Comment from Eddie Norfolk

In a busy world it is possible to sometimes miss the odd opportunity or two. Yes, the odd slip leads to a boat or two being missed (which can be fatal if one drowns when jumping for the boat now leaving the pier). Thus, on Saturday some element of weariness made me miss both the fire of “Cricket in Babylon” and the ice of the St John’s what-ever-they-are-calleds (which I could look up) beating the Toronto Marlies in the American Hockey League. Monday February 20th is observed this year as the “Family Day” holiday in Ontario, but a day when I noticed an advertisement for the 2012 Ontario Summer Games. These games were introduced in 1970 as a showcase for amateur sport in the province of Ontario, whose capital is Toronto.
There are some 28 sports scheduled for this summer’s event in Toronto. The tally of 28 includes seven sports with separate male and female events. Cricket does not feature as one of these ‘seven’ which, when doubled, to allow for the separate sex provisions, become 14 of the 28 sports.

Well, dear readers, you can paddle your own canoe, sail with or against the wind, swim against the tide, fire a bullseye with your bow and arrow and emulate golfing greats with a hole-in-one, but through fair and foul tides and air there is no cricket competition. Nor was there any indoor cricket event associated with the Ontario Winter Games, which seem to have taken place in Toronto in January.

But isn’t Toronto the Mecca of Canadian cricket? A city that drew in over 40,000 to the first United Way Cricket match on November 5th, 1989 at the then SkyDome. But, like Guido (Guy) Fawkes who failed to blow up the Houses of Parliament at Westminster of the London, England, version of that city, cricket has missed the boat, or even shot itself in the foot with a lack of underlying planning to become part of the broader sporting scene in Ontario.

The same may well be true in other provinces and territories of Canada, and without participation in such provincial summer and winter games, cricket is unlikely to feature in the national level Canada Summer and Winter games.

But if such planning and direction, which should surely be a ‘slam-dunk’ in a province that provided cricket with $1 million to help it grow ? A province that more than hinted the Federal Government should bolster this amount twenty times in the run-up to the 2007 ICC Cricket World Cup in the West Indies.

Do you recall “The Perfect Match” Gala Dinner on October 5th, 2006 where the St Lucia Tourist Board joined with the then Canadian Cricket Association in a volcanic send-off to the island of the twin peaks? A red cricket ball was buzzing between those peaks on the cover program for that dinner. But didn’t the ODI’s use white balls in those days?

So we’ve seen the odd missed catch off the field in Canadian, Ontario and Toronto cricket in the past. The occasional change in course, changes in names of organizations (name changes which, of themselves mean nothing) and some priceless opportunities have gone to waste.

The partners for the 2012 Ontario Summer Games include the Province of Ontario, the City of Toronto and Tourism Toronto on the one hand, with Sport Alliance Ontario and the Toronto Sports Council as the core sporting partners, on the other hand. Our sailing friends might describe this as tacking between the geographic, institutional partners and the related sporting leadership bodies. Port and starboard come together to form the one ship of greater size than the smaller ships and boats in our Ontario harbour.

There did not seem to be any Ontario cricket governing body listed as a member of Sport Alliance Ontario in a quick check. There is a home-page for cricket on the Toronto Sports Council website. It has a photo of a Sahara-sponsored Indian wicketkeeper and a Pakistani batsman. There are some 58 listed clubs and bodies associated with cricket. But there are few supporting details regarding contacts and websites for most of them.

The link to Cricket Canada worked and it provided what might be called “priceless information”. Now those attending last Thursday’s media event for the All Star T20 match were invited to get their friends and whoever to buy tickets for the May event. But there was no mention of any ticket prices that I can recall.

However, it seems tickets are now available via Ticketmaster, since Saturday, apparently. Level 100 tickets range between $25 and $199 each, with level 200 tickets in the $25-39 range. Yes, I looked up the prices on the Ticketmaster website. Someone might have provided a bit of background on the prices for the game. But there is time to do a fix on this missing information in the next couple of months in the core advertising before the May 12th game. (Someone might want to lose the reference to the 3-day quadrangular tournament in the GTA of 2007, The Canada Cup, which, seemingly, sold out for every match. Perhaps this was meant to be the Al Barakah 2008 Canadian Thanksgiving T20, but, who knows?)

Shut-outs are pricless to ice hockey goalies. The Oxford City Stars were ahead by a few goals against the reserve team of the Solihull Barons one Saturday night. A late penalty against the Stars could make little difference and might eat up the remaining time for the game. However, the shutout for the Stars goalie ended about the third time one of the Stars’ Canadian import players circled his own goal and netminder. A glitch in the ice, a glitch in the skating and the import scored an “own goal”. But you cannot have own-goals in ice hockey. So the last Solihull player to touch the puck got the credit for that goal.

Perhaps Oxford should have pressed for an extra goal. They had already run up 19 goals. With this dominance, and a tiring opposition, it could have ended 20-0 rather than 19-1. This goal was almost an interesting exercise in accountability, or the lack of it in ice hockey “own-goal” scoring. As in, “it’s someone else’s fault”.

Still, this Family Day note may have filled in the “priceless” information on ticket prices for the All Star T20 game due at the Rogers Centre on May 12th, 2012. The Ticketmaster site notes a 2pm time which is consistent with a 3pm start for the game. I wonder who said “there’s no such thing as bad publicity?”
A missing piece of information has spawned another item on the upcoming tournament.

But shouldn’t the Cricket Canada board have been onboard to ensure proper details were passed on, and to provide some local expertise on Canadian cricket? Mind the gap, and take care where you step on the gangplank! Steady as she goes as we move towards full steam ahead.