Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Toronto: What's that all Aboot?

by SonDog

First of all, I'm in Canada on a business trip. And first of all, I have to mention that the game between the Kings and Lakers last Thursday would have been one of the best games of the year had A) the Kings won rather than choke at the line and B) Charles Barkley didn't provide commentary throughout the game. First of all, I counted Chuck's sentences that he began with "First of all" at an astonishing 375. First of all, I don't think I'm remotely close to exaggerating. First of all, I had to put the game on mute by the third quarter because, first of all, it got a little annoying.

Anyways, like I mentioned, I'm in Toronto at the moment on a business trip, if you care. Since you probably don't, I'll move on to some random thoughts about the NBA and Canada:

-- I went to a great Wizards/Raptors game at the Air Canada Centre on Sunday morning. Chris Bosh is a beast and Agent Zero (Gilbert Arenas) is just fun to watch. Off the top of my head, here is my top-10 list of players I enjoy watching:

1. LeBron
2. D-Wade
3. Carmelo
4. Chris Paul - from here on out known as CP3
5. Dwight Howard - from here on out known as The Christian
6. Bosh - the announcer at ACC calls him CB4. Could get confusing with CP3.
7. Agent Zero
8. Steve Nash
9. AI
10. Gerald Wallace

Am I leaving off a ton of players? Yes. Were these just the first 10 names that popped into my head when I think of NBA League Pass? Probably. Will I enjoy Brandon Roy and Andrei Bargiani (especially since I now own a Bargiani bobblehead) in the future? Maybe. Am I sounding a little too much like Donald Rumsfeld? Absolutely.

-- I bought a Bosh jersey for my son. He's going to as big of a jersey whore as I am whether he wants to be or not.

-- Little known fact about Canadians: An abnormally large percentage of its population has prostate problems. I base this on no concrete fact. Rather, I came to this conclusion after missing most of the first and second quarters of the game while fans continually paraded in front of me with the game clock moving. Good times.

Seriously, that's inexcusable. All sports fans know that when you are at a game, you get up and move during breaks in the action... not during the action itself. There was one point during the second quarter that I felt compelled to slap a 30-year-old woman across the face after she got up for the seventh time. What was even more troubling was the fact that her boyfriend did nothing to discourage this behavior.

-- Toronto is home to the second-best clam chowder I have ever tasted (Newport, Rhode Island tops the list). It's also home to the second-best fish and chips I've ever tasted (London is #1 by a wide margin). So, Toronto is almost a really good city for food. That being said, I burned the roof of my mouth on the clam chowder on Saturday and it's been driving my crazy ever since. It's the type of wound that would go away if I could only stop tonguing it. If you can name what movie that line is from, you get 10 points.

-- The dialect. Man, the dialect. What's that all aboot, eh? You know how to determine whether somebody is saying NO or NOW in Toronto? You can't.

-- TSN is Canada's version of ESPN. Actually, it's a subsidiary of ESPN that even has it's own version of SportsCentre with all the bells and whistles we've come to know and love. Yeah, that's right, SportsCentre. That's Centre. As in RE. Anyways, the national championship last night wasn't the lead story on SportsCentRE. Hockey, on the other hand, was the lead story. I guess this shouldn't really surprise me, but I wonder if Canadians fully comprehend that, since the strike/lockout, Americans don't really consider hockey a sport. BH, you will be happy to know that SportsCentre up here is no different than the SportsCenter in the states: Lots of news about worthless crap, just focused on hockey.

10 comments:

DMo said...

Hockey is a sport. Actually it is the best sport. No I rarely watch it, but the action in a great hockey game is better than a great game in any other sport. It also has the most skilled atheletes in the world. Yes that includes bicycling BH. No that is not a sport, nor is golf. But that's for another time.

Right now you're probably thinking I'm just spouting off as I usually do, but you're wrong. I have evidence. Ice skating is hard, really hard. After that is mastered then you have a stick with a tiny puck moving a hundred miles an hour and you're supposed to move around with it in a organized fashion which still amazes me. "What's that?" Basketball players are the best and most skilled athletes. No!! You're wrong! I won't deny that they are crazy good but you put any of them on ice skates and you'll have a whole lotta bruised knee's, sore thumbs and no goals. Yes I think they are a bunch of over paid pussy's. Meanwhile, you can pull any group of 10 hosers off the street and have a competitive basketball game. Hell, I've seen a retard in a wheelchair make a basket!! Yep, point made.

Lunatic Fringe said...

My bad. You're right. I meant to imply that Americans simply don't care about hockey these days and that it's fallen out of the Big 4 when it comes to professional sports. I wouldn't say it's the best sport, not by a long shot, but it is a sport as you say. Totally wrote that poorly.

OZ said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
OZ said...

How has nobody placed that quote yet?? C'mon people!

Fan behavior can be confusing. I don't understand why people feel compelled to heckle, I hate it when people come to a game and do anything but WATCH the actual game (shopping is big now), getting up during play is inexcusable, and why the hell is tailgating fun? It's a parking lot!! It smells, it's ugly, and you have a chance of being hit by a vehicle.

C-lo said...

I assumed that was a rhetorical question being that everyone should know the answer is Fight Club.

OZ said...

But isn't there a better place to enjoy all those things than standing on old tread marks, oil, and urine? Maybe in Virginia its crisp cool air, but in Cali you're sucking in exhaust and listening to the sounds of cursing and car horns.

Lunatic Fringe said...

C-lo: 10 points for you

Whitey: What's your email address?

DMo said...

Tailgaiting not fun?!! OZ, you got issues or have never done it up right. For me it's a football thing, Oregon Ducks football or the Niners, it's a damn good time. Being hit by a drunken driver is the "living on the edge" part of it. And if you do get hit, you can usally get a piece of meat and a beer from the driver. Yes you may have a bruise.

DMo said...

Sonny, what is the 4th now? Football, Baseball, Basketball and ??????. Just curious.

Lunatic Fringe said...

I would say Soccer is creeping in and the Beckham signing, regardless of what people think of him as a player, will only advance its popularity.