The differences between athletes in this issue and those who watch them on TV can be hard to spot. We’re here to help.
Welcome to our Beauty of Sport issue, where you’ll find dozens of elite Canadian athletes who share one thing in common—none of them can apparently afford a T-shirt.
The photographs in these pages are both inspiring and educational—or so our editor told his wife when he flew off to Las Vegas to oversee the shoot. This much is certainly true: Gazing upon the women and men on display here, it is possible to believe that human thighs were not actually designed to rub together when we walk. Given the crowd I just spent a few hours with at Fenway Park, this qualifies as nothing short of a surprise.
But why should athletes get all the attention with their “perfectly defined muscles” and their “ability to see their own genitals without using a mirror or courtroom sketch artist?” What about the rest of us? Let us pause and take a moment to celebrate the singular Beauty of the Sport Watcher.
1. Have you noticed that the eyeballs of athletes tend to radiate with verve and clarity? Stare into the retinas of a Sport Watcher and all you can see is the seared image of Don Cherry’s most recent jacket.
2. Regard the subtle contours of the Sport Watcher’s majestic double chin. This is a trademark feature—and, frankly, it is not easy to achieve. Are you willing to put in the effort? We’re talking about a commitment to the same gruelling routine night after night: five reps of 10 Cool Ranch Doritos, following by 30 seconds of pretending you’re not going to eat the rest of the Cool Ranch Doritos. Feel the burn.
3. Jowls: They’re not just for elderly curmudgeons and Droopy Dog anymore. Work your magic, gravity!
4. Want to know something that bugs me? The male athletes in these pages think nothing of brazenly revealing every inch of their relentlessly honed pectorals—whereas a gentleman of breeding, such as myself, has the good form to keep these muscles concealed within an elegant buffer known colloquially as “man boobs.” Soft and very pleasing to the female touch, I hope, man boobs—or “moobs”—are achieved by adhering to a strict regimen that consists of Sitting in a Chair All Day, followed by Sitting in a Different Chair All Night. (It’s critical to keep hydrated, preferably one pint at a time.)
5. Look closely and you’ll notice that the arms of the Sport Watcher feature the exact same degree of muscle tone you’d see in a newborn baby.
6. Elite athletes have what’s known as a “washboard stomach.” The Sport Watcher typically has a “dishwasher stomach,” in that it is large and makes weird sounds for about two hours after dinner every night.
7. Most of the athletes in this issue seem to have it all: great looks, perfect fitness, a home electrolysis kit. But you know what they don’t have? Back fat. And really, that’s their loss. They’ll never know the pleasure of sitting down in a hard stadium seat and leaning back to enjoy the cushy comfort provided by nature’s backrest.
8. Generous dimpling of the buttocks provides the enhanced grip required to keep the Sport Watcher from sliding off the couch. Thank you, evolution.
9. Taking a gander at these legs, one is instantly reminded of the motto of the Sport Watcher: “No pain, no gain—and both of those things are totally fine by me.”
10. The Sport Watcher tends to exhibit a paleness of skin that reflects countless hours spent indoors, in front of a television and/or a computer and/or a smartphone and/or the dryer until he eventually realizes those are socks and not a NASCAR race.
11. If the Sport Watcher’s cankles could talk, they would speak volumes! The first volume would be called, “Ow, I Hurt Again For Some Reason.”