I miss the Expos.

Indeed, we lined up yesterday evening at the St. Louis arena on St. Dominique just north of St. Viateur, paid our $12 entrance fee, paid for our 2 for $5 beers (or $3 for one, but who only gets one?) and made our way down into the hockey area. Having the foresight to bring pillows, we settled down in prime parterre seating (at your own peril) and cracked open our first cans of a truly horrible-but-good American brew “Pabst” and the Roller Derby championships between the two Montreal teams La Racaille and Les Contrabanditas began. Hosted by the fabulous Plastic Patrick and some other dude, we were quickly launched into screaming, cheering fans as the first half started.

What fun! I highly encourage you to check this sport out. Teams of mouthguard wearing, fishnet sporting women racing around a hockey arena in a violent, jostling, strategic, competitive and action-packed activity, it’s fun for the whole family. (There were a significant amount of kids there, actually). With player names like Wrath Poutine, Ashley Thudd, Iron Wench and Georgia W. Tush, how can you not go?

(Next game happens at Arena St. Louis on August 13, between Montreal’s New Skids on the Block and the Long Island Roller Rebels).

Official site: http://www.mtlrollerderby.com/
An informative Flickr set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bubbabrown/sets/72157606154552557/

Mont Tremblant is in an alternate universe. At least, I don’t think it’s in Quebec. We ran up Friday (big mistake) to ski Tremblant. First time in close to 20 years. I had seen the changes, just never skied there since. What a zoo.

1. Wait in line for a bus to take you to the hill.
2. Wait in line for 40 minutes to buy your lift ticket (70 bucks)
3. Wait in line for another 40 minutes to get to the top via the gondola.

It wasn’t like that 20 years ago! When I first skied Tremblant as a kid, I remember the single chairlift on the North Side. I even remember taking it..

Chalk full of tourists.. Lots of Americans and British. All the staff speak to you in English with accents. It’s so bizare. It’s Quebec, yet not quite.  Tourists who routinely ask you how you are doing.. Whoa, again, we don’t do that in Quebec!

Winds at the top were insane. If you slid down with your arms out, the wind would stop you from moving. Conditions however were still excellent. Mid winter stuff, yet on Easter Weekend.

Sunday was a quick trip to Sauveur. No one there. No one. Skied all morning without having to wait for a chair. Conditions there too were the best I have seen all year.

Next weekend is the famous Pond Crossing at Morin Heights.  If this weather holds up, they are going to have a hard time keeping that water from freezing.

As time ticked on, despair began to set in.

“That’s it?!?” One coworker who had tickets to Tuesday’s game said he didn’t feel like going.

Another who had tickets to Saturday’s game said he too felt like staying home. When I queried them for their tickets, their tune quickly changed..

Listening to CKAC and the radio show hosts predicting complete disaster. “Stop treating us like idiots when you say the Habs are a better team now, then before the trade deadline” I believe is how one put it.

Huge dissapointment from so many calling in.

Fast forward several days later and the Habs sit atop first place. All alone. Carey Price played spectacularly. Higgins is scoring goals again. Lapierre is back in excellent form. The team looks absolutely fantastic.

I tuned in again to CKAC. One thing is for sure, people who call, call-in shows after a win tend to be rather drunk. It was as if the Habs had won the Cup. Who would have thought the habs would be sitting atop alone in first place with how many weeks left in the season ?

What was that guy’s name again that the Penguins got and we didn’t ?

Les Chaise Longues at Crappy Tire are no longer reduced in price.

A faceoff…

The final score board…

Pictures (c): Christelle

The problem with November is often snow falls making the roads too tough to bike on and there not being enough snow to ski on.

But this year, we’ve lucked out. Last week I was riding the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve and yesterday I was snowboarding.

St-Sauveur has 5 runs and 3 lifts open. Now, 1 of those runs is the kiddie run and one of those lifts is the moving carpet for the kiddies. So really, it’s 4 runs and two chairs. I arrived yesterday at Sauveur at 09:30 and already the parking lot was full. Not a good sign. Packed, wall to wall people and conditions were a little on the icy side.

After one run, I packed it in, jumped in the car and headed off to Morin Heights. They have 1.5 runs open with one chair running. But there is NO ONE there. It was entirely dead. Skied for 3 hrs with my father and headed back.

They are blasting snow all over that mountain. If we don’t get too much rain this week, I think it’ll be great skiing next weekend.

P.S Anyone know where I can score a pair of Flow snowboard bindings? I’m getting too old for this having to bend down to tie up my bindings..

A bike path there would be fantastic.

Two things I wanted to mention to cyclists now that Autumn is upon us. The first is wet leaves. Many of the bike paths are now covered in leaves. When they are dry, they don’t pose much of a problem. However, when they are wet, they are slippy as all get out. So be careful on rainy days.

The next is purchasing LED lights. All my bikes have lights on them for when I ride after sunset (which now is getting depressingly sooner and sooner). The idea behind these LED lights isn’t so much to see better. Because if you really want something that will illuminate your way, you are going to have to spend lots of money. The idea behind LED lights is to beseen. I’m not just referring to cars but also fellow cyclists and pedestrians. I picked up two yesterday at ABC for 12 bucks a pop.

Yesterday’s reportage attempted to explain who was to blame for all of this. How could it be that a 16 year old girl was introduced to EPO ?

We learnt that it all stemmed from Jeanson becoming anaemic from too much training. It was her coach, Andre Aubut who clearly over-trained her causing this anaemia. The choice was to take the year off, or to dope. They chose to dope. The other revelation, was that her father, Yves Jeanson, was present when Dr Duquette administered the EPO to his 16yr old daughter. To Mr Jeanson, this appeared normal.

As we go through the entire sordid tale, we realize that Jeanson had a series of enablers. People who looked the other way in regards to her coach Andre Aubut, and how he abused her both mentally and physically (she alleges he beat her so bad as to cause a black eye so swollen that she was unable to put her glasses on.

One could even argue, her biggest fan, Pierre Foglia of La Presse was also an enabler by refusing to believe for years and years that she was doped.

The whole affair is tragic. It breaks my heart to see what Andre Aubut did to Jeanson and Emilie Roy (another Quebec cyclist) not to mention all the other Rona riders who were terrorized by this guy.

When you are a professional cyclist, it’s a job. You have your role and you must follow it. Your boss is the directeur sportif. In the case of Rona, this was Andre Aubut. When your dream is to race and ride for a living, and your opportunities to do so are slim, you generally don’t want to rock the boat too much for fear of losing your job, and your dream.

With this in mind, it becomes easier to understand how so many teammates looked the other way in regards to Aubut’s abuses.

The sport which I practise, that I continue to race for over 10 years now is broken at the professional level. The money has ruined it all. My teammates and friends no longer look to see who’s won what at the top levels. It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s boring.

But I tell you what, real sport isn’t what you watch on TV or read about on the Web. Real sport is what you do yourself.