The first thing I wanted to know was what type of system is implemented for the success of his team. “We like to play a fast game. We like to play quick transition, quick attack style of play,” Nobes said. This style was attributed to the smaller-sized team that McGill had last year, which was one of the main things that Nobes and coaching staff wanted to change. “This year we added more size, so we are looking to play a more physical style and more aggressive. We’ve got a good group this year, a young group. 22 guys in their first or second year. Our skill level is high, speed is good, good size and lots of depth,” Nobes continued. Not only was size upgraded but also maybe more importantly, this year’s squad has a lot of added depth.

Mainly due to injuries, the depth on this team could be what changes the ill fate of last year’s team into a team more like the 2012 championship team. Nobes said, “Now we’ve got a roster of 29 guys, which is more than you would normally carry, but we are going to rely on that depth throughout the season if and when injuries occur.”

The next area of concern that I addressed was goaltending. When asked, Nobes seemed very confident in his goalie tandem, claiming, “We are in good shape there. We’ve got a fifth year goalie who was [at McGill] last year, Andrew Fleming, and we have a first year goalie in Jacob Gervais-Chouinard who played in Sherbrooke last year. Saw a lot of games there, saw a lot of rubber there, and he finished the season with Hamilton in the American [Hockey] League [the level below professional]. So he is a very solid goaltender.” Last year, Fleming posted a 2.45 goals against average, a .923 save percentage and earned 8 wins in 15 games. When asked who would be the starting goalie come opening day, he simply replied, “[The goalies] are going to sort that out as we go.” This could see a goalie controversy develop, if both ‘tendies’ push each other for the starting job. Like last year, we could see a split of starts, with more of a 1A, 1B goalie situation. From the goalie position, our conversation turned to leading scorer for the McGill Redmen, Patrick Delisle-Houde.

Racking up 24 points in 26 games played, on a team that lacked high offensive output, rookie Delisle-Houde was one of the prominent scoring threats for McGill last year. “We expect Pat[rick] to produce offensively for us,” Nobes continued, “But he is a 200 foot player [meaning he plays well anywhere on the rink]. He can be our best guy in the defensive zone, on the penalty kill, and he is going to put some pucks in the net this year [at the same time].” Look for Delisle-Houde to improve his numbers in his second year, due to the additional offensive support the coaching staff brought in this year. Of the players brought in, Coach Nobes specified one that McGill students should look out for this year.

Coming from the Western Hockey League, Neal Prokop has been added to the roster. The 6 foot 3, 212 pound forward should bring the power forward type player that the Redmen lacked last year to the lineup. “For us we needed to add some size for our lineup, and guys like that are going to help us,” Nobes said. This infusion of size is what Nobes proclaimed will “be [an] advantage to us. Means that we might be a little more durable too.”
One of the biggest concerns of last year’s team was the lack of offensive output. Of all the Eastern playoff teams, McGill ranked second to last in goals for with only 89. When asked if Coach Nobes was concerned with this statistic he responded, “We were so depleted due to injuries last year that it had a factor in our offensive output. But we also didn’t generate enough offensively and clearly that’s an area we are looking to improve and you will see that number go up for sure this year.”

Although these are only predictions at this point, the Redmen’s coaching staff has tried to change the dynamic of the group to make sure that the events of last year do not repeat themselves. The one attribute that Nobes commented would be in short supply this season is “the obvious, and that is experience.” Nobes hopes that the young players can step up and prove to the team that they are accountable servicemen for this club. Through more depth up front, a bigger team, a more aggressive style of play, and developing younger players, the Redmen are poised to have a comeback season and return to former splendour. Nobes finished by saying, “We made a lot of changes. In terms of our personnel, what we are doing off the ice, in our training, and how we are managing ourselves. Time will tell if some of these changes help but we are confident that they are going to make a difference.”

The post A new year, a new dynamic appeared first on The McGill Daily.

It was near the end of July, one of those midsummer nights that at the time seem endless, but in hindsight seem all too brief. I decided to take in a west coast game. I watched either because I was eager to see a decently played ball game, unlike those by my pitiable Blue Jays, or because I pathetically had little else to do (which is more likely the case). It was the formidable Cincinnati Reds versus the lowly San Diego Padres. I had no real allegiance to either side and my one hope was that I would see the Reds’ renowned Cuban closer Aroldis Chapman.

Both starting pitchers were impressive. For the Reds it was 25 year old right-hander Mike Leake, who would go on to sport an impressive 3.35 ERA (Earned Runs Average) with a WHIP (Walks and Hits Per Inning Pitched) just over 1.2 for the season. Effectively mixing speeds with good movement within the strike zone, the artist-like Leake was able to limit the Padres to just four singles. He retired 12 of the final 13 batters he faced en route to putting up 7 scoreless innings of work.

Leake’s counterpart, right-hander Sean O’Sullivan, refused to be out-matched. Making only his third start of the year for the major league club and with a career ERA close to 6.00, calling his performance ‘surprising’ is an understatement. For every bit of pretty neatness in Leake’s performance, O’Sullivan responded with what seemed to be only raw gutsiness aided by a little luck. O’Sullivan allowed ten base runners to reach base but never gave in. He stranded nine of them and left the bases loaded twice in his six strong innings. His only blemish was a sole run in the fifth when Reds centerfielder Derrick Robinson tripled off the wall and was brought home by a groundout.

Both teamsè late relief out of the bullpen was first-rate, with no runs being ceded by either club. As most pitching-duels go, the game quickly and quietly proceeded to the ninth inning, with the Reds clinging to a 1-0 lead. After the Reds went down painlessly in the top half of the inning the stage was set, much to my delight, for Chapman.

The Reds signed the six foot four inch left-hander to a 5 year, 25 million dollar contract in 2010 as an international free agent after defecting from Cuba. Since then Chapman has been one of the most dominating closing pitchers in the game. In 2012 he had a sparkling ERA of 1.51, while striking out a ridiculous 122 hitters over 71.2 innings. His feature weapon: an unrivaled four-seam fastball that averages 100 miles per hour.
As Chapman emphatically dug into the mound at San Diego’s Petco Park he seemed imperious to all on-lookers. The sound of his pitches slamming into the catcher’s glove seemed to represent all the financial might of the playoff-bound Reds. Many of the loyal home fans, undoubtedly questioning why they came, knew that their destiny was likely another defeat, the tight score making it all the worse.

This could have been just another game. Chapman could have closed the door to get the save, and the Reds would have been one step closer to a playoff spot. Fortunately for the San Diego Padres, baseball doesn’t always work like that.

The first batter to step in against Chapman was Padres first-baseman Yonder Alonso. The count quickly moved to 2-2 before Alonso even pondered swinging. Chapman’s fastball moved like a dart, but he was losing control of it. He reached back and delivered the fifth pitch at an astounding 102 mph, but well low of the strike zone for ball three. Chapman’s next offering missed low once again, giving the tying run a free pass and the hometown fans a glimmer of hope.
Padres manager Bud Black, playing the lefty-righty odds, decided to bring in the right-handed Chris Denorfia as a pinch-hitter to face Chapman. A grizzled veteran of eight major-league campaigns, Denorfia has never been an All-Star, has never been to the postseason, and has been frequently demoted to the minor leagues throughout his career. The Padres signed him to a minor league contract in 2009 after the Oakland A’s let him walk, and have had little trouble re-signing him three times since.

The 32 year old journeyman, with a pinch of chew subtly tucked in the pocket of his cheek, stepped into the batter’s box against the team that originally drafted him in the 19th round more than ten years earlier. He could not have been more different from the pitcher he was facing. An unheralded, aging bench player facing off against the person who has thrown the fastest recorded pitch in baseball history.

Denorfia knew what was coming and wasted no time. Chapman delivered a 98 mph fastball right down the middle and Denorfia unloaded on it. He drove off his back leg, aggressively rotated his hips, extended his arms while keeping his hands low, and timed the ball acutely. All in one motion, all in a fraction of a second. It was a swing that coaches will replay in video rooms. It was a swing that evidently took thousands of hours of practice. And it was the swing that ended the game. The ball travelled more than 404 feet over the centerfield wall for a two-run walk-off pinch-hit homerun, shocking the Cincinnati Reds and all believers in logical conclusions.

