Favorite minor sport to cover...

I never minded covering rehab assignments and whatnot at minor-league games.

I think the level of baseball is pretty bad and some of those games can be insanely long.

 

If we're talking minor league pro sports, my brief experience covering our box lacrosse team was by far my favorite. We've had many pro teams in every imaginable sport pass through here, and I've killed most of them. From the coach to the players to the actual games themselves ... indoor lacrosse was a blast.

 

If college hockey is a minor sport, then that.
I have no problem with cross country dual meets, as long as the varsity events are run back to back without JV sandwiched in between

 

I enjoyed the handful of horse races I got to cover. I never covered any of the big ones.

 

Field hockey.
I have no good reason. I just enjoy the sport. We have two great programs in our area and it's pretty fun to watch.

 

Soccer ... played on youth and high school level, and then for years never got a chance to cover it until I ended up doing preps at a paper where one of our schools had an elite soccer team. Loved it because I understood the game from the inside. I felt like I could take a crappy game and still write a strong piece without stretching and scrounging. And the coach of that team was one of the smartest soccer people I ever met. He coached ODP and with a good club program. It seemed like I learned something new about the sport in every postgame interview.

 

Softball is fun to cover, especially if you have a couple of good pitchers. I used to hate wrestling but it's kind of grown on me. Dual meets are boring, but covering a tournament there's always something to write about.

 

The women's game is much more fluid and fun. The men's game has moments of jaw-dropping intensity. College men's lacrosse hits are more visually stimulating than most NFL hits.

I really, really enjoy both sports, though they're remarkably different.

 

High school golf.

Ride around in a cart for 2-3 hours. Shoot the shit with the coaches (who are usually moonlighting football coaches). Jot down all the scores. Grab some quotes from the top 2-3 individuals and the winning coaches.

Bada bing, bada boom. Story writes itself.

 

I think it helps that lacrosse players aren't full-time pros. They have normal lives, families, real jobs. Even the NLL's all-time leading scorer, John Tavares (uncle of the hockey player), works as a high school math teacher. It keeps you pretty grounded.

 

"Grounded" about says it all. Our team, most of which was Toronto-based, made long bus rides for "home" games every weekend, with Slap Shot on a continual loop for the ride.

I recall that, back in the day, one of the players in the league was a cop.

 

There have been a few cops in the league, but I think you're probably referring to Dan Ladouceur, longtime Toronto Rock enforcer.