I don’t recall the exact moment goose bumps began to sprout on my arms, and I can’t say for certain when I first reached for a Kleenex to dab at my moist eyes.
What I can tell you is this: What went down at Mattamy Athletic Centre on the first day of this new year tugged hard, but not heavy, on my heartstrings, and I’m not sure any sporting event since Canada vs. the Soviet Union in 1972 has held me in such an emotional grip.
This was a red-letter day on so many levels. For girls/women. For female sports. For the LGBT(etc.) community, shunned by the National Hockey League in the past 12 months but wholly embraced on Monday afternoon, as the dream of a one-size-fits-all Professional Women’s Hockey League gave way to reality.
That reality was Toronto vs. New York in the inaugural skirmish in PWHL history, an ‘if you can see it, you can be it’ moment for so many toque-topped kids among the 2,537 witnesses who’d gathered for the first of what will be 12 sold-out games this winter at Mattamy AC, inside the shell of fabled Maple Leaf Gardens.
It was a landscape-shifting occasion and, seemingly at every turn, it included an LGBT(etc.) presence.
There was a mention of LGBT rights on the public address system, and Billie Jean King, a gay woman and member of the PWHL board, was there to drop one of two pucks for the ceremonial faceoff, the other handled by Jayna Hefford, also a gay woman and senior VP of hockey operations for the new league. Joining them were the team captains, Blayre Turnbull of Toronto and New York’s Micah Zandee-Hart, another gay woman. The two women opted for a hug, rather than a handshake.
Billie Jean also had a sit-down natter with Andi Petrillo of CBC, during which she mentioned her wife, Ilana Kloss, another of the PWHL’s driving forces, and said the players were “so excited. They keep pinching themselves.”
Perhaps the most influential woman in the history of female sports, King entered the Toronto boudoir to shout out the names of the starting six, at the same time suggesting the women absorb the moment.
“This is a day to cherish for the rest of your lives,” said the tennis legend and equal rights champion, wearing a wrist watch with a Pride rainbow band. “I cannot tell you how meaningful it’s going to be as you get older.”
There can only be one first game, and this was it, two teams-to-be-named-later sending the PWHL off on its maiden voyage. For now, they’re just Toronto and New York, but nicknames and logos are in the hopper for all six franchises (Ottawa, Montreal, Boston and Minneapolis/St. Paul are the others).
The final tally, 4-0 for the visiting New Yorkers, was important yet not important.
“Today, it was about soaking it all in,” said Cheryl Pounder, a former Canadian national team player and now a TSN natterbug.
These dovetailing moments had been almost five years in the making, beginning spring 2019 when the Canadian Women’s Hockey League was razed to the ground and, scant days later, the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association rose from those ashes.
Rather than throw in with the Premier Hockey Federation (nee National Women’s Hockey League), the finest female players on the planet became a band of barnstormers (Dream Gap Tour), flitting to-and-fro across the tundra and engaging in glorified scrimmages largely ignored by the rabble and mainstream media.
The PHF and PWHPA shared a common interest—one sustainable, professional super league that would allow the women to quit their day jobs—but they didn’t share methodology.
The PHF was an actual league, whereas the Dream Gappers had a beer league vibe and a simple-minded and flawed strategy—trash talk the PHF out of existence; failing that, wait for NHL commissioner Gary Bettman to file papers and adopt the Hockey Orphan Annies.
Both sides were prepared to soldier on in conflict this winter, but Mark and Kimbra Walter, at the urging of King and Kloss, opened their vast vault (personal net worth $5.9 billion) in June and purchased the PHF, adding to an ownership portfolio that includes the Los Angeles Dodgers, Chelsea FC, Los Angeles Sparks and a wildlife reserve in Florida.
Detente and one super league had arrived in Ponytail Puck, and what ensued was a six-month sprint, headed by Stan Kasten, taking the Walter group to go-time and all that gay-friendly energy at Mattamy AC in downtown Toronto on Monday.
It’s noteworthy that two of the game’s goal-scorers—Alex Carpenter and Jill Saulnier—are gay, and perhaps the most poignant moment was delivered in the broadcast booth, when the all-female crew squeezed in a mention of gay spouses/retired Olympians Gillian Apps and Meghan Duggan and newborn news (also a pic) of baby Sophie, a sister for George and Olivia.
As a member of the LGBT(etc.) collective, I took nourishment in all the gay-positive attention, especially given Bettman’s buffoonish and idiotic bans on Pride jerseys and Pride tape, which permitted bigotry to take root, if not flourish, in the NHL.
It was a beautiful occasion, this PWHL birth. An emotional occasion. An occasion special enough to make you want to believe that hockey truly is for everyone.
It’s only fake news if we make it up, and some of the following might be fake news…
Mark Scheifele disappears into giant pothole during Winnipeg Jets Stanley Cup parade
WINNIPEG—Over the years, fans of the Winnipeg Jets have often accused Mark Scheifele of disappearing during games.
Well, the now-you-see-him, now-you-don’t veteran literally vanished before their eyes as the National Hockey League club’s Stanley Cup parade inched its way along Portage Avenue during the noon hour here Wednesday.
The caravan had arrived in front of Canada Life Centre when the earth suddenly opened and the car carrying Scheifele plunged into a pothole the size of Grand Beach.
“I swear to gawd, man, that hole absolutely inhaled Scheif,” said one horrified onlooker, wearing a Jets jersey with the name Scheifele stitched on the back. “He was there one second and gone the next. It was like watching Joey Chestnut eat a hot dog.”
“It was like Alice falling down the rabbit hole,” said his friend, “except this won’t be no tea party. I hope they find the dude.”
Work crews were delayed in arriving on the scene, due to the enormous crowds lining both sides of the street, and they weren’t confident the crisis would have a happy-ever-after ending.
