Showing posts with label Steve Nash. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Steve Nash. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Monday, September 20, 2010
'Into The Wind' - A modest review
Steve Nash and Ezra Holland's 30-for-30 documentary about Terry Fox, Into The Wind, begins with an old, grainy shot from 1980 of a baby-faced man with curly hair dipping a prosthetic right leg into the Atlantic Ocean.
When the trumpets sound and the judge looks back at my life, as a 22-year old, they'll see me in my couch and sweatpants on a Sunday night watching sports highlights. At 22, Port Coquitlam's Terry Fox, a cancer victim and an amputee, ran a marathon a day across the country, raising more than $1.7 million for cancer research before being forced to abandon his run more than halfway across the country.
Nash and Holland do a fantastic job of sorting through pictures, news footage, radio interviews, and Fox's own diary entries to chronicle the conception and denouement of the Marathon of Hope, an impossible, near superhuman, run across Canada with friend Doug Alward, later joined by brother Darrell Fox and Bill Vigars of the Canadian Cancer Society.
The 30-for-30 franchise is produced by ESPN, thus with a major American audience in mind. They won't see this documentary on their screens until next Tuesday. Nash does a terrific job at capturing just how vast and sparse Canada is, and how impressive Fox's unfinished accomplishment truly was. The narrative never explicitly lets the audience know that Fox didn't complete the journey and died just a month before his 23rd birthday, but anybody would be able to notice the tears in the eyes of Leslie Scrivener of the Toronto Star, and Alward and Vigars and realize how the story ends, as well as the absence of Fox interviews, instead with his diary entries read by narrator Taylor Kitsch.
"He's in Toronto, and he's going to make it to the coast," Betty Fox, Terry's mother, says at one point during a happy 1980 interview as the scene cut to a commercial. Nash is a tearjerking son of a bitch.
The film did everything it could do. It gave greater focus to the athletic accomplishment and resiliency of Fox over the cancer aspect of his story. ESPN is primarily a sports network, after all, and the Fox story from a pure athletic standpoint is amazing, and one that any American even, should surely appreciate. He ran 26 miles a day fighting unwanted publicity, conflicts with his teammates and false media reports as his celebrity faded towards the end of his run.
This documentary is not about who we lose to cancer, but rather about the potential that every human being has. Fox's tale is inspiring, and Nash is a terrific storyteller. Canadians tend to love seeing stories about Canada appear in American and world medias, and Into The Wind is an excellent film which will show the world a Canadian folk hero who has unfortunately been overlooked by the rest of the world.
When the trumpets sound and the judge looks back at my life, as a 22-year old, they'll see me in my couch and sweatpants on a Sunday night watching sports highlights. At 22, Port Coquitlam's Terry Fox, a cancer victim and an amputee, ran a marathon a day across the country, raising more than $1.7 million for cancer research before being forced to abandon his run more than halfway across the country.
Nash and Holland do a fantastic job of sorting through pictures, news footage, radio interviews, and Fox's own diary entries to chronicle the conception and denouement of the Marathon of Hope, an impossible, near superhuman, run across Canada with friend Doug Alward, later joined by brother Darrell Fox and Bill Vigars of the Canadian Cancer Society.
The 30-for-30 franchise is produced by ESPN, thus with a major American audience in mind. They won't see this documentary on their screens until next Tuesday. Nash does a terrific job at capturing just how vast and sparse Canada is, and how impressive Fox's unfinished accomplishment truly was. The narrative never explicitly lets the audience know that Fox didn't complete the journey and died just a month before his 23rd birthday, but anybody would be able to notice the tears in the eyes of Leslie Scrivener of the Toronto Star, and Alward and Vigars and realize how the story ends, as well as the absence of Fox interviews, instead with his diary entries read by narrator Taylor Kitsch.
"He's in Toronto, and he's going to make it to the coast," Betty Fox, Terry's mother, says at one point during a happy 1980 interview as the scene cut to a commercial. Nash is a tearjerking son of a bitch.
The film did everything it could do. It gave greater focus to the athletic accomplishment and resiliency of Fox over the cancer aspect of his story. ESPN is primarily a sports network, after all, and the Fox story from a pure athletic standpoint is amazing, and one that any American even, should surely appreciate. He ran 26 miles a day fighting unwanted publicity, conflicts with his teammates and false media reports as his celebrity faded towards the end of his run.
