About a guard dog for Puck Finn…the goalie blind Winnipeg Jets…soccer stupidity in hockey…a classy King…classy curlers…and adios to a classy Ken Fidlin

I cannot survive in a 140-character world, so here are more tweets that grew up to be too big for Twitter…

As Dire Straits advised us in the early 1990s, sometimes you’re the windshield and sometimes you’re the bug. We know which one Patrik Laine was on Saturday afternoon, and let’s agree that the Winnipeg Jets rookie extraordinaire was the victim of a clean hit. Not clean-ish. Clean.

If you can’t agree, please proceed to another blog, because I’m not prepared to debate it.

I will, however, happily engage in a verbal to-and-fro re the suggestion that the Jets ought to send an SOS to former guard dog Anthony Peluso.

I mean, seriously? Anthony Peluso?

Yes, some among the rabble think it a swell idea to insert Peluso’s bare knuckles into the Jets’ lineup to discourage ruffians like Jake McCabe of the Sabres from taking liberties with the likes of Puck Finn, as he did in Buffalo. Well, sure. And some people also believe Donald Trump in the White House is a swell idea.

Look, it’s bad enough that a roster spot is occupied by Chris Thorburn, a loyal foot soldier whose sole purpose when not munching on popcorn appears to be dropping his hockey mitts and wrestling a foe of equally limited skills for 30 seconds or less. Unless this is 1975 and the Broad St. Bullies are pillaging the National Hockey League, adding another no-talent thug who would be tethered to the end of the bench or banished to the press box is not a wise use of personnel.

So no. Anthony Peluso is not the answer.

Puck Finn

As one who has suffered multiple concussions (10 at last count), I know what a dark and nasty place La La Land can be. The nausea, the dizziness, the ringing in the ears, the headaches, the imbalance, the forgetfulness…horrible. I was first concussed at age 13. Got hit in the head by a baseball. When I awoke in St. Boniface Hospital, the kid in the bed next to me had control of the TV. I asked him to put on Hockey Night in Canada. It was mid-July. I thought it was winter. I hope Laine knows it’s winter and there’s plenty of hockey to be played. More to the point, I hope Puck Finn doesn’t miss too much of it.

Almost lost in the hue and cry that arose after McCabe sent Laine to La La Land was the numbing reality that the Jets coughed up a huge hair ball in losing 4-3 to Buffalo. Ahead 3-1 less than 20 minutes from time, they gagged and it didn’t help that they received more minor league-level goaltending from Connor Hellebuyck. I’m not prepared to close the book on Hellebuyck, but I do find it odd, also annoying, that general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff and his bird dogs can recognize blue-chippers up front (the Lickety-Split Line of Puck Finn, Twig Ehlers and Rink Rat Scheifele, as an e.g.) and on the blueline (Jacob Trouba, Josh Morrissey) but they continue to be goalie blind. Should it really take six years to find a legitimate starting goaltender?

Interesting to note that Jets head coach Paul Maurice doesn’t discuss the NHL standings with his workers. “I don’t talk about the standings and I don’t talk about any of that in the room,” he says. “It’s on a board somewhere and they can look at it if they like.” Perhaps that explains their lack of urgency some nights.

We can do without this and the shootout in hockey.

At the risk of sounding like Don Cherry, it occurs to me that Europeans have brought two things to hockey—soccer’s twin evils of diving and the shootout. Yes, of course, some hockey players (hello, Bill Barber) were acting like Italian footballers in their death throes before the great European wave arrived on our shores, but it got so bad that the NHL was motivated to pass anti-diving legislation in an effort to nip it in the bud. As for the shootout, I’m sure most of us would agree that it’s the devil’s handiwork. Under no circumstances should the gold-medal match at the World Junior Championship be determined by gimmickry. The Canadian and American kids put on a boffo show the other night, and they deserved better than soccer stupidity to decide the issue. I mean, it’s not like anyone was in a hurry to leave the rink.

So nice to see Dave King acting like a kid on Christmas morning after Canada’s success at the recent Spengler Cup tournament in Davos. King, who was Luke Richardson’s associate coach at the Swiss event, is among the finest men I met in 30 years of covering sports in mainstream media. He was always classy, always honest and always obliging. No doubt he still is.

Speaking of classy, former world champs Kerry Burtnyk and Jeff Ryan were two of the reasons I enjoyed working the curling beat back in the day, and now their names are in the news again. Only this time, it’s their kids chasing glory. Laura Burtnyk and Hailey Ryan teamed up to win the Manitoba Junior women’s title, while J.T. Ryan skipped his team to the men’s crown. The kids will be wearing the Buffalo on their backs at the Canadian championships later this month in Victoria, and it’s never wise to bet against a Manitoba outfit at a national curling event. Especially if their names are Burtnyk and Ryan. Go get ’em, kids.

Ken Fidlin

Another good one has left the toy department. That would be the now-retired Ken Fidlin, longtime jock journalist with the Toronto Sun. Fids and I arrived at the Sun at the same time, in late 1980, after his Ottawa Journal and my Winnipeg Tribune both ceased operation in the same 24-hour period. I bailed after a year and a half in the Republic of Tranna, moving to Calgary and then back to Pegtown, but Fids never left and the Little Paper That Grew was always better for it. He’s a terrific writer and an even better person.