As Denorfia speedily rounded the bases almost unaware of his achievement, he looked like a hero, if only for the moment. As his teammates eagerly cheered and anticipated his arrival at home, they were winners, if only for the moment. As the sparse crowd of supporters fervently jumped and applauded for their team, they couldn’t have wished for anything more, if only for the moment.

Baseball is beautifully unpredictable. Each game has the power to surprise and dismay. Even the ones you just stumble upon. The Reds’ starting pitcher was a budding former first round pick, and the Padres’ starter, who has never logged more than 100 innings in a season, matched him pitch for pitch. The Reds had one of the most sought after international free agents in history as their closer and the Padres’ perpetually overlooked outfielder made hitting his fastball look easier than rounding the bases.

The Reds will likely still make the playoffs as the second wildcard team in the National League, a single loss not being enough to knock them from contention. The Padres would go on to lose 10 of their next 15 games, and are currently sitting in last place in their division. They will not make the playoffs, and the season will go down as another disappointment in a list of many. But just for that night, it didn’t matter that it didn’t matter.
Just for that night, every Padres player and fan was so consumed in that single spectacular victory that all else seemed inconsequential. This was just one of the 162 games that will be played. Its value in the scheme of the season was low, yet for that fleeting period of time, nothing was more important.

The post Just another game appeared first on The McGill Daily.

After the collapse of the J.P. Ricciardi-era Blue Jays following the 2008 season, a feeling of malaise came over the entire Canadian baseball fan base. They saw the failure of the prodigy mentored by Billy Beane (the Oakland Athletics general manager at the centre of the book and movie Moneyball) in displacing the top dogs of the American League (AL) East: the gluttonous New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox. Replacing him was his assistant General Manager (GM) Alex Anthopoulos, the unknown former letter opener for the Montreal Expos, who had a bold plan. He initially traded possibly the greatest pitcher the franchise had ever known in Roy Halladay for three top prospects, thereby initializing the rebuilding process of a franchise that has not been to the playoffs since 1993, a year before Justin Bieber was born.

Quickly the team began to take shape. Anthopoulos made crafty deals that brought in young potential cornerstone talents in Brett Lawrie and Colby Rasmus. He drafted and stockpiled a multitude of top prospects that formed one of the best minor league systems in the major leagues, which led to increased faith in the plan to slowly build a perennial contender. Gradually expectations rose and fans wondered when the results would finally show, settling on the 2012 season.

However, things did not go as planned. Slugger José Bautista missed almost the entire second half of the season due to injury. Ricky Romero lost the ever-important ability to throw a strike, seeing his Earned Run Average (ERA) balloon to 5.77. As poorly as Romero performed, he was also one of only two starting pitchers who made it through the season injury-free. Playoff hopes were met by another fourth place finish and the notion emerged that perhaps the rebuilding process, which previously evoked the promise of success, had failed.

Closing out the painful 89-loss season, the Blue Jays were a team plagued by questions. They had a troublesome shortstop that had the ignorance to write a homophobic slur on his eyeblack (those black streaks under players’ eyes) , a starting rotation decimated by injury, and a manager that wanted to be elsewhere. But through a series of moves between November and January, the Blue Jays were transformed from a cellar dweller into the team that Las Vegas says is the favourite to win the World Series, at 8:1 odds.

The decision to trade unhappy manager John Farrell to the Red Sox was tough to comprehend. Farrell’s eyes were set on filling the vacant managerial role in ‘iconic’ Boston, or according to him, his “dream job.” Despite Toronto giving Farrell his first shot at managing a team, he insisted upon leaving for Boston just two seasons later. In the search to replace the unappreciative manager, the Blue Jays settled on the familiar face of John Gibbons, who had managed the team from 2004 to 2008. Through the ups and downs of his four-year stint as manager, the one thing that was evident was that Gibbons always wanted to be there. He was a constant, undistracted presence for the players and the fans, something that should not be underappreciated.

Gibbons will have his hands full managing a team full of newly acquired talent. In the blockbuster steal of a trade with the Miami Marlins, already coined by  the media as “The Trade,” Toronto acquired second baseman Emilio Bonifacio, three-time All-Star shortstop José Reyes, four-time All-Star pitcher Mark Buehrle, and two-time All-Star pitcher Josh Johnson. In addition, the Blue Jays also had one of the most underrated moves of the off-season, signing outfielder and near batting average champion Melky Cabrera, who served a fifty-game  suspension last season for testing positive for performance enhancing drugs that severely diminished his perceived value. However, if he can stay clean and play with the ability he showed before the suspension, he could join the four former Marlins in forming a tremendously improved ball club.

The biggest and most debated single acquisition, however, was acquiring R.A. Dickey. A lot was given up – top prospects Travis d’Arnaud and Noah Syndergaard, – for the 38-year-old knuckleballer with no ulnar collateral ligament (elbow ligament involved in throwing), who has only pitched effectively for the past three seasons.

Many questioned whether too much of the future was given up for a peculiar pitcher closer to the end of his career than the beginning. The skeptics still remain, but the bottom line is that the charismatic Dickey can flat-out pitch. In 2012, he won twenty games, had an ERA of 2.73, struck out the most batters in the National League with 230, and held opposing batters to a meager .278 on base percentage. He had similar success in the 2010 and 2011 seasons, averaging a 3.06 ERA between the two. Dickey is the ace the Blue Jays have been looking for since the departure of Halladay.

For the team that has constantly had to compete against the Yankees and Red Sox – continual playoff contenders with deep pockets – the timing could not be better. It is the first time in perhaps the last ten years that both New York and Boston appear vulnerable. The last season and a half have not been kind to Boston. With rumours about an undisciplined and poorly led clubhouse, much of their core talent was either traded or released by the end of the 2012 season. New York has now just recently begun to show their age, with a rash of injuries across the board to notable players such as Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Curtis Granderson, Michael Pineda, and Mark Teixeira. Despite all this, the AL East still remains a stiff challenge. The resourceful Tampa Bay Rays and the surprising Baltimore Orioles still remain tough.

While the combination of all the acquired pieces will surely result in a better whole on the field, it also provides a reason to care about baseball again, mot just for fans in Toronto, but for all of Canada. With the heart-rending loss of the Montreal Expos franchise in 2004, combined with the perpetual poor play and diminishing crowds of the Blue Jays, it would not have been unreasonable to question the future of baseball north of the border. But now, with the legitimate chance of contention and the possibility for meaningful September ballgames, baseball is very much alive in a country that craves something to grasp in the summer months. Come April 2, the sound – or lack thereof – of R.A. Dickey’s knuckleball will be heard across the country for the first time, and with it will come the filling of seats, the excitement of fans, and the relevance of a sport that was once lost.

The post In search of a title appeared first on The McGill Daily.

In an exclusive interview with The Daily, Alexandra Dagg – the Director of Operations for the NHLPA  – and former Montreal Canadiens Stanley Cup winner Mathieu Schneider – now special assistant for the NHLPA – shared their opinions about the results and implications of the lockout. (No spokesman for the league could be reached).

“It was a very difficult dispute. It had a lot of hallmarks of an irrational labour dispute which meant that it became very difficult to resolve, much more difficult then it should have been,” says Dagg. “But we had an amazing unified group of players…and they were incredible during a difficult period.” [Full disclosure: the author of this piece is closely related to Dagg.] “Given the circumstances we did really well,” says Schneider, “especially [considering] the NFL [National Football League] and NBA [National Basketball League] deals done before us. We had to deal with a precedence of bad deals for players.” The NHL lockout followed disputes in the NFL and NBA, both of which were resolved more quickly, with the player unions making major concessions in both cases.

This was the third lockout of Gary Bettman’s 19-year reign as commissioner of the NHL; an entire season was lost in 2004 and part of one in 1994. The new CBA includes a number of significant changes. Revenue shared between the players and team owners will now be split 50/50 – the players previously received 57 per cent. The new salary cap for players will be $64.3 million and the cap floor will be $44 million.

For the first time in league history, the players will receive a pension plan. The main reason for this is that on average, NHL careers are very short. “The players have very short careers. It is important for the guys who do have short careers to have money saved for the future for when they are older,” says Dagg. “The average NHL career is only three years. There are three hundred players who make a million or less, [which is] a lot of money but that’s their lifetime achievement,” says Schneider. “[These players] work [their] entire lives for those three years, then they’re retired.” The pension plan is an often-overlooked part of the new deal that could make a big difference for the players, and is one of the few victories the players gained in negotiations. “The pension was the only thing in the new CBA that went in the players direction, everything else was a concession to the owners, this was the only true significant gain for players,” says Dagg.

