Random Sports Thoughts:
The now-weekly “what’s wrong with them?” angle:
The fans are getting a little restless over the state of the Junior A Crushers, who’ve dropped six straight (five of them on home ice) and haven’t looked particularly good while doing so. At least one fan says they are going to miss the Maritime Hockey League playoffs, and while it’s much too soon to write them off, other teams in their division are bulldozing their way up the standings.
They were not good at all on Jan. 16, a home game against the Truro Bearcats, and to his credit, head coach Mike Danton doesn’t pull his punches when asked about his team (see elsewhere in these pages). They have to be better, and soon, and it starts with putting the puck in the net.
The Crushers did beat the South Shore Lumberjacks 4-2 on Jan. 23.
• Speaking of Crusher games, when you go outside to get some fresh air during the intermissions, once in a while you witness some good old-fashioned junior high drama out in the parking lot, just like every other generation went through.
Fights and hysterical screaming and stuff, the cops getting called in, name-calling and F-bombs being thrown back and forth. The folks who work security (babysitters, they often are) sure do earn their money when such instances arise.
14 year-olds can be so emotional – it’s a crazy time when you’re that age.
• He’s goin’ Hollywood:
Congratulations to Art Hafey, the legendary Pictou County boxer who next fall will be inducted into the West Coast Boxing Hall of Fame, during a ceremony in Hollywood, California. Hafey’s boxing life, highlighted by the California ring wars he was a part of in the 1970s, was immortalized in the 2009 documentary Toy Tiger.
• Stellarton native Blayre Turnbull will be part of NHL all-star game festivities this coming weekend, when she and some of her Canadian teammates take on the Americans in a three-on-three game in St. Louis.
Turnbull, who is now 26, will be back in Nova Scotia in a few weeks to play in the world women’s hockey championships, which are to be held in Halifax and Truro.
• On paper, it should be a great matchup when the San Francisco 49ers take on the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl on Feb. 2. The 49ers have a defence that you only see every decade or so: their defensive line wrecks the opposing offence, they swarm to the ball, tackle well and don’t make many mistakes.
The Chiefs’ offence is scary: they go up and down the field seemingly at will and, even if they fall behind early, they can strike quickly to make up for it.
It’ll be a battle of two contrasting styles and it will be interesting to see which one will be the most successful.
Non-Sports Thoughts of the Week
• This past week, a writer with CNN’s entertainment division wrote an on-line story with this headline: “Let's not project our feelings onto Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt”
Okay then, thanks for the advice – even though I don’t know what that means.
Because they are celebrities who at one time were married, you see, and what they do with their personal lives is extremely important to the rest of us. But no, my feelings will not be projected onto Brad and Jennifer.
• Now that Peter MacKay has declared his intention to run for the federal Conservative leadership – he’ll probably win, and at least it’d be nice to have a federal party leader who isn’t politically correct to the point of being sickening – I have a feeling that the local Conservative supporters are going to be like, giddy, and won’t be able to stop smiling.
Die-hard party supporters of any political stripe can be, umm….. amusing to observe. Yeah, we’ll put it that way – they are amusing.
Kevin Adshade is a writer with The News. His column appears each week.
