Thursday, April 30, 2015
Dave Smart- Carleton’s Remarkable Coach
I have spent the last
few years south of the border during the basketball season called “March
Madness”. It is a time when many Americans start to wave the flag of their
favourite college basketball team. It is not necessary for a fan to attend the
school they support. In fact, there are many Kentucky fans, for example, who cheer wildly
for the team, never having set foot on the campus. Ditto for Duke, Michigan, and the rest
of them.
But it is a fine time
for all. Even President Obama’s selections in the Final 64 Pool are carefully
scrutinized. Several of the coaches in this year’s tournament have had great
success in the past, but none greater than John Wooden, who coached at UCLA.
Wooden led the Bruins to ten NCAA Championships, a number that will likely
never be reached by any other coach. In fact, several talking heads stated that
no professional or college coach will reach that number.
I disagree. This
year, the Carleton Ravens won their 11th National title, with Coach
Dave Smart at the helm. Now, of course, this happened in Canada;
therefore, it was disregarded by the American media. Nonetheless, it is a
national title, and the American basketball public is well aware that there are
some pretty good players in this country.
Smart played
university ball at Queen’s, and was a perennial all star. He played from 1991
to 1994, and set the all time school record for highest points per game career
average at 26.6. In 1992-1993, he became the only Queen’s player ever to lead Canada in
scoring average, at 29.4 points per game.
Following his college
career, Smart began coaching. One of the teams he coached was called the
Guardsmen, out of Napanee. It was referred to as a “Club” team, and played
throughout Ontario and Northern New York
State during the season.
His brother Rob also coached with the organization. Two of Rob’s children, Rob
and Mike, were outstanding players with the Guardsmen, and went on to have
stellar careers at Carleton, with their uncle at the helm. Prince Edward
Collegiate graduates Matt and Pat Ross also played at Carleton.
Smart began coaching
in 1997 at Carleton, as an assistant under head coach Paul Armstrong. He assumed
the head coach title in 1999. The victory this year was against the University of Ottawa Gee Gees, The final score was
93-46, and was never in doubt.
I recently spoke with
Dave about his remarkable basketball career, on the floor and on the bench.
“Every championship is different,” he told me. “They are not the same because the
kids are different.” Most college players in Canada usually can play for four
years. On the State side, if a player is outstanding, he may bolt for the NBA
after one college season. The point is, coaches need to plan several years down
the road to remain competitive. Obviously, Smart has been doing a good job in
this regard.
He experienced
another fine season this past year, but told me that he was having difficulty
motivating his players for the final games. An article appeared in the Toronto Star the day
before the final against the Gee Gees. It was an interview with the coach of
the Ottawa
team, essentially criticizing Smart’s team, and his coaching style.
To paraphrase: “Our
ultimate goal is that, after the season, our guys will still want to play
basketball. We would like our players to have a personality on the court.” In
other words, he ripped Smart for his style. Smart’s players responded to the
criticism. “I have never seen a situation where the team was so motivated,
where one of our players was so dominant,” Smart told me.
Smart also benefited
from the fact that his sister sent her boys to play at Carleton: the Doornekamp
lads from Napanee. They stood almost seven feet tall, and had been handling
basketballs in their cribs! His nephew Robbie is now his assistant at Carleton.
I intend to share his
success with my American neighbours in the fall.
April 27, 2015
Monday, April 20, 2015
One Boston Day-2015
One Boston Day
On Monday, the city
of Boston celebrated its great Spring Tradition
of the running of the Boston Marathon.
For years, the city has hosted the event, and thousands of runners from around
the world run to compete in the city.
This year, the city
fathers decided to name the day of the Marathon “One Boston Day”. It was the day when the
community showed its honour and remembered all of those affected by the tragic
events of April 15, 2013. It was also a time to celebrate Boston’s spirit, and the strength,
resiliency, and compassion. The survivors of the bomb attack in 2013 wanted to
pass on the kindness, generosity, and support they received following the Marathon.
The city held a
moment of silence at 2:49 pm to mark the two year anniversary, with church
bells ringing throughout the city shortly after to pay tribute, and celebrate
the lives of those affected by the bombing.
Paul and J. P. Norden
Several of the
survivors recently attended a Red Sox Spring Training game in Fort Myers. They were recognized at home
plate before the game, and were treated to great seats in the Jet Blue Complex.
Fenway South, they call it. They were seated directly behind my wife, and they
were most entertaining! I spoke briefly with them during the contest. They were
thrilled to be there. Both the Norden brothers had prosthetic devices attached
to their legs, as a result of the horrific nature of the bombs.
