I found that very reassuring. So you can imagine my surprise when Trump won. I felt extra disappointed, like the finest occult prognosticators had let me down. But now I see that they tricked me:
Well played, witches.
Tuesday, May 30, 2017
Lady Macbeth
Last fall, I was really worried about the Presidential election. Although the polls were showing Hilary in the lead, it was a little too close for comfort. So when I came across three witches in the woods, I asked them to give me a prediction. And they said that I shouldn't worry: as of next year, for the first time, the leader of the free world will be a woman.
I found that very reassuring. So you can imagine my surprise when Trump won. I felt extra disappointed, like the finest occult prognosticators had let me down. But now I see that they tricked me:
Well played, witches.
I found that very reassuring. So you can imagine my surprise when Trump won. I felt extra disappointed, like the finest occult prognosticators had let me down. But now I see that they tricked me:
Well played, witches.
Monday, May 29, 2017
Weighty Ghost
I'm often seeing memes on Facebook reminising sarcastically about the past, saying something like, "When I was a kid, I rode a bike without a helmet and somehow I survived."
Well of course you did. If you didn't survive, you wouldn't be on Facebook to talk about it, now would you? I'd like to believe that somewhere out there is a Ghostbook, where dead people network, and they have their own memes. "When I was a kid, I rode a bike without a helmet, and I suffered a fatal brain injury."
I've since discovered that this is called Survivorship Bias. And ironically I learned that from a Facebook meme.
Any sort of protecting-our-kids-too-much issue is really frustrating. I mean even more than your average Facebook-based politico-philosophocal discussion. It's bad enough when you have an issue that has an intellectually-justified side and an emotionally-justified side and they just argue past each other. But in this case, both sides have a big emotional component. I didn't need a helmet, so today's kids shouldn't wear them, statistics be damned. My kid was in an accident, so all kids should wear a helmet, balancing of public safety and individual freedom be damned.
So whenever I see someone simplistically make one of these arguments, I wish I could steer them towards one of the people making simplistic arguments the other way. You guys just yell slogans and throw memes at each other. We'll be over here talking it over like adults.
Well of course you did. If you didn't survive, you wouldn't be on Facebook to talk about it, now would you? I'd like to believe that somewhere out there is a Ghostbook, where dead people network, and they have their own memes. "When I was a kid, I rode a bike without a helmet, and I suffered a fatal brain injury."
I've since discovered that this is called Survivorship Bias. And ironically I learned that from a Facebook meme.
Any sort of protecting-our-kids-too-much issue is really frustrating. I mean even more than your average Facebook-based politico-philosophocal discussion. It's bad enough when you have an issue that has an intellectually-justified side and an emotionally-justified side and they just argue past each other. But in this case, both sides have a big emotional component. I didn't need a helmet, so today's kids shouldn't wear them, statistics be damned. My kid was in an accident, so all kids should wear a helmet, balancing of public safety and individual freedom be damned.
So whenever I see someone simplistically make one of these arguments, I wish I could steer them towards one of the people making simplistic arguments the other way. You guys just yell slogans and throw memes at each other. We'll be over here talking it over like adults.
Tuesday, May 16, 2017
The Alternative Facts Are Out There
There are many reasons to be disappointed by the Trump presidency, but here's one you may not have thought of: We now know definitively that there are no aliens. I mean, aliens may exist, but no one on this planet knows about them. The reasoning is simple: if the U.S. government was sitting on secret evidence of aliens - say, from Roswell - then they would have had to tell Donald Trump about it when he took office. And there's no way he could sit on a secret like that.
You know that would be on Twitter within the first month. At the very least, there'd be some hint of it. Say, he responds to a "small hands" joke with "hey, I've seen gray dudes and they have some really small hands."
Okay, maybe he'd leak it, but only to the Russians. But even then we'd see some evidence of it. You know, Putin annexes New Mexico, or announces a new fighter plane that's suspiciously saucer-shaped.
