Random Sports Thoughts:
• There’s the women’s rugby team at StFX, and then there’s everyone else. But why does everyone else even bother?
They’ve won six national championships since 2006, and most problematic, if you want a university athletic conference to be competitive, the X-Women routinely pound every team they play in the AUS.
Their success attracts many of the best female rugby players in Canada (at least those who want to play at the university level) so it’s almost like the rich keep getting richer, and the poor keep getting their faces bashed in.
The X-Women have outscored their opponents this season by a combined 314-43 margin, so it’s been more of the usual.
The X-Women, with two Pictou County-bred players on its roster (Mackenzie Bell and Katie Pentz) have won a total of 21 conference titles since 1998 and their latest romp was on Oct. 4 against Acadia, a 57-12 win.
This season, it appears that Acadia is the only realistic threat to StFX’s dominance in the Atlantic conference, and it’s a stretch to even use the word “realistic” in that sentence.
• The Maple Leafs were leading the Canadiens 4-1 in the third period when Montreal scored a goal to get closer. And then they scored another one.
“Same old Maple Leafs,” the wife says, and sure enough, the Leafs gagged away the lead and eventually lost to their fierce rival. But it’s all okay, because the Leafs have a boatload of talented hockey players and the Canadiens do not. Montreal’s goalie is world class and Shea Weber is a dangerous defenceman, but Max Domi is their best forward, and Domi is quite ordinary, a player who inherited his brains from his father, but at least got some – some – athletic ability from his mother (had to have, because the old man had hands of stone and weird feet that couldn’t propel skates, so I’m guessing he got it from his 'ma).
Non-Sports Thoughts of the Week:
• Many of us are worried about issues related to our planet’s climate, but blocking off the Macdonald Bridge in Halifax on Monday morning isn’t a productive way to spread the message. I’m all for civil disobedience when done properly and when the cause is right (I guess what constitutes “right” depends on whom you ask), but it annoyed people in Halifax who had things like jobs to go to, or medical appointments to worry about.
I’d be curious to see what would happen if such a protest took place in a city like Philadelphia or Newark, New Jersey – the cops down there would be much less understanding and it’s possible one or two of the “protesters” might have been going for a swim in the Delaware River.
I really don’t understand HRM police: what’s the sense of having the authority if you won’t use it when the public needs you? Eighteen arrests sounds kind of on the low end (not that very many people showed up).
A couple of the protesters unwisely began shooting their yaps off to a woman on a bicycle, and the accompanying video undermined the entire blockade. It became bigger news than the message. It was a major fail on the part of the protesters, and now they can go back to living in their parent’s garage.
• This week, the Quebec government said it has no plans to introduce legislation to force businesses to greet customers in French only.
Well, I suppose we should be relieved: we live in a day and age when the thought police and the language police are out in full force, so NOT forcing business owners to use a French-only greeting in a bilingual city is a... a win? Maybe?
Kevin Adshade is a writer with The News. His column appears each week.