There were several
Quinte area residents in Boston
in 2013. Eric Lindenberg looks after Red Ball Radio in Belleville when he isn’t out running the
roads. He is a very accomplished marathon runner, and has qualified to run in Boston on several
occasions. He painted the picture for me in the finishing area. “I was about
two blocks from the actual finish line. I had several members of my family, and
friends, as do all competitors. I did hear the first bomb. It really sounded
like a truck backfiring amongst the crowded streets. Then there was a second
noise, but I really had no idea what was happening.”
Cassandra Bonn
Cassandra Bonn is also a seasoned
marathoner. She and her husband Kris have participated in several marathons as
well. She was a little closer to the finish line than was Lindenberg, but still
did not realize the severity of the situation. “I was a block and a half away
from the finish line when this thing happened. I heard two explosions. I was
trying to meet my family, and leave the area.” Cassandra is an account
executive with Quinte Broadcasting, and she considers running to be “a sport
that I love”. She participated in this year’s marathon, as did Lindenberg. Cassandra's time this year? 3:38! Well done!
In the relaxed
atmosphere of Spring Training, Paul and J. P. Noonan enjoyed the game. This
year’s Boston Marathon
most certainly would have been an emotional time for them. They have spent two
years of intense rehabilitation after the bombing. Three people lost their
lives at the site, but there were hundreds who sustained serious injuries. One
of the bombers was killed after an intense manhunt. The second was recently
convicted for the attack, and is awaiting sentencing. I will not dignify them
by even mentioning their names.
And yes, Dorothy,
there was a ball game, one which featured a goofy play. The Jays loaded the
bases. With one out, the batter, Dalton
Pompey, popped the ball high, just in front of home plate. Now the infield fly
rule applies in this case. The batter is automatically out, and the base
runners are allowed to move up, taking their chances. In this case, the umpires
failed to call the play immediately. Encarnacion was trapped off third base for
the final out of the inning.
I asked one of the
old scribes about the play. His comment? “It’s Spring Training for the umpires
too!”
Never a dull moment!
James Hurst
Sportslices.blogspot.com
Thursday, April 09, 2015
Bob Probert's Tragic Story
Occasionally, I come across a book
that I would heartily recommend to a selected audience. The book in this case
is, “Tough Guy”. It is the story about Bob Probert, as told by Kirstie McLellan
Day. I would intend to place this book in the hands of every athlete who
intends to move from junior ranks to become a pro. The book is written about a
hockey player, and a good one, mind you. But a hockey player who lived on the
fringe, and did not realize that he was completely out of control, until it was
too late. The book should be given to all potential athletes, no matter what
the sport may be.
On the cover of the book, there is a
quote from the Ottawa Citizen: “Funny
as hell”. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is a book about a very
tragic figure who made globs of money playing the game that most young Canadians
would love to play. Probert began to spin out of control almost as soon as he
strapped on his blades professionally. He was born June 5, 1965, and died,
tragically, when he was forty years old in 2005.
We remember “Probie” as a fighter,
and justifiably so. There are eleven pages at the back of the book, listing all
of his NHL fights. They begin with a scrap against Craig Coxe, once a
Belleville Bull. A fan favourite, I might add. Coxe stood six inches over six
feet tall, and was a lanky lad when he first stepped onto the ice at the
Yardmen.
He feared no one, and did not back
away from any scrap. I distinctly remember a game when he strolled around the
ice, looking for a potential customer after wrestling with a couple of guys.
The Kitchener bench was furious with him. They taunted him, cursed at him. He
took three strides from centre ice and dove, spread-eagled into the crowd at the bench. A
heap of fur flew before they could untangle Mr. Coxe from the mess.
The list of Probert’s combatants is
long and distinguished, and includes all of the tough guys from his era: Tony
Twist, Donald Brashear, Georges Laraque, Tie Domi, Sandy McCarthy, Bryan
Marchment, Stu Grimson, Al Secord, Troy Crowder, Marty McSorley, Chris Nilan...
A Windsor kid, many of his legal
difficulties stemmed from his border crossings. He played much of his career in
Detroit, but also spent seven seasons with the Black Hawks. His days with the
Red Wings were his most memorable, and his most successful. On two occasions,
he scored 20 goals. He racked up 62 points in 1987-1988, and also had 398
minutes in the penalty box that same year, the most he ever spent in the sin
bin.
