TROON, Scotland, July 19, 2074 — It may have been a while since he won a major (55 years, to be exact), but as he prepared to tee off for the first round of the Open here on Thursday, 98-year-old Tiger Woods sounded as confident as ever.
“I’m still the best golfer who ever lived,” Woods said. “I’ve been working on my short game (actually, the short game is all I have these days) and I’m certain this will be the tournament when it all comes together. The way I see it, I’m due. I can’t miss.”
OK, I’m just joshing. I don’t care whether Woods plays or not — I rarely watch golf. But I do wish the golfing media would stop devoting massive coverage to Woods at every major, up to the point when he misses the cut and it dawns on them that there are actually much better golfers in the field.
Tell ’em, McLeod! The CFL has a new hero — and he’s a quarterback on a team that has yet to win a single game so far this season.
McLeod Bethel-Thompson, the former Grey Cup winner with Toronto who had the thankless task of playing for Chris Jones in Edmonton until Jones was fired, was frustrated after the Elks lost another one to the Ottawa Redblacks. But he did something athletes rarely do: He stuck up for his teammates, and not by assaulting a guy who takes a slapshot into an empty net.
Bethel-Thompson was furious after the Elks lost defensive lineman Sam Acheampong on Ottawa’s opening drive and Scott Hutter was injured later in the game. Ottawa’s Tobias Harris also needed to be escorted off the field late in the game.
“It’s disgusting,” Bethel-Thompson said. “It’s disgusting as a five-day week and how many career-ending injuries or serious injuries happened tonight. It’s a shame, it’s a travesty.
“It’s easy to sit in the ivory tower and plan some schedule and think that they’ll be just fine,” Bethel-Thompson went on. “These are human lives that you’re dealing with. These are professionals that you’re dealing with and you’re putting them on a five-day week against the same team. That makes no sense.”
Bethel-Thompson has already been fined for speaking out and no doubt he’ll be fined again, but his remarks injected a bit of sanity into an absurd schedule.
Predictably, the toadies on the TSN panel mostly ignored what Bethel-Thompson had to say. The only one who touched on his remarks was former Alouette Davis Sanchez, who fell back on the excuse that the NFL plays games on four days rest before offering that most vapid of takes on any subject: “It is what it is.”
The fact that the NFL chews up the bodies of its players has nothing to do with it. The CFL schedule was made for television, meaning it was made for TSN. Not one person on the panel had the guts to admit that Bethel-Thompson was right.
Lies, rumours &&&& vicious innuendo: Quite a coup for the Habs getting Pascal Vincent to coach the Laval Rocket, where he’ll be entrusted with developing the prospects who are the key to the Canadiens’ future. Given the mess he inherited after the Mike Babcock fiasco in Columbus, Vincent did well at the NHL level …
Jaws the world over dropped to the floor last week when Cheatin’ Lance Armstrong (all together now: “of all people”) decided to lower the boom by accusing Slovenian Tour de France and Giro d’Italia champion Tadej Pogačar of arrogance. Crawl back in your hole, Lance …
Maxime Comtois’s decision to play in the KHL leaves a very bad taste. He’s one of the more notable names among the roughly 40 Canadians and 20 Americans now playing hockey in Russia, tacitly supporting the war on Ukraine …
Every time you see a Russian athlete competing in the Olympic Games, it’s a reminder of the craven cowardice of Thomas Bach and the IOC. No Russian under any pretext should be allowed near the Olympics until Russian troops leave Ukraine …
Without Montrealer Dick Pound to run it, the World Anti-Doping Agency has proven every bit as cowardly as the IOC. Its abject surrender after 23 Chinese swimmers tested positive for the performance-enhancing drug trimetazidine failed every clean athlete at the Games. Once that moral authority has been squandered, it’s tough to get it back …
LeBron James will be the flag-bearer for the U.S. team at the Olympics, leaving all those athletes that get our attention once every four years to follow in his wake …
Finally, our Spoiled Brat of the Week Award goes to Max Verstappen.
Heroes: McLeod Bethel-Thompson, Tadej Pogačar, Brittney Griner, Oscar Piastri, Shohei Ohtani, Paul Skenes, Jarren Duran, Xander Schauffele, Pascal Vincent, Jim Leyland &&&& last but not least, Andre De Grasse, Summer McIntosh and all Canada’s Olympians.
Go Canada!
Zeros: Lance Armstrong, Max Verstappen, LeBron James, Maxime Comtois, Hulk Hogan, Tiger Woods, Chris Jones, the IOC, WADA, Bo Bichette, Mark Shapiro, Ross Atkins, the Blue Jays, Chad Kelly, Bud Selig Jr., Claude Brochu, David Samson &&&& last but not least, Jeffrey Loria.
Now and forever.