“All things being equal, we ought to have Mark out of that pothole and back on the street by suppertime,” said crew chief Mo Redwood. “But there’s no guarantee. You know how it is with us city workers…one guy does all the work and the other five guys stand around and watch him do all the work. Then, when you take into account a Slurpee break every 10 minutes, we could be in for an all-nighter.”
Mayor Scott Gillingham held an impromptu presser at the corner of Portage and Main, offering “thoughts and prayers” to Scheifele but also striking an optimistic note.
“Finally,” he said, “players from other NHL teams can come to Winnipeg and squawk about something other than our crappy WiFi.”
Bombers win Grey Cup; mayor cancels parade
WINNIPEG—Due to near tragedy during the Winnipeg Jets championship parade in June, Winnipeg City Council has voted to cancel a scheduled Grey Cup parade for the Blue Bombers.
“We can’t take the risk,” Mayor Scott Gillingham said. “Think about it: If a scrawny guy like Mark Scheifele can cave in Portage Avenue, what would happen if a couple of 300-pounders like Stanley Bryant and Jermarcus Hardrick rode in the same car? I cannot in all good conscience allow our great football players to put their careers at risk by riding in a motorcade on our potholed streets.”
Hizzoner Gillingham said in lieu of a parade there will be a rally at The Forks.
“We just hope Stanley and Jermarcus don’t fall into the Red or the Assiniboine Rivers,” he quipped. “We like it when the Bombers make a big splash, but not that kind of splash.”
Mayor Gillingham later apologized for his bad dad joke.
Sarah Nurse becomes answer to PWHL trivia question
REPUBLIC OF TRANNA—Sara Nurse rang in the New Year with a large dose of history.
It took Nurse just one minute and 22 seconds to score the first goal in Professional Women’s Hockey League history, then she added another to send Toronto on its way to a 4-2 victory over New York before a sellout crowd at Mattamy Athletic Centre on Monday afternoon.
Nurse, a mainstay with Canada’s national team, scored on her first shot in the first PWHL game, much to the delight of 2,600 patrons, some of whom likely arrived at the site of storied Maple Leaf Gardens with New Year’s hangovers.
“I’m sure that would have sobered them up,” Nurse joked. “And I guess that makes me the answer to a trivia question. It doesn’t rank up there with Paul Henderson’s goal or Sidney Crosby’s golden goal or any of Marie-Philip Poulin’s golden goals, but only one player can say they scored the first goal in the PWHL, so I’ll take it. Most important, we won the game.”
Nurse’s stick, sweater and the puck were promptly turned over to a Hockey Hall of Fame official wearing white gloves.
Female athletes have come a long way, baby
VICTORIA TO ST. JOHN’S—Mainstream media have finally discovered what numerous websites and bloggers have known for years—females play sports. And many of them are very good at it.
Female athletes have moved from the back pages to the front page of sports sections across the land, and they’ve become top-of-the-show material on sports hightlight programs on TSN and Sportsnet, rather than end-of-the-hour filler.
“It’s like they used to say in the Virginia Slims ads back in my day: You’ve come a long way, baby,” said tennis legend and activist Billie Jean King, who’s part of the Professional Women’s Hockey League braintrust. “Media and sponsors that haven’t come on board aren’t reading the room properly. Female sports is where it’s at today, and the male sports editors and male program directors who are slow on the uptake will find themselves on the wrong side of history.”
Gary Bettman’s gay grandson chosen 1st overall in NHL draft
LAS VEGAS—The No. 1 pick in today’s NHL Entry Draft, Richie Petty, is the out and proud gay grandson of commissioner Gary Bettman.
“Yes, it’s true,” Bettman told a gathering of news snoops. “My grandson is gay. And by sheer coincidence, we’ll now be using rainbow-colored pucks this season. We call it the Pride Puck. And we’re replacing the pre-game national anthems in all rinks with recordings of Judy Garland’s classic Over the Rainbow from The Wizard of Oz.”
When asked to explain his about-face on the LGBT(etc.) file—from anti-gay rulings such as bans on Pride warmup jerseys (a “distraction”) and Pride tape to now embracing the Rainbow—Puck Czar Bettman said: “Who me? Anti-gay? Like most things, the anti-gay narrative, as it relates to myself, was the creation of an over-imaginative, snowflake media. I think if you talk to young Richie, my grandson will assure you that his Grandpops isn’t anti-gay and has never been anti-gay. If you had done your due diligence, you’d know that whenever I babysat him over the years we always watched Ru Paul’s Drag Show together.”
Great 8 flees home to Mother Russia; Great Gretzky’s goal-scoring record safe
MOSCOW—Alex Ovechkin has given up his quest to become the NHL’s all-time greatest goal-scorer.
The Great 8 announced yesterday that he would finish his career with CSKA Moscow, even though he’s just 46 goals shy of Wayne Gretzky’s record of 894.
“I cannot be seen shooting and scoring with this new Pride Puck the NHL will use,” Ovi told the Russian news agency TASS during a hastily called news conference in Red Square. “My close comrade and leader-for-life Vladdy P. has put in place strict laws against promoting the gay lifestyle. Penalties are harsh, like Siberian winter. If I’m breaking Gretzky’s record, they would want photograph of him and me holding rainbow Pride Puck and smiling like two stupid gay men. It would maybe mean gulag for me. I will instead lick Vladdy P.’s boots and shoot and score with black puck on CSKA team.”
Meantime, the Great Gretzky issued this brief statement: “It’s a real shame that Alex has chosen to lick Vladimir Putin’s boots instead of chasing my record.”
