Prior to getting knocked up and having a baby pulled forcibly from her uterus, my dear, sweet Karen was an avid runner. It began with a decision to run a half-marathon, and turned into an actual love of putting one foot in front of the other at a reasonably quick place.

Pregnancy ended the regular running. Recovery and a daughter to look after kept it away after the pregnancy. But now? Now she is ready to get back in it.

It was time for new running gear.

A family trip was taken to the sports shop. Karen tried on new running gear, while Maggie and I explored. What would Maggie like? What would she be interested in?

Rugby? Soccer? Balls ignored.
Cricket? Tennis? No interest.
Darts? I kept her away from the darts.

Ping pong?

She grabbed hold of the paddle, and would not let it go. It had to be forcibly removed. Maggie, it seems, is bound and determined to be the greatest ping ponger of her generation.

We are a mere seventeen months away from the Olympics being in London, and you know what that means?

No?

It’s time for the people living near the Olympics to apply for the ability to buy tickets to the events.

There are issues with the system that we are trying very hard to ignore, because they are not what we wish to talk about today. For instance, only Visa customers are allowed to buy tickets to the Olympics. No Visa? Who cares how many of your tax dollars are going into the event, you are not allowed to be overcharged to watch it!

See? We have digressed already.

What we intend to discuss today is the events to which we intend to apply.

The determining factor

The key to enjoying a sporting event is to care about the outcome. If you are to watch something, and not care about the outcome, either you need to care deeply about the sport, or it needs to be spectacular. Preferably both.

Of course, the Olympics have built-in caring — I just need to look for the person wearing the maple leaf, and cheer for them. But it is easier when there is some sort of a connection to the athletes. This is why the American basketball and Canadian hockey teams enjoy so much popularity. The individuals on those teams are household names.

So while there are some events that we know and care deeply about, and can watch without caring about the outcome (hello, fencing), and others which provide eye candy (beach volleyball) or we expect are spectacular (we cannot help but think that live gymnastics will be breathtaking in person), nothing beats the emotional thrill of feeling that the outcome matters. Even moreso when the outcome is not in doubt.

Our picks

With that in mind, our choices for our ballot are made:

1. Men’s Triathlon: A fellow we played hockey with in our childhood happens to be a world class triathlete. He has two Olympic medals, currently, and it will be a blast to cheer him towards a second Olympic championship — or even just to a bronze medal, to complete his collection.
2. Women’ Foil (fencing): It seems unlikely that I will have any clubmates — past or present — fencing in any other fencing discipline, but there is a good chance that one or two of my training partners will be fencing in women’s foil. This lands behind triathlon, as there is some competition for the spots on the team, and the event is dominated by the Italians — it would be a huge upset should Britain pick up an Olympic medal in the event.
3. Men’s Foil (fencing): No clubmates here — perhaps even no Canadians — but Britain has a strong men’s foil team, and it seems likely that some of the faces on it will be people that I face in tournaments from time to time. It could be exciting.

Other fencing events, gymnastics and basketball get honourable mentions, in that order. I know the big names in fencing, and am familiar with the sport, as well as knowing the smaller names and faces from Britain and Canada. I want to see how incredible the gymnastic events are when seen in person. And there is a degree of familiarity with the names and faces in the basketball event.

Will I win the right to put too much money on my Visa card, though?

That’s a different story altogether.

Dear Mr. Bettman,

The Big Bad Blog regrets to inform you that we have decided to suspend the NHL indefinitely in the wake of Zdeno Chara’s hit on Max Pacioretti.

Please note that it is not the brutal nature of the hit, delivered illegally by Mr. Chara, that is the reason for the suspension. Nor is it the resulting injuries to Mr. Pacioretti — including a concussion and broken neck — which have ended his season and possibly his career (though thankfully not his life).

Instead it is the honest and nearly accurate assessment of your employee, Mike Murphy, who declined to suspend Chara for the infraction in question.

This was a hockey play.

Here at the Big Bad Blog, we could not disagree more.

This is entertainment:

This is sport:

This is neither:

However, the National Hockey League considers this to be a “hockey play”. Which makes it an NHL hockey play.

It is not entertaining. It is not sporting.

While Mr. Chara almost certainly did not intend for Mr. Pacioretti’s neck to be broken, he almost certainly did intend to hurt him. It was not a legal hockey hit. This was not taking a penalty to avoid the Montreal player getting a breakaway, resulting in an accidental injury.

Mr. Chara was trying to hurt Mr. Pacioretti, rather than stop him from getting to the puck. This was about making Mr. Pacioretti hesitant the next time. The means used were simply the most convenient available — forcing a high speed, head-first collision.

