Bad news for Patrick Carpentier.

The hiring of Reed Sorenson by Gillett Evernham Motorsports racing team earlier this week will force Patrick Carpentier to find a new team for next year.

After a decent first season in the Sprint Cup series, Carpentier will have to look around for an open spot. A couple of options are probably available for him because there are other drivers that will be moving around at the end of the season.

I really hope that Patrick will find a spot in the Sprint Cup for next season. He has improoved all season long and the amount of experience gained this year will be precious in the balance in his search of a new contract.

The fact that he is not American is probably his worse ennemy. Many sponsors will prefer an American born driver. That is what happened with Gillett Evernham's sponsors when came the time to choose. The sponsors forced the team to choose Sorenson instead of Carpentier.

Let's wish good luck to Patrick Carpentier in his search of a new team.

(Picture: Patrick Carpentier's NASCAR Nationwide race car at the Grand Prix de Trois-Rivieres.)

First international match for the Montreal Impact.

The Montreal Impact has qualified themselves to represent Canada at the very first CONCACAF champions league tournament a month ago and were playing their first preliminary round match this week.

Their first opponent, the Real Esteli FC from Nicaragua, was at the Saputo stadium in the first of two legs to advance to the next round. Nobody in Canada knew what to expect from this club as they play in an unknown league in Nicaragua.

Even if Montreal dominated the game, the result was a 1-0 victory on a goal by Joey Gjertsen at the 42nd minute. Gjertsen struck a missed clearing by a defensemen in the left corner of the goal.

The second leg between the two teams will be played on September 2nd in the Honduras because Nicaragua doesn't have a stadium good enough for the FIFA rules. The winner of the aggregate will be qualified in a group of four teams that will compete during the second part of September.

(Picture: Joey Gjertsen, Canadian Press.)

U.S. Open: Unlucky draw for Wozniak.

The final Grand Slam tournament of 2008 has begun today, the U.S. Open in Flushing Meadows will be disputed for the next two weeks.

Aleksandra Wozniak, the only Canadian qualified in singles competition had a very difficult task today as she faced the ex-No. 1 player in the world, Lindsay Davenport. Davenport eliminated Wozniak in two short sets of 6-4 and 6-2.

Later today we will see in action the new No. 1 player in the world and gold medallist in Beijing, Rafael Nadal. Nadal will play a qualified player in his first round match. I have seen Nadal in better shape. He seemed a little tired and he looks like he lost an important amount of weight during his trip in China.

A lot of action and a lot of tennis is still to be played. We should have an exciting two weeks of tennis ahead of us. Let's not forget Roger Federer who will try to save his awful singles season with a victory at the Open.

(Picture: Aleksandra Wozniak, Canadian Press.)

European Grand Prix: Massa re-launches the championship.

The Formula One circus was in Valencia for the first time in it's history and Felipe Massa in his Ferrari won in a little bit of controversy.

The Brazilian driver did commit a mistake when he left his stall after his final stop. He almost collided with Adrian Sutil in the pit lane and this event will be reviewed by the officials. If the result holds, the race for the title will really be in the balance. The second place for Lewis Hamilton today allowed him to stay in front but the lead could be reduced to a mere 6 points over Massa.

Starting from the third position on the grid, Robert Kubica finished in third place and now stands only two points behind Kimi Raikkonen who had to retire today because of another blown engine for Ferrari.

This is already the fourth engine failure for the Scuderia this season, very uncharacteristic for the team. Just before the engine failure, Raikkonen ran over one of his teammate in the pitlane during his final pit stop. Another race to forget for the defending champion.

As for the rest of the points finishers, Jarno Trulli placed in fifth and continues his great season for Toyota. Sebastian Vettel, sixth, was once again impressive in the Toro Rosso.

The only thing missing in this Grand Prix was a little bit of battles on the track. The overtaking were not on the program today. Maybe this was due to the configuration of the circuit.

