Author: greggdrinnan

Scattershooting on a Tuesday night while wondering if I will get my shopping finished . . .

I am one of those people who quite enjoys Christmas music, especially the traditional stuff. Having said that, I don’t think it gets any better than this one. It’s Fairytale of New York, from The Pogues, featuring the late Kirsty MacColl.

I don’t know how many, if any, other businesses have done something like this, but check it out . . .

Clam

If you have ever wondered why he’s called The Sports Curmudgeon, here’s something he wrote after the Philadelphia Eagles beat the Washington Redskins, 37-27, on Sunday:

“After the Skins lost to the Eagles, one of the post-game talking heads declared that the ‘fight’ and the ‘grit’ shown by the Skins — despite the season being a total loss — meant that this game was a ‘moral victory’ for the Skins.  I have heard about ‘moral victories’ many times in the past; but Sunday’s label made me wonder:

“Is there such a thing as a ‘moral defeat’?

“If there is such a thing, are ‘moral defeats’ paired with ‘moral victories’? Or can ‘moral defeats’ exist on their own?

“If they are paired entities, should the Eagles chalk up Sunday’s win as a ‘moral defeat’?”

“This is the Year of the Pig, according to the Chinese calendar,” writes Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times, “though one could argue that Russian doping and the can-banging Astros make it seem like the Year of the Cheetah.”

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One more from Perry: “Prince Charles’ office released a statement saying 93-year-old Queen Elizabeth has no plans to step down at 95 ‘or any other age.’ In other words, she’s the Tom Brady of royals.”

I don’t know if you’ve noticed but there are a few Christmas movies on TV this year. . . . I checked out our PVR the other night. There were 41 items recorded. One Bob Dylan special. Two Hogan’s Heroes episodes. And more than 30 Christmas movies. . . . Christmas Vacation wasn’t among them. . . . Neither was Bad Santa.

Cotton

On Sunday night, F Gage Concalves of the Everett Silvertips won a game with a nifty move that resulted in a shootout goal against G Campbell Arnold of the Spokane Chiefs. Arnold later responded with a tweet for the ages . . .

Scott Ostler, in the San Francisco Chronicle: “Request to the International Olympic Committee: Let Russia compete as an official country at next year’s Olympics. Russia has been banned from the Tokyo Games due to its state-sanctioned program of doping. But IOC, if you let Russia compete, maybe their government will be too busy rigging the Olympics to rig the U.S. presidential election. #Priorities.”

Condolences to the family and friends of Ron Areshenkoff, who died on Sunday. He was 62. A native of Grand Forks, B.C., he played two seasons (1975-77) with the Medicine Hat Tigers, totalling 76 goals and 77 assists in 131 games. He was a second-round pick by the Buffalo Sabres in the NHL’s 1977 draft, but never played for them. His NHL experience amounted to four games with the Edmonton Oilers in 1979-80. . . . He had missed all of the 1978-79 season with a shoulder injury that required surgery. . . . The New England Whalers had selected him with the 11th overall pick in the WHA’s 1977 draft. . . . Areshenkoff was a financial advisor in Estevan, Sask., where he was quite involved in the minor hockey scene.

Dog

The price seems to be right in Victoria where there is, yes, hope for the Royals. Hey, I’m here all night and again later in the week. . . . The Victoria Royals, under president and general manager Cam Hope, have signed head coach Dan Price to a “multi-year” extension. No terms, including precise length, were announced. . . . Price is in his third season as the Royals’ head coach; they are 89-67-12 with him in charge. . . . He had spent one season as a Royals’ assistant coach, under then-head coach Dave Lowry, before moving up.

Meanwhile,  former WHLer Ryan Aasman is the new head coach of the AJHL’s Grande Prairie Storm. The Storm fired Matt Keillor, the head coach and associate GM, on Tuesday. . . . Aasman’s WHL career included stints with the Prince Albert Raiders, Seattle Thunderbirds, Swift Current Broncos and Edmonton Oil Kings. . . . Keillor had been head coach since being promoted during the 2016-17 season and had guided the Storm into the playoffs each of the past three seasons. This season, the Storm was 12-16-3 when Keillor was replaced by Aasman. He is in his first season with the Storm after coaching with bantam and midget teams in Lethbridge.

JUST NOTES: Is there a secret to keeping the top of the toothpaste tube neat and orderly as opposed to being a gooey mess? . . . The best part of watching the Detroit Red Wings playing the host Montreal Canadiens? The uniforms of two of the NHL’s Original Six. . . . Are you ready for the Arizona Coyotes as Stanley Cup contenders? . . . City council in Nanaimo is talking about a five-year financial plan. No, there isn’t any chatter about a new arena. . . . Hey, is John Shorthouse hockey’s best play-by-play voice? . . . As a fan of MLB, it’s great to have Joe Girardi back managing a team, and wouldn’t it be great to see his Philadelphia Phillies and his former club, the New York Yankees, in the World Series? It could happen. . . . Right now, the most-watchable player in the NHL is F Nathan MacKinnon of the Colorado Avalanche. . . . With their home arena unavailable due to equipment issues, the junior B Golden Rockets of the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League are playing out of Cranbrook these days. On Tuesday night, they dropped a 2-1 decision to the Kimberley Dynamiters before an announced crowd of 1,350 at Western Financial Place, the former home of the WHL team that now is the Winnipeg Ice. Meanwhile, the Ice dropped a 4-3 decision to the visiting Brandon Wheat Kings in front of a crowd announced as 1,621. . . . ICYMI, next season Western Financial Place will be home to the BCHL’s Cranbrook Bucks.

Kidney patients and their diet at this time of the year . . . Also, want to be part of an advisory group?

Diet is one of the things that often comes up in conversation when the Kamloops Kidney Support Group gathers. Because Dorothy has experienced pre-dialysis, peritoneal dialysis and a kidney transplant, she often is asked about any dietary restrictions she may have encountered along the way.

These days, with the transplant having occurred more than six years ago, her main concern is that any meat she eats be completely cooked. Yes, we regularly use a meat thermometer. She also is sure to heat any deli meet that she might eat because of the danger of listeria.

