Vancouver Canuck fans are like my baby

Finally something at a sporting event that my baby is really interested in — boobies!

In case you missed it — or haven't gone back in your DVR to rewatch, then pause, then slo-mo forward, then slo-mo backward, then pause, then regular time forward, then pause again — a tanned Vancouver fan punctuated her team's victory Wednesday by flashing her breasts at San Jose thug Ben Eager as he sat in the penalty box, an act that was broadcast across the nation on CBC's Hockey Night in Canada.

As you know, Sports Baby is still too young to watch TV and it's probably for the best as this random boobing likely would have confused him into thinking it was time for a late-night snack. Not sure what he would have made of the piercings, though.

This spirited young gal, however, clinched it for me as I am now fully onboard with this Canucks playoff run. With the Sedins back performing their creepy magic and Ryan Kesler playing with more grit than an ice cream cone dropped on the beach, there's a lot to like about the team these days (except for Bieksa. Who are you going to fight next? The goalie? The masseuse?) Throw in the Green Men and their chesty one-game replacement and you've got yourself an interesting team. An Albertan by birth and blood-beef level, I'm ready to get behind the team of my adopted home at least for these playoffs.     

It's not the first time I've dabbled in Canuck-ism.

Back in 2009 I wrote this in a North Shore News column:

"I'm not going to jump on your bandwagon just yet, but let's just say I hear the music and am not recoiling in disgust. Another series win and maybe I'll start wearing more green and blue (and orange and yellow and red and brown and purple — gosh you've had some horrible uniforms)."

The weird thing is Canuck fans don't seem to want me. Back in 2009 I got a strongly worded response from a gentleman from Surrey suggesting that, and I'm paraphrasing, "the followers of the Vancouver Canucks hockey club will not be needing your rooting interest and you might be better served to go somewhere else and have sexual relations with yourself."

Odd, I thought. But then this year's playoff run heated up with the thrilling Blackhawks series and the Nashville beatdown and Canucks fans started to voice the same kind of opinion.

"The bandwagon is quickly losing passengers!!" one of my Vancouver friends wrote on Facebook as the Canucks struggled to close out Chicago. "All y'all should just get off and STAY OFF." The post was accompanied by a lot of congratulatory harumphing plus the obligatory Maple Leafs fan reminding us why we all hate Toronto the most.

The we-don't-need-your-support argument even made it into the Vancouver Sun where a columnist wrote this, an opinion piece, titled Dear Rest of Canada - Please Get Your Own Hockey Team, that reads like a 15-year-old's first crack at the humour module of his Grade 10 language arts class. 

I don't quite get the thought process here. This isn't some indie band that you can claim you discovered first and then get all moody and backstabby when your dumb friend Monique claims she heard them before you and your bike courier boyfriend ends up dumping you for that big fake Monique and then proposing to her at Burning Man as that very band wraps up their Songwriter Series set.

This is the NHL. This is the only Canadian team left in the playoffs and, along with Boston, the only team with any sort of history that goes beyond "a brief history of fans not knowing anything about hockey."

How are you going to put together a proper riot after the Canucks lose the finals if only fans who have been with them since the Stan "Steamer" Smyl days are invited?

Canuck fans have gotten to my wife. She's refusing to go anywhere near the bandwagon. She may look sweet but she holds grudges — if a few fans tell her they don't want her support for the team, she's taking that to the grave.

I'm not so hardcore. Tampa Bay broke my little Flames-loving heart back in 2004 so I'd love to see the Canucks beat them. San Jose's Patrick Marleau broke the record for world's glumest face so he and his buddy Joe can take a hike too. (I say this even with Marleau on my playoff pool team. That's how serious I am.)

What does this have to do with my baby? Well, as judged by the Twitter-gasms going on Wednesday night, it seems Canuck fans like boobies. Sports Baby likes boobies too. Heck, who doesn't like boobies? It's a party!

Let's end with a video that made me laugh and laugh (and no, it's not the boobies. If you want to see those try everywhereontheinternet.com).

It's baseball players goofing around during a rain delay. Outstanding.


Photo: Getty Images
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The playoffs are like my baby

I'm going to start with what is likely the first piece of actual, legitimate parenting advice found on the Sports Baby blog: sleep training works.

