Sports Saturday As two championship-starved hockey-rich cities prepare to square off in the Stanley Cup finals (Chicago and Philadelphia), Ljubljana English Department’s Jason Blake once again reflects upon the meaning of hockey for Canadians—and upon the omnipresence of stereotypes about Canadians playing hockey. While he was distraught at seeing the last Canadian team (the Montreal […]
Tag Archives: Sports
Drama on the Foul Line
In his heyday, his only vulnerability Sports Saturday The Orlando arena was electric. The Magic, having lost their first home game against the Boston Celtics, were in a must-win situation. To lose the first two games of a playoff series at home is almost certain death, but they had fought back from an 11-point fourth-quarter […]
When It’s Hockey vs. Art, Who Wins?
Sports Saturday Jason Blake, who reports on North American hockey for us from Ljubljana, Slovenia, has contributed this column in the wake of the Montreal Canadiens’ remarkable back-to-back 7-game playoff victories over first the top-seeded Washington Capitals and then the defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins—the first time an eighth-place team has ever performed such […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Bruins 4 Habs 3", "Homo Ludens", "Skater", "Two Shakespearean manwomen Versus the 1996 Detroit Red Wings", Beyond a Boundary, C.L.R. James, Charles G.D. Roberts, Endre Farkas, Hockey, Jason Blake, Mordecai Richler, Night Work: Sawchuk Poems, Randall Maggs, Scot Beal Comments closed
Take Me Out to the Luxury Boxes
Sports Saturday We’ve long had an active poetry series at St. Mary’s, and periodically a wonderful new voice will swim into my consciousness. Bruce Cohen from the University of Connecticut is the latest. Cohen has a wonderfully wandering surrealistic style. Often, as in the poem below, he gives us a narrative that is easy to […]
Pitchers and Poets Avoid the Obvious
Sports Saturday Some of my favorite moments as a father came in watching my three sons play sports. Justin, my oldest whom I am remembering this week, was a fine baseball pitcher and outfielder. Two plays especially stand out for me: a diving catch he made as centerfielder in an all-star game when he was […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Pitcher", Baseball, Crafty Reader, Francis (Robert), Robert Francis, Robert Scholes Comments closed
Jackie Robinson, Poetry in Motion
Jackie Robinson steals home Sports Saturday In the memorial service held at St. Mary’s College for Lucille Clifton two weeks ago, I learned that she had three special heroes: Martin Luther King, Muhammad Ali, and Jackie Robinson. Robinson, of course, was the African American player who broke the baseball color line in 1947, which he […]
Hockey, Canada’s Great Romance
Sidney Crosby Sports Saturday Jason Blake, a faculty member at the University of Ljubljana English Department, has just written a book on Canadian Hockey Literature (University of Toronto Press, 2010). The book explores five national themes addressed by hockey literature: nationhood, the hockey dream, violence, national identity, and family. I met Jason (who is Canadian) […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Adultery, Cold-Cocked: On Hockey, Hockey, Lorna Jackson, Mark Jarman, Richard B. Wright, Roch Carrier, Salvage King, Sweater, Ya! Comments closed
Will Tiger Woods Weep Bitter Tears?
Sports Saturday “When Roy looked into the boy’s eyes he wanted to say it wasn’t [true] but couldn’t, and he lifted his hands to his face and wept many bitter tears.” (The Natural) In a fine post for the New York Times that I wish I had written, Richard Wright turns to Bernard Malamud’s The […]
The Meaning of Cub Fan Suffering
Sports Saturday In one of the tidiest sports weekends of the year, one sports comes to an end while another begins. March Madness holds its semi-final and final games while baseball kicks off its season. To celebrate opening day, I promise reader Carl Rosin a write-up on a baseball novel. It seems like the great baseball novels […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Baseball, Robert Coover, Universal Baseball Association Comments closed