Anyway . . . with diet in mind, something that is front and centre at this time of year, here’s a note from June Martin of the Kidney Foundation of Canada, from her Dietitian’s Blog:

“Food is an important part of any holiday or celebration. As I was thinking about what to write about for my Christmas blog post, I was trying to think of how to articulate why food is so important to the holidays and to almost any celebration. For me, Christmas Eve is the smell of tourtiere (and my brother complaining about having to eat it) and Christmas day could never be the same without turkey and stuffing. And regardless of what holiday you celebrate, food plays a huge role. Preparing food and eating together is a part of almost every culture’s rituals for celebration.

“Unfortunately having kidney disease can make celebrating the holidays much more difficult! Trying to maintain family and religious traditions while balancing the sodium, potassium, phosphorus, protein and fluid in your diet takes planning and skill.”

There’s a whole lot more right here, including “a few noteworthy items to watch out for over the holidays.”

Mondays With Murray: Setting the Record Straight

Friday, December 2, 1988

Los Angeles Times Sports

Jim Murray

Setting the Record Straight

 

  Years ago, when I first got involved in it, I always thought the Heisman Trophy was for a guy who combined good football with good citizenship and scholarship — a kind of Frank Merriwell in modern dress. He didn’t need a helmet, he had a halo.

  Then, they gave it to some guy who went around robbing gas stations in the off-season and I was disabused of that notion.

  My colleagues patiently explained to me that the award was to go to the guy who was mondaysmurray2certifiably the best football player in the land, that morals were beside the point and no sentiment attached.

  So, I bought that.

We blew it, a lot of years. You all know how that goes. Jim Brown never won a Heisman. Otto Graham never won it. Hugh McElhenny finished eighth in the balloting. Sammy Baugh never got better than fourth. Gale Sayers never higher than 12th. Neither did Walter Payton — in fact, he got 14th. Lynn Swann never came close. Neither did Randy White. Eric Dickerson only finished third, John Elway second.

  So, I thought I would pay very strict attention and not throw my ballot away anymore. If a guy didn’t have to be moral, he at least had to be mighty. To ensure this, you had to give some attention to how the candidate might do in the pros. Would he validate your faith in him, would he truly prove he was the best of the best when he got into a league where, so to speak, everyone was Heisman caliber? 

  It’s no good to say this shouldn’t count because almost all the disappointed candidates I have cited above were those who went in the pros and proved the voters made a mistake. To avoid embarrassment, you have to look over the field more like a pro scout than a journalist.

  To do this, it seems to me, you don’t go by stats alone, you have to go by competition. Occasionally, very occasionally, a pro scout will find a genuine superstar playing in a league or conference that is several notches below his capabilities. But that was more true in the late, unlamented, days of segregation than it is now. Top college coaches know where the good players are, all right. They don’t miss many.

  Which brings me to this year’s Heisman. The groundswell seems to indicate that it may very well go to a running back at Oklahoma State, Barry Sanders.

  Now, I don’t know the young man. He may be a combination of Red Grange and O.J. Simpson. He may be all Four Horsemen.

  But I’m a little disturbed to find he has done some of his fanciest running against Tulsa, Kansas State, Kansas, Iowa State. Oh, yes, he did have a good day rushing against Miami. That’s Miami of Ohio, however, not to be confused with the man-eaters of Miami of Florida.

  Now, Miami of Ohio had an interesting season. Didn’t win a game. As a matter of fact, neither did another team on Sanders’ schedule, Kansas State. Kansas did better. It won one game. Missouri won three. Tulsa won four.

  Now, I hate to be picky, but when you’re running against two teams that didn’t win a game and another that won only one, and two others that won only seven between them, rolling up 300 yards an afternoon doesn’t seem that big a deal. The ball’s not that heavy.

  You have to wonder whether the guy’s good or the opposition isn’t. Can you win the Heisman ripping through a field of tackling dummies? Should you?

  Pee Wee Reese, the baseball player, once gave me the best one-sentence description of the importance of competition I ever heard. When the Dodgers arrived in L.A. to open the season in 1958, they had never even seen their new home field, the Coliseum. A breathless reporter greeted Reese, the captain of the Dodgers, as he led the team down the gangplank at the airport.

  “Mr. Reese,” he said, wide-eyed, “do you know a college team, the SC Trojans, played a game in the Coliseum yesterday and 11 home runs were hit?”

  Reese was underwhelmed. “Just tell me one thing, son — who was pitching?”

  The lesson was clear: It’s not what you do. It’s whom you do it against.

  Now, Barry Sanders has run against Nebraska and Oklahoma this season. No day in the park. But my candidates beat Oklahoma and Nebraska.

  Rodney Peete of USC, to pull the first name out of the hat, beat Oklahoma, 23-7. He played a schedule that included Oklahoma, Washington, UCLA and Notre Dame. Every team he played had won games and most of them had won more than they lost. Two of them were undefeated when he played them and one had lost only once.

  Troy Aikman of UCLA beat Nebraska when the Cornhuskers were undefeated and faced Washington and USC when they were undefeated. Isn’t a Heisman about winning? Shouldn’t it be? Rodney Peete put his team in the Rose Bowl two years running. Troy Aikman came within a touchdown of it.

  Barry Sanders has marvellous stats. Sometime this weekend, he will break the single-season rushing record of Marcus Allen (Heisman ’81). He has a record 35 touchdowns already. But he got an awful lot of those yards — and 17 of those touchdowns — against teams that won four or fewer games. (He also scored six against Nebraska and Oklahoma).

  He may deserve his Heisman. But I seem to remember a player named Art Luppino who regularly made the news service overnights with stories of records he kept setting by the week in the middle ’50s. But he played for Arizona when the Wildcats were competing in the Border Conference. The Heisman voters were unimpressed. So were the pros.

  A couple of years ago, there was a flurry of campaigning for a player at Holy Cross, Gordie Lockbaum. It was an audacious idea. But you can’t win the Heisman running wild against Rhode Island.

  Can you against Kansas State (0-11)? Apparently.