In a previous post I lamented that our sleep training program which was meant to get Sports Baby on a consistent and comforting schedule of naps and sleeps was instead putting him onto a consistent schedule of heartbreaking wailing. Nothing goes better with a crisp spring morning than a confused seven-month-old dropping salty tears on his crib sheets as he stares after the father who has put him down and walked away. It sucked more than Donald Trump's latest dinner date (bravo Seth Myers — I'd recommend watching all of the video in that link but you can fast forward to the 12-minute mark for the Trump evisceration if you like).

Anyway, after two weeks the wailing stopped and the napping started. We used the strategy we found in a book called The Sleep Sense Program written by Dana Obleman who is, I would guess, some sort of powerful She-wizard.

Sports Baby figured the sleeping thing out just in time too, because with him on a regular schedule I've been able to catch a lot of the amazing must-see playoff action going on right now. I can say, with mild exaggeration, that these were the greatest combo NBA/NHL playoff first rounds ever.

In the NBA none of the first-round series went to seven games and yet they were all pretty fantastic with some twists and turns and, most of all, star players putting on a show.

The only sweep was Boston over New York but it had to be the closest four-game sweep I've ever seen, if that makes any sense. The Knicks could have, perhaps should have, won the first two in Boston including game 2, which saw Carmelo Anthony put up 42 points, 17 rebounds and six assists in a losing effort. The Atlanta Hawks upset the Magic in six games even though Orlando's Dwight Howard averaged 27 points and 15.5 rebounds per game. Miami and Chicago took care of business against Philadelphia and Indiana, respectively, in five games but both the 76ers and Pacers put up frisky fights. Toronto hosted a clinic for local seventh graders who then went on to defeat the Raptors in a high scoring affair. "They were just making shots," said head coach Jay Triano. "We maybe needed a little more urgency on defence."

In the Western Conference the Lakers beat the Hornets in six even though Chris Paul nearly stole the show by doing his best Jack Layton impression — the leading a team of nobodies to a very respectable finish part, not the having cancer part. In a game 4 win Paul led all players from both teams in points with 27, assists with 15 and rebounds with 13.

Memphis, the No. 8 seed, toppled No. 1 San Antonio in an upset that would have been shocking if it wasn't so thorough — the Spurs never really had a chance against big men Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph, two former immoveable objects (due to fatness) turned unstoppable forces. Oklahoma versus Denver should have been a thrilling speed race but the Nuggets were unfortunately slowed by injuries. Even so, four of the five games were decided by four points or less as the young Thunder moved on.

And then there was Portland vs. Dallas, a series that featured one of the most amazing performances I've ever seen. Portland's Brandon Roy is a three-time all-star who should be in the prime of his career but instead has become a fringe player due to the fact that his knees retired two years ago. In game 2 of the Dallas series Roy played only eight minutes, scoring zero points, and was reduced to tears as he watched the entire second half from the bench. In game 4, however, Roy returned to glory, scoring 18 points in the fourth quarter to lead the Blazers to a two-point victory after they trailed by 23. If you like sports at all and you haven't seen his amazing performance yet, just watch this video. It may be you with tears in your eyes now. And by the way, the Blazers lost the series in six games.

Now, could you imagine, the NHL playoffs were even better. They may not have had the same star power — that's what happens when you let jackal third-liners cripple the careers of stars like Sidney Crosby — but four of the eight matchups went to game 7. Here in Vancouver it was like a Leonard Cohen song: "The whole damn place goes crazy twice and it's once for the devil and once for Christ."

The devil seeped in when the Canuck-killing Chicago Blackhawks won games 4, 5 and 6 to force game 7 after losing the first three games of the series. Christ appeared just in time for this to happen, saving top-seeded Vancouver the embarrassment of being the first ever city to riot following an opening round loss. As they say, the Luongo works in mysterious ways.

In the end there were no major upsets in the NHL, but every team except for Detroit had to work for their series victories (thanks Coyotes — why can't you be doing all this sucking in a place where somewhere will care that you suck so much?).

