Top o’ the morning to you, Paul Maurice.
Did you get in some extra kip time the past couple of days? Hit the ol’ snooze button and rolled over once or three times, did you? Maybe caught an extra 40 winks? Perhaps your players did the same thing, eh?
Well, who can blame them? Or you?
I mean, to hear you tell it, those mean and nasty National Hockey League schedule-makers are the Grinches who stole your season. Why, they’ve insisted that your Winnipeg Jets perform 32 times in just 60 days. Can you imagine that? Demanding that millionaires put in three hours of work every second day? The nerve.
Don’t get me wrong, coach PoMo.
I’m not making light of your players’ plight. I know the gig is a grind. Been there, done that. Not the games, mind you. But I can relate to all that travel. All those hotels and airports. All those late nights to unwind and the early-morning bus rides. All those odd eating hours. Dealing with all those morons in the media. I know the drill.
So it’s little wonder that you keep droning on about your millionaire workers being more worn out than the cover on a travelling preacher’s Bible. I’m just as concerned for your wellness, though, coach PoMo. No doubt you’re plum tuckered out, too, given that you’ve been flapping your gums incessantly about the schedule for the past month.
Seriously, dude, you’re killing me. I get it, already. You’re a fan of the schedule like I’m a fan of Miley Cyrus’s music. So let it go, man. Move on.
After all, the boys on the hockey beat will happily do your bidding as whinging surrogates. The scribes mention the schedule almost as often as you do, coach PoMo. Even the Globe and Mail picked up the chant on Monday. They aren’t as caustic or facetious as you, though. They just deliver the facts. Or, rather, select facts that lend support to your lament.
Ken Wiebe of the Winnipeg Sun, for example, reminded us on Monday that your Jets “just finished the busiest stretch to start a season in the history of the NHL. That’s not an excuse, but it’s a fact.” Apparently, it’s also “part of the reason the Jets find themselves below the playoff line.”
Well, it’s also “a fact” that the Calgary Flames have endured a similarly demanding grind in this 2016-17 crusade, with one less assignment than your Jets. In the same time frame. Yet that hasn’t prevented them from putting up a W in each of their last six jousts and skating above the playoff line. Ditto the Edmonton McDavids.
Here’s another “fact” that you and your Kool-Aid swilling friends in the media ignore, coach PoMo: While it’s true that your team played 32 games in 60 nights, only seven of your players have suited up for each assignment. What about the other 19 guys you’ve sent into the fray this season? They all too pooped to pop, too?
Look, coach PoMo, it’s one thing for news scavengers in River City and at the Mop and Pail to drink your Kool-Aid and bleat about the schedule, but it comes across as a wah-wah-wah pity party when an NHL coach is providing the lead vocals.
So do yourself a favor: There was no game on Monday night, there’s no game tonight, and there’s no game on Wednesday night, which provides you with ample time to a) sleep in, b) get your jaw wired shut, or c) come up with a fresh topic.
You know, something like why Mathieu Perreault has become such a waste of space or Patrik Laine’s own goal.
I must say, coach PoMo, I’ve been watching hockey since the late 1950s, which, if you’re keeping score at home, is about 10 years longer than you’ve been alive, and I can’t recall seeing a more emphatic own goal than the laser beam that Puck Finn sent past Connor Hellebuyck on Sunday against the McDavids in Edmonton. Gives new meaning to the term “selfie,” don’t you think?
I’ll say this for the kid, though: He didn’t run and hide from news snoops after the fact. He sat and endured their post-game interrogation. He owned his mistake. Good on him.
That’s something you might want to consider, coach PoMo. Taking ownership.
Next time someone with a notebook or microphone approaches, instead of running and hiding behind the schedule, talk about the cold snap, talk about the new polar bear at the zoo, talk about opening up Portage and Main to pedestrian traffic, talk about your last-minute Christmas shopping. Just do what those Grinch schedule-makers have done for you this week—give the lame excuses a rest.
Patti Dawn Swansson has been writing about Winnipeg sports for 46 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 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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