The Final Countdown

The demolition of the Winnipeg Arena made national news and was captured with great commitment to detail by this site.

So the Old Barn, as it was affectionately called, was eulogized over the past couple of days despite the fact the demolition had been occuring over a number of months and Sunday morning's implosion was just the death blow that — eventually — brought it officially to ruin.

The Arena was forgotten about rather quickly after it was officially made a relic when the ritzy downtown MTS Centre was opened in 2004 and the main tenants, the Manitoba Moose, switched homes. Winnipeg is a city not big enough for the both of them, after all.

With the cookie-cutter variety of arenas in North America popping up in virtually every city of any repute, I always enjoyed the fact the Winnipeg Arena had its quirks and was proud of those quirks. I think that's a statement about most Winnipeggers, too: We're usually proud of our idiosyncrasies.

The Arena held a number of memories for me and I was far from pleased to see it destroyed. When the Eaton's building downtown was demolished to put up the MTS Centre, I hardly shed a tear because I had no emotional connection to that structure, what with it having been constructed and long through its heyday decades before I came around.

But the Arena, I realize now, was the first building anywhere that I held an affinity towards and — now that it no longer exists — I too know now that I had some sort of odd emotional investment in it. Folks who had been in Winnipeg for decades were sad to see the Eaton's building fall because it had been a part of their upbringing, a significant figure throughout their lives and the loss of it was taking away something they directly identified with for a large part of their existence. So then, suggesting that a faceless framework of steel and bricks has a familial feel to it isn't so crazy.

That's how Winnipeg Arena was to me.

I watched from the cheap seats my first Jets games when I was in Grade 1 and my brother got some tickets through school for being a patrol guard. I saw the Calgary Flames — Hakan Loob, Lanny McDonald and Kent Nilsson — and the Boston Bruins — Rick Middleton and Ray Bourque — that year. As years went on I got to see the Hartford Whalers (my beloved other team), Wayne Gretzky and the Edmonton Oilers at their peak, Denis Savard and the Chicago Blackhawks. In essence, I saw some of the greatest NHLers ever come to my city, something significant now in hindsight as Winnipeg yearns to bring a team back. From the low rows in 1993, I watched the Toronto Maple Leafs with my dad.

I went with my Sir John Franklin Explorers hockey team and cheered wildly from the absolute back of the arena as our head coach miraculously managed to land a paper airplane on the ice. I still remember Andy Van Hellemond pausing the game slightly between face-offs so that he could retrieve it from the ice. A tremendous memory and it happened some 15 years ago.

I skated on that ice, too, which still ranks among the greatest experiences of my life. My brother, when coaching our River Heights Cardinals, got us a practice on the Arena ice and I couldn't get over that I was skating on the same spots that Dale Hawerchuk did when he was the idol of all Winnipeg Jets fans.

In elementary school I competed in the city-wide speedskating championships and even won a few, although I don't remember how many. I do remember, however, that with all the schools bringing supporters it was — even then — an electric feeling of performing on the city's most coveted stretch of ice in front of screaming onlookers.

I was there in 1995 at the premature funeral of the Jets. Don Cherry called Winnipeggers the greatest fans on the planet, Ed Olczyk screamed "when we win the Stanley Cup ... It's coming back to Winnipeg" and, quite conversely Thomas Steen, in his famously shy way, wished aloud for one more year of the NHL in Winnipeg. He, and all of us, surprisingly got our wish to have one final year-long good-bye.

I made it a point to be at the final game ever played at Winnipeg Arena and wrote a column about it for the next day's edition, Nov. 7/2004, and I'm glad I did.

I've barely been back to Winnipeg in the months since the deconstruction of the Arena began and I'm not sure I'm all that enthused to see the blank hole that now exists.

A crowd gathered around in a prolonged state of perverse gawking on Sunday morning to see the Winnipeg Arena, and 50 years of history, implode. Cheers went up with the dust and the smoke. I wasn't there and I'm glad I wasn't.

