. “Recently, the Ontario Varsity Football League (OVFL) and the Ontario Minor Football League (OMFL) announced a partnership between the two leagues that will see the OVFL become the largest football league in Ontario.” Read the full article on Canada Football Chat here. I know a lot of people, especially in Niagara, are trying really hard to sell this as good news, but… I’d like to remind everyone in Niagara that the Storm were recently a part of the OMFL for the past 4-5 years and the reason they chose to go over to the Ontario Football Conference (OFC) is because the...

“A fracture is the separation of an object or material into two, or more, pieces under the action of stress.” With so many rumours and half-truths floating around in what has been an uncomfortable, and at times, unprofessional state of recruitment in the Niagara Regional youth football system, I think it’s important to point out that in spite of the many incredible changes and transformations that have occurred within each of the separate organizations as of late, nothing in terms of the overall perception or status within the community has in fact changed, which is very unfortunate, but...

“Tolerance of Intolerance is Cowardice” – Ayaan Hirsi Ali I remember many years back, I was on a ski trip with a large group of co-workers. We had all crossed the border into New York State and travelled to a resort that had a shuttle bus service which brought skiers back and fourth between the lodge and the tubing hill. Sitting happy and relaxed amongst my friends, I wasn’t ready for what I was about to hear. The driver, after looking around the bus, decided (I guess) that because we were all “white-skinned,” it would be okay to start telling “nigger” jokes. As if somehow,...

From an awareness standpoint, life is a whole lot different now than when I was growing up in the 70′s and 80′s. As young athletes, my friends and I were constantly pushing our physical boundaries, with very little regard (if any) for our own personal safety. Between martial arts, “kill the man with the ball” on the Kenney’s hill, and the several years that I spent as an aspiring daredevil skateboarder/bmx racer, I had more than my fair share of minor concussions throughout the years. Getting my “bell rung” was a normal and natural occurrence it seemed....

“The public holds the coach responsible for the team. His orders must be obeyed. He is responsible for the system and the carrying out of the system, not necessarily the winning of the game.”—Coach Knute Rockne For as long as I’ve been coaching, I have come to expect certain on-field behaviours from each and every one of my players. How do my players know exactly what I expect from them? Simple—I tell them. And then I make the choice to lead by example. Football, we must remember, is an aggressive and violent sport, and therefore, without any of the proper adherences to the rules or to...

Sitting in my home office today, which overlooks the park, I overheard a woman cursing (f*%$ off!) and repeatedly uttering the words “shut up,” which were obviously directed at someone that I can only assume was a person that she didn’t like very much. So I stood up from my chair, only to see this behemoth of a woman parking her car and yelling at a very cute and very small 3-year old girl, who just so happened to be sitting in the backseat of the car (no carseat of course). “Shut up, shut up, shut up!” she continued. “I don’t like whiny little brats....

Friends will always make fun of other friends, that’s just the way it is. But good friends, young men especially, shouldn’t intentionally go out of their way to make another friend feel like he’s continuously being picked on or the butt of an ongoing joke. It’s one thing to make fun of someone who you know can take it because he has a great sense of humour and doesn’t take himself or the things that his friends say too seriously…he tries anyway. It’s another thing however, to keep harping on about something that eventually goes from being funny to being...

As an athlete, it can’t be easy being affiliated with a sport that so many others seem to either hold in contempt or don’t take seriously in the first place because it combines a popular and socially acceptable profession such as [fitness] modelling, with America’s favourite contact sport—football. Modelling is fine. Rarely do you ever hear people complaining that it undermines women’s rights. In fact, many women, especially those who actually model for a living, would argue that it easily empowers women in today’s society. Throw a brain in the mix and suddenly you have a super woman...

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”—Albert Einstein Hamilton Tiger-Cats Offensive Guard, Peter Dyakowski, 27, managed to break all common stereotypes which are typically associated with “big, dumb football players” by recently competing and winning on the CBC television show Canada’s Smartest Person. Matched up against a high-school science teacher, a physicist, and one of the top poets in Canada (interesting selections), Dyakowski, who himself was a Mechanical Engineering and History...

For many, many years, I worked in the Fitness Industry, specifically in the areas of “Beginner” fitness. I loved the idea of taking someone who had essentially been inactive for their entire lives and transforming that person into a healthier and more active (thus happier) person. One common trend amongst most of these adults however, was that at some point in their lives (usually back in high school), they were permanently turned off of physical activity, almost always due to the fact that they had a coach or a teacher who used exercise as a means to punish the less athletic players or students,...