OF TORN ROTATOR CUFFS & GOLF

I once read that more than 80% of blogs are dormant, meaning that ambitious online writers set them up with overflowing enthusiasm only to abandon them shortly after, letting them rot away slowly in cyberspace.

In a bid to save this blog from heading down that dreary path, I present to you my first post on here since February 2014.

A lot has happened since then.

Although I promptly failed to make it to my own convocation ceremony, I graduated with honours from Carleton University's famed School of Journalism and Communication.

I  also got engaged to a wonderful young woman and completed a full year working as a multimedia reporter for a dynamic sports publishing company based in the UK.

Furthermore, I suffered the most serious sports-related injury of my career. Bizarrely, however, I was still able to continue playing golf completely unaffected and that, good friends, is what this blog post is on.

Although you're probably itching to read all about my personal life, this post is about how I was able to play the best golf of my life with a horribly torn rotator cuff.

---
Injuries are never fun, especially when you play as many sports as I do.

Ultimate is an awesome sport. Try it out. 

I picked up this bodily grievance while playing the wonderful game of ultimate frisbee. To save you the trouble of reading how I got hurt, watch this video. I basically did the exact same thing except a) I dropped the disc b) I tore the rotator cuff in my right shoulder in the process.

At the time I had no idea how bad my injury was. In fact, it hardly hurt so I played another game right after and even completed the winning catch to seal a memorable last minute win for my team.

The pain would arrive like a freight train the next morning.

UH OH

I knew I was in trouble when I woke up the next day. I couldn't so much as lift my right arm without letting out a gasp of pain.

I was scheduled to play in the foursomes leg of a Ryder Cup-style tournament later that day with my community golf group at The Track, Meydan Golf.

"Not a chance," I grimaced to myself as I barely managed to slip my right arm through the sleeve of my t-shirt.

The day passed in agony.

If menial tasks like holding the steering wheel of my car and raising objects with my right hand were sources of excruciating agony, surely there was no chance of me swinging a golf club without passing out in pain.

But before I called up my captain, I gingerly picked up a lob wedge at work and rehearsed a gentle chip shot. No pain. I turned it into a half-swing. Still no pain. I proceeded to a full swing in slow motion and much to my amazement, I still felt no pain.

It was settled - I was going to play. A few more full-swings confirmed my decision.

SHOW TIME

I nailed my drive down the middle on the first hole and ended up parring what many call the most difficult opening hole in the Middle East. My partner and I would eventually triumph over our opponents 4&3 to a secure an invaluable point for our team.

Just so we're clear, I'm not a great golfer. I play off a 17 handicap and I'm lucky if I get one full round in a week. Oh, and I can't play out of a bunker to save my life. 

A few days later I played at Sharjah Golf & Shooting Club where I won the longest drive competition on the monstrous par four seventh, splitting the fairway with a tee-shot that measured 268 yards.

The week after I carded a hardly believable two-over par gross 38 on the picturesque back nine at Al Badia Golf Club (although to be fair, it was the end of a corporate day at the course and all the tees were placed more generously forward than I had ever seen them before).

I wasn't only able to fully play the game with a rotten shoulder, but I was striking the ball sweeter than ever before.

DOC TALK 

Yep, my shoulder is pretty messed up. 

My failure to do a couple of simple exercises was enough for my doctor, Dr. George John, to diagnose my condition.

"Badly torn rotator cuff. Get MRI and then we see how best to treat."

Dr. John is a renowned sports surgeon who has worked with athletes from all over the world. He admitted this was the first ever frisbee-related injury he had treated. I could not have been more proud of myself.

I told him about my new found success on the golf course. Was I making my shoulder worse?

"If it's not hurting you then there's no reason to stop," he said with a small shrug.

"The muscles in the shoulder's rotator cuff allow the arm to make overhead and pulling motions. The golf swing is a lateral movement."