All the images I need are permanently engrained in me and I'll prefer to leave them that way. After all, that Old Barn housed a lot more than just some steel and bricks.

---

NB: For another reminder of Winnipeggers' unique and unmatchable love for their Jets, this is a nice trip down memory lane.

Firing line

This is ridiculous.

By all accounts, Andy Murray's one of the good guys in the NHL and I won't hide the fact that the following has a tinge of bias because the man is a local and he's always made himself available to myself or other reporters at the Sun when a story was in the works. I interviewed him after he led the Canadian team to the world championship gold medal in 2003.

That said, well before Murray was given the axe by the underachieving, if not overly talented, Los Angeles Kings on Tuesday, I've ranted about idiot organizations that prove time and again why they are regularly forgotten about when the term "success" is brought up.

With all due respect to the adage that coaches are hired to be fired, it's not hard to figure out why certain teams continue to wallow in mediocrity. What's infuriating, from a fan's standpoint, is the seeming obliviousness of the people who run these teams have to what is going on right beneath their noses.

Sometimes, however, it's not inattention but rather indifference. The Chicago Cubs, save for the Year of Bartman, have regularly been bottom-feeders to the extent they've earned a nickname that characterizes them as such. Curses be damned, this is an organization that has never seen any urgency to make a concerted effort to build a contender knowing full well people will still flock to the Friendly Confines regardless of the bums who are put on the field.

But for those teams that do at least purport to be about getting better, the road to success is often littered with idiocy.

Best case scenario? The Buffalo Sabres fire Ted Nolan following the 1996-97 season, a campaign in which all he did was take his God-awful team to the second round of the playoffs and win the Jack Adams Trophy for coach of the year. Peruse the roster of that Sabres team and you'll find what Nolan did with it was nothing short of remarkable. It's a murderers' row of lame ducks: Donald Audette, Brian Holzinger, Dixon Ward and team-leading scorer Derek Plante (!), who blistered to 53 points in 82 games. (And before you suggest the Late 90s-NHL-as-no-offence-league argument, consider the fact that the top nine scorers in the league had at least 90 points).

Anyway, that's off topic.

Bringing us back to Murray, the Kings are nine games above .500, currently sitting in a tenuous playoff position and have 12 games remaining in the regular season. Top scorers Pavol Demitra and Alexander Frolov have been in and out of the lineup all season with injuries (mostly out) and the Kings have a shaky goaltending situation. Re: Ted Nolan, it's a wonder this team has been successful as it has.

The timing of the decision appears, at the outset, to be atrocious at the very least and shortsighted at best. Now the Kings will go through the drama of a coaching change at the most critical point of their season and, even if they do make the playoffs, are likely fodder for a first-round opponent anyway.

You can run off a laundry list of teams that simply don't get it. A grab bag of organizations run by mental midgets who somehow never notice the difference between themselves and the ones that are regularly, consistently among sports elite.

Put the L.A. Kings in that category.

The only question is: Is it because of inattention or indifference?

Please wipe your feet

The weekly documentary news program CNN Presents discussed the world's oil crisis on Sunday and discovered Canada's oil surplus, investigating what Alberta's land means to the rest of the world... Well, to the U.S.

Not nearly as offensive as most American TV is about Canada, the episode still reaked of the usual jingoism American media is so well known for. Of course, it prompted me to write an email.

My words to CNN:

It would be prudent, I believe, to remind CNN that the network is a global entity and, more specifically, a North American network that needs to remember there are Canadians who turn to it for news as well. While we are indeed honoured that CNN has found a story north of the 49th parallel, let us please not forget that the oil crisis, and Canada's role in assisting, also affects Canadians. So when you raise, on air, the question "how does this affect us?" the attitude plays like the U.S. eating off our plate and saying "oh, were you gonna finish that?" It is a global crisis. The least you could do is portray it as such. And while you're at it, leave out the misguided allusions to my country being some arctic outpost. Americans' views of Canada are already skewed enough as it is.

