Max Hall, CFL quarterback

Max Hall was the starting quarter back for three of my five years at BYU. His record was 30-6. I watched him throw some great passes to win big games. I also was present for a nightmare rivalry game on the road (5 INT, 1 Fumble lost), watched him track every intended receiver from the snap, and saw his top two receivers actually make great contributions in the NFL before being sidelined with injuries (Collie and Pitta). Hall's NFL career ended in glory--with a concussion on a daring play to make the end zone to lead his team to victory, and now he is settling out the twilight of his football career in Winnipeg. The following photos came from a search for Max Hall Winnipeg Blue Bombers and another Max Hall throws ball off goal post (He hit the goal post passing to a receiver in the end zone. And he hit it REALLY high). I hope you enjoy.

http://www.windsorstar.com/

o.canada.com/

www.winnipegfreepress.com

cbc.ca/

www.chrisd.ca

www.edmontonjournal.com

www.cbc.ca

www.windsorstar.com

www.chrisd.ca 

The Grey Cup

Let me first relate how I was bedazzled, upon moving to Calgary, by the Calgary Stampeders. I just happened to be moving to a city where the CFL team with the best record also called its home. Two weeks ago the ended their season on top and by so doing had home-field advantage in the Western Finals. Just so you know, this is amazing luck to walk into a winning sports team. At the time my sport-fan spirit was crushed by the average play of the 49ers, the sub-par play of the Bulls, another quick playoff exit for the A's, and a Sharks team that had just lost, like 4 of their last 6 games, and did not look nearly as super-human as they did in the first 8 games of the season. So I was excited to see them make it to the playoffs, but was not surprised when they promply lost to were steamrolled by the Saskatchewan Roughriders. 

The Stamps are one of eight CFL teams, the others residing in Vancouver, BC, Edmonton, AB, Regina, Saskatchewan, Hamilton, Ontario, Toronto, ON, Winnipeg, Manitoba, and Montreal, Quebec. The most prominent differences with American football are that there are 12 men on a 110-yard field, only three downs to get a first, legal forward movement before the snap by receivers (like the arena league), and the goal posts are positioned on the goal line of 20-yard deep end zones. The game is played a bit differently due to the rules, and I think it's entertaining, plus I like finding players from the states who I knew from their college ball days, like CJ Gable, and BYU's very own Max Hall (who led the Winnipeg Blue Bombers to a horrific season. In his defense, his O-Line was even worse than the one that protected him in his two-game starting stint with the Cardinals).
So last week we watched the Roughriders play the Hamilton Tiger Cats (affectionately known as the Ti-Cats) in the 101st Grey Cup. Yep, since 1909 when the University of Toronto Varsity Blues beat the Toronto Parkdale Canoe Club 26-6, the Grey Cup has been a staple of early winter in Canada (minus four years during The Great War). Courtney's dad watched the game with me with interest, rooting for Saskatchewan if for no other reason, just to see the West beat the East (it's a thing, a blog post should follow), because as far as I knew the only other game he had watched all year was the Stamps game a week before. Around town, though, people have the Stamps' logo on their car and on flags, just like the Flames (actually, due to the unfortunate season ahead for the Flames, I think I see more Stampeders logos). The city really supports their team, which is fun. For the Grey Cup kids on hockey teams sell tickets with game scores on them as a fundraiser (For a $2 ticket win $500 if your score is the endgame score, and so on). It most certainly is a part of Canadian culture, which I didn't think it would be.
Saskatchewan won this game quite easily behind a superb pass-rush and a record-breaking game by their running back. Maybe next year, Stamps.

Ice Dancing with the Stars

I have never seen Dancing with the Stars. Not my thing. One problem is the name. It seems a little bland to me. You know what sounds more awesome?

Yeee-yah. Pairing random celebrities with dancers. Meh. Pairing hockey players with ice dancers and pairs skaters. Sweet.  My Freshman year of college I saw the movie 'The Cutting Edge', which is the best figure skating movie I've ever seen (and the only one). It's about a hockey player and a figure skater who get fail in the '88 Olympics and train for the next one together. Starring Moira Kelly. Win. So Battle of the Blades was a no-brainer when we stumbled upon it. Judged by Kurt Browning, Jaime Sale (Canada's sweetheart ice dancer, robbed of a gold medal by the cheating French in 2002) and ex-NHLer P.J. Stock, and previous competitors including Theo Fleury, Val Bure and Claude Lemieux. I laughed so hard the first routine I saw. Because generally, when I think of male figure skaters, I think of this:

But on the show, I saw this:

http://www.cbc.ca/battle/skaters/amanda-scott

Big difference. Courtney said it's the most the Canadian thing on TV because 1) it's a rip-off of an American show and 2) it's on ice. The only thing that could make it more Canadian is if they had a female hockey player on the show. After a quick trip to google, we found that they did, and she won last year (paired with Sale's partner David Peltier, of course).
Only five couples left. Can't wait to watch next week. The most Canadian thing on television.

The Passion of Every Canadian

(I'm a little late with this one. Forgot to post it when I wrote it last week)

Every Wednesday night I go down to the church and play basketball. We don't talk about much, but after the game a number of guys go to Filo's down the street for appetizers. I went this week to get to know some of the guys and talk sports, but I found myself in over my head when the conversation ranged between Flames hockey and, well, Canadian hockey on a broader sense. There were at least 5-10 minutes we talked about other sports--baseball playoffs, the NBA (but mainly the fact that another Canadian could go as the #1 pick), and even a couple of other subjects, but other than that it was all hockey, and we were there for over an hour. And most of that hockey was about the Flames, although there was some discussion about who the Maple Leafs would decide on as their starting goalie

For years I have followed every major sport--baseball, basketball, football, soccer, and even hockey--and I have a pretty good knowledge of all of them. But hockey is definitely in the backseat to the others. Being from Northern California my favorite team growing up was the San Jose Sharks, who made the playoff nearly every year, but I wasn't as interested as I was the other sports, simply because no one else was. It wasn't televised or covered in the newspaper as much (that's right, I followed sports in the newspaper). The Sharks have been really good recently, but I honestly haven't followed the entire league other than standings. So to sit down and try to be part of a discussion about players on a team in a rebuilding season was beyond me, even if it was my new home's team.
TSN (the equivalent of ESPN) is the same way. I'm looking for football highlights on Monday and analysis during the week, and every time it takes the backseat to hockey. And the brunt of the coverage goes (deservedly) to the Cannucks, Flames, Oilers, Jets, Maple Leafs, Senators, Canadiens and Sidney Crosby, but I still get a whole lot more Sharks news than I did before I came here (like highlights of the team improving to 6-0-0 and 20 minute of analysis of this).
Out of all the cultural changes that I've had to and I foresee myself needing to adjust to, becoming a real hockey fan--the way I am a baseball and football fan--may just be the most difficult, or at least take the most work (although recycling isn't always easy for me to remember, either).