Sports writer - Grant writer

Category: Canada

Roy Halladay and Blue Jays Fans: Where Does Your Allegiance Go When A Fan Favorite Leaves?

While trying to find my seats at the Rogers Center for the Philadelphia Phillies – Toronto Blue Jays game I attended last month, I met a retired couple from Mississauga, Ontario whose season tickets were nearby our seats. Quite friendly, they started sharing all of their knowledge of their beloved ballpark to me.

I took the opportunity to ask them their thoughts about the Phillies starting pitcher that day, former Blue Jays ace Roy Halladay. I gestured around the park. “Do you think he’s going to get some boos?” Continue reading

Pushing Through Till Summertime

The reason the Canadian pop-rock-country band Barenaked Ladies always have appealed to me is because it is so obvious we all are originally from the same region of North America. When Ed (the remaining lead singer) crooned in 1998 about “the foam on the creek is like pop and ice cream/a field full of tires that is always on fire/to light my way home” on “Light Up My Room,” I could vividly remember taking the Greyhound with my Grandma on a late 1980s summer day trip to Buffalo, and seeing both out the bus window on the way home.

Last spring, the band released their first album without co-founder Steven Page. The second song on the album, “Summertime,” is an ode to Western New York-Southern Ontario weather; a response to those not from the area who ask, “How do you put up with all the lake effect snow, wind and cold?” The answer? “We’re all pushing through till summertime.”

I have been fielding many questions in the same vein lately now that Greater Boston has been hit with three snowstorms in a month’s time. “How did you put up with weather like this?! How does your family back there handle it?” So, Bostonians, my answer and advice to you in song form. “Keep on pushing through for summertime.” May it become your winter 2011 anthem.

Summertime – Barenaked Ladies (YouTube)

Find more artists like Barenaked Ladies at Myspace Music

More Last Name Fun and Lerg Love from the Icebreaker

If you thought yesterday’s featured Icebreaker tournament player last name was fun (Ben Blood from North Dakota), may I interest you in the entire Michigan State roster?

They have a freshmen defenseman named Tim Buttery. Yep, as in the dairy product. They also have a senior forward named Tim Crowder (rhymes with chowder), a freshmen forward with the last name Warda (like how Bostonians say “water”), and their senior assistant captain’s last name is Gentile (which hockey is not.)

You may think I am a horrible person with no heart by pointing these names out. I argue otherwise. As someone whose last name is affectionately known as “The German Monstrosity,” who still sometimes has to spell it to herself after almost 27 years, I can be critical of others’ last names because we’re all buddies in the “Bad Last Name Club.” At least these guys’ names are spellable. At least they don’t have random silent vowels thrown in their last name just to make things difficult. When I got engaged last week, one of the first things people asked me (after “When are you getting married?”) was, “Are you changing your name?” I didn’t skip a beat when answering: “What, are you kidding me? You think when given the option I’d keep The German Monstrosity?” You’ve got to be serious. It’s more gone than Brett Bennett. I might not be getting married until after this economic depression is finished, but heck, let’s start the last name change now. My French-Canadian-ness gets confused often for Italian-ness, and now I’ll have an easily spellable Italian last name to go with it, instead of a way too long German word that literally translates to “rabbit killer.”

But I digress. Continue reading

Oh, Canada!

I have a new favorite member of the Boston Red Sox. After the Kappy-Kap (the nickname for Gabe Kapler that one of my students created four years ago) left, I had no favorites. No one could replace the Kappy-Kap with the Sox. No one was that awesome, hot, and as good of a clubhouse leader.

That is, until this afternoon, when Manny Ramirez was involved in a three-way trade for everyone’s favorite Canadian baseball player.

Jason Bay, welcome to the Red Sox. I finally have another hottie outfielder to drool over. And, did I mention that he’s CANADIAN?! Continue reading

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