The most notable clause in the new CBA is that the length of the deal will be ten years with an opt-out option after eight. “One benefit is that we have guaranteed labour peace for at least eight years,” says Schneider. “But the downside is that we are negotiating for kids that are ten years old. They don’t have a say in the system they are coming into.”

“Players who aren’t playing yet will have no say in their working conditions; a big part of collective bargaining is that the workers participate in the process of negotiating their own working conditions, with players who have short careers, there could be a whole generation of players who don’t participate in it,” says Dagg.

The length of the deal, despite the possible negative impact on future players, is tremendously reassuring to fans. “The assumption is that every single time the bargaining agreement expires there is going to be a lockout or a strike,” adds Schneider. Historically, though, this has been the case. When the agreement signed after the 2004 lockout ended, this lockout ensued. So what is there to stop this from reoccurring in eight years?

The answer lies in the difference between the two disputes. The 2004 NHL lockout was characterized by the collapse of the players’ union. The owners walked all over the players, leading to the momentous implementation of a salary cap system. But this past lockout was quite different. “The way the players stood up for themselves makes it less likely to happen again. The unity and confidence of the players means they won’t be pushed around by the owners anymore,” says Schneider. The stronger the players’ union, the better the balance of power and thus a higher likelihood that the league will be willing to settle sooner, knowing that they can no longer gain so easily. “Both sides have to figure out how to build a positive relationship, one based on respect for the players and their role in the game, if that can be achieved it will help when we sit down again,” says Dagg.

Hockey fans have endured rough times. They have seen more games lost due to labour disputes than any other sport in the past twenty years. They have seen an unyielding ignorance on the part of the NHL in maintaining struggling franchises in the Southern U.S. while potential prominent Canadian markets remain unventured. Now, with the end of a third lockout, the prevalent question remaining is whether the fans have had enough; are they fed up, or will their love of the game persevere?

First-year McGill student and avid hockey fan Sason Ross shared his opinions about the post-lockout NHL with The Daily. “I have no lingering anger toward either side. I was angry during the lockout. There were those days when I was just like, ‘god, I want there to be hockey’, but I’ve put that in the past like most fans should… however angry I was, my love for this beautiful sport will never change. Nothing could be done to take away my love for this game,” he says.

These two past weekends, hockey fans like Ross returned in droves. The NHL experienced some of their highest ratings in recent history. The Toronto Maple Leafs’ opening game against the Montreal Canadiens on CBC drew 3.3 million viewers. The New York Rangers experienced their highest season opener rating since 1995 (the year after the Rangers won the Stanley Cup). The Pittsburgh Penguins, Chicago Blackhawks, and New Jersey Devils all experienced exceptionally high TV ratings as well.

There is something about hockey that keeps drawing us back. From year to year, game to game, and shift to shift we cannot avert our eyes. Its history is ingrained with unforgettable moments of hardship and triumph. It has the flash of iconic heroes, the grind-it-out toughness of the common fan, and the struggle for relevance for teams with fan bases just looking for a winner to applaud. No other sport is as uniquely composed of strength, creativity, and devotion. While some might have turned their backs on hockey, most rejoice in the return of the game that continually captures their curiosity and passion.

The post The aftermath of the lockout appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Those words are pounded into my mind, burrowing deep into my bones and causing a shiver to run across my skin. Although I am at least 200 metres from the actual cage, the energy seems to leap the distance in a millisecond. There is an infectious and almost tangible excitement in the air. I can’t help but smile and shake my head. I am at UFC 154: Condit vs. Pierre. Even though tonight is my first live Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event, it is not my first experience with mixed martial arts (MMA). I have trained seriously for about four years and have even tried my hand in the octagon. I came searching for a better understanding of how mixed martial arts is perceived in the eye of the fan versus the eye of the fighter. Although fans and fighters both share a love for mixed martial arts, their perspectives and reasons differ drastically.

The UFC is the largest production business in mixed martial arts, and home to the best mixed martial artists. MMA is a rapidly growing sport in which two athletes meet in an enclosed octagonal cage, fighting for several five-minute rounds until one is declared winner. A win can come from one of the following: a) submission, b) knockout, or c) decision, in which the fight “goes the distance” and judges choose a winner. Fighters can use a wide arsenal of martial arts, from classic ‘Greco-Roman’ wrestling, to boxing and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. As my coach  always says, “MMA is the ultimate competition. There is no hiding or fakeness about fighting; it’s two people putting everything on the line.”

MMA events have often been described as a new-age gladiator show, the major difference being that the audience doesn’t decide who wins or loses – and no one dies. Instead of merely putting their thumbs up or down, fans cheer for their favorites and make it well known whom they want to lose. In the last decade, the sport has grown exponentially due to expanded TV coverage and better marketing.

As well as a massive boom in the amount of people watching MMA, many more people have started training – or at least trying it out. This surge in popularity is no doubt due to the machismo and excitement of the show. It is infectious, affecting even the calmest of people and leaving them thinking, “I could do that.” But to reiterate what my coach says, there is no faking the training. Most people find that out very quickly during their first sparring session. Not coincidentally, that’s why only one out of ten people who try mixed martial arts continue past the first month. Instead, a lot of people come to UFC events to live vicariously through the fighters, surrounded by thousands of similar-minded people. Often, the stadiums can’t handle the egos in the area, and fights break out. In fact, I witness two brutal fights in the crowd at this single event.

Being at an event like this is new for me, for I don’t normally interact with people on this side of the competition. I scan the stands for a fan who is easily accessible, pick out one of the many tight-shirted bald men, and make my way over to him. “Hey man, quick question,” I shout excitedly over the din. “What’s your favorite part about tonight and the UFC?” He catches me by surprise and leans heavily on my shoulder, spinning me around at the same time so that we are both facing the cage. “Bro. That,” he says in a heavy Quebec accent, as his eyes feebly attempt to focus on the scantily clad figure of Arianny Celeste. Celeste is the UFC’s most famous ring girl – her lone job being to look good and carry a piece of cardboard between rounds. It seems that the fans would lose interest in this spectacle after a while, yet three hours and plenty of beers later, many of the fans whoop loudly as if seeing it for the first time.

While my inebriated friend perfectly matches my perception of the average fan, I admit that I could easily have chosen someone a little less drunk, with perhaps a fairer reason for attending such as “seeing two mentally and physically strong people test their wills and bodies.” It is an attractive idea, and in principle it is the reason why any sport garners attention. However, there is a difference when that sport involves violent contact and lots of blood. It is not just a competition for the sake of being declared the champion, but of not being physically dismantled by the opponent.

I would venture to guess that for the majority of athletes, the allure of martial arts comes from a much different place than what the fan thinks of. Personally, I feel that the relationships made during training combined with the continuous bettering of myself are what interest me. In the interest of comparing the fan vs. fighter perspective, I casually asked a couple of my training partners what mixed martial arts means to them. Unsurprisingly, the responses echoed my own reasons for loving it. “Testing the strength of my body and mind,” and “being part of a brotherhood” were just a couple of the answers. Enduring some of the most physically demanding challenges alongside someone is an amazing way to create a lasting bond. This is the reason that during this fight – and virtually all fights – the two fighters hug wholeheartedly afterwards. No matter how much trash-talk was thrown around leading up to the fight, the hug signifies a mutual acknowledgement of the feat that the two just accomplished together. Here is where another sharp contrast between fighter and fan mentality arises, for no matter how educated in MMA the fan is, they will never fully understand the feeling of camaraderie without having gone through it themselves.

While the hugs at the end of a fight warm the heart and leave the fans satisfied that “all is well,” this sentiment is not shared by all. In reality, one will still leave the cage as a loser, and one as a winner. Tonight, Georges St-Pierre (GSP), a Quebec native, walks out the winner by decision, to the adoration of the home crowd, while Carlos Condit loses his interim title. It is a hard task to recover from a loss at any competition, but it is even harder when you are nursing a broken arm or split forehead. Oftentimes, as adrenaline rushes through a fighter’s veins, and excitement takes hold, injuries are overlooked and easily aggravated. The fans don’t get to see this facet of the mixed martial arts. They see a winner, and no matter how much “heart” the loser showed, the winner is the one celebrated. As a loser begins an arduous journey of rebuilding their mindset, a carefree fan goes to the bar to celebrate.