Just to be clear, I never thought that there was secret knowledge of aliens. But a part of me sort of hoped that there was something to it. But now I know it's nothing, it's disappointing. That's sort of emblematic of this administration, to reveal unpleasant realities. Losing faith in humanity was worse, but now I've even lost faith in aliens.
You know that would be on Twitter within the first month. At the very least, there'd be some hint of it. Say, he responds to a "small hands" joke with "hey, I've seen gray dudes and they have some really small hands."
Okay, maybe he'd leak it, but only to the Russians. But even then we'd see some evidence of it. You know, Putin annexes New Mexico, or announces a new fighter plane that's suspiciously saucer-shaped.
Just to be clear, I never thought that there was secret knowledge of aliens. But a part of me sort of hoped that there was something to it. But now I know it's nothing, it's disappointing. That's sort of emblematic of this administration, to reveal unpleasant realities. Losing faith in humanity was worse, but now I've even lost faith in aliens.
Thursday, May 11, 2017
Two Ours Traffic
I mentioned on Facebook once about how European hockey tournaments always have cars - specifically Skodas - on display. That is, just beyond the boards in the corners, on stands that I presume are over top of seats. That's a sad commentary on the popularity of the sport: Presumably Skoda pays more for this space than tourney organizers could get selling the seats. There's no way that would make financial sense here.
This week, while watching the World Hockey Championships, I noticed that the message board under one of these cars was displaying the hashtag #itsourgame. I had that experience of not being sure where the words begin and end - surely there's a word for that, it happens with hashtags, e-mail addresses, URLs and so many things in our world. So I misread it as, "it sour game." Okay, sure, Slovenia-Norway isn't one of the more important games of the tourney, but there's no call for ridicule from the main sponsor.
Quickly, I realized it was supposed to be "it's our game." Is it too much to ask that you capitalize the words so it's easier to read? (#ItsOurGame) That does have a name: CamelCase.
Anyway, I've mentioned before about how Canadians have a neurotic need to tell everyone who will listen that hockey is our game, even if "everyone who will listen" is usually just us. And we love being reassured that it's our game so much, that we'll even hear it from foreign brands.
But wait a minute - Skoda doesn't sell on this side of the Atlantic. They were sending out that claim on the sport's ownership to their fellow Europeans. It's not often you see that. Whenever Canadians have proclaimed that "this is our game," I always wondered who was arguing against us, and now I finally know.
I wondered what form this argument might take, so I went on Twitter and looked up the #itsourgame hashtag. I wasn't sure what I'd find. Boorish Swedes that mirrored our Canadian hockey blowhards? Maybe a huge flame war as Canadians took umbrage with the claim?
Actually, it was mostly Skoda promoting the tournament and various games within it. A few Europeans of different nationalities had picked it up and were using the hashtag to check-in that they were watching it too. There were indeed a few Canadians using the tag, but they mostly seemed oblivious to its use with the World Championship. (Interestingly, one of the Canadians was referring not to hockey, but to the CFL.)
While reading one tweet from a French fan that used the hashtag, it hit me: the tag is in English. I know, what did I expect, Esperanto? Of course, they have to choose one language and go with it, and English is the most universal alternative. (Although from what I’ve seen of the European Union, I’m surprised there isn’t some regulation that hashtags have to be translated into all members’ official languages.) English is a widely spoken second language in Nordic countries, which probably account for a lot of the tournament’s audience, so I get it. But the situation still demonstrates just how complete the domination of English is: To reach European hockey fans, they’re using a language whose only European speakers are fond of neither Europe nor hockey.
This week, while watching the World Hockey Championships, I noticed that the message board under one of these cars was displaying the hashtag #itsourgame. I had that experience of not being sure where the words begin and end - surely there's a word for that, it happens with hashtags, e-mail addresses, URLs and so many things in our world. So I misread it as, "it sour game." Okay, sure, Slovenia-Norway isn't one of the more important games of the tourney, but there's no call for ridicule from the main sponsor.
