Tom Mayenknecht: Time to celebrate for Washington Nationals/Montreal Expos
Credit to Author: Paul Chapman| Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2019 21:38:29 +0000
Bulls of the week
When you’ve won your first NLCS in franchise history — 35 years in Montreal and 15 in Washington, D.C. — and the first for your city since 1933, you know it’s been a good week. That’s the afterglow that the Nationals — the former Montreal Expos — are feeling after sweeping the St. Louis Cardinals and advancing to the World Series, which begins Tuesday.
• At 6-1-0, the Edmonton Oilers are skating into the weekend with the best record among the seven Canadian NHL teams. They’re second only to the 6-1-1 Buffalo Sabres in points and the 5-0-1 Colorado Avalanche in winning percentage; a top three of teams that have turned the league upside down in the early going of 2019-20.
• Yet there’s nothing more bullish — and surprising — this week in sports than Canada’s men’s soccer team; 2-0 winners over the U.S. in a Nations League match Wednesday at BMO Field in Toronto. It’s the biggest national team win in this country since the Canadian men won the CONCACAF Gold Cup in 2000.
The arrival of MLS — with Toronto FC in 2007, Vancouver Whitecaps FC in 2011 and the Montreal Impact in 2012 — and the new, seven-team Canadian Premier League this year has significantly refashioned the infrastructure of the pro soccer game in Canada and with it, competitive opportunities for aspiring domestic talent.
Until the Toronto Raptors won the NBA Finals earlier this year, Toronto FC winning the MLS Cup in 2017 was the only major North American league title won by a Canadian-based franchise since 1993. Outside of that, and the Gold Cup, there have been very few highlights for the men’s soccer game.
It’s only Part 1 of a two-game soccer set against the U.S., but when you haven’t beaten the Americans since 1985, there’s no denying this is a huge accomplishment for head coach John Herdman, Canada Soccer and the national men’s team program. It’s the kind of thing that will lead to more sponsorship, investment in player development and more fan engagement around the national team and both MLS and the CPL, and that’s all good for the business of soccer.
With no FIFA World Cup berths since Mexico 1986, it’s a business that has almost entirely relied on the women’s national soccer team (double Olympic bronze medallists at London 2012 and Rio 2016), and the FIFA 2015 Women’s World Cup appearance, for anything to cheer about.
No wonder Herdman is sticking with his goal to qualify for Qatar 2022 rather than wait for the automatic-host-nation qualification for Canada-U.S.-Mexico in 2026.
Bears of the week
The NBA can’t wait for games to matter when the new regular season tips off Oct. 22.
For the second straight week the league has been mired in mixed signals, negative headlines and fan pushback. That’s how tough a PR issue the NBA-China controversy has been for commissioner Adam Silver, star players such as LeBron James, and Chinese owner Joseph Tsai of the Brooklyn Nets.
And it all started with a relatively innocuous tweet by Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey. Rarely has the NBA looked and sounded as out-of-step as it’s been since Morey shouted out in support of democracy in Hong Kong on Oct. 7.