When the Wimbledon seedings were announced, Eugenie Bouchard was in the same bracket as Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova. That spelled a long road for Bouchard in England.
Bouchard (13 seed) has made the quarterfinals, and the two others are now out. Sharapova (5) lost to Angelique Kerber (9) of Germany on Tuesday. Bouchard and Kerber will meet in a quarterfinal today.
Bouchard beat Kerber in the French Open this year; Bouchard lost to Sharapova in the semis. The young Canadian star has another advantage: Bouchard got to rest on Tuesday while Kerber played the tough game against Sharapova. Bouchard has made the semifinals of the first 2 Grand Slam events, the Australian Open and the French Open.
Milos Raonic (8) is also in the quarterfinals at Wimbledon. Raonic defeated Kei Nishikori of Japan 4-6, 6-1, 7-6 (4), 6-3. He becomes the second Canadian to reach the Wimbledon quarterfinals in the Open era. Bouchard is the only female Canadian player to have done so in the Open era.
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Rogers Sportsnet took over national NHL rights on Canada Day. The NHL Network in the United States simulcast the Rogers Sportsnet feed, so U.S. viewers got to see the new Rogers in motion.
A few familiar CBC faces were on the many Rogers sets. Elliotte Friedman got off to a nervous start where his first couple of sentences came before he remembered to put his mic on.
We also saw Craig Simpson and Greg Millen along with former TSN analyst Darren Pang in the same room with former CBC host Jeff Marek.
Even when the CBC had the NHL rights, they never could use their personnel on trade deadline and signing day coverage.
If you caught the pregame signing day program, you saw Ron MacLean in a park in London, Ontario promoting the new Hometown Hockey feature. London will be the first stop for the Sunday night series on City TV.
MacLean never used the term "Rogers" or "City" in the teaser, though the screen showed the Rogers logo next to his name. If MacLean is going to be in Toronto on Saturdays for Coach's Corner, will he then fly out to the destination in time for Sunday night? The logistics may still be in flux, but the feature has hope and showcases what MacLean does best.
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Speaking of Ron MacLean and Coach's Corner, Don Cherry spent Canada Day in style at Rogers Centre watching the Toronto Blue Jays. Cherry also appeared on the Blue Jays pregame show with a dapper Gregg Zaun.
Cherry pointed out that he had been on years ago and chewed out a player that hadn't run as fast as he could, and hadn't been invited since.
Jamie Campbell told Cherry that he was welcome any time and how Cherry was now part of the Rogers family, tying in the hockey coverage during the baseball pre-game.
The Rogers hockey coverage took a break to show the Cherry footage from the baseball pregame.
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The Rogers NHL coverage was okay. TSN used a great sense of humour to deal with long stretches of coverage; they are funnier than the Rogers crew. Damien Cox takes some getting used to in style and substance.
Jason Spezza got traded early in the 11a ET hour, but we didn't hear the impact on the Senators until an hour later.
We got updates from the different set of contributors. After awhile, we only saw the main desk. The way to keep long-standing coverage is to rotate the contributors. Rogers fell a bit short on that in the middle of the coverage.
Rogers did take time to addresses how the Canadian teams did. Good idea and the analysis was strong.
Like the new NHL coverage, we have to get used to the way Rogers does hockey. We have 11 years, 364 days left.
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As for the NHL teams themselves, too many moves to account for all of them. Ryan Miller in Vancouver is a marvelous fit but might have made more sense if Ryan Kesler had stayed. Jonas Hiller will help the young Calgary goalies. Montreal lost a few (including their captain) and gained a few. Ottawa traded its captain. Edmonton needed to give lots of years to get players. Toronto lost and Winnipeg remained silent.
The Maple Leafs signed a 37-year defenseman (Stephane Robidas) who had broken the same leg twice in 8 months to a 3-year deal. When the Deryk Engelland signing by Calgary was announced, more than one Rogers analysts did a virtual spittake. They felt the deal was WAY too much money for Engelland.
Jarome Iginla signed a 3-year deal with Colorado. We had a hard time rooting for him in a Boston uniform; honestly, Iginla will be happier in Denver, though he would have looked good in Vancouver. For all the free-agent signings, click here.
July 1 is not a good way to judge Canadian teams off-season as we still have many more moves to come.
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MLB Network carried the Toronto Blue Jays on Canada Day. While we appreciate the coverage from the U.S. network, the MLB Network used the Milwaukee Brewers feed. #Fail.
The red uniforms looked marvelous. Glad the Rogers Centre crowd had nice weather and an open roof to watch the 4-1 win.
2 surprise division leaders would have made this game worthy. But the best way to showcase Canada Day would have been to use the Rogers Sportsnet feed.
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