Quickly, I realized it was supposed to be "it's our game." Is it too much to ask that you capitalize the words so it's easier to read? (#ItsOurGame) That does have a name: CamelCase.
Anyway, I've mentioned before about how Canadians have a neurotic need to tell everyone who will listen that hockey is our game, even if "everyone who will listen" is usually just us. And we love being reassured that it's our game so much, that we'll even hear it from foreign brands.
But wait a minute - Skoda doesn't sell on this side of the Atlantic. They were sending out that claim on the sport's ownership to their fellow Europeans. It's not often you see that. Whenever Canadians have proclaimed that "this is our game," I always wondered who was arguing against us, and now I finally know.
I wondered what form this argument might take, so I went on Twitter and looked up the #itsourgame hashtag. I wasn't sure what I'd find. Boorish Swedes that mirrored our Canadian hockey blowhards? Maybe a huge flame war as Canadians took umbrage with the claim?
Actually, it was mostly Skoda promoting the tournament and various games within it. A few Europeans of different nationalities had picked it up and were using the hashtag to check-in that they were watching it too. There were indeed a few Canadians using the tag, but they mostly seemed oblivious to its use with the World Championship. (Interestingly, one of the Canadians was referring not to hockey, but to the CFL.)
While reading one tweet from a French fan that used the hashtag, it hit me: the tag is in English. I know, what did I expect, Esperanto? Of course, they have to choose one language and go with it, and English is the most universal alternative. (Although from what I’ve seen of the European Union, I’m surprised there isn’t some regulation that hashtags have to be translated into all members’ official languages.) English is a widely spoken second language in Nordic countries, which probably account for a lot of the tournament’s audience, so I get it. But the situation still demonstrates just how complete the domination of English is: To reach European hockey fans, they’re using a language whose only European speakers are fond of neither Europe nor hockey.
Wednesday, May 10, 2017
London Stalling
I've mentioned before that I'm amused at the differences between my own Kitchener-Waterloo and London, Ontario. Both are similar size and close together, yet there remain distinct differences. We're seeing some of those differences played out right now, as both communities are going though the process of building new transit systems, with KW building the "Ion" Light Rail system, and London planning a Bus Rapid Transit (buses in dedicated lanes) system. They're at very different stages, though. London is still in the planning, while KW's is nearly finished.
We should keep in mind that when it comes to transit, KW has an unfair advantage: it's several communities that have grown into one (a conurbation, as the urban planers call it) so it's evolved into a long, thin community with a few urban areas more or less lined-up. Thus, it's always been fairly obvious how a single transit line would link the community.
London, on the other hand, has a layout that's more typical of Canadian cities: a small urban core, with lots of suburbs stretching off in all directions. So it's not immediately clear how transit lines can serve the whole city. They've gone for two lines; one in an "L" shape, and the other in a "7" shape, with the two "corners" meeting at the centre.
Looking back at our effort to get the system built, I have to say that I'm amazed at how easy it was. I know some people would be furious at hearing it called "easy", but stepping back and seeing that we accomplished this in an unprecedentedly-small, largely-suburban community in a time of constrained budgets, all in about a decade with no major roadblocks, that's pretty impressive.
London's plan has run into some problems. I'm not that familiar with the project, but what I find disturbing is that two big opposition groups are downtown businesses and property developers. That's troubling because they should be leading proponents: the system would bring more people downtown, and raise the value of land near stations. One has to wonder which groups are going to push the proposal forward if these two groups are not on side.
And although it's still early in the process with no shovels yet in the ground, setbacks now could cause an avalanche of problems: Submissions have already been made for approval and grants from higher levels of government, and changes to the plan would mean re-submitting and starting the process over. At best, that would introduce a year of delays; at worst, it would mean they'd be applying for massive public transit grants from a new Conservative government.