European Grand Prix top ten finishers:

Winner: Felipe Massa (Ferrari)
2-Lewis Hamilton (McLaren) +5.6 seconds
3-Robert Kubica (BMW-Sauber) +37.3 seconds
4-Heikki Kovalainen (McLaren) +39.7 seconds
5-Jarno Trulli (Toyota) +50.6 seconds
6-Sebastian Vettel (Toro Rosso) +52.6 seconds
7-Timo Glock (Toyota) +1:07.9
8-Nico Rosberg (Williams) +1:11.4
9-Nick Heidfeld (BMW-Sauber) +1:22.1
10-Sebastien Bourdais (Toro Rosso) +1:29.7

Drivers championship after 12/18 races:

1-Lewis Hamilton 70 points
2-Felipe Massa 64 points
3-Kimi Raikkonen 57 points
4-Robert Kubica 55 points
5-Heikki Kovalainen 43 points
6-Nick Heidfeld 41 points
7-Jarno Trulli 26 points
8-Fernando Alonso 18 points
9-Mark Webber 18 points
10-Timo Glock 15 points
11-Nelson Piquet Jr 13 points
12-Rubens Barrichello 11 points
13-Nico Rosberg 9 points
14-Sebastian Vettel 9 points
15-Kazuki Nakajima 8 points
16-David Coulthard 6 points
17-Jenson Button 3 points
18-Sebastien Bourdais 2 points

Constructors championship:

1-Ferrari 121 points
2-McLaren 113 points
3-BMW-Sauber 96 points
4-Toyota 41 points
5-Renault 31 points
6-Red Bull 24 points
7-Williams 17 points
8-Honda 14 points
9-Toro Rosso 11 points

(Picture: Felipe Massa, Getty Images.)

European Grand Prix: Massa on pole.

The European Grand Prix was presented for the first time in Valencia, Spain. There is no previous data for anyone and it should level the field for this weekend. The drivers and the teams are exploring new grounds this weekend.

Felipe Massa finished the qualifying session with the best time and will start from the pole position tomorrow. It is a first pole for Ferrari since the French Grand Prix. But there is no clear domination from any team as the drivers looks to be randomly positionned on the starting grid.

Lewis Hamilton in his McLaren will start from the second position while Robert Kubica in the BMW-Sauber will go from the third place.

The two Toro Rosso cars are having a good weekend this far as they both placed in the top ten on the grid. The young phenom, Sebastian Vettel, will start from the sixth place while the rookie Sebastien Bourdais took the tenth spot on the grid.

European Grand Prix starting grid:

Pole: Felipe Massa (Ferrari) 1:38.989
2-Lewis Hamilton (McLaren) 1:39.199
3-Robert Kubica (BMW-Sauber) 1:39.392
4-Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari) 1:39.488
5-Heikki Kovalainen (McLaren) 1:39.937
6-Sebattian Vettel (Toro Rosso) 1:40.142
7-Jarno Trulli (Toyota) 1:40.309
8-Nick Heidfeld (BMW-Sauber) 1:40.631
9-Nico Rosberg (Williams) 1:40.721
10-Sebastien Bourdais (Toro Rosso) 1:40.750

(Picture: Felipe Massa)

Emilie Heymans mimics Alexandre Despaties.

After failing to win a medal in singles competition at her last two attempts on the 10 meters tower, Emilie Heymans handled the pressure and finished in second place at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

With a total of 437,05 points, Heymans splitted the two skeletal Chinese divers on the podium. In fact, before the last round of diving, Emilie was in first place by a small margin. But a perfect dive by Chen Ruolin of China was good enough for a gold medal for the 15-year-old diver. Wang Xin finished in third place.

The podium finishers can be described as being two childrens and a fully grown woman. The two Chinese divers' combined body weight does not exceeds Heymans' body weight. With that fact in mind, we can only admire Heyman's performance.

The Canadian diver wins her third Olympic medal in career after winning a medal at the synchronized diving competition in Sydney and Athenes.

Another Canadian was present in this final. Marie-Eve Marleau finished with a total of 332,10 points, good for a seventh place. It was Marleau's final competition in career.

(Picture: Emilie Heymans, Canadian Press.)

Silver with a taste of gold.

After winning a silver medal from the 3 meters spring board at the 2004 Olympics in Athenes, Alexandre Despaties has repeated the exploit yesterday in Beijing.

The athlete from Laval, Quebec, was simply exceptionnal. After missing four months this year because of a broken foot and a back injury, Despaties was not a sure bet for a podium finish. The level of competition was high as Dimitri Sautin from Russia, He Chong and Qin Kai from China were in great shape.