During his stint in Detroit, he
played with Joey Kocur and Darren McCarty. They were certainly well respected
on the ice, feared, in fact, by many. Probert and McCarty both went down many
wrong paths as the years progressed. Probert was suspended for a year 1n 1994,
and had worn out his welcome in Detroit. He latched on with the Hawks, had one
good season. He did not score in double figures in his last six seasons with
the Hawks.
I am certain that most of his life he
considered himself almost indestructible. On many occasions, he believed he was
above the law. He rewarded police officials with great tickets on the many
occasions when they arrested him. He was simply out of control most of the
time, and frustrated many of the team officials who knew he had the talent, but
knew that he could not live within the constraints of an NHL contract.
There will be other athletes that
will follow his path in the future. Hopefully, someone will be able to slip
them a copy of this book before they go completely off the rails.
James Hurst
Sportslices.blogspot.com
Tuesday, April 07, 2015
Things that the Bulls Took to the OHL Party
And just like that, the Belleville Bulls are no more, destined to be
succeeded by the Hamilton Bulldogs and survive in thousands of junior
hockey fans' memories.
Three weeks to the day after it was announced that Michael Andlauer
had bought the Ontario Hockey League team and would move it to the
Hammer, the Bulls played their final game on Thursday by
losing 4-2 to the favoured Barrie Colts
to complete a four-game sweep. The end was hard to take. One can abide
that junior hockey finances might have dictated the sale and the move
and still feel for fans who had a team taken away.
The last image of overage Adam Bignell leaving his No. 55 sweater at
centre ice, in the manner of wrestlers who denote their retirement by
leaving their shoes on the mat, will be burned into memory.
Teams come and go in major junior hockey. But following the league is
about the creature comforts, the little touches that one links to each
team, and not necessarily her/his favourite. Since the Bulls were from a
smaller population centre by OHL standards, since they often punched
above their weight, they were a popular soft-spot team.
There was an
appreciation of what went into a team in a city of about 50,000,
striving to compete with bigger centres such as Ottawa, London and
Kitchener and how 20 or so billet families opened their hearts and homes
to players each season.
Whatever the future holds for the Hamilton Bulldogs, there was a lot about the Bulls that can never be replaced for people.
The Subban legacy
There might be no hockey family
in Canada with so much talent that is so linked with one major junior
hockey franchise. For the past 10 seasons, from a 16-year-old P.K.
Subban flashing early potential in 2005-06 through Vancouver Canucks
prospect Jordan Subban's likely final OHL game on Thursday, at least one
Subban wore the tricoloured Bulls uniform. (It's only a slight stretch,
since
Malcolm Subban appeared in one game in '09-10 as a 16-year-old call-up.)
The Olympic-size ice in
Belleville was a space that the eldest Subban brother could truly
explore as he honed the brashness and brilliance that's endeared him to
untold hockey fans as a Norris Trophy winner with the
Montreal Canadiens. During the 2008 OHL final, when the Bulls took Kitchener to seven games, P.K. probably skated a marathon every night.
Malcolm Subban became a
Boston Bruins
first-rounder while tending net. Jordan Subban will go down as the last
player to lead the Bulls in scoring, and scored the team's last goal,
fittingly.
Glorious gold jerseys
When
the Bulls hit the ice in those bright school bus-gold jerseys, the mind
could lost in a reverie. They popped long before that term was a thing.
It also created a more visual feast for the hockey fashionista,
creating a colour vs. colour matchup since the Bulls' opponent would
wear its darker jerseys instead of wearing white.
The Bulls' use of gold, though, came from a time before third jerseys
and carefully calculated branding and marketing campaigns came to
junior hockey. Those aren't bad things — sports fans are ultimately
looting for laundry — but the Bulls' use of gold seemed more authentic.
Any
monies from the sale of throwback merchandise will be staying in the community. It probably seems like a token gesture, but the team's history will stay with Belleville.
All too often nowadays, no one wants to use a less popular colour for
fear of turning off potential merchandise buyers. To wit, in the
Canadian Hockey League there is no team with purple as its base colour.
All but two of 22 WHL teams use either black, blue or red.
Big ice
This isn't intended to be debate about whether Olympic ice or the
narrower NHL surface makes for a better game. It's an argument against
uniformity. The world seems bent on knowing what it's getting instead of
taking risk; ever been in a strange city and picked a chain restaurant
over a local place? Watching a game from the Yardmen, the only
Olympic-sized sheet in the OHL, meant for different angles and bounces
than one was accustomed to seeing in 19 other rinks, not that a few
(yes, you, Peterborough Memorial Centre) didn't have their own little
nooks and crannies.
