Sports Guy North

In trying to summarize a dark day in sports, the first song that came on my ipod this morning seemed the most suiting – So Cold by Breaking Benjamin. It’s not the greatest video of all time, but it’s a solid song so I thought I’d start off with it anyway:



Crowded streets are cleared away
One by One
Hollow heroes separate
As they run

The big reason Sunday March 26, 2006 was a dark day was the passing on the track of IRL rookie Paul Dana. Many in the racing world were familiar with this rookie long before he recently took to the pro-courses. Graduating from Northwestern with a Journalism degree, he found himself covering CART and IRL for Autoweek magazine. From 1999 on, he took on racing himself, and by 2004 he was 2nd in the Indy Pro Series points standings, giving way to his spot in the big show. In what would be one of the shortest, and most disastrous careers in Indy racing, Dana made only 3 starts in the 2005 season before breaking his back in a crash at Indianapolis. Nonetheless, he recovered from the accident, and the Rahal Letterman team picked him up as their third driver for 2006. Just when it seemed that the man who worked so hard at every step in his life would finally have that work pay off, disaster struck for the second time. This time there would be no chance of recovery, as his accident in practice with Carpenter took his life. I have included footage of the accident below, but be advised the footage is quite extreme. I don’t want anyone complaining that its there. If you have a weak stomach, just don’t watch. It is graphic, and very sad.



You're so cold
Keep your hand in mine
Wise men wonder while
Strong men die

To lift the mood a little in this death post before moving on, I had to follow up that video with something a little more light. This footage is also of a practice run, where the hero (ie. Me) comes up a little bit limp. The JF may appear to be dead at the end there, but trust me he popped up and was ready in time to be defeated in the real race. A race for the ages, as it were.



Show me how it ends it's alright
Show me how defenseless you really are
satisfied and empty inside
That's alright, let's give this another try

I do try to be impartial in these posts, but sometimes it is harder than others. My whole life I was always Leafs and Devils fans (or for as long as I can remember, that is). The Leafs season has completely fallen apart on them, and their back to back losses to the Habs were the final daggars in their disasterous season. That is something I can accept. Their defensive game is hapless, and the only good news they’ve given in recent months is that Aki Berg is considering retiring at the end of the season. If only he had retired 8 months sooner, perhaps the Leafs season might have been different, assuming also that he took the other “Killer B” with him. Anyway, on Black Sunday the Leafs rolled on up to play the Devils, and put Aubin in net behind their defenseless mess. Wouldn’t it just figure that they would put up their best effort all year, and that Aubin would play better than I’ve ever seen him play, delivering a costly loss to the Devils playoff run. It is unbelievable the things that the Leafs do. I’m starting to understand how some Leafers converted to Sens fans in the last few years. Their last couple of months, and now this game against the Devils, have just left me empty inside. Elias better have a lot left for the playoffs.

If you find your family, don't you cry
In this land of make-believe, dead and dry

Duke lost. Memphis lost. Gonzaga lost. Villanova lost. Tennessee lost. Texas lost. Syracuse lost. And I picked U Conn to win the tournament. Needless to say I was pretty excited that they were coming up to play a number 11 seed to make it to the final 4. Basically, the pool was theirs to hand to me. Little did I know Black Sunday was ready to take yet another victim, as George Mason won an ugly game to knock the final #1 seed out of play. A nice block late, and a great play to tie the game with no time left, but other than that this game was not worth watching. Why he stopped short at the end of overtime and threw up an ugly three instead of doing the same play as the end of regulation is beyond me. Justin’s best guess is that he had to pee. I’ve got no other explanation, and man was I ever too angry to come up with one.

You're so cold, but you feel alive
Lay your hand on me one last time

We’ll finish this post off with a little bit of hope now. For those of you who were concerned over an earlier sad post I made about Bjorn Borg selling off all his trophies, there’s new hope. Apparently out cry from his fans and Andre Agassi has cause him to change his mind. He was quoted as saying:

"Trophies of this kind have a meaning that goes beyond my comprehension of the victories, as they emphasize the bond between me as a player and all the people, family, friends and fans that have stood behind me through the years -- people that have my love and respect,"

I really don’t know what the means, but they were estimating that the 5 trophies would sell for over a half a million dollars, so I guess that it means a lot. Nonetheless, as long as you are still alive there is always hope. This shows that even on Black Sunday some things can turn around. It may be stupid and meaningless, but it’s something. It sure is something.