Despaties did not commit any major mistake during the final. He gave his best and finished in second place with a total of 536.65 points. Only He Chong was better. In fact, Chong was impressive, immaculate, untouchable.

When he was asked to comment his performance, Alexandre Despaties said that this silver medal had a taste of gold after this horrible year 2008 that kept him away from competition for too long.

The situation was so uncertain for him that even a great magazine like Sports Illustrated doubted him and excluded the multiple world champion from the podium in their pre-olympic predictions.

Congratulation Alexandre, the whole country is proud of you.

(Picture: Alexandre Despaties, Canadian Press.)

A dream weekend for Andrew Ranger.

This weekend, the 39th edition of the Grand Prix de Trois-Rivieres was presented in front of a huge and loud crowd.

The narrow circuit going through the streets of Trois-Rivieres, Quebec is the oldest road course in North-America. Over the course of the last four decades, many legendary pilots like Gilles Villeneuve, Jacques Villeneuve, Paul Gentilozzi, Ron Fellows, Alexandre Tagliani, Patrick Carpentier and James Hunt participated to the event since it's first edition in 1967.

I had the privilege to be on the site with a couple of friends yesterday and we had a great time. We sat at the start/finish line to experience the top speed of the Atlantic series and NASCAR Canada race cars. It was my very first NASCAR experience and I was impressed by the power of those cars. The loudness of those engines running at full capacity is simply amazing.

The NASCAR Canada series was the last race presented this weekend. Two french-canadians (Alexandre Tagliani and Andrew Ranger) were respectively starting from the third and seventh spot on the grid. The race was difficult for Tagliani as he collided while trying to overtake an opponent during the first half of the race.

But for Ranger, it was a different story. First, the pilot from Roxton Pond received great news just minutes before the start of the race. Andrew Ranger will participate to every NASCAR Nationwide Series races until the end of the 2008 season. After a good performance in Montreal on board of Fitz Motorsports' number 22, he will end the 2008 season with the team.

He will participate to his very first oval race in Bristol on August 23rd. Then, will run at Richmond, Charlotte, Memphis, Texas, Phoenix and at Homestead on November 15th for the last race of the 2008 season.

In front of the press, Andrew was very emotional and had a hard time containing his tears. The only thing he managed to say is that he is following NASCAR action since his childhood and to be a part of it is very special to him.

Ranger was running in third position for the major part of the event until the final lap. As the cars were negociating the last corners of the track, the two cars in front of him collided, allowing Ranger to slip inside and finish in first place to the pleasure of an ecstatic crowd.

I had a great time this weekend and I will once again be there for the 40th anniversary of the event. The organization announced that they will do their best to bring Jacques Villeneuve in Trois-Rivieres in 2009.

(Picture: Andrew Ranger, Canadian Press.)

Canada is on the board.

It took eight days but finally Canada has won it's first medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The country has won a total of three medals today. A gold, a silver and a bronze medal.

The first gold medal for Canada was won by Carol Huynh, an Olympic wrestler. In her perfect run, she defeated Mariya Stadnik from Azerbaijan by 4-3 and 2-0. Then in her second match, Carol Huynh defeated Hyung-Joo Kim from Korea by 1-0 and 1-0. Her third match was won over Kazakstan's Tatyana Babatyuk by 1-0 and 4-0. The gold medal match was disputed with Chiharu Icho, a match that Carol Huynh won by 4-0 and 2-1.

The bronze medal won by Canada also came from the women's wrestling team. Tonya Verbeek suffered a loss in the prelims round but came back with two wins to finish on the podium.

The silver medal won today by Canada came from David Calder and Scott Frandsen in rowing.

So after a long and difficult week, the country is now officially on the board. I hope that these results will inspire the rest of the Canadian team for the remainder of the competition.

(Picture: Carol Huynh, Canadian Press.)

One week without a podium.

The 2008 Olympics are now halfway over and Canada is still looking for a first medal. The expectations were to finish in the top 16 but it seems that the objective is impossible to achieve for the country.

Despite having problems finding a rythm, some of our athletes offered their best performance in career. For example, Mike Brown registered a new Canadian record at the 200m breast stroke but finished in fourth position. Only a mere 9/100th of a second from a bronze medal.