The Bulls could tailor their team to the wider surface and indulge
their need for speed. That probably reached nirvana on that night in
1999 when Jonathan Cheechoo scored five goals in Game 7 of the OHL final
against the London Knights, bringing the J. Ross Robertson Cup to the
Friendly City.
The voice — Jack Miller
For OHL fans of a certain vintage who came of age in prior to the
advent of digital cable and the Internet, the way to follow the league
was simple. You went to games, listened on the radio and, if you could
convince Mum to leave you at home on Saturday afternoons instead of
being dragged along to grocery shopping, watched the game of the week on
Global TV.
Miller, the Bulls' long-time radio commentator and a Belleville city
councillor, handled the play-by-play, making him the sound of many
people's childhoods. His rich voice and tone that conveyed that he had
his facts down imparted, at least to a kid who already knew he'd be
better at discussing sports than playing them, the importance of doing
the prep work.
Hearing Miller while streaming CJBQ 800 or on Sportsnet Radio during
the world junior, or seeing him prep for a game, sustained that
connection. Many a media professional would put a up a fight over being
elevated over the people who have agency in winning games, but it's due.
Here is Miller's final Bulls broadcast, alongside Belleville Intelligencer Paul Svoboda.
Cowbell fever
Under the right circumstances in springtime, the vitality of a junior
hockey team and its public can become one. In 2008, when the Bulls tore
through Peterborough, Barrie and Oshawa and were the people's choice in
the final against Peter DeBoer's Kitchener Rangers, cowbells were the
noisemaker of choice for Bulls fans. Borrowing from the famous Will
Ferrell
Saturday Night Live sketch, "Gotta have more cowbell!" became a rallying call whenever fans intuited that their guys needed a pick-me-up.
The Bulls' championship dreams were dashed twice by Kitchener in Game
7 of the OHL final and a 9-0 whitewashing in the Memorial Cup semifinal
at The Aud. Yet, seven years on, other teams' fans' ears might still be
ringing at the mere recollection.
Point being, none of the above can be taken away from anyone who
enjoyed the Bulls being in the OHL at any point across the past 34
seasons.
Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet.
The FGCU Eagles pay tribute to Chris Sale
Florida Gulf Coast University sports
fans keep a keen eye on their basketball teams. Both the men’s team and the
women’s team have been eliminated from post season play at this time. They are
now in the process of gearing up for next year.
The men’s baseball season is now in
full swing, if you will pardon that expression. They play at a wonderful
stadium beside the arena where the basketball games take place. Near the end of
the roundball season, the university decided to pay its respect to the best
baseball player ever to wear an FGCU uniform. His name is Chris Sale, and he
now toils for the Chicago White Sox.
Sale was humbled by the experience.
He was introduced, at centre court, with his wife and child, and his parents.
His # 41 jersey was retired by the school, the first to receive the honour. He
was genuinely moved by the event. “Everybody up here has done something to help
me get where I am. I don’t know what to say. I’m speechless. It’s an incredible
honour. It’s very humbling.”
He was signed by the White Sox in
2010, and was their first round draft pick. Since that time, he has won 44
games, and lost 29. He has a very respectable earned run average of 2.76, and
was third in voting for the Cy Young Award last year. He has been an All Star
the past three seasons, and earned the victory in the All Star game last year.
His coach at FGCU did not mince words
when talking about Sale. “He is the best player I’ve ever coached. As good a
player he is, he is a better man and a better person. When he came here, I
really didn’t know what to expect. He was a string bean of a guy, standing at
6’ 6”, and not much meat on his bones.”
In early March, Sale had a freak
accident while unloading stuff from the back of his truck. At least that was
how the team described the situation. Sale had his own interpretation, very
tongue in cheek, as reported by the associated Press. “The intruder broke into
my house at night. So I hit him with a roundhouse, tied him up, and put him by
the curb.’ Asked if he was concerned about his foot, Sale carried on with a
straight face: “Well, yeah, by looking at the other guy’s head when I kicked
him, it didn’t look good”. A great fish tale!
He
considers this to be a minor setback. On March 27th, he threw a 75
pitch simulated game. He was expected to test lateral moves shortly thereafter,
likely on his birthday on March 30th. He is now 26 years old. He is
signed through 2017, and will make 32 million dollars in that period. He is
expected to be ready by April 12th, shortly after the Sox begin the
season.