All in all, the night was both exciting and eye-opening. The spectacle of UFC is an issue that I – and many others – continuously have a hard time dealing with. It is an impressive production, with millions of dollars’ worth of equipment stitched together to produce a seamless show. Yet the result of this show is twenty thousand fans saturated in alcohol, looking for blood. Although there is a minority of people who train and appreciate MMA for the technique and skill behind it, the truth is that there are more people that are there to see someone get “knocked the hell out, bro!” I tend to be pessimistic in thinking that will ever change; yet I will continue to do my part in being the minority.

The post Inside and outside the octagon appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The Martlet golf team finished third in their first tournament of the season, and stayed steady throughout the year to finish third out of the four teams at Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec (RSEQ)  Championships – even when one of their athletes, Meghan Chen, was unable to play due to the flu. Emily Phoenix stepped up at the Championships to have the lowest score of her teammates, ending up twelth overall for the season. Throughout the year, Dayvi Khanna consistently lowered her scores and ended up seventh, while Jenn Newton finished fifteenth.

The team is young – three out of their four team members are still competing their first year. Their season was consistent, and it can be expected that they will become a viable threat to any team as they gain more experience.

The Redmen golf team accomplished a lot in their season; a team twice the size of the Martlets, with only two freshmen, they finished eighth out of 12 teams in their tournament in Rimouski, and kept improving through the season. They finished sixth in their second tournament and placed third at the RSEQ Championships. It is unfortunate that their season wasn’t longer. With the trend their season was following, it was very possible they could have been the top team in the conference with the winning of one or two more competitions.

Ryan Boyd had a great start to the season, finishing eighth in the first competition, and ending up in fifteenth place overall, after finishing five strokes behind teammate Benoit Miquel in the Championships. Miquel continued his great performance from the second tournament, at the RSEQ Championships, to finish with the team’s lowest score – and placed thirteenth overall for the season. Tom Calvet had a solid year, finishing in seventeenth place overall. Brian Neill finished twenty eighth, and freshman Michael Reaume finished thirtieth.

Why, then, don’t we hear much about the accomplishments of the McGill golf team? This time it’s not about gender – women’s teams at McGill typically receive much less attention from students, for a number of reasons – because both golf teams are equally ignored. This is more an issue of accessibility to the competitions, quantity of the competitions, and length of season.

The men’s golf team competed in three tournaments and the women’s golf team only competed in two. The men’s first tournament happened in August before school starts, another happened in September, and the last one barely went past the first week of October. At this time students were figuring out courses, settling into the rhythm of a new year, or  had just arrived to Montreal. All these reasons do not favour the McGill golf teams; students  are definitely not focused on supporting during that time.

Adding to the issue, these tournaments happen nowhere near McGill. One is in Trois-Rivières and one is in Rimouski. The only tournament that is relatively close is in St. Hubert, but is still a trek. Only students dedicated enough would plan trips to watch these competitions. The only possible solutions are having your own car or hitching a ride with the team –and while the team might appreciate it, it may be awkward to travel with them.

Another problem with golf – similarly to swimming, synchronized swimming, and track and field events – is that the athletes, who are being watched by specific fans, are in action for a minute or two at most; the competition lasts the whole day. A fan would want to support their friends for the half hour that they’re in the spotlight, but it’s not realistic to spend nine more hours around the course when it’s the other athletes’ turns.

Despite these issues, there exists a definite lack of acknowledgement for the success of the McGill golf team. Campus ought to congratulate the McGill golf teams for their solid year and expect great things next season. Their rapid improvement makes them a team to watch in upcoming years.

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Hockey Sans Frontières, or Hockey Without Borders, is a charity aimed at effecting positive change in the lives of children and youth all over the world by using the values of hockey. The organization sends coaches abroad, holding clinics and bringing equipment to underfunded, politically and ethnically diverse hockey communities. In this way, HSF aims to develop cooperation, leadership, and integration in youth all over the world. They have sent initiatives to Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia, and hope to expand to ten more countries in the next year, including Iceland, China, South Africa, Mexico, and Israel.

Hockey Without Borders was officially founded in November 2011, and its roots were planted right here at McGill. A group of Redmen had graduated and gone to play for the Serbian national team, including Daniel Jacob, former captain and current assistant coach of the McGill varsity team. After returning from their time in Europe, they realized how fortunate Canadian hockey players were with established, well-funded programs, plenty of coaching resources, and equipment readily available. They felt the need to use their experience to help foster hockey communities elsewhere and give youth all over the world the experience they were so lucky to have had growing up.

In a recent interview with The Daily, two members of HSF, Matthew Robins and Craig Klinkhoff, shared their experiences with the foundation. Robins, a McGill graduate, and Klinkhoff, a current McGill student, became involved in the foundation in 2011 through their ties to the local hockey community and Fred Perowne, the president of HSF. Five days after being approached by Perowne, Robins left for Subotica, Serbia to help coach a clinic there. Although he was a long way from home, Robins described how hockey functioned as a bridge between him and the other athletes, serving as common ground off of which they could build relationships: “I brought my equipment into the locker room – it was the only thing I could really relate to and recognize there. Then all the players came in and we started talking and it was just like I was at a rink at home.”

In July 2012, Klinkhoff joined Robins on another trip – this time to Ankara, Turkey. Klinkhoff describes a similar feeling to what Robins experienced in Serbia: “From a cultural standpoint, we didn’t have anything in common. Hockey was the basis of the relationship we had. Because of that, it allowed us to share something with some incredible people. It opened a door to the community that we otherwise would have never seen – I had 20 friends the second I landed.”

In Turkey, the coaches saw a lot of positive change result from their coaching clinics. They met a boy who wouldn’t leave his apartment for days at a time,  spending all his time playing video games. After getting involved in the HSF program, he became more active, social, and motivated. He now hopes to play for the Turkey national team one day.

“Hockey is a social program, a way to keep kids focused, out of trouble, channeling their energy in the right places. It promotes working together and fosters physical activity. It has a huge positive impact on their lives outside of the rink.”

Hockey runs so deep in Canadian culture that sometimes its values and impact may go unnoticed. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean we take it for granted, as Klinkhoff told me at the end of our interview, elaborating that, “it’s just how it is here. We are very fortunate. You ask a Canadian why they started playing hockey and they don’t have an answer – kids will start to play hockey as soon as they can walk. Go to any of these places and they do [the same]. Even though it’s not part of the culture in these places, they still show the same passion for it, and that’s saying something.” And as Hockey Without Borders is expanding as a foundation, it is evident that the sport is valuable to many people, and not just those in Canada.

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Grand’Maison’s swimming career did not get off to a good start: while learning how to swim she failed a beginner’s Red Cross swim class. With characteristic determination, she kept practicing and became increasingly committed to the sport. The gruelling two-hour morning and evening practices got Grand’Maison to love adrenaline as she continued to swim competitively throughout her high school years. At age 15, Grand’Maison’s vision started to deteriorate due to macular degeneration and she took a short hiatus from swimming to deal with her new circumstances. After six months, she took a suggestion from one of her coaches and sent her papers to the IPC (International Paralympic Committee) to qualify as an athlete with a disability.

When Grand’Maison returned to swimming she achieved a morale-boosting medal sweep at the Canadian Handicap Swimming Championships where she “Michael Phelps-ed” the competition. Her success in the pool led her to the Beijing Paralympic Games, where she captured six medals for Canada and was Canada’s most successful swimmer. A self-described “selfish athlete,” Grand’Maison shifted her focus away from a goal-oriented approach to enjoying all aspects of her sport. Her experiences at the Beijing Games got her thinking of swimming as a sport to be played and not just a race to be won. She rediscovered her love of training and set her goals on London.

During this time she developed a right shoulder injury, which again threatened to end her career. Attempting to push herself harder only led to further injury and after a few disappointing swimming competitions, Grand’Maison was forced to re-invent her training program. It took months of physiotherapy, different training methods, strength conditioning, and a new outlook to get back to her old level. Recovery is a process where you take “one step back, two steps forward,” says Grand’Maison, and the new training program was able to get her prepared for the 2012 Paralympic Games.