Not to be outdone, Sports Baby has put on some must-watch performances of his own. Last week he started crawling and he hasn't stopped since. It's pretty adorable. And when I say he's a must-watch I mean it literally as we now can't take our eyes off him for fear he will crawl over to an electrical outlet and discover what burnt toast feels like.  

Looks like I'll be doing some baby proofing this weekend. I don't mind — the playoff second rounds pale so far in comparison to round one-derful (yeah, that's right — I've already fully embraced the terrible daddy puns).

Happy Mother's Day!

Photo: iamatrailblazersfan.com

Follow me on Twitter @Sports_Andy 

Fantasy sports are like my baby

If there's one thing that has held me back from writing the Great Canadian Novel it's my stupid, happy, fulfilled, non-tortured, nourished life that has kept me from grasping the loneliness and isolation needed to make Quill and Quire quiver.

If there's another thing it is fantasy sports.

As I write this I am toggling back and forth every minute or so to a Stattracker webpage and secretly cheering against my favourite baseball team — the Jays, natch — because I own a relief pitcher for their opponent and he is currently in line to record a save.

I've had a fantasy flurry lately, drafting two baseball teams and a playoff hockey squad while also completing stretch runs in basketball and hockey. I know what you're thinking: "Wow Sports Andy, that's a lot of fake teams. You're the coolest person in the world."

Even so, as a husband and now father I sometimes wonder if fantasy sports takes up too much of my time. And now that my friends are rich enough to drink artisanal beers rather than mass-produced swill, they've decided to bump up the league entry fees from zero to something.

I'm not in any $150,000 leagues — yet — but it still does feel kind of odd coughing up 20 or 25 bucks several times a year for fake sports when I have a baby I could be buying books or salmon or replica basketball jerseys for. On the plus side, more often than not I tend to finish in the money in these things so I have actually made more than I've spent. If I were to hazard a guess as to what kind of return I'm getting for my time spent managing my teams, I'd say I make about $0.0000000000001 per week.

I'm very happy to report, however, that I've never left my baby alone in the crib or bathtub or whatever to go and tend to my teams. I wasn't sure this would be the case. Now that I'm on parental leave and home all day I find that I actually have a lot less time to compulsively scan the Internet looking for info on players and matchups and what the weather is like in Baltimore and such. When I was at work with a computer right in front of me it was much easier to sneak a quick peek for one or two hours a day. (Haha, my boss reads this blog — I'm only kidding of course. It was more like one or two minutes a day. Haha. Moving on.)

The one thing I say about fantasy sports to keep myself from feeling like a maladjusted, obsessed addict is that it does help me stay up-to-date on all of the Big Four sports. As someone who writes about sports for a living I feel like this is a good thing.

If not for my playoff hockey pool I'd have no idea who Teddy Purcell is. If you asked me last week who Teddy Purcell is I probably would have guessed that he's a recovering alcoholic lounge singer who briefly made a name for himself in 1997 with a recording of hilariously crooned 2 Live Crew songs. Now I know that Teddy Purcell, one of those guys whose name always should be said in full, plays hockey in the NHL for the Tampa Bay Lightning. I know that this year was his first as a full-time big leaguer and he did quite well, scoring 51 points in 81 games. I know that he went undrafted and hails from St. John's, NL. Important stuff.

I also know that Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Ted Lilly gives up a lot of dingers but always has a pretty good WHIP, Cleveland Cavaliers guard Ramon Sessions played a lot better at home than on the road this year and Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice still does not get all of his team's goal line touches. Scandalous, I know.

How does this help me cover the local sports scene for my job with a community newspaper? I'll get to that later. (Note: by later I mean never.)

Those little details that I learn playing fantasy sports remind me a little bit about having a baby and the little things that I notice now that I never did before.

Walking with a stroller is one activity that introduces you to a whole other world known only to parents and perhaps people riding Segways. Recently while taking Sports Baby on his first ride on Vancouver's Skytrain we joined the little parade of strollers heading for the elevator. I'd never noticed it before but it's an adorable little line that gets tucked away from the dead eyes of the rest of the commuters. At the Marine Drive stop we took one slow elevator up one floor before transferring to another slow elevator to get to the platform. Kind of fun if you have the time to enjoy the view of the Fraser River out of the windows of the elevator. Not so fun if you're rushing downtown for an important sit down with the head of the Vancouver Police Department's anti-gang unit. (We weren't. Why would we take a baby to a business meeting?)

