When Simone Biles walked off the floor and opted out of six of her six artistic gymnastics finals during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics due to a mental block, she shone a bright light on mental health issues in sports and the pressure that high-level athletes competing at both the Olympics and in professional sports leagues face on a near daily basis. Athletes such as Simone Biles, tennis player Naomi...
Of the myriad of sports that saw an increase in uptake over the course of the pandemic, tennis was perhaps the most noticeable. With social distancing restrictions limiting other sports that require closer contact from the menu, standing seventy-eight feet away from one’s adversary while thwacking a fluorescent ball back and forth became both one of the few options on the cards, as well as a good...
With transfers occurring left and right after clubs loosened their purse strings, this season in the English top flight will prove to be exciting Last year’s Premier League season saw Manchester City win the league title with a few games to spare with a relatively paltry sum of eighty-six points. Although their devilish city neighbour’s form saw them only mathematically win their third league...
From Tom Brady to an additional game, the year promises to be an exciting one With the 102 season of the National Football League just underway, fans can look forward to the numerous intriguing storylines that are present in the league this year. Here are a few: “It’s a man! It’s a plane! No, it’s the GOAT!” Former First Take analyst Max Kellerman is famous for theorizing in 2016 that then-New...
As some 65,000 unmasked fans flooded the stands of Raymond James Stadium in Tampa Bay on Thursday, the National Football League (NFL) season kicked off with quite a bang. The classic Buccaneer cannons rang out with each touchdown scored — and there were a lot of them! In the end, the Bucs (and the refs) stole one in the dying seconds from a Cowboys team that gave it their all. Final score: 31-29...
The cost of hosting the famous Games grows more and more each iteration Every Winter or Summer Olympics, heartwarming sports moments flood our discourse. For the Tokyo 2020 Olympics this past summer, those heartwarming moments came again in full force. Two of my favourite moments were Andre De Grasse from my hometown of Markham, Ontario winning gold in the 200 m, and weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz...
A Recap of the 2021 NBA Trade Deadline The NBA trade deadline day has always been a nerve-wracking day for NBA fans waiting to see whether their favourite players will be traded. For Raptors fans, this year’s trade deadline had the potential to be franchise-altering with the possibility of trading both franchise star and GROAT (Greatest Raptor of All Time) Kyle Lowry and long-time Raptor Norman...
Staff Writer Luke Giffen Reflects on his NHL Predictions and Takes Us Back Through What’s Been a Truly Bizarre, One-of-a-Kind NHL Season As we move well past the halfway point of this strange NHL season, I thought it would be a good idea to look back on how my predictions stacked up from when the season first began. Also, I’ll recap the multitude of interesting stories that have popped up along...
Boxer Marvelous Marvin Hagler passed away on March 13, 2021. He had his name legally changed to “Marvelous” after announcers did not refer to his nickname. He was marvelous in the ring and was considered one of the “Four Kings” of his generation of boxers, which included Thomas Hearns, Roberto Durán, and Sugar Ray Leonard. I love the sport of boxing, and it’s taught me some transferrable skills...
Why we ought to give the future HOFer his flowers while he is still here As the adage goes, you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. For a brief moment in time, Raptors fans were given no choice but to stare into the unknown and envision a world without Kyle Lowry. The whirlwind of a nine-game losing streak, talks of a rebuild in the media, and rumours of a frugal real estate transaction...
I have known my friend Mike (real name withheld) for about ten years. We grew up together attending the same summer camp, and then we spent four more years in Montreal completing our undergraduate degrees. For as long as I have known him, Mike has bought, sold, and traded sports cards. And for as long as he has been collecting, I have been telling him to stop wasting his money. Of course...
Osgoode teams crowned champions, reach semi-finals, among 26 teams across North America in National Sports Moot hosted by U of T On March 13th, Osgoode Hall sent two teams (virtually) to the annual Hockey Arbitration Competition of Canada, hosted by the University of Toronto. This year’s Osgoode teams were executive members from the Osgoode Entertainment & Sports Law Association, Jordan Kazan...
When Thomas Tuchel first joined up with a struggling Chelsea squad, he vowed to make them into a team that no one enjoyed playing against. Given their dire form at the time, most probably wrote off this task as one that would have to wait until the following season when Tuchel had come to grips with the rollercoaster nature of Premier League life. However, the rangy German has proved himself to...
