Every Monday, Gazette sports columnist Jack Todd, one of my favourite writers regardless of how bitter and discontented with his life he may be, writes a weekly column, the end of which contains a section he calls Heroes and Zeros. Therefore with full disclosure now in my wake, and without further ado, here is my version of Heroes and Zeros for today:
Heroes: the Montreal Alouettes for an entertaining afternoon of football and an important victory over the Saskatchewan Roughriders, the McGill University Redmen football team, the anti-Chartre movement, the Als defence, Jerome Messam, President Barak Obama and Obamacare, New York City, Jefferson Airplane’s Volunteers, Kansas City Chiefs and Andy Reid, Mohammed Ali, Mahatma Gandhi, Mariano Rivera, McGill running back Mota who ran over, under, around and through the porous Stinger defence in a 53 to 52 OT win at Concordia on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon, Als receivers S.J. Green, Duron Carter, and Eric Deslaurier, Als’ defensive line and pass coverage team, Bishop University’s football team, the Edmonton Eskimos, Kavis Reed, Suzie Epelbaum, Ezra Soiferman,The Man of Grease, Jonathan Garonce, the Montreal Expos, Warren Cromartie, the Habs, Billy Parker, Chip Cox, Troy Smith, Josh Neiswinder, Loren Lann, Danny Schwartzberg, and, last but not least, big Jean Beliveau, a true gentleman.
Zeros: Pauline Marois, Jean-Francois Lysee, Bernard Drainville, Diane de Courcy and people of their ilk, the PQ, Senators (no, not the hockey team) Mike Duffy, Pamela Walling, and Patrick Brazeau, Alouettes special teams, especially the punt coverage team which consistently allowed the Roughriders long run backs – at least ten to fifteen yards a shot – continually playing havoc with Alouette field position, Jim Popp who doesn’t know what he’s doing as a coach but always manages to field a decent team as GM, Brandon London who dropped too many easily catchable passes yesterday, Jerome Messam (yes, him again for fumbling and losing a potential touchdown run of fifty yards at a key moment), Sean Whyte who, although having punted much better in the second half, missed a shortish field goal and did not punt well in the first half, the Concordia football Stinger PAT team which blew an extra point snap in OT giving McGill, which trailed by eleven points at the end of the first half, 20-9, a one point win, the New York football Giants, Brett Lawrie, the underachieving Toronto Blue Jays who, by the way they fool around, don’t seem at all upset by their pathetic showing on the field this season, the Toronto Argonauts, the Boston Red Sox, the New York Yankees and last but not least, the overrated hobbit in the hole Carrey Price, House Republicans south of the border, and the Chartre des valeurs.