• It was a summer they’ll remember forever.
The New Glasgow DQ Blizzards captured a Nova Scotia Peewee AA baseball championship on their home field earlier this month. That alone would be more than enough to make their season a successful one, but they weren’t finished – the little band of Pictou County kids wanted more and so they went out and got it.
A team built on strong pitching and defence, the Selects followed their provincial title by winning the Atlantic championship this past weekend in Fredericton, N.B., taking on the best teams in their age group east of Quebec, and beating them all.
When they’re older, the players will still run into each other somewhere and have that common experience to look back on.
Decades from now, the Blizzards will always have the summer of 2018 – their achievements are now in the history books.
Non-Sports Thought of the Week:
This according to Molly Ivins, the late American newspaper columnist and humorist: “I've said it before: War brings out the patriotic bullies. In World War I, they went around kicking dachshunds, on the grounds that dachshunds were 'German dogs.' They did not, however, go around kicking German shepherds.”
• Is it wrong when a football game has you cursing like a lunatic at the TV on a lazy Sunday afternoon? You know, when the guy on your television screen can’t hear you, but you still want him to know that you think he’s a worthless human being and you hope he loses his job?
The Browns had to get a new kicker this week, after the old kicker almost single-handedly cost them the first two games of the National Football League season. Used to be, the Browns were awful but had decent kickers – they could do that much, at least.
Now they’re a team with young talent – and closer to making a breakthrough than many people believe – but they can’t boot the ball in the proper direction.
(note: The Browns rallied from 14-0 down to beat the New York Jets on Thursday. Their new kicker didn't miss an attempt and oh yeah: Hello, Baker Mayfield!)
It takes a certain brain type to be a good kicker; one must be mentally tough, able to forget past failures and block out the pressure. Because once he gets the yips – similar to a golfer who suddenly can’t make a putt due to his shattered confidence – it’s all over.
• Speaking of guys who have the yips, except in his case it’s lasted not a handful of games but an entire career, defenceman Jake Gardiner is at Maple Leafs training camp again this season, so it won’t be long before he’s giving the puck to the other team and destroying our hopes with his brain cramps.
And certainly not for the first time.
• The Northern Subway Selects female midget hockey team beat the Bussy Auto Pro Penguins 15-0 last weekend, outshooting the Penguins 90-9 (not a typo) in Dartmouth. Oh, I know what you’re thinking: ‘the Penguins girls were trying hard, so don’t be a meanie and poke fun at them.’
It’s as if the Penguins’ players were actual penguins, and the problem with that (well, there’d be all sorts of problems, really) is that their short flippers would not be conducive for puck battles in the corners. And even though penguins know their way around ice, I don’t know if they’d be crisp skaters – they seem awkward on their feet.
Kevin Adshade is a writer with The News. His column appears each week.