Parched Madness

If you heard a wooshing sound about ... oh ... around midday Friday, that was the sound of my NCAA bracket going down the drain.

Now, let's be straight here people. I put in more thought, logged more hours and crunched more statistics for this year's draft than any year previous. I printed upwards of 50 pages from bracketologist Pete Tiernan and poured over the minutia of his statistical renderings. I was the Expert of All Experts.

I filled out the bracket with confident pen strokes yet all the while maintaining the same caution a teenager uses to avoid stepping on the creaky parts of the floor when he's sneaking in the house at night. I got through the first round sluggishly and pondered the key games in bracket pools: Figuring out the Nos.10, 11 and even 12 that might play the role of Cinderella.

Well, San Diego State literally (literally)threw the game away against Indiana; Utah State never looked remotely competitive against Washington and Bucknell beat Alabama, making my lone "upset" to come through a mere No.9 over a No.8. Big deal.

On top of all that? Because of Tiernan's overwhelming statistical findings I even went against my gut in games such as Montana v. Nevada, George Mason v. Michigan State, Texas A&M v. Syracuse. Had I gone with the Larkins system, tested and true in a pool victory last season, I would have had three significant upset picks through to the second round.

I almost had to quit my job to cover all of the Tiernan compilation and then almost enrolled in a night course to figure out what the hell he was talking about.

A sample:

The No. 1 seeds that advance to the Final Four tend to be experienced squads, having been to the tourney the previous year. They also boast a preseason Associated Press All-American, beat their opponents by more than 10 points per game and get between 25 and 65 percent of their scoring from the backcourt. Top seeds with these attributes are 31-21 in getting into the semifinals; those without them are 5-27.

Now, it's not biochemistry or thermonuclear dynamics but it's rather involved, nonetheless. Incidentally, I would have fared just as well in a pool on those subjects as I have done on the NCAA. The lesson here? Never read.

Point of the matter?

*turns body to face full-length mirror*

David, believe in yourself. When someone says Zips, you go Zags. When everyone and their mother is banging Boston College for the Final Four, you stick to your guns and remember Villanova was your pick for the championship game a month ago and you're not wavering from it. So when some nerdlinger ad-exec-by-day turns bracketologist and tries to blaspheme your beloved sport by making manno a manno into an exact science and you buy it up like a fat man reaches for his SaunaBelt, you remember, oh Merchant of the Madness, you're the guy who picked Louisville (on a TV appearance no doubt) to be in the Final Four last year and no one can ever replace gut reactions.

Now, everyone, suck up the Iowa's, Tennessee's and Nevada's and move happily into the second round of the greatest tournament in sports. New games await and they are yours for the picking.

Just remember to flip a coin.

Premonitions

I'm not saying I predicted Slobodan Milosevic's death, just that he doesn't watch beach volleyball, but perhaps my blog is now a death clock of sorts.

If I have somehow, through some sort of unspoken, unknown connection between my blog and the future of humanity, directly affected a person's existence, then...

I think I'll blog more about Elvira Kurtz.

UPDATE!

Do yourself a favour and Google the name Elvira Kurtz. Go, do it. Now.

Alright, here, I'll do it for you.

See that? I'm out there baby!

The Bread Crumbs post worked. My stupid, utterly ridiculous ploy has me back on top of yet another Google search.

If you don't know me, this is basically what I cling to in life — completely meaningless accomplishments. This is my equivalent of having a hit single on the Billboard charts or a best-selling novel. Yup, it's true.

Side note, here friends: Have I also been directly involved in the annihilation of Kurtz's career? No.

But, think about it, is this not a beautiful commentary that backs up everything I've ever said about her? This is supposedly one of Canada's finest comedians (according to her people only of course), she hosted a nationally-televised show, she has been shoved down our throat over the past five years despite blatant evidence of her disgraceful lack of talent and the end result is that a Google search turns up, right at the top, my stupid little rant.