Postmedia truly has done a nasty number on sports writing in Canada. Fidlin joins a lengthy parade of quality writers and people who have been bought out, forced out or walked out on the newspaper chain in the past 12 months—George (Shakey) Johnson, Cam Cole, Bill Lankhof, Dave Stubbs, Randy Sportak, John MacKinnon, Joanne Ireland and Kirk Penton, among others. I suppose Terry Jones of the Edmonton Sun will be next on the chopping block. Sad.

Patti Dawn Swansson has been writing crap about Winnipeg sports for 47 years, which means she is old and probably should think about getting a life.

 

In 2017, I do not resolve…

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. What’s the point? I know I wouldn’t keep them.

I mean, I could resolve to cease my regular criticisms of jock journalists. And I could really, really mean it. Girl Guides honor. Cross my heart and hope to die. But then one of the girls or boys on the beat would scribble or say something goofy, dumb, ridiculous or all of the above and it would be like a tub of chocolate swirl ice cream—I would have to have at it.

Thus, I do the opposite. I make New Year’s non-resolutions. That way, I can’t go wrong. I know I’ll break every one of my non-resolutions long before the year is done and I’ll be happy about it.

With that in mind, here are my New Year’s non-resolutions for 2017…

Patti Dawn Swansson has been writing about Winnipeg sports for 47 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.

Winnipeg Jets: Bobby Hull skipping out on the Hall of Fame ceremony was totally disrespectful

Bobby Hull ought to be ashamed of himself.

I mean, okay, he’s having a hissy fit. Most of us have had a hissy fit, or two. But know this about Hull: His is a selective hissy fit, aimed squarely at Good, Ol’ Hometown.

Hull snubbed the inaugural Winnipeg Jets Hall of Fame ceremony on Wednesday because, as many of us suspected and as his former linemate Ulf Nilsson confirmed, “he’s upset about some things that are being brought up from the past.” Read: Domestic abuse/violence.

Well, yes, some local media opinionists, bloggers and fans tsk-tsked last summer when the Jets announced a) the creation of their Hall of Fame and b) that Hull, Nilsson and Anders Hedberg were to be enshrined as part of the throw-back hijinx leading to the Heritage Classic on Sunday at a football field-turned-hockey rink in Fort Garry. As I scribbled a month ago, why would Hull want to deal with more of that?

But wait. Upon further review…

Bobby Hull doesn’t hide from fans and media in Chicago.

Long before Bobby Hull’s likeness was chiseled in stone and plunked outside the United Center in Chicago, media opinionists, bloggers and fans in the Toddlin’ Town brought up his sordid past of whacking women about the ears. Yet the Golden Jet still attended the unveiling ceremony.

Long before Bobby Hull was put on the Chicago Blackhawks payroll as an official ambassador, media opinionists, bloggers and fans in the Windy City brought up his sordid past of whacking women about the ears. They still do. At least one news scavenger has demanded that he be fired. Yet the Golden Jet continues to flit about Chitown, slapping backs, shaking hands and clinking glasses with the rabble.

No matter how damning the dialogue, Bobby Hull didn’t, and doesn’t, hide from Chicago, where he became an underpaid National Hockey League legend.

He just hides from Winnipeg, where, as the World Hockey Association’s marquee player, his bank account became as flush as his face now is.

Think about it. Opinionists in Chicago condemn Hull in the harshest of terms and he soldiers on, smiling and glad-handing. Yet he refuses to show his flushed face in Winnipeg. What, our booze isn’t good enough for him?

If Bobby Hull can gird his loins and stand before the rabble in the Windy City, he could have bloody well done it in River City.

Hull, of course, doesn’t owe the city of Winnipeg anything. His contribution to the birth and growth of professional shinny in Good, Ol’ Hometown is second to only Ben Hatskin’s. But I submit he probably owes Hedberg and Nilsson an apology. He abandoned them.

Anders Hedberg, left, and Ulf Nilsson.

There the two Swedes sat on Wednesday, side-by-side on a podium, fielding questions from the assembled news snoops. Hedberg, the human lightning bolt of a right winger, looked vibrant, healthy and impeccably attired in a dark suit, crisp blue shirt and a blue tie with white polka dots. The passage of time has been kind to him. Nilsson, the crafty and foxlike centre-ice man, was more grandfatherly and rumpled in an open-collar shirt and drab sports jacket. Clearly, he’s never let success go to his clothes. But his sense of humor is intact. He joked about his new knees and hip replacement.

As they spoke, though, it was impossible to ignore Hull. He was present by his absence.

“Sad,” is what Hedberg said of his Hot Line mate’s snub of the event. “But he is old enough to make his own decision. And it will not destroy our evening, or Winnipeg’s evening. We’re celebrating hockey, and that can be done without whoever. Even Bobby Hull.”

I couldn’t be certain if there was a touch of testiness, bitterness or hurt in his voice.