The Canadian delegation is not pushing on the panic button just yet. Historically, the better performances for the country are coming during the second week of the Olympics. It will not be different in this edition because we still have to see the best from the Canadian athletes.

Alexandre Despaties, multiple world champion and bronze medallist at the 2004 Athenes games in diving will begin his quest for a gold medal this weekend. We also anxiously wait for the finals in rowing that have to be run this weekend. A couple of medals should come from this discipline. Also, the men's baseball team and the women's softball team are still in the hunt.

A little bit more patience is required and it is very important that we keep supporting our team.

Michael Phelps, The human machine.

While Canada is still looking for it's very first medal at these 2008 Olympics, Michael Phelps is dominating the competition at the pool. Today, Phelps added two other gold medals to his collection and became the athlete with the more Olympic titles in history.

Phelps has five gold medals and five world records this far in the competition. His dream of winning eight events in Beijing is very much alive. As of today, Phelps has won 11 gold medals in his amateur career, an all-time record. Tomorrow, he will go for two more gold medals and increase his impressive collection.

Yesterday in the 4x200m freestyle relay, the United States team crushed the world record with a time of 6:58,46 almost five seconds faster than the world record. Phelps was the first to go in and took only 100m to create a huge lead for his team. Canada was present in this final but had to settle for a fifth place.

(Picture: Michael Phelps, Canadian Press.)

Difficult weekend for Canada.

After the first weekend at the Beijing Olympics, Canada has struggled and deceived. None of the athletes who were competing came close to winning a medal.

The athletes registered in the Judo competition were the closest to a podium finish for Canada while a sixth position was the best result for the relay team at the swimming pool.

It is only a matter of time before a Canadian finishes on the podium. The earlier will be the better for the morale of the delegation. Once the ice will be broken, the team will be on it's way. I expect a first medal for Canada before day four is over.

Today, the most impressive Canadian performance came from our eight rowers who qualified for sunday's final with an impressive heat. A gold medal is not impossible for our excellent rowing team.

During that time, China and the United States have dominated the first weekend. Both countries have already won over ten medals.

(Picture: Canadian rowing team, Canadian Press.)

2008 Olympics medal count.

Olympic Medal winners at NBC Olympics.com!

Let the games begin.

Today in Beijing, the 2008 Olympic Games opening ceremonies were presented. To finish the colorful ceremony that lasted a total of four hours, a runner with the Olympic torch, hung by wires at the very top of the stadium has lit the cauldron, the final official symbol that the games are open.

With the opening ceremony now behind us, we can now turn towards the sport and the (hopefully) clean competition. Politics and fighting should be set aside for those two weeks while friendship, goodwill and unity should prevail.

Sadly, some military activity broke out these last 24 hours in Ossetia between Georgia and Russia. The whole world is asking and working to establish a pause in fighting for at least the durantion of the Olympics. A report estimates about 1400 casualties in these last hours.

On a more sportive note, the objective for Canada is to rank 16th once the competition will close. It is an attempt to improove the 19th place achieved in Athenes in 2004. Ex-gold medallist, Sylvie Bernier, did not advance any number of medal as an objective. She simply stated since a few months already that the global performance matters and a 16th place or better will mean a success for the country.

(Picture: Canadian Press.)

Brett Favre saga: Packers trades the legend to New York.

Late yesterday evening, the Green Bay Packers General Manager, Ted Thompson, got rid of the biggest thorn to his side by trading Brett Favre to the New York Jets.

The Jets have given the Packers a 2009 fourth round draft pick for the legendary quarterback. This is nothing less than a steal. The New York Jets organization should be proud of themselves because they haven't had a decent QB since Joe Namath.

For a fan like myself, the move is very close to a ''worse case scenario''. I will have to tune in the Jets games next season to be able to follow Brett Favre. And I will most probably even cheer for the Jets!

If some kind of oracle appeared to me and told me that Brett Favre would be a member of the Jets six months ago, I would've laughed my way to the nearest mental institution.

Now if you can excuse me, I have to practice my new cheer...

J-E-T-S Jets! Jets! Jets!

J-E-T-S Jets! Jets! Jets!

J-E-T-S Jets! Jets! Jets!

(Picture: Brett Favre, Getty Images.)

