Random Sports Thoughts on a rainy, mid-April day:
• It can’t be easy for most Maritime Hockey League teams to pay the bills, and if we needed any more proof, we’d just look at the St. Stephen Aces, who despite good fan support (reportedly, an average of 800 people attended their games), became the third MHL team in three years to skip town. They’re headed to Fredericton to become the Red Wings, following the Dieppe Commandos’ move to Edmundston in 2017, and the Woodstock Slammers picking up and leaving for Grand Falls a year ago.
That’s why Crushers fans should be relieved that the team’s new owners are committed long-term (relatively speaking) to keeping the Crushers in Pictou County. It could have been the Crushers moving to Fredericton, or to East Hants, or Port Hawkesbury.
Which reminds me, it might be time for the new owners to, oh I don’t know, let us know who is going to be coaching next September.
I’m not entirely sure of this, but it’s easy to envision the Crushers coaching staff (head coach Doug Doull and assistants Willie MacDonald and Chad McDavid, who is also the general manager), wanting to know what they’ll be doing next season, hockey-wise.
• Everyone’s dumping on Maple Leafs instigator Nazim Kadri, but I like what he did in Game 2 against Boston’ Jake DeBrusk. Even though it ended the Leafs flickering hopes in that game, even if it resulted in Kadri getting suspended for the rest of the series.
The referees weren’t in control of the game and no other Leafs player was providing an answer to all the cheap shots being dished out by the Bruins. You can’t let a team roll over you like a bulldozer and not respond in an appropriate manner.
Sometimes you must do what you must do, no matter how unpleasant.
• For all his personal issues over the years, all the injuries, and all the doubters saying he was washed up, Tiger Woods is once again doing Tiger things.
Standing at the 16th tee on Sunday afternoon at the Masters, nursing a one-shot lead, he slammed the door on every other contender with an eight-iron shot he hit to within three feet of the hole. Clutch under pressure.
Where once he seemed like an angry, insufferable boor with a chip on his shoulder, the 43-year-old Woods has become a sentimental favourite.
Maybe having children had something to do with it, but he seems humbled after having life – and his own flaws – knock him off the rails over the past decade. It’s a better look for him.
Tiger isn’t as dominant as he used to be, but is obviously more than capable of winning big golf tournaments. I don’t think he’s finished, either, and nor should anyone else think that way.
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Non-Sports Thoughts of The Week:
• This is not to say that I’m big on the whole religion thing, but it was sad on Monday, watching as Notre-Dame Cathedral burned in Paris.
Until the other day, I hadn’t been aware that the cathedral was as old as it is (I have not read extensively on the Catholic faith, or any other kind, really. Perhaps I should. Maybe someday, it shall be done).
Not likely but, anyway, they started building the Cathedral in 1160, more than 850 years ago if the math is right, and some 340 years before Christopher Columbus “discovered” America.
With that kind of history, it’s little wonder that people are pledging hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild it.
Kevin Adshade is a writer with The News. His column appears each week.