This documentary is not about who we lose to cancer, but rather about the potential that every human being has. Fox's tale is inspiring, and Nash is a terrific storyteller. Canadians tend to love seeing stories about Canada appear in American and world medias, and Into The Wind is an excellent film which will show the world a Canadian folk hero who has unfortunately been overlooked by the rest of the world.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Wednesday June 2nd - Morning Briefing
Pronger... and Angel Hernandez goes ape shit
-Philadelphia has had trouble with discipline in the Cup Finals. Chicago can't get its first line going. Neither team has played very well, and Chicago find themselves up 2-0. So what's the biggest story? Naturally, Chris Pronger picking up a puck and upsetting Ben Eager.
Down Goes Brown, everybody's favourite, has the latest on the absurdity, chronicling other "jerk" things Chris Pronger has done, prior to him stealing game pucks from the Cup Finals. [Down Goes Brown]
-What's the deal with Steve Nash's legacy? Tim Micallef uses sound bits from Charles Barkley to convince the world that Nash is a surefire Hall of Famer the minute he retires: [The Score]
Now... my friends and I had a debate over a glass of wine/rum/beer tonight, how many more years does Nash have left in him? My completely unfounded guess is six, based on the rate he's improved over the years. With Goran Dragic developing into a capable backup point guard, Nash will only need to play 30 minutes to give the Suns a good chance.
-If you happened to catch the Blue Jays yesterday, you hit the jackpot. Toronto played great until the 9th, when Kevin Gregg went all Little League on Tampa's hitters and threw five walks to allow the Rays to erase a 2-run Toronto lead and take one of their own. This came after Carlos Peña was not granted a timeout at bat, struck out, and forced Joe Maddon to come out and yell at home plate umpire Angel Hernandez. Maddon was subsequently tossed, then went after Joe West for good measure.
The way Maddon acted was enough to make Joe West seem downright reasonable. He is the crew chief, but this is the same umpire who tossed Ozzie Guillen and Mark Buerhle for showing up to the ballpark last week. He is a major league umpire with his own publicist and country record, but Joe Maddon made him seem reasonable.
Either way, Gregg got tossed after Cito Gaston took him out of the game four batters too late, and the Jays came close to tieing the game in the bottom of the 9th, with Vernon Wells coming within a foot to the top of the wall to making it a 7-7 ball game. He settled for the RBI double, Jays drop a close, important one to Tampa.
Tomorrow is David Price (7-2) against Shawn Marcum (5-1). I advise you not to miss this one.
-Also starting tomorrow, Vancouver's Jeff Francis for Colorado against the Giants. More Canadians tonight, Justin Morneau homered, but the Twins lost 7-1 to Seattle. Joey Votto homered too for Cincinatti, but he also went 4-for-5 and his Reds beat the Cardinals 9-8. He also score three runs and took the lead in the National League batting race, two points ahead of Christian Guzman with .326, or .326 above the 'Aaron Hill Line.'
-CFL camps open tomorrow. Very excited for pigskin up here.
==
That's pretty well it. If I missed something, like a Brian Tallet perfect game, I'll be sure to pay full lip service tomorrow in a post directing you to somebody else's work. Have a great hump day.
-Philadelphia has had trouble with discipline in the Cup Finals. Chicago can't get its first line going. Neither team has played very well, and Chicago find themselves up 2-0. So what's the biggest story? Naturally, Chris Pronger picking up a puck and upsetting Ben Eager.
Down Goes Brown, everybody's favourite, has the latest on the absurdity, chronicling other "jerk" things Chris Pronger has done, prior to him stealing game pucks from the Cup Finals. [Down Goes Brown]
-What's the deal with Steve Nash's legacy? Tim Micallef uses sound bits from Charles Barkley to convince the world that Nash is a surefire Hall of Famer the minute he retires: [The Score]
Now... my friends and I had a debate over a glass of wine/rum/beer tonight, how many more years does Nash have left in him? My completely unfounded guess is six, based on the rate he's improved over the years. With Goran Dragic developing into a capable backup point guard, Nash will only need to play 30 minutes to give the Suns a good chance.
