Joy Drop: It was a great week for mothers and their athletic offspring
Hello! Hello! As the week draws to an end, there are some great movements and stories building this week in the world of sports and beyond.
I love family stories about legacies. So we begin this week's happy online notebook entry at the World Aquatics Championships happening in Budapest.
Canada has done brilliantly and won several medals at the swimming championships.
One such anchor of success is 15-year-old Summer MacIntosh, who hails from Toronto. Her connection to swimming started decades ago with her mother, Jill Horstead, who competed on the world's stage in the same event as her daughter — the 200-meter butterfly.
CBC Sports put together a fantastic clip for fans of the pair.
The NBA draft was on Thursday night and Canada pulled up. Montreal's Bennedict Mathurin was taken sixth by the Indiana Pacers. Mathurin's draft day outfit was inspired by family.
My dear friend Chris Curtis is a journalist in Montreal. This week he published a great story about how basketball in Québec is thriving even though the province is sometimes pigeonholed as hockey only.
Shaedon Sharpe from London, Ont., was selected seventh by the Portland Trailblazers. And Sharpe was happy to tell TSN's Kayla Grey how Canada is going to be more on the map moving forward.
Then there is the wonderful story of Jaden Ivey, drafted fifth overall, and his mom, Niele Ivey, head coach of the Notre Dame women's basketball team and former WNBA player. When his name was announced, Ivey was overcome with emotions and hugged his very proud mom.
Ivey played her rookie season in the WNBA while pregnant with Jaden. After she retired from playing, she coached and Jaden grew up watching women's basketball players from the sidelines. He was immersed in greatness as his own game grew.
Parents celebrate their children's accomplishments at drafts, world championships and through spectacular events of all kinds.
In that vein, I had the pleasure of attending a wonderful community theatre performance of Cin-Dah-Rella! by Kwetu Theatre Arts Company at the Geroge Ignatieff Theatre at the University of Toronto. Kwetu Theatre Arts Co. is a Black-founded, Toronto-based non-profit theatre company. They amplify the spaces for Black creatives and actors and offer main stage opportunities and senior roles. The play itself was invigorating and a lot of fun. This weekend's performances are almost completely sold out.
I highly recommend finding local community theatre spaces and performances this summer. It had been a long time since I was in a theatre enjoying a live performance. The experience was heightened by the way the crowd was engaged.
As we move toward a sense of normalcy in many ways, it is wonderful to have experiences like this and watch young creatives offer their talents and passions to the public.
I leave you with Beyoncé's new song, Break My Soul. It has been on replay on my playlist for the last few days. It's awesome and I can't wait for her album, Rennaisance, to drop on July 29.
Have a beautiful weekend full of inspiration!
