Random Sports Thoughts:
• Here we are in August already, and the Pictou County Junior A Crushers are only a few weeks away from training camp. Two seasons without a playoff spot now, there will be some pressure on them to get off to a solid start (at the very least, they have to avoid stumbling out of the gate like a washed-up old broken-down race horse that’s bound for the glue factory): with a new coach (Mike Danton) and an up-and-coming roster that, on paper, appears to have some potential, the Crushers will need to impress the local fans early.
They don’t have to be world-beaters, they just need to be solid in the month of September while they get their feet beneath them, and gain some traction.
• This is only of interest to followers of the New York Mets, but a team that, a month ago looked deader than the NDP’s chances in the October federal election, has come back to life and are on the fringes of the Major League Baseball playoff race.
Their high-end pitchers, who had been performing way down at the lower end, have collectively found their stride and the Mets have been stacking wins together.
The Mets also recently acquired Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Marcus Stroman, who was traded, it appears, for no particularly good reason. Who is going to be pitching for Toronto in two or three years, when their young and talented position players are starting to blossom?
• NHL training camps start in about a months’ time, and I truly wished they didn’t. Another few weeks without it wouldn’t hurt anybody.
• In my best inner Stewie Griffin voice: Ummm, Brian, I’m still waiting for my Cleveland Brown sweatshirt, and it would be best for everyone if I could have that by the start of the National Football League season (which, unlike the NHL, can’t get here fast enough for me).
So, you’ve got a month, you hear me? One month. Yeah, because you know what happens, man.
• The Toronto Argonauts won their first game of the year on Aug. 2, seven weeks into the Canadian Football League season. Literally, I was convinced they weren’t going to win a game in 2019. They are truly terrible, bad at everything.
Non-Sports Thoughts of the Week:
• Skillzy Loc was wanting me to go to the Riverfront Jubilee (if you're under 19 and a fan of classic rock, sorry, you weren't allowed in) on Sunday night, but I told him that even though I wouldn’t mind seeing Trooper, I couldn’t go because I had to get up the next day at a decent hour and didn’t feel like having to walk home at 1 a.m. with all the riff-raff out on the streets causing a ruckus, raising (wait for it) a little hell.
Not local people, of course, but out-of-towners.
So, Skillzy Loc (he gave himself that nickname to imply that he has Crazy Skills, which as far as anyone knows, he doesn’t) says that’s an old-man way of looking at things, and I says I don’t really care. And stay off my lawn, would ’ya?
• Another weekend in the United States of America, another weekend of mass shootings, random people killed or injured in Ohio and Texas (as I often say about Texas: down there, they love family, God, football and guns, and not necessarily in that order).
But whatever – it’s more important to protect the Second Amendment and ensure the NRA is happy, and it’s unlikely that much will be done about it.
So, it’ll be more of the usual.
Kevin Adshade is a writer with The News. His column appears each week.