In tribute to Jay and Dan’s last day: TSN’s top 10 ‘Top 10’ clips
An hour can sometimes be a bit long for a sports highlight show. Especially in the summer, when you are only guaranteed baseball from the end of June to the beginning of August (when the NFL pre-season starts), filling those minutes is probably a challenge. Hence TSN’s Top 10 lists.
The road to Hollywood: Jay Onrait and Dan O’Toole say goodbye to TSN
The Top 10 list (they do Top 5 on Sportsnet) is probably one of your favourite parts of Sportscentre, if you don’t watch Sportscentre, say, every day. If you do watch it every day, I’m sure you have noticed that you can predict at least five of the clips depending on the theme.
Jay Onrait and Dan O’Toole, whose last Sportscentre airs Friday, have seen a lot of Top 10s. And, in the last few months especially, the lists’ predictability has been the butt of frequent jokes. So, in tribute to Jay and Dan’s new venture, here the top 5 moments from Sportscentre’s Top 10 lists. We may feature numbers 5-1 in tomorrow’s
JuicyLesson.
So without further comment, and in tribute to that riotous duo – Jay Onrait and Dan O’Toole – here are the top five (5) moments.
10. The Zlatan Ibrahimovic bicycle kick
One of the single craziest plays ever to happen in the game of soccer, it once featured on the “Top 10 Bicycle Moments.” It was also TSN’s best play of 2012.
9. Obligatory old timey hockey clip
Ancient, standard definition footage — especially black & white — looks pretty terrible on today’s high definition televisions, so the top 10 lists use them sparingly; it’s unusual to see more than one clip that predates 1980. Bobby Orr’s 1970 Stanley Cup winner, and Bill Barilko’s 1951 Cup winner, are oft-used exceptions to the rule.
8. Sidney Crosby spends a minute behind the Senators’ goal
There were a few Crosby clips to choose from, including Crosby’s dramatic goal vs. the Islanders after a long concussion layoff and that time a reporter fell in front of him (bonus in the latter clip: that’s my hand on the left). But this assist from a 2010 playoff game against the Ottawa Senators appears more than any other.
7. Saskatchewan’s infamous 13th Man penalty
The most dramatic sequence of events in Grey Cup history was also shown on TSN. TSN likes including clips from events shown on TSN.
6. Jordan Eberle’s miracle finish vs. Russia at the world juniors
Speaking of which, the world juniors are TSN’s second biggest product, after the NHL. And this was the biggest Canadian moment in the tournament.
Depending on the number of hits attained with this post, I may feature the rest of this list in tomorrow’s (Friday’s) Juice. (281)!!
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Now,for a complete change of subject:
I have been reading books by and about Conrad Black, a member of the British House of Lords and a convicted felon. So far on this voyage of learning and discovery, I have finished the following books and have just about completed a book on Conrad Black’s trial entitled Tilted: The Trial of Conrad Black, by Stephen Skurka.
The books by or about Black that I have finished are listed here:
Flight of the Eagle: A Strategic History of the United States, by Conrad Black
Conrad and Lady Black, by Tom Bower
Short little number entitled The Real Conrad Black, by Conrad Gayle
Black has also written two extremely extensive biographies which have piqued my interest, one on FDR and the other on Richard Nixon. I have committed myself to wading into both of these books just as soon as I get some time. I am particularly interested in what Lord Black has to say about that paragon of virtue and honesty, Richard Nixon. Given Black’s conservative bent and his inclination to be an apologist for the policies and behaviour of the United States, it is pretty certain that Nixon will come out smelling more like a rose than the pile of manure he really was, both as an individual and as the President of the U.S. during the war in Vietnam.
I have chosen The Flight of the Eagle: A Strategic History of the United States as my focal point today.
As I have already stated,Black is an obvious apologist for American history and politics. His conservative slant is a constant reminder of the nature of the author but this, along with the fact that Lord Black of Crossharbour is a convicted felon who did more than five years prison time, does not detract from his exceptionally articulate and literate style of expressing himself.
To wit: The following gem from the above mentioned American history tome:
The 1848 Election
“The United States did not much notice it, but 1848 was a year of revolution and tumult overseas, as the French and German and Italian worlds seethed. In what was called “the Springtime of Europe”, Clemens Von Metternich, the Austria chancellor and foreign minister for 39 years, was sent packing by the mobs In Vienna; Pope Pius IX, just launched into a pontificate of 32 years, was temporarily chased out of Rome by Italian reunificationists; the Orleans monarchy in Paris was driven out and replaced by the Second Republic, led by Napoleon’s nephew; and there were uprisings across Germany, in Poland, Hungary, Denmark, Switzerland, Belgium, and even Brazil. The departure of Metternich, “the Coachman of Europe”, and convening genius of the Congress of Vienna, was particularly striking and presaged the rise of a united Germany and Austria’s replacement as the leading German–speaking power, while the upheavals in Italy foretold the unification of the country as well as of Germany.” [1]
[1] Black, Conrad, Flight of the Eagle: A Strategic History of the United States, Toronto, Ontario, McClelland & Stewart, pp. 604-5
(iBook Version)
And this:
“Most northerners would have found slavery conceptually distasteful, but there is no evidence that a significant percentage of them wished to force the issue or risk the Union to be rid of slavery. A great mythos developed that the Union armies more than a decade later were trampling through the south prepared, as Julia Ward Howe wrote in the Battle Hymn of the Republic, ” to die to make men free”. This was just another creation of the American public relations system. But the frustration of the North, that slavery existed in the South but was not offensive enough to do anything about it, aggravated the ambiance of moral back-biting at every opportunity to rail ineffectually about slavery, until the South routinely threatened to secede.” [2]
[2] Black, Ibid, p. 616
Beautiful portrayals of the historical goings-on delivered by Black’s silver pen give the reader a pointed and apt description of the European situation in 1848, the Year of Revolution, and in the United States in the 1850’s prior to the Civil War. Black’s mastery of the English language is obvious from the way he uses his enormous vocabulary. About the latter, there were many words which I had never heard or wasn’t exactly sure of a definition, but by meticulously searching out the definitions of the above-mentioned words as well as making copious notes as required, I have been able to increase my own vocabulary noticeably.
Black’s description of 1848 brought back memories of my own time as a Grade 11 World History student at Mount Royal high school, due to the fact that that particular year, 1848, was one of tremendous change and upheaval in Europe as Black so aptly describes. I vaguely remember the unification of Italy in 1848 as well the setting of the table for the unification of Germany under Bismark in 1870. It is too bad that today’s history students in Quebec schools do not learn about anything that happened in Europe prior to the study of the British Industrial Revolution, with its focus on England, which pretty well removes 1848 from their studies unless events in Europe had a direct impact on the history of Quebec and Canada, ex. the Seven Years’ War in Europe which had a direct effect on the evolution of North American history in the middle of the eighteenth century.
This JuicyLesson is getting up there as far as word numbers are concerned and thus it would seem that this would be a good time to say bye until tomorrow.
Peace.