  Maybe Barry Sanders is the best college football player in the United States. Maybe he’s another Walter Payton. If he wins the Heisman, I sure hope so.

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Reprinted with the permission of the Los Angeles Times

Jim Murray Memorial Foundation, P.O. Box 60753, Pasadena, CA 91116

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What is the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation? 

  The Jim Murray Memorial Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, established in 1999 to perpetuate the Jim Murray legacy, and his love for and dedication to his extraordinary career in journalism. Since 1999, JMMF has granted 104 $5,000 scholarships to outstanding journalism students. Success of the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation’s efforts depends heavily on the contributions from generous individuals, organizations, corporations, and volunteers who align themselves with the mission and values of the JMMF.

Like us on Facebook, and visit the JMMF website, www.jimmurrayfoundation.org.

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A dozen years ago, Linda McCoy-Murray compiled a book of Jim Murray’s columns on female athletes (1961-1998). While the book is idle waiting for an interested publisher, the JMMF thinks this is an appropriate year to get the book on the shelves, i.e., Jim Murray’s 100th birthday, 1919-2019.  

Our mission is to empower women of all ages to succeed and prosper — in and out of sports — while entertaining the reader with Jim Murray’s wit and hyperbole.  An excellent teaching tool for Women’s Studies.

Proceeds from book sales will benefit the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization providing sports journalism scholarships at universities across the country.

Scattershooting on a Thursday evening while wondering if NHL teams are moving back to dump-and-chase game . . .

Scattershooting

Not in the Christmas spirit? Watch this . . .

In his weekly compilation, Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times included an obit of the week for football fan John J. Ford, 86, from the Minneapolis Star Tribune: ”Passed away surrounded by family on December 2nd after the Vikings allowed 17 unanswered points . . .”

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“A Las Vegas hospital billed the parents $2,659 to pull a tiny doll’s shoe from their child’s nostril,” Perry reported. “Imagine what it would cost to extract Antonio Brown’s foot from his mouth.”

Mozart

Congratulations and best wishes to Innes Mackie, who has been around the WHL since the Christmas Wish Book was used for shin pads, or maybe even earlier. . . .

And congrats, too, to Dan O’Connor, the play-by-play voice of the Vancouver Giants. While Mackie, the Tri-City Americans’ equipment guru, was working Game No. 3,200, O’Connor was calling No. 600.

ICYMI, Part 1: D Nikita Zadorov of the visiting Colorado Avalanche recently took out Montreal Canadiens F Jesperi Kotkaniemi, who was left with a brain injury. There wasn’t a penalty; there wasn’t a suspension. “So how could Zadorov get away with it?” Jack Todd writes in the Montreal Gazette. “Blame hockey’s pervasive knucklehead culture, which has survived well into the 21st century. The loudest of the braying donkeys in the barn may have been shuffled off to the Podcast Porch — but the brutal culture Don Cherry helped foster lives on.” . . . The complete column is right here.

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ICYMI, Part 2: Hockey Canada trimmed a bunch of players from the selection camp for its national junior team on Thursday. Yes, it has to be done. But why make these teenagers walk the media gauntlet after they’ve been chopped from the roster? Come on, Hockey Canada, be better than that.

Puppy

If the Kelowna Rockets continue to unload premium bantam draft picks and perhaps a prospect or two in the hunt for a Memorial Cup title in the spring, when they will be the tournament’s host team, you have to wonder if their aftermath will be more like the Prince Albert Raiders, Regina Pats or Swift Current Broncos. . . . The Raiders are 19-7-4 and atop the East Division after making a deal or three — but not selling out — that helped them win the WHL’s 2018-19 championship. The Pats are 7-18-3 after selling out as the host team for the 2018 Memorial Cup. The Broncos are 6-20-3 while still trying to recover after emptying the cupboard as they successfully chased the WHL’s 2017-18 title. . . . Over the past one season-plus, the Pats are 26-63-7 and the Broncos are 17-71-9. Neither team made the playoffs last spring and they won’t be there in 2020.

If you are wanting to attend the 2021 World Junior Championship, with games in Edmonton and Red Deer, you may want to see your banker about a loan. . . . Considering the political/labour situation in Alberta at the moment, it will be interesting to see how tickets sales play out. . . .

The New York Yankees signed P Gerrit Cole to a nine-year deal valued at US$324 million. . . . The Los Angeles Angels got 3B Anthony Rendon for US$245 million over seven seasons. . . . F Alexander Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals has hockey’s richest deal — US$124 million over 13 years. That was signed in January 2008. . . . According to an entry at Wikipedia, Ovechkin’s contract, the richest in NHL history, is tied for the 79th richest in sports history. . . . That’s what having a hard salary cap does for you.

I didn’t finish Michael Connelly’s latest book — The Night Fire — in time to get it into my Bookshelf series that was posted here earlier in the week. But if you’re a fan of Connelly’s Harry Bosch series, you’ll enjoy this one. It features the retired-but-not-retired Bosch and LAPD Det. Renée Ballard doing their thing on the streets of L.A. and area. Good fun, unless you’re the bad guys.

The Kelowna Rockets were in Prince Albert to play the Raiders a week ago. Hear from both coaches — Marc Habscheid of the Raiders and Adam Foote of the Rockets — after the game, and then decide who won . . .

Habscheid: “I don’t blame referees or anything, but there were three soft calls and they talked to (Foote) all night. I don’t know if they wanted to get his autograph, because he was a Stanley Cup champion or what, but it didn’t look good. They talked to him all night, (and Foote) ran line changes. He did whatever he wanted, and he slowed the game down, and they just let him do it. I don’t know if they wanted his autograph or what the deal was.”

Foote: “The refs were pretty good all night . . .”

Thanks to Darren Steinke for the quotes. His complete blog post is right here.

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One night later, the Rockets visited the Blades in Saskatoon. The Rockets tied the game, 3-3, late in the third period and won it in a shootout, much to the chagrin of at least one Blades fan.

That fan was on social media bemoaning — you guessed it! — the officiating. Someone else asked: “Who were the refs?”