Cool, colorful and personalized labels.

As far as I can remember, I always had at least a box of sheets of return address labels at home.

I really like to use those labels. That way, I never have to write anything in the corner of my outgoing mail and I save a lot of time when comes the time to send out the holiday gift cards to my family and friends.

When my box was almost empty, I used to be looking for a different and cool design in different stores around. Sometimes, I had a hard time finding a set and/or a size that I really liked. But while checking VistaPrint.ca in more details, I realized that I have access to an even wider variety of colorful, self-sticky labels than I could find at any store in my area. Saving time, without leaving home.

A choice of size and colors printed with high-quality material. If you prefer custom-made labels, some templates are already available to start the creation of your own pesonalized labels and this in only a few clicks of the mouse.

The site is clean, well detailed, easy to browse and the prices are as competitive as it gets. I need to mention that there is a lot more than only return address labels available on the website. If you are looking for business cards, rubber stamps, car door magnets for marketing purposes, office accessories, logo designs or remotely any office material. The variety of products is simply impressive, you will easily find everything with clear images of the products very quickly.

This is a five star Canadian website. Browse it and you will be convinced.

Brett Favre saga: The walls have ears.

After weeks of speculations and turnovers, the legendary quarterback was at Lambeau field yesterday for the opening of the Green Bay Packers training camp.

After being reinstated in the active players list by the league's president Roger Goodell, Brett Favre passed the team's medical with success yesterday and met with head coach Mike McCarthy for over five hours. McCarthy wanted to make sure that his player really wished to play this 2008 season without being a distraction for his team. A press conference was scheduled yesterday but was cancelled because of the lenght of the meeting between McCarthy and Favre.

Another press conference has been presented this afternoon and the word is after this meeting with the press that Favre and the Packers will part ways for 2008. According to the QB, his future is not within the Packers roster.

Now for my own personnal opinion on the whole subject.

Since the massive amount of money (around $20 Millions for two years) that was said to be offered by the Packers' GM Ted Thompson to keep Brett Favre retired has been revealed, makes me speculate on the whole situation.

What if the March retirement announcement by Favre was caused by the pressure applied by the team's General Manager Ted Thompson himself and not because of the players' wish to retire? I have been following the legendary quarterback's career since his NFL debut and I have no doubt about his will to play at least one more season. Especially after a great 2007 season and playoff run.

Favre has gone thru extremely emotional moments during the lenght of his career. For example, the game he played the day following the death of his own father a couple of seasons ago. The guy handled this very difficult situation with great class and cool not to mention his five star performance. After going thru this scenario, we cannot question Favre's cool temper and ability to deliver the goods in a tough situation.

So if we go back to Brett Favre's retirement press conference, we all remember his emotional breakdown while he was presenting his farewell to the members of the press. What could put the man in such emotional pain after going thru so much during his career? How about treason for an answer to this question? Did Brett Favre really wished to retire despite the fact that he still had one year to go to his contract? I really doubt it.

When a man of this stature signs a professionnal contract for a certain period of time, you can bet that he intend to be the man of his word and go all the way. So for what reason, other than treason, pushed Favre to retire in an emotional breakdown in March?

Ted Thompson's massive offer to keep him sidelined is only confirming my thoughts and speculations. The Packers GM wanted him out by any means necessary and likely succeeded after what we heard in today's press conference.

The Packers fans (and I am one of them) will not like where this situation is going. Some of them will boo Aaron Rodgers, some of them will hate Ted Thompson and some of them will boo the Packers and flee Lambeau field.

For myself, I despise Ted Thompson for wanting Aaron Rodgers at the helm so much. In a remote corner of my mind, despite being a hardcore ''cheesehead'' myself, something creeping inside my head makes me wish that the Pack sinks to the bottom of the division and miss the playoffs in 2008. I also wish to see Favre with a NFC North team.

Then, you guessed it, I would like to see Favre beat the hell out of the Packers next season. Just in hope to see Ted Thompson be thrown away like a no-good facial tissue.

I really am a torn up fan now.

(Picture: Lambeau field, Getty Images.)

Hungarian Grand Prix: A first career victory for Kovalainen.

Today's Grand Prix at the Hungaroring had a few surprizes in store for the fans. The racing gods weren't very kind with the points leaders.

