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Julian De Guzman a Lou Marsh Award Finalist


Gian-Luca

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Another point to note is that one of the members of the panel is well known soccer & amateur sports hater, Bob McCown. Although I think his radio show is interesting, if it weren't for Stephen Brunt & Jeff Blair balancing things out occasionally, it would be more or less a continuous rant against the sport we all love. I think JDG winning would be over his proverbial "dead body".

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quote:Originally posted by JamboAl

Another point to note is that one of the members of the panel is well known soccer & amateur sports hater, Bob McCown. Although I think his radio show is interesting, if it weren't for Stephen Brunt & Jeff Blair balancing things out occasionally, it would be more or less a continuous rant against the sport we all love. I think JDG winning would be over his proverbial "dead body".

That thought did cross my mind. But he has also ranted against the Lou Marsh and its panelist for having a bias towards Amateur athletes who practise sports thats have little to no fan following and have relatively small fields of competition ( ie.: not global in nature). That is certainly not the case with JDG and soccer. but this would be a test of how much his anti soccer views are schtick or a genuine bias. Most athletes on that list fall in the former category. Yes, it will be interesting indeed.

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quote:Originally posted by Cheeta

True and then again not-so-true. The number of drivers who can keep winning designs winning is very, very, limited. Too much car and not enough driver adds up to disaster. That is to say it's the ability of the car which reveals the true ability of the driver if I'm making sense.

Keeping with that thought the ability to tune the car to the driver (amongst other things) is HUGE as well.

So,,,,I'd say the team around the driver (which includes his ride) has an effect and influence on how we perceive that drivers ability in much the same way as our perception of an athlete's quality is influenced by the overall quality of the team/league that they play on or with.

Which seems fair enough to me.

I think I see where you are coming from. People who follow F1 can probably correct me, but after Villeneuve's big year he never seemed to reach that height again, and I believe a significant portion of that was attributed to a change in his car's engine design, and then I think he went to another racing team but failed to gain success. Same driver, more experienced, no injuries (I don't think?) but a different vehicle seemingly being the difference between an F1 championship hunt and being back in the pack. Villeneuve's win was nonetheless a supreme achievement and duly recognized (though not by Larry Walker!) with the Lou Marsh.

As I said before, I think comparing the athletic skillsets from different sports can be a very difficult task. I'm not a fan of baseball (especially with the steriod shroud over it), but I am certainly impressed by the hand eye coordination and split second reactions you need in order to hit a 95 mph fastball. Same goes for an F1 driver and his split second decisions where the stakes are drastically higher: if his reactions are inadequate, he could be dead! Hey, maybe they have similar enough skillsets where they could do each other's sport equally well, I don't know. And maybe the same for the guy in equestrian, who knows. Like I say, sometimes its hard to compare the skillsets.

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I didn't follow F1 as closely then as I do now, but from what I understand you are somewhat correct. When Villeneuve won the title he had all the momentum in the world. He was a shooting star, after banging around in different Formula Three series he took off in Japan. He then came to IndyCar and did very well in his rookie season and won the championship in his second season, which caused Williams to pick him up for F1. In his rookie season in F1 he did amazing, and won four grand prix, which was and still is a F1 record. In his second season he won the championship, and was on the top of the world. Actually if you look at Hamilton now, that was Villeneuve in 1997. The next season Renault stopped making engines, and Williams was forced to use a very underpowered mecrocrap engine. He didn't have a chance and after that my guess is his confidence was broken. From that Michael Schumacher dominated, which FIA was happy about as that great support in two of their biggest markets. From there he never recovered.

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quote:Originally posted by masster

I think it is great that Julian is nominated, yet I would have thought that last year he was more deserving, especially after his MVP performance at the Gold Cup.

Was Dero ever nominated for the award when he was a finalist for MLS MVP?

DeGuzman was much better with Deportivo this year though. He was their best player and they qualified for Europe in one of the best leagues in the world. The Gold Cup was only five games, so I think his club achievements are more impressive.