Beautiful. Friends, I present to you the career death knell of Elvira Kurtz, brought to you — in part — by David Larkins.

I will try not to use my powers for evil.

Reintroduction

Friends, I'm admitting to an addicition the last couple of weeks. It's the finest point of hoop season around the continent and, while I watch as many conference tournaments in anticipation of The Big One, I'm getting my fix on the Internet as well.

This addiction knows no bounds. In fact, as I type this, I'm listening to the audio archive of the Montana-Eastern Washington Big Sky Conference semifinal from Tuesday night.

Eastern, if you didn't know, holds a small piece of the family of Canadian basketball. Like the Sutters or the Staals of hockey, the Bekkering family has produced an inordinate amount of talented basketball players. Anna and Cory both played five years with the University of Calgary women's team, their brother Ross just completed his first year with U of C's men's team, youngest sibling Janelle is one of the best high school girls players in western Canada and cousin Matt just wrapped up his fourth year with the Lethbridge Pronghorns.

And then there's Henry, the 6-foot-7 sophomore with the Eagles who turned the Canadian basketball community on its ear with his remarkable showing at the 2003 SuperPages II All-Canadian High School Basketball Game. Bekkering made his name in Alberta basketball circles well before his senior year at Taber's W.R. Myers, but the appearance at the all-Canadian game cemented him as — rightly or wrongly — one of the most exciting Canadian players to keep your eye on.

Without further adieu, watch Bekkering's dunk contest footage from that 2003 game at Capilano College. That clip made him an Internet underground legend and earned him an appearance on The Best Damn Sports Show and a small blurb in the online encyclopdia, Wikipedia.

From Wikipedia:
This Canadian dunk contest was made famous on the internet by the amazing dunks of 6'5" Henry Bekkering which included a windmill slam over a standing person and a left handed freethrow line dunk jumping off 2 feet. Video of the contest dissemnated quickly across the internet and it's fame led to a television appearance for Bekkering on the "Best Damn Sports Show"

Ed. note: A blurry, pudgy figure in the background near the end of the clip is yours truly.

When you're done all that, though, get your eyes focused on a guy who will actually be playing in this year's NCAA tournament: Champlain St. Lambert graduate Pierre Marie Altidor-Cespedes, a 6-foot guard whose got more game than letters in his name. He will play start and play significant minutes for a very highly-touted Gonzaga Bulldogs team.

Puck

A friend of mine, earlier in the day Monday, told me an out-of-nowhere bit about someone they knew — and we both didn't have much affinity for — had died of a brain aneurysm. The connection we had to this person was thin, to say the least, but her mentioning it still stuck an empty feeling in me, despite the fact he was not overly liked by either of us (for reasons not needing to be mentioned).

We walked silently for a bit after she dropped that morsel of info on me until I said "it's an ugly feeling to hear about anybody dying," and this was with full recognition that this guy wasn't anywhere near our good graces.

It's a hollow feeling, no matter your connection — or lack thereof — to the person in question.

So I'm sitting here being an insomniac but, because of a day off, separated from the sports world as I sometimes try to avoid headlines when I'm not in the office.

I turn on CNN and the ticker is rolling with those quotes. You know the ones, when someone dies, that you read or hear and just know they're talking about someone in the past tense.

I'm reading Carleton Fisk and Carl Pohlad's quotes and I know that Kirby Puckett is dead.

I flick to ESPN.com and he's there smiling — as I think his lasting image always was going to be — with that depressing stamp that goes on visual obituaries, the birth-to-death year.

If I'm to be honest, I was never a Minnesota Twins fan, and I can't even say I ever felt overly fanatical about Kirby Puckett either. If someone asked me if I liked him, then the natural answer would be yes and "how could you not?"