Swimming is a sport where hundredths of seconds matter and everything must go right in order to win. Things did not go right in London at the beginning, as she failed to defend her world record and gold medal in the 100-metre freestyle (front crawl). Grand’Maison was favoured to win the race, but says that she let her nerves get the best of her; her American rival, Kelley Becherer, slipped ahead and won the gold. Earlier that day, she won an unexpected silver in the 50-metre freestyle, but it did not ease the pain of losing the gold in the 100-metre free.  Knowing she wanted at least one gold medal, she audaciously told the press and her team that the next race was going to be hers.

The 200 IM, or individual medley, is a race where a competitor swims 50 metres in each swimming stroke (butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle). This was the race she trained for the most and, though she started it with an easy pace, she finished it in a flurry. Grand’Maison set a Paralympic world record and beat her closest competitor by over two seconds, a huge amount for competitive swimming. She knew she could win the gold in the 200 IM, but didn’t know she would set a world record. The world record “surprised her” but it is one of the reasons that she enjoys training.

An ecstatic, crying, and dancing Grand’Maison finally stepped to the top of the podium to hear the anthem. She describes it as “the best feeling in the world” to have 17,000 spectators cheer you on to the finish and recalled how she took “mental snapshots” so she can remember it throughout her life.  Despite enduring an intense training schedule, she says that it is all worth it for those precious moments.

Grand’Maison is currently taking a well-deserved break from swimming and focusing on school. The next Paralympic Games are in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, and will take even more effort as the calibre of Paralympic athletes keeps improving. As of now, it’s an open question if she will take to the pool and train for the next world stage or focus on pursuing medical school.

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Not that the point of a charity game should be to display the best that competitive basketball has to offer. But at least during the warm-ups, it looked that we were about to witness the reverse equivalent of what would happen if Pop vs. Jock was not a basketball game but a battle of the bands – that is to say, this was going to be a rout.

Canadian DJ Kid Koala, looking dapper in a giant koala costume, played a remixed version of the national anthem. The players lined up facing each other and were introduced by a couple of announcers who had the charisma of radio hosts: people used to not hearing people laughing at their jokes. Some of the standouts from the Pop team were Arcade Fire members Win Butler and his brother, Will, alongside The Strokes bassist Nikolai Fraiture, and Martin Starr of Freaks and Geeks fame.

The aforementioned seven-foot giant turned out to be pro-baller Luke Bonner, the brother of the NBA’s Matt “Red Rocket” Bonner, while the diminutive yoga instructor was introduced as Ryan Leier, a former college player who now resembles a Norse hero because of his bushy blonde beard. On the more anonymous Jock team, there were surprisingly few McGill players, but it was possible to pick out Redmen guard Karim Sy-Morissette and Martlet point guard Dianna Ros.

Once the game started, it became clear that despite the obvious discrepancy in athleticism, the game wasn’t going to be the one-sided affair warm-ups had foretold.

Win Butler proved himself a savvy post player, threading graceful no-look passes to cutting teammates. His younger brother, though relatively inept as a player, had the energy of a pre-teen riding high on endorphins; he bounded around the court even when he was supposed to be on the bench. Beneath Leier’s outward yogi was a pretty well-rounded basketball IQ, manifested in his effectiveness as an unselfish point guard. Starr, for his part, led the Pop team to a late first quarter comeback.

After coming into the game in the second quarter, Fraiture seemed put off when a soaring jock tried to block his breakaway layup and tumbled down on top of him. But he seemed unfazed a moment later when he came back down the court and made good on a short jumpshot, raising his hands to the sky afterwards in delight to form the pose of a Vector cereal posterboy.

At halftime, the game was still neck and neck, with the Jocks holding on to a narrow 46-43 lead. The halftime show began with a disorienting glow-in-the-dark roller disco session, the rules of which were unclear. Afterwards, Talking Heads’ lead singer David Byrne teamed up with Fraiture and the Butler brothers to perform covers of “96 Tears” by ? and the Mysterians, and then K.C. and the Sunshine Band’s “That’s the Way (I Like it).” The crowd was almost as delighted as Will Butler.

The second half was no less close than the first. Highlights included the Jocks making a series of impressive putback dunks, a small child in the crowd holding up a cardboard sign that read, “Basketball was originally played with a soccer ball until it was changed in 1920,” and an excited Will Butler trying in vain to distract Jocks taking foul shots by furiously twirling towels and jumping up and down behind the basket.

The real drama came in the final moments of the game, though. With just over a minute left on the game clock and the Pop team down by a few points, a referee made a questionable foul call on a Pop player that enraged Win Butler. Butler threw his hands in the air and got in the ref’s face before stomping to the other end of the court yelling profanities like, “That’s weak shit!”

A minute later, Leier took his first and only shot of the game, a heroic three-pointer that tied the game up and sent the crowd into hysterics. But a referee called the shot off, probably for no other reason than to see if he could make Win Butler’s head explode, which it almost did. But, seeing the advantage his status as a world-renowned rockstar afforded him over a university-level referee, Butler grabbed a microphone and threw the decision to the crowd. He faced us and said, “Because this is a charity game, we’re going to let you decide!”

The people spoke, the basket counted, and at the last second a Jock hit a cool three-pointer that sealed his team’s victory.

The teams celebrated as Queen’s “We Are the Champions” blasted from the speakers – a final attempt by Pop to steal glory from the Jocks.

As the crowd filed out, gold confetti burst out of two confetti machines and rained down over Pop and Jock alike.

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Widely considered to be the father of sabermetrics, Bill James pioneered the field in the late seventies with the Bill James Baseball Abstract. Since then, sabermetrics has attained widespread popularity and recognition. Many big league general managers and broadcasters now use advanced statistics in order to evaluate players, and perhaps no other statistic has had as much influence as Wins Above Replacement.

Commonly abbreviated as WAR, the stat attempts to summarize a baseball player’s entire performance into one number by measuring the value of a player in total team wins. It essentially asks, “If this player got injured and their team had to replace them with a minor leaguer or bench player, how many wins would the team lose?” The formula includes weighted values for hitting, defense, and base running while taking into account park factors and the difficulties of each defensive position. With the focus now shifting away from traditional counting stats such as wins, earned run average, batting average, and runs batted in (RBI), and toward advanced stats such as WAR, the players who win the MVP this year are going to be very different from the players who won it in years past.

For a good example of how the MVP has been traditionally decided, let’s go back to the 1995 season. Mo Vaughn is declared the American League (AL) MVP despite significantly under-producing Cleveland’s Albert Belle in almost every statistical category. If we take a look at the sabermetric stats under the hood, the picture gets even crazier. Vaughn’s WAR of 5.2 pales in comparison to Belle’s AL-topping 7.4 WAR – Vaughn didn’t even crack the top 15 in overall WAR that year. However, while WAR is good at measuring individual performance out of context, it is often unreliable when evaluating a player relative to the league, or relative to another player. The statistic Weighted Runs Created Plus”(wRC+) measures precisely how many runs a player has created relative to the league average of 100. For example, a 125 wRC+means a player created 25 per cent more runs than league average. In 1995, Mo Vaughn won the MVP with a wRC+ of 138 in the same year that Albert Belle posted a wRC+ of 174 – that’s a 36 per cent gap in run creation.

So, how did Belle create 36 per cent more runs than the league’s “most valuable player” and receive no recognition? For one, Belle’s surly personality and short temper earned him no love. He frequently attacked fans for shouting racial slurs and making light of his drinking problem. By the infamous 1995 season, his volatility had antagonized the media, who chalked up their MVP decision to “character.” Later, commenting on the MVP debate that year, Vaughn said, “People are looking at the whole thing, and that it’s not just numbers.” This is the common debate over the MVP – is it numbers, or numbers and intangible characteristics like leadership and character?

Will it be “not just numbers” this year? Can we throw things like character and leadership and hustle out the window now that we have shiny new stats like WAR and wRC+? Let’s take a look at the candidates.