The baby-less have also probably not noticed the swarm of strollers that converge on community centres and libraries like little cup holder-equipped sharks whenever a free class is offered. Thankfully I haven't yet witnessed any stroller rage incidents.

The same little stroller jams can form at malls as parents search out the one washroom equipped with a change table. God forbid there could ever be a nice place that doesn't smell like broccoli farts where I wouldn't have to wait forever and then feel rushed while I changed my baby's diaper.

Wow, my fantasies really are changing.

Photo Justin K. Aller/Getty Images

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Being a sports fan is like raising my baby

Frequent readers of the Sports Baby blog might be under the impression that raising a baby is the coolest, easiest thing in the world.

Teething is no big whoop. Adding solid foods is as natural as hemp shoes. Sports Baby is cuter than homemade undies and even his sicknesses are cherry-coated.

Probably the only person who will see right through this is my dentist. I haven't been to see him since Sports Baby was born but when I do finally hit the chair I can envision him taking one look at my grille and declaring, "New parent I see."

"Haaaaa iiiiiiiii huuuuuuu oooooooo aaaaaaaa?" I'll blurt out in response.

"You've been clenching you're jaw a lot, grinding your teeth. And I also see you're related to Vikings."

Actually, he says that every time I see him. Not the clenching part, the Viking thing. He won't shut up about the Vikings. Apparently my mandibular tori are a dead giveaway. Plus I pillaged like three boxes of floss from him.

Anyway, I have noticed recently that I am unconsciously clenching my jaw and grinding my teeth a lot when I am around my baby. It often happens when I am carrying him or holding him or spotting him so that he doesn't slam the back of his head into the floor while he works on sitting up. I certainly wouldn't want that to happen. Again.

Sorry Buddy.

I think the clenching is just part of the overall worry, anxiety and stress that arrives at the exact same moment that the baby does. Every second that I am in charge of his wellbeing is a beautiful gift from God and/or Buddha but every second is also terrifying. Every second is one more moment that I could lose focus and he could do a header off the change table, putting me on the front page of The Province under a huge headline "Daddy's worst nightmare!" I don't remember grinding my teeth very much when I used to spend an entire Sunday afternoon tinkering with my fantasy baseball lineup in between naps while "watching" golf. 

Now on top of the constant fear of breaking my baby there are things like sleep training to worry about. Sports Baby knocks out his night sleeps but still has trouble napping. The baby books say he is sleep deprived and if he doesn't get a good nap soon his development will be stunted and he'll end up at some third-rate kindergarten that doesn't even have a Latin teacher.

The sleep program will help put him on a consistent schedule and give him good sleep habits for the rest of his life, they say. It's tough going, however, and the only thing it seems to have added to his schedule so far is a good hour or two of puzzled whimpering. Grind grind grind.

It kind of reminds me of what it can be like to be a devoted fan of a sports team. In every league in every season the fans of all but one team end up disappointed. While the ride can be thrilling, there's also constant dread about when and how the whole thing will come crashing down.

As a young boy I was won over by the slap shot of Al MacInnis and the moustache of Lanny McDonald and became a Calgary Flames fan. I don't live and die with their every move anymore but my gut still churns deepest for them. This season I've followed their playoff drive from afar, even listening to one important game on the radio.

For those of you under 20, a radio is a thing that airs music that you don't like and gassy windbags that don't like you. It also plays the Flames games that you can't watch on Sportsnet West in Vancouver because of some ridiculous blackout rules enforced by the ridiculous NHL — what better way to build up a following for your league than massive blackouts!? (See my Twitter rant on March 21 for an elaboration on my thoughts about this arrangement.)

Of course, this meant that I got to listen to my team lose on the radio. Fun.

Somehow the Flames are still alive in the playoff race, leaving just enough hope for fans so that they'll sit through a few more molar-mashing games before finally getting their teeth punched out once and for all.

There's a difference between being a fan and being a parent though. Unless you're a 70-year-old fan of the Montreal Canadiens or the New York Yankees or a five-year-old fan of the San Francisco Giants, most of your sports seasons have come to a grinding halt at some point.