Grapes ripe for return to Hockey Night in Canada
REPUBLIC OF TRANNA—Sources say Sportsnet has reached an agreement to bring Don Cherry back to Hockey Night in Canada.
“It’s a done deal,” said a person with knowledge of negotiations. “It’s my understanding that they’ve agreed to all of Grapes’ demands, foremost among them being the removal of Ron MacLean as host of Hockey Night.”
The source also said the new intermission segment with Cherry will be called You People, not Coach’s Corner, and he will have “free rein to talk about poppies, milk and honey, foreigners, French-Canadians…any marginalized group he thinks he can offend.”
Contacted for a comment, the 89-year-old Cherry would neither confirm nor deny: “I can’t tell you anythink about that. But if it’s true, MacLean won’t be SITTIN’ BESIDE ME! If he wants to talk about history and philosophy, then he should apply for a JOB WITH PBS!’ But I ain’t sayin’ nothink about that. I guess all you media pinkos will have to WAIT TO FIND OUT! I might tell my friends at the Toronto Sun first. They aren’t pinkos. They didn’t crucify me when I was fired, and they wear poppies and EVERYTHINK LIKE THAT!”
There’s no word on who’ll serve as Cherry’s sidekick, but it’s believe Tucker Carlson is being considered.
RCMP act ‘Swift-ly’ when Taylor’s flight detours to Moose Jaw
MOOSE JAW—A flight carrying pop star Taylor Swift to the next gig on her Eras Tour was forced to detour and make an unplanned stop in this Canadian prairie outpost.
According to airport officials, RCMP boarded the plane upon landing and restrained an unruly passenger later identified as Travis Kelce, a tight end with Kansas City Chiefs of the NFL and Ms. Swift’s boyfriend.
An RCMP spokesperson said Mr. Kelce was extremely loud and belligerent when they approached.
“He’s a very large man and in excellent condition, so he was difficult to handle…I sure wish the Saskatchewan Roughriders had a big, strong boy like him on their roster,” the spokesperson said. “As to his behaviour, Mr. Kelce kept screaming something about ‘goddamn wide receivers who can’t catch a pass if their mother’s life depended on it!’ and ‘Why do Mahomes and I have to do everything?’ Fortunately, Ms. Swift was able to calm Mr. Kelce down by reminding him that he’s her plus-one wherever they go, not the other way around.”
She added that there hadn’t been “this kind of nefarious activity” since Prohibition, when gangsters Al Capone and Diamond Jim Brady were running a bootlegging business in the Moose Jaw tunnels.
Meantime, Ms. Swift was visibly shaken by the ordeal.
“This is insane!” she said. “It’s bad enough that Travis lost his mind. But is there really a place on earth named Moose Jaw?”
Football rivalry in La Belle Province is no lark; CFL adds 10th franchise in Ville de Quebec
QUEBEC CITY—The Canadian Football League has its long-desired 10th franchise, but it isn’t on the East Coast.
Les Harfangs des Neiges de la Ville de Québec/Quebec City Snowy Owls were ushered in by commissioner Randy Ambrosie at a press conference yesterday in the Jacques Cartier Room of Le Chateau Frontenac, with Eric Tillman and Marc Trestman introduced as president/general manager and head coach, respectively.
The Snowy Owls will begin play in 2025.
Asked by Dave Naylor of TSN why the new franchise would hire a head coach with such strong links to the Snowy Owls’ soon-to-be arch rival Montreal Alouettes, Ambrosie said: “I’ll remind you, Dave, that Marc won a Grey Cup with the Toronto Argonauts as recently as 2017, and that might be what some of our younger fans recall. But, yes, you’re right that he’s remembered mostly for the success he had with the Alouettes, winning two Grey Cups. What’s most important to remember here is that our owners and general managers are convinced that there’s only about 20 men in the world qualified to coach a CFL team. Nine of them already have jobs and, of the other 11, half are dead. Marc is one of the undead guys. And so, like so many, he comes out of the recycle bin. But we believe his ties to the Larks will add to the provincial rivalry. Football is gonna be for the birds and lots of fun in Quebec come 2025.”
Meanwhile, Herb Zurkowsky of the Montreal Gazette tracked down retired quarterback Kevin Glenn, the only man to have played for, or was the property of, all nine CFL teams. He wondered if Glenn would contemplate signing a one-day deal to make it a perfect 10-for-10.
“I always wanted to retire as a Snowy Owl,” Glenn replied with a chuckle.
All bets are off if new law passes
OTTAWA—The Liberal government introduced a bill yesterday that would outlaw advertising for betting sites during live sports events and news shows such as SportsCentre on TSN and Sportsnet Central.
The ban would include programming before midnight and 24 hours on weekends.
“They’ve crapped out,” said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. “The gambling ads are ruining the broadcasts. They spend more time talking about betting odds than the actual games. I’m sure kids watching would rather hear about their favorite players, not the over/under on how often Connor McDavid spits during a game or how many teeth Brent Burns is missing. And, on a personal note, I’ve been losing my shirt betting on the Senators. They lose more than they win, but I can’t bet against them.”
Bet99 bookies list Bill C-389 (also known as Bill Lose Your Shirt) at +1000 to pass through the House and Senate, and -250 for Trudeau to lose the next federal election.
Olympics shocker: Russian runner is clean!
PARIS—The Summer Olympic Games were rocked by scandal yesterday when International Olympic Committee officials discovered a clean Russian athlete.
“We were shocked,” said IOC president Thomas Bach. “We didn’t recognize her as Russian at first, because she didn’t have a syringe stuck in her butt. I don’t think we’ve seen a clean Russian Olympian since…well, since ever. Russians with beards and mustaches and tattoos have been showing up at the Games since the 1960s and ’70s—and those were the women! East Germany was just as bad back in the day. Their female weightlifters had 5 o’clock shadows at 5 a.m.”