If anyone is truly out of sorts, I imagine its Jets co-bankroll Mark Chipman and True North Sports & Entertainment, because they’ve done the right thing in linking the present to the past. They looked beyond Hull’s off-ice trespasses and invited him to be central to this week’s celebration, yet he gave them the cold shoulder. He disrespected them. He disrespected Hedberg and Nilsson. He disrespected everyone who’s worn Jets linen. He disrespected the faithful who fawned over him during his six seasons in the WHA and those who stand by him today.

I guess Winnipeg just isn’t Bobby Hull’s kind of town. Maybe it never was. Apparently, Chicago is.

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.

 

 

About the Winnipeg Jets betting their scouts got it right…the Buck and Hutch Show…Nolan Patrick…and the boys skate down memory lane at The Pint

I cannot survive in a 140-character world, so here are more tweets that grew up to be too big for Twitter…

Patrik Laine

Be careful what you wish for, Jets Nation. You might get it.

Actually, you’ve already got it. Connor Hellebuyck is in goal. Josh Morrissey is on defence. Patrik Laine, Kyle Connor, Brandon Tanev and Nikolaj Ehlers are up front. The first five are National Hockey League rookies. The latter is a sophomore who can’t order a beer in the United States until February.

The Jets are greener than a nauseous Kermit the Frog on St. Patty’s Day.

That’s okay, though. That’s what you wanted. That’s the new NHL order and you wouldn’t want your hockey heroes to be left behind, right? And they won’t be. Not as long as general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff’s bird dogs have flushed out more blue-chippers than scouts with the other 29 outfits in a league where fewer and fewer players are old enough to grow a respectable playoff beard.

That’s really what the Jets are betting on, isn’t it? Their talent sleuths. The guys who roam the terrain like so many truffle hogs seeking to unearth hidden treasure.

I mean, it’s not like the Jets invented the light bulb, sliced bread or the dot.com. The draft-and-develop blueprint is older than the back of Jaromir Jagr’s head. The trick, therefore, is to do it better than the other guy(s), and we like to think the Jets’ scouts have assembled a glittering collection of raw, untapped talent. Better than most, if not all. Ah, but loyalists of the Edmonton Oilers likely thought much the same thing at different times during the past decade.

If the Jets bird dogs did their job, the kids will be alright. Perhaps not this season, but eventually.

I like what the Jets have done. I don’t see it as risky business. Not even in goal. Technically, Hellebuyck isn’t a rookie. He stood in the blue paint 26 times during a Jets crusade that fell off the rails last winter, so he won’t be eligible for the Calder Trophy. But let’s face it, he’s a freshman. Michael Hutchinson isn’t, but he’s no one’s idea of a No. 1. He was given ample opportunity to supplant everyone’s favorite whipping boy, Ondrej Pavelec, and he couldn’t do it, which probably should tell you all you need to know about him. But, really, the Buck and Hutch Show doesn’t need to be all-world. Anything above average is an upgrade.

Nolan Patrick

Can you say Nolan Patrick, kids? The Jets can. Unless I miss my guess, the local shinny side will finish closer to the back end rather than the front of the pack this winter and, given another stroke of good fortune when the NHL makes the numbered ping-pong balls go bouncy-bouncy at the draft lottery next spring, Patrick might be the Jets’ reward. The bonus, of course, is that the Brandon Wheat Kings forward is a homebrew.

Oh, the good times (not to mention the brown pop) will be flowing at The Pint on Fort Street next Thursday night (Oct. 20) when yesterday’s heroes gather to tell tall tales and swap fibs at the Heritage Classic Launch Party. A great number of former Jets dating to the World Hockey Association glory days shall be on site, as will the Avco World Trophy. At the same time, it’s a sad reminder that we’ve lost some people along the way. I hope they take a moment to remember CBC voice Don Wittman, Jets radio legend Friar Nicolson and former Winnipeg Free Press hockey scribe Reyn Davis. Friar, Reyn and I were the only three news scavengers to work the Jets beat, home and away, during the final WHA season. It was a hoot. The Jets were a real good bunch of guys, too. They made my job enjoyable. It was a privilege and a pleasure to cover that team.

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.

About grrrrl power ‘n’ goddesses…an ugly American in Rio…giving A-Rod the needle…the Otta-whine RedBlacks…a mea culpa…and not wearing a beach volleyball bikini

I cannot survive in a 140-character world, so here are more tweets that grew up to be too big for Twitter…

Grrrl power and goddesses.

Quiz me this, Sexism Police: If a writer uses the word “goddesses” to describe a female athlete, is that sexist or not? Or does it depend on the gender of the scribe?

I ask this because one wordsmith has bestowed the loft of “goddesses” upon the women who are responsible for the entirety of Canada’s medal haul at the Summer Olympic Games in Brazil. Given the sensitivities of the day, such a descriptive might be expected to inspire howls of protest because the word “goddess” is very much about female physical beauty.

According to the Oxford Dictionary, a goddess is “a female deity” or “a woman who is greatly admired, especially for her beauty.” Merriam-Webster defines goddess as “a female god,” or “a women whose great charm or beauty arouses adoration.”

So, you need to be female and you need to be beautiful in appearance. All others need not apply.