I laughed out loud when I saw the response: “Hamilton and Foote.” That, of course, was in reference to Kelowna owner/president/general manager Bruce Hamilton, who also is the chairman of the WHL’s board of governors, and Adam Foote, the Rockets’ head coach.

SocialMedia

JUST NOTES: Judging by video clips from the Wayne Fleming Arena, there certainly seems to be a lot of room available on the benches for Winnipeg Ice home games. I realize that a lot of people choose to stand during the games, but you have to wonder how the empty seat-look sits with the WHL’s board of governors. . . . And, hey, if anyone has any photos of the Ice’s future home under construction feel free to send them along to greggdrinnan@gmail.com. . . . Was anyone watching Monday Night Football and not pulling for Eli Manning? . . . With the Giants on MNF and the Jets on Thursday night, was it enough to make you feel sorry for the football fans of New York City? . . . A tip of the hat to the Seattle Thunderbirds and Saskatoon Blades for a deal involving F Alex Morozoff. A native of Saskatoon, Morozoff was traded for a sixth-round pick in the 2023 bantam draft. “Alex and his family are currently dealing with a family medical issue,” Seattle GM Bil LaForge said in explaining the deal in a news release. “We have made this trade to help get Alex closer to his family in Saskatoon.”

Odelein doing ‘super well’ . . . Minor hockey coach has date with transplant surgeon

Today, we have a sports-themed posting for you, as we check on a retired hockey player, a minor hockey coach and a retired CFL/NFL player. . . .

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Lyle Odelein played three seasons (1985-88) with the WHL’s Moose Jaw Warriors. At the time, I was at the Regina Leader-Post, so I often was able to watch him play. He wasn’t an enforcer; he just didn’t believe in taking prisoners when he played. In fact, there may not have been a tougher player in the WHL at the time. . . . He went on to play 1,056 regular-season games in the NHL, spending time with the Montreal Canadiens, New Jersey Devils, Phoenix Coyotes, Columbus Blue Jackets, Chicago Blackhawks, Dallas Stars, Florida Panthers and Pittsburgh Penguins. . . . He retired in 2006. . . . Almost two years ago, Odelein contracted a blood infection. In the end, he needed a triple transplant — aortic valve, heart and kidney — to keep him alive. . . . Today, Odelein, 51, says, “Everything is going super well.” . . . Matt Cudzinowski of canadiens.com has more right here.

Stephen Gillis, a minor hockey coach from Vancouver, has a date for surgery. If all goes according to plan, he will get a kidney from friend Michael Teigan on Feb. 18. . . . You may recall that it was Gillis’s peewee team that mounted a campaign — ‘Help us help our coach’ — in January in the hopes of finding a live kidney donor for him. . . . “I am so grateful for Michael, he is truly a hero,” Gillis said. “I hope he is an example to everyone that one selfless act can change the world or save a life for another. I ask you all to consider being organ donors as well. I am one of the lucky ones. There are many who are still waiting for their Michael.” . . . There is more on this story right here.

Ben Williams is a big, burly man who once played defensive end for the CFL’s Shreveport Pirates (remember them?), the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings and the U of Minnesota Gophers. He also is proof that kidney disease isn’t at all selective. In his playing days, he was 6-foot-2 and in the neighbourhood of 290 pounds. But size doesn’t matter to this disease. . . . He was on the list for a transplant for six years and admits that he was starting to lose hope. But the wait ended late in November when he had a kidney transplant at the M Health Fairview U of Minnesota Medical Center. . . . What is really interesting about this story is that Williams is from Belzoni, Miss., which is located two hours from the nearest dialysis unit. He has a foundation that provides support for people with CKD and, through that foundation he bought eight mobile units for his hometown. . . . Adrienne Broaddus of KARE-TV has the story right here.

The Bookshelf: Part 3 of 3

Bookshelf

What follows is the third and final part of my annual Bookshelf piece, a thumbnail look at some of the books I have read in the past year. Hopefully, you will find something you want to read or to purchase as a gift. . . .

As for the 10 best books that I read this year, here they are, in alphabetical order (the last three are in the compilation that follows) . . .

Big Game: The NFL in Dangerous Times by Mark Leibovich

The Border, by Don Winslow

Bower: A Legendary Life, by Dan Robson

K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches, by Tyler Kepner

The Last Cowboys: A Pioneer Family in the New West, by John Branch

November Road, by Lou Berney

The Other Woman, by Daniel Silva

Scotty: A Hockey Life Like No Other, by Ken Dryden

Us Against You, by Fredrik Backman

We Were the Lucky Ones, by Georgia Hunter

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Past Tense — This is No. 23 in author Lee Child’s books that follow the adventures of Jack Reacher. It is a bit different in that for the first while it details two stories that run parallel to each other like side-by-side railroad tracks. As a reader you know that they are going to merge, you just don’t know when. Reacher, for his part, gets caught up in a tangled web when he visits Ryantown, Maine, in search of some family history.

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The Power of the Dog — This is the first of three amazing books that author Don Winslow has written about the U.S. government’s war on drugs. The Cartel and The Border, the latter having been released in February, are the others. Winslow obviously knows his subject inside and out, as he tells the story from the perspective of politicians and law enforcement people from both sides of the U.S./Mexico border, and from those inside the cartels and on the streets. It’s all amazing and gory, and, in Winslow’s hands, it all makes for a tantalizing read.

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The Quiet Game — Author Greg Iles knows his way around the southern U.S., especially Natchez, Miss. This was the first book to feature Penn Cage, a former district attorney in Houston turned best-selling author. In The Quiet Game, Cage is recently widowed and has a daughter, four-year-old Annie. He returns to his hometown of Natchez in an attempt to find some peace and quiet. Of course, he becomes embroiled in a situation that involves his father, who is a popular doctor, especially with the poor folks, an old love, her father and a whole lot more. I must admit that I quite enjoy the Iles-written books that I have read to date.

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The Reckoning — A war hero who is a gentleman cotton farmer in post-Second World War Mississippi kills the local Methodist preacher and doesn’t offer a defence. From there, author John Grisham takes the reader on quite a journey that includes the breaking apart of a family, a wife and mother in a mental institution, war, the Bataan Death March, lawyers, judges, life in small-town Mississippi and a whole lot more. In short, this isn’t your typical Grisham legal thriller; it’s more about historical fiction wrapped around everything else.

