My first thought was that it would be a Canadian Sports Illustrated. I love sports and so a Canadian sports magazine that doesn't focus on American College sports could only be a great thing.
They had a special offer that I tried to sign up for, but it didn't work. I was then reminded that it would probably be a magazine of hockey, hockey and more hockey so I thought it was fate that the offer didn't work. It would probably mostly highlight the mainstream sports that I'm not necessarily interested in.
In December they had another special offer. Their year end issue sounded interesting. Brett Lawrie and Milos Raonic as newcomers of the year finalists was exciting. I had hope. I signed up for their special offer, giving Sportsnet Magazine a one year term to impress me. I even emailed a couple of friends to see if they were interested too. One of them was and signed up too.
I received my first copy today.
The cover?
"Inside The Long Pathetic Fall Of The Once Great Canadiens Empire"
NOT going to make my friend happy when she receives it!! She may want to cancel but her Leafs loving mate may not let her ;-)
The magazine is definitely hockey driven, but it is hockey season. If that's still the case when June to October comes around, I may have a problem.
Receiving it on a Friday (and I recognize that not everyone in the country will receive it before the weekend) I loved how current it was. Last weekend's results were already written about.
I loved the PreGame section which highlights sports coming up on television. Most of it starts next weekend which is when I realized that perhaps being in Toronto, I'm getting the magazine early. I'll have to be organized to make note of the games this far in advance. I did love that tennis (Australian Open) had the biggest photo.
They have some humourous segments, like Scott Feschuk's A Little Bit of Comfort-Food Fun which highlights "sports personalities are like everyone else, they just do the simple things in life a little differently". We'll see if every issue has a similarly humourous segment, but I liked this one. I did find myself wondering how long it took him to come up with the various scenarios.
With the NFL playoffs going on, I would have liked a little more than the Tebow article and a debate on whether the Colts should keep or get rid of Manning.
I loved that even though it's not baseball season there were two articles especially about Ricky Romero. Not as keen on the negative one on the "Drugs and Money: An Ex-Big Leaguer On Why Baseball Will Never Be Clean" article, but I'll give it a read.
Most of all, with so many months before the Olympics, I loved that the magazine included an article on Olympic cyclist Tara Whitten including a front cover mention.
For now, Sportsnet Magazine gets a thumbs-up. I look forward to the issues to come, especially with 2012 being an Olympic year.
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I have to admit that I read the rest of the magazine before I could bring myself to read the cover story "Inside The Long Pathetic Fall Of The Once Great Canadiens Empire".
ReplyDeleteI am a life long Habs fan - I grew up just outside Montreal on the West Island. I spent my allowance on a small speaker for my radio that went under my pillow so that when my parents thought I was sleeping, I could listen to the Habs game well past bedtime on a school night. My first date with Eco was to a hockey game - the Habs vs. Leafs...I showed up in my Habs sweater ready to face the boos at the ACC and maybe even running the risk of it being my first and last date with the cute guy at work that I had a crush on for so long (and who is a rabid Leafs fan).
In my opinion - sadly - the article was right on. The author pinpointed exactly when I personally started to feel disconnected from "my" team although I didn't realize it at the time. When, for the first time in my life, I found myself more interested in watching other teams play rather than the Habs and other sports captured my attention more than hockey.
Interestingly however, the article has somewhat renewed my interest in the team and what's going on with them. I've started to research the roster and watched part of a game on the French language channel. We'll see where it takes me - hopefully my passion will be renewed for my "home" team!
A big thanks to my friend who included me on the special offer for this magazine!