MISERABLE MRI

Unsurprisingly, the MRI revealed a severely torn rotator cuff (two of the four muscles were ripped to shreds).

In addition to being prescribed physiotherapy, I was given hyalgan injection shots to help regrow the muscles and boost circulation in my shoulder.

Just for the record, undertaking an MRI for the shoulder is an incredibly uncomfortable experience. It was like being stuck in a plastic coffin for 45 minutes while listening to an overloud symphony of diseased whales. Not fun.

So the moral of the story is this - if you're looking to lower that handicap, try tearing your rotator cuff. It did the trick for me, who's to say it won't work for you?

Your truly,
MS

PS. Although I am not a medical professional or a sports physiotherapist, I speak from experience. 

S-COLUMN

Centretown News is a biweekly community newspaper with a circulation of around 17, 000 in Ottawa's Centretown neighborhood.

What makes Centretown News unique is that it is produced and published exclusively by Carleton University's school of journalism through a couple of courses available to third and fourth year students, as well the department's handful of master's students.

Under the watchful eye of our professor and publisher Klaus Pohle, we the students are the editors, reporters and photographers of the paper. It's also our responsibility to lay-out the pages and solicit advertising.

For the first two issues of the paper this semester, I took on the post of sports editor. Curling seems to be the go-to game when it comes to Centretown's small sporting scene. Some of the best curlers in the country hail from the two curling clubs in the area, the Ottawa Curling Club and the Rideau Curling Club. 

In addition to ensuring that my reporters are doing their job, part of my duty as editor is to write a column for my section for each issue. I had a crack at writing a column during my stint at the Golf Digest Middle East last summer, and had it published in the September issue of the magazine. (Click here to check it out)

But much to the amusement of my colleagues at Centretown News,  I chose to write my first column on the state of cricket in Canada.

Over the last few years, the sport of cricket has seen as an explosive rise in Canada. In my column I argue that more needs to be done to accommodate the game here in Canada, starting with creating more places for people to play the game.   

You can read my column on cricket in Canada here - 'Cricket in Canada needs a shot in the arm.'

My column for the second issue was on Ottawa's new professional basketball team, the Ottawa SkyHawks. Now in the middle of their inaugural season, the franchise is struggling both on the court and off it. Currently they play at the 20,000 capacity Canadian Tire Centre in Kanata, a venue which even the city's NHL team rarely sells out.

In my column I put forth the proposition that in order to create a fan-base, the team needs to play their home games at a venue, or venues, closer to town and not way out in the suburbs of Kanata (which is a 20 minute drive from downtown).

You can read my column on the SkyHawks here - 'Ottawa SkyHawks need to come to town.'

You're probably wondering what the title ('S-Column') of this blog post is all about. S-Column was the slug for both my columns. A slug is a brief name given to every story by the editor and its purpose is to makes things easier when its time to edit stories and paginate the paper.

'S' stands for sports. 'N' would stand for news, and 'A' for an arts story. The word after describes the story in one word. For example a story on the Rideau Curling Club could be slugged 'S-Curling.' A news story on a man with a tail, like this one, could be called 'N-Tail.'

SCIENCE STUFF

With this being the fourth and final year of my degree (who woulda thunk it?), I'm taking a science reporting class that's taught by the Globe and Mail's science correspondent, Ivan Semeniuk.

For our first assignment, we were to write a story about a new discovery in the world of science.

I did mine on the recent discovery of a new chemical compound that supposedly acts as an invisibility cloak for us against mosquitoes. What's even cooler is that one of the chemicals in that compound is found in human skin. Read my story (below) to find out more!

Side note - You know, reporting on science is fun. From Mars to mosquitoes, there are so many cool things out there to talk about and no shortage of fascinating people to talk to. In fact, next week I'm meeting up with a particle physicist right here at Carleton to discuss the work she's doing with experimental particle colliders.

----

THE DEATH OF DEET?

