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?
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Category: Sport
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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?
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.)
Here is another kayaking video from the Kananaskis. In this one, I’m surfing the feature known as The Green Tongue.
[Green Tongue – YouTube]
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]
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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.
During my prime of swimming for the University of Lethbridge, my fastest time for the 50 meter freestyle (short course) was 24.59. It’s fun and amazing to watch the world’s best swimmers going four times that distance (and long course too) at the same pace. Even if you’re not a swimming fan, one can’t help but get excited as Michael Phelps shatters a world record.
Phelps broke five world records, including the one above, during the World Swimming Championships last week in Australia. (They ended April 1).
The Washington Post has an interesting article stating that 60% of new swim records have been set in the last two years, while the records set in track-and-field on the other hand, have been much more steady.
The Post’s explanation of how athletes can be improving in leaps and bounds in one sport but not in another boil down to, more funding, better coaching, and an older average age of high caliber swimmers. They say the typical body shape of swimmers has also been changing as of late.
As an aside, a former roommate and teammate of mine competed at Nationals (the Canadian ones) during the same time and won both the 50 and 100 meter freestyle events a seriously awesome accomplishment (even though, it seems to me, he downplays it). Congratulations Richard.
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Water Polo Champions
Those of you that know me well, know that I love water sports. Last night my water polo team won the U of L intramurals finals in a victory so decisive, I didn’t actually find out the final score.
I’m not going to say it was easy. For one thing, we were missing a lot of players last night. One had bus trouble and wasn’t back from her swim meet in Vancouver, another had a concert to perform in — one that if he missed he would fail his music class. There were a couple other players that just sort of, stopped coming to the games, so that left us a person short and no subs.
It was 6 on 7 for the first half and we actually did really well, despite being short handed. However, near the beginning of the second half, our goalie swam up out of the water to make a save and then fell back under the water shaking with pain. Nobody could figure out what happened to him. I swam over as did a couple others and it turns out that he had one of the worst cramps in his calf that I’ve ever seen. It was pulsing up and down.
So that left us down to 5 players. I have to be honest — I was a little worried.
It turns out my fear was misplaced because it was at this point that we really started to pull ahead. It’s games like this one that remind me why I love water sports so much.
Update: Check out this great water polo flickr set by my friend John Lapins.
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Alumni Meet
I’ve got a University of Lethbridge Alumni swim meet tomorrow morning. Should be loads of fun—I can hardly wait, but I’m not too thrilled about being on deck at 7:20am—At least the events are only 25’s and 50’s.
You can’t help but revel in the fact that Canada has beaten the US and after 28 long years we’re finally champions again!
As a side note, I think it’s rather sad that even though lacrosse is Canada’s official sport I never even knew this competition was taking place. Well, at least we won.