The Upcoming 2008 Canadian Sports Calendar
JANUARY
Jan. 4 - World junior hockey championship game in Czech Republic. Canada may not be in it, but it should be a dandy regardless.
Jan. 7 - Allstate Bowl Championship Series championship game at New Orleans: LSU (11-2) vs. Ohio St. (11-1). For the final time in this topsy-turvy NCAA Division I season a No. 1- or 2-ranked team will lose.
Jan. 14-27 - Australian Open, Melbourne - tennis’s first grand slam event. Roger Federer won three of the last four men’s titles, Serena Williams three of the past five women’s titles.
Jan. 19-20 - World sprint speed skating championships, Heerenveen, Netherlands. With the 2010 Games barely two years away, you might as well begin educating yourself on winter sports other than hock…, er, ice hockey, figure skating and curling. Of all the obscure winter sports, such as skeleton and luge pairs, sprint skating is the most exciting and least weird.
Jan. 27 - NHL all-star game, Atlanta. Another chance for Roberto Luongo to stuff Sidney Crosby. Sure, more people care about hockey in any small town in Canada than in all of Atlanta, but if you like your NHL games high-scoring, this is the game you want to see. Just be ready for beer-league rules when it comes to hitting and playing defence.
FEBRUARY
Feb. 2-11 - Biathlon world cup, Antholz-Anterseva, Italy. Skating’s only 1,000 years old - there are 4,000-year-old rock carvings in Norway depicting men on skis with spears stalking game.
Feb. 3 - Super Bowl XLII, Glendale, Ariz. The AFC - let’s go out on a limb and assume it will be New England - is favoured by 12 points over Green Bay or Dallas or whatever pretender the NFC sends to the desert.
Feb. 14 - Pitchers, catchers and injured players report for spring training.
Feb. 16-24 - Scotties Tournament of Hearts, Regina. B.C. has won three Scotties championships this decade.
Feb. 17 - NBA all-star game, New Orleans. It’s like watching the Phoenix Suns play an intrasquad game, only with even less defence.
Feb. 17 - NASCAR 50th Daytona 500, Daytona International Speedway, Daytona Beach, Fla. You’ve got to love a series that puts its biggest race at the start of the schedule.
Feb. 26 - Last day to report for spring training.
MARCH
March 8-16 - Tim Hortons Brier, Winnipeg. What have Quebec and Nova Scotia done that curling-mad Saskatchewan hasn’t since 1980? Win a Brier.
March 16 - NCAA men’s basketball tournament selection, 3 p.m., CBS. See who lines up against whom.
March 17-23 - World figure skating championships, Gothenburg, Sweden. A preview of the ice stars who will dazzle at GM Place in 2010.
March 18 - NCAA men’s tournament, opening round begins, Dayton Arena, Dayton, Ohio, followed two days later by regional games at various sites.
March 22-30 - Ford world women’s curling championship, Vernon, B.C.
March 25 - MLB opening day, Boston Red Sox vs. Oakland A’s, Tokyo
March 30 - Opening day for everyone else in MLB
APRIL
April 5-11 - Find an old recording of “Shouting at Amen Corner” (check under band leader Milton Mezzrow on-line) and watch the Masters from Augusta, Ga.
April 9 - Get ready for those 1 a.m. finishes, NHL playoffs begin.
April 18 - Do the Suns finally have what it takes? NBA playoffs begin.
April 21 - Boston Marathon. The 111th running of the world’s oldest annual road race.
MAY
May 3 - Kentucky Derby, 134th running of the venerable race from Kentucky Oaks-Churchill Downs, Louisville, Ky.
May 17 - Preakness Stakes, 132nd running of the Triple Crown’s second jewel, Pimlico Race Course, Baltimore, Md.
May 19 - NASCAR Sprint All-Star Challenge and Sprint Open, Lowe’s Motor Speedway, Concord, North Carolina. Yeeehaa!
May 21 - UEFA Champions League final, Moscow. When play gets underway at the new Luzhniki Stadium to determine the winner of the 2007-08 Champions League, it will mark the furthest east a European Cup final has ever been contested.
