Sports – mackaycartoons

Friday May 15, 2020

May 22, 2020 by Graeme MacKay

May 15, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday May 15, 2020

CFL could lose $100 million if season lost

The CFL commissioner says that a repayable loan would be among the possibilities within the league’s request to the federal government for up to $150 million in financial assistance.

November 21, 2012

“The one point that hasn’t come out so far is that we’ve said to the government we’re prepared to be creative, and consider all options to be on the table, ” Randy Ambrosie told The Spectator on Wednesday morning. “Ultimately, we just want to find a way to get through this crisis together and we’re prepared to talk to the government about anything.”

Tuesday night, Ambrosie told Dan Ralph of The Canadian Press that in the request the league’s accountability to taxpayers would include, “community programs, tourism promotion, the Grey Cup, our digital channels.” But a loan was not specificially mentioned.

August 23, 2014

Those are positive things the CFL already does and Ambrosie did not mention then the prospect of any kind of loan. But, on Wednesday, he said a loan would be among the things that the CFL would be willing to discuss with the federal government.

The CFL financial proposal to the government is three-tiered: $30 million to manage the impact the pandemic has already had on CFL business; further assistance if there’s a shortened regular season; and up to another $120 million should the league have to collapse its entire season.

Ambrosie reiterated Wednesday that if the CFL cannot play at all in 2020 it might imperil the league’s future because the cumulative loss “could be $100-plus million. Those are actual P &L (profit and loss statement) losses.”

There has been understandable negative reaction to the questionable optics of what appeared to be a straight bailout to a league in which six of the nine teams are privately-owned, including Bob Young’s Hamilton Tiger-Cats. Ambrosie said he understands that sentiment.

Coronavirus cartoons

“We are not tone-deaf to the realities of all this but we also know that this crisis will end and Canadians will need to get back to things which bring joy and passion to life,” Ambrosie said. “Sports is part of that and the CFL is a really big part. It’s not appropriate to just hope that this crisis passes: somebody famously said that hope is not a plan.

It has long been the opinion in this space that while the CFL must always operate as a sustainable business and league, it is, and has been first and foremost a cultural institution. The failure to grasp that — at various times in the past even some franchise owners themselves have done that — is to misunderstand its role in this country, and the unifying place of the 111-year-old Grey Cup game, which is much older than the formal league itself.

The CFL seems to welcome a broader discussion on whether it is indeed a necessary cultural institution, differentiated from the NHL, NBA and MLB, leagues with headquarters and most of their teams in the U.S. Ambrosie feels its history, consistent local-employment factor, and the historic durability and surging financial impact of the Grey Cup festival arguably separate it from other domestic leagues as well.

“We are so different than every other sports league on the planet,” Ambrosie told The Spectator. “And what we do in our communities really matters. The tone we’ve set for generations and generations has been so consistent with Canadian values. We are more than a sports league.” (Steve Milton – Hamilton Spectator)

Saturday June 15, 2019

June 22, 2019 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday June 15, 2019

Basketball gets an energy infusion from the Raptors

Today, at basketball courts across Canada, the squeak of sneakers on hardwood and the thump of dribbling balls is a little more energetic thanks to the Toronto Raptors.

June 11, 2019

Twenty-four years ago, when they first took to the court, subject to jeers from around the National Basketball Association due to their purple jerseys and cartoon-like logo, few people held out much hope the Raptors would become the best team in the world. In fact, there was skepticism that NBA basketball would even catch on in hockey-mad Canada.

And in Vancouver, home of the only other Canadian franchise, it didn’t. After a few years of struggling the Grizzlies were moved to Memphis.

But Toronto was different. They played second or even third fiddle to the Maple Leafs and Blue Jays, but the Raps got a claw-hold in Toronto early. They didn’t get a lot of respect from the league or NBA stars largely disinterested in playing in our comparatively frigid climate, but they did draw fans.

They didn’t have a lot of talent overall, but they were able to draw some all-star calibre players like Damon Stoudamire, Vince Carter, Tracy McGrady and Chris Bosh. Sometimes, when the team overall wasn’t much fun to watch, those players were worth the price of admission.

Then, along came Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozen. The team moved up a notch in terms of respect and credibility. But they got stuck, caught between their own limitations and an indomitable force named LeBron James.

Here’s where the Raptors story takes on the characteristics of a Hollywood script. The organization hires as president Masai Ujiri, an elegant, eloquent man from Nigeria with a great basketball mind. He makes a tough decision and trades team and fan favourite DeRozen and gets in exchange from the San Antonio Spurs a puzzle piece by the name of Kawhi Leonard. Painfully soft-spoken, injured for most of the previous year, but recognized as a potentially great player, Leonard was widely seen as a smart but risky acquisition.

Turns out Ujiri wasn’t just smart, he was a genius. The Raptors carefully nursed Leonard back to full health and Thursday night he hoisted the NBA trophy, quite possibly the best basketball player on the planet.

There is a lot to like about this edition of the Raptors, aside from the fact that they are now NBA champions. There’s Ujiri, who leads a nonprofit group called Giants of Africa, which aims to create pathways to success through basketball for African youth. There’s head coach Nick Nurse, an assistant until this season who took over from the popular Dwane Casey and turns out to be a brilliant head coach. There’s Kyle Lowry, blue collar guard saddled with a reputation of underperformance in the playoffs. Not any more. There’s Cameroonian player Pascal Siakam, who didn’t even take up basketball until he was 15. There’s Marc Gasol, who in the off season has worked to help migrants and refugees.