As a parent, however, I find that the teeth clenching is far outweighed by every little awesome thing Sports Baby does from laughing at my funny faces to barfing on my shoes.

There isn't a Stanley Cup at the end of this journey. There's something infinitely better. 

Photo: CP Photo/Bill Grimshaw

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The NHL is sort of like my baby

Sports Baby has started teething and it is not at all what I expected.

At some point in my life I got the idea that teething is a horrible process that causes unspeakable suffering for babies and heartbreaking aggravation for parents.

I envisioned unwitting babies pushed to the end of their tiny little ropes by crippling pain brought on by their toothy terrors bursting from their subterranean hiding holes by tearing through baby's poor, defenseless gums like a vicious mutant worm blasting through a foot-wide brick wall. And oh the blood.

Then I learned that teething takes more than six months, sometimes close to a year, and I wondered how babies handled it all without crawling to the nearest bridge and scooching off the edge just to end the suffering.

Finally it came time for my little guy to start the dreaded process. One day his first little tooth bubbled just below the surface of his gums ready to wreak its havoc. The next day came and phew, no havoc, just a cute little tooth peeking out of Sports Baby's adorable smiling mouth. The day after that a second one popped up.

What? No blood? No fever? No baby sneaking into the liquor cabinet to douse the fires with a dram of whiskey?

Apparently I've been misled about teething. "Cutting teeth" is in fact a misnomer. Baby teeth do not, in fact, cut through the flesh, but rather a chemical released by the body causes the gums to open, allowing the teeth to glide on through.

Relieved that Sports Baby won't be suffering horrible pain, I've downgraded his suicide watch from a Charlie Sheen to a Will Smith.

Teething can have some uncomfortable symptoms but so far Sports Baby is taking it all like a champ.

The NHL is teething too but it appears that its brains have been so battered by rogue stanchions, flying elbows and blind assassins that it has lost the ability to release that chemical to soften the sting of the process. No, it's a bloody mess out there.

Just two months ago I wrote another blog post praising the NHL for gaining attention with some clever ideas. But since then a Sidney Crosby concussion (the "blind assassins" link above will take you to a video of the play), a Zdeno Chara near decapitation (see "rogue stanchions" above) and a dirty hit from Matt Cooke (see "flying elbows") have been the biggest stories coming out of the NHL.

The league, however, may finally be putting some teeth into its disciplinary rules to punish players for hits to the head.

Cooke was suspended for the rest of the regular season and, somewhat surprisingly, for the first round of the playoffs for his recent elbow to the head of New York's Ryan McDonagh. This after Cooke skated away without any penalty or suspension for this eerily similar hit on Marc Savard last season. Savard suffered a concussion and now his future in the game is in doubt after receiving another concussion two months ago.

That the NHL gave Cooke a lengthy suspension, including playoff games, this time around is a sign that the league may finally be taking these hits seriously. Cooke, however, was an easy target. The hit was a blatant blindside brain bash and Cooke is a repeat offender who has been suspended by the league before.

But as many hockey commentators are pointing out, the test will come when a star player does something like this. Would Alex Ovechkin, himself a repeat offender, get a lengthy suspension for an elbow to the head delivered in the playoffs? This handy and hilarious NHL suspension flow chart from the Down Goes Brown blog predicts that he wouldn't.

Regardless, tougher suspension guidelines are apparently on the way for next season and maybe the Cooke suspension will send the message that the league is not fooling around anymore. Then again, maybe it won't.

Wasn't the 25-game suspension to Chris Simon for this March 2007 slash to the face of Ryan Hollweg supposed to send a message that the league was serious?

Wasn't the 20-game suspension to Todd Bertuzzi for breaking Steve Moore's neck in 2004 supposed to send a message?

Wasn't the 21-game suspension to Dale Hunter in 1993 for nailing Pierre Turgeon after Turgeon scored a goal supposed to send a message?

Wasn't the 16-game suspension to Eddie Shore for almost killing Ace Bailey with a stick to the head in 1933 supposed to send a message?

Wasn't the 11-game suspension to Killer McSlashface in aught-six for inventing the Zamboni and then using it to run over an opponent supposed to send a message?

