Mark Milner - Contributor

June 30, 2010 by Mark Milner

Earlier this summer, from April into June, Toronto-based blogger Navin Vaswani embarked on one hell of a road trip; or as he called it, The Baseball Road Trip of a Lifetime. It's hard to imagine any baseball fan would disagree. In just under two months, Vaswani visited all 30 Major...

June 14, 2010 by Mark Milner

One of my favourite basketball clich©s is that 'basketball is jazz'. It's an especially apt one for middle-aged sportswriters to make since both seem to involve improvisation on top of a structured bottom; what good would Kind of Blue have been if Miles Davis hadn't just come off the more...

June 3, 2010 by Mark Milner

These are the days of wine and roses in the NBA. This is the time of the year that anybody and everybody looks forward to: the best-of-seven NBA Finals. Nitpick all you want, but this is the classic Finals matchup, the one that seems universally constant: Lakers versus Celtics. The...

May 20, 2010 by Mark Milner

James Balsillie never had it this close. On May 11, news leaked out that the NHL's schedule-makers had drafted a proposed schedule that included a team based out of Winnipeg - could it be a sign that the NHL may be prepared for some movement? A recent vote by the...

May 20, 2010 by Mark Milner

James Balsillie never had it this close. On May 11, news leaked out that the NHL's schedule-makers had drafted a proposed schedule that included a team based out of Winnipeg - could it be a sign that the NHL may be prepared for some movement? A recent vote by the...

May 7, 2010 by Mark Milner

The best and the worst thing about social media is how it removes the barriers between fans and athletes. There is little - if any - buffer between the two which means there's no room for error. That's why when Chris Bosh sent out two tweets a few evenings ago asking if...

March 25, 2010 by Mark Milner

The old saying goes "Home is where the heart is". The Couchaching Terriers play at an arena complex called The MASK, just up the road from Casino Rama near Orillia, Ontario. It's a multipurpose building, containing a library, school and an ice pad. As far as Jr. A arenas go...

March 5, 2010 by Mark Milner

On Feb. 28, the Olympic men's ice hockey game between Canada and the United States set records in TV viewership. According to the Canadian Press, it was seen by at least 26.5 million people in Canada alone; with the US ratings added, it was seen by close to 40 million....

January 25, 2010 by Mark Milner

January: Halfway through a NCAA regular season game against Arkansas, 2010 NBA draft lottery lock John Wall completes an alley-oop to himself (off the backboard, no less), causing ESPN analyst Dick Vitale's larynx to explode on air. The NFC wins the Pro Bowl 24-17, despite Chris Johnson's best...

December 14, 2009 by Mark Milner

Right now, two things appear to be true. One is that unless Dr. House remembers something right this very instant (or at least within the hour), somebody will die. The other is that Chris Bosh is a terrific rebounder, the best in the league. Why is that? Basketball-Reference is showing...

November 16, 2009 by Mark Milner

In April of 1997, shortly after hockey great Wayne Gretzky played his final game, the NHL took an unprecedented step and retired the number across the league, for all teams. Regardless of each team's feelings about The Great One or on retiring numbers, no NHLer would ever again wear 99....

October 27, 2009 by Mark Milner

In his book "Hip: A History", John Leland argues that hip is a result of the mixing of cultures and ideas, each of which builds off the other. It's why yesterday's crime is today's cool and tomorrow's pass©. He also argues that the image of cool "has pushed steadily towards...

October 14, 2009 by Mark Milner

Legend once has it that as manger of a hapless New York Mets team destined for over 100 losses, their manager Casey Stengal rhetorically asked "can't anybody here play this game?" After watching some of the NBA's pre-season I know how he felt. Not about the players, most of which...

September 24, 2009 by Mark Milner

Brian Burke is not afraid to take a risk. His latest move as general manger of the Toronto Maple Leafs was to trade the Leafs' next two first-round picks and a this-year's second rounder for Phil Kessel, who he then signed for five years. Any move involving the Leafs is...

September 10, 2009 by Mark Milner

Jim Balsillie is not going away quietly. He wants to buy a NHL team. He is willing to pay dearly for one, much more than others are willing to pay. His latest bid for the Phoenix Coyotes is over $212 million, much more than the only other major offer, a...

September 2, 2009 by Mark Milner

Throughout most of the summer, the hottest baseball trade rumors focused on Roy Halladay, then (and still) a starting pitcher for the Toronto Blue Jays. With the Jays having by that point sunk from leading the AL East to fourth in their division, their season all but lost, it appeared...

August 17, 2009 by Mark Milner

The signing of Michael Vick by the Philadelphia Eagles came as a bit of a surprise to most football fans. While it had been widely reported that Vick would be back in the NFL - with the Pittsburgh Steelers and New England Patriots being floated as his two most likely destinations...

August 4, 2009 by Mark Milner

Tony Kornheiser and Mike Wilbon are the cantankerous and argumentative hosts of ESPN's Pardon the Interruption five days a week - or so. When they don't, the show has a long list of people who fill in for either or both of them. It's a list that includes media stalwarts like...

July 22, 2009 by Mark Milner

Both Steve Nash and Shaquille O'Neal have accounts on Twitter. Both are fan favorites, extremely talented basketball players and were teammates on the Phoenix Suns last season. But there's a slight difference between their Twitter accounts. Nash has a little over 61,000 people following him, O'Neal has nearly 1.5 million...