The National League (NL) is basically a three-man race between San Francisco’s Buster Posey, Pittsburgh’s Andrew McCutchen, and the defending MVP, Milwaukee’s Ryan Braun. While Braun’s bat is essentially keeping his team alive down the stretch, the Brewers are probably not going to make it into the postseason. Last winter’s performance enhancing drug allegations aren’t going to help either. As for McCutchen, he currently leads the NL with a .336 batting average.  Pittsburgh hasn’t played meaningful baseball in a month, though, and McCutchen’s MVP case just isn’t strong enough to push him over the top despite his NL-topping 7.9 WAR.

Posey will probably win the NL MVP this year. San Francisco has already clinched the NL West, and it has a lot to do with Posey.  As a team, the Giants offense has managed to post a slightly below average wRC+ of 98; Buster Posey owns a wRC+ of 158, an elite level of production rare at the catcher position. Posey has been the team’s biggest offensive weapon down the stretch. Since the All-Star break (and the suspension of Melky Cabrera, the team’s top producer), Posey has smacked 13 home runs, driven in 56, and maintained a .384 batting average. No doubt this scorching stretch will be fresh in voters’ minds as they cast their MVP ballots.

In the AL, rookie phenom Mike Trout of Anaheim has all but run away with the MVP Award, even with Miguel Cabrera’s impressive season for Detroit. Trout leads the majors with a massive 9..5 WAR – that’s as many wins as superstars Edwin Encarnación and Josh Hamilton have accumulated this year combined. Incredibly, Trout didn’t make his season debut until April 29th, almost a full month into the season. Prior to 2012, the 21-year-old only had forty major league at bats under his belt. By traditional statistics though, Trout’s season doesn’t look as traditionally MVP-worthy on paper. Miguel Cabrera has hit almost twice as many home runs as Trout, and leads him by wide margins in batting average and RBIs, and Cabrera has a chance to win the first Triple Crown since 1967.

However, WAR tells us a different story. Trout’s rare combination of power, speed, athleticism, and the ability to hit for average makes him a valuable contributor in every aspect of the game. He leads the majors with 47 stolen bases, makes spectacular catches in center field seem routine, his arm is a cannon, and his bat isn’t too shabby either. Superlatives aside, Mike Trout has been the life of Anaheim’s team since his debut, and even if Anaheim doesn’t make it into October, he deserves the AL MVP.

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The newly acclaimed documentary Salam Rugby – directed by Iranian born Faramarz Beheshti – tries to capture the essence of introducing rugby to women in the male-oriented Iranian society. The film takes the viewer on the journey inside the lives and hardships of Iranian female athletes who play the sport. It gives a glimpse of the injustice facing women in Iran through the limitations of their athletic lives and the consequences for those who fight against these restrictions.

The refreshing theme throughout the whole film is the athletes’ enthusiasm for rugby despite all the restrictions. The film pays tribute to the universality of sports. Scenes like women chitchatting on bus rides to practice or tackling each other on the field show that no matter your nationality or religious views, everyone plays by the same rules in sports.

In an interview with The Daily, Beheshti explained that since he is not a rugby player himself, he tried to feature the locker room talk more than the game itself. The film focuses on four female rugby teams in different cities, emphasizing the conditions under which they play and their lack of access to properly trained coaches and practice areas.

One of the story lines follows the journey of Shiraz (a city in Iran)’s team over the 100 kilometer trip they take to access an outdoor field twice a year. Most teams have to settle for indoor gymnasiums due to government’s sensitivity to the public appearance of female athletes, even when they wear uniforms that fully cover their bodies. Another narrative covers one male coach’s trouble with the authorities for training the female team and his struggle to get official support for the players.

“I was not trying to make a political statement…[but] to show the lives of people involved in the game” said Beheshti. Yet, in a country like Iran, where the border between Islam and politics is faint, it is not surprising that any issue surrounding women would be politicized.

The film suggests that the current Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has led a regime that has been extraordinarily unfavorable for women’s sports. But this might not be entirely accurate. It is important to bear in mind that the limitations began in 1979 with the beginning of the Iranian Islamic revolution and the enforcement of Shari’a law. Beheshti also ignores the struggles faced by women who play other sports in the country – focusing solely on rugby and leaving one with questions about the struggles faced by other female athletes.

As for his future projects, Beheshti mentioned that he is working on a new documentary called Tajik Rugby Quest, which captures the process of introducing both men’s and women’s rugby into Tajikistan. One of his objectives is to show the effect a women’s team could have on the nation’s general rugby ambitions.

The arthur has chosen to use a pseudonym for this article

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Some might say they are attracted to the brand because of Lululemon’s dedication to sustainability, or due to the durability and quality of the clothing. However, there are many similar athletic clothing companies. What makes Lululemon so special to consumers?

Essentially, Wilson’s success with Lululemon comes down to one thing: timing. He caught on to the yoga craze in 1998, right as it was becoming popular in North America. In doing so, he managed to create an accessible commercialized brand, while still using parts of the ancient tradition of yoga. The brand remains dedicated to a list of inspirational guides to healthy living dubbed the “Lululemon manifesto.”

Luckily for Wilson, the healthy-living aspect of the tradition of yoga correlated perfectly with a newfound importance being placed on protecting the environment. In 2006, Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth famously spurred a newfound international public awareness of environmental issues. At the same time, the yoga trend in North America exploded, and Lululemon Athletica rapidly expanded. The result? A mere ten years after the first store opened in Vancouver, BC, Lululemon has become a multi-million dollar company with 78 stores operating in four different countries.

Wilson came up with the idea for Lululemon in 1998 while participating in a yoga class in Vancouver. He became passionate about his practice, and started a yoga studio that doubled as a design studio for the brand. In 2000, the first Lululemon Athletica store opened in Kitsilano, a small beach community in Vancouver.

On the Lululemon website, Wilson recalls his original idea of the store as “a community hub where people could learn and discuss the physical aspects of healthy living from yoga and diet to running and cycling as well as the mental aspects of living a powerful life of possibilities.” He is definitely a dreamer; I’ll give him that.

Coming from Vancouver, I remember going to a Lululemon Boxing Day sale with my mom in the winter of 2004. She has practiced yoga for over twenty years, and supported Lululemon since its beginning stages. The sale was held in the basement of the flagship Kitsilano store, with one makeshift communal change room and clothes being sold out of boxes. Although Lululemon was not fully established yet, the community feeling Wilson wanted to facilitate was definitely noticeable.

Walking into the Lululemon on St. Catherine in Montreal, I felt like I could have been back at the Kistilano branch. Every Lululemon store I go to has the same friendly sales associates, the same interior design and display, even the same smell (is it possible to pump the scent of the BC forest and ocean into all their stores across Canada?). From Victoria and Vancouver to Montreal and Toronto, Lululemon stores always generate the same familiar feeling for me. This similarity between stores provides, for me, a link between the stores, creating a more communal atmosphere. In this way, Wilson seems to have achieved his goal of creating a community center for healthy living.

Lululemon has expanded their business past just clothing. All stores hold events and give yoga classes, and all sales associates are trained to promote and embody an active lifestyle. Originally just a yoga-clothing outfitter, Lululemon has now expanded to selling running and dance apparel. The company’s success has allowed Wilson to consolidate his brand to embody one unified lifestyle, a lifestyle that has become popularized and commercialized in North American society.

Wilson had the ingenuity to catch on to a trend right before it exploded, and has been riding that wave ever since. In fact, Lulelemon has made him the tenth richest Canadian in the world. The company’s advice is to “dance, sing, floss, and travel,” and I might just be convinced that they’re on to something.

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Robinson spent only one year in Montreal, but that year was an essential part of what became a legendary career. Branch Rickey, the president and general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, broke Major League Baseball’s colour barrier by signing Robinson. What is known as the “Noble Experiment” was, in fact, a double-blind experiment – the decision was kept secret from the team and from the public until the day of Robinson’s signing.

Robinson was a vexed addition to the Dodgers. The challenges ahead required skills far beyond simple athletic ability. Rickey told Robinson that he needed a “Negro player with guts enough not to fight back” against the sure onslaught of racial antagonism. There were black talents who were more established than Robinson, namely Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson, so the choice to sign Robinson was controversial even in his own League. However, Robinson promised Rickey that he would “turn the other cheek and let [his] play do the talking,” and became a member of the team on October 23, 1945.

