When we say sport is war, we don’t usually think of horse racing, but reading this, I can’t help but think that horse racing is pretty tough. From FOX Sports:
Eight Belles is dead. She broke two ankles after finishing second in the Kentucky Derby, and since horses can’t live after that kind of injury (for various reasons), she was euthanized on the track.
Eight Belles is dead. It is strangely appropriate that the second-place finisher is the one who died.
If Big Brown had broken his ankles after winning, he would have been the biggest story in America this morning. There would be many calls to rethink the sport of horse racing. There would be a national conversation about whether horse racing is a worthy sporting endeavor or unfit for a civilized society.
If a horse had broken his ankles after finishing last, it would have been one paragraph in newspaper stories — a footnote. Fans would not have paid much attention, because it would be easy to separate the death from the reason we watch the Kentucky Derby — to see who wins.
But when the second-place finisher breaks down and must be euthanized on the track, it becomes a nasty little thought that you can’t get out of your head. You might just find yourself blocking it out and concentrating on the winner, but that will only bring guilt.
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WatchMojo NewsletterThe first Monday after the Habs are eliminated, the French press shows why even French players don’t want to come to Montreal.
The irony of local hockey player Daniel Briere choosing to sign with the Philadelphia Flyers instead of the Montreal Canadiens - only to be a part of the team that sent Les Glorieux home - was not lost on La Press writer Francois Gagnon, who today asks if the Montreal locker room is big enough for both captain Saku Koivu and leading scorer Alexei Kovalev [article in French here].
A few comments:
- Koivu and Kovalev proved - despite one glorious Game 7 against the Bruins in the first round - that they do not belong on the same line. That much we recognize.
- Koivu is Finnish; Kovalev is Russian, say what you want, but there’s going to be some hostility and tension there, perhaps.
- But it ends there: athletes have egos and they want the puck, but they also want another marquee, elite player to take some of the heat off; both from the opposing checking line and apparently, from the media.
Today front page of La Presse is disturbing: it bears the picture of Koivu and Kovalev and asks: is the dressing room too small. You’d expect this hit job from Gagnon’s confrere Rejean Tremblay, but Gagnon - an otherwise sensible writer - resorts to the very same sensationalist BS that has come to run players out of town.
We should be celebrating the Canadiens best season since 1993, and we happy about setting the stage for a Stanley Cup run next year in the Habs’ centennial season. If we want to get critical, maybe we should ask why coach Carbonneau:
- failed to insert size and grit (Stewart) or scoremaking (Michael Ryder) or speed (Mikhail Grabovski).
- moved away from the lineup that won him top seed in the Conference.
But we don’t, even though those are legitimate questions to ask. We’d be nitpicking, however.
What Gagnon does is reiterate the same kind of garbage that makes English, French and European players look elsewhere when free agency season starts.