I'd like to claim that the difference in the two communities' experiences is the result of our being a little more forward-thinking and open-minded, but I don't think that explains it. We in KW have a kind of benevolent apathy towards civic government. Sure, people complain about local government, but they don't do anything about it. That seems unusual these days. In other communities, the voters periodically elect a human tantrum, while we just rubber-stamp the same folks over and over.
And that's the approach we've taken towards transit too. You heard people complain, but it never developed into anything meaningful. There were a few attempts at mounting political movements against it, but they didn't seem to get the quality personnel behind it, and they didn't really threaten incumbent councilors and mayors. Ultimately, it was hard for opponents to gain traction when the politicians supporting the LRT plan kept getting elected.
In contrast, complaints about London's transit plan seems to have reached a critical mass that will make it hard to continue. I mean mass in a more literal sense, seeing as the latest meeting took place at Budweiser Gardens, the city's hockey arena. While attendence was nowhere near the venue's 9,000 seat capacity, it's still a far cry from the community centre spare rooms where Waterloo's transit meetings took place.
But it's also reached a critical emotional mass, which will be a big problem for proponents. An idea like this inspires some, terrifies others, but leaves most with a mixture of reactions: neither good nor bad enough to act. Something like that might pass if the support is passionate enough, since there are only a few who will fight it. But if you get just enough emphasis on the downsides, you push the conflicted majority onto the no side, or at least, onto the skeptical side. And for a big project like this, skepticism is enough to sink it.
In London, opposition is large and well organized, and has taken the initiative. Aspiring politicians are seeing it as a route to the top. Again, this has roots in the particular politics of the city; While Kitchener and Waterloo's civic politics are relatively quiet, London has been very antagonistic and divided for a while now. An expensive and highly-visible issue is the perfect situation to bring out more rancor. At this point, even if they get a good number of politicians on the pro side, I’m guessing both sides will dig in enough that the issue will stagnate.
We should keep in mind that when it comes to transit, KW has an unfair advantage: it's several communities that have grown into one (a conurbation, as the urban planers call it) so it's evolved into a long, thin community with a few urban areas more or less lined-up. Thus, it's always been fairly obvious how a single transit line would link the community.
London, on the other hand, has a layout that's more typical of Canadian cities: a small urban core, with lots of suburbs stretching off in all directions. So it's not immediately clear how transit lines can serve the whole city. They've gone for two lines; one in an "L" shape, and the other in a "7" shape, with the two "corners" meeting at the centre.
Looking back at our effort to get the system built, I have to say that I'm amazed at how easy it was. I know some people would be furious at hearing it called "easy", but stepping back and seeing that we accomplished this in an unprecedentedly-small, largely-suburban community in a time of constrained budgets, all in about a decade with no major roadblocks, that's pretty impressive.
London's plan has run into some problems. I'm not that familiar with the project, but what I find disturbing is that two big opposition groups are downtown businesses and property developers. That's troubling because they should be leading proponents: the system would bring more people downtown, and raise the value of land near stations. One has to wonder which groups are going to push the proposal forward if these two groups are not on side.
And although it's still early in the process with no shovels yet in the ground, setbacks now could cause an avalanche of problems: Submissions have already been made for approval and grants from higher levels of government, and changes to the plan would mean re-submitting and starting the process over. At best, that would introduce a year of delays; at worst, it would mean they'd be applying for massive public transit grants from a new Conservative government.
I'd like to claim that the difference in the two communities' experiences is the result of our being a little more forward-thinking and open-minded, but I don't think that explains it. We in KW have a kind of benevolent apathy towards civic government. Sure, people complain about local government, but they don't do anything about it. That seems unusual these days. In other communities, the voters periodically elect a human tantrum, while we just rubber-stamp the same folks over and over.