By Mohamed Suleman

Imagine this: a chemical that’s found right in your skin that when mixed with a bunch of other chemicals, renders you practically invisible to mosquitoes and other blood-sucking critters.

That’s what a group of researchers from the United StatesDepartment of Agriculture (USDA) presented at the American Chemical Society conference in Indianapolis last week.

The chemical is part of a newly discovered compound which redefines the function of the traditional mosquito repellent.

“The compound that was discovered was not so much a repellent as it was an ‘attraction inhibitor’ because they caused the mosquitoes to behave in a different manner,” said Dr. Natasha Agramonte, a co-author of the study.

And boy did they behave in a different manner.

The intimidatingly named chemical 1-methylpiperazine acts differently from other chemical repellents like DEET because instead of deterring a mosquito from a particular smell, it quite simply doesn’t let the mosquito smell its dinner to start with.

“A repellent would normally cause the mosquitoes to move away from the source of the repellent chemical, as DEET does when you apply it to your skin, said Dr. Agramonte.

“1-methylpiperazine appears to interfere with the mosquitoes’ ability to smell which causes them to have difficulty locating humans to feed on.”

The discovery was led by long time research chemist at the USDA’s Mosquito and Fly Research Unit, Dr. Ulrich Bernier. In order to improve a mix of three chemicals he had previously found that were successful in attracting mosquitoes, Dr. Bernier was initially on the lookout for more chemicals that would attract mosquitos.

Instead, he stumbled across something very different.

Rather than making the chemical blend more attractive to mosquitoes, when 1 –methylpiperazine (which is found in small trace amounts on human skin) was added to the other chemicals it made the mosquitoes unresponsive to attractants or to human skin.

Commenting on the discovery, Neal Dawson, a comparative biochemist at Carleton University, said that while the compound ‘definitely has promise,’ the team still has a long way to go and need to consider some of the possible roadblocks of their new discovery.

“The potential pitfalls are the ability to mass produce it, and the potential side effects this would have with sensitive skin and reactivity with other drugs,” Dawson said.

“There is also the issue with reactivity to address and how it would interact with skin products like lotions, creams and cleansers.”

But Dr. Agramonte said that her team were still many tests and lots of time away from introducing their compound to the market.

“Even though the chemical is found in small amounts on human skin, toxicology tests will also eventually be done to insure the safety of the chemical on human skin in higher concentrations and to make sure it is safe to inhale,” Dr, Agramonte said.

“At this stage I can safely say it’s an interesting discovery,” said Dr. John Arnason, a chemical ecology professor and specialist at the University of Ottawa.

“But people have been doing this kind of stuff for some time now and before getting too excited about it, I would wait and see how well it works outside of the lab and out in the field.”

He also said that another challenge that Dr. Bernier and his team faces is the fact that insect repellents are usually subject to microscopic and often lengthy approval processes before they are put on the market.

The team’s next step, as Dr. Arnason suggested, is to test the compound in a larger field setting and see how well it is able to hide humans from mosquitoes outdoors.

Whether the discovery of this fascinating new compound will spell the end of DEET or not, the thought of a mosquito ‘invisibility cloak’ sure makes those long summer days all that more welcoming. 

JIHAD!

The Prophet's mausoleum in Medina

So a ‘nasty’ video about the Prophet Muhammad has apparently been causing quite a ruckus around the world.

Last week I talked myself into watching the 13 minute trailer of the ‘Innocence of Muslims’ on Youtube.

By the time I was done, I was surprised to find that I wasn’t overcome with a sudden desire to jump off my chair, yell ‘JIHAD!’ and lunge for the throat of the nearest Westerner. 

Nor was I left feeling angry or hurt.

Rather, I was left bemused by the fact that a pile of rubbish like this could actually cause as much noise in the world as it supposedly has.   

It’s going to take much more than a movie, if you can even call it that, for me to take offence about a man whose very life was a lesson for humanity (and whom I might add, I am proudly named after).

