November 9, 2011 - Last Word On Sports

With the Canadian Football League season finishing last week, the Division Semi-Finals are set and here are my predictions on who will be advancing to the Division Finals next week.

Hamilton Tiger Cats at Montreal Alouettes

As a diehard Ticat fan I found it difficult to come to terms with the fact that the team has little chance at beating the Als in a jam-packed Stade Olympique this Sunday. The Cats have not been prepared at all for their last two regular season games, have come out very flat as a result and lost to two very beatable teams that aren’t in the playoffs. The Alouettes will be looking to re-establish themselves after being annihilated 45-1 by BC last week. Montreal has the edge on experience in being in situations like this. With Hamilton’s unstable quarterback starting situation and the Als having veteran quarterback Anthony Cavillo in tough situations, Montreal has the edge, I feel will win 30-17 and play Winnipeg in the East Final next week. Look for this to be Marcel Bellefeuille’s last game as Hamilton Tiger Cat Head Coach.

Calgary Stampeders at Edmonton Eskimos

Out West the Calgary Stampeders play their Albertan arch-rivals from Edmonton. Both teams are riding high into the playoffs and are coming off victories in the last week of the season. I feel the veteran leadership of Ricky Ray and company with running back Jerome Messam will out-last the feel-good story of upcoming Stampeders quarterback Drew Tate. Calgary has running back questions, which doesn’t help their situation. Look for Edmonton to win a close one, 24-21. This also may be Henry Burris’ last game as a Stampeder.

…and that is the last word.

The world’s oldest hockey stick could fetch more than $1 million.

What would you do if you owned the world’s oldest hockey stick? Would you hang it on your wall? That’s what George Ferneough did. He hung it on the wall of his barber shop. Would you use it? Well it is said to have been used over 170 years ago, made for W.M. Moffatt. Or would you sell it? Mr. Ferneough did that too; he sold it for $1000 to a man named Mark Presley. That was before either of them knew just how old, and valuable, the stick was.

Imagine being George Ferneough. How was he to know what he had in his barber shop? It doesn’t look quite as impressive as its story is. Mark Presley took a gamble, and then began to investigate the stick’s origins. The maple used to carve the stick luckily had a knot on the butt end of the shaft. Ideal for dating analysis because of the rings showing, it was dated back to the 1830’s. That was also the time that young W.M. Moffatt was growing up. The analysis also detected four types of paint common from eras long since past.

Mr. Presley found that he had purchased something special indeed. No stick has ever been found that proves to be as old as this one. He is opting to go with sell rather than use or display the stick. I think I might choose the same considering it could sell for over 2 million dollars. Not a bad investment for this 41-year-old Nova Scotia native. This chunk of maple is going to be sought after by collectors willing to pay crazy dollars for a splinter of Canadian sports history. Just for a basis of comparison, a similar stick was sold in 2006 for 2.1 million. That stick is about 150 years old.

Personally I would like to see the stick end up in a museum. It belongs somewhere where it can be seen by hockey fans from all over the country, and world. It’s hard to imagine what hockey would have been like so long ago. It is a piece of Canadian Heritage, but it is even older than Canada itself. That’s what makes the stick so precious, seeing it is like looking back in time.

Sports. Honestly. Since 2011

Day: November 9, 2011

The CFL Playoff Picture

The World’s Oldest Hockey Stick – A Piece of Canadian Heritage