Players on the Dodgers considered passing a petition against his playing. Spring training was held in the deeply-segregated Jacksonville, Florida, where Robinson was frequently made to leave airplanes, denied hotel lodging, and locked out of stadiums. But the real test remained after spring training and north of the border.

Before he became the general manager for the Dodgers, Rickey had been responsible for formalizing baseball’s farm team system, which affiliated Major League clubs with minor league “feeder” teams. The idea behind this being that, when a player signed to a Major League team, they would first play for the farm team. The Dodgers’ farm teams included the AAA International League Montreal Royals, where Rickey determined that Robinson would begin his professional baseball career.

Given that the city would later lose the Expos due to extraordinarily low game attendance, it is hard to fathom the baseball ardor that raged in Montreal during the 1940s. But fans loved the Royals. Rickey hoped that, with Montreal’s combination of passion for the game and cosmopolitan tolerance, it would be the right place to foster integration.

The Royal’s season began on the road that year, and Jackie Robinson made his actual professional debut in a game against the Jersey City Giants. Robinson gave an amazing performance, recording four runs, driving in three, and stealing two bases. The crowds in Jersey City were openly hostile, but, in Montreal, they were curious. When the Royals returned to
Montreal two weeks later, the opening day attendance broke records at 16,000.

Robinson would become the International League’s Most Valuable Player that year. In contrast to the deep-seated racism that awaited him on every road trip, the Royals fans adored him. He proved himself to be both a civil rights hero and a masterful athlete.

Throughout his career, and even after he left Montreal, Robinson expressed appreciation for the people here, crediting their enthusiasm and openness as the catalyst for his All-Star career. After his retirement from the MLB, Robinson was interviewed on CBC’s Assignment, where he reflected on his time in Montreal, saying that “I’ll never forget after playing in Louisville, down in my own country, and receiving the kind of boos and jeers that I did, going back to Montreal… I think the fact that I played in Montreal, that I had many people sending me letters and prayers and wishing me well, had a great deal to do with the success that I did have.”

A few metres away from the plaque at Delorimer Stadium is Larivière. When the Stadium was still intact, the back entrance exited onto this street. On October 4, 1946, Robinson played his last game for the Montreal Royals, winning them the “Little World Series” title over the Kentucky Colonels. When Robinson came through the stadium’s back door, he was bombarded with Royals fans.

Robinson tried to explain that he had a train to catch, and began running towards the station. The crowds dashed after him. Jackie’s friend Sam Maltin, who was working as a stringer for the Pittsburgh Courier, famously described the scene by writing, “it was probably the only day in history that a black man ran from a white mob with love instead of lynching on his mind.”

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But aside from acknowledging the fact that drugs do not carry very many physiological benefits, how much do we really know about some common street drugs? An American study conducted in 2008 by The Core Alcohol and Drug Survey from a sample of 77,481 students at over fifty colleges showed that more than 80 per cent of students consumed alcohol in the past year and over 30 per cent of students consumed illegal substances. In Canada, the numbers are slightly lower; The Canadian Alcohol and Drug Use Monitoring Survey showed that, in 2004, 11.3 per cent of youth from age 15 to 24 had used illicit drugs.

Alcohol (Alcoholic Beverages)

Alcohol is indeed classified as a drug, although most people do not consider it one. The psychoactive ingredient in alcohol is ethanol, or C₂H₆O. Interestingly, ethanol is also used in hand sanitizers as an antiseptic, engine fuel, and even as a treatment for poisoning by other, more harmful alcohols such as methanol and ethylene glycol (commonly used as car antifreeze). Ethanol competes for the alcohol dehydrogenase enzyme thus, avoiding the toxic side effects of methanol and ethylene glycol. Alcohol is by far the most commonly consumed drug in universities throughout North America. Information regarding how alcohol consumption can lead to addiction, dementia, cancer, and even strokes is widespread. But, what isn’t quite as widely publicized is how often and how much alcohol must be consumed to cause those maladies. For example, to be at a greater risk of developing cancer, one must drink at least four units of alcohol (two glasses of wine) every single day. However, studies have also shown that men who drink over three times a week were over 35 per cent less likely to have a heart attack than those who do not drink. It is crucial to find the right balance with frequency and quantity of alcohol consumption in order to still have fun and, at the same time, not harm your body.

How it works

Contrary to popular belief alcohol actually acts as a depressant, not a stimulant. Alcohol acts on the central nervous system (CNS) resulting in reduced attention span and reaction speed. Ethanol affects gamma-aminobutyric acid receptors, which are the primary inhibitory neurotransmitter receptors in the mammalian CNS. The result is a depressing effect comparable to those produced by benzodiazepines and barbiturates.

Legislation

Unlike many the other drugs in this list, alcohol is legal, at least to those above the drinking age. In Canada, the legal age for consumption is 18 in Alberta, Manitoba, and Quebec and 19 in all the other provinces and territories.

What it feels like

Overconsumption of alcohol, or getting drunk, is almost always associated with the loss of inhibitions and self-control. Usually, there is also a decrease in self-consciousness and thus an increase in self-confidence. However, since alcohol is a depressant, it can cause loss or fragmentation of memories. Getting drunk can also result in the infamous hangover, which is caused by dilated blood vessels in the brain, a decrease in blood sugar to the brain, and also the production of the more active and toxic metabolite of alcohol, acetaldehyde.

Cost

Given the huge range of choices one has when craving a drink, the cost can range from a mere $1 to anywhere upwards of $100.

Ecstasy

Ecstasy is also known as E, X, or M in its street pill form, and Molly or Mandy in its crystalline or powdered form. The active ingredient is called 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), and its molecule formula is C₁₁H₅NO₂. Interestingly enough, there are over 100 chemicals with the same molecular formula, butamben (a local anesthetic) and MDPH (a psychedelic drug), just to name a few. In its purest form, MDMA exists as clear, ice-like crystals. However, in most street forms, the drug is cut with adulterants, such as methamphetamine, ephedrine, and caffeine. The manufacturing of MDMA almost always involves the use of safrole, which is extracted from the sassafras plant. The leaves of sassafras leaves are used in some types of gumbo, while the roots were traditionally used to flavour root beer. Sassafras leaves can commonly be found in health food stores as a supplement and a spice. However, after its use in the clandestine manufacturing of MDMA came to light, the distribution and transport of sassafras plants has become extremely guarded and monitored.

How it works

MDMA causes a rapid release of the three main “feel good” neurotransmitters: serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine. The increase in concentration of all three neurotransmitters produces the same effect as some antidepressants. The suddenly magnified availability of these neurotransmitters also cause the release of oxytocin, which is a hormone released after events such as orgasms. Collectively, these chemicals give you the high.

Legislation

MDMA was patented in 1913 and was most notably used to supplement psychotherapy in the 1970s. In 1976, Canada passed legislature that made it illegal to possess, traffic, produce, or import MDMA. Currently, MDMA is regulated under Schedule III of the Canadian Controlled Drugs and Substances Act of 1996, meaning possession can be sentenced with a maximum of three years imprisonment, while trafficking, exportation, and production can result in a sentence of 18 years maximum.

What it feels like

MDMA can have very different effects on people because each person has a different way of feeling “happiness”, which is what the serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine overload essentially causes. But generally speaking, there are some common feelings that almost all users experience: a boost of energy, self-confidence, and self-acceptance. Users feel friendlier with a strong sense of inner peace and euphoria. Like alcohol, MDMA removes a lot of self-consciousness and makes you more outgoing. However, unlike alcohol, MDMA does not take away your judgment abilities. You remain comparatively alert and well aware of your surroundings.

Cost

A typical ecstasy tablet contains many other chemicals and only about 70 to 85 milligrams of MDMA. Costs range from $10 to $15 in America, to $20 to $50 in places like Australia.

