The First Lady and I had a visit to the hospital this week. Don’t get all alarmed folks it wasn’t for any medical purpose. In actual fact it’s because we like the cafeteria food so much we decided we would dine there. Nothing says high class like the ol’ cafeteria. Okay, I’m not being totally truthful. Our visit to the hospital was to acclimatize ourselves with the hospital before we come in to deliver Baby Siemens (expected time of arrival is August 10…..by that time the cafeteria should be featuring some burritos, can you say big score…but I digress).
The inital portion of the tour is definitely designed for father of the baby. The tour dealt with the logistics of where to park and where to drop your wife off when she’s in labour. I was paying very good attention to the details that the nurse was giving us because I don’t want to screw that portion of the birthing moment up. But I know when it comes down to it The First Lady will be driving the car and dropping me off while I’m hyperventilating and breathing into a brown paper bag. While we were on this portion of the tour I was privy to witness an actual woman in labour. The nurse was showing us the area in which we should drop our wives off and there was a lady standing by the door in some obvious discomfort. I initially thought she might have had the tacos that were featured on the menu at the cafeteria, but my quick acting senses finally decided that she was experiencing labour. It was kind of freaky. Like Pat Dunn….I’m not going to lie to you.
After being freaked out by the in-labour lady we continued on our tour. We went into the birthing room. The nurse explained the whole process to us and pointed out everything in the room. I was feeling a little queasy. It might have been a combination of the in-labour lady or the realization of “what are we in for?” hitting me. After a few deep breaths I was able to maintain my composure and the tour continued on.
We were on the tour with several other couples who were experiencing their first pregnancy’s as well. Initially one would’ve thought this would be a comforting situation, but like in many situations, I was thoroughly annoyed with a few members on this tour. There was a couple that I would like to refer to as the Mean Street Posse. I refer to them as this for no other reason then they remind me of this wrestling group from the WWE awhile back. I guess I wasn’t really annoyed with the wife as much, but the husband was a piece of work. (I realize that Mr. Mean Street might be typing away at his computer right now complaining about the short, stocky and remarkably good looking guy he was on the tour with and that’s his prerogative). Anyhow Mr. Mean Street was decked out in a designer sweater draped around his shoulders and he had some Vuarnet sunglasses in his frosted tipped hair and he wouldn’t stop asking stupid questions like this doozy “Is the birthing room equipped with wireless technology for my laptop?” Need I say more.
But alas there is more. This tour wouldn’t be complete without a femme fatale. I will dub her Annoying Hand Motion girl. This lady was the know-it-all of the group. She obviously forgot that she wasn’t the only person that has read all the birthing books or had taken a prenatal class. She was asking the nurse questions just so she could answer them herself. The most annoying part of her schtick was her hand motions and eye rolling when doing so. She would put her hands by her temples and stick her fingers out and then roll the hands in circular motion while speaking. I think even her husband was getting a little annoyed, or perhaps he just had his “OH GOD WHAT HAVE I DONE” moment.
Besides the carnival like atmosphere that the Mean Street Posse and Annoying Hand Motion Girl brought forth, I found the tour to be pretty informative. It has no doubt left me with the sneaky suspicion that I might pass out during the delivery, but I found it informative nonetheless. My only hope for the next time that I encounter the Mean Street Posse and Annoying Hand Motion Girl is when we book into a private room and they are forced to share a semi-private one during their stay at the hospital. If this happens I will tell Baby Siemens that story each and every night.
The Stanley Cup is the Holy Grail of all championship trophies. I still get goose bumps when I see a player hoisting Lord Stanley above his shoulders and posing for the cameras while kissing it. Perhaps the coolest thing about winning it is that each player on the team gets to spend 24 hours with the cup. There have been many stories about where the Cup has traveled and what the players have done with it. It’s such a huge tradition in Canada that the keeper of the Cup, Phil, is a minor celebrity. During the Cup presentation I’ve often thought to myself what I would like to do with it if I had a day with it. My ideas about my day with the Cup have gone through some changes throughout the years, but I’ve always figured that I would start my day off with the Cup by eating my Cheerios from it. After reading an article about Red Kelly and his son’s experience with the Cup, I’ve since changed my mind. Please read the excerpt below.
“I’d had three concussions and the doc said, ‘Red, you’d better wear a helmet,”’ Kelly said. “I didn’t like it. (Opponents) would whack me on the head because I was wearing a helmet. They didn’t have great helmets in those days and it pressed against my temples.” Kelly was on a title team with the Leafs in 1964. He couldn’t celebrate the night of the Stanley Cup-clinching win because he also was a member of parliament at the time, and had to be in Ottawa at 2 p.m. the next day because the minority government of Lester Pearson needed all members in attendance for a crucial vote.
The late Harold Ballard, who would become owner of the Leafs and at that time was a Leafs executive, took the Stanley Cup and two bottles of champagne to Kelly’s home. Photos were taken, including one of Kelly’s newly-arrived son, Conn, sitting in the bowl atop the trophy.“He had a smile on his face,” Kelly recalled. “He did the whole load in the Cup, the whole load. When my kids see players drinking champagne out of the Cup, now they all roar. They all have a great laugh.”
The WNBA keeps on getting larger and larger. Now that they have a bankable star in Candace Parker, the league honchos thought it would be a good time to enter into the world of video games. I wonder if people will be hitting the pavement and sleeping outside the stores for the official launch of this game? After getting a glimpse of this video, I’m sure it will break all kinds of records.