And that's the approach we've taken towards transit too. You heard people complain, but it never developed into anything meaningful. There were a few attempts at mounting political movements against it, but they didn't seem to get the quality personnel behind it, and they didn't really threaten incumbent councilors and mayors. Ultimately, it was hard for opponents to gain traction when the politicians supporting the LRT plan kept getting elected.
In contrast, complaints about London's transit plan seems to have reached a critical mass that will make it hard to continue. I mean mass in a more literal sense, seeing as the latest meeting took place at Budweiser Gardens, the city's hockey arena. While attendence was nowhere near the venue's 9,000 seat capacity, it's still a far cry from the community centre spare rooms where Waterloo's transit meetings took place.
But it's also reached a critical emotional mass, which will be a big problem for proponents. An idea like this inspires some, terrifies others, but leaves most with a mixture of reactions: neither good nor bad enough to act. Something like that might pass if the support is passionate enough, since there are only a few who will fight it. But if you get just enough emphasis on the downsides, you push the conflicted majority onto the no side, or at least, onto the skeptical side. And for a big project like this, skepticism is enough to sink it.
In London, opposition is large and well organized, and has taken the initiative. Aspiring politicians are seeing it as a route to the top. Again, this has roots in the particular politics of the city; While Kitchener and Waterloo's civic politics are relatively quiet, London has been very antagonistic and divided for a while now. An expensive and highly-visible issue is the perfect situation to bring out more rancor. At this point, even if they get a good number of politicians on the pro side, I’m guessing both sides will dig in enough that the issue will stagnate.
Tuesday, May 9, 2017
Weep, The North
Deadspin has an interesting article about the Toronto Raptors that starts off examining the teams options in the offseason and ends up opening up the philosophical nexus at the heart of professional sports. To review, the last two seasons have been the best in the team's admittedly aenemic history. They've gotten to the final four and final eight respectively. But both times they've been eliminated by the Cleveland Cavaliers and their star/unofficial-coach/god-of-basketball Lebron James.
So now the team is stuck in an awkward situation teams sometimes find themselves in: wondering if anything can really be done to help. One might think that if you have a good team, you try to improve it, at least until your main contributors have gotten too old. But the fact is that sometimes a team is still good, still in their prime, but can't be improved. Maybe the budget is maxed-out, maybe the players needed to improve aren't available anywhere at any price. Or maybe the players have an incompatable set of talents and it just can't be balanced without wholesale changes. But you get into the situation where you can't imagine how your team can be any better than "good."
In the case of the Raptors (and probably a few other teams in the NBA) this is complicated by the presence of James and the stacked Golden State Warriors. Teams are realizing that not only is good not "good" enough, but "great" isn't much better. At this point, you need to be a generational superteam just to get into the finals. It's not just a question of improving the Raptors, but vastly improving them. Beyond that, there's the question of what good will it do to start over? If you traded/avoid-resigning players now and sign and draft a new team, and even if you do a better job this time, you'll still run into the immovable Lebron. Or even if he's too old by then, you'll run into the next player that launches tiresome discussions of whether he's better than Michael Jordan.
It's a problem basketball (or more specifically, the NBA) has had for a while now: a superstar is such a huge advantage that it seems like you can't build a contending team without one. Obviously, great players are an advantage in any sport, but in most it is at least possible to build a contending team with a lot of good players, but not one great one. But it's hard to find such teams in the history of NBA champions. People make fun of the Philadelphia 76er's and how they seem to be in eternal rebuild mode, but I totally understand. There's not much point in starting to build until you have someone to build around, so you might as well stay at the bottom until you get lucky with the draft.
The point is that the Raptors are in a weird existential funk in which they have to decide not just what personel moves they are going to make, but what the purpose behind those moves are. Deadspin's Giri Nathan make the somewhat-radical assertion that it's okay for the Raptors to be where they are now: a good-but-not-great team that will never be more than a speed bump on the road from Cleveland to the finals.