The clean Russian in Paris is distance runner Natasha Kusnetzov.
“I worry for her well-being, and that of the mad scientists in Moscow,” said Bach. “Vladimir Putin is going to pitch a fit when he finds out they haven’t been cheating.”
Merry New Year
VICTORIA—A little old lady has refused to shout at clouds on the final day of 2023, and she wishes the five or six people who read her blog a merry New Year instead.
Even from a great distance, you could feel the good vibe at CBC headquarters in downtown Toronto on Monday.
You could see it in the smiles on your flatscreen TV, in the purple carpet, in the outfits, in the urchins seeking autographs and a word with their hockey heroes. You could hear it in Alina Muller’s quivering voice and in so many other voices, so excited and, at the same time, somewhat disbelieving.
It was the realness of the surreal.
“I keep pinching myself,” Billie Jean King said in a natter with Andi Petrillo of the CBC. “Like, is it really happening today after all these years of working?”
Yes, Billie Jean, there really is a Professional Women’s Hockey League, and Christmas had arrived three months and a week early for the finest female players on the planet, ninety of them wrapped up and delivered to six franchises in a dispersal of hockey talent like we’d not seen before.
Billie Jean was at the inaugural PWHL draft not simply to lend high celebrity to the occasion, but as one of the new league’s founding partners and a woman who knows a thing or two about pioneering in sports.
“Oh wow, what a day,” the tennis legend and equal rights icon said softly after she had slow-poked her way to the dais. (Two months shy of her 80th birthday, Billie Jean isn’t quite as spry as back in the day, when she was winning tennis Grand Slams on the regular, but then who is?)
There was a sense of relief, if not exhaustion, in her voice, as if a great burden had been pried from her mind.
And it had been, actually.
The creation of the PWHL had been a journey of four-plus years, starting with a March 2019 phone call from Kendall Coyne Schofield, one of America’s leading ladies of Ponytail Puck who had a four-word request of Billie Jean: “Would you help us?”
The response was “let’s talk, let’s listen.”
That was ground zero for a startup league that now features six-franchises—New York, Boston, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto—with a roll call of six general managers, six coaches and 108 players, 90 of them selected Monday and another 18 signed to three-year contracts prior to this milestone draft.
All six outfits are still teams-to-be-named-later, and we’ve yet to learn which rinks they’ll call home once the puck is dropped in January next year, but that’s part of the start-from-scratch process.
“A trailblazer is one that blazes a trail to lead and include others,” Billie Jean said, peering through a pair of fuchsia-and-purple eyeglasses. “The first person to do something or go somewhere, who shows that it is also possible for other people. Trailblazing is bold, it’s brave, and it can be very scary and lonely. But it’s worth it, it’s really worth it. It’s worth it for each one of us who have fought so hard for this day, and it’s worth it for the generations of women and girls who will come behind us. This is an incredible moment, but it’s not about a single moment, it’s about a movement. Finally giving women professional hockey players the structure, the support and the platform they deserve, that hockey deserves. I proudly stand here celebrating these trailblazers. And the best part? We are just getting started.”
You could have heard a ball of cotton hit the floor as she spoke to a gathering of a few hundred at CBC HQ.
Billie Jean then introduced Taylor Heise as first among the Chosen Ones (to the Minnesota franchise) and 89 women followed her to the stage.
Left unsaid during the four-hour landmark extravaganza was that it was a great day for the LGBT(etc.) community.
Billie Jean King, of course, is a gay icon, and both she and her wife, Ilana Kloss, are PWHL founding partners. Erin Ambrose, the sixth player selected in the first round by Montreal, is gay. Ditto Jamie Lee Rattray (Boston), who mentioned her partner, and Jill Saulnier (New York).
They join other notable out gay players Marie Philip-Poulin and her fiancé Laura Stacey (Montreal), Brianne Jenner (Ottawa), Alex Carpenter (New York), Micah Zander-Hart (New York) and Emily Clark (Ottawa), each of whom agreed to a three-year contract during the PWHL free agent period.
That speaks to where female professional sports is at in terms of diversity compared to the men’s portion of the playground. It’s become a bio footnote with the women, who can be comfortable in their own skin, whereas a male athlete coming out still generates man-bites-dog headlines. There are zero out gay men in North America’s five major pro team sports.
The National Hockey League, for one, talks a good game about diversity and inclusion, but the PWHL lives it.
How long they’ll live it is the million-dollar question, although the financial backing of billionaire couple Mark and Kimbra Walter suggests they’re in it for the long haul.
“For all of our fans, our job now is earning, earning the investment of your time and your support,” said Billie Jean, a Pride rainbow band on her wrist watch. “We have to earn that, and that is a challenge we happily accept.”
Betting on sports has become all the rage, and I wouldn’t want to bet against the gay icon.
We can assume that Mark and Kimbra Walter knew what they signed up for when they staged their bloodless coup and gained absolute control of the female hockey fiefdom at the back end of June.
I mean, it’s not like they’re novices at bankrolling sports franchises, because their portfolio includes one of Major League Baseball’s most-storied outfits, the Los Angeles Dodgers, futbol’s Chelsea FC of the English Premier League, and female hoopsters the L.A. Sparks.
They also own a wildlife preserve in Florida, and they’re zookeepers (Lincoln Park Zoo) which, one supposes, might be beneficial when dealing with professional athletes.
Meantime, Mark and Kimbra aligned themselves with similar been-there, done-that accomplices in the overthrow of the Premier Hockey Federation, and their freshly minted Professional Women’s Hockey League is top heavy with know-how—Stan Kasten, whose hand has been at the wheel of three MLB clubs and he has the World Series rings to prove it, and the gay power couple, tennis legend Billie Jean King and wife Ilana Kloss.