May 25 - Even Formula One is suffering from declining interest, but on this side of the sea open-wheel racing has gone into a tailspin. Still, it is the Indy 500 from Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the 92nd running of. It’s a nice warmup for the following NASCAR Sprint Cup Coca-Cola 600 from Lowe’s Motor Speedway at Concord, N.C.
May 25-June 8 - French Open, Roland Garros, Paris. The second grand slam event of the year.
JUNE
June 2-8 - LPGA McDonald’s Championship, Havre de Grace, Md. The second major of the women’s season.
June 7 - Belmont Stakes 140th running, Belmont Park, Elmont, N.Y. The final jewel in horse racing’s Triple Crown. … EUFA Euro 2008 final tournament begins.
June 14-17 - U.S. Open men’s golf championship, Torrey Pines GC, San Diego, Calif. The second major of the season.
June 14-25 - The aluminum bats are pinging at the NCAA baseball world series, Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium, Omaha, Neb.
June 23-29 - U.S. Women’s Open, Edina, Minn. As the oldest of the four women’s majors it’s the only event to have been recognized as a major by the LPGA since its founding in 1950.
June 23 - Break out the strawberries and cream, Wimbledon begins.
June 29 - UEFA EURO 2008 championship final, at Vienna. Teams to be determined.
JULY
July 5-6 - Wimbledon, women’s singles final on Saturday, men’s singles final on Sunday.
July 5-27 - From alcohol and ether to combat pain when the race began in 1903 to today’s high-tech dope, the Tour de France is the story of man’s physical and chemical triumph.
July 14-20 - British Open men’s golf championship, Royal Birkdale, Lancanshire, England. With the inaugural Open held at Prestwick GC in 1860, it’s the oldest of the four majors.
July 15 - Speaking of, ahem, dope the 79th MLB all-star game goes at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, N.Y.
July 23-Aug 3: Odlum-Brown Vancouver Open tennis tournament, New Westminster Tennis Club. This is the tourney that gave Martina Navratilova her first pro win. And North Van’s Philip Bester might want to avenge last summer’s early exit.
July 27 - NASCAR Sprint Cup Allstate 400 at the Brickyard, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Indianapolis. The good ol’ boys don’t like that wall.
AUGUST
Aug. 7-10 - PGA Championship, Oakland Hills CC, Bloomfield Township, Mich. The final major of the season.
Aug. 8-24 - 2008 Summer Olympics, under the yellow skies of Beijing
Aug. 25 - US Open, the final tennis grand-slam tournament of the season, gets underway at Flushing, N.Y.
SEPTEMBER
TBA - New England tries to win its 20th straight game as the NFL season gets under way.
Sept. 6-7 - U.S. Open finals. Begun as a men’s singles event in 1881, the separate events merged in 1986. Women’s final goes Saturday, men on Sunday.
Sept. 14 - NASCAR Sprint Cup at New Hampshire International Speedway, Loudon, N.H. First race in Chase for the Cup.
Sept. 18-21 - Ryder Cup, Valhalla GC, Louisville, Ky. Europe has won three in a row, including back-to-back skunkings of 18.5-9.5.
Sept. 25-28 - Tour Championship, East Lake GC, Atlanta. It’s been seven years since Mike Weir’s -14 won it and earned him $900,000 US.
OCTOBER
TBA - Last season will be a tough one to follow - for good and ill - but MLB’s World Series playoffs begin.
TBA - So does the NHL regular season - the Canucks defending their Stanley Cup victory, anyone?
NOVEMBER
Nov. 16 - NASCAR Sprint Cup Ford 400, Homestead-Miami Speedway, Homestead, Fla. The final race of the long, long NASCAR season.
Nov. 23 - Grey Cup game. Let’s hope it’s a little more entertaining that last November’s all-Prairie affair turned out to be.
DECEMBER
TBA - NCAA Bowl season gets under way.
Dec. 20-21 - LPGA’s Wendy’s 3-Tour Challenge, Henderson, Nev., Seen on tape-delay, this event is a unique stroke-play tournament pitting three-member teams from the PGA Tour, LPGA Tour and Champions Tour (the former Senior PGA Tour) against each other.
www.nationaplpost.com
Glendale Golfs Manitoba Canada
October 25th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
singles senior…
This is one of the more useful reads I have had today….