Please don’t misunderstand: I am not a fickle fan, one who only jumps on the bandwagon when victory has been recorded or is expected.
I have never denied that I am a hockey and curling fan. I don’t mind sitting in the stands to watch a softball or fastball game; a few minutes of a football game gives me my fill for the season; and golf is definitely not on my TV radar.
Despite my youthful interest in the basketball court, I do not follow that sport, other than to watch highlight reels in between hockey periods or curling ends. Until now, that is.
It seems nearly everyone is now watching and listening with rapt interest to everything the Toronto Raptors team is doing. To clear up any confusion, the Raptors team plays basketball in the National Basketball Association and recently won the Eastern Conference title — not to be confused with the other raptors, the birds of prey that take their opponents by force.
At a pre-meeting discussion earlier this month, the chaps were in rapture over the buzzer-beating basket scored by someone called Kawhi Leonard. That game-winning shot immediately seemed to take him to hero status in the sports world and since then there’s been a growing buzz about him, and about some other of his teammates. In fact, fans have been taking an active role in encouraging him to remain in Toronto/Canada next season.
I haven’t been to a basketball game since the 1970s when the Harlem Globetrotters played an exhibition game at STI (SIAST, or now Sask. Polytechnic) and we got complimentary tickets. The action was swift and humorous — until one of the players grabbed my purse and dribbled his way across the court. He eventually returned my valuable belongings without even adding a souvenir item or some cash. That spelled the start of the end of any attraction to the game.
In fact, even before then I felt my interest waning, possibly because I could never master the game in high school. By the time I got my short legs pumping hard enough to make it to the opposition end, the action was going the other way.
And as hard as I tried, I could never execute the proper layup to the basket, nor could I throw accurately enough to get the ball even close to the hoop. The only scoring I ever managed was an underhanded throw during a penalty shot.
Finally, in desperation, the coach declared I would be a referee, thus automatically increasing his team’s winning percentage. I knew how to call travelling and I blew a forceful whistle, plus I could wear long pants rather than basketball shorts that did absolutely nothing for my vertically-challenged legs.
Basketball was also the cause of a broken finger when the ball hit my pointer-finger on my right hand and left my finger in a metal spoon-like affair for a month. I learned to scribble with my left hand but never did manage to tie my own laces with only one hand. The coach was amazed at the injury, thinking out loud that he didn’t think I got close enough to the ball to hurt myself.
All of those memories resurfaced when Housemate mentioned all the attention being paid to the Raptors (not the birds). I confess to reading a story about the Eastern Conference playoffs and noting how rabid the fans have become.
Maybe next year I will supplement watching hockey games and curling with a game or two of basketball — just to see if I remember enough rules to come out of retirement as a referee.
Joyce Walter can be reached at ronjoy@sasktel.net
