{"id":1825,"date":"2011-01-26T12:07:54","date_gmt":"2011-01-26T20:07:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/2011\/01\/26\/today-99-becomes-50\/"},"modified":"2011-01-26T18:06:23","modified_gmt":"2011-01-27T02:06:23","slug":"today-99-becomes-50","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/2011\/01\/26\/today-99-becomes-50\/","title":{"rendered":"today 99 becomes 50"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My American friends might not know what that headline means. I would guess almost all of my Canadian friends would.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Today, Wayne Gretzky, unarguably the greatest hockey player ever, turns 50 years old. I remember watching him play pro hockey when he was just a teenager. He sure was fun to watch. And I know exactly where I was when THE TRADE came down. I\u2019ll never forget that day. That night my wife and I stayed up till midnight listening to a sports talk radio show. We were traumatized! (Well, maybe that is a <em>little<\/em> overstated!)<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m just going to give you a few links here, then make a point. Just notice, however, that in Canada, Wayne\u2019s 50th is big news.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Our local paper has a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.timescolonist.com\/sports\/Gallery+Wayne+Gretzky+turns\/4165502\/story.html\" target=\"_blank\">photo gallery<\/a> (we don\u2019t have a pro hockey team, but Wayne\u2019s first training camp as an LA King was here).<\/li>\n<li>The Toronto Globe and Mail, sort of a national paper for Canada, has a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/sports\/first-up\/wayne-gretzky-january-kid\/article1883376\/\" target=\"_blank\">story<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Of course, The Sports Network, one of our Canadian sports channels, has multiple stories, but <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/story\/?id=351137\" target=\"_blank\">this<\/a> is the big headline one for the day.<\/li>\n<li>Not to be outdone, Sportsnet, our other sports channel has their own versions. Here is a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/hockey\/2011\/01\/26\/spector_witness_to_greatness\/\" target=\"_blank\">column<\/a> by Mark Spector.<\/li>\n<li>And the National Post, our other national newspaper, has numerous articles, including <a href=\"http:\/\/sports.nationalpost.com\/2011\/01\/26\/gretzky-trade-the-scoop-that-got-away\/\" target=\"_blank\">this one<\/a> on THE TRADE.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Now, what to make of all this?<\/p>\n<p>Do we not, in our society, make gods of men (and a few women) whose only contribution to our society is fleeting entertainment?<\/p>\n<p>Do we not, by so doing, make these gods because of the emotional highs we get from their performances?<\/p>\n<p>Shouldn\u2019t we, as Christians, put fences around our hearts and guard where we place our affections?<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline;\" title=\"don_sig2\" src=\"http:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/don_sig212.png\" alt=\"don_sig2\" width=\"150\" height=\"50\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My American friends might not know what that headline means. I would guess almost all of my Canadian friends would.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[92,72,7,127],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2fYWj-tr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1825"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1825\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}