Roger Lajoie operates Triumph Sports Communications, a leader in providing editorial, broadcast and public relations services.

Roger's weekly sports column "The Rog's Rant" is now available here every Monday.

The Rog's Rant

Busy summer for sports believe it or not

It has been a pretty busy summer of sports for those of us who cover sports for a living.

Personally I’ve been to the inaugural NASCAR race in Montreal, the Major League Baseball All-Star Game in San Francisco, the Canadian Open golf in Markham and been following the usual sports at the time of year of course – the Toronto Argos, the Toronto Blue Jays, Toronto FC and amateur sports of course, including the Toronto Maple Leafs of the Intercounty Baseball League (had to get that plug in!).

I spent this past week at the Rexall Centre hosting shows on The Fan 590 from the Rogers Cup as well. While I was driving in for the show heard another sports broadcaster say that “there wasn’t much going on” at the moment in sports.

Well I guess that’s a matter of opinion – and I guess some people in sports think that if there’s no hockey going on then there’s “nothing” going on in sports.

O Canada, does that bug me – even there is no bigger hockey fan around than me.

I shouldn’t just say this is a Canada thing. I know some United States based sports writers who divide the sports calendar into two as well – the NHL season and the NFL off-season. Some “sports” fans and media are only fans of, and interested in, the particular sport they cover.

Fair enough. If the truth be known, there are far too many sports to cover for any one person and to keep track of them all is pretty much impossible. And I guess if I covered only one sport full-time I might feel the same way.

But to say “nothing is going on” in sports just reveals a person’s bias towards their favorite sport.
Nothing go on this summer?

Two great tennis tournaments in Montreal and Toronto; best male golfers in the world in Markham and female golfers in Edmonton; terrific auto races in Montreal, not to mention the smaller events; close wild card races in major league baseball; another good CFL season nicely under way, and the explosion of soccer in North America is nothing short of astounding.

All of this doesn’t include amateur sports, which I am a big fan of whether or not it’s summer, winter, spring or fall of course.

But if you are fixated on one particular sport, I guess your feelings are different. If that’s the case there really is “nothing going on” sports-wise in the summer.

No, it’s not an “optimum” sports time like October, when the NHL, NBA, NHL and MLB are all going at the same time, or April, when the Final Four and Masters joins MLB, and the NHL and NBA playoffs.

But to a true sports fan, there is always something going on, and even this hockey guy has kept pretty busy since they awarded the Stanley Cup back in June.

The tennis tournaments were great, the golf was entertaining, the pennant races are exciting and of course it doesn’t get any better than the Toronto Maple Leafs making it to the IBL Championship Series once again!

That’s the Toronto Maple Leafs BASEBALL team by the way – for those sports media types who think there’s nothing going on in the summer with the “Maple Leafs.”

Comments on The Rant of August 7 on NASCAR in Montreal:

“Was at the race and couldn’t agree with you more The Rog – they converted me, I am a fan!.” – Damian in Toronto

“Montreal is the perfect place for auto racing. It’s the only city that has an F-1 race in North America and one of the top racing cities anywhere in the world – NASCAR is just a part of that.” – Steve in Hamilton.

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