Thursday stuff
*Man, is there a bigger camera hog on the sports journalism scene than Dave's World Thursday Football Wiseguy Chris Forsberg? He's a rock star. The kid ends up in more photos in stories he's working on than anyone I know. Even in the photo below, the UMass d-back has his face turned away from the camera, but Forzy's whole pose says "I'm going to pretend I don't like this, but I secretly love having the camera on me." Hey Chris, you're not getting your picture run here when we debut Football Thursday next week, pal, 'cuz the rest of us are all ugly and you'll make us all look bad.
*The sporting world in Canada is just a whole different scene than down in the lower 48. As I drove up to Vancouver on Monday, I flipped through the radio dial after crossing the border. I kid you not -- the first song I heard in Canada was a Bryan Adams song. I swear I'm not making that up. It wasn't even that terrible "Open Road" song ESPN has been malevolently drilling in our brains all summer. It was "Somebody."
Anyway, so I stumble on a news radio station and the big news was that defenseman Steve McCarthy was acquired by the Canucks. Then, the next night, I'm in my hotel room and flip on TSN SportsCentre (that's how they spell it), and the trade of Dany Heatley to Ottawa with the Senators shipping Marian Hossa to Atlanta was not only the lead story, but took up the first six minutes of the broadcast, with commentators checking in from Ottawa and Toronto. (The main question: Does this make the Sens a legit Cup contender? Dave World's answer, in less than six minutes: No. Not until they get a little bit of muscle and start hitting people and wearing them down. In how many playoff series in recent years has Ottawa started fast and faltered?) There was six minutes of this before the segue into Blue Jays highlights and then the big announcement the B.C. Lions are actually opening the upper deck for their next home game.
I also saw U.S. national soccer team member Claudio Reyna's autobiography at a bookstore in Vancouver. I don't recall seeing that book anywhere in the States.
*I have to throw this out there for Dave's World readers familiar with the Northwest. I've long attributed the worst stereotypical attributes of native Seattleites -- passive/aggressive behavior and superficial politeness masking arrogance and pettiness (which I suppose is another way of saying "passive/aggressive behavior") -- on the lack of sunshine most of the year. It can't be an accident that I've lived out here twice, and both times the friends I've made either have also moved here from out of the area, or come from Olympia, which is a city with its own separate vibe altogether.
And yet, you go up to Vancouver, which has the same climate, and the people tend to be much more friendly and engaging, and also don't feel compelled to dress like rejected extras from the movie Singles. What gives? How can two cities so similar on the surface have such different personalities? Anyone want to take a crack at this? And I won't even get into how Vancouver can get its act together to the point it gets awarded the Winter Olympics, but Seattle can't even come up with a respectable mass transit system.
I took a look at Seattle's complexities in a piece called An Outsider's Perspective of Seattle, which I wrote in the early days of the site, when few were reading except my friends. It is still one of my favorite pieces I've done here.
*Thanks again for all the feedback to Matt's Dispatches from Iraq piece. If you found the read worth your time, feel free to check in again on Sunday. We're going to run several thought-provoking reader letters as well as our first Ask Matt segment.
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