There is a reason why ESPN has rated Toronto the worst sports city in North America! But that doesn't stop columnists from bloviating about how hard done by all the Tronnies are.
Let me explain why:
Toronto is a city that believe that they are something more than they really are. It's almost like Los Angeles in the United States. They are so full of themselves that they think they are God's gift to the world, a very arrogant attitude. Toronto needs to understand a few things.
Toronto is not a sports town. It's a Maple Leaf town. Yes, they love their hockey, but the love the Leafs more. They love them so much that they keep coming back for more and more disappointment. It's a fetish worse than the Boston Red Sox. But then, Boston has the Bruins, the Celtics and the New England Patriots, all of which they have no problems, attendance-wise.
But look beyond the Leafs, and you get a different story. Apart from Toronto FC, who are playing on a smaller capacity field, neither the Blue Jays, the Raptors, and not even the Argonauts can even get asses in all their seats the way the Leafs can. And don't even get me started about that failed project called "the Buffalo Bills in Toronto," which only showed that as long as the team is winning, Toronto will support them. But even at that, a win doesn't necessarily guarantee support.
When it comes to anything other than the Leafs, Toronto fans are nothing more than a bunch of bandwagon jumpers who are there only in fairweather, but lose a few times and down goes the attendance. And the most maddening aspect of the whole thing is that no matter how bad the Leafs get, there will always be a capacity crowd for every game.
And they surely have shown that they couldn't support an NFL franchise if there ever was one. And while the NFL is still trying to find its way back into Los Angeles, there are still other cities in the U.S. that are clamouring for the opportunity, including Oklahoma, Memphis, Las Vegas, Portland (Oregon) and even Sacramento.
Toronto was rated the worst city for a reason. They don't generally support their major sports franchises the way other cities in the same boat do. Toronto, as much as they'd like to deny it, is not the center of the universe. It is a black hole where sport franchises go looking for gold, but only find disappointment.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Good Question!
Letter writer Jeremy Deeks asks:
Since when is normalizing homosexuality and acting to end discrimination a bad thing?
Care to explain, Mr. Hudak?
Since when is normalizing homosexuality and acting to end discrimination a bad thing?
Care to explain, Mr. Hudak?
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Euthanizing the Poor and Defenseless?
When is the murdering of an innocent man not murder?
It's when the murderer is the state, of course!
RIP, Troy Davis.
It's when the murderer is the state, of course!
RIP, Troy Davis.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Remembering 9/11
It was a Tuesday morning when I was in the elevator on the way up to the floor where I worked in Toronto. It was a building on Queen Street, a few steps away from Bay Street. As I was going up to my floor, there it was on the screen. "Plane hits World Trade Center."
While a plane crashing into a building wasn't the spectacle the situation became, especially knowing that a plane did crash into the Empire State Building decades before this moment, it all changed when I just got into my office and watched a plane strike into the other building. That's when it started becoming surreal. The eyes of everyone working at my office had their eyes glued to the TV set.
The reason why we had these TV's was because I worked for a clearing facility for the Montreal Exchange and Winnipeg Commodities Exchange, and we kept our eyes on the stock action since that was how we got an indication of how the night jobs would go. The more action we saw, the more indicators we got of margin calls on the way.
So there we were watching, and then the unthinkable happened. WTC2 came crashing down and within the half hour, WTC1 followed. I didn't know what to think. I can't think of a more horrific moment that I experienced since the Challenger disaster of 1986. And it all changed from tragic to absurd as WTC7 went down later that day and other buildings became condemned.
Washington was hit at the Pentagon, but we weren't sure what hit it and how. And United flight 93 became the stuff of legends and folklore.
Either way, the world around us changed. Unfortunately, that change was not for the better.
So began our descent into the darkness of the years that would encompass the presidency of George W. Bush. It ceased to be a catastrophe and became more of a marketing ploy. Every time someone questioned any invasion of privacy, 9/11 became the scapegoat. Every muslim that was harassed on our home soil and those harassed while travelling abroad were all subjected to atrocities, all in the name of 9/11. It became a campaign slogan for the presidential election in 2004. And it became an opportunity. The dogs of war would eventually be let loose in a country with tricky terrain, pit falls and a fractious society mired in tribalism, with no clear leader. It was the beginning of the invasion of Afganistan. It would take them 10 years to find the person they believed to be the mastermind. But it was more than an excuse to invade Afganistan. It became an excuse to go get Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
Eventually, we'd find out that this tragedy became a catalyst for a group called the Project for a New American Century, which saw this as an opportunity to control the Middle East. But rather than a full-fledged military operation, it became a profiteering expedition for companies like Haliburton, GE and a private mercenary group called "Blackwater".
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman rightfully looked at that day as a moment of great shame. We allowed the tragedy to be convoluted and manipulated to meet the ends of the powers that be in Washington. Our country sent troops into harm's way to appease our neighbours in the south, to find that nothing was really accomplished other than propping up the legitimacy of some puppet leader of the country.
Sadly, I can't name a single positive accomplishment from this whole tragedy. It has destroyed more lives and healed even less. That is the legacy left behind by 9/11.
While a plane crashing into a building wasn't the spectacle the situation became, especially knowing that a plane did crash into the Empire State Building decades before this moment, it all changed when I just got into my office and watched a plane strike into the other building. That's when it started becoming surreal. The eyes of everyone working at my office had their eyes glued to the TV set.
The reason why we had these TV's was because I worked for a clearing facility for the Montreal Exchange and Winnipeg Commodities Exchange, and we kept our eyes on the stock action since that was how we got an indication of how the night jobs would go. The more action we saw, the more indicators we got of margin calls on the way.
So there we were watching, and then the unthinkable happened. WTC2 came crashing down and within the half hour, WTC1 followed. I didn't know what to think. I can't think of a more horrific moment that I experienced since the Challenger disaster of 1986. And it all changed from tragic to absurd as WTC7 went down later that day and other buildings became condemned.
Washington was hit at the Pentagon, but we weren't sure what hit it and how. And United flight 93 became the stuff of legends and folklore.
Either way, the world around us changed. Unfortunately, that change was not for the better.
So began our descent into the darkness of the years that would encompass the presidency of George W. Bush. It ceased to be a catastrophe and became more of a marketing ploy. Every time someone questioned any invasion of privacy, 9/11 became the scapegoat. Every muslim that was harassed on our home soil and those harassed while travelling abroad were all subjected to atrocities, all in the name of 9/11. It became a campaign slogan for the presidential election in 2004. And it became an opportunity. The dogs of war would eventually be let loose in a country with tricky terrain, pit falls and a fractious society mired in tribalism, with no clear leader. It was the beginning of the invasion of Afganistan. It would take them 10 years to find the person they believed to be the mastermind. But it was more than an excuse to invade Afganistan. It became an excuse to go get Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
Eventually, we'd find out that this tragedy became a catalyst for a group called the Project for a New American Century, which saw this as an opportunity to control the Middle East. But rather than a full-fledged military operation, it became a profiteering expedition for companies like Haliburton, GE and a private mercenary group called "Blackwater".
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman rightfully looked at that day as a moment of great shame. We allowed the tragedy to be convoluted and manipulated to meet the ends of the powers that be in Washington. Our country sent troops into harm's way to appease our neighbours in the south, to find that nothing was really accomplished other than propping up the legitimacy of some puppet leader of the country.
Sadly, I can't name a single positive accomplishment from this whole tragedy. It has destroyed more lives and healed even less. That is the legacy left behind by 9/11.
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