So there’s little, if anything, that these people haven’t heard, especially King and Kloss because the rabble is seldom shy about reminding gay people that they’re the spawn of Satan.
Still, when the freshly minted Poohbahs of Ponytail Puck introduced the general managers of their six franchises and revealed the order for shoutouts at the inaugural player draft on Sept. 18, there was an outpouring of sexism, misogyny, transphobia, ignorance, adolescent smarm and a healthy dose of doomsdayism.
Here are sample comments from the peanut gallery on the Sportsnet website:
“Will the first person chosen be non binary or otherwise?”
“I’m actually thinking about selling tickets so people can watch me sleep.”
“And with the first pick Minnesota picks Lia Thomas. They’ll teach him to skate.”
“I can hear it now…with the first overall pick…Minnesota selects…William Nylander.”
“Hope Bruce Jenner and the Kardashians get drafted, just think of the box office appeal. Sellouts would be common. Heck, I would even buy tickets when they are in town.”
“I would take the Williams sisters, Venus and Serena late in the draft, easy to transition from tennis to hockey. A couple of power forwards in the making with the proper coaching.”
“I heard the Hansons, Ogie Ogilthorpe, Tim ‘Dr. Hook’ McCracken, André ‘Poodle’ Lussier, Ross ‘Mad Dog’ Madison, and Gilmore Tuttle are all going to do the ‘change’ and play in the PWHL.”
“LFL, Lingerie Football League is the one to watch.”
“It’s doomed because very few care about professional women’s hockey.”
“Hasn’t folded yet?”
“How long before the women demand to be paid the same as NHL players? Social justice.”
“Will each team have a quota of a maximum of 3 former (born) males per team, like some leagues (CFL) that have quotas?”
Etcetera, etcetera.
True, it’s nothing but noise (abhorrent noise), but I remember the World Hockey Association startup in November 1971 and I don’t recall the doubters straying so far off-topic with cheesy claptrap about gender and reality TV ninnies.
Oh, sure, there was scoffing and rude laughter aplenty (I confess, I’m guilty) when the WHA carnival barkers announced a 10-franchise operation, stretching from Miami to San Francisco and as far north as Edmonton. I mean, there had never been a pie in the sky that big. A bunch of yahoos (apologies to Benny Hatskin) were prepared to kick sand at the mighty National Hockey League? It was David vs. Goliath, except this time David only had a handful of confetti to try and slay the giant, not a slingshot and a rock. The over/under on WHA life expectancy was about a week and a half.
The thing is, criticism of the WHA and its predicted doom was confined to lack of on-ice talent and the imposing competition.
The PWHL has no such impediments.
Now that women’s hockey is a one-trick pony, the planet’s finest female talent is available for the plucking and it’s the only game in town (six towns to be precise—Montreal, Ottawa, the Republic of Tranna, New York, Boston, Minneapolis/St. Paul).
That, in turn, should prompt an exchange of logical talking points, not bottom-feeder banter from people who’ve spent too much time alone and don’t know how to behave in mixed company.
But that’s what the Poohbahs of Ponytail Puck are up against as they attempt to succeed where the Canadian Women’s Hockey League failed in 2019.
Some suggest the Premier Hockey Federation also failed, but that isn’t so.
The PHF was cruising toward an eighth season, with jacked-up salaries, better benefits and improved off-ice facilities, when the Walters group came along in June and the PHF was swallowed whole—lock, stock and ponytails—by folks who know how to turn one dollar into two dollars.
The fear, of course, is that they’ll be turning two dollars into one dollar with this PWHL venture.
Many of us have long wondered about the market for Ponytail Puck. What is it? Who is it? Where is it? Is there a there there?
Since the CWHL shut its doors in 2019, it’s been a colossal mess, with the PHF and members of the Dream Gap Tour squawking like teenagers squabbling over who’s going to wear what to the prom. The feud sometimes turned ugly, featuring spicy trash talk of a “glorified beer league” and harsh criticism of PHF founder Dani Rylan Kearney.
Meantime, mainstream media, which basically ignored the CWHL out of business, wasn’t doing the PHF or Dream Gappers any favors. Coverage of either group was as scarce as a Stanley Cup parade in Canada.
There’s also the very significant matter of credibility in the eyes of the rabble.
The astute observer will know that our Canadian Women’s National Hockey Team has used teenage boys to prep for Olympic Games, and the results have not been flattering. In friendlies vs. Junior A sides from Alberta, British Columbia and U17 boys from across the country in late 2021, the CWNHT went 0-9 and was outscored 52-9.
Meanwhile, the Dream Gap All-Stars had 11 friendlies vs. teens from the United States Premier Hockey League in early 2021 and went 8-3.
If the finest female pucksters on the planet can’t beat teenage boys, how saleable is the product, right?
Well, the United States Women’s National Soccer Team once lost to a team of teenage boys, yet the NWSL has an average head count of 9,556 league-wide this year, and individual sides average anywhere from 4,033 and 19,690 customers.
If it works for soccer, surely it can work for shinny.
We’ll know soon enough, because the Walter group drops the puck in January, and I’m guessing there’s a healthy appetite for a league that features the elite of the elite female players (give or take a few Europeans).
And the number of gay or non-binary or transgender coaches/players won’t have any bearing on the buy-in from fans or news snoops. I mean, that’s just stupid.
One need not search long or hard on social media to find offensive commentary as it relates to female athletes and sports. Misogyny is as common as prayer in a church.
It is, in fact, the reason I ceased interacting on Twitter.
Kate Beirness with the boys…Davis Sanchez, Paul LaPolice, Matt Dunigan, Milt Stegall.