In his own lifetime, the Prophet had endured much worse than a joke of a production mocking his life. Take this short story for example:

There was an elderly, non-Muslim woman who lived beside the Prophet in Medina. Let’s just say she wasn’t his biggest fan.

To make her feelings known, she would attempt to drop her daily collection of trash on the head of the Prophet every time he would step outside his house walking through the alleys of Medina.

The Prophet never reacted until one day, he was walking and found that no rubbish came his way from the sky.

Surprised, he inquired about the woman to the nearby neighbours and came to find out that she had fallen ill. 

 

When he turned up on her doorstep, the woman was sure that Muhammad had come to take his revenge, or else insult her for her antics.

But instead the Prophet had come by to offer her his best wishes, and pray for her quick recovery.

This same Muhammad who once said, ‘Pride enters the heart like an ant crawling onto a black rock at night’ is being portrayed as a womanizer and a crook in the ‘Innocence of Muslims’.

But that’s beside the point. The bottom line is that people are entitled to say whatever they want – Muhammad is greater than all of that and those who take Muhammad as their role model should be greater than that.

As for Libya, Egypt and Pakistan – I find it exceptionally hard to believe that a video clip can be the sole cause of all that’s been going on there recently.

There’s more to this than meets the eye, and the US’s willingness to meddle around anywhere that smells of oil or money has a little something to do with it.

And as for those Muslims crying out ‘Jihad!’ and feeling offended about the film – take a break and watch the thing. My Prophet would not have burned embassies and put bounties on people's heads.

“I believe if a man like him were to assume the dictatorship of the modern world, he would succeed in solving its problems in a way that would bring much needed peace and happiness.

I have studied him - and the man in my opinion is far from being an anti–Christ. He must be called the Saviour of Humanity.”

George Bernard Shaw on Muhammad

-----

A version of this article appeared in the online edition of Carleton University's student weekly, the Charlatan in September 2012. 

A Cobbler’s Tale

Cobbling. It’s a word that’s wouldn’t look out of place in a 17^th century Old English dictionary. But for 45-year-old Paul Lavigne, it’s what he does for a living.

Born and raised in the pocket-sized town of Mattawa near North Bay, Lavigne is the owner of Moneysworth and Best, a shoe repair service at the Billings Bridge shopping centre. 

Lavigne moved to Ottawa when he was 20 years old, and was introduced to cobbling when he found a job at a shoe repair store in Rideau Centre. 

He worked there for five years before becoming the regional manager of Moneysworth & Best in Eastern Ontario, whose head office was in Toronto. But two years later the opportunity arose to buy a store in Ottawa, and Lavigne took the chance with both hands. 

“The company was downsizing and that’s when I purchased this store here,” he said “I’ve been working in my own business now for almost 15 years.”

Lavigne said it’s been an exciting journey for him, and that business is flourishing for his shop in this small, yet bustling mall.

“It’s different every day, we’re always getting something different so it’s a challenge – it’s not boring,” Lavigne said.  “I think we’re very lucky, being in a small shopping mall that the business is doing very well.”

Married for the better part of 17 years, Lavigne has no children but is the proud owner of two cats.

“Cats are cheaper,” he explained. “They listen and don’t talk back,” he added with a laugh.

Some family tree searching by Lavigne’s father found that footwear related professions seem to run in their blood - at least distantly.

“It’s funny, my dad did some family history research on our family and he found that our great-great-great grandfather came from France, and he was a shoemaker there,” Lavigne said.

With the help of Roeun Luy, his lone trusty assistant, Lavigne said the store easily treats 300-400 pairs of shoes every week, with the most common kind of mending being done to heels.

In his 20 odd years of cobbling, Lavigne has encountered many odd things, not the least of which was changing the colour of a piece of lingerie for an adventurous party-goer.

“I’ve dyed a corset for a woman a long time ago for a Halloween costume,” Lavigne said with a small chuckle. “That’s been the strangest thing I’ve ever done.”