The unfolding of the COVID-19 pandemic has made 2020 a year to forget for businesses and industries alike. One of the hardest hit by the pandemic seems to be the live sports and entertainment industry. Many professional sports leagues have been postponed or cancelled, and only those with healthy financial resources or lucrative TV broadcasting contracts have survived. For smaller corporations...
March has finally arrived. March has always been my favourite time of the year because of the excitement surrounding the NCAA Basketball March Madness tournament. From a young age, my dad would print out the brackets and we would fill them out by hand. We would then track our success throughout the tournament with red X’s and blue circles. As I grew up, the pen and paper brackets evolved into...
The NHL season is just over twenty games old, and yet you can already make a strong case for certain players to win this year’s Hart Trophy for the NHL’s Most Valuable Player. Some, such as Edmonton Oilers star Connor McDavid who was crowned League MVP in 2017, are no strangers to this conversation. Other contenders, such as Jonathan Huberdeau, find themselves in uncharted waters. Below is a look...
Chelsea and United’s scoreless draw highlights the lack of fizzle in recent years As Chelsea gritted their way to a goalless draw at Stamford Bridge that saw them share the points with a visiting Manchester United, I was left a little deflated. As a Blues fan myself, I wasn’t happy that we had once again failed to win at home against United— a recurring trend since 2017. The post-match...
How Mark Messier “guaranteed” himself another victory, this time in Court In a career full of accolades, the greatest moment in hockey legend Mark Messier’s time in the NHL came after a guarantee. As captain of the New York Rangers, Messier “guaranteed” his team would come back and defeat their rival New Jersey Devils in Game 6 of the 1994 Eastern Conference Finals to tie the series. The man they...
How the Toronto Maple Leafs managed to outdo themselves yet again Last Monday, the Toronto Maple Leafs and Ottawa Senators renewed acquaintances for the 150th meeting of the “Battle of Ontario”, with the two teams on polar opposite ends of the NHL Standings. The Maple Leafs entered the game with the league’s best record of 11-3-1, pacing the rest of the NHL with 23 points. They had gotten off to...
It is the most prestigious race in history, yet considering its importance, the America’s Cup is transpiring in New Zealand with remarkably little media attention. Known as “The Billionaire Death Race,” the America’s Cup was first contested in 1851 when the yacht America, racing for the New York Yacht Club, sailed to the Royal Yacht Squadron on the Isle of Wight. There, on the 22nd of August in...
Thomas Tuchel’s mid-season appointment comes as no surprise at Stamford Bridge When Frank Lampard began his second full season in charge of Chelsea FC, many supporters assumed that he would be allowed at least the full season to show signs of progress before the board sought a replacement. However, given the massive expenditure that the club underwent this summer to bring in Timo Werner, Kai...
Mario Lofranco continues his essay on ending the stigma surrounding doping in Sports In the first part of this article series, I refuted the three common arguments for maintaining the prohibition on doping in sport: (1) naturalness; (2) unfair advantage; and (3) the spirit of sport. In this article, I discuss the most common argument in favour of the prohibition against doping – harm – and argue...
How the Leafs Budding Young Stars Performed at the World Juniors On January 5, 2021, the United States, led by promising goaltender Spencer Knight (FLA), blanked Canada 2-0 in the 2021 IIHF World Junior Championship (WJC) final, capturing their 5th title. The WJC is a fan favourite and every Boxing Day marks the beginning of an exciting tournament for both the young players and NHL front offices...
With the pandemic creating an All-Canadian NHL Division this season, we’re due for a hockey war up North Well, after a tumultuous 2020 on and off the ice, Canadian hockey fans are in store for an incredible NHL season. With that in mind, let’s tackle the newly formed Scotia™ NHL™ North Division. This division is undoubtedly a return to the NHL’s roots, as you’d have to harken all the way back to...
Welcome back to NBA basketball! The NBA regular season has started once again a mere two months after the end of the 2019-2020 season, this time on a shortened 72 game schedule due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. While the NBA may have returned, the Raptors appear to remain on “vacation mode” as they begin their season with a losing record of 2-7 (at the time of writing), currently the second...