There’s the team’s overall diversity, with players from around the world coming together to adopt Leonard’s steely, unperturbable, never-too-high, never-too-low approach to the game. And they defeated the dynastic Golden State Warriors, led by future Hall of Fame guard Steph Curry, who played in Southern Ontario during his school years while his father, Dell, played for the Raptors.

Professional athletes are not heroes. That honour is reserved for people who dedicate themselves to helping others and not getting paid millions while doing it. But pro athletes can be admirable, collectively and individually. And they can bring welcome joy and fun into the lives of fans, which the Raptors have most certainly done. Thanks for that. (Hamilton Spectator)

Saturday October 29, 2016

October 28, 2016 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday October 29, 2016

‘Pretty Good Rich Kids’: Reaching the OHL takes more than talent

What does it take to make it to the Ontario Hockey League?

Skill? Certainly. Speed? Sure. Strength? No question.

November 28, 2007

But it also takes something else — something over and above raw talent and physicality. To make it to the OHL, you also need a winning ticket in the lottery of birth.

A year-long Spectator investigation finds a highly significant number of the league’s Ontario-raised players are from suburban neighbourhoods where most people are well-educated, earn high incomes and live in expensive homes.

The odds of them crossing paths with someone living in poverty are extremely low.

For anyone familiar with the extraordinary cost of playing hockey in Ontario — $15,000-or-so annually for an elite AAA player and getting higher — this won’t come as a shock. If you want to be the next Sidney Crosby, says Wilfrid Laurier University’s William McTeer, “the first question you have to ask is how much money do your parents have and are they prepared to invest in your future as an athlete.”

But cost isn’t the only thing keeping children in Hamilton and across Ontario out of the game.

Several factors, including geography, public policy and the funding mechanisms of non-profits, are making it increasingly difficult for low- and middle-income families to access the sport, particularly at competitive levels.

“I think it’s tragic,” says Philip White, a sport sociologist at McMaster University. “You live in a culture where everybody is supposed to have an opportunity to advance and kids are simply shut out.”

Our analysis is grounded in data. Stick with us while we get the heavy stuff out of the way. (Continued: Hamilton Spectator)

Thursday July 21, 2016

July 20, 2016 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday July 21, 2016

Dick Pound says ban Russia from Rio 2016 Olympics

The founder of the World Anti-Doping Agency says the answer is clear — Russia should be banned from the 2016 Rio Olympics for the good of the movement.

Dick Pound, a longtime IOC member and a former competitive swimmer himself, says the IOC has an opportunity to send a clear message about zero tolerance for doping in the Olympics.

“This is institutional cheating. It’s just not acceptable in sport,” said Pound on Wednesday.

But the enormity of Russia — both athletically and politically — seems to be giving the International Olympic Committee pause, and it’s delayed any decision on the allegations of state-sponsored doping in Russia until Sunday.

“It’s political — instead of focusing as we should on the sport aspects of this,” Pound said.

Far from marring the Olympic brand, Pound said banning Russia from the upcoming games would improve the reputation of the IOC and the Olympic movement more generally.

“It would demonstrate that, on matters of principle, and the protection of clean athletes and the integrity of competition, that the Olympic movement is prepared to suspend even one of its most successful countries, because it has been demonstrated to endorse and in fact organize cheating.”

Russia has been accused of running a widespread state-sponsored doping program designed to give Russian athletes an edge in international competition by WADA, the agency Pound founded, which has recommended that Russia be banned from the upcoming games.

Pound said he understands the IOC delaying the decision for fear of legal reprisal from Russian athletes, but says they’ve missed an opportunity by not embracing WADA’s recommendations.

“If I were the president of the IOC, I would be on my knees saying, ‘Thank you for taking this albatross from around my neck. We are happy to do what you recommend,'” Pound said.

Russia is not the only country with a doping problem, but this situation is unique in that it was run by the state and extended to almost all areas of high-level sport in the country, he noted. (Source: CBC News)

Tuesday July 5, 2016

July 4, 2016 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday July 5, 2016

One Month to Go – Should we panic about Rio Olympics? Get real

When is it time to panic about the Olympics? It’s true, things are not pretty in Rio de Janeiro, even as the Olympic torch arrived Tuesday in Brazil, with three months until the opening ceremony of the Games.

There’s the raw sewage in Guanabara Bay, slated for sailing events. The doubts over whether the subway line connecting the Olympic venues will be finished in time. The horror of the collapse of a recently built $12 million seaside bike path (two dead, three injured), calling into question the integrity of the other structures the city has built for the Games — for which, by the way, ticket sales are still hovering at only about 62%.

But panic? Well, the Zika virus is spreading, with some delegations debuting “Zika-proof” uniforms.

The city’s notorious crime rate looms large, and Amnesty International has called attention to the death toll from police crackdowns in the favelas, or shantytowns.

All this while the country remains embroiled in economic recession, a corruption scandal and political drama, most notably impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff.

But let’s pause a moment. It has become tradition to sound alarm bells in the months leading up to an Olympic Games. Before the last go-round, Sochi for example, cries of crisis came often:

Venues built on protected lands. Swollen budgets tied to crime syndicates. Illegal dumping and contaminated water. Anti-gay legislation and hate crimes. Pussy Riot. And stray dogs, everywhere.

But good luck finding an example of a truly noble Olympics. Politics take a toll because the Olympics are never free and clear of their political moment. (Continued: CNN News)

The above cartoon ran locally on June 11, 2015, in advance of the Toronto Pan Am Games.