I guess teething is not always painless.

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NFL owners are like my baby

You may have heard that babies put everything into their mouths, but unless you have a kid, you won't quite grasp the scope of that statement.

Imagine I'm a sassy teenage mother wagging my finger back and forth to emphasize the statement: "Guurrrrrl, you don't even know. My baby eat EV-ERR-EEE-THANG."

Here are some things that have gone into Sports Baby's mouth: my glasses; his own diaper, unused; broccoli; his own shoe, still on his foot; our kitchen table; my nose.

He has a heavy plastic cookie jar toy that sings songs. Oh yes, he tries to eat the fake cookies, but he'll also grab the whole damn jar, pick it up with his super baby strength and then drop it on his face as he tries to eat it too.

Our family doctor, a nice fellow with a motorcycle calendar in each one of his patient rooms, advised us to avoid giving our baby fruit for awhile because, the theory goes, if he tastes that sweet goodness he'll never want anything else.

We've disproven this. He's eaten bananas, he's tasted apple and yet everything else in the world still looks appealing enough to go into his mouth, including yams and, get this, broccoli (sorry, did I mention broccoli already? It's just that I think broccoli tastes like a tree fart.)

The theory was put to the ultimate test this weekend when a friend brought over some pineapple and we gave the little guy a piece to chew. I don't know if crackhead is too strong a description, but he lost it like he was the Cookie Monster getting his first taste of triple chocolate macaroon.

But even after that he still put a nasty-looking chick-peas-and-greens combo into his mouth and swallowed it down.

Whether it's food or furniture, pants or poison, anything that is within a baby's reach is headed straight for the mouth.

Tweak that sentence just a little and you get a great description of NFL owners: Whether it belongs to players or fans, employees or taxpayer, any money that is within an owner's reach is headed straight for their pocket.

If you haven't yet picked a side in the NFL labour dispute and you wish to do so, pick the players. If you've already picked the owners, change your mind. If you don't care, please continue to not care.

But if you enjoy getting your football fix on NFL Sundays or, more likely, getting your fantasy football fix on NFL Sundays, the blame should land squarely on the lint-free shoulders of the owners if the season is delayed or cancelled this fall.

On Friday the union decertified and several players sued the league for violating anti-trust laws. Soon after that the owners locked out the players.

It might appear that the players walked away first but the fault lies with the owners.

The NFL is thriving, crushing the other North American pro sports and becoming the most popular form of entertainment in the United States. Everyone is making money, but the owners just want more of it. And they want their profits guaranteed.

Their demands during this labour dispute are such things as "We want even more money!" and "we know you're all getting brutally injured out there, but why don't you play even more games for us. More money!" A judge has already ruled that the owners and league acted in bad faith when they negotiated new television contracts that included stipulations that the league and owners would get paid by the networks even if a labour dispute forced the cancellation of games. They even took less money per season to get this included in the deal.

Describing his findings about the NFL's attitude towards TV contracts, U.S. District Judge David Doty said that the league "consistently characterized gaining control over labor as a short-term objective and maximizing revenue as a long-term objective . . . advancing its negotiating position at the expense of using best efforts to maximize total revenues for the joint benefit of the NFL and the Players."

The players, on the other hand, are asking for things like more money for those retired players who have not yet died tragic early deaths; no added regular season games; some health and safety measures and no additional free money for the owners.

You can argue the old millionaires vs. billionaires if you like, but with all the information coming out about the injuries the millionaires sustain, the nasty lives they lead after football and the short amount of time most of them actually spend in the NFL, it's clear who is sacrificing the most for the league.

Meanwhile the owners blah blah silver spoon blah blah old money blah blah corporate jets blah blah never visit their parents in the nursing home blah blah greedy.

If you still need convincing, the arguments against the owners have been stated nicely in several places, including poetically by The Washington Post's Sally Jenkins, hypothetically by ESPN's Bill Simmons, politically by author/blogger Dave Zirin and, um, profanely by Deadspin's Drew Magary.

One of my concerns with my baby now that he is rolling around more is that his movement range is expanding and we have to be more careful of where we put things. I always envision him rolling across the room and happening upon something like a pile of change left on a shelf we didn't think he could get to. If that happened it wouldn't take long for him to gobble up more than enough coin to buy a Slurpee. I'd pick him up and give him a shake and he'd sound just like a piggy bank. 

