Little things that should probably be bigger things but they’re not so, what the heck.

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As I was reading all the many tributes on the interwebs yesterday I was stunned to realize it’s been now 25 years and a day since John Candy died.

I was lucky enough to cover the Toronto Argonauts back in his time as a co-owner of the team. It was a crazy, crazy time with Rocket Ismail and Bruce McNall and Wayne Gretzky and more glitz and glamour than I’d ever experience to that point.

And through it all, Candy was the greatest. Humble, approachable, funny, friendly. He was truly interested in making the Argos a thing in Toronto, much more I always thought, than any of his other co-owners.

He knew what the franchise was and what it meant, he grew up here living it. He cared and it really and honestly came through.

I’ve been around more than a few celebrities who have in some way been connected with teams, either as investors or fans or whatever and it’s often struck me that a lot of them were as much concerned with what it could do for them more than what they could do for the team.

Candy wasn’t like that. At all.

And if you’ve got to rank his performances, this is the list, top to bottom:

Anything on SCTV, which was hugely under-rated

Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

Uncle Buck

Cool Runnings.

Stripes.

(Full disclosure: There was a time when I shared a house with Super Brother and a handful of other ne’er do wells including the odd – and I mean odd – standup comic and, being the grown up, I came to be known as “Buck” so there’s an Uncle Buck soft spot in my heart anyway)

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If the NBA playoffs started today, the Raptors would play Brooklyn. Everyone okay with that?

The NBA playoffs start the weekend of April 12-13.

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What do they call that year between high school and university when teens spend their parents money and goof off in the name of “relaxing” or “finding themselves” or some such new age nonsense?

The Gap Year? That’s it, right?

Why, every time I watch LeBron James now, do I think he’s on some kind of NBA Gap Year?

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There’s a less than zero chance I’m going to be doing the usual morning fare on Thursday because it’s going to be a long day that starts early so we may as well begin the hunt for weekend mailbag submissions now.

All you’ve got to do is click on askdoug@thestar.ca, figure out how to politely ask what you want to ask and send the question along.

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We’ll manufacture some kind of response for Sunday morning and everyone will be happy.

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I remember the day earlier this year that there was a camera crew following The Mighty Quinn and others around the arena for some behind-the-scenes look at the Raptors and the inclusionary hiring practices they’ve put in place, particularly where women executives are concerned.

Turned out to be a very nice piece on The Players Tribune video channel and if you get a chance, you should watch it. Somehow I was unable to photo bomb them and I feel like a failure.

But it’s still good nonetheless.

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So, Tokyo?

That won’t suck.

It’s been a long time since the Raptors were one of the chosen few to do training camp forays into far off lands, although the two trips to London for regular season games over the years suggests the league still knows they have some allure.

But going to the Tokyo area – apparently the Saitama Super Arena and its 37,000 seats is 30 or so kilometres away – as part of the league’s first Japan Games since 2003 is a bit of a feather in the franchise’s cap.

It likely means a bit of an early start to training camp and I don’t know yet the fate of any games in other Canadian cities but it’s a pretty cool thing.

And I’ll start lobbying today to combine the games with some pre-Olympic features so wish me luck.

Be a nice way to start off the 25th year covering them, wouldn’t it?

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With the pucks on their annual tour through Western Canada, they are sure to be greeted by at least mildly supportive crowds on the road, it seems to be how it always is when they get to Calgary or Edmonton or Vancouver, at least that’s way I recall it being.

And with the Raptors coming off a game in Detroit where they were playing in front of a rabidly supportive crowd – “That was a good road win,” Andre Drummond said according to a tweeter machine note I saw from Mr. Grange ™ -- it continued a time-honoured tradition of fan travel.

We’ve seen TFC fans in the upper levels of tons of road stadiums – I covered a game in Montreal once and it was very close to a 50-50 audience split – so there’s that, too.

Not sure what it says about the wealth of fans, the history of the franchise with repatriated Torontonians or simply a desire to experience games in different cities but it does say something and, in my experience, the numbers and consistency make it unique to Toronto fans.

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