After a great start from Felipe Massa in his Ferrari who took the first place at the first corner, the race positions stabilized for a while and the pilots completed their first pitstop without any great position changes.

Then, a first major incident transformed the face of this race. Lewis Hamilton in his McLaren-Mercedes is said to have rolled on a debris and one of his tires was punctured. He had to make an extra pitstop to change his tire and got out of the pitlane in tenth position. The rest of his race was run in damage control mode which allowed him to finish in fifth position.

After the second pitstops, Massa led Kovalainen, Glock, Raikkonen and Alonso. The gap between the leaders was too big to expect any position change until the end.

But the racing gods had another trick left up their sleeve. With only three laps to go, Felipe Massa, who was well ahead, saw his engine explode. A cruel turn of events for the Ferrari driver who was about to take the lead in the championship.

Massa's tragic engine blowout gave an unexpected first career victory to Heikki Kovalainen and an equally unexpected second place to Timo Glock in his Toyota. The third place was awarded to Kimi Raikkonen.

The Formula One circus will now take a three week break before resuming it's activities. For a first time, the championship will stop in Valencia, Spain.

Hungarian Grand Prix top ten finish:

Winner: Heikki Kovalainen (McLaren)
2. Timo Glock (Toyota) -11.061 seconds
3. Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari) -16.856 seconds
4. Fernando Alonso (Renault) -21.614 seconds
5. Lewis Hamilton (McLaren) -23.048 seconds
6. Nelson Piquet Jr (Renault) -32.298 seconds
7. Jarno Trulli (Toyota) -36.449 seconds
8. Robert Kubica (BMW-Sauber) -48.321 seconds
9. Mark Webber (Red Bull) -58.834 seconds
10. Nick Heidfeld (BMW-Sauber) -1:07.709

Drivers championship after 11/18 races:

1-Lewis Hamilton 62 points
2-Kimi Raikkonen 57 points
3-Felipe Massa 54 ponts
4-Robert Kubica 49 points
5-Nick Heidfeld 41 points
6-Heikki Kovalainen 38 points
7-Jarno Trulli 22 points
8-Fernando Alonso 18 points
9-Mark Webber 18 points
10-Timo Glock 13 points
11-Nelson Piquet Jr 13 points
12-Rubens Barrichello 11 points
13-Nico Rosberg 8 points
14-Kazuki Nakajima 8 points
15-David Coulthard 6 points
16-Sebastian Vettel 6 points
17-Jenson Button 3 points
18-Sebastien Bourdais 2 points

Constructors championship:

1-Ferrari 111 points
2-McLaren 100 points
3-BMW-Sauber 90 points
4-Toyota 35 points
5-Renault 31 points
6-Red Bull 24 points
7-Williams 16 points
8-Honda 14 points
9-Toro Rosso 8 points

(Picture: Heikki Kovalainen, Canadian Press.)

Hungarian Grand Prix: McLaren on top.

The 2008 season is now into it's second half and this weekend, the Hungaroring welcomes the Formula One circus.

For the qualifying session presented today, the McLaren-Mercedes dominated the competition and took the first row. Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen registered the two best times, confirming the McLaren mid-season domination.

Felipe Massa was once again the best Ferrari pilot. The Brazilian registered the third quickest time of the plateau while the defending champion, Kimi Raikkonen, placed his car in sixth position. Raikkonen has not been on the front row in the last few races, an unexpected turn of events after a good start this season.

The most unexpected result came from Timo Glock who placed his Toyota in fifth place. For once, he was better than his teammate Jarno Trulli who ended the qualifying session in ninth place.

Hungaroring top ten on the grid:

Pole: Lewis Hamilton (McLaren) 1:20.899
2-Heikki Kovalainen (McLaren) 1:21.140
3-Felipe Massa (Ferrari) 1:21.191
4-Robert Kubica (BMW-Sauber) 1:21.281
5-Timo Glock (Toyota) 1:21.326
6-Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari) 1:21.516
7-Fernando Alonso (Renault) 1:21.698
8-Mark Webber (Red Bull) 1:21.732
9-Jarno Trulli (Toyota) 1:21.767
10-Nelson Piquet Jr (Renault) 1:22.371

(Picture: Lewis Hamilton, Canadian Press.)