A column to make you cringe

People, people, let's let go of all this anger and appreciate the true greatness of this column:

"The Sabres goalie spent a few minutes chatting with Ryan and even let him look at his equipment."

"Peters then went above and beyond when he grabbed one of his huge sticks and presented it to my son."

Come on, that is the highest of high comedy. I mean, we've all wanted to write about hockey players' huge sticks before, and this guy just had the balls to do it. Bravo, I say.

Seriously though, argue all you want about whether a columnist should have known better than to take free tickets, etc., but my 14-year-old brother would have seen the problems with using the phrase "let him look at his equipment."

 

That's bullshit. You must not read too many newspapers in either country. One shitty column in the St. Catharines Standard is not a fair representation of Canadian print journalism, just like the best work being done at the Washington Post is also not representative of American print journalism.

In both countries you'll find that good, even great work, is being done at some very small newspapers (the Simcoe Reformer in southern Ontario, circulation about 9,000, is a perfect example) while big stinking chunks of crap are floating to the surface at huge metro dailies. You have absolutely no basis for such a general statement.

By the way, the population of St. Kitts went past 50,000 several decades ago. The city itself is about 130,000 and its metro area (Niagara Region) is about 400,000.

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Actually, I have a pretty good knowledge of newspapers on both sides of the border, (though it would seem I fail in population accuracy) but that aside:

Why don't you list five great papers under 50,000 circulation:
List five great sports columnists in Canada, and your reasons why they can be considered great.
And if you really want to challenge my assertion, list five great sports stories you've read recently in Canada.

or to make it real simple, list five great things about the Simcoe Reformer.

I've done a number of judging sessions at APSE, in big categories and small, writing and section, and what is produced regularly in a smaller centre such as Greeley, Colorado or Glen Falls, NY, far surpasses what is produced in similar-sized centres in Canada, especially when it comes to enterprise reporting. The Peterborough Examiner or Belleville Intelligencer - which are far enough away from the reaches of the Toronto Star, Sun or Globe to do good, independent work - don't bother and instead are mere receptacles for Osprey-produced chain material, irrelevant wire stories, or mundane local copy off the Petes or Bulls.

Your constant Canadian jingoism blinds you to the real facts of just how starved Canadian journalism is.