Former NHL stars (left to right) Marcel Dionne, Rick Vaive, Mike Gartner and Gary Leeman. Image Credit: B'nai Birth Canada During my conversation with former National Hockey League player Gary Leeman, I asked him for some tips about golf. You can read more about Gary's NHL career and how he got into golf on my previous post. As someone who was a decent amateur and is now a three-handicap, Gary told me that physical fitness, in particular strengthening the core, can help improve your game.

Image Credit: CBC Gary Leeman is among a select few players in the National Hockey League to score 50 goals in a season, but he also happens to be a good golfer. I caught up with Gary at a Toronto Maple Leafs alumni game to talk about hockey and golf. Gary surpassed the coveted 50-goal plateau for the Leafs in 1989-90, and later became part of a 10-player trade, the biggest one in National Hockey League history, and also had the good fortune of winning a Stanley Cup with the Montreal Canadiens in 1992-94.

Image Credit: GolfWRX The golf manufacturing business never stops. At the start of 2017, Nike announced it had signed Jason Day, the world’s top-ranked men’s professional, to a golf apparel deal. Day had previously been affiliated with Adidas. The significance of the deal, aside from the fact it made a successful, undisclosed offer to Day, is that Nike is taking an aggressive approach to golf after announcing last August plans to cease producing balls and clubs.

Every time I go to the gym, I do a light warmup riding the stationary bike for about 10 minutes at moderate speed and then do some easy stretching before I increase the intensity of the workout with weights and other apparatus. The reason I do all this is because I’m trying to easy my body into something more extreme. It’s the same with golf.

Image Credit: Nain News So what did you think of Tiger Woods’ return to competitive golf? For someone who hadn’t played in 44 days, he didn’t do too badly, in my opinion, in the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas last week to support his foundation.

For many years, Canada has been waiting for the next Mike Weir, who won the Masters back in 2003 and became one of the top players in the world for a few years until injuries took their toll. Some such as David Hearn, Graham DeLaet, Nick Taylor, Brad Fritsch and Adam Hadwin have come forward to make their presences felt as the next great Canadian on the PGA Tour, while amateur Jared du Toit had a good run in the 2016 Canadian Open, but none have been able to capture the imagination and optimism of rookie Mackenzie Hughes.

The other day a friend whom I had not heard from in a long time called me up and asked if I had time to go golfing with him. Immediately, I said yes. Golf is the type of activity that allows you to get away from things for a few hours, and in this case it was a chance to do something I hadn’t done with this individual in a long time.

Image Credit: www.historylocker.com In his book 99 Stories Of The Game, Wayne Gretzky talked about his passion for the game when he was injured after playing only one pre-season game in the 1992-93 season with the Los Angeles Kings. Gretzky had some nagging injuries the previous few years, but it was never determined the exact problem. So he was sent to the Kerlan-Jobe Orthopedic Clinic, famous for doing the Tommy John surgeries replacing a ligament in the elbow with a tendon from somewhere else in your body. He was asked by the doctor at the clinic if his back had ever been checked. Gretzky replied he hadn’t because he thought the recurring problem was related to a broken rib. The doctor told him he had a herniated thoracic disk.

The end was coming and everyone knew it because Se Ri Pak said at the start of this season that this would be the final year of her glorious career, but it was still somewhat sad to see her retire from the game. At the age of 38 and with the game trending more and more to players in their teens or early 20s, Pak knew it was time to put away the competitive clubs. She announced earlier in the year that 2016 would be her final season as a full-time player.