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Road to Gold: The Untold Story of Canada at the World Juniors — The biggest complaint about author Mark Spector’s look at Canada and the IIHF’s U-20 World Hockey Championship is that, at 220 pages, it isn’t anywhere near long enough. There are a number of entertaining anecdotes between the covers, and the opening chapter is especially interesting. It details the work done by Murray Costello, then the president of the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association, to get the three major junior leagues to buy into the program that would produce such golden results at this tournament. Spector also explains how the tournament came to be such a major part of TSN’s programming when it started out as the property of CBC.

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Scotty: A Hockey Life Like No Other — Oh, how I looked forward to reading author Ken Dryden’s latest work! Yes, it met all expectations. In fact, it exceeded them. This isn’t a book strictly about Scott Bowman, though. Rather, Dryden, who played goal for the Bowman-coached Montreal Canadiens at one point in his career, had Bowman pick his top eight teams in NHL history in chronological order. Dryden then alternates chapters as he tells Bowman’s story and then writes about one of those top eight teams. Great stuff and a whole lot of memories here.

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Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike — Phil Knight, the author of this book and the creator of Nike, was heavily in debt in his younger days, as the first part of this book details. By the end of the book, he is worth US$10 billion. This is the story of all that went on in between, and it’s a pretty good read — just don’t expect to read anything about the sins of Tiger Woods. Particularly interesting are the stories emanating from negotiations with Japanese and later Chinese businessmen. A highlight may be the evening in which Knight and his wife, Penny, were leaving a movie in Palm Springs, Calif., and encountered Warren Buffett and Bill Gates in the theatre lobby. I’ll let you try and figure out how much money was standing there and chatting.

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Slow Curve on the Coquihalla — This is subtitled A Hunter Rayne Highway Mystery, Book 1. Hunter Rayne is a former RCMP officer who retired following the suicide of a friend and now is a long-haul truck driver. When a fellow driver dies in an accident on the Coquihalla Highway, Rayne decides to look into it and, yes, it turns out to be murder. Living in Kamloops, which is at one end of the Coquihalla — the other end is near Hope — I found it most interesting to read a novel in which I was familiar with many of the landmarks that were mentioned. Yes, I will search out Book 2, written by R.E. Donald.

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Sold on a Monday — Author Kristina McMorris has written an engrossing novel based on a newspaper photo from 1931 in which two youngsters pose under a sign indicating that they are for sale. Ellis Reed, a newspaper writer with a camera, is looking for his big break. He takes one photo, then comes back for another. One thing leads to another and Reed ends up on a soul-searching journey. This is a fine period piece.

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Us Against You — This is the sequel to Beartown, Swedish author Fredrik Backman’s stunning novel about hockey and life in a small town. The sequel doesn’t disappoint and, yes, it is about hockey as life and one as a metaphor for the other. Pick up either of these books and you will find yourselves lingering as you read, enjoying them like a DQ Blizzard on a hot August day. Oh my, but Backman can write!

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We Were the Lucky Ones — Georgia Hunter spins an amazing story with her first novel, which really is a work of historical fiction. Thanks to a high school English project, Hunter, then 15, interviewed her grandmother about the family’s history. As Hunter learned, that history was quite something, and she was able to turn it into this book a few years later. As the Second World War began, the Kurc family was living in Radom, Poland. They were Polish Jews, so you can imagine what was in their immediate future, and it wasn’t pretty. In the end, though, as Hunter discovered, they really were fortunate. Trust me on this one . . . a huge recommendation.

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KKSG set for two meetings this week . . . The latest on Ferris and family . . . Meet a donor from Saskatoon

According to BC Transplant, 303 kidney transplants have been performed in the province in 2019, through Dec. 2. Of those, 109 involved living donors. There now are 600 people waiting for transplants.

If you are one of those people, or someone else who has been impacted by kidney disease, the Kamloops Kidney Support Group is here for you. We meet on the second Wednesday and the second Saturday of every month. We will gather on Wednesday, Dec. 11, 10 a.m., and Saturday, Dec. 14, 9 a.m., at Chances (Barside Lounge and Grill), 1250 Halston Ave.

The chances are good that in attendance will be: (a) someone who has had a transplant; (b) someone who is doing peritoneal dialysis while awaiting a transplant; (c) someone who is doing hemo-dialysis; (d) others in various stages of chronic kidney disease; and (e) people who have been there to support kidney patients through it all.

There isn’t anything formal about KKSG. We have coffee, maybe some breakfast, and talk about life and kidneys. You won’t get any medical advice, but we will be there to share our experiences and offer our support, whether you are pre-dialysis or on dialysis, a kidney donor or a recipient, a family member, or anything in between.

For more information, call Edna Humphreys at 250-376-6361 or Dorothy Drinnan at 250-573-2988.

Ferris Backmeyer has yet to turn three years of age, but she needs a kidney. Ferris, who is from Kamloops, and family members, including her Mom and Dad, Lindsey and Pat, have spent a whole lot of time at BC Children’s Hospital during her short life, and they were there again a short time ago.

Ferris has had trouble putting on weight and keeping it on, something that has slowed the process of getting a transplant.

Her mother, Lindsey, posted this update on Facebook after returning from Vancouver:

“They are already wrapping up her assessment for transplant. We will have our final meeting in early January. From there they will reach out to St. Paul’s (Hospital in Vancouver) to see if there are any living donors in the works!

“I got asked several times this trip about potential donors and the reality is I don’t know if there are any. Pat has a set back right from the first step with BC Transplant saying he might not hear anything for 5-7 weeks!! I’m not sure if anyone else has had a similar experience or not. It’s a yucky feeling knowing it’s completely out of our hands.

“The surgeon would prefer to have her grow more and specified he will be super picky on the kidney he takes for Ferris. He’s hoping for months of good growth. Size will be a major factor. This is unfortunate but will be critical for a successful transplant!

“A live donor is preferable as they typically do better and last longer, but also because the surgical date can be planned. They also typically happen faster than going on a deceased donor list.