The Sox will be in Toronto May 25th,
26th, and 27th, for their only visit to the Rogers
Centre, and I look forward to those games. It will be a treat to see such a
fine young pitcher in action. He is one of only six players ever to play in the
Major Leagues the year that he was drafted. Perhaps he will get some of his
team mates to help him unload the truck when he gets to the Windy City.
James Hurst
April 5, 2015
Sunday, April 05, 2015
OHL Hockey: Can Peterborough Afford it?
Peterborough
Petes goalie Matthew Mancina is consoled by Oshawa Generals goalie Ken
Appleby during third period OHL Eastern Conference Quarter-Final Game 5
action at the General Motors Centre on Friday, April 3, 2015. The Petes
lost 3-2 and the series 4 games to 1. Clifford Skarstedt/Peterborough
Examiner/QMI Agency
City council, Ken Doherty and his
department of community service, responsible for arenas in the city, are
all whistling past the graveyard if they think what happened in Belleville three weeks ago cannot or will not happen here in Peterborough.
Gord Simmonds, who bought the Belleville Bulls OHL hockey team from
the original owner, Dr. Robert Vaughan in 2004, sold the team last month
to Michael Andlauer, who immediately announced the Bulls would play in
Hamilton next season.
If council doesn't believe in a possible similar fate for the Petes
they better have a look at the history. In the last number of years
Cornwall, Brampton, Niagara Falls, Brantford, Newmarket, Toronto (the
Marlies and St. Mike's) and now Belleville have lost OHL teams. North
Bay, Guelph, Kitchener, Windsor, Oshawa, St. Catharines, Mississauga and
now Hamilton lost junior teams earlier only to return. This is the
fourth rebirth of a Hamilton team.
Belleville has been and still is a great hockey town and closely linked to Peterborough.
When the Belleville McFarlanes, Canada's representative at the 1959
World Championships, won the gold medal, with Peterborough lacrosse
star, Ike Hildebrand as their playing coach, Peterborough sports fans
revelled with the rest of Canada.
The Bulls joined the OHL in 1981 and became an instant rival with the
Petes. Who could forget those fierce battles between the Bulls' Bryan
Marchment and Troy Crowder with the Petes Dallas Eakins and Tie Domi in
the late 1980s? Over the years the Bulls have groomed some top NHL players including
Al Iafrate, Marty McSorley, Daniel Cleary, Darren McCarty and PK Subban,
to name a few.
For many years Belleville was the smallest city in the OHL with the
biggest ice surface. When the rink was opened in 1978, with Olympic
sized ice (100 by 200 feet), plans were for Belleville to become Eastern
Canada's hub for Canada's international teams.Those plans never materialized and when the Bulls entered the OHL
they were saddled with a poorly designed rink for junior hockey. With
the Yardmen Arena as home, drafting players to play half their games on
the Olympic rink and the other half on NHL sized surfaces became a major
challenge.
The 3,257-seat structure has the majority of the seating on the
sides. The configuration made adding more seating and suites difficult. Belleville city council ignored regular appeals from Bulls fans and their team for a better facility until it was too late.
Major junior hockey in Ontario is now big business. Team values are
estimated to range from $5 million up to $15 million plus. OHL teams
have become integral parts of community life, especially for the smaller
OHL cities like Peterborough. They bring in more revenue to their
communities than many businesses. Their charitable work is second to
none.
That being the case, the host cities have obligations to the team.
They must provide and maintain a venue that allows the team to compete
and make their patrons comfortable. It seems council thinks little of
updating their chambers, the library, museum and art gallery for the
comparatively few citizens' who benefit and then expect the hundreds of
thousands of Petes and Lakers fans as well as the show-goers to be
content with an outdated and deteriorating building.
The Memorial Centre, opened in 1956 and renovated in 2003, is the
OHL's fourth oldest arena, behind Sudbury (1951, also after a new rink),
Kitchener (1951 and expanded three times since) and North Bay (1955,
renovated in 2014). If the city's abysmal record at planning, building and maintaining
arenas continues, and their uneven, frequently onerous rental agreements
with user groups are maintained, a Belleville scenario is closer than
we think.
Don Barrie is a retired teacher, former Buffalo Sabres scout and a
member of the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame and Peterborough and
District Sports Hall of Fame. His column appears each Saturday in The
Examiner.
Note: There are several meaningful comments related to this article on the Examiner's web site. The article raises all of the issues affecting an OHL franchise in the city.
