I cannot survive in a 140-character world, so here are more tweets that grew up to be too big for Twitter…
Here’s the main question I wanted asked of, and answered by, Kevin Cheveldayoff in his gum-flapper with news scavengers on Monday: Are you Mark Chipman’s puppet?
I think it’s important to know if Cheveldayoff, the Winnipeg Jets general manager, is simply a yes man or if he has autonomy to make his own big decisions in the hockey department of the Secret Society Also Known As True North Sports & Entertainment.
Keep in mind that, during a gab session with George Stombouloupouloulouloulous on Hockey Night in Canada last winter, team co-bankroll Chipman disclosed that he has a large, if not the largest, say in hockey operations.
“Chevy and I talk pretty much daily,” His Holy Hockeyness told Stromboy of his working relationship with Cheveldayoff. “Those are his calls to make, but it would depend on the extent of the term or the quantum of the contract you’re talking about (that) would, to a certain degree, determine the level of involvement that he would require me. The lengthier the deal or the more impactful the deal, the more I would be involved on a consultant basis.”
So, is former Jets captain Andrew Ladd now trying to help the Chicago Blackhawks repeat as National Hockey League champions because of Chipman? Is defenceman Dustin Byfuglien on board for another five years of ice fishing because of Chipman? Do we find Chipman’s fingerprints on the directive to transform the roster into a Kiddie Corps?
In short, exactly when and how often are Chipman’s hands on the till?
It’s a question that should have been asked but wasn’t.
Trying to pry a straight answer out of Cheveldayoff is like expecting Alexander Burmistrov to stop skating in circles, but his counterpart in Vancouver, Jim Benning, isn’t shy about laying out a timetable for the Canucks to once again become a playoff outfit. “Realistically,” the Canucks GM says, “if you’re asking me when will the day be that we can compete with the best teams in the league, I think that (the end of the Sedins’ contracts) timeline is fair. This is Year 2, and by our fourth or fifth year, I hope we’ll be there with the elite teams in the league.” Why is it so difficult for Cheveldayoff to be that forthcoming?
Okay, kids, quiz me this: Would you rather be Kevin Cheveldayoff or Kyle Walters? Well, if you don’t want to be sitting in the hot seat, you’ll be Chevy every time. I say that because, in a recent Winnipeg Sun poll, Cheveldayoff received a whopping 86 per cent approval rating from 2,318 fans who played You Be The Boss. That despite the fact the lineup he iced this past season delivered the most disastrous results in the Jets’ five crusades under his stewardship. By way of comparison, 1,386 played You Be The Boss at the conclusion of the 2015 Canadian Football League season, and Winnipeg Blue Bombers GM Walters got clobbered. He had the support of just 60 per cent. So here’s your bottom line: Cheveldayoff has been on the job five years and just delivered his worst results; Walters has been on the job three years and his on-field product is no worse. Two questions: 1) Is Chevy made of teflon; 2) Are honeymoons supposed to last this long?
The Jets have long been goalie blind, but both Cheveldayoff and the head coach, Paul Maurice, insist that Ondrej Pavelec will not get the No. 1 job by default next autumn. To quote both men, there’ll be “competition.” Well, I’d like to believe them. I really would. Honest. But I don’t believe them. I doubt any other team would be willing to take Pavelec’s contract off their hands, so they’re stuck with him. And so are you.
When the Toronto Maple Leafs agreed to pay Nazem Kadri $4.5 million per annum and gave him a six-year term, does that impact on the Jets payroll? I am, of course, thinking of Mark Scheifele, who is due a handsome increase in earnings after completing his entry level contract with a 61-point season, 15 more than Kadri put up in the Republic of Tranna. Surely, Scheifele is the superior of the two centre-ice men. Surely he has greater upside. Here’s a guess: The Jets lock Scheifele down for eight years and make him the team’s highest-salaried forward, starting at $6 million next season.
Instead of ping pong balls determining which team has first call in the annual NHL entry draft, I have a better idea: A shootout. That’s right. Each of the 14 non-playoff participants selects one shooter from its roster, and they gather in the Republic of Tranna for a showdown. Every team gets one shot (against two league-chosen, neutral goaltenders). You miss, you’re out. Sudden-death. It’s a process of elimination that determines the drafting order by skill rather than Lady Luck. Last team standing gets first shout at the draft. Next best gets second pick and so on. It completely eliminates tanking and would make for must-see TV.
So let me see if I’ve got this straight: The Russian Hockey Federation withdraws its entire roster from the world Under-18 hockey championship in North Dakota because the players might have the banned drug meldonium in their systems. So the Russkies replace those kids with its Under-17 roster. What the comrades are telling us is this: “We don’t turn our kid athletes into druggies until they’re at least 17 years old.”
It doesn’t bother me that the three highest-ranking members in the Toronto Blue Jays ivory tower are all Americans. It does bother me that all three—president and chief executive officer Mark Shapiro, general manager Ross Atkins and vice-president of business operations Andrew Miller—come from the Cleveland Indians organization.
Found it interesting that Sports Illustrated had a go at Blue Jays manager John Gibbons for his sexist comment about his players wearing “dresses” because Major League Baseball is going soft on sliding into second base. Yes, that would be the very same magazine that flaunts female flesh on its cover and numerous inside pages once every year, just to remind us what women are supposed to look like. (The Cliff Corcoran piece, by the way, appeared on an SI.com page promoting these photo features: “Lisa Dergan and 22 Super Hot MLB Wives” and “25 Most Gorgeous Female Politicians.”) And they’re calling Gibbons sexist?
I get a kick out of scribes from the Republic of Tranna who pretend to know what we’re thinking in other areas of our vast land. Take Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun as an e.g. Little Stevie Blunder has determined from his bubble in the Centre of the Universe that the rest of us are doing nothing but blah, blah, blahing and yadda, yadda, yaddaing about the Jays. He calls Canada “a hockey country talking baseball.” Sigh. That might have been true last October when in-your-face bat-flipping was all the rage, but in early April? Not happening where I live, and last time I looked the West Coast was still part of the nation. Go back to stalking Phil Kessel and hot dog vendors, Stevie.
Patti Dawn Swansson has been writing about Winnipeg sports for 45 years, longer than any living being. Do not, however, assume that to mean she harbors a wealth of sports knowledge or that she’s a jock journalist of award-winning loft. It simply means she is old and comfortable at a keyboard (although arthritic fingers sometimes make typing a bit of a chore) and she apparently doesn’t know when to quit. Or she can’t quit.
She is most proud of her Q Award, presented to her in 2012 for her scribblings about the LGBT community in Victoria, B.C., and her induction into the Manitoba Sportswriters & Sportscasters Association Media Roll of Honour in 2015.
The River City Renegade 
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