Funny — that's how the NFL owners sound too.

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Steve Nash is like my baby

In the movie As Good As It Gets, Jack Nicholson says to Helen Hunt, "You make me want to be a better man."

Then he takes a stiff swig of Jim Beam just before she jumps out of a window (sorry, I've used this link before. I just love watching Helen Hunt jump out of a window. It's also a stellar demonstration of peer pressure).

I may be getting a few different movies mixed up but the important thing is Jack's "better man" compliment. It's lovely, as long as you don't look directly into Jack's crazy, crazy eyes.

I think about that quote a lot that these days as my baby's odometer clicks past six months. My life has changed drastically since he was born. Some of the changes are out of necessity — FYI babies aren't cool with Wu-Tang Clan played at full blast in the car — but many of the lifestyle choices I have made are voluntary changes made with the little guy in mind.

In an earlier blog post I mentioned that babies aren't supposed to watch TV until they are at least two (it's to prevent them from glimpsing Charlie Sheen) but I got around this by watching sports with the baby safely stashed behind a blanket so that he could not see the screen. Since I wrote that, however, things have changed. I no longer watch much TV at all when Sports Baby is awake and aware, meaning I watch a lot less TV these days than I used to. I'm not sure how, but somehow this makes me a better person.

I'm also theoretically a better man because I drink less beer. Given that I could at any time be called upon to pick my baby up without dropping him or perhaps even drive him to the hospital after he eats a used Ricola wrapper, I like to limit myself to two beers maximum. Most days I settle for zero beers. Again the intricacies of the cost-benefit gains of this decision are a little hard to pinpoint but somehow this makes me a better person, or at least a slightly less beer-gutty one. And boy am I going through Scotch by the barrel.

When sober I do love to pick Sports Baby up and fly him dangerously close to our six-foot-high Hobbit ceilings. And though he's no fatty, he is gaining weight at an incredible rate — he's already doubled his birth weight, providing progressive weight training that may finally help me get some of that "old man strength" to go along with my "old man shoulders that dislocate whenever I try to reach into the backseat to grab something."

Now that Sports Baby is eating solid foods my diet has improved as well. We make him steamed vegetables and I sometimes have a bite or two — I no longer need all of my vegetables to be smothered in Caesar dressing. I'm also constantly looking for places to buy "unmedicated chicken." I don't really know what chickens that are off their meds looks like but I imagine them wandering around downtown muttering "they're out to get me, they're trying to kill me, they're going to steal my babies, they want to eat me limb by limb. THE FARMERS, that's who!"

All of these changes are because of my baby, his mere presence driving me to be a better man and a better daddy. He's like a tiny, male version of Helen Hunt. Soon he'll be jumping through little baby windows.

That brings me to Steve Nash. Regular readers of the blog (PS thank you, and sorry for the wait since the last post) will likely have surmised that Nash carries a lot of water in this household. My baby is not named Steve Nash Prest, but let's just say the name made our long list.

The reason that Nash is a two-time NBA MVP is that he makes those around him better. Even at the age of 37 Nash is still passing the ball as well as anyone in the sport, his 11.3 assists per game placing him second in the league.

And it's not just his dazzling playmaking that makes him such a positive figure. Teammates credit Nash with inspiring them to improve their training and diet because they see all of the things he has done off the court to help him be one of the best older players in league history.

A couple of years ago the "Nash diet" became a bit of a craze after teammates Shaquille O'Neal, Grant Hill and Jared Dudley talked about copying Nash's disciplined eating habits. Dudley in particular, a younger player who battled weight problems as a kid, credits Nash's influence with helping him lose weight and improve his game. Nash describes his diet on his Facebook page.

It's a great testament to his leadership and charisma that he can inspire his teammates in so many ways. He's like a grown up, male, basketball-playing version of Helen Hunt, except with better hair.

Now if only he would stop being so damn honourable and demand that Phoenix trade his ass to an organization that is interested in winning the title. You hear me Phoenix? Open up the window! Don't make him crash through it.

Photo Getty Images

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