-If you happened to catch the Blue Jays yesterday, you hit the jackpot. Toronto played great until the 9th, when Kevin Gregg went all Little League on Tampa's hitters and threw five walks to allow the Rays to erase a 2-run Toronto lead and take one of their own. This came after Carlos Peña was not granted a timeout at bat, struck out, and forced Joe Maddon to come out and yell at home plate umpire Angel Hernandez. Maddon was subsequently tossed, then went after Joe West for good measure.
The way Maddon acted was enough to make Joe West seem downright reasonable. He is the crew chief, but this is the same umpire who tossed Ozzie Guillen and Mark Buerhle for showing up to the ballpark last week. He is a major league umpire with his own publicist and country record, but Joe Maddon made him seem reasonable.
Either way, Gregg got tossed after Cito Gaston took him out of the game four batters too late, and the Jays came close to tieing the game in the bottom of the 9th, with Vernon Wells coming within a foot to the top of the wall to making it a 7-7 ball game. He settled for the RBI double, Jays drop a close, important one to Tampa.
Tomorrow is David Price (7-2) against Shawn Marcum (5-1). I advise you not to miss this one.
-Also starting tomorrow, Vancouver's Jeff Francis for Colorado against the Giants. More Canadians tonight, Justin Morneau homered, but the Twins lost 7-1 to Seattle. Joey Votto homered too for Cincinatti, but he also went 4-for-5 and his Reds beat the Cardinals 9-8. He also score three runs and took the lead in the National League batting race, two points ahead of Christian Guzman with .326, or .326 above the 'Aaron Hill Line.'
-CFL camps open tomorrow. Very excited for pigskin up here.
==
That's pretty well it. If I missed something, like a Brian Tallet perfect game, I'll be sure to pay full lip service tomorrow in a post directing you to somebody else's work. Have a great hump day.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Monday, May 31st - Morning Briefing
Jays, Twins sweep. Dirk to Phoenix?
-Current ESPN know-it-all and future Vancouver Pacers General Manager Bill Simmons destroyed the internet in Arizona today with this tweet that suggested the possibility of a Steve Nash/Dirk Nowitzki reunion in Phoenix. Rumours have apparently been floating around for a while now. To me the situation is pretty far-fetched, seeing as both Nash and Nowitzki would be migrant workers taking the jobs of hard-working Americans, something that Arizona was supposed to run out of the state.
-In more basketball news, it was pretty much confirmed yesterday that Hedo Turkgolu wanted out of Toronto.
-Justin Morneau went 1-for-4 as the Twins doubled up on the Rangers 6-3, completing the sweep. The game's highlight came as Dernard Span caught the final out running in from centre (that's right, it's a Canadian blog) field and Orlando Hudson, apparantly not hearing Span call for the ball, clipped his shin. Hudson, the former gold glover with the Jays, stayed down for a while as the fans cheered the Twins win. I haven't seen a second baseman get up that slowly since the morning after Stubby Klapp earned his name.
-It was funny hat day atSkydome Rogers Centre:
That didn't seem to faze the Jays, who easily completed the sweep of the Orioles with a 6-1 win. Ricky Romero pitched a complete game, giving up the only run in the first inning and was just six hits and two walks shy of the second perfect game on as many days.
-Gibson, British Columbia's Ryan Dempster threw 6.2 innings before being chased by the Cardinals. He gave up nine hits and six earned runs with three walks to seven strikeouts and he drops to 3-5 on the year. St. Louis won 9-1, off of two homeruns by Albert Pujols. I can only imagine how many fruit flies were attracted by the Dempster/Pujols pitcher-to-batter combination in this game.
-Toronto's Daniel Nestor and Nenad Zimo... Zimongi... Zinmoji... Zimonjic made it to the men's quarter finals at the French Open in Doubles, defeating the host French pairing of Guillaume Ruffin and Alexandre Sidorenko 6-7 (2-7), 6-4, 6-3. They will play in the semifinals on Tuesday (Mardi in France) against two guys you've never heard of.