Laying out page B3 of the Brandon Sun for Monday's pages on Sunday night, I needed a story to fill a spot and realized I had Puckett's stroke/surgery story yet to be placed. At the time, it was a minor story — a guy who was surely going to make it through — and I played it low on the page, grabbed a photo off the wire of him smiling with his Hall of Fame plaque. In hindsight, I'm glad that I did.

Monday I went into the office and read the story on the wire that Puckett was in critical condition. Later, quite surprised, I found out he was dead.

Puckett was part of an era of sports when I was a kid, when I was playing every sport I could, every day that I could and followed every stat line and every highlight. My friend Paul was a big Twinkies fan and, even though I wasn't a fan myself, Puckett's career was still parelled by my fandom in sports. As I soaked in every baseball highlight — and understand I'm not even a huge stickball fan — his playing days were playing out in front of me.

Point being? Fanatical or indifferent, fact remains that I grew up watching Kirby Puckett and I have an appreciation for what that means.

Puckett was not, by any means, a flawless hero as sometimes his sports image was made out to be. He certainly had very public flaws at times.

Still, Puckett is remembered — as anyone in death will be — for the positives. And because of those, his premature death makes those instinctive feelings around death that much uglier.

Bread crumbs

Just installed a hit metre on the blog here, allowing me to keep track of how many folks are coming by on any given day and one of the things I can do is track how people found the site.

For instance, when I so innocently decreed that Mike Holmgren "reacted like a schoolchild who lost the tetherball championship when his opponent grabbed a piece of the rope," over his childish pouting after the Super Bowl, I managed to move The Point After to No.2 on the Google search for "tetherball championships." Brilliant.

So watch me now as I make an attempt to again generate some random traffic through the good people at Google in a little segment I like to call:

Finding Me on Google

• Hey did you hear about that war in Iraq? Right now President Bush's approval rating is about as low as an introvert Christian girl on an episode of Elimidate.. Possible Google searches:Iraq Elimidate; President Bush Elimidate; introvert Christian Elimidate.

• I drank three bottles of Nestea today. There is a beach volleyball tournament in The Hague that is sponsored by Nestea. I doubt that Slobodan Milosevic watches beach volleyball. Possible Google searches:Beach volleyball Slobodan Milosevic; Nestea Slobodan Milosevic.

• The Acadamey Awards are today and I can safely say I can't name you one woman in line for best female lead. I will, however, wager that it's not Laura Prepon for Karla or Elvira Kurtz for anything. Ever.Possible Google searches:Elvira Kurtz not funny; Elvira Kurtz laughably God-awful; Elvira Kurtz the worst thing to happen to Canadian comedy since Check it Out.

And if anyone happens to Google "Don Adams Check it Out" well then I'll score myself another one.

In the meantime, good night everyone and enjoy the tetherball championships!

The Revolution will be televised ... on cable access

Latest news? I'm getting a show on WCG-TV, what I call southwestern Manitoba's cable access alternative. I call it that only because that seems to sound a bit bigger than "that station that has four shows on it."

Anyway, it will start airing in April, it will be once a month to start and then once every two weeks if things go smoothly. Right now I'm just in the formative stages of figuring out how I want to do it. Well, more accurately, figuring out what segments will fill an entire hour. Here are my criteria:

• No ideas ripped off from popular American sports talk shows. I leave that to TSN.

• An understandng that no one is coming to my show on cable access for cutting-edge news.

• Something creative and, because I myself am not creative, this is where input would be appreciated.

The only thing I've come up with for starters is the opening segment called "The Rant" which will be show-starting editorial that will segue into the main segment of the show, which the panel of guests will discuss.

The Kings of the Hill favourite "Make Your Own Interview" will also make an appearance once and awhile.

So if anyone has anything they think would be a unique concept to add to the show, please leave a comment. In the mean time, I'll just sit here in the corner banging my head against the wall. Hey, it's how I get ideas for my blogs after all.