THANK YOU, FRIDAY! You are absolutely awesome!

It’s 1am. Dark as… *ck at Algonquin Provincial Park. We are Awake. Moonlight guides our path to…uncertainty. Four people, three flashlights. We trek. We do not know the path but we know…it must lead… it must lead; it must lead to something beautiful. A cliff is the pinnacle, the zenith of our climb. The view is mesmerizing. Its pitch dark. But I’ve never seen this much. Vivid. Its clear but it’s not. It’s not clear. It’s perfect. Nature is. Flickr could not capture this. Arundhati Roy could not capture this. Planet Earth could not capture this. The wind is just right. It’s like the monsoon wind in India. We’ve trekked one hour. I want to lie down on the edge of the cliff. Be the catcher in the rye. It feels right. Youth. It’s a funny thing. I want to grasp it. I can’t. It’s like the sun that set a few hours ago. It’s gone. I left it. For better things. The moonlight. The moonlight. It’ll guide me…. to uncertainty.

I have been a fan of Toronto Raptors basketball ever since I moved to Toronto in 2001. I was never a die hard fan though and I never cared enough to be a fan during the hard times – although that would imply we are out of the hard times now – we are not. Nevertheless, the Raps have grown on me over the years. In the season that just passed, I can safely say that I watched 60% of the games. That’s about 50 of the 82 games (Yeah, my math skills are impeccable.). Without a doubt, Chuck Swirsky, the play-by-play broadcaster of the Raps, made many of those game memorable. His personality is intriguing. He has an uncanny ability to put a positive spin on any negative situation. He “lights up the room” if you will. I admire his optimistic views on Raptors and most importantly, life.

The news broke yesterday. After 1o years with the Raptors organization, Chuck Swirsky has decided to leave the Raptors and head to Chicago for personal reasons related to his family. It is shock to me because it was so unexpected. Frankly, I still have a hard time coming to terms with it. Chuck was the face of the Raptors. He lived and breathed Raptors basketball. His blog, which I read daily, is a perfect example of his passion and love for Raptors basketball and Toronto. He will surely be missed even by his haters who disliked the very thing I liked about him: his optimism.

I know the Raptors paid his salary and so in a sense, he may have been required to say nice things about them, but I felt a lot of things he did say were things he truly believed in. He loved Toronto and Canada. At every opportunity, he promoted our city. He was a leading member of the Raptors Foundation that is assisting at-risk children by providing them with support programs and support initiatives. His blog (mentioned earlier) paints him as a carefree, outgoing and ever-happy human being with the bigger perspective in mind. Family is important and I totally respect and even admire his decision to leave Raptors because I know he felt at home in Toronto. My dad and I will certainly miss all his catch phrases. We have enjoyed watching him this past year, and simply get very excited whenever he brings out the “salami and cheese” catch phrase. It’s been fun. He’s certainly a great personality.

So long, Chuck. Like you’d say, “it’s been a pleasure.”

I have taken the liberty of pasting most of the catch phrases Chuck has coined through out his years here (coutesy of galeon110 of realgm) just so we all can reminiscence.

• “Are you kidding me?”
• “Onions Baby, Onions!!!”
• “Sick, wicked, and nasty!”
• “Get out the umbrellas; it’s raining treys!” (when the Raptors make several three-pointers).
• “Nothin’ but nylon!” (when a Raptors player hits a shot ).
• “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh, ya gotta love it!”
• “Ka-Bosh!” (exclaimed when All-Star Chris Bosh dunks the ball)
• “Oh my Bosh!” (exclaimed when All-Star Chris Bosh makes a play)
• “Kaboom!”
• “You can ring it up from downtown <insert>, this one goes out to <insert>” (When the first Raptors’ three-pointer is scored.)
• “Oh baby, what a play!”
• “Oh no!” (exclaimed when an opposing player makes a scoring play in the clutch)
• “My goodness, Leo.”
• “Always a pleasure talking Raptors’ ball”
• “Rimming..rimming..no.”
• “(Raptors player) has got the mojo goin’!”
• “ He just gave (Name of player) an NBA facial!”
• “A shameless plug!” (Every time Swirsky mentions MLSE in his daily blog)
• “(Name of player) is showing us a little somethin’ somethin’!”
• “(Name of player) shakes and bakes” (When a player crosses over on another)
• “T-Mac to the rack!!!”
• “Vincent Lamar Carter!”
• “(Name of player) has the feel and the flow here at the ACC” (When someone is playing well) * “That’s an MP3 download!” (When Morris Peterson makes a 3-pointer)
• ” A Three ball from Parkerville!” and “A 3 from 18 parker street” (when Anthony Parker scores a 3-pointer)
• “(Name of a player that got blocked) just ate some Spalding!!!”
• “Bam!” (referring to a big-time shot)
• “(Raptors player) filling it up.”
• “To the rack and a dunk!” (exclaimed when a player drives in and dunks it hard)
• “GET OUT THE SALAMI AND CHEESE MAMA! THIS BALL GAME IS ‘OVER’!”
• “RAPTORS WIN! RAPTORS WIN! RAPTORS WIN!”

I have an exam tomorrow so naturally I have been voraciously reading every article on realgm. So much that I actually read an article on Ronnie Brewer from the Utah Jazz. Apparently he is very excited to be guarding Kobe Bryant. Don’t ask me why but I hope he’s not doing it to prove the world wrong. Didn’t Raja Bell try that last year? It’s getting old. No one can guard Kobe. I don’t think Kobe can guard Kobe. But for whatever reason, the man is excited and he is looking forward to the match up. Fast forward a few hours since the article was published, Ronnie, as you may have guessed, did not shock the world. Kobe went on to drop 38 points in their game 1 match up.

The author of the article made it clear that Ronny is aware that “he’ll be facing Kobe Bryant, the soon-to-be-named MVP, and not Coby Karl, the rookie with the similar first name.” But I am not too sure. A smart move by Ronnie would be to retreat on what he said about facing Kobe and claim he’s excited about facing Coby. And this way he can go on to claim that he shut him down to 0 points, 0 rebounds and 0 assists for the whole series.

http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695276284,00.html