On the surface, that looks incredibly defeatist, saying that it's okay not only to not win, but to not even care about not winning. But it also forces us to look at some uncomfortable truths about professional sports: How important is winning championships? After all, each of the "Big Four" pro-sports in the U.S./Canada have at least 30 teams, so on average, your favourite team will win less than once a generation. Even if you have a team in each league, you'll only get a championship about once every 8 years. The very purpose of sports will only be experienced ten times in an average lifetime. And too bad if you happen to be a Cubs/Leafs/Browns fan.
But lots of people get enjoyment out of sports in those years that they don't win. Even those many Cubs fans who lived their entire life during their World Series drought still seemed to enjoy their fandom. So that implies that there is something more to being a fan than actually winning.
And yet, I'd argue that while winning may not be necessary, the possiblility of winning is. It's like that old saying amongst Cubs fans, that our best season is always next season. At least, I think they used to say that - I just Googled that saying, and it just gave me pages of people talking about how their best season was last season. But the point is, I think you have to have the lure of potential. As a personal example, my Toronto Blue Jays have made it to the American League Champtionship series the last two years, without advancing further. This year, the team is off to a bad start, and as much as I try to stay optimistic, I have to admit that this incarnation of the team may be done, without winning a World Series. And I'm okay with that. I won't look back on these two years as wasted, even if no rings came from it. Granted, these years may have felt better because they followed a couple of lean decades, but having the thrill of knowing we might come out on top was enjoyment enough.
But I think that "might" was a necessary ingredient. I can't really imagine caring about going into a playoff run in which I knew all along that we had no chance. You'd have to console yourself with the knowledge that you won lots of games and made it to this level of the playoffs, even if this level is a formality. Similarly, the Maple Leafs are rebuilding, and everyone is excited. No one knows if it will result in finally breaking the team's half-century Cup drought. The team looks good, but it may well run into a dynasty developing in Edmonton that will stop it from winning it all. But the point is, we don't really know. They're going into it with what I, and most fans, believe is a reasonable shot at winning.
Of course, there's precedent for cheering for a hopeless team. Most of the soccer teams in Europe will never win anything in their respective countries. I mean, in the lower divisions, they can treat a promotion as their championship, but I don't really understand how fans of Stoke or Udinese spend their lives hoping for a Leicester-like miracle. Okay, there's a soccer example more personal to me: I still cheer for the Canadian men's team despite knowing that it will never win the World Cup without a really lucky plague outbreak. But I still entertain myself with the idea that they might outdo their previous best. Or just get back to where they once were. Or just get to the freaking next round.
But the important difference there is that it is concievable that they might improve. I - along with much of the world's population - know that my country will never win the World Cup, but I do believe that they can reach a new personal best. And that's the Raptors' dilemma. Now that they've got to best-non-superstar-team, it's hard to imaging that fans will be satisfied with never going further.
So now the team is stuck in an awkward situation teams sometimes find themselves in: wondering if anything can really be done to help. One might think that if you have a good team, you try to improve it, at least until your main contributors have gotten too old. But the fact is that sometimes a team is still good, still in their prime, but can't be improved. Maybe the budget is maxed-out, maybe the players needed to improve aren't available anywhere at any price. Or maybe the players have an incompatable set of talents and it just can't be balanced without wholesale changes. But you get into the situation where you can't imagine how your team can be any better than "good."
In the case of the Raptors (and probably a few other teams in the NBA) this is complicated by the presence of James and the stacked Golden State Warriors. Teams are realizing that not only is good not "good" enough, but "great" isn't much better. At this point, you need to be a generational superteam just to get into the finals. It's not just a question of improving the Raptors, but vastly improving them. Beyond that, there's the question of what good will it do to start over? If you traded/avoid-resigning players now and sign and draft a new team, and even if you do a better job this time, you'll still run into the immovable Lebron. Or even if he's too old by then, you'll run into the next player that launches tiresome discussions of whether he's better than Michael Jordan.