Lavigne feels that in this day and age, technology adds to the challenge of mending shoes.

“It’s a little harder,” he said. “You got to really adapt to the new stuff that’s coming out and be more open-minded when you’re fixing stuff.”

“It’s not as easy as it used to be 20 years ago, the shoes are not made the same, the quality is not the same so you got to figure out ways around it.”

According to Lavigne the business of mending shoes is going to continue to strive, seeing that consumers have pulled their purse strings just that little bit tighter.

“I think it’s going to stay strong because people seem to be watching their money more,” Lavigne said. “I find that people come to check to see what it would cost to fix their stuff before they go out and buy new things.”

He feels it wouldn’t be a bad idea if post-secondary schools started introducing cobbling into their programs.

“It would be nice to see a college come out with the trade to teach people how to do this,” Lavigne said.

“I have customers who complain all the time that there’s not enough shoe repair and there aren’t enough people who know how to do it.”

So what’s the secret to keeping that favourite pair of shoes in tip-top shape?

“Make sure they’re always clean, protected, and polished,” Lavigne said. “Just making sure the soles and the heels are always maintained - you do that you can keep them forever.”

As Lavigne pours glue into the heels of a pair of Uggs, a woman hustles into the store, clutching a bag with three pairs of shoes crammed into it. 

THE SHAWARMA GUY

Despite its rather dingy ambiance, the Shawarma Byte restaurant found on the corner of King Edward Street has a certain liveliness about it.

A few minutes inside and the reason becomes apparent – employee Hassan Hannoon rushes busily back and forth behind the counter, serving hungry students from neighbouring OttawaU fresh shawarmas, a traditional Arabic sandwich.

“And what can I get you, amigo?” he asks a customer, holding his hands out over a sumptuous looking array of pickles, tomatoes, garlic sauce and the like, while a massive mountain of meat roasts merrily on a spit behind him.

The better part of 29 years of age, Hannoon moved to Ottawa eight years ago from his hometown of Nablus, on the West Bank in Palestine.

“I came here to get myself educated and start a new life,” he says. Hannoon got a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Carleton University before going on to get himself a master’s in biomedical engineering, graduating earlier this year.

Currently he works as a software tester at Optimal Payments, a money transfer services firm, and also works part-time at Shawarma Byte.

Hannoon says that it’s all about presentation when it comes to making shawarmas.

“We have a saying in Arabic that goes like, ‘It is the eyes that are going to eat before the mouth,’” he says with a broad smile.

“If the food looks good then really, it doesn’t matter how tasty it’s going to be. But if it looks bad from the start, then even if it tastes good no one is going to like it!”

As is the case with many immigrants like himself, moving to Canada was a big decision for Hannoon. He came here alone, without his family, but with hopes of getting educated, finding work, and settling down.

“What I love about Canada is that you can write your own future here,” Hannoon says.

“You know what’s out there so you can plan a future for yourself and work towards it. Sometimes even if you don’t get 100% there, you get close,” he adds.

He attributes the common phenomenon of ‘culture shock’ as the biggest hurdle in settling down to his new life in Canada.

“For me the hardest part about getting used to life here was adapting to the culture,” Hannoon says, glancing outside at the direction of a nearby bar where the sounds of a promising party seem to be brewing

“For example back home in Palestine drinking alcohol is not a very common thing to do. But over here it is almost like a norm. Everybody is doing it and it is all around you.”

He says language too was an obstacle.

“Learning the language was tough as well. When I came here I knew only a little bit of English and it took some time to learn it fully. Although I still have a pretty strong accent!” Hannoon says, his rich Arab accent more obvious than ever.

The burly Palestinian admits he is still momma’s boy, saying that his mother is what he misses most about home.

“Cooking and food and all of that you can get by. But your mother, you know, you can never forget - that’s what I miss the most,” Hannoon says, his voice faltering ever so slightly.