-The lead story on both Sportscentre and Sportsnet Connected was that a goalie who is 6-1 in the playoffs with a 1.96 GAA and a .930 save percentage will start in Game 2. Although considering Philly's revolving door of goalies ever since Ron Hextall left, perhaps it is headline news that the Flyers are starting the same goaltender on consecutive nights. Hell, Ray Emery never made it to the rink sober in consecutive weeks.
===
Today is going to be busy. Stanley Cup Finals, maybe some tennis action, and a couple of baseball games later. Toronto has a pretty important three-game series with the Tampa BayDevil Rays. For those in Sportsnet's Pacific Region (or have the channel) you can watch Justin Morneau play against the Seattle Mariners for the nightcap.
-Current ESPN know-it-all and future Vancouver Pacers General Manager Bill Simmons destroyed the internet in Arizona today with this tweet that suggested the possibility of a Steve Nash/Dirk Nowitzki reunion in Phoenix. Rumours have apparently been floating around for a while now. To me the situation is pretty far-fetched, seeing as both Nash and Nowitzki would be migrant workers taking the jobs of hard-working Americans, something that Arizona was supposed to run out of the state.
-In more basketball news, it was pretty much confirmed yesterday that Hedo Turkgolu wanted out of Toronto.
-Justin Morneau went 1-for-4 as the Twins doubled up on the Rangers 6-3, completing the sweep. The game's highlight came as Dernard Span caught the final out running in from centre (that's right, it's a Canadian blog) field and Orlando Hudson, apparantly not hearing Span call for the ball, clipped his shin. Hudson, the former gold glover with the Jays, stayed down for a while as the fans cheered the Twins win. I haven't seen a second baseman get up that slowly since the morning after Stubby Klapp earned his name.
-It was funny hat day at
That didn't seem to faze the Jays, who easily completed the sweep of the Orioles with a 6-1 win. Ricky Romero pitched a complete game, giving up the only run in the first inning and was just six hits and two walks shy of the second perfect game on as many days.
-Gibson, British Columbia's Ryan Dempster threw 6.2 innings before being chased by the Cardinals. He gave up nine hits and six earned runs with three walks to seven strikeouts and he drops to 3-5 on the year. St. Louis won 9-1, off of two homeruns by Albert Pujols. I can only imagine how many fruit flies were attracted by the Dempster/Pujols pitcher-to-batter combination in this game.
-Toronto's Daniel Nestor and Nenad Zimo... Zimongi... Zinmoji... Zimonjic made it to the men's quarter finals at the French Open in Doubles, defeating the host French pairing of Guillaume Ruffin and Alexandre Sidorenko 6-7 (2-7), 6-4, 6-3. They will play in the semifinals on Tuesday (Mardi in France) against two guys you've never heard of.
-The lead story on both Sportscentre and Sportsnet Connected was that a goalie who is 6-1 in the playoffs with a 1.96 GAA and a .930 save percentage will start in Game 2. Although considering Philly's revolving door of goalies ever since Ron Hextall left, perhaps it is headline news that the Flyers are starting the same goaltender on consecutive nights. Hell, Ray Emery never made it to the rink sober in consecutive weeks.
===
Today is going to be busy. Stanley Cup Finals, maybe some tennis action, and a couple of baseball games later. Toronto has a pretty important three-game series with the Tampa Bay
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Sunday May 30: Morning Briefing
Halladay perfect, Nash out
-Roy Halladay... remember when he used to pitch for Toronto? Well, it turns out he's doing well in Philadelphia too. He was 6-3 and third in ERA in the National League coming into last night's game against Florida.
Oh. Hm. I guess that's pretty damn good. What could have been, eh Jays fans?
-What do you think will be on the front page of the Philadelphia Bugle Sports Section this morning? The story of some guy the Phillies got in a trade with a team from far up north? Of course not! Philadelphia lost Game 1 to the Blackhawks 6-5 in a game described to me as one "with terrible goaltending and even worse defense." Not without controversy! CBC showed footage of a puck hitting Tomas Kopecky on the bench, and minutes later, he jumped onto the ice and scored!
Okay, it's not quite up there with the non-call on the Gretzky high-stick, partly because Kopecky being hit by the puck had nothing to do with the fact that Brian Boucher refused to move his right leg, instead flailing at it with his stick à la Goldberg the Goalie from the first scene of The Mighty Ducks (when the team wasn't good).