Sounds sexist to me.

Actually, much of the column written by Rosie DiManno of the Toronto Star could be considered sexist, to the point of being an exercise in the gender-shaming of men. I mean, it’s appropriate to laud the ladies for their achievements at Rio de Janeiro with catchy phrases like “Grrrrl power in the pool.” But Ramblin’ Rosie shifts into an us-vs.-them mode. The women vs. the men. It’s XII medals for the XX side. And the XY side? Zip. Zilch. The men have provided no yang to the women’s yin.

Still, I don’t think DiManno was being sexist in her use of the term “goddesses” or her emphasis on the lack of success, to date, by Canada’s male Olympians. (Stooping to the branding of certain scribes/broadcasters as “chauvinistic troglodytes” is another matter.)

I just find it interesting that she can use a word, the meaning of which speaks directly to a women’s physical beauty, and it goes unchallenged. I’m not sure a guy would get away with that. Not in today’s politically correct climate. Surely someone would be offended. Which might explain why, in a similarly themed column, Randy Turner of the Winnipeg Free Press took the safe route and described our women as “fierce female warriors.”

Hope Solo: An ugly American in Rio.

The gold medal for Ugly American in Rio goes to Hope Solo, goalkeeper with the United States women’s soccer side. Her gamesmanship, whereby she demanded a new pair of gloves prior to the final kick in a shootout loss to Sweden, was pathetic theatrics, but calling the victors a “bunch of cowards” went beyond the pale. According to Solo, those pesky Swedes displayed extremely bad manners in refusing to join the Americans in a game of run-and-gun football. How dare they sit back and defend? Dirty, rotten “cowards.” And, to think, some Americans wonder why the world cheers against them.

Hard to imagine that the now-retired Alex Rodriguez is on the New York Yankees’ payroll as an adviser. What pearls of wisdom will he dispense to young players with Major League Baseball’s most-storied franchise? In which butt cheek to inject the needle?

I don’t know what is worthy of more yuks, the Saskatchewan Roughriders being found guilty of cheating and still sporting a woeful 1-6 record for this Canadian Football League season or former genius Chris Jones insisting that all fans wishing to attend Gang Green workouts must first produce photo identification and sign in. Perhaps Jones shouldn’t just ask fans to sign in. Let ’em on the field. One or two of them might be able to do something most of the Riders are incapable of. You know, like catch a football.

I’m all for chasing dreams, so I won’t be joining the chorus of rude laughter that has accompanied football washout Tim Tebow since he expressed a desire to play professional baseball. Just one piece of advice for Tim, though: Play first base, because you rarely have to throw the ball.

That was quite the pity party Henry Burris had last week. Smilin’ Hank was snarlin’ Hank, most of his venom directed at the talking heads on the TSN football panel, who might or might not have been critical of him. Chris Schultz called the Burris rant an “overreaction,” while Matt Dunigan was “disappointed” and submitted Snarlin’ Hank’s “focus is all out of whack.” Milt Stegall got more personal, saying, “You sound like a baby right now, that’s exactly what you sound like.” You got it, Milt, just call Hank the Otta-whine RedBlacks quarterback.

Alex Rodriguez: Liar, liar, pants on fire.

I have a theory about the outpouring of support for Elliotte Friedman from his brethren in the Fourth Estate—he apologized. Jock journalists, you see, are not accustomed to hearing mea culpas. They expect lies and denial (hello, Pete Rose, Barry Bonds, A-Rod, Roger Clemens, Alan Eagleson, Roger Goodell, Russia, Ben Johnson, Lance Armstrong, Marion Jones, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa et al). Thus, when Friedman apologized for his mega-mistake in the Olympic men’s 200-meter individual medley final, the boys and girls rallied ’round him, not simply because they don’t eat their own, but for his honesty. It’s in short supply in sports.

Not in short supply is casual homophobia. BBC commentator Paul Hand had this to say as a kiss-cam scanned the audience during a women’s tennis match in Rio: “Let’s hope they don’t go on to two blokes sat next to each other.” No Paul. The sight of gay people kissing is not the problem. The problem is people like you who have a problem watching gay people kiss.

A fun BBC thing is the site Who is Your Olympic Body Match? You type in your height, weight and age and you’re given the names of Olympic athletes who most closely resemble you. Mine are Barbora Strykova, a Czech tennis player, Natalia Alfaro, a Costa Rican beach volleyball player, and Wai Sze Lee, a Hong Kong track cyclist. I can handle playing tennis and riding a bike, but you’ll never catch me wearing one of those skimpy beach volleyball bikinis. For which we all can be thankful.

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 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.

 

Will Blake Wheeler want to hang around if the Winnipeg Jets can’t win?

I cannot survive in a 140-character world, so here are more tweets that grew up to be too big for Twitter…

Blake Wheeler

So, you’re Blake Wheeler, sitting in the Winnipeg Jets changing chamber.

You look around. You see all those freshly scrubbed faces, with less fuzz than a well-used tennis ball. You have arrived at your peak years as a National Hockey League worker. You are at your most productive, on the scoresheet and in team-related intangibles. But you remind yourself that there’ll be 30 candles on your next birthday cake, in August. More than anything, you want to win. Alas, you cannot win, not with team ownership/management operating the NHL’s equivalent of a day-care centre.

