Steelers way and didn't? 2) That late "drive" in the first half showed all the warts the Seahawks had. Someone needs to remember that, with a chance to make something big happen for themselves, the Seahawks bungled them away.

Alright, I'm gonna stop now because I will NOT be angry a day after the happiest night of my life.

On Tuesday I'll just simply crank up the volume on the TV. You see, I have a parade to watch.

The Steelers will have their ticker-tape through the streets of Pittsburgh and the deafening sounds of cheering, screaming and celebrations of my team's long-awaited championship ride are more than enough to drown out the unwarranted sobbing from some "12th Man."