After I had mentioned the CFL on TSN football panel in a tweet last August, a reader responded with disgusting, degrading and sexist bile about host Kate Beirness, who does boffo work attempting to harness the egos of the “experts” sitting beside her in the studio.
I’ll spare you the gory details, but suffice to say it was gross and, although I know Kate only via my flatscreen, I wasn’t prepared to allow a character assassination on my feed. Thus, I deleted the crude comment and have since refrained from engaging in banter on Elon Musk’s play thing.
But what about sexism in mainstream media?
There are different levels of discrimination based on gender, like the extreme, gawdawful examples we easily find on social media, whereby female athletes are reminded that they belong in the kitchen or barefoot in the bedroom. Or it can be the subtle sexism that we find in our newspapers and on our air every day.
Damien Cox tapped into that very thing in a recent essay for the Toronto Star, noting the ocean-wide gap between coverage of the recent goings-on in the National Hockey League and glad tidings of a women’s super league. Between the NHL Entry Draft, the swapping of sweaters and Free Agent Frenzy, an entire forest worth of newsprint was required to accommodate daily dispatches on the men, whereas the biggest story in the history of Ponytail Puck was limited to “oh, by the way” acknowledgment.
“Do we know why this patriarchy still exists?” Cox asked. “Of course we do. It’s about money, and it’s about the way in which women’s pro sports have long been perceived in the North American sports culture.”
Cox also submitted this gem about coverage of male/female sports: “It certainly seems acutely unbalanced”
Yikes! It seems unbalanced?
That’s like saying Donald Trump’s legal team seems to have a lot on its plate these days.
I mean, numerous studies tell us that female sports receives less than 10 per cent of print/air time and, in the 30 years from 1989 to 2019, the needle didn’t move in a favorable direction for the women on TV.
“News organizations spend a lot of money researching what their customers are interested in,” Cox writes. “The clicks tell all.”
No. They don’t. Neither does money.
There’s one basic reason why female athletes don’t sit at the big table and eat with the grownups—mainstream sports media chooses to keep them at the kids’ table.
Too many editors remain locked into the horse-and-buggy thinking of the 20th century, a time when a female athlete was oft looked upon as freakish and sports writers weren’t shy about reminding them of their “proper place.”
Babe Didrikson Zaharias
For example, this is what Joe Williams of the New York World-Telegramwrote about Olympic and golf champion Babe Didrikson Zaharias, aka the Texas Tomboy: “It would be much better if she and her ilk stayed at home, got themselves prettied up and waited for the phone to ring.”
Williams also had this to say about Babe’s skill level: “The same year she became the greatest woman athlete in history, a comparative chart showed that she had not equaled one record made by a masculine high school champion of the same period. If the best woman athlete in the country is not as good as some gawky kid in high school, why waste the effort, why invite the embarrassment of mediocrity, why—well, why not get a seat in the stands and make the big male blokes out there on the cinder track believe you are nuts about them?”
Does that sound familiar? Sure does. We hear the same refrain today about the Canadian and American national soccer and shinny sides—they can’t beat teenage boys, so they’re either ignored or banished to the back pages of newspapers and the back half of sports highlight shows.
But, again, someone makes the choice to designate female athletes as back-page material. And that someone is most likely male.
Results from a study of 100 newspapers and websites by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES) in 2021 showed the following:
Only 16.7% of sports editors were female. Only 24.2% of assistant sports editors were female. Only 19.3% of sports staffs were female. Only 17.8% of sports columnists were female. Only 14.4% or sports reporters were female. Only 24.7% of copy editors/page designers were female.
If we use Good Ol’ Hometown as an e.g., we find that neither the Winnipeg Sun nor the Winnipeg Free Press has a female sports scribe or editor on staff. Zero.
The tabloid’s coverage of women is basically non-existent, while the broadsheet’s record on the female file is a study in neglect, most notably as it relates to local athletes. Although the Sun has ceded the female field to the Drab Slab, the Freep has delivered just 126 articles/briefs exclusive to local female sports in the opening half of 2023. That’s an average of 21 per month. Since the curling season ended, the average is 10 per month. Or one article/brief every third day.
Overall, the Freep published 2,143 articles/briefs exclusive to male athletes January through June, compared to just 394 on women (monthly average: 357-65).
Again, this isn’t down to market research, money or Internet clicks. It’s down to choice.
Every day in every newsroom there’s an editor making the call on copy—what stories to run, what goes on the sports front and what’s relegated to the inside pages. Ideally, they do so based on the significance and/or quality of an article, except the significance and/or quality is often devalued by an antiquated, prevailing and built-in gender bias that too often comes into play. Thus, editors and their scribes choose not to chase down good stories on female athletes.
Perhaps it’s become a subconscious thing, but it’s very real, and it’s the North America norm.
Damien Cox is absolutely correct when he suggests coverage of NHL affairs vs. the landmark news in women’s hockey is “a snapshot of where we are as a sports media culture.”
The avenue to changing that isn’t necessarily getting more women involved in sports media, although that would be a refreshing development. It’s getting the men in sports media to change their outdated perceptions. An attitude adjustment, if you will.
You know, time was when the most stinging insult on the playground was one boy telling another lad “You throw like a girl” or “You run like a girl.” It was the go-to put-down that no boy yearned to hear (trash talk before it was called trash talk). Yet that’s exactly what mainstream sports media is saying in its allotment of space/time to female athletes: “We won’t waste time and space on them because the throw and run like girls.”
While it’s true that Connor McDavid can skate circles around Marie-Philip Poulin, that doesn’t mean editors and writers should reduce her to an after-thought or, worse, ignore her. There’s considerable value in what she does, and the same must be said for a lengthy roster of female athletes, from the sandlots to the citadels of sports.
