On January 27th, my son Peyton and I will be participating in the Ottawa Senators Foundation first ever Energizer Night Skate along the Rideau Canal as part of the NHL All-Star Weekend. Thousands of skaters wearing Energizer LED Headlights will light up the Canal as they skate 5km from Somerset Street to Bank Street and back.

All funds raised from this event will assist the Senators Foundation (the sole benefactor) with their plans to construct outdoor, natural NHL sized ice rinks in priority neighbourhoods throughout eastern Ontario and western Quebec.

The Senators Foundation believes in creating community resources, delivering programs and funding charitable organizations that provide healthy and safe sport & recreation opportunities to children and youth so they learn and grow outside of school hours.

You can show your support for this initiative by sponsoring me here: http://energizernightskate.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=1003640&supId=350029343

If you don’t like me (highly possible), but still want to support the initiative, you can sponsor my son Peyton, who is 3 and will spend more time in a stroller than skating, here: http://energizernightskate.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=1003640&supId=350029344

Any contribution you can make is greatly appreciated.

Thank you for supporting this great community initiative by the Senators Foundation.

This should be a great event! See you there…

When ? Wednesday, November 30th, 2011 at 11:45am-1:15pm
Where ? Sheraton Ottawa Hotel, 150 Albert Street – Rideau Room
Cost ? $35 for members, $60 for non-members

About the presentation:
The social media wave has taken all communicators by storm. Each sector and industry has felt it to different degrees, but none have been riding it bigger and better than the Sports sector. International competitions, the Olympic Games, all garner worldwide attention and the hopes of millions of fans. Who better than to educate the NCR’s communication and PR professionals than the people working in the sector themselves??

The CPRS Ottawa-Gatineau chapter is proud to host a panel discussion on the use of social media by representatives from the Ottawa Senators, CanoeKayak Canada, and the Canadian Soccer Association.

Join us for lunch for what should be a truly remarkable session, whether you are a sports fan or not!

Moderated by: CPRS Ottawa-Gatineau

Agenda:
11:45am Registration and networking
12:00pm Lunch, standing buffet
12:15pm Panel discussion
1:00pm Q&A

This session will feature a brief presentation by each panel member, followed by a Q&A from the audience.

Panel members:
Jeff Kyle, Vice President Marketing, Ottawa Senators
Lorraine Lafrenière, Director General, CanoeKayak Canada
Michèle Dion, Communications Manager, Canadian Soccer Association

Spaces are limited, please register by Tuesday November 29th on the EventBrite website: http://cprsnovember2011.eventbrite.com/

Blogs, links, jumps, sidebars, comments and emails. Spend enough time on the Internet and you will come across hundreds of thousands of each one.

This one lead me to this.

Then I saw this and I encourage you to read it. It is important, it is Canadian, and it is good. I am even going to encourage you to forward the link to people you know.

Then I read this.

No matter what happens over the next few weeks the spirit of these discussions will not go away. Even the requirement that foreign journalists will need to apply for access to Tiananmen Square 24 hours in advance if they want to interview, broadcast or film in the plaza won’t turn this story off. (Intrepid journalists will, I believe, find people to interview, film, record and photograph at other venues. I’ve visited Tiananmen Square and it isn’t the only venue in Beijing where one can reasonably expect to find citizens milling about. It is, after all, a big city.)

It is just not possible, you see, to shut the Internet down. Nor can true public conversation be silenced. Shouts might become whispers but never silence.

And while we’re at it, I’d suspend Steve Downie for the season, mainly because his vicious hit was prompted by a desire to retaliate and was not simply an unfortunate hit that happened in the course of the game.  To my mind, the reason for the hit is as important as the hit itself, and a hit like that, given only because Downie didn’t like getting hit, means he needs to be gone for the season. 

As a hockey dad, it drives me crazy that NHL officials don’t see that young players emulate this stuff.

Get well soon, Dean, and then have the season of your life — that’ll be the way to get even with the Flyers.

One of my friends, Brad Myers of TD Waterhouse, is helping organize the GAME ON! Charity Hockey Tournament taking place during the day on Friday, November 30th at the Bell Sensplex.

I will be participating.

The daylong event will bring together members of the Ottawa business community to play hockey, network and, most importantly, raise funds for the Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation to implement social programs that will benefit the children of cancer patients.

12 teams will be formed and each will play 3 fun games of hockey – no scorekeepers, no trophies.