Given that you are contracted to wear Jets linen until 2019, you might feel trapped. So, do you get on the blower to your agent and demand he get you the hell out of Dodge? Or do you buy into this youth build and play the part of the loyal foot soldier? After all, you might be wearing the ‘C’ on your Jets jersey next autumn. Unless, of course, the deep-thinkers in the Secret Society that is True North Sports & Entertainment anoint one of the sprigs, such as Mark Scheifele or Jacob Trouba, team captain.

It’s a tough call.

I don’t know Blake Wheeler, but I do know professional athletes, and what they want most is to succeed. That’s why you won’t see players, as a group, tanking. Ownership and management tank (hello Mark Chipman and Kevin Cheveldayoff), but players do not tank.

So I can’t help but wonder what Wheeler is thinking these days, as opposed to three years ago.

“For me it was virtually a no-brainer,” the Jets power forward told news scavengers after putting his signature on a six-year contract in July 2013. “I sat down with my agent in April or May and we had the discussion. I looked him in the eyes and said, ‘This is where I want to be.’ I believe in people like Mark Chipman and Chevy, what everyone stands for and especially my teammates. I have believed since I got here that we have what it takes to get to the next level, so this is just part of that process. I truly believe that great things are in store for this group.”

Much of that group in which he expressed faith has been dispatched hither and yon, including his longtime stablemate, captain Andrew Ladd. The next level remains the next level. There have been no great things. And he has already heard his head coach, Paul Maurice, advise one and all that the Jets’ growing pains will not be short-term.

Which means, by the time these young Jets resemble anything close to a competitive outfit, Wheeler will be leaning into his long-in-tooth years.

All of which begs the question: Does he really want to play the role of Daddy Day Care, or does he want an opportunity to win the Stanley Cup?

Interesting read from Paul Wiecek, who uses his column in the Winnipeg Free Press to lament the lack of access scribes are given to pro jocks, notably those in the employ of the Jets and Winnipeg Blue Bombers. Among other things, he notes that the Jets have two people who “cover” the club for the team website, thus they don’t require the media to deliver the message. But he describes their dispatches as “mostly pap.” I’ve got news for Wiecek: With the exception of Freep freelancer Scott Campbell, I’ve been reading nothing but “mostly pap” from the beat guys at the Free Press and Winnipeg Sun for the past month. Limited access means there are less boring, cookie-cutter quotes, but it shouldn’t prevent scribes from delivering strong critical analysis and opinion. That’s why blogs are so popular. So boo freaking hoo.

What’s not to like about Winnipeg?

Oh, woe is Winnipeg. In a recent Postmedia poll of NHL players, River City was voted the worst and least favorite Canadian burg to visit. Then there was Craig Custance of ESPN advising us of his findings from a poll whereby he asked 10 player agents which locales pop up most frequently on no-trade lists. You guessed it, Good Ol’ Hometown is second, behind only Edmonton. Okay, I get it that no one wants to go to Edmonton, but Winnipeg? I mean, what’s not to like about a town where it’s snowing and the wind chill is minus-20 two weeks into spring?

Why are so many people in Jets Nation convinced there would be serious interest in Michael Hutchinson on the trade market? Other than a couple of terrific months at the beginning of last season, he’s provided no indication that he’s a No. 1 goaltender at the NHL level. He’ll be a career backup at best.

If Nazem Kadri of the Toronto Maple Leafs isn’t the most annoying player in the NHL, will someone please tell me who is. Kadri is the new Rat. He’s no Ken Linseman, but he’s out-ratting Brad Marchand, who apparently decided to spend most of his time scoring goals for the Boston Bruins rather than annoying foes this season.

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.

 

Yo! Mark Chipman! Butt out, you buttinski

The floating rumor that Mark Chipman is a buttinski is not a rumor at all. It is fact.

The Winnipeg Jets’ co-bankroll and governor sat at a round table last month and admitted as much during a no-necktie chin wag with George Stroumboulopoulosboulopoulos, Hockey Night in Canada host and unabashed citizen of Habs Nation.

What we don’t know is this: How much of a buttinski is Mark Chipman?

Could it be that Saint Mark is the reason Andrew Ladd and Dustin Byfuglien remain unsigned, untraded and destined for unrestricted free agency, at which time the Jets shall receive diddly for two of the National Hockey League club’s more prominent pieces? I mean, based solely on his comments to Stromboy, Chipman has stuck his beak into the seemingly stalemated to-and-fro between Grand Master Kevin Cheveldayoff and the camps of Ladd and Byfuglien.

Mark Chipman

“Chevy and I talk pretty much daily,” he said of his working relationship with general manager 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.”

I would submit that the re-signing and/or trading of your team captain, Ladd, and the oftentimes rogue reardguard Byfuglien would qualify as “impactful.”

So, is Chipman asking Cheveldayoff what he’s doing, or has he gone all Steinbrenner and is telling his general manager what to do?