All female athletes have a tale to tell and they aren’t hard to find. Perhaps editors/scribes are too lazy or too indifferent to go after them, but I say it’s because they’re too entrenched in 20th-century twaddle.
That isn’t just sad, it’s malpractice.
It’s interesting that Cox would wax on about the discrepancy in male/female coverage, because just last October this headline appeared in the Toronto Star, above a column by Donovan Vincent, the paper’s Public Editor: “Women still under-represented in Star’s sports coverage.” Has anything changed in the ensuing eight months? Well, there was a sports front piece on teenage girl skateboarder and Olympic hopeful Fay De Fazio Ebert in Saturday’s edition, and it was written by a female scribe, Kerry Gillespie, so that’s encouraging. Like I said, the stories are there. All it takes is an editor and/or writer who chooses to tell the tale, and all those almighty Internet clicks be damned.
Coach Grunge
Mike O’Shea had no business coaching the Winnipeg Blue Bombers after his first two whirls as sideline steward. The guy was 12-24 and couldn’t have been less popular if he’d put on a Saskatchewan Roughriders jersey, swilled cans of Pilsner and led a Gang Green rally before the Banjo Bowl. Townfolk embraced him the way they do spring flooding. But just look at Coach Grunge now. Winnipeg FC’s 24-11 success over the Calgary Stampeders on Friday night was his 86th regular season W, putting him in lockstep with legend Cal Murphy and 16 in arrears of legend Bud Grant. Add to that two Grey Cup championships, plus twin Canadian Football League coach-of-the-year salutes, and it places him in pigeon perch territory. Oh, yes, like both Murphy and Grant, there shall be a statue of O’Shea outside the Football Field In Fort Garry one day, although they’ll have to put the sculptor on hold since Coach Grunge has no plans to skip town anytime soon. And if they do it right, he’ll be chiseled in short pants, a t-shirt and a tattered ball cap.
Jim Barker was correct: The Bombers-Stamps skirmish was a “slobber-knocker.” Or, as old friend young Eddie Tait would say, “snot bubbles” were the order of the day. When Vince Lombardi called football a “collision” sport, this is what he was talking about. The lads put on their big-boy pants and really had at it. It was a demolition derby in cleats.
So sad to see what’s become of the Edmonton Elks, the one-time flagship franchise of Rouge Football. I’m not sure the Elks still have a pulse, with zero Ws this season (0-5), zero Ws on home soil since October 2019 and more empty seats than a canceled Taylor Swift concert. The great mystery isn’t when they’ll finally win again at Commonwealth Stadium, it’s will head coach Chris Jones will be on the sideline when it happens.
I don’t know about you, but I liked the Toronto Argos better when they wore Double Blue unis, not the robin eggshell togs they’re sporting this season.
Who’s responsible for the 2023 Rouge Football schedule? We’re only a month in and the Argos are already on their second bye week. Not that anyone in the Republic of Tranna will notice. The Boatman attracted just 12,473 of 8 million locals to their last frolic at BMO Field. And, to think, they won the Grey Grail just seven months ago. Pitiful, just pitiful.
Bet you didn’t know that the Snail Racing World Championship was held Saturday at the Grimston Cricket Club in Congham, England. True story. The snails slow-poke their way to the finish line in a 13-inch race, and the world record for snail-level lickety-split is two minutes flat, established in 1995 by Archie, thereafter known as the Escargot Express. No word on whether or not Archie was last seen as an appetizer on a Frenchman’s dinner plate.
That mention of escargot brings to mind one of my favourite all-time sports quotes, from former Major League Baseball player and coach Rocky Bridges, who, when asked why he refused to eat snails, said: “I prefer fast foods.”
Joey Chestnut
On the subject of edibles, no surprise that the king of gluttony, Joey Chestnut, successfully defended his Nathan’s Famous International Hot Dog pigout title after a lengthy rain delay last week on Coney Island. But Joey was off his game in retaining the coveted Mustard Belt, scarfing down just 62 tube steaks in 10 minutes, well off his personal best of 76. Just wondering: How many snails do you suppose Joey could inhale in 10 minutes?
Not impressed with the Chestnut tube steak chow-down was ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith. “It’s nasty as shit,” Smith said. “His significant other does not want to be around him for the next few days. It’s gonna be a lot of gas passed. It’s a lot of gas. I know ’cause I don’t eat hot dogs like that and I pass gas sometimes. Stay away from me. I don’t want to meet you. You might burp and I might smell it from a mile away. I don’t need that in my life. No, no, no.” And, hey, if anyone ought to know about gasbags, it’s Stephen A.
Observations through week one of Wimbledon: Our guy Milos Raonic plays like he’s bored out of his mind, and another one of our guys, Denis Shapovalov, might be the biggest crybaby on the men’s side.
Kimbra and Mark Walter
The Premier Hockey Federation had 121 players under contract for a season that will never happen now that Mark and Kimbra Walter have bought women’s hockey lock, stock and ponytail, and I’m still waiting for the other skate to drop. I mean, surely some PHFers are royally PO’d, knowing they’ll never draw another paycheque through no fault of their own, and I can’t believe they’re prepared to slink away without a squawk. Once the Walters, Stan Kasten and Billie Jean King reveal the details of their successful Coup de Shinny, I have a suspicion we’ll finally hear some fallout and the voices will be loud.
And, finally, when did Marc Liegghio get a bionic leg? I mean, seven months ago he couldn’t kick a can on the street let alone a football, and it cost the Bombers a third successive Grey Cup title. Yet there he was on Saturday night hoofing five field goals to push the Hamilton Tabbies past the Bytown RedBlacks. Go figure.
