Playing Hurt

One thing I just can stand is when people talk about athletes in bad terms when they are perceived as not wanting to play hurt. No one would suggest that people must work sick; well no one in their right minds anyway. Sure, it is inspiring when we see Stevie Yzerman played the playoffs with practically no soft tissue on his knees. But is that the right thing to do? Or more precisely, can we ask someone to do that. What Yzerman faces, like so many retired athletes, is lifelong debilitation and pain on his knees. Their pain is not just the normal wear-and-tear, but also, more importantly, the delay in treating the injuries and premature return to action—i.e. playing hurt. If Yzerman had taken treatments early and followed precautions his injuries required, he would not have to “play with one leg” on TV. What these people are asking is to have others sacrifice their long-term health and quality of life for some ‘fan’s’ moment of fantasy. No matter what they say—traditions, sportsmanship, and manhood—it is still a despicable act to ask others of such things. If they want to scarify bodies for their holy sport, let them scarify their own. I scarified for mine, and my wrist still hurts; that is my choice. If someone, when I was keeping goal in high school and college, had told me I must or else I am less of a man, I would have punched him on his mouth and gladly feel the arthritics on my knuckles today.

Third World Horror

The Edmonton Journal is not a bad paper but like most newspapers their headline writers have serious comprehension problems. The headline “More Canadians being left to Third World justice” is certainly alarming but it does not really reflect the content of the article. One would think that Canadians are being shipped out to some horrible prisons in Sierra Leone or Myanmar after reading the headline. The article is really about the limit the Conservative Government put on the repatriation of convicted criminals. In the centre of the story is a man convicted of having sex with an underage girl in Cuba. And for putting this man in jail, Cuba put the entire Third World in the worst light in the eyes of Edmontonians.

If this had occurred in Alberta, the reaction of most Edmontonians, I am guessing, would be “throw him in the worse jail and throw away the key.” What happens here is that the guy is put in a jail that is “filled with mosquitoes, rats and bad food.” That sounds pretty terrible if it were a resort, but par for prison. If that is what Third World justice is like, then it is far more humane than the rapes, gangs and drugs in First World justice systems. I suspecting therefore that the story does not really have much to do with Third World justice, even if there were such thing.

What is in question is the right of Canadian citizens, convicted of crime or not, to return to Canada; and whether the government has the authority to deny them entrance. This has nothing to do, really, with anything or anyone not Canadian. The Journal is doing what local paper always do—pull for the hometown boys, regardless. If the Canadian government had sent a sexual offender from Edmonton to a perceived comfy Swiss prison and early parole, the Journal would probably be up in arms about it. Now the Journal is trying to get a convicted sexual offender to a more comfortable prison. That is just the way local papers work. The headline though should have been “Stockwell Day refused Edmonton man right of return.” It is a lot more shocking and like to be offensive to the many supporters of the Conservative Party. Blaming it on the Third World, however mistaken and cowardly, is just safe thing to do. So now, come to think of it, the headline writer may have actually read the article and decided to be inaccurate. I just don't know which is worse: stupidity or lying.