-NBA playoffs. The Suns found themselves down 14 at the half and didn't have another miracle comeback in them (only to be sabotaged by Ron Artest. DRAAAGOOOOO!) and lost to the Lakers 111-103, meaning that the Lakers and Celtics will meet in the NBA finals for the 437th time. Steve Nash's ceremonious exit (21 points, 9 assists, 5 rebounds) means that we can finally go back to concentrating on hockey. The fact that the two most destestable teams in the NBA meet in the finals have nothing to do with the fact that hockey will take precedence over basketball for the rest of the year.
Charles Barkley did say that Steve Nash represents all that is good about basketball. That has to count for something. It's also worth noting Nash is pretty much Barkley's exact opposite on the court.
-Did you know that the upcoming A-Team movie had some scenes filmed in Kamloops, British Columbia? Probably not. But B.A. Baracus, also known as Quentin "Rampage" Jackson, also fights people for a living. Foreshadowing the upcoming film's critical reception, he lost to Rashad Evans in a unanimous decision, the teammate of Montreal's Georges St. Pierre, who 'guest-Tweeted' the fight @ufc.
Considering GSP can't speak in English for 140 characters, I'm amazed he got two words in in all four tweets.
No Canadians were on the card, but the next UFC card, two weeks from now, is in Vancouver!
-The Blue Jays took the second game of the three game set with the Orioles, thanks in part to eight strong innings by Brett Cecil (5-3) and two dingers by Lyle Overbay. The Jays have won the second most games in the American League but are tied for third in the AL East. Justin Morneau went 1-for-3 with an RBI in a Minnesota 8-3 win over the Rangers, and Jason Bay went 2-for-5 in a losing cause against the Brewers. Bay left 4 runners on base.
-And, right at the bottom of the page, is your Major League Soccer update! Dwayne De Rosario scored two goals to lead Toronto FC over the San Jose Earthquakes 3-1. The Reds hold onto second place in the Eastern Division, and play next January 5th against Kansas City at BMO Field. I don't think I even need to STRESS how important that early season, inter-conference game is for the Canadian Nutri-Lite Champions.
===
It's Sunday, and unless you like baseball or cars driving around a circle, chances are you won't be watching sports. My afternoon project will consist of trying to kill that damn fly that's been buzzing around my kitchen screen window for the past two days.
-Roy Halladay... remember when he used to pitch for Toronto? Well, it turns out he's doing well in Philadelphia too. He was 6-3 and third in ERA in the National League coming into last night's game against Florida.
Oh. Hm. I guess that's pretty damn good. What could have been, eh Jays fans?
-What do you think will be on the front page of the Philadelphia Bugle Sports Section this morning? The story of some guy the Phillies got in a trade with a team from far up north? Of course not! Philadelphia lost Game 1 to the Blackhawks 6-5 in a game described to me as one "with terrible goaltending and even worse defense." Not without controversy! CBC showed footage of a puck hitting Tomas Kopecky on the bench, and minutes later, he jumped onto the ice and scored!
Okay, it's not quite up there with the non-call on the Gretzky high-stick, partly because Kopecky being hit by the puck had nothing to do with the fact that Brian Boucher refused to move his right leg, instead flailing at it with his stick à la Goldberg the Goalie from the first scene of The Mighty Ducks (when the team wasn't good).
-NBA playoffs. The Suns found themselves down 14 at the half and didn't have another miracle comeback in them (only to be sabotaged by Ron Artest. DRAAAGOOOOO!) and lost to the Lakers 111-103, meaning that the Lakers and Celtics will meet in the NBA finals for the 437th time. Steve Nash's ceremonious exit (21 points, 9 assists, 5 rebounds) means that we can finally go back to concentrating on hockey. The fact that the two most destestable teams in the NBA meet in the finals have nothing to do with the fact that hockey will take precedence over basketball for the rest of the year.
Charles Barkley did say that Steve Nash represents all that is good about basketball. That has to count for something. It's also worth noting Nash is pretty much Barkley's exact opposite on the court.
