“Slapshots” is actually a rehash of a column featured in the late 70s Balcony Square (precursor to The Underground) by a writer named Malcolm Kelly. Kelly went on to become an extremely successful sports journalist, and professor at Centennial College.  I could deal with all that, but I’ll be damned if I get his white hair…

Superbowl fanatics, back off! Look away now, because I won’t be offering any sort of comment on the big game. Not because I’m not a fan, not because I don’t want to, but simply because I’m writing this before Sunday, and you won’t see this until a few days later.  Confusing?  I thought it would be for you mindless, bandwagon-hopping big game junkies…

Congrats to Jennifer Heil on putting a golden bookend on her freestyle skiing career with her first world championship moguls title in Deer Valley, Utah. Who in the hell is Jennifer Heil? She happens to be one of those Canadian winter Olympians you bandwagon-hoppers rave about once every four years, and she is calling it a day on the slopes after winning gold and silver medals at the past two Olympic Winter Games. It is depressing to think that the cute Albertan, only six years my senior, is already entering retirement, while I have about half a century of this mind-numbing crap to churn out before I can take a break…

Rick DiPietro should probably consider calling it a day as well given the atrocious image he has helped don upon his New York Islanders. This draft bust who went first overall in 2000 got busted hard in his first NHL fight against Penguins backup Brett Johnson. Was Johnson taking out a little frustration, being in Marc Andre-Fleury’s shadow all the time, or is he just on the UFC bandwagon? Either way, Dana White should be calling him up after he dropped DiPietro with one punch, after dropping him on the scoreboard with a 3-0 shutout. Now that poor Ricky has a broken jaw, he has another lame reason to sit around on $67 million and a Ferrari in Naussau County. Then again, who wouldn’t be reluctant to backstop New York’s sorry excuse for a hockey team…

All this anti-fighting propaganda surrounding hockey of late really makes me sick. Johnson’s knockout blow was really the only reasonable way to get into the spotlight, as it is for many guys in a league filled with so many bratty, skilled players with Dempster’s and Sport Chek endorsement cheques rolling in, so good on him for going for it. For the most part, fighting bodes well for any sport, including dodge ball at UTSC. Never before would any of the patrons in the UTSC gym assume that there would be so much animosity between players playing a game as juvenile as dodge ball, but some of the disputes had it looking like the Will Ferrell movie. Now if they had actually come to blows, maybe then the gym would get more than three residence kids and a timekeeper sitting in the stands…

Special thanks to Varsha Ranjit who wrote in response to my feature in The Underground’s last issue, “The sad life of a UTSC sports fan.” Ranjit shares many of my sentiments regarding the campus’ athletic spirit—she wrote:

“As an international student, university life was supposed to be all about

the weekend football games, the bi-weekly soccer matches, cheering on our

team from the stands in the valley along with hundreds of other students,

all proud to belong to UTSC. But of course, we don’t even have massive

stands at the valley!”

“Their website is months old and the members of the SCAA seem not to be interested in

replying to any emails, when it is in fact in the whole purpose of their organization.

I have honestly learnt more about the teams/schedule from your article than from the SCAA website.”

You go, girl. We’ll see what’s happening with that SCAA website for the next issue.