Cocaine

Cocaine has a variety of other names, although it’s most commonly known as coke. Others include: snow, blow, crack, tardust, and so on. The active ingredient is a chemical called benzoylmethylecgonine, with the molecular formula C₁₇H₂₁NO₄. Cocaine is obtained from the leaves of the Erythroxylum (coca) plant – not to be confused with cacao or cocoa trees – and this plant is the root (literally) of its name. The plant is native to South America and was traditionally used as a treatment for altitude sickness and as an anaesthetic before stronger substitutes were available. Originally, the leaves are also chewed and steeped to make tea, releasing the active ingredient from the leaves. Benzoylmethylecgonine is a base and is usually extracted using hydrochloric acid, resulting in a white and pearly salt consisting of hydrochloric acid and the cocaine base. This kind of cocaine is known as “crack cocaine” (also known as rock, hard, or cavvy). However, cocaine can be further purified by “freebasing it”. “Freebase” cocaine refers to cocaine that has had the proton freed from the cocaine base. While this cocaine is generally purer than crack cocaine, the production method often involves more toxic chemicals, increasing the risk of injury to those who attempt to isolate cocaine without proper equipment or knowledge. Cocaine can be taken orally (“numbies”), chewed in its coca leaf form, insufflated (snorting, blown, or sniffed), injected, or smoked.

How it works

Cocaine acts on the CNS and is arguably one of the most powerful stimulant known to humans. Cocaine not only causes a strong release of the “feel good” neurotransmitter dopamine, it also blocks the reuptake of dopamine in the post-synaptic neuron. This means that dopamine will stay in contact with its receptors longer and produce the high that you feel.

Legislation

When cocaine was first discovered, it was seen as a panacea for many of the world’s ailments. Even Sigmund Freud wrote many scientific papers extolling the numerous benefits of the drug. Cocaine was widely available in a wide variety of products, from medicines to soft drinks, It was even used for toothache relief for children in the 1880’s. As the negative health effects became more well known, use declined, and in 1911 Canada passed laws restriction the production, importation, sale, and possession of cocaine. It is currently listed under Schedule I of the Canadian Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, meaning that possession can result in a maximum sentence of seven years in prison, while trafficking, exportation, and production can yield life imprisonment.

What it feels like

Cocaine is a stimulant, so it will provide increased alertness, ability to concentrate, and wakefulness. The elevation of mood is also partnered with an increase in self-confidence and worth, thus achieving the euphoric high. A surge of great physical strength is usually felt. A loss of appetite is also very common.

Cost

Again, the cost of cocaine varies with your location. Here in Canada’s east coast, a single gram of cocaine ranges from $20 to as high as $100. This means that the sale of a single kilogram of cocaine can cost anywhere from $12000 to $35000 – that’s almost an entire year’s salary for many.

Heroin

Like many other drugs, heroin has a wide assortment of what are mostly benign sounding names: black tar, China white, dust, H, horse, junk, and smack to name a few. The active chemical in heroin is known as diacetylmorphine and has the molecular formula: C₂₁H₂₃NO₅. Heroin was initially created in an attempt to make a less addictive version of morphine. Like morphine, it is synthesized from the seeds of the Papaver somniferum (opium poppy). The opium poppy is also used to make other drugs such as codeine, thebaine, and papaverine – most of which are used as analgesics to relieve pain without losing consciousness. Similar to cocaine, pure heroin usually comes in the form of a hydrochloride salt, which takes the shape of a white crystal. However, the heroin purchased on the streets is almost always adulterated with bases and other chemicals, which results in a matte white powder. It is estimated that about 90 per cent of the world’s supply of opiates originate from Afghanistan. Like other opiates, heroin can be prescribed legally as a painkiller. Heroin can be administered in the same ways as cocaine.

How it works

Opioids function by attaching to specific receptors in the brain, spinal cord, and the gastrointestinal tract. When the drug attaches to these receptors, they act as depressants on the CNS and block the transmission of pain messengers. In addition to blocking the feeling of pain, heroin also causes a large release of the opioid neurotransmitter endorphin. As you might already know, endorphins are released naturally after strenuous exercise or if we hear ourselves. This is our own body’s way of responding to pain by dulling it. Heroin causes you to feel that high 1000 times over, even without the presence of real pain. Heroin tolerance is easily developed, and, thus, it is considered one of the most addictive drugs.

Legislation

From 1898 to 1910, heroin was actually sold legally as a non-addictive morphine substitute for cough depressant. When the dangers of heroin came to be realized in the early 20th century Canada passed laws that made the production, distribution, and use of heroin. It is currently under the same control in Canada as cocaine.

What it feels like

Because heroin is more of a depressant than a stimulant, it does not give you the burst of energy or self-confidence stimulants like cocaine or MDMA do. Instead, it settles you down and you feel a warm rush, as if slipping into a hot bath. It allows your mind to drift off without your body being physically active. A common result of depressants is that the extremities become heavy and numbed. The use of heroin can result in dry mouth and extreme thirst. The euphoria experienced from heroin is not the same as the euphoria derived from MDMA or cocaine. The effects of heroin can last anywhere from two to six hours depending on the dosage.

Cost

The prices of heroin vary from region to region but the standard prices range are about $10 for one bag, or book. However, each bag is meant to contain only one tenth of a gram, and in many cases this amount is much less. This means that some addicts must pay hundreds of dollars a day to support their addiction.

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Becoming increasingly popular in the last five years, fantasy sports allow participants pick and manage a virtual team of real athletes. Just as professional managers must be quick thinking and constantly aware of what players might be injury-prone, so too must fantasy players. These players, with 24 hour access to news, develop these same skills.

Prior to the beginning of the professional season, approximately eight to twelve people form a fantasy league. Players often know each other, but websites, such as Rotowire.com, Comissioner.com, and Yahoosports.com, can also organize leagues. Next, players participate in a draft. Each player, managing his own team, is responsible for filling his roster with virtual athletes. Modeled after real-life drafts, participants are subject to a time limit for their picks, and therefore  must be as fast-thinking and knowledgable as real managers.

Once the professional season begins, participants select their line-ups for the given week. Again, this is modeled after the way real sports are conducted; fantasy football players choose their rosters on Sunday, while fantasy hockey players chose theirs on Saturday. When the game gets going, the athletes perform according to their statistics and rankings from real games. Unlike in professional leagues, in which roles are split up, fantasy players act as owner, manager, and coach all at once.

As Danny Goldin, a former writer for Rotowire.com, explains, fantasy sports were first played in 1960 in the context of an experimental study in a Harvard University seminar led by the sociologist William Gamson. Participants were instructed to form MLB rosters prior to the start of the season, and their players “value” was then calculated upon conclusion of the real season and based on the players’ statistics.

While Gamson’s model did not permit players to make roster changes during the actual season, participants in fantasy sports now actively manage their team throughout the season, requiring them to pay close attention at all times to the status of their players. With the advent of the internet, fantasy sports experienced large developments. In 1997, Commissioner.com – which is now the fantasy engine of CBS Sports – and Rotowire.com were launched. These are fantasy sports websites that provide the average sports fan with detailed statistics and analysis on players so that they can micro-manage their fantasy teams.

In addition to allowing sports enthusiasts an opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge of real players through the management of their fantasy team, fantasy players often place bets with the other members of their fantasy league. If they win, they get the money and, perhaps more importantly, bragging rights among friends.

There are a variety of reasons why individuals choose to participate in fantasy sports. Scott Rathwell, a McGill masters student in Sports Psychology, explains that he plays fantasy hockey sports primarily because it offers a means of keeping in contact with friends, many of whom he previously played on actual teams with. Lawrence Greenberg, a Concordia History student who plays both fantasy hockey and football, points to the competitive aspect of the activity, he says it “makes watching the games more intense.” In addition, being able to “show other people that you can pick and manage a better team” is a strong incentive for him. Both Rathwell and Greenberg agree that they now have a heightened level of interest in the actual games. “I definitely watch the games more closely. I constantly have to see who gets injured to try and pick up his replacement before someone else does,” says Greenberg

Fantasy sports have also significantly altered the nature of sports fandom. Before fantasy sports became popular, fans would typically root for their favourite team. Now, fantasy participants root for many different teams based on the athletes they pick for their fantasy teams rather than geography.

Dave Richard, a senior fantasy writer at CBSsports.com, explained this phenomenon to Goldin: “Fantasy sports have reinvented sports fans. Before these games became popular, most people were fans of one or two teams in every sport… Suddenly, a fan watching in Detroit has an interest in a game between Los Angeles and San Diego.”

Fantasy sports, once the niche of Harvard sociologists and a small segment of the most passionate fans, are now a hobby and obsession to millions of people and a major revenue source for sports media. With this trend, fantasy sports are only poised to become more and more popular

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