Hannoon dreams of moving back to Nablus one day, but for now, he feels he is not yet ready.

“I want to make sure I have something to go back to,” he says.

“I’m planning on getting a house there and things like that so when I go back, I have something ready there for myself.”

Are there any plans for a Mrs. Hannoon in his life any time soon, and maybe a few junior Hannoons?

He laughs softly, saying, “Soon inshallah (Arabic for ‘God willing’).”

“Hopefully in the next year or two I plan on getting married and starting a family.”

As Hannoon returns to the counter to serve another customer, a rugged looking youth with extra baggy jeans, he smiles genuinely and asks, “Good evening sir, mutton or chicken?”

India v Pakistan

On Wednesday, India took on Pakistan in the second semifinal of the 2011 Cricket World Cup. A mouthwatering encounter was on the cards in Mohali as the two rivals reignited an age old rivalry.

For us in Ottawa, the game would begin at five in the morning and go on past noon. My university has a whole bunch of patriotic Indians and Pakistanis, so one guy managed to book a student lounge on campus called the Raven's Roost where all of us could watch the match together on a projector.

The atmosphere at the Roost was electric. Despite the early hour, supporters of both teams were there in full force, some draped in the green of Pakistan, or the orange, white, and green of India.

Every four, six, or good bit of running between the wickets was emphatically cheered, while wickets were met with deafening roars or shocked silences. There was mutual respect on display as well, with supporters of both teams rising for eachothers' national anthems.

At 8:30, I left for an English class and returned a couple of hours later with a Canadian friend of mine. "Why are they running with their bats?" was his first question when he saw the action on the big screen. Painstakingly, I explained to him the rules of cricket. By the end of it, he was hooked.

Sachin Tendulkar proved his class once again with an eye-catching knock of 85 of 115 balls to anchor India's innings. 

But as Wahab Riaz tore through India's middle order, chants of jithaay ga bhai jithaay ga! Pakistan jithaay ga! ("We will win brothers, Pakistan will win!") were roared out by the Pakistani fans. However the Indians had the last laugh as the ever reliable Harbhajan Singh picked up a couple of key wickets towards the end to tip the scales.

With Pakistan having had too much laddu before the game (no wonder they dropped all those catches!) and Misbah seemingly batting for tea on day five of a test match, Pakistan fell short by 29 runs in pursuit of India's target of 260.

But at the end of the day, the match was a great advertisement for the game and it's fair to say that cricket was the winner.

Below: Misbah launches a six in the penultimate over of the match

Ravens Basketball

I covered the Carleton Ravens mens OUA basketball quarterfinal game against Ryerson for my school newspaper, the Charlatan, last Saturday

You can find my game report here.

They are insanely good. The Ravens, that is.

Coming into the game on the back of a spotless 22-0 in the regular season, the Ravens were on cruise control as they strolled past the Ryerson Rams 97-73.

Willy Manigat bagged a game high 24 points in the win. I spoke with him after the game, and he told me how the Ravens bring the Carleton brand of basketball to the court.

It really is a small world we live in. In the beginning of the season (sometime in November) I covered the Ravens home opener.

When my editor, Farhan Devji, sent me details of the game, a name stood out to me.

"Rookie Philip Scrubb is expected to play a big role on this years team," he wrote.

Hold on, I know Philip Scrubb! I went to elementary school with him from 1999-2004 in Vancouver, BC.

Some googling told me it was the same Philip Scrubb we used to call 'Philly' back in Van City.

I used to play basketball with him, and we both bombed a grade 5 math test once in Diefenbaker Elementary School. I still dont know how to do long division.

But when I moved back to Dubai in 2004, I heard no more from Mr. Scrubb, who is now the 2011 OUA East Rookie of the Year.

But now we go to the same school again.

an HD, HQ, and even 3D quality video of the ravens practicing before the game at the Ravens Nest....