It's a problem basketball (or more specifically, the NBA) has had for a while now: a superstar is such a huge advantage that it seems like you can't build a contending team without one. Obviously, great players are an advantage in any sport, but in most it is at least possible to build a contending team with a lot of good players, but not one great one. But it's hard to find such teams in the history of NBA champions. People make fun of the Philadelphia 76er's and how they seem to be in eternal rebuild mode, but I totally understand. There's not much point in starting to build until you have someone to build around, so you might as well stay at the bottom until you get lucky with the draft.
The point is that the Raptors are in a weird existential funk in which they have to decide not just what personel moves they are going to make, but what the purpose behind those moves are. Deadspin's Giri Nathan make the somewhat-radical assertion that it's okay for the Raptors to be where they are now: a good-but-not-great team that will never be more than a speed bump on the road from Cleveland to the finals.
On the surface, that looks incredibly defeatist, saying that it's okay not only to not win, but to not even care about not winning. But it also forces us to look at some uncomfortable truths about professional sports: How important is winning championships? After all, each of the "Big Four" pro-sports in the U.S./Canada have at least 30 teams, so on average, your favourite team will win less than once a generation. Even if you have a team in each league, you'll only get a championship about once every 8 years. The very purpose of sports will only be experienced ten times in an average lifetime. And too bad if you happen to be a Cubs/Leafs/Browns fan.
But lots of people get enjoyment out of sports in those years that they don't win. Even those many Cubs fans who lived their entire life during their World Series drought still seemed to enjoy their fandom. So that implies that there is something more to being a fan than actually winning.
And yet, I'd argue that while winning may not be necessary, the possiblility of winning is. It's like that old saying amongst Cubs fans, that our best season is always next season. At least, I think they used to say that - I just Googled that saying, and it just gave me pages of people talking about how their best season was last season. But the point is, I think you have to have the lure of potential. As a personal example, my Toronto Blue Jays have made it to the American League Champtionship series the last two years, without advancing further. This year, the team is off to a bad start, and as much as I try to stay optimistic, I have to admit that this incarnation of the team may be done, without winning a World Series. And I'm okay with that. I won't look back on these two years as wasted, even if no rings came from it. Granted, these years may have felt better because they followed a couple of lean decades, but having the thrill of knowing we might come out on top was enjoyment enough.
But I think that "might" was a necessary ingredient. I can't really imagine caring about going into a playoff run in which I knew all along that we had no chance. You'd have to console yourself with the knowledge that you won lots of games and made it to this level of the playoffs, even if this level is a formality. Similarly, the Maple Leafs are rebuilding, and everyone is excited. No one knows if it will result in finally breaking the team's half-century Cup drought. The team looks good, but it may well run into a dynasty developing in Edmonton that will stop it from winning it all. But the point is, we don't really know. They're going into it with what I, and most fans, believe is a reasonable shot at winning.
Of course, there's precedent for cheering for a hopeless team. Most of the soccer teams in Europe will never win anything in their respective countries. I mean, in the lower divisions, they can treat a promotion as their championship, but I don't really understand how fans of Stoke or Udinese spend their lives hoping for a Leicester-like miracle. Okay, there's a soccer example more personal to me: I still cheer for the Canadian men's team despite knowing that it will never win the World Cup without a really lucky plague outbreak. But I still entertain myself with the idea that they might outdo their previous best. Or just get back to where they once were. Or just get to the freaking next round.
But the important difference there is that it is concievable that they might improve. I - along with much of the world's population - know that my country will never win the World Cup, but I do believe that they can reach a new personal best. And that's the Raptors' dilemma. Now that they've got to best-non-superstar-team, it's hard to imaging that fans will be satisfied with never going further.
