There's been a flurry of ZOMIGOSHLOOK! media coverage of Wayne Gretzky's 22-year-old daughter, her twitter account being shut down and the "racy" pics that may or may not have been the cause for the sudden silence of her 140-character expression.
But really, what is going on here? This is a good-looking, 22-year-old from Southern California who runs in circles where this is normal. But make no mistake, this kind of thing is pretty much normal for a lot of people, whether your dad is The Great One or not. And it's not like hockey is full of prudes, either. By the looks of her twitpics, Ms. Gretzky would easily fit in with Paul Bissonette's circle of friends. And there's nothing wrong with that. Unless, you happen to be a dad. Especially, The Dad.
Parental disapproval aside, all this attention might just be the boost her modeling career needed.
As the final rounds of golf are played and with the holidays quickly approaching (we still hate holiday music in November), we here at The Cheap Seats and our fine, festive friends over at FootJoy wanted to give you the chance to win a sweet pair of FootJoy DryJoys Tour golf shoes. Not only that, but you'll be able to design your new shoes using FootJoy's custom shoe program over at MyJoys.ca. We suggest you check out the site and design some shoes (it is actually lots of fun) - who knows, you might win your creation, at the very least, you can print off your design and leave copies lying around your home as subtle hints to your significant other. To enter, all you need to do to is complete the form below.
(My design. Yes. Shiny lime green is awesome. Visit MyJoys.ca to make your own design!)
No purchase necessary. Contest closes December 5, 2011. Open to all individuals that have reached the age of majority at the time of entering and reside in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Saskatchewan, Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Yukon. One (1) grand prize available to be won, having an approx retail value of CAD$180.00. Odds of winning depend on the number of entries received during the contest period. Entries drawn will be required to answer a skill-testing question. Full rules available here.
Nenê is about to, once again, become seriously overpaid. Back in 2006, Nenê signed a 6-year, $60-million contract extension with Denver, the only NBA team he’s ever played for. In his last full season before the extension (he missed the whole of the 2005-2006 season due to an opening night knee injury) Nenê started only 18 games and averaged just 9.6 ppg and had a PER of just 15.6. To say his contract was controversial is an understatement.
Nenê spent the next two years battling both testicular cancer and the perception that he was a vastly overpaid player on a capped-out Nuggets team that was going nowhere fast despite possessing one of the league’s most electric scorers in Carmelo Anthony.
The Carolina Hurricanes and Washington Capitals changed coaches this week with the obvious intention of reversing their sagging fortunes.
Kirk Muller and Dale Hunter are about to learn first-hand that an NHL coach is only as good as his superstar player. In Carolina, Paul Maurice paid the price for a Canes team that simply hasn't shown enough jam through the first quarter of the season. Carolina isn't loaded with talent and therefore must rely on a solid effort from 18 skaters every game.
But it's not as though the Canes don't possess a true superstar, a game-breaker. Eric Staal has been one of the most consistent two-way centres in the league since the lockout. He's twice scored 40 goals and in 2005-06 he had 100 points. Staal has never had less than 70 points in a season.
Obviously the slurring neckbearded young man in this video by Landlocked Pioneers isn't Kyle Orton. But he does look like him. And that's all that matter when you're drinking a beer and saying things like, "The only good thing about Denver now is that they recently got an IKEA. It sucks. If you're Tim Tebow it doesn't suck. If you're John Elway it really doesn't suck. You walk down the street and people give you quarters even though you're not even homeless."
Nine Canadians -- some veterans, some relative newcomers -- will tee it up on the PGA Tour's six-round qualifying school starting tomorrow in the hope of securing PGA Tour playing privileges for the 2012 season.
The group includes the likes of Abbotsford, B.C.'s Adam Hadwin, who made the cut in five PGA Tour events this year, with two Top 10 finishes, including a fourth-place showing at the RBC Canadian Open. Kingston, Ont.'s Matt McQuillan, who once quit playing professional golf to work at a bar in his hometown, is also back, having narrowly missed finishing in the Top 125 on the tour's money list that retain full playing rights. McQuillan played his way onto the PGA Tour through Q School last year.
Played over six rounds, Q School is generally regarded as golf's most grueling event. Past major winners David Duval, Lee Janzen and Rich Beem are all in the field, along with former Ryder Cup player Boo Weekley. Ty Tryon, who became the youngest member of the PGA Tour at the age of 17 when he succcessfully navigated Q School, is also in the field at the age of 27.
Other Canadians in the field include Stuart Anderson of Victoria, B.C., Brad Fritsch of Manotick, Ont., Mitch Gillis of Williams Lake, B.C., Richard T. Lee of Vancouver, James Love of Calgary, Richard Scott of Kingsville, Ont., and Ryan Yip of Calgary. All will earn some playing privileges on the Nationwide Tour, while only the Top 25 will get full access to the PGA Tour.
