Sports & Play
The Great Canadian Game Show and 2009 Hobby Show
The Great Canadian Game Show offered something fun for everyone.For those into games or hobbies like me, it was well worth the trip up to the International Centre, by Pearson International Airport this weekend. There were contests for Scrabble, chess, pinball, table hockey, Halo and rock-paper-scissors, as well as Star Trek and Canadian Hockey Hall of Fame trivia.
The 2009 Hobby Show, which was held over the same weekend in the same space, provided a multitude of vendors, from model airplanes to radio-controlled helicopters to comic books, Magic cards, jigsaw puzzles and collectors of stamps, coins and even reptiles. Is collecting reptiles even a hobby?
Sports & Play
Toronto FC Season In Review
The Toronto FC's quest for a playoff spot in the 2009 season is over, and it all ended with a shameful 5-0 loss in New York - a somewhat befitting, fateful result given the roller coaster of a year they've had. From a supporters standpoint, this season was full of highs and lows. Here are some of the most memorable and most talked about moments of the 2009 season.
Sports & Play
Is Real Grass Coming to BMO Field?
City council will vote this week on a proposal by Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE) to replace the much maligned Field Turf at BMO field, with natural grass. If you ask any of my fellow Toronto FC fans, getting the green stuff at BMO is a good thing. The players hate the turf. In fact, the only way we could get Spanish heavyweights Real Madrid here in the summer was to install a $250k temporary natural grass solution. Field Turf gets blamed for everything from nagging injuries and missed goal opportunities to the price of beer at BMO, so it's no surprise that while TFC's playoff hopes fade for this year, MLSE is pushing hard to install a natural grass surface to make the players happy and maybe even to quiet the rising, very vocal disappointment of TFC's most loyal supporters.
Sports & Play
From the Cheap Seats, Another Season Ends
Fall is here, and with it comes the end of another baseball season. As the select few MLB teams move on to October glory, fans of the teams that didn't make the cut reflect on another season gone by.When I first moved to Toronto in the summer of 1994 the "internet" meant noisy modems, and cell phones were heavier than dumbbells. The Toronto Blue Jays were coming off two World Series victories, and it was a good time to be a Canadian baseball fan - or so I thought. I left Toronto in the summer of 1999, after 5 seasons of watching Gord Ash's Jays try to reclaim the glory they once had. They never did. In fact, they still haven't.
But as a kid entering my teens, the times I spent in the then Skydome left an indelible impression on me. I remember Pat Hentgen winning Canada's first Cy Young Award. I remember turning on the TV to see Roger Clemens, the greatest pitcher of the day, come to Canada. I remember a classic Canada Day pitching matchup between Pedro Martinez of the Expos and Clemens - two of the best in the game going head-to-head, toe-to-toe. I remember watching Roy Halladay pitch a no-hitter in his second career start, only to watch it vanish on a solo home run with 2 outs in the ninth. I remember BJ Birdie and Domer. I remember when every game had a packed house.
Sports & Play
Canada Pro 2009 Bboy Competition
Last night the Sound Acadamy hosted the Canada Pro 2009 Bboy Championships as part of the 3rd annual Manifesto Festival of Community and Culture. The competition attracted crews and judges from across North America, and even Korea, as some of the best bboys and bgals came to throw it down. Sports & Play
In Photos: CNE 2009
The CNE, both by day and by night, is a a bright and colourful sea of people, games, lights, and carnival delights. It's hard to believe that we're into September already (it feels like we didn't have a summer), and there's less than a week left before the fair wraps up another year. It's also a fun place to shoot photos, and so many excellent ones have been landing in the blogTO Flickr pool. Here are some that caught my eye.