7:00am to 8:30am – Registration & Breakfast
9:00am to 5:00pm – Hockey
11:30am to 2:00pm – Lunch
4:30pm to 6:00pm – Happy Hour

Space is limited to 132 players, so register now. (put ‘NA’ in the Team Information fields you’ll be asked to complete)

I remain skeptical about my ability to cheer for the Indianapolis Colts, but if ever there was a coach who lived the very core of the word, it’s Tony Dungy.

Rick Reilly’s piece from Sports Illustrated is a marvel of efficient writing, but most important is the notion of community it represents.

To quote:

“And this is only one stranger whom Tony Dungy has befriended. There’s the former high school coach in Wisconsin whose son committed suicide. There’s the young kid in Indianapolis who lost his mother and brother in a car wreck. Heartbroken people all over are suddenly getting a hand up from a man who himself should be a puddle but is instead a river of strength.

Yet Dungy refuses to talk to the media about these good deeds, which only makes them better.”

“Tony Dungy stands as a reminder to every parent who’s grieving right now that there is a way through the pain. And that way is through each other.”

Dundy lost his own son in 2005, just before Christmas, and he has been reaching out to others ever since.  I can only hope I would be one-tenth as strong, in similar circumstances, but I can promise two boys will get a big hug tonight from their dad. 

In my volunteer life, I’m the chair of the Gloucester Dragons Recreational Soccer Association — so I clearly don’t agree with Chuck Klosterman about soccer.

Having said that, I do recognize that soccer is a relatively new sport in this country, and that there are not a lot of people with experience to coach the 3,400 or so young players we have in the association.

I am still surprised, however, that of our 200 or so teams, we probably had to recruit some 15 to 25 per cent of our coaches under duress (i.e. we need a coach or there’s no team).

I’m also surprised at the number of familiar faces I see in the larger group of eager volunteers — hockey coaches coaching again in soccer season, scout leaders coaching, etc. And when we put out the call for coaches in our panic, the people who stepped up were the ones who usually do that other stuff.

In fact, one woman we called gave me a list of activities she and her husband were involved in that was so complete they had one night a week they could devote to coaching soccer, but they would do it if we really needed them.  We told them that, thanks, we’ll make sure we find someone else who isn’t giving quite so much.

So, my pitch is this: if you’re not volunteering right now for something, please think about doing so.  You don’t need to become a coach for the Dragons — although, if you’re interested, we could use the help.

What I’d really like to see is a group of people getting together to figure out how they can help each other help out.

Game 1 of the Senators vs Ducks Stanley Cup Final is set to go tonight, in about three hours.

If you’ve been looking for anything non-Senators related in the Ottawa papers for the last three or four days, you likely haven’t found much.

Canada’s capital has been taken over by ‘Sens fever’.

I’ll be watching the games at The Standard on Elgin and was lucky enough to get tickets to game 4.

Go Sens Go!

I am an unabashed baseball fan — I think it may be the most pure game there is, and I like nothing better, on a lazy summer afternoon, than to head to the ballpark and watch the Lynx play.

Today, however, my heart is heavy for the future of the game for a very specific reason — I’m worried that Barry Bonds, should he break Hank Aaron’s home run record in the next couple of months, might harm the game in a permanent way that time won’t heal.

No matter you’re opinion of Bonds the athlete, there is no denying Bonds is bad at selling the game.  He’s always been more about Barry Bonds than about the team, or the game, and he’s been one of those athletes unwilling to realize how good they have it, etc.  In short, by all accounts he’s been graceless, tactless, and — here’s the largest condemnation — not a winner.  That’s right, there are no World Series rings on Barry Bonds’ fingers.

Hank Aaron?  World Series winner …

Babe Ruth?  World Series winner …

So, Mr. Bonds, here’s what you can do to preserve the game that has made you wealthy beyond your wildest imagination and has brought you fame and fortune …

Since the Giants finished under .500 last year, unless they are in a tight pennant race, there will be no competitive reason to carry on, so my advice, Mr. Bonds, is as follows: Tie the record, then retire.

Hit 755 homeruns, then say “I’m done.”

Otherwise, it’s an asterisk for you forever, Mr. Bonds, and every discussion of the most home runs ever will start, ” well, Hank Aaron hit 755 homeruns clean, but Barry Bonds got __ and kind of holds the record.”

You might want to ask Roger Maris how he felt about the asterisk for his whole life — particularly since his asterisk was for a much less serious transgression of the rules.

Will Barry Bonds listen?  Has he ever?