Helping out for a charitable cause is something that isn’t all that foreign to me. But I have to admit that I haven’t been helping out as much recently outside of a few donations for a variety of charities. Returns for Leukemia seems to be a charitable activity created with me in mind. All I have to do is bring back my empty beer/liquor bottles and I will have contributed to raising money for blood cancers. It’s the least I can do after all the First Lady of Sport, along with her brother Andrew, raised over $21, 000 for multiple myeloma a few years back by running a marathon. The return for my beer empties will pale in comparison both in monetary and symbolic terms, but nonetheless every little bit helps. Here’s a quick synopsis of the event.
Returns for Leukemia Research is a fundraising initiative of The Beer Store and its employees to raise funds for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Canada. On the weekend of May 24 and 25,customers will be invited to donate all or a portion of their empty bottle refund to the Society. 100% of the funds they contribute will go directly to the charity. In 2007, we were proud to raise $500,000 to support the Society in its fight against leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease and myeloma.
By the look of things (or better yet Belicheck’s creepy look) it would appear that the Genious is still spying. I wonder if congress will get involved now? As I analyse this pic I’m left wondering if Bill Belicheck is wearing a leather hoodie? Where is his publicist?
The site proves to serve up some classic Sports Guy material. He even makes mention of the GREGARIOUS RACONTEUR, in reference to his pal John aka Jacko (If I had another blog life, I’d mos def call it the Gregarious Raconteur….. I think). The Sports Guy is in a class all to himself. Simmons has some “wicked awesome” podcasts too. If you haven’t been listening to his podcasts please go and give them a try. You can find them at www.espn.com.
Some of my personal favourite podcasts are with the legendary Bill Walton. For those of you that know me (well, at least the sports side of me) you would know that I can’t think of anyone funnier to listen to than Bill Walton. In Walton-like fashion I would describe listening to him like so…”The impeccable nature in which he delivers his verbal montage, with the frequency, the pitch, the eloquent stylings, the detailed obervation is quite simply a thing of beauty and breathtaking and something to behold.” Like Macho Man Randy Savage and his “Oh yeah…dig it” after each sentence, Walton can end every sentence with “Get with it Snapper, he can’t do that, he’s not a big enough star”. I need to find some more Walton clips on the net. If anyone has any please email them to me.
Congratulations Mr. Scheletto, I declare you, Mr. Feathered Hair, the first official enemy of this blog. The First Lady of Sport and I were in attendance at BMO yesterday to watch your carnival show and your act was shameful. From what I could see yesteday Mr. Scheletto, you were playing on a sythetic turf and not a sheet of ice. Yet you couldn’t manage to maintain your footing on a regular basis. I did notice that you were face down on numerous occasions kicking your legs in agony and screaming in pain. Yet during these times (and they were numerous) no one seemed to have been in the vicinity to have harmed you. I’m not a ghost whisperer so I can’t totally rule out the possibility of a super natural phenomenon being responsible for you being face down in the turf, but without the help of Egon Spengler and his pals I’ll have to assume that their wasn’t any ghosts on the pitch and that perhaps you had some bad shwarma at the concession stands.
Your theatrics were horrible and I’m not even sure if you would have garnered enough support for a Razzie nomination. If you were to examine that fully and completely that would mean that Elizabeth Berkley of Showgirls fame is a better thespian than you. Worst of all Mr. Schelotto, you further reinforced the stereotype for most non-soccer supporters here in Toronto that all soccer players do is dive and act as though their career is over and then seconds later miraculously recover to take a free kick. For that last reason alone you will be known always as the First Official Enemy of this blog.
Scottish football (that’s soccer to at least 6 of the 7 readers of this mediocre blog) is always a powderkeg ready to explode. I’ve been studying the Scottish football for the last 8 years. My introduction to the beautiful game coincided with my relationship to my wife the First Lady of Sport, who’s family is Scottish. I quickly learned that the Scots treat their football quite seriously. Especially in Glasgow where the football is drawn up through religious affiliation.
My brother-in-law, Andrew (who I referred to in an earlier post this year when I publicly apologized for my non-stop teasing) is a passionate Scottish football fan. Earlier this year he brought me to watch the Scots take on Italy at the Scottish club in town. The match-up between the Scots and Italians had a lot on the line. The winner would move on to the Euro Cup, something that seemed to be a regular occurance for the Italians but not so for the Scots. The passion and booze was flowing at will and so was the cursing of the ol’Scottish football fans. I had one exchange with an older gentlemen at the urinal (strange but true). The old man said (please insert Scottish accent) “I’ve never heard such deplorable language” referring to the language used in the bar, he continued on “those fu*&^ng bastards….just deplorable”.
Anyhow the above rambling was to display the Scotts love of the game. Please read the following article to get a further glimpse.
My guru of blogdom, Heather Rice-Swing, wrote an interesting piece about the D-list celebrity status of bloggers. It would appear that I’m on that list. Better yet it would appear that I have a devoted reader of my blog besides my family. Cyclones, earthquakes and I have a regular reader….the end of the world is near folks. In all seriousness I’m a huge fan of Heather’s and if you haven’t had the time to click on her blog please do. You can find in my blog roll (My Two Pennies)….and to the anonymous fan, drop me a line sometime and thanks for reading.
