2005 in review - Sports

A big fist in a small pond

Andrew Bergel, a 29-year-old lawyer, won the annual World Rock Paper Scissors championship, which was held in his hometown of Toronto. Tournament organizer Graham Walker says this makes Bergel "a serious C-level celebrity" and that the game isn't just for children anymore. "People spend years trying to make it onto an NHL team or making it to the Olympics. Rock Paper Scissors is one of the most democratic sports in the world, where if you just show up to the world championships, then you can compete at the highest level that a sport has to offer."

Puckish proposal

Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe suggested that the province of Quebec form its own hockey team for international competitions instead of participating as part of Team Canada.

Leave it to the professionals

Against Canadian protests, the World Anti-Doping Agency moved cannabis onto its banned-substance list, affecting amateur and Olympic competitors. After two teenage players on one team tested positive for pot, Montreal North Shore Football League president Joe Berghello criticized the reclassification. "If you can think of a product that is less performance-enhancing than marijuana, please let me know."

Watch me do it in triplicate

A European advertising campaign designed to portray accountancy as exciting by injecting the "adrenaline rush of accounting into the dull, everyday routine of extreme sports" ended up inspiring a form of amateur sport. Extreme-accounting participants have themselves photographed while combining work and dangerous activities. This, according to marketing spokesperson Emma Hoyle, "is the kind of thing accountants have been waiting for".

Two minutes for fantasizing

"Our lofty goal is to somehow have table hockey a demonstration sport in the Olympics someday, and the fact that it's happening in Canada in 2010 gives us five years."-Steve Bernstein, commissioner of the United States Table Hockey Association

Icono-past

Mike Tyson made one last return to the boxing ring in 2005 but retired in the sixth round from a match against Irish-born Kevin McBride. Before the fight, Tyson was optimistic. "I'm going to gut him like a fish. He's a tomato can. This is going to be a first-class exercise in humility. People may call this a circus, but I'm not a circus; I'm an icon."

Bread good, torch bad

After the inukshuk-inspired logo was unveiled for the 2010 Winter Olympics, the Globe and Mail's Sarah Milroy canvassed opinions from some professional designers. Toronto art director Ken Rodmell felt the wedge-cut smile was the worst part. "It doesn't look like a smile. It's menacing, like he's some slightly crazed giant or a monster from a horror movie. It has no neck. The head is square. This is Frankenstein."

Putt no other before me

Scottish company Holy Socks announced Glory Golf Balls, which are marked with Bible phrases appropriate to the sport of golf, such as "But each shall go out straight ahead" from Ezekiel.

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