-Did you know that the upcoming A-Team movie had some scenes filmed in Kamloops, British Columbia? Probably not. But B.A. Baracus, also known as Quentin "Rampage" Jackson, also fights people for a living. Foreshadowing the upcoming film's critical reception, he lost to Rashad Evans in a unanimous decision, the teammate of Montreal's Georges St. Pierre, who 'guest-Tweeted' the fight @ufc.
Considering GSP can't speak in English for 140 characters, I'm amazed he got two words in in all four tweets.
No Canadians were on the card, but the next UFC card, two weeks from now, is in Vancouver!
-The Blue Jays took the second game of the three game set with the Orioles, thanks in part to eight strong innings by Brett Cecil (5-3) and two dingers by Lyle Overbay. The Jays have won the second most games in the American League but are tied for third in the AL East. Justin Morneau went 1-for-3 with an RBI in a Minnesota 8-3 win over the Rangers, and Jason Bay went 2-for-5 in a losing cause against the Brewers. Bay left 4 runners on base.
-And, right at the bottom of the page, is your Major League Soccer update! Dwayne De Rosario scored two goals to lead Toronto FC over the San Jose Earthquakes 3-1. The Reds hold onto second place in the Eastern Division, and play next January 5th against Kansas City at BMO Field. I don't think I even need to STRESS how important that early season, inter-conference game is for the Canadian Nutri-Lite Champions.
===
It's Sunday, and unless you like baseball or cars driving around a circle, chances are you won't be watching sports. My afternoon project will consist of trying to kill that damn fly that's been buzzing around my kitchen screen window for the past two days.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Ron Artest breaks Steve Nash's heart
That's not how these games are supposed to end. A terrific basketball game with an equally terrific comeback by the Suns. At one point in the second quarter, they were down by as many as 18, before chipping away, behind Steve Nash, and then Jason Richardson tied it up with a three-ball with 3.5 seconds to go.
Done. Kobe covered, forced into taking a bad shot, we're going to go to overtime. With the Suns recent luck in the playoffs, this was going to be the year that it all turned around.
Then Ron Artest outmuscles Jason Richardson for the rebound, and stomps on the heart of Canada by hitting a layup high off the glass as the horn goes. This is just minutes after he put up a shot attempt with 21 seconds on the shot clock and his team up by 3.
What makes this loss so depressing was that the Suns had no business being in that game. In the second quarter they shot like the Irish infantry and had more turnovers than a bakery that was giving out free basketballs. Hell, back in the second quarter TNT showed a replay of Suns coach Alvin Gentry vomiting into a fucking garbage can. But somehow they clawed back. Nash had 29 with 11 assists. Stoudemire had 14. Even Channing Frye hit the odd three every now and then and had a double-double.
Goddamnit, that wasn't supposed to end that way. The series should be 3-2 in Steve Nash's favour going back to Phoenix to close. Here we all are, laughing at Ron Artest's stupid shot and wishing TNT would stop showing replays of Kobe Bryant's winning shots through the ages. So then Kobe has to throw up an airball and Artest make a miraculous play.
Damnit. Damnit, damnit, damnit.
Done. Kobe covered, forced into taking a bad shot, we're going to go to overtime. With the Suns recent luck in the playoffs, this was going to be the year that it all turned around.
Then Ron Artest outmuscles Jason Richardson for the rebound, and stomps on the heart of Canada by hitting a layup high off the glass as the horn goes. This is just minutes after he put up a shot attempt with 21 seconds on the shot clock and his team up by 3.
What makes this loss so depressing was that the Suns had no business being in that game. In the second quarter they shot like the Irish infantry and had more turnovers than a bakery that was giving out free basketballs. Hell, back in the second quarter TNT showed a replay of Suns coach Alvin Gentry vomiting into a fucking garbage can. But somehow they clawed back. Nash had 29 with 11 assists. Stoudemire had 14. Even Channing Frye hit the odd three every now and then and had a double-double.
Goddamnit, that wasn't supposed to end that way. The series should be 3-2 in Steve Nash's favour going back to Phoenix to close. Here we all are, laughing at Ron Artest's stupid shot and wishing TNT would stop showing replays of Kobe Bryant's winning shots through the ages. So then Kobe has to throw up an airball and Artest make a miraculous play.
Damnit. Damnit, damnit, damnit.
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