It should be pointed out that this was not a one-on-one tete-a-tete between Saint Mark and Stromboy. Also flapping their gums were Geoff Molson, a product of a family of beer barons and le grand fromage of les Canadiens de Montreal, and Jeff Vinik, noted philanthropist and the money behind the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Here’s what each had to say about their involvement in signings/trades:

Geoff Molson: “The general manager is accountable for that, and he knows that. Marc (GM Bergevin) knows that. And so whether it’s a contract negotiation or a trade, I’m informed the whole way through because we talk almost every day. But I’m not calling the agent, I’m not calling the player. I’m helping Marc in his negotiations so we can be successful, or I’m encouraging Marc with questions. It’s easy for me to not get involved because they’re much better at making decisions like that than I am. I know my general manager is going to do everything he can to win hockey games.”

Jeff Vinik: “I meet or talk to Steve Yzerman once a week. I don’t find it necessary to check in more often than that. When it comes to a major player, you don’t want me making those decisions. You want Steve making those decisions.”

It’s interesting to note that both Molson and Vinik are clear in stating their modus operandi: They bow to the expertise of their respective general managers and get the hell out of the way.

Not so Chipman. He confesses that the more “impactful” the scenario, the more he sticks his thin, pointy beak where it doesn’t belong.

Wrong answer, Saint Mark.

Ya, sure, he owns the franchise and, by default, he must be made privy to the status of talks. But he’s not a hockey man. Having the largest office and a partner, David Thomson, with the deepest pockets in Canada doesn’t make Chipman any more knowledgeable than the lumps who sit on stools in sports bars or phone Radio Chin-Wag to promote conspiracy theories about sinister NHL skunk skirts plotting to keep the Jets below the playoff line.

Chipman has had a free ride from mainstream media and fans since the Atlanta Thrashers caravan rolled into River City and morphed into Jets 2.0 in 2011, but he must be called out if we find his fingerprints on the final reckoning of major trades and signings.

He has to do what Molson and Vinik do—get the hell out of the way.

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.

Dinner with the Stapletons…the Gospel According to Grapes…and Toronto’s bootlicking media

I cannot survive in a 140-character world, so here are more tweets that grew up to be too big for Twitter…

It was early in the final World Hockey Association season and there was concern that the Indianapolis Racers might not make it to U.S. Thanksgiving, which was only four days away when they arrived in Winnipeg for a joust with the Jets.

Already, team bankroll Nelson Skalbania had begun to liquidate, selling his scrawny rookie, Wayne Gretzky, and a couple of tag-alongs to old pal Peter Pocklington and the Edmonton Oilers in a cash grab designed to keep the Racers operational. Even at that, the life expectancy of the Indy outfit was measured in weeks, if not days. Players, coaches, managers and support staff soon would be out of work.

Yet if the weight of pending unemployment preyed on the mind of Racers head coach Pat Stapleton, it didn’t show.

“Whitey’s invited us to Thanksgiving dinner with his family when we’re in Indianapolis later this week,” Jets play-by-play voice Friar Nicolson advised me scant seconds after Winnipeg had beaten the Racers. “The guy’s about to lose his job, and he’s invited three media guys to his home for Thanksgiving dinner with his family. Whitey’s good people.”

Sure enough, when the Jets were in Indy the next Thursday, Nicolson, Reyn Davis of the Winnipeg Free Press and myself broke bread with the Stapletons. It was delightful.

So when I hear that news scavengers today must beg, borrow and steal access to athletes, coaches and management, I simply cannot relate. Whereas we sometimes were welcomed into their homes and had their home phone numbers, scribes and talking heads today are supposed to be grateful and grovel when granted a five-minute audience with a team’s hand-picked jock du jour. The Canadian Football League locker room, we’re told by Paul Friesen of the Winnipeg Sun and others, has become the Cold War Kremlin revisited.

Naturally, the guy on the street doesn’t give a damn about media moaning. They’re viewed as overpaid, pampered prima donnas. But the CFL ought to give a damn.

Much as those of us who covered the WHA cared about its well-being and the people involved, the boys and girls on the football beat are CFL fans. There exists a special bond that is rare between jock and journalist. For the CFL to allow coaches, managers and spin-doctors to disturb that alliance is not only counter-productive, it’s just plain dumb.

Well, thank you Donald S. Cherry for solving a mystery that has caused considerable head-scratching among scholars, theologians and historians for centuries. That’s right, they can stop quibbling about Jesus’s actual birth date. The debate is over. Whereas most experts pooh-pooh the notion that Christ was born on Dec. 25 and, instead, submit more likely and logical times such as autumn or spring, Grapes sat in his pulpit during the Curmudgeon’s Corner segment of Hockey Night in Canada on Saturday and said, “Remember, it’s merry Christmas. December 25^th, Jesus was born, all right?” So there. The scholars, theologians and historians now can move on to more pressing matters, like how many donkeys were at the barn birth (probably the same number as on Curmudgeon’s Corner—one).

