by Justin Orlewicz (Sports Editor)
The month of October is great for many reasons: the foliage is starting, the Salmon are running up stream and you can wear your winter clothes without being completely freezing cold. But, the main reason that October is so great is always overlooked. What most people, especially non-sports fans, don’t realize is that October is the best sports month of the year, especially for North Americans.
If you think about it, we have all of the big four major sports going in full swing by the middle of October, and if you are lucky enough to have all six Canadian sports channels, the choices are endless. Let’s break it down; When October finally strikes, we have the NFL going into week three as players and teams are really starting to heat up or flop.
At the beginning of October the World Series also starts. I know what you non-baseball fans are thinking; Baseball is so boring. Well to all those people that feel that way, two things, firstly, your an idiot if you think that playoff baseball is boring, and secondly, anyone who has had the pleasure of witnessing a major league ball game will never have that outlook on baseball again. There truly is something magical about witnessing a home run and then watching 30,000 plus fans screaming at the top of their lungs after the ball leaves the park, so don’t knock it until you try it and experienced it.
Then we come to our beloved national pass time, Hockey! Not “ice” Hockey, just Hockey! By the time the second week of October hits, every NHL team in the league is gearing up for their first regulation tilt of the season and it has everyone in a major city lucky enough to have an NHL team thinking; maybe this is our year to win it all, even though it probably isn’t. The last Canadian team to win the Stanley Cup was the 1993 Montreal Canadiens. Who cares, we own Sidney Crosby and the most recent Olympic gold medal, plus it’s still fun to watch. Even the northern States in America are starting to go hockey crazy again. The game is on the up and up.
Last and least for the team sports, we have Basketball starting at the end of October. If we still had the Grizzlies, I might actually care, but since that coward David Stern pulled the plug on the Vancouver Grizzlies long before he should have; I could care less about the NBA. So much for giving a little back to the country that invented the game!
Something else I can’t fail to mention when it comes to October sports is the Ryder Cup. The Ryder Cup is a team oriented golf tournament that takes place in Scotland and has the USA facing off against the rest of the world. I love watching the Americans lose this tournament every year to a far more talented world team. All these reasons truly make October the best month to watch professional sports!
