Pathetic Canadian sports scene

The hockey season is finally over. Detroit won the Stanley Cup, beating the Penguins in Pittsburgh 3-2. Since there was no Canadian teams in the final of the Canadian game, the media focused on the Detroit’s player who happened to be a Newfie: Daniel Cleary from Harbour Grace, Newfoundland. Pathetic, how desperately we try to find a Canadian connection in the sport that degenerated and is now americanized out of control. Unfortunately, it’s still being covered so much in the media, there’s no room left for other, arguably more exciting, and in the rest of the world definitely more popular sports: football (and I don’t mean the glorified version of rugby which is unimaginatively being called “football” only in North America), basketball (not only NBA), tennis, athletics (track and fields), etc. Being a sport addict, I feel really trapped in the narrowness of Canadian sport scene. And, although “diversity” is a huge world Canadians use often when boasting about their country, it does not apply to sports. Over here it’s hockey. Period. Oh, there’s a touch of interest in baseball too, though insignificant. Then, there’s that funny CFL—Canadian Football League. It has 8 (and I’ll spell that, in case you thought it’s a typo: EIGHT!) teams. That’s it. Players are the guys who never made to NFL, or the ones cast out by the big league, so they came to play in the neighbour’s backyard: the guys way past retirement age, the ones under suspension in NFL, or the ones simply not good enough for the real game. The media always makes it sound big, a true Canadian football experience, and from all the hype one often forgets that there are only 8 teams, which kind of makes the word “league” questionable. My neighbours bridge Fridays have more competitors, and they don’t call it a “Canadian Bridge League”. Maybe I should suggest that.

We spent last few evenings browsing the online reservation services for a hotel in Barcelona. Just when we thought we found the one we like, Maggie went to an independent review site where people were complaining about being mugged or pick-pocketed around the hotel. So, we are back in search… Torn between a hotel on the beach out of town and a hotel in the noisy downtown. By the time we make up our minds, there’ll be no rooms available.