“I can’t even think about how ‘getting the call’ would look like for our world, but know we will deal with it when the time comes. For now, I’m pretty jazzed to not have to go back for five weeks this time.”

Here’s hoping the Backmeyers can enjoy a quiet Christmas!

Have you ever wondered how women who already are dealing with chronic kidney disease are able to handle pregnancies? . . . Dr. Michelle Hladunewich, the physician in chief at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto, is The Miracle Worker; at least, that’s what many of her patients call her. . . . Cristina Howorun of citynews.ca has her story right here, and it’s a good one.

If you are from Pennsylvania, this tweet is for you:

I would like you to meet Marie Green of Saskatoon. She is another one of those special people who populate the world of kidneys; only she is there by choice. . . . Marie, 66, was going to give a kidney to a friend, Monica Goulet. They turned out to be a match, too, but Monica was found to have a better match in a nephew. She got one of his kidneys in March. . . . Marie, meanwhile, chose to go ahead and donate through the Kidney Paired Donation program and will have surgery later this month. “If I was going to do it for Monica, I can certainly do it for somebody else,” she told Jason Warick of CBC News. “You know, there are a lot of people out there. Even if I don’t know them, they’re somebody’s loved one. They’re somebody’s Monica.” . . . Warick’s story is right here.

The Bookshelf: Part 2 of 3

Bookshelf

With Christmas Day only a few shopping days away, here is the second of my three-part Bookshelf piece, an annual look at some of the books I have read over the previous 12 months. . . .

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The Down Goes Brown History of the NHL — This is an irreverent, cheeky and humorous look at the history of professional hockey’s premier league. Written by Sean McIndoe, who is known as Down Goes Brown on social media channels, it also includes all kinds of interesting tidbits. I mean, who remembers that Teemu Selanne’s first signed NHL contract was with the Calgary Flames?

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George Garrett: Intrepid Reporter — George Garrett, who retired 20 years ago, spent 43 years as a reporter with radio station CKNW in Vancouver. Through diligence and hard work, the native of Mortlach, Sask., became a legend of the big city airwaves. This is his story, as written by Garrett, but, more than that, it’s the story of a completely different media era. Garrett was at CKNW from the 1950s through the 1990s, when B.C. was a cauldron of major stories, and was on the scene covering many of them. This was in the days when there was competition among TV, radio and newspaper reporters, when major news created a real buzz. That was then; this is now.

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Jail Blazers: How the Portland Trail Blazers Became the Bad Boys of Basketball — There was a time when the Portland Trail Blazers were one of the NBA’s dominant teams. But it all started to unravel as general manager Bob Whitsitt, armed with billionaire Paul Allen’s money, chose to build a team that featured as much talent as he could acquire and let the coaching staff sort it out. Character? Chemistry? What’s that? The result of this chemistry experiment is between the covers of this book that was written by Kerry Eggers of the Portland Tribune. As you read this book, you will continually find yourself shaking your head and asking how anyone with experience in sports management would think something like this would work. The book does get dragged down in game-by-game details, but not in the off-court antics and dramatics.

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K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches — I am a huge baseball fan, and this is a terrific addition to any library. Author Tyler Kepner is The New York Times’ baseball columnist, and he tells the stories of 10 pitches — curveball, cutter, fastball, knuckleball, sinker, slider, spitter, splitter et al — through archives and interviews with baseball people. This is baseball — and baseball’s history — at its very best. I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed this one.

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The Last Cowboys: A Pioneer Family in the New West — This is a stunningly good book. John Branch, a New York Times writer who also wrote Boy On Ice: The Derek Boogaard Story, documents the lives of the Wrights, the Utah-based family whose men have come to dominate the world of rodeo, especially in saddle bronc. But this book is about so much more than cowboys competing in rodeos. It is about a family whose patriarch remembers the past while he lives in the present and wonders about the future. This book is just so, so good. I can’t recommend it enough.

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Light It Up — Peter Ash, a former Marine, finds himself in the Denver area for the third of author Nick Petrie’s books in the series. Yes, that means money and marijuana and a whole lot more. This is good escapism.

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The Long and Faraway Gone — After reading the terrific November Road, which appears later on this list, I went looking for more of Lou Berney’s writing and came upon this one. Oh, what joy! In this one, Berney writes of two people who are searching to find the past while wondering what is in the future. This is a book that really does wrap itself around you.

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A Man Called Ove — Written by Fredrik Backman, who also wrote Beartown and Us Against You, both of which are terrific, this is the story of Ove, a lonely man whois moving toward life’s end following the death of his wife. It is a disheartening and delightful read, all at the same time. Like the other two books, this one provides a number of snapshots of real life, as it deals with the issues of day-to-day living.

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Mightier Than the Sword — This is the fifth book in author Jeffrey Archer’s Clifton Chronicles, a sprawling saga that follows the lives of the Clifton and Barrington families. Yes, it is a terrific soap opera, but there are more than enough twists and turns, along with good people and bad guys (and gals), to keep a reader intrigued and involved. . . . Cometh The Hour — This is Book 6 of the seven-book series. It’s all good fun from a master storyteller. . . . The series concludes with This Was A Man. This is the stuff of which hit TV series like Dallas and Dynasty once were made.

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The New Iberia Blues — This is book No. 22 in author James Lee Burke’s series about Dave Robicheaux, who now is a sheriff’s deputy in New Iberia, the parish seat of Iberia Parish, in Louisiana. The characters are as fresh in this 22nd book as in any that preceded it, and Burke can write. Oh, can he! But be forewarned . . . this one isn’t for the faint of heart.

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November Road — This one made a number of “best of 2018” lists and with good reason. Using the assassination of President John F. Kennedy as something of a backdrop, author Lou Berney puts the reader in Frank Guidry’s hip pocket as he tries to stay alive. A fixer for the New Orleans mob, Guidry realizes his time is up, but he has no desire to go quietly.

