Commonwealth Games

CANADIAN ATHLETES TO ARRIVE AT COMMONWEALTH GAMES TOMORROW

Shera is the mascot
for the 2010
Commonwealth
Games

Athletes around the world are gearing up for the Commonwealth Games, which begin in New Delhi, India on Oct. 3.

A team of 35 Canadians arrived last week at the event’s “athletes’ village” to get things ready for our 40 athletes and coaches, who are flying in today. The first Canadian athletes to arrive will be those in women’s gymnastics, shooting, table tennis and men’s field hockey.

There has been some controversy surrounding these Games. Some countries have been complained about health and safety concerns. For instance, the athletes’ village was dirty and dilapidated in some areas, and there were pools of water near the athletes’ residence where disease-carrying mosquitoes could potentially breed.

If enough countries had become concerned about the problems, the Games could have been in jeopardy. No country wants to send its elite athletes to a country where they could become injured or get a disease. If many countries had pulled out of the Games, they could have been cancelled.

The president of the Commonwealth Games Federation, Mike Fennell, rushed to India to look over the situation and ensure that improvements were made. Many of the problems, including the pools of water, have now been cleaned up, and the first athletes – the English hockey and lawn bowling teams – arrived in New Delhi last week.

Their arrival helped to ease concerns and New Zealand and Australia, the countries that have been the city’s harshest critics, have now confirmed that they will attend the Games.

The Commonwealth Games are held every four years and feature many Olympic sports as well as sports (for instance, netball, lawn bowls and rugby sevens) that are played in Commonwealth of Nations. The Commonwealth of Nations, previously known as the British Commonwealth, includes 54 member states, all but two of which were previously part of the British Empire.

Related links
The website for the Commonwealth Games.

Listen to the awesome theme song for the Commonwealth Games, Jiyo Utho Bado Jeeto (Live, Rise, Ascend, Win) by A. R. Rahman.

Wikipedia pages for the Commonwealth Games and Commonwealth of Nations.

Curriculum Connection
Primary
Identify some simple elements of style, including voice and word choice, and explain, initially with support and direction, how they help readers understand texts (OME, Reading: 2.4).

Junior
Identify various elements of style – including alliteration, descriptive adjectives and adverbs, and sentences of different types, lengths, and structures – and explain how they help communicate meaning (OME, Reading: 2.4).

Grammatical Feature
The apostrophe:
Highlight the different uses of the apostrophe throughout the article.

"A team of 35 Canadians arrived last week at the event’s “athletes’ village" to get things ready for our 40 athletes and coaches, who are flying in today."

Discussion Topics
If you were a professional athlete, invited to participate at the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, would you go? What would your reasoning be?

Almost-perfect game

PITCHER ALMOST GETS A RARE "PERFECT GAME"

If you've ever suffered a "bad call" in a sport, just think how Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga feels.

Last Wednesday, he pitched a "perfect game." That's a game in which the pitcher gets every one of the 27 batters out from the other team.

Perfect games are very rare. There have only been 20 of them in history, so if a pitcher gets a perfect game, it's a very big deal.

On Wednesday, Galarraga had retired 26 batters from the other team, the Cleveland Indians. The last batter hit the ball, but it was thrown to the first baseman, who touched the base first. The batter should have been out and the pitcher would have thrown a perfect game.

Right? Wrong.

Unfortunately, the umpire made a mistake. Umpire Jim Joyce thought the runner got to first base in time, and he called the runner "safe." That would mean that one person was on base - so no perfect game.

But the umpire was wrong. In the heat of the action, he thought he saw the runner get to first in time, but that wasn't what happened. Even though he realized his mistake, it was too late. In baseball, once an umpire makes a call, it stands. The runner was declared safe at first and the pitcher didn't get his "perfect game."

Galarraga was disappointed but he isn't holding it against the umpire. He understands that Joyce is a good umpire who just made a mistake. Yesterday, the two shook hands. It was an emotional moment for both of them - especially the umpire, who feels terrible about the incident.

Related links:
Here is an article from The Globe and Mail.
Here's The Star article.