Tuesday, May 2, 2017
Two Minutes For Inconsistency
The big issue in the NHL playoffs right now is the injury to Sidney Crosby. It had looked like Pittsburgh was headed straight to the final, carried by their star forward and another Washington collapse. But now Crosby has suffered another concussion, the fourth of his career. So even if Wayne Gretzky's scoring records are out of reach, at least he has a chance at Eric Lindros's concussion record.
The reaction to the injury has gone in two different directions. Some people regret seeing the game's top player sidelined during the most important games of the year. Others are telling anyone who'll listen that it was just an unpreventable accident, nothing could be done, that's hockey, you know. Of course, the latter reaction is the normal way of these things. At least half of a Canadian hockey analyst's job is trying to justify violence in the game and reassure everyone that today's controversial act was not deserving of a penalty/suspension/criminal charges/whatever.
But this incident seems different. Lots of the national hockey media has been genuinely shocked and troubled by this, and they're starting to break from the usual script. They aren't quite at the let's-do-something stage, but they're getting close to the I-don't-like-the-way-things-are stage.
But I'm not really on board with them. I'd love to see the skilled players show their talent as much as anyone, but I'm way past hoping that they'll be protected, and I'm just refreshed that some people in hockey nation are showing logical consistency. I don't agree with the talking heads brushing this off as "just a hockey play," but at least they have a world view that can actually exist. On some level they understand that if the game is going to be as violent as they want it, they're going to have to put up with star players getting knocked out of the game on a regular basis. Or possibly they even like the idea that injuring an opponent is a legitimate tactic. Whatever; at least they're not confusedly stammering questions about how this could happen, forgetting that a month earlier, the victim slashed a guy's finger off and everyone shrugged it off.
Essentially, this is another case where you have two opposing points of view which no one seems to notice are opposing. Of course, you just have to listen to people complain about politics for a while and you'll hear complaints that contradict themselves. The government should give to the poor and lower taxes. We should protect the environment and there should be less regulation. And now you can add, we should have a violent sport where no one gets injured. Looking at it this way, we should have new respect for American politics. It may seem terrible how two sides can be so antagonistic. But at least they've figured out that they disagree with each other; lots of disagreements don't even get that far.
The reaction to the injury has gone in two different directions. Some people regret seeing the game's top player sidelined during the most important games of the year. Others are telling anyone who'll listen that it was just an unpreventable accident, nothing could be done, that's hockey, you know. Of course, the latter reaction is the normal way of these things. At least half of a Canadian hockey analyst's job is trying to justify violence in the game and reassure everyone that today's controversial act was not deserving of a penalty/suspension/criminal charges/whatever.
But this incident seems different. Lots of the national hockey media has been genuinely shocked and troubled by this, and they're starting to break from the usual script. They aren't quite at the let's-do-something stage, but they're getting close to the I-don't-like-the-way-things-are stage.
But I'm not really on board with them. I'd love to see the skilled players show their talent as much as anyone, but I'm way past hoping that they'll be protected, and I'm just refreshed that some people in hockey nation are showing logical consistency. I don't agree with the talking heads brushing this off as "just a hockey play," but at least they have a world view that can actually exist. On some level they understand that if the game is going to be as violent as they want it, they're going to have to put up with star players getting knocked out of the game on a regular basis. Or possibly they even like the idea that injuring an opponent is a legitimate tactic. Whatever; at least they're not confusedly stammering questions about how this could happen, forgetting that a month earlier, the victim slashed a guy's finger off and everyone shrugged it off.
Essentially, this is another case where you have two opposing points of view which no one seems to notice are opposing. Of course, you just have to listen to people complain about politics for a while and you'll hear complaints that contradict themselves. The government should give to the poor and lower taxes. We should protect the environment and there should be less regulation. And now you can add, we should have a violent sport where no one gets injured. Looking at it this way, we should have new respect for American politics. It may seem terrible how two sides can be so antagonistic. But at least they've figured out that they disagree with each other; lots of disagreements don't even get that far.
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