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The Other Woman — This is a spy novel and it is a good one. A really good one. Author Daniel Silva weaves quite a story around Gabriel Allon, who is the chief of Israel’s secret intelligence service, and his search for a mole. Before Allon is done, the U.S., British and Israeli intelligence services appear headed to splitsville. No spoilers here, but this book contains a wonderful plot element. Great stuff! Highly recommended. . . . Also recommended: House of Spies, The Kill Artist, and The Rembrandt Affair, three more books by Silva that I read in the last while, each of them featuring Gabriel Allon.

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Tomorrow: Part 3 of 3.

Mondays With Murray: Butkus Speaks: ‘Bleepandblurkandgetthefreakouttahere!’

Happy 77th birthday to Dick Butkus!

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TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1971, SPORTS

Copyright 1971/THE TIMES MIRROR COMPANY

JIM MURRAY

Butkus Speaks: ‘Bleepandblurkandgetthefreakouttahere!’

  Dick Butkus is one of the leading pass receivers of the National Football League. He led all of the Chicago Bears’ wide receivers in passes caught Sunday against the Rams at the Coliseum. He caught two footballs on the fly and one on the ground.

  What makes Butkus so valuable is, he often catches a football before it is thrown. This is mondaysmurray2because, in addition to catching footballs, he also catches people who have them. He shakes them upside-down till they let go.

  Butkus has 19 lifetime receptions, which is remarkable since he wasn’t the primary receiver — or even the secondary — on any of them. Roman Gabriel completed 15 passes against the Bears on Sunday — four to Josephson, three to Snow, two each to Rentzel and Ellison, one to Smith, one to Masslowski and two to Butkus.

  Butkus recovered his 18th career fumble in the second quarter, and four plays later, the Bears had scored their only points of the day, three. He is the nearest thing to an offense the Chicago Bears have. Only the quarterback gets his hands on the football more than Dick Butkus.

  I thought I would go down to the locker room Sunday to interview this All-Pro wide receiver of the Bears, find out how he ran his patterns, what moves he put on the defenders (and one moving into Butkus’ zone hoping to catch a football has to be classified as a defender).

  I expected, of course, the conversation to be in sign language, and I brought a stalk of bananas, my bush hat, an elephant gun, and scribbled my will on the back of an envelope. It is inadvisable to approach Dick Butkus on the heels of a 17-2 loss in anything less than a reinforced Land Rover with a white hunter, armed, abroad.

  They say Fay Wray locks herself in her room when Butkus comes to town. And when he hits New York, the Army surrounds the Empire State Building while the Air Force buzzes it. Other players play in a face mask, with Butkus, it’s a muzzle.

  First of all, I’m happy to report it can talk. The rumor going around that Dick Butkus went through college on a vine, or that he was discovered by a scout for a Tarzan picture is not true. Neither is the report that he dresses by himself because his fur makes his roommate sneeze.

  I know it can talk because when I knocked on its dressing room it said clearly, “fuzzandblurkandgetthefreakouttahere!”

  I went over to safety man Ron Smith’s cubicle. “If I come flying out of there,” I said, pointing to Butkus’ locker, where shoulder pads, helmets, socks and cleated shoes came flying through the air accompanied by screams of rage, “will you call for a fair catch?”

  Smith grinned. “He’ll be all right as soon as he has his couple cups of blood,” he soothed. “You see, he hasn’t had his quarterback today yet.”

  “Does he shower or just lick himself clean?” I asked.

  “Listen,” said Smith, “I knew Butkus when I was a sophomore at Wisconsin and he was at Illinois and he was mean then and he was still mean as of a few minutes ago. He chews cement and spits out sidewalk.”

  I tapped on his cage again.   “Bleepandfreakandblurpandcrockandchickandcreep!” it roared. “Cantcha wait till I get dressed?”

  He came out of the shower a few minutes later. Mighty Joe Young would have run screaming up a tree. I gave a nervous laugh.

  “I didn’t recognize you without a quarterback under your arm,” I joked feebly. Butkus glared. He never smiles.

  “Listen, did you see what they’ve done out there with their little fairy plays? Those little end-around tippy toes, the chicken-trip stuff and then those twerps sneak back on you, those little elves give you a slip, and those bleep-censored officials say ‘one more word out of any of you and it’s 15.’ You call that football?! If I came out of here for a dance, I’d have worn pumps. Lemme comb my hair, fer cryin’ out loud!”

  A moment later, the defensive genius of the Chicago Bears, the last Monster of the Midway, stalked out with that rolling gait of his like a charging rhino. “Hey, Butkus!” yelled the crowd. “You got quarterback sticking to your whiskers.” “Hey Butkus, make yourself at home! Eat somebody!” “Hey, Butkus, do they let your cage on the airplane with the rest of the people?” “Hey, Butkus, do they bring your food on a plate or on a rope?”

  Butkus just glared. “Bleepandfleepandtweerpandfagandbagand,” he growled. “Girls’ football!”

  Someone nudged me in the ribs. “You’re lucky he’s in a good mood today,” he said.

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Reprinted with the permission of the Los Angeles Times

Jim Murray Memorial Foundation, P.O. Box 60753, Pasadena, CA 91116

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What is the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation? 

  The Jim Murray Memorial Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, established in 1999 to perpetuate the Jim Murray legacy, and his love for and dedication to his extraordinary career in journalism. Since 1999, JMMF has granted 104 $5,000 scholarships to outstanding journalism students. Success of the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation’s efforts depends heavily on the contributions from generous individuals, organizations, corporations, and volunteers who align themselves with the mission and values of the JMMF.

Like us on Facebook, and visit the JMMF website, www.jimmurrayfoundation.org.

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A dozen years ago, Linda McCoy-Murray compiled a book of Jim Murray’s columns on female athletes (1961-1998). While the book is idle waiting for an interested publisher, the JMMF thinks this is an appropriate year to get the book on the shelves, i.e., Jim Murray’s 100th birthday, 1919-2019.  

Our mission is to empower women of all ages to succeed and prosper — in and out of sports — while entertaining the reader with Jim Murray’s wit and hyperbole.  An excellent teaching tool for Women’s Studies.

Proceeds from book sales will benefit the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization providing sports journalism scholarships at universities across the country.