Bootlickers. He called them bootlickers. Actually, when Paul Wiecek called out the “always hysterical” sports media from the Republic of Tranna he used the word “sychophants,” but a bootlicker is a bootlicker is a bootlicker by any name. Wiecek branded the Toronto sports media “a notorious bunch of sycophants who have for years drank the Blue Jays Kool-Aid every spring training.” As much as I applaud Wiecek for having the junk to call out other news scavengers, it seems to me that the bootlickingest media can be found in River City, notably at his own newspaper, the Winnipeg Free Press, which is in bed with the Winnipeg Jets. I don’t include Wiecek among the True North toadies at the Freep. I quite like his work. But others haven’t stopped polishing Mark Chipman’s or Kevin Cheveldayoff’s apple since the National Hockey League franchise arrived in River City in 2011. Apparently, certain Freep scribes, past and present, have failed to notice that Chipman-Cheveldayoff operate the club on the chintz and the Jets never fail to fail.

From the department of dumb headlines, this from the Sportsnet website after Toronto Maple Leafs’ much-maligned goaltender, Jonathan Bernier, put up a zero against the Los Angeles Kings: “The shutout heard around the world.” Oh, please, Toronto. Get over yourself.

Patti Dawn Swansson has been writing about Winnipeg sports for more than 40 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.

 

About self-absorbed sports scribes…the Egg Man…Scrounger Thorburn…and other things on my mind

I cannot survive in a 140-character world, so here are more tweets that grew up to be too big for Twitter…

Paul Wiecek gets it. He really does.

The Winnipeg Free Press sports scribe last week penned a terrific piece on the grind that is covering a National Hockey League team on the road. It is entertaining and full of insight—and he takes a bite out of his own.

Did Oscar Madison have a galloping ego?

“There is a certain measure of what can only be called ‘reflected glory’ that comes with covering the NHL as a reporter—all of which can create a delusional sense of self-importance among the people who cover the league vastly disproportionate to their actual station in life,” he writes.

“Just because you use the player entrance doesn’t mean you’re a player and just because you talk to Blake Wheeler doesn’t mean you’re Blake Wheeler. But move long enough in this world of privileged access—where you are paid to do things others pay to do—and it takes a very grounded person to not let at least some of it go to your head.

“It can be annoying to watch, but mostly it’s just amusing to see it happen to the people around you. The guys who avoid it—and make no mistake, sportswriting is still among the most male-dominated professions in the world—are the guys who get the joke. It’s just hockey, after all. If the sport didn’t exist, the beer companies would have invented it. So get over yourself.”

Sports scribes rarely eat their own. There is some sort of unwritten code whereby it is considered ill-mannered and out of bounds to criticize the ‘other’ guys on the beat. So, Wiecek’s take on his brethren is refreshing. Also spot on, on two counts:

1. Too many jock journalists are self-absorbed, puffed-up prigs. It’s one of the main reasons I didn’t run with the pack during my three decades in the business—I couldn’t stomach listening to them talk about themselves.
2. Sportswriting remains very much a male bastion, with precious few female interlopers, even fewer people of color and zero gay voices.

The article is a wonderful read, the best in either Winnipeg daily for quite some time.

Wiecek’s piece on the demands of covering a pro sports team brings to mind not-so-fond memories of collapsing on an airplane at the tail end of a road trip during the Winnipeg Jets’ inaugural season in the NHL. It happened on a flight home from Buffalo. I was wheeled off the plane on a stretcher and taken directly to the hospital. Diagnosis: Extreme fatigue and exhaustion. My employers at the Winnipeg Tribune wouldn’t permit me to return to the fray without a doctor’s note assuring them I was in fine fettle, thus I was on the shelf for close to a month. I know, what a wuss, right? But, hey, trying to keep pace with Friar Nicolson and Sod Keilback was hard work.

The Egg Man, Dan Halldorson

I only interviewed Danny Halldorson once and remember the freckle-faced redhead from Brandon/Shilo as somewhat shy, friendly and not at all self-promoting. So it’s been interesting to read comments from the Egg Man’s peers in the wake of his death last week in Cambridge, Ill. They don’t talk so much about Halldorson’s accomplishments on the Professional Golf Association or Canadian Tour as they do what he gave back to the game. The way some tell it, the Mackenzie Tour-PGA Tour Canada would not exist today if not for Danny boy, so it would seem that Halldorson’s contribution to the game had been understated until now.

Big tip of the bonnet to Global TV gab guy Joe Pascucci, who, along with Dave Naylor of TSN, goes into the media wing of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame later this month during Grey Cup week in Winnipeg. I recall doing Jets-related, late-night gigs with Joe when his Global was still CKND. Always enjoyed our chin-wags. Also discovered that he would sit on a phone book so he wouldn’t look so tiny on camera when interrogating Chris Walby of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

If we were to fast-forward life to the year 2020, would the Edmonton McDavids still be in last place and making the first pick in the NHL entry draft? Yes, I realize Connor McJesus is injured, but even with him in the lineup that’s a bottom-feeder outfit. If they get first call at the draft table again next June, it’s time to rearrange the rules whereby there is no more rewarding chronic failure.

Angelina Jolie: Definitely not my doppelganger.