And this is an NHL hockey play.

So, Mr. Bettman, your league is suspended until this sort of play is no longer considered a hockey play. This might be a bit hollow, coming from London, but we will not be making our annual Stanley Cup playoffs trip to the pub that shows the games. We will not repeatedly attend the establishment, rewarding them for paying for a channel that pays for the rights to show NHL games.

If our beloved Toronto Maple Leafs not only miraculously make said playoffs, but miraculously end up as champions, we will still consider them to be in a drought since 1967.

If the Vancouver Canucks’ season translates into playoff success and they win the Stanley Cup, we will not consider the trophy to have been won by a Canadian team for the first time in nearly twenty years.

The 2010-11 season does not count. And if you do not change the rules and culture of the game such that a hit like Mr. Chara’s is not a hockey play in the NHL, next season will not count, either.

We cannot continue to watch and support the game while blaming Mr. Chara for Mr. Pacioretti’s injuries. Your employee said it himself — he was just playing the game.

Sincerely,
Mr. Topp

A large number of the people who know me probably don’t know that I’m a sports fan.

It is understandable. They don’t come over and find sports on the television. They don’t see me walking around wearing sports-themed clothing. They don’t catch me checking game scores when I should be doing something else.

All of this is because I don’t watch sports very much.

For me, in order to be interesting as a viewer — participation is a different matter entirely — a sporting event must fulfill two of three criteria.

1. It must be live, not televised.
2. I must care about the outcome.
3. The game/event must be an important one to those playing.

Let us take men’s professional hockey as an example.

In September every year, each team in the National Hockey League comes together. They begin playing pre-season games, which even they concede are not important. Then, from October through April, each team plays eighty-two hockey games. These eighty-two games are used to determine which sixteen teams (of thirty total) qualify to play in the championship tournament.

Over May and June, each qualifying team plays up to twenty-eight further hockey games to determine the league champions. These games are grouped into sets of seven head-to-head games between two teams, with a team losing four such games being eliminated.

Hockey’s format is not unique — it is, in fact, fairly common.

Rabid hockey fans watch each of those eighty-two qualifying games breathlessly, measuring their performance against other teams to see if they are in the top sixteen. They feel that every game is important.

I don’t. I simply cannot. More than half the teams qualify. Even the first round of the playoffs is rarely interesting enough for me to tune in on a television set — though at least in hockey the bad teams have a chance against the good teams in the first round. In some sports (I’m looking at you, basketball), those teams that barely qualify win so rarely that their inclusion in the playoffs looks like nothing more than an excuse to sell additional tickets.

I will watch a qualifying game if the team I cheer for is on the bubble towards the end of the qualifying schedule. I will watch a qualifying game if it is live and includes the team I cheer for. These each meet two of the three criteria.

Also, in sports these are called “regular season games” and not “qualifying games”. That is just marketing spin. They would have a hard time selling tickets if they were being blatant about it.

Which brings us to baseball.

Baseball is the worst offender of all sports. Baseball teams play a whopping 162 qualifying games every year. Once the baseball season begins, they play almost every day — ensuring that the athletes are anything but fresh, and surely lowering the quality of their performance. This combines to make a “regular season” baseball game a grind.

But yesterday the World Series began. The final set of games that will determine 2010′s champion.

I was expecting to be excited about these games. In the National League corner, the Philadelphia Phillies looked strong heading into the playoffs. The Phillies team boasts my favourite player — former Toronto Blue Jay Roy Halladay.

While I am not traditionally a Phillies fan — in fact, one of my favourite baseball memories involves the Phillies as the “bad guys” — I am happy to cheer for Halladay. So I had a team to cheer for.

In the American League corner, the New York Yankees looked poised to once again return to the World Series. I hate the Yankees, which pretty much only means that I pay attention to baseball and am not from New York. (As an aside, do any other ex-pats wonder about those people who wear Yankees hats, but — as they are British — clearly do not watch baseball, and probably cannot name a Yankee player? I do. They do not know the sin they commit.)

A team to cheer for. A team to cheer against. Crowning a champion. Yes, this year looked like a good year for watching the World Series as best I can from across pond.

And then the unthinkable happened. The Yankees lost to the Rangers. Despite the Yankees being a team I cheer against, and despite them losing, I felt a little robbed.

Then the Phillies lost to the Giants. And suddenly the World Series is being played between two teams I couldn’t care less about, either way.

So good look, baseball Giants and Rangers. I won’t be watching.