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quote:Originally posted by leafdolfan

DeGuzman was much better with Deportivo this year though. He was their best player and they qualified for Europe in one of the best leagues in the world. The Gold Cup was only five games, so I think his club achievements are more impressive.

You know that half of the European season of which you are speaking fell in the calendar year of 2007, correct?

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quote:Originally posted by piltdownman

I was thinking about it, and while this might be controversial, I must ask why isn't Owen Hargreaves on the list. He was instrumental in helping Manchester United win the premier league and Champions League. While he might not be a Canadian international, he is still a Canadian.

Did Lennox Lewis ever win this award when he was heavyweight champ? Same scenario, I think.

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quote:Originally posted by piltdownman

^Good point

I just find the list to be very weak. Its filled with average baseball players, and bronze metal olympians. I agree with alot of the comments on the story that St-Pierre should be on the list.

umm...yeah, ok....there are only two baseball players on that list, the first is ferguson jenkins, 4 time 20 game winner, cy young award winner and elected to the baseball hall of fame in 1991...

the other is larry walker who that season won the national league MVP with an incredible year hitting .366 with 49 home runs, 130 RBI, 33 stolen bases.

i would hardly call either of them average....they will both be in the hall of fame and are two of the best baseball players ever, canadian or not.

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quote:Originally posted by piltdownman

I was thinking about it, and while this might be controversial, I must ask why isn't Owen Hargreaves on the list. He was instrumental in helping Manchester United win the premier league and Champions League. While he might not be a Canadian international, he is still a Canadian.

nevermind that he turned his back on his country and should then be disqualified from any national awards that celebrate canadian athletics, i would hardly call him 'instrumental' in ManU's titles last year....he only started 16 of 38 games in the prem. and 5 of the 13 champions league games.

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Chantal Petitclerc was named the athlete of the year. There was no indication of how much support Julian got, but the article did mention him, as a candidate along with Eric Lamaze, Steve Nash and Jeffrey Buttle. That's pretty good company to be in.

Update: I just read this: "The 38-year-old from Montreal finished ahead of six other finalists: figure skater Jeffrey Buttle, wrestler Carol Huynh, equestrian Eric Lamaze, baseball's Justin Morneau, tennis star Daniel Nestor and triathlete Simon Whitfield", so Julian didn't make the final six.

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quote:Originally posted by piltdownman

I was thinking about it, and while this might be controversial, I must ask why isn't Owen Hargreaves on the list.

While he might not be a Canadian international, he is still a Canadian.

Nah, he's declared that he 'feels English'.

That and he's a twat. I don't think the Lou Marsh panel allows twats.

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Going into this discussion, I thought that bowing out in WCQ would have and should have hurt deguzman's chances. But, now that we know who they named as winner, I have to feel that Julian deGuzman would have been more than worthy. I believe that the winner competed in a sport whereby, in some disciplines, she was up against something like only a handfull of other contenders. Of course her dedication and perseverance is to be admired. But I thought that this award was for the best athlete in canada this year. If they are going to go down path whereby those intangibles things like who is the most inspering athlete, then you further open the doors to more politics and more subjectivness.

On the other hand, this decision is not half as bad as the year that they gave the Lou Marsh award to a pistol shooter.

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quote:Originally posted by piltdownman

The Lou Marsh has always been a crap award. Honestly if it was for the best athlete a hockey player would win 90% of the time.

Do you mean if there was an award for the Canadian who dominated their sport the most? Or most popular athlete?

Surely you aren't suggesting that hockey players are inherently more athletic than athletes from all other sports, right?

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quote:Originally posted by piltdownman

The Lou Marsh has always been a crap award. Honestly if it was for the best athlete a hockey player would win 90% of the time.

It's the best we've got, but they are a little too focused on Olympics. At least they didn't give the award to Mike Weir three times like the Canadian Press did with the Lionel Conacher Award.

You make a good point about hockey, but 90% is hyperbole.

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