As a sports reporter with Wednesdays and Thursdays off, I often miss some televised pro games on weekends.
But for the few days a year when there are fantastic sporting events on during these midweek days – such as the first day of March Madness and the opening round of major golf tournaments – I relish the viewing opportunity while most other people are bound to their desks.
The biggest of these glorious days happens this week with the American Thanksgiving holiday and its wonderful triple-header of NFL action. Our neighbours to the south long ago decided to spend their family time watching football (and planning their 3 a.m. trips to Best Buy on Black Friday), so for that I am thankful.
I’ll be enjoying New England at Detroit, New Orleans at Dallas and Cincinnati at the New York Jets. Pretty nice little Thursday.
Huge congratulations to Airdrie’s Corissa Boychuk, as she became the first Albertan to be crowned world champion in the mini double trampoline event in France last week. Her gold medal caps an impressive year for the Airdrie Edge Gymnastics Club, as it officially opened its new facility at Genesis Place and hosted the Canadian Championships.
This local club is an example of how to properly run an amateur organization and it deserves the spolight Boychuk bestowed upon them.
After a perfect October, the Airdrie Thunder is in the midst of a three-game losing slide and has lost four of its last five, with the only win coming in overtime against the High River Flyers.
Although they played a great game against the league-leading Cochrane Generals on the road, Nov. 21, coming up one bad bounce short, the team is mired in a struggle since the departure of Andrew Bergmann.
Going 2W-4L since its leading scorer (who was at home this past weekend and spotted at the Thunder-Generals game) left for the Manitoba Junior A Waywayseecappo Wolverines, has obviously affected the team and has them looking for a new identity.
Captain Cache Dooleage and new leading scorer Travis Wallan have been outstanding, but the Thunder is in search of the clichéd “character win.” Luckily for them they’ll have an immediate chance at redemption against Cochrane – this time in the friendly atmosphere of the Ron Ebbesen Arena.
On Dec. 2, FIFA will announce the host countries for both the 2018 and 2022 World Cup. There should be little surprise, however, as the old ruling dictatorship will likely select the two obvious choices, after abolishing its short-lived continental rotation policy in 2007.
Despite the surprising success of the 2010 tournament in South Africa, the likelihood of a lesser-known football nation hosting either tournament is remote.
The bidding countries for 2018 are England and Russia, as well as joint bids from Belgium and the Netherlands and Spain and Portugal. Book your tickets for London.
For 2022 it is between Australia, Japan, Qatar, South Korea and the United States. If anyone can name the capital of Qatar, or even place it on a map, without looking it up – I commend you. It’s Doha, by the way.
With soccer growing by hundreds of fans each year in the U.S., and the tremendous success of the World Cup in 1994, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Americans named the hosts again. It would only make sense for FIFA to pick two mainstream English-speaking countries, but they are also the two standouts as far as interest and infrastructure are concerned – so in this case, they probably will be the right decisions.
Sources have informed me that the CFL season is finally coming to an end this weekend and that only two teams have a realistic shot at winning the league this year. Good luck to whoever they may be.
