I used to be a pretty big basketball fan in high school but admit I’ve gotten away from the game. But really enjoyed jumping on the bandwagon for the Raptors amazing playoff run that ended last night with them capturing the championship.
(Saw an interesting piece of trivia – Leafs won their last Stanley Cup in 1967 then the Blue Jays won their last championship in 1993, twenty-six years later, and now the Raptors won in 2019, another 26 years later. This, of course, means Toronto will get an NFL team soon and eventually win the Super Bowl in 2045!) 😉
Anyhow, I had to work until 9pm but then picked up the family and headed down to Mosaic Stadium (Jurassic Park – Regina) where we managed to catch the exciting last five minutes of the game.
Then, we carried on out to our campsite at Weyburn while listening to post-game analysis on an ESPN Sports Radio station we were able to pick up from Minnesota before switching to a Toronto sports station we had to pull in via LTE Internet.
…is that I *finally* won the family hockey pool that a BC cousin has been running through regular season and playoffs for, what, ten years?
You’d think that with twenty chances, I might have lucked into a win at least once, especially considering that probably more than half the entries are random picks by septuagenarian aunts and uncles who don’t really follow hockey and pick their teams fairly randomly, choosing players whose names they might recognize or teams in cities they’ve visited! Or another small subset of our pool entries are novelty accounts I put in on behalf of the less hockey-enamoured members of my own immediate family – Sasha always picks completely random players following an up-down pattern through each Selection Box, Pace always picks players on Canadian teams or Canadian-born players (preferably from Saskatchewan), Shea always picks the player in each Selection Box with the longest and/or funniest name (a tradition that started in Calgary when a guy didn’t show up for my cousin’s hockey pool draft and Shea was “drafted” into entering then went on to finish second – and even made some money if I remember correctly!)
On the other hand, there are also a small handful of hardcore hockey fans in the family hockey pool who are probably also participating in “real” pools with weekly trades, money on the line and real research put into their picks. So often, those are the folks who win the pool.
I’ve come close to winning a few times – losing to my dad in the last week once and even this regular season, losing the pool right near the end of the season after having a pretty big lead through most of the year. Ironically, I lost in part because a confirmed major Flames fan cousin picked Leon Draisital of the Oilers who lit it up at the end of the season including a hat trick in the last week to overtake me. (Talk about tainted victory when a Flames fan wins in part because of the success of an Oiler!) 😉
In fact, part of my success in these playoffs was picking a bunch of Dallas Stars only because that was part of what made my cousin’s regular season team so successful. (And in playoffs, the secret is always to pick players from teams who go the furthest so have the most opportunity to put up points. This year, I had about four Bruins and a couple Blues that made it right to the final – more than anyone else in the pool had by the final.)
So anyhow, watching elite athletes win the Cup is a highlight of my sports watching calendar every year. But winning the family hockey pool after a ten year dry spell, now, that’s amazing! 😉
It’s not just about a win or a championship but it’s about a Canadian team winning a title in *any* sport for the first time since 1993 so emotions for fans are heightened.
There’s also a bit of schadenfreude in the fact that Durant had already been injured and many felt that he was pressured to rush back since the Raptors were doing so well in the final series.
I guess the fact that it’s a hamstring/achilles-type injury, it didn’t *look* as serious as the type of injury where someone is bleeding or has to be stretchered off (even though it can be a very serious injury with long rehab and the possibility he may never be the same.)
Anyhow, I caught myself quickly but yes, was a bit surprised to hear the amount of people around me at Mosaic Stadium cheering someone else getting hurt.
I’ve mentioned it before but one of my favourite parts of the YouTube show, Hot Ones, is that it helps humanize celebrities as they can’t help but be more unguarded when their mouth is on fire.
So I was happy to find this clip of Kevin Durant purposely injuring himself! 😉
I know this song isn’t technically about the Raptors but since it’s written by their biggest celebrity fan and the lyrics (sorta) fit, I thought I’d post it.
Heading into the big game tomorrow where the Toronto Raptors could clinch their first NBA championship, I found a video that might be helpful to all the new bandwagon fans (er, guilty – though I was a pretty massive NBA fan back in the Michael Jordan/Isiah Thomas/Magic Johnson era of the late 1980’s/early 1990’s) familiarize themselves with how the team got here.
I’ve got a mini-Beatles/music theme going on the past couple days (so much so that when I looked at my post about the Mi’kmaq version of “Blackbird” yesterday, I thought it *was* my Music Monday post and I’d somehow missed posting on Tuesday!)
Anyhow, to keep the theme going, here’s a YouTube video about one of the most amazing combinations of the Beatles’ musical and technological genius coming together in a single edit within one of their greatest songs.