I fell asleep during Curmudgeon’s Corner last night during Hockey Night in Canada, but before I nodded off I swear I heard Don Cherry proclaim James Reimer of the Toronto Maple Leafs to be the premier puckstopper in the NHL. Yup. Better than Carey Price. Better than Henrik Lundqvist. Yes, Grapes, and Angelina Jolie is my doppelganger.

All hail Chris Thorburn. Often the chosen whipping boy (been there, done that) when the universe is not unfolding as it should in Jets Nation, the fourth-line scrounger had the decisive score—shorthanded, no less—in Winnipeg’s 3-2 victory over the Arizona Coyotes on Saturday night at the Little Hockey House on the Prairie, and it was artful in its grittiness. I’m not sure his play will earn him the warm-and-fuzzies from the rabble over the long haul, but I hope the Scrounger enjoyed his moment in the sun.

I read a lot of newspapers and sports blogs. Nowhere do fans whine about officiating more than in Winnipeg. It’s as if there’s a global conspiracy to prevent River City jock outfits from winning anything more significant than a tiddlywinks title. Just saying.

There were five shutouts in the NHL on Saturday. There were only four shutouts in the Barclays Premier League on Saturday. Hmmm. And people say soccer is a boring sport.

Patti Dawn Swansson has been writing about Winnipeg sports for more than 40 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.

 

SATIRE: It all comes out in the wash for Evander Kane and the Winnipeg Jets

The Winnipeg Jets stopped squabbling long enough to actually play a hockey game on Friday night.

They did so, of course, without Evander Kane, who was an unhealthy scratch due to a pair of serious upper body injuries—a left shoulder owie and a sagging lower lip.

Medical doctors will repair the mercurial left winger’s wounded wing Saturday and he should be good to resume ignoring the team dress code, and other rules, in four-to-six months. The lower lip surgery is not so simple. It’s a trickier bit of business because removing a perpetual pout will take anywhere from 48 hours to 4 1/2 months, and the man who will perform the procedure, Kevin Cheveldayoff, is MIA. No one is quite certain where the Jets groundhog of a general manager is hiding these days.

Still, there is confidence of an early resolution in the Kane camp.

“We have every reason to believe that Evander will be smiling again in the very near future,” said his mouthpiece, Craig Oster. “Once we can find Chevy and he grants Evander his longstanding wish of being a former Jet, he’ll put on his best track suit, pay his outstanding parking tickets and nightclub tabs and he’ll be out of Dodge permanently. A one-way ticket out of Winnipeg…that’d make any young hockey player with an attitude smile, wouldn’t you say?”

As for Kane’s rehab from season-ending shoulder surgery, Oster was equally optimistic.

“It’ll be a long, hard road back,” he said, “but Evander’s a young stud. Why, I’ll bet he’s in Vegas doing pushups with money bricks on his back within a week of his surgery. He’ll have to start slowly, though. Maybe use half a dozen stacks of 20-dollar bills at first. Then gradually work his way up to a dozen stacks of 100-dollar bills. We might start him off with Canadian currency, too, because it’s not as heavy as the U.S. greenback these days.

“Whatever way we choose to go, you can be sure Evander will keep all his fans and friends in the Winnipeg media up to date with regular Instagram photos from the Vegas strip.”

The apparent end of the Evander Kane era was met with subdued reaction in the Winnipeg players’ boudoir.

“I don’t know what to tell you guys,” said Dustin Byfuglien, who seldom knows what to tell the guys and girls in the media. “Evander’s always been a bit of an outsider on the inside. But me and the boys are a tight-knit group and did everything to make him feel part of the team. Me and the boys even did his laundry for him earlier this week in Vancouver. Can you imagine that? A bunch of grown men washing another grown man’s clothes! I think that says a lot about me and the boys.

“But how does he react? He has a hissy fit. Quits the team. I don’t know, I guess he was mad ’cause he didn’t have nothin’ to wear back to the hotel. What did he expect me and the boys to do, though? Put his track suit in the dryer, too? Me and the boys aren’t gonna wash AND dry his clothes. What kind of message would that be sending? A guy’s gotta do some things for himself.”

Paul Maurice, head coach of the National Hockey League club and fiercely protective of the goings-on in the Jets inner-sanctum, seemed concerned not so much that Kane was lost for the season but, rather, that word of his players’ frat-boy version of a panty raid leaked out.

“You want me to make you cry?” he said, addressing news scavengers. “Come into that dressing room. I’ll make you freaking cry. You’ll cry like a baby. Just like Evander did after Buff and the boys did his laundry. I know you guys have a job to do, and I appreciate the job you do, but you have no business knowing what you know. I control the message…or at least Chevy does. But we can’t find him, so I control the message and my message to you is that I know you don’t know what you think you know. Let me put it to you in terms you can understand: Buff can toss Evander’s track suit in a tub of ice-cold water, but we will not wash our dirty laundry in public. So it’s all speculation. I’d rather talk about the game.”

Oh, that’s right…the game. That’s where we came in. The Jets played the Chicago Blackhawks on Friday night at the Little Hockey House on the Prairie. They lost, 2-1 in overtime. That’s six losses in a row. The beat goes on.

Patti Dawn Swansson has been writing about Winnipeg sports for more than 40 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.