The Bookshelf: Part 1 of 3

Bookshelf

For the past number of years, I have posted thumbnails of some of the books I have read over the previous 12 months. So here were are again. Perhaps this will help with yourChristmas shopping or your Christmas list. . . .

What books are on my Christmas list?. . . The Grim Reaper, by Stu Grimson . . . Rob Vanstone’s 100 Things Roughriders Fans Should Know and Do Before They Die. (No, I’m not a Roughriders’ fan, but I spent 17 years at the Regina Leader-Post, so I have some interest there.) . . . The Irishman, by Charles Brandt. It first was published as I Heard You Paint Houses. (Watching The Irishman on Netflix is on this week’s list of things to do.) . . . Blowout, by Rachel Maddow . . . Where The Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens . . .

Anyway . . . here’s the first of three parts of this year’s Bookshelf . . .

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Basketball: A Love Story — This book is the offspring of a 20-hour,10-part TV series produced by ESPN. There were many hours of interviews that didn’t make the cut, so it remained for authors Jackie MacMullan, Rafe Bartholomew and Dan Klores to put together a wonderful oral history of basketball. It is amazing to hear so many stories told by the women and men to whom the game has meant so much. I really, really enjoyed this book.

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Before the Lights Go Out: A Season Inside a Game on the Brink — What, if anything, is wrong with the state of hockey in Canada? If there is a problem, is it due to falling registration numbers that can be blamed on the high cost of getting children involved in the game? Why aren’t more new Canadians becoming involved at a young age? Why was there such a backlash when Hockey Canada decreed that young players were going to have to play cross-ice? Author Sean Fitz-Gerald tries to get to the root of the situation in this book. Unfortunately, this is more like two books in one. He spent the 2017-18 campaign with the Peterborough Petes, and the time he spent with the OHL club as it struggled through an abysmal season takes up a lot of the book. That doesn’t leave nearly enough space for everything else, a lot of which is focussed in the Peterborough area. Still, this is an interesting read in that it does examine some issues facing Hockey Canada.

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Big Game: The NFL in Dangerous Times — If you enjoy it when someone pokes the bear, you will absolutely love this book. Author Mark Leibovich is a huge fan of the New England Patriots, but that doesn’t stop him from having fun at the expense of the NFL, its commissioner, the owners and THE SHIELD. This is good stuff! . . . If you don’t believe me, The New York Times called it “a gossipy, insightful and wickedly entertaining journey through the N.F.L. sausage factory.” It is all that, and more.

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The Blue — Who knew that a book about porcelain could be so engrossing. Author Nancy Bilyeau impeccably researched novel involving spying, murder, kidnapping and, yes, love in the 18th century is gripping. England and France are at war and porcelain is a commodity that is much in demand. Genevieve Planché is the main character — she was born in England but is of Huguenot descent — and she often finds herself torn as the story twists and winds its way from England to France. I quite enjoyed this work of historical fiction.

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The Border — This is the best fiction book I read in 2019; in fact, this is the best read I have had in a long, long time. It is the final book in author Don Winslow’s trilogy about the American government and its war on drugs. The trilogy began with The Power of the Dog. Then came The Cartel. . . . Both books were excellent. The Border, though, is better than that. There are times when you wonder if what you are reading really is fiction, because a lot of it certainly seems factual. Winslow spent more than 20 years researching and writing; he knows his subject and it shows.

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Bower: A Legendary Life — I read this one early in 2019 — yes, it was a Christmas gift — and I guaranteed at the time that it would be on my top 10 list for the year. It didn’t turn me into a fan of the Toronto Maple Leafs, but it introduced me to Johnny Bower, one of the NHL’s greatest goaltenders who, more importantly, was a kind and gentle person, a true family man and a lover of life. Author Dan Robson does a wonderful job of telling Bower’s story. You can only shake your head in disbelief at the conditions and wages that were part of the lives of Bower and so many other players who were involved in the NHL pre-1967, or, worse, were stuck in the minor leagues. . . . One note about Bower: The Toronto-area community in which he and his wife Nancy ended up living in named a park after him. Bower would visit it daily . . . and pick up any litter that was left laying around.

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The Browns Blues: Two Decades of Utter Frustration: Why Everything Kept Going Wrong for the Cleveland Browns — How bad have the Cleveland Browns been? So bad that author Terry Pluto’s book needed two subtitles. Pluto, a long-time columnist with the Cleveland Plain Dealer who has a number of books to his credit, explains why fans of the NFL team have suffered such pain and anguish since 1999. Why 1999? Because that’s when the NFL returned to Cleveland after the original Browns had departed for Baltimore following the 1995 season. Get into Pluto’s book and you’ll find yourself doing a lot of head-shaking because he doesn’t hold back when it comes to pointing fingers.

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Cemetery Road — Greg Iles has done it again. The author of the southern U.S.-based Natchez Burning trilogy is back in Mississippi and, again, he has produced a gem. Since leaving his hometown of Bienville, Miss., Marshall McEwan has become an all-powerful journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winner based in Washington, D.C. Now, with his father dying, he’s back in Bienville to run the family newspaper. It doesn’t take long before he’s embroiled in, well, just about everything you could imagine — from love to hate, from politics to murder — and is faced with making one decision after another.

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The Cold Dish — I have watched numerous episodes of Longmire, the TV series based on books written by Craig Johnson. This is the first of the Longmire books and it ended up being one of the series’ episodes. I quite enjoy the TV series, but I have to tell you that I liked this book a lot more, if only because Deputy Sheriff Victoria (Vic) Moretti is a whole lot saltier and sassier on the written page than on a TV screen.

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A Dedicated Man — Author Peter Robinson has written more than two dozen crime novels featuring Inspector Alan Banks, who left the police force in London for a quieter life in the Yorkshire Dales in the north of England. The first of these books — Gallows View — was published in 1987, and the latest — Many Rivers to Cross — in 2019. . . . A Dedicated Man came out in 1988 and is the second book in the series. . . . Somehow these books had escaped me until earlier this year. I quite enjoyed my initiation and certainly will be back for more.

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Tomorrow: Part 2 of 3.