Goodbye Mr. Walsh

I just knew this hiatus wouldn’t last long.

First and foremost, a fond farewell to the great Bill Walsh. Though I only saw Mr. Walsh coach one game, it made just a tiny impact on me. The date: January 28, 1990. The place: Louisiana Superdome. Super Bowl XXIV. Though I barely knew what football was, I knew the San Francisco 49ers were my dad’s favourite team. After watching my first NFL game, I knew why they were his favourite team. Turns out, a 55-10 win in the championship game is a pretty impressive feat. My favourite team was chosen for me that night. For that, I am forever indebted to Bill Walsh.

As for the rest of us, well, we can thank Mr. Walsh every time our team runs a quarterback draw on third-and-long, gaining a fresh set of downs. Love your team’s possession receiver? The three-step drop followed by a dump-pass just over the line of scrimmage? We’ll all miss Bill Walsh, but he’ll never be forgotten.

And the bad news… yet another piece of human garbage in the sports world. All I can say for this guy is, at least he didn’t commit any crime.

Dave Harrison of the Ottawa Citizen has decided women don’t belong in the Hockey Hall of Fame. Thanks, Dave. He suggests only feminists like women’s ice hockey. What wonderful insight. I’m not ready to cast aside the NHL for women’s professional hockey, but I’ll re-watch the 2002 Olympic gold medal game long before I’ll sit through a Minnesota Wild-Columbus Blue Jackets tilt in mid-November. It was the high-water mark for women’s international hockey, not unlike the way the 1987 Canada Cup was probably the pinnacle of men’s international hockey.

Even better, Harrison’s idea we build a women’s sports hall of fame somewhere in western Canada. While I’m all for a national women’s sports hall of fame, the idea of not including the likes of Vicky Sunohara and Geraldine Heaney (if only as apology for making them wear pink jerseys at the first World Championship), Cammi Granato, Angela Ruggiero, Cassie Campbell, Danielle Goyette and Hayley Wickenheiser and the other women to pioneer and grow the game in the Hall, while the likes of Clarence Campbell, Harold Ballard and Bill Wirtz continue to reside among the honorees, is insulting not only to women, but to all hockey fans, and anyone else that believes in equality.

Not only do these women deserve to join the likes of Wayne Gretzky (who took the play behind the net) and Bobby Orr (who taught us all how exhilarating it is to watch a defenseman carry the puck across centre ice), and Boom Boom Geoffrion (whom Sheldon Souray can thank for the $27 million Kevin Lowe recently handed over), and Jari Kurri and Esa Tikkanen (who taught us Europeans were as talented as Canadians, and as tough), but also they deserve an entire wing like the one recently created for international hockey.

To once again reach back to my youth, nothing was more instrumental in my becoming a hockey fan than seeing the Stanley Cup. More recently, the joys of the Hall were found in unexpected artifacts like Steve Begin’s Saint John Flames jersey in the Calder Cup display alongside Raffi Torres’ Hamilton Bulldogs jersey. Or Jaroslav Halak’s Slovakia jersey on display long before he nearly saved Montreal’s 2007 season. Or spotting Mike Gartner’s helmet from across the room. Or taking my kid brother to the Hall.

The virtues and joy of the Hall of Fame are clear to anyone that’s ever been. And if the Hall ever wants to escape the stigma of being the so-called NHL Hall of Fame, the pioneers of women’s hockey need to be a part of it. Some will say these women would never succeed in today’s National Hockey League, but neither would Joe Malone or Howie Morenz-- and nobody questions their importance.