Readable, teachable news.
Sunday, April 22, 2018
The Olympics and Paralympics bring out the best in people, and the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics are no exception.
As athletes set aside their countries’ differences and test themselves against the best of the best, a sense of mutual respect puts everyone on a level playing field. And that can make for some inspirational, funny and heart-warming moments.
The 2018 Winter Olympic Games are on now, in PyeongChang, South Korea.
The location is very significant. South Korea and North Korea are not on friendly terms. But the Olympics may be bringing them closer together, politically.
North Korea is a “dictatorship.” That means, one person rules it. That person is Kim Jong-un, known as the “Supreme Leader.” He is known for being extremely strict and harsh with his country’s people. He keeps his country separated from the rest of the world. It is usually hard to know what is going on in North Korea, because free communication is not allowed in or out of the country.
But the Winter Olympics may help to thaw relations between North and South Korea.
A very unusual thing happened in a football game, and it’s going to help the families of some ill and physically challenged kids.
The Buffalo Bills football team hasn’t been in the playoffs for a long time. In fact, the last time was in 2000–more than 17 years ago. They were the last team in any of the four major sports in North America (football, baseball, basketball, hockey) to make the playoffs in the 21st Century. Now that’s a drought!*
But that all changed this year and the Buffalo Bills got to go to the playoffs.
On Sunday, November 26, The Calgary Stampeders battled The Toronto Argonauts for the CFL’s most coveted trophy, The Grey Cup. It was the 105th time the championship game has been played. The game boasted all of the excitement and drama that you would expect and was tightly contested by both teams. The Grey Cup was played in snowy conditions in our nation’s capital, Ottawa.
The Houston Astros won the World Series, the biggest achievement in baseball each year, for the first time in their team’s history.
They beat the Los Angeles Dodgers four games to three.
The Astros won the seventh game of the World Series 5 to 1 over the Dodgers on Nov. 1.
It was a hard-fought battle. The two teams were evenly matched. The fact that the World Series even went to seven games means that neither team ran away with the championship.
The Astros won game seven early. They got five points in the first two innings, putting them ahead of the Dodgers right from the start.
People are talking about some athletes going down on one knee during the American national anthem.
Some people think it’s a good idea, and some people think it’s a bad idea.
The idea of going down on one knee (known as “taking a knee”) started in 2016. That’s when American football player Colin Kaepernick took a knee before games during the American national anthem.
He did it to protest people of colour being treated unfairly by police (in this case, in the United States). For instance, many African Americans may be questioned by police (when they have done nothing wrong) or pulled over when they are driving (again, when they have done nothing wrong).
More than 550 “wounded warriors” are gathered in Toronto, Ontario this week, to compete in the Invictus Games.
The competitors are soldiers who became injured during their military service. Many of them are missing a limb, for instance, and many others have PTSI which is a mental health condition caused by trauma.
In a couple of weeks, we’ll know who the best basketball team in the National Basketball Association is.
It will be either the Cleveland Cavaliers or the Golden State Warriors.
Those two teams are now battling it out in the finals of the playoffs. This is the third straight year the NBA playoffs have come down to these two teams. Last year, Cleveland won and the year before, Golden State won.
It’s fun to think about why we so many of us love sports as much as we do. Is it the action? The drama? The competition? The incredible athletes?
Most likely, everyone’s answer is a little different. However, no matter what brought the millions of viewers worldwide to their TVs, this year’s NFL championship game, The Super Bowl had it all.
When the Cubs won the World Series last week, they made history.
Some people say it was one of the most exciting baseball games ever played.
The Chicago Cubs, hadn’t won the World Series in 108 years. That’s one of the longest “droughts” in sports history.
