My friend and former roommate, Richard Hortness, was on an NPR affiliate the other day talking about swimming and about what it’s like knowing you get to go to the 2008 Olympics. Here’s the mp3.
Test Your Awareness
How many passes does the team in white make? An experiment in awareness.
[Test your awareness – YouTube]
Richard Hortness is Going to the Olympics!
I found out yesterday that my former teammate (and old roommate), Richard Hortness, is going to China for the 2008 Olympics. He placed third in prelims with a personal best time of 49.42 in the 100 metre freestyle and his fifth place finish in finals makes him one of the five swimmers who will make up the Canadian Mens 4 x 100 freestyle relay team.
Technically, Richard is the alternate, but will likely swim preliminary heats at Beijing.
Today he will be trying to win or come second in the 50 free. If he comes second and makes the FINA A time standard he will also compete in that event in Beijing.
Congratulations Richard, and good luck today!
Medicine Hat News Article Scan
Update: Richard won the 50 Free this afternoon too! Way to go Richard; good luck in Beijing.
Canadian Olympic Trials
My friends Vicki Chugg, and Richard Hortness are in Montreal this week swimming in the Canadian Olympic Trials. You can watch CBC’s coverage of the meet today and tomorrow (check your local listings). Good luck Vicki and Richard!
Pictured above: Vicki Chugg at a Canada West Swim Meet
Basketball Dunking
By way of a little self indulgence, here is a photo my brother took of me dunking the basketball last weekend. Does my long hair and beard remind anyone else of Teen Wolf?
Fat Man in the Hockey Net Question Answered
I play the occasional game of street hockey with friends, and my heart has been known to skip a beat during playoff season. While I wouldn’t consider myself a hard-core fan, I’m into hockey just enough to have entertained the thought that a grossly obese man might be the world’s most effective NHL goalie.
As strange as it may sound to anyone with a sense of decency, there is actually sound reasoning behind it. Because of the geometry of the game, the potential for one mammoth individual to change hockey is staggering. Simply put, there is a goal that’s 6 feet wide and 4 feet high, and a hockey puck that needs to go into it in order to score. Fill that net completely, and no goals can possibly be scored against your team. So why hasn’t it happened yet?
In hilarious fashion, Todd Gallagher answers the age old question once and for all: Could a morbidly obese goalie shut out an NHL team?
Glen Hutchinson in the World Long Drive Competition
My brother-in-law, Glen, was in Wyoming a couple weeks ago competing in an Open Long Drive competition and ended up winning a ticket to the Re/Max Long Drive World Championship Tournament in Mesquite, Nevada this October.
Longdrivers.com lists him as the Open Division Winner with a distance of 337 yds 24 inches. I’m looking forward to watching him progress through the 11 rounds that it takes to win the Championship in Mesquite.
(Photo credit to Glen’s talented wife Jackie Hutchinson. IMHO she’s the best photographer in Drayton Valley Okotoks.)
Green Tongue
Here is another kayaking video from the Kananaskis. In this one, I’m surfing the feature known as The Green Tongue.
[Green Tongue – YouTube]
Kayaking Drop
A couple weeks ago I hit up the Kananaskis River for some kayaking with my friend Andy. Just for fun I decided to launch myself from the edge of a steep bank. Andy recorded the event for posterity and I uploaded it as the first video I’ve ever put on YouTube.
[Kayaking Drop – YouTube]
Kayaker Drowned
It’s been a dangerous summer for boaters in Alberta. There have been 6 drownings in the last six weeks, and one that hits somewhat close to home. Linda Englehart, a Calgary kayaker who paddled Southern Alberta rivers and with the ORCKA club died Monday following a mishap on the Kicking Horse on Saturday.
I have never paddled with Linda, but she did communicate with the ORCKA club on their website and had planned at one point to join us on the trip we took down Box Canyon last month.
More details about the tragic loss from the ORCKA website.