The Nuggets ...
I thought of Todd Marshall.
When the clock ticked to zero and the Otago Nuggets went ballistic as they celebrated their NBL title on Saturday night, I thought of the former coach turned assistant coach.
Todd is a lovely bloke and he was the coach for all six seasons I covered the Nuggets as a reporter with fairly limited knowledge of basketball back in the day.
I thought of Todd and how patient he was and how friendly and accessible he was to the media and how he NEVER complained about his team being criticised and how he spent long days and nights trying to turn a series of decent, hard-working Nuggets teams into better than the sum of their parts.
I thought of the late Roy Colbert, my softly spoken basketball mentor who sat next to me and explained how the sport worked and some of the history of Otago basketball.
I thought of Mark Dickel, one of my sporting heroes, who played for a dozen teams but is a Nugget in his soul, and so richly deserved a chance to be a champion with his hometown team.
I thought of Leonard King, the GOAT. I thought of Hayden Allen and that beautiful jump shot. I thought of Andrew Parke and his banked free throws.
And I thought of Sam Timmins, the beating heart of your 2022 NBL champions, Otago to his core, and — yes, there will always be a North Otago link — the nephew of my old mate Paula McGookin.
... headed to the top
Mostly, though, I thought of Adrian Seconi and Jeff Cheshire.
We are different people with different personalities in the Otago Daily Times sports department, and by gum do we have some different views on things. (Jeff thinks there is even a discussion over LeBron ranking ahead of Jordan, and Adrian refuses to accept Friday Night Lights is a vastly superior read to his beloved spy novels.)
But we form an odd sort of brotherhood, and one of the things that ties us is a vested interest in the Nuggets.
We are not cheerleaders.
Poor old Adrian copped it from all angles (including from me) when he was banging on about the Nuggets losing 33 straight games.
And I once wrote this about a Nuggets loss:
"Disgraceful is a word that must not be used lightly, but there is no better description for a performance that must rank beside the very worst in the history of the national league.
"This was, quite simply, a disaster. The Nuggets were spectacularly awful from go to whoa, utterly embarrassed by a Nelson team that must have wondered what it had done to deserve being gifted such an easy victory."
Ouch. Sorry, Toddy!
But while we never shy away from holding the Nuggets to account, we also don’t hold back from celebrating success.
What Timmins, his team-mates, coach Brent Matehaere, GM Angela Ruske and assorted staff did this year was quite wonderful.
The Nuggets are the champions. Soak it up.
For better or worse
Ian Foster is the All Blacks coach and that’s that.
The right decision? Hard to say.
What happens if the All Blacks lose a couple more tests this year? Gulp.
But this drawn-out soap opera needed to cut to the credits, and New Zealand Rugby’s (eventual) show of support this week for Foster means we can mercifully talk about something else.
Northern exposure
A rather random shout out this week to the Northern football club, or whoever runs the club’s Twitter account.
Newspapers are obviously still the best source of local sports news but there is something to be said for a grassroots club that is more proactive than many professional organisations at keeping supporters informed.
Northern live-tweets all of its senior men’s games with a blend of information, humour and breathless excitement.
The club has had some tough years — it was winless in 2020, and won one game out of 14 last year — but is having a heck of a season.
Northern is third in the ODT Premiership with 32 points, and Tyler Muir leads the Golden Boot race with 20 goals.
Knight to 3m deep
The Last Word has often cast doubt on the validity of chess as a sport — it’s a hobby, a game, a pastime, a pursuit, not a sport.
But dive chess? Sign me up! (Not literally, I just mean as a spectator.)
Yes, we have had boxing chess and drinking chess and blindfold chess, and now comes the ultimate test of cerebral and physical strength.
Reuters reports the dive chess world championships have been held in London this week.
It is played underwater with magnetic pieces. Players have to hold their breath (obviously) while making their move, and when they come up for air, it is their opponent’s turn.
The winner was 33-year-old Michal Mazurkiewicz, of Poland, beating South African Alain Dekker in their final game.
"I think that 60% is chess and 40% is like other skills — swimming, keeping your body controlled, your pressure and your breath," the champion told Reuters.
The unusual event was the brainchild of American Etan Ilfeld, a chess master who wanted to incorporate a physical element to make the game even more challenging.
