Ponderables
Will Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ever realize that his place of work is the Canadian House of Commons?
How can anyone not cheer for the Vegas Knights?
More Country Song Titles
I Don’t Mind The Thorns If You’re The Rose
The Hurtin’s All Over (All Over Me)
What Got To You (Before It Got To Me)
My Political Dilemma
There’s a provincial election here in Ontario on June 7th, which is the cause of my dilemma.
I’ve always considered voting to be a right that should unfailingly be exercised, and to that end I’ve cast ballots a total of 51 times: 18 in municipal elections, 15 in provincial elections, and 18 in federal elections. In municipal elections I’ve always voted for the person I thought was the most suitable candidate. As I’ve always been a fiscal and social conservative, in provincial and federal elections I’ve consistently voted Conservative.
Here’s my problem. I simply can’t take seriously a one-trick-pony party like the Greens. Because I consider the NDP’s economic policies to be congenitally wrong-headed, and their social policies to be generally high-horse, unaffordable, and subject to a plethora of negative unintended consequences, I could never vote for them. That leaves the Liberals, headed by premier Kathleen Wynne, and the Progressive Conservatives, headed by their newly-minted leader Doug Ford.
My antipathy towards Kathleen Wynne runs so deep that there are are absolutely no circumstances under which I would vote for her. As I’ve written here before, the only impediment to Ms. Wynne being the worst premier this province has ever endured is her predecessor, Dalton McGuinty; and she was a senior cabinet minister and an integral part of his arrogantly corrupt administration.
PC leader Doug Ford, who would normally be my natural choice, probably wouldn’t even be in that position if the PC party had even an inkling of how to run a leadership convention. Add to that his similarities to Donald Trump and I’m not sure I can hold my nose long enough to vote for him.
So, for the first time since being eligible to do so, I may not vote, which, given my earlier comments, would make me a hypocrite; and I’ve always abhorred hypocrisy.
The only way out of this dilemma is for Doug Ford to surprise me over the next six weeks by not making any more stupid statements or promises and showing at least a semblance of class.
In any event, this whole situation is a depressing testimony to the pitiful state of today’s political leadership, or more accurately, the lack thereof.
An Unpopular Opinion
In the interest of full disclosure I confess that I’m a former goalie. Now, to the point of this item.
Given that I’ve lived most of my adult life in the city of Toronto, it’s not surprising that the vast majority of my family and friends are Maple Leaf fans. And given that they’re Maple Leaf fans, it’s not surprising that they consider Freddie Andersen to be a great goalie, which is where my unpopular opinion comes into play. You see, I think that Freddie Andersen is a good goalie, perhaps even a very good goalie, but decidedly not a great goalie.
I readily admit that Andersen makes a lot of great saves; for example his lunging, mid-air paddle stop in game three of the current Toronto-Boston series was as good as I’ve ever seen.
But I judge goalies not on the quality or number of saves they make, but rather on the number of soft goals they let in. All goalies make great saves, but great goalies rarely let in soft goals, especially at critical times in a game. Freddie Andersen lets in an awful lot of soft goals, many at critical times in games. Yes, he’s a good goalie; but, no, he’s not a great goalie.
Records That Will Likely Never Be Broken
Speaking of great goalies, recently, at one of our weekly Thursday’s Children lunches, Doug Beeforth (who is extremely adept at this type of reckoning) mentioned two sports records that will probably never be broken: goaltender Glenn Hall’s 502 consecutive games, and the New York Islanders winning 19 consecutive playoff series.
Although the topic of unreachable sports records usually provokes arguments, in this instance agreement with Doug was unanimous.