The first time I spoke to Russ Conway he wanted nothing to do with me. “I’m tired of reporters trying to steal my stuff,” he said in his Chowderhead accent. “I don’t need any help.”

Bianca Andreescu learned many valuable lessons in winning the title at the Canadian WTA championship this weekend. She leaned that she has more than enough game to win at this level. She learned that her conditioning will be.a vital piece of her success. She learned that the Canadian media will go crazy for her. And she learned she can drive opponents crazy with her high-maintenance dramas in between shots.

How to conclude a great sporting event is equally important. And just as fraught with error. And controversy.

The week of infamy has begun for Toronto Blue Jays fans. Two years ago their team was a powerhouse, seemingly on the brink of a trip to the World Series.

One former pro athlete recently observed that athletes don’t talk about three things in the dressing room: Playing time. Salary. And the first name of a team mate’s wife. He might also have added whether your favourite ball player likes guys or girls when he gets home from the game that night.

So the men’s final at Wimbledon this weekend lasted five immortal sets over 4 hours 57 minutes before Novak Djokovic finally outlasted Roger Federer in a stirring contest that ended in a fifth-set tiebreaker at 12-all.

Okay class. Construct a headline from the following: Kawhi Leonard spurns the Raptors in the middle of the night for his hometown team, the L.A. Clippers. At the same moment southern California experiences a 7.1 earthquake. 

Where did the great French Canadian players go? The 2019 NHL Draft produced an avalanche of players from the U.S. National Development program, Sweden, Finland, the Ontario Hockey League and the Western Hockey League.

You don’t have to ask the impact of the Toronto Raptors winning the NBA title last week. Two million people on the streets of that city speak to the engagement created by the team’s dramatic process through the playoffs. Think of the public’s addiction to the games as Game Of Thrones— except with guys in short pants.

The Golden State Warriors have been playing Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner for much of the 2019 NBA playoffs. You just never know who’s going to show up for the show.

The NBA Finals is the best-on-best in the league. West versus East. Kawhi versus Steph. And plays that amaze. Sadly, the same can’t be said for the quality of many of the accumulated reporters and announcers who also are working the Finals.

NFL legend Barry Sander scored many touchdowns in his illustrious career. When he crossed the goal line Sanders invariably handed the ball to the referee and jogged back to his bench. One day a reporter asked him, “Barry, why don’t you celebrate more when you score an important TD?”

Sanders replied. “I want people to think I’ve been there before.”

Somewhere in heaven, baseball pioneer Curt Flood is smacking his forehead with his palm. 

Some call it analytics. Some call it statistics. Some call it trivia. Others call it a waste of time. But collating and interpreting the reams of data generated by pro sports teams and its stars is now an integral part of sport.

Yogi Berra is notorious for saying “It ain’t over till it’s over”. Yogi was warning about jumping to conclusions in close contests. But he never foresaw a contest that never ended. For reference, consider the he 145th running of the Kentucky Derby. It will probably never be over for those who participated or witnessed the race.

When the law of unintended consequences meets an army of social engineers the result, most often, is the engineers going off the rails. That includes in the world of sports where the best of intentions about equal opportunity for women athletes has been exposed as a scam in the recent Varsity Blues scholarship case in the U.S.

Who saw Tiger Woods’ emotional Masters win coming? Certainly not the William Hill bet shop that coughed up $1.2 M to a single bettor when Woods ended his 14-year winless streak on the PGA Tour’s major events.