What was that Don Cherry was saying about Europeans? This game between Pelicans and HIFK looks more like a Junior C tilt in northern Manitoba. HIFK may have won the game 6-3, but I think the real winners were... well, not sure on that one. Not the refs, anyway. They had to hand out a game total of 465 penalty minutes, 439 of which came in the last few minutes.
It all started innocently enough, just a couple of dudes lookin' to dance. Then at about 1:17 all Helsinki breaks out and it's Slap Shot city.
This image is allegedly from the front page of the Montreal Gazette. Everything looks good right? Almost. Look at the top of the image, B.C. Lions 34 - Hamilton Tiger-Cats 23. Close.
It is as if once the Alouettes got eliminated (by the Hamilton Tiger-Cats no less), the Montreal media just sort of guessed at who two teams in the Grey Cup would be.
As the dust settles on the NBA lockout of 2011 and its obituaries start appearing across the internet and in print, you start to notice an unmissable trend if you’re paying attention: it didn’t really matter.
Yes, the rules of the game where altered, and clearly the financial impact of a fresh BRI split will affect the players and the owners in new and exciting ways, I’m sure, but to the rest of the world the whole thing seems to have left nary an imprint on our collective memories.
It’s amazing, really. The owners and the players spent five months being demonized by anyone who followed the NBA with even a casual interest as a result of this standoff. They were portrayed as selfish personalities who were disconnected from reality, as billionaires and millionaires out of touch with the economic hardships of the day. Because of Twitter we all able to follow the negotiations with a minute-by-minute fanaticism, becoming increasingly frustrated or enraged with each 140 character post. Seeing that side of the NBA made it feel as though it would be impossible to relate to the league the way we once did.
Then, as of Saturday morning, that’s exactly what we did.
I don’t know if it’s because sports is intended to be diversionary, or if it’s because we have short attention spans or if its because moralizing over issues that we only vaguely understand is far less enjoyable than playing an armchair GM, but regardless we put all the lockout noise behind us as soon as we were given a reason to.
Within hours of the players and owners coming to a tentative agreement to end the lockout, all everyone wanted to talk about was basketball again. No one wanted to obsess over the long-term emotional ramifications that this lockout had with their relationship to the league. They wanted to know if Dwight was going to end up in L.A. or if Dallas has a shot at another title. They wanted to know how the new rules would affect their team and which dead-weight players would be amnestied and which teams will turn around and pick them up.
OK, so by now you've heard about this, but finally there's some video. At a CFL Alumni Association luncheon on Friday, former BC Lion Joe Kapp and former Hamilton Tiger-Cat Angelo Mosca, both 73, were brought on stage to presumably wax nostalgic about the 1963 Grey Cup when Mosca knocked Kapp's teammate, running back Willie Fleming, out of the game with a questionable hit.
But before anything official could get started, Kapp tried to hand Mosca a little flowery peace offering and Mosca said, "Shove it up your ass..." At which point Kapp looks to either tuck the flower in Mosca's shirt or tickle his nose with it (take your pick). Mosca clearly doesn't dig this and shoves Kapp back, then swings his mic and cane at Kapp's head. Kapp then steps up and lays Mosca out with a punch to the face. As attendants race to pick Mosca up off the floor, Kapp apologized to the crowd after yelling "Sportsmanship!"
All in all, this was awesome on so many levels. First and foremost, is seeing old guys with some fire. Too often society depicts old folks as tired, defenseless and weak and this showed that sometimes grudges don't die and there's still some fight left in these guys. Was it the best venue or example to the kids? Of course not. Was it still fun to watch? Um, yes.
Ken Gray wrote in the Ottawa Citizen, "The CFL is often accused of being a bush league compared to the National Football League. It sure looked that way with the Kapp-Mosca incident. The two owe fans, the league and the organizers of the event a huge apology."
And maybe he's right, but I'm not sure why he thinks the NFL is above this. Besides, the league was hoping for some fireworks by getting these two on stage together in the first place. Sure, maybe they didn't expect face punching, but by getting Kapp and Mosca on stage you know they had hoped for some heated discussion, simply based on their shared history. So I wouldn't paint the league and event organizers as completely innocent here.
My favourite bit, as The Star's Damien Cox relates it, is when Kapp told the crod about Fleming's pet cat. Fleming is a good friend of Kapp's and owns a cat that he had named after Mosca. Kapp said he took great pleasure in taking a "kick" at every time he visited Fleming. Now THAT'S a grudge, folks.
October 2011
