“Sport Stories that Mattered to Me”
Well? What did matter to me? A lot has happened in the last year, sports-wise. Kobe Bryant passed, a teenager won the French Open, Tom Brady moved to Tampa, the list goes on roughly forever. Which of these matters to me? Which can I write about that will seem genuine and insightful about a topic you haven’t already heard?
I’m not breaking the news of Brady’s move or coming to you live with new details about Romain Grosjean’s scary moment at the 2020 Bahrain Grand Prix.
I kept trying to think about what I would have to offer about these stories that you haven’t already heard, and I realized I wouldn’t do them justice. At the same time, it won’t be new information, and things can only be repeated so many times.
So, what to write about? I figured I could look at sports on a more local level. Great idea, Josh!
Wrong. Not a great idea, and here’s why.
The first thing that popped into my head was writing about the local Ultimate scene in Winnipeg (where I’m from). It was the perfect topic. Ultimate, a growing sport, is not yet mainstream, so I could introduce a few people to the sport. Winnipeg, a city many people know as the Jets’ home and nothing more, is a consistent threat at the national level of the sport, despite being a fraction of the size of it’s biggest competitors. And finally, I play Ultimate, both recreationally and competitively, and could fairly easily put passion into writing about the topic.
It was a perfect idea. I had this grand plan to walk you through the last few years of competitive Ultimate in the city and let you in on the not-so-secret fact that the city pumps out perennial podium threats to the Canadian Ultimate Championships in the Open, Women’s, Mixed, Masters, and Junior divisions. I had stats to back it up with Fusion (Women’s) winning Gold in 2016, PBHG (Mixed) winning Gold in 2018, and General Strike (Open) grabbing silvers in 2012, 2016, and 2017. I even could have mentioned MOFO (Juniors), who have too many medals to count in over the last few years.
Unfortunately, COVID-19 threw a wrench in this as our province was forced to cancel most sports this year, and Ultimate Canada was forced to cancel the 2020 Canadian Ultimate Championships.
So, onto the next idea. Perfect, I know what I’ll write about!
In 2018, Ultimate was introduced to students at 1972 Memorial High School, located in Oxford House, a First Nations Cree community some 200 kilometers north of Winnipeg. With the support of the Manitoba Aboriginal Sport and Recrecreation Council, Manitoba Organization of Disc Sports, and 2018 Ultimate Canada Coach of the Year, Willem Konrad, coaches were able to fly up to the community and teach the sport in gym class.
For many of the students, this was just another gym class where they played some silly sport that the teacher obviously made up. For some, the sport clicked as more than just a way to run around. For the latter, on days when coaches were up north, there were team practices after school. That summer, for the first time, an Ultimate team from Oxford House was able to fly into Winnipeg for the Manitoba Provincial High School Ultimate Championships. They were the Oxford House Thunder. Students had to meet academic requirements to make the trip and provided they met those requirements, they took part in the trip of a lifetime. For many of them, trips to Winnipeg were limited to necessity, doctor’s appointments, etc. This trip was something completely different. Students were hooked up with jerseys, cleats, and many other things provided by generous donors. That year they won one game at the tournament.
Fast forward to 2019, and I had the privilege of being one of their coaches for the year. The team looked even better than the previous year, and the students were even more engaged. Perfect, another thing I can write about! But wait, high school ultimate in 2020 was canceled due to the pandemic, and this happened in 2019. I’d better keep searching.
Finally, as I struggled to find sports stories that mattered to me and weren’t already well known, it hit me. The lack of sports is the story.
In a typical year, I play Ultimate anywhere from three to five times each week. I play soccer two times each week. I play softball once per week. I golf, terribly, of course, whenever the boys convince me to golf.
These regularities becoming rarities is the biggest sports story that mattered to me, and I know I’m not alone in feeling this way. Gone were the beers with our team following practices and games. Gone were the road trips for tournaments and the jokes on the sidelines. Gone were the wins, gone were the losses.
For so many of us, sports are more than running around for an hour; they’re a disconnect from work, they’re a way to keep up with friends, they’re a way to get outside, and most importantly, they’re just a way to have fun.
To me, this is the biggest sports story of 2020, and I can’t wait for 2021 when the even bigger story is that all these things come back.
Thanks for hearing me out, all the best in 2021.
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