Geez, Chevy, where do we begin? With the Pierre-Luc Dubois trade? The Blake Wheeler buyout? The National Hockey League Entry Draft? Free agent frenzy?
I swear, you’ve had a busier week than a bartender at last call, and I’ve gotta tell you, if you get one more pat on the back in the next 24 hours you’ll have to spend the remainder of the Summer of Chevy in traction. At the cottage, of course.
Chevy
I mean, by most accounts you turned a sow’s ear into a silk purse last week with your sleight of hand at the annual NHL off-season festival down there in Twang Town, and it’s been “atta boy, Chevy” ever since.
Little wonder, though, because you generally managed to pry three live bodies and a draft choice away from the Los Angeles Kings last Tuesday, and all it cost your Winnipeg Jets was Dubois, who certainly didn’t let the door smack him on the ass on his way out of Good Ol’ Hometown.
Dubois ran to Tinseltown faster than a scalded dog, and he promptly put his John Hancock on an eight-year agreement that averages out to $8.5 million per.
The big forward wasn’t prepared to spend eight more minutes in Good Ol’ Hometown, let alone eight years, so you and Puck Pontiff Mark Chipman made the best of a bad hand. And I say good riddance, because you’ll never convince me that a 63-point player merits that kind of coin, and I’m guessing neither of you boys will lose a wink of shuteye fretting because Dubois calls Hollywood and Vine home now instead of Portage and Main.
As a quick aside, Chevy, don’t you think the name Dubois might have possibilities in La La Land. Think about it: The House of Dubois. Sounds like a fancy shmancy night spot where only the beautiful people get past the large men posted outside the front door. Or an exclusive, by-invitation-only clothier where the glam crowd goes to purchase their finery for an evening at the Oscars. Why, just saying “The House of Dubois” reeks of high-class, turned-up-snout snootiness.
By contrast, a place called The House of Dubois in Winnipeg would be a deli next door to a 7-Eleven.
Anyway, Chevy, you and the Puck Pontiff have wiped Dubois off the Jets’ to-do plate, and I hope you recognize the lesson to be learned. That is, you can’t keep recruiting guys who regard playing in Good Ol’ Hometown as a hostage-taking. Do your homework, for gawd’s sake.
Toward that end, I trust your forensics people performed CSIS-level background checks on the newest kids in town—Gabriel Vilardi, Alex Iafallo and Rasmus Kupari—and found no allergies to snow, potholes and bad WiFi among the now-former Kings. Otherwise it’ll be same old, same old, whereby one or more of them will follow Evander Kane, Jacob Trouba, Patrik Laine, Jack Roslovic, Andrew Copp and Dubois out of Dodge. Heck, we can add Dustin Byfuglien to that group of escapees, although Big Buff has never explained his beef with the club. We know it couldn’t have been the weather, because fishing, even in an ice hut, is his jam, so we still wonder why he took a walk and never looked back.
All those guys skipping town might not be an exodus on a biblical scale, Chevy, but it’s not just a couple of kids playing hooky, either.
Chevy and Colby Barlow
Speaking of kids, it looks like you landed yourself a good one in Colby Barlow, your first shoutout at the auction of teenage talent in Nashville. Rumor has it he grew his first playoff beard at age 7 and, after seeing him on my flatscreen the other night, I can believe it. I mean, Pittsburgh Penguins GM Kyle Dubas looks like his little brother.
And I must say, Chevy, that’s quite a stockpile of brainiacs you and your bird dogs have collected. Cole Perfetti, Adam Lowry and Josh Morrissey were scholastic player-of-the-year winners in Junior hockey, and now Barlow and Connor Levis, your fifth pick at the Entry Draf in Nashville, join that group. So many smart players. Now if you can only get rid of the smart asses in the room.
Hopefully you’ll have fewer malcontents in that room come autumn, Chevy, and you took a turn in that direction with the adios to former Captain Cranky Pants, Wheeler.
I’m actually mildly surprised that you and the Puck Pontiff freed Wheeler. I didn’t think you boys had the brass monkeys to go that route, because you tied your wagon to him in 2018 and gave him the run of the room. He was still the lead alpha dog among the alpha dogs in the most recent crusade, even without the ‘C’ stitched on his jersey, and he delivered the loudest bark at head coach Rick Bowness during the players’ whiny, post-season pity party. So the guy had to go, even if it means co-bankrolls Chipper and the 3rd Baron Thomson of Fleet will be paying him $2.75 million not to wear Jets linen the next two crusades.
No doubt the split with Wheeler tugged hard on the heart strings, but, frankly Chevy, it came two seasons too late and I think you know it. Ditto the Puck Pontiff.
Hey, I understand your loyalty to a guy who rolled into Good Ol’ Hometown with the Atlanta caravan in 2011, but I figure if the Beatles can break up during the Get Back sessions, it shouldn’t be so difficult to part company with a hockey player whose best-before date has expired.
Patrik Laine
Naturally you, also many others, had some parting hosannas for Wheeler, and that’s understandable. But you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t join the warm-and-fuzzy chorus. Unless I hear evidence to the contrary, I’ll go to my urn convinced that he cost you Patrik Laine (with Paul Maurice and Rink Rat Scheifele as his accomplices), and I didn’t fancy his oft-acidic natters with news snoops.
Truthfully, the former captain came across as a boor, a bitter man, and I suspect your Jets are well shed of him.
But here’s the concern, Chevy: Wheeler will leave residue, some of it good, some of it rancid. Your task, also Bowness’, is to make certain that only the good clings to the holdovers in the changing room. Failing that, you’re destined for another crusade that ends in a whiny pity party next spring.
I know you’re trying, Chevy, but I just don’t know who you’re trying to be. I mean, it’s out with the old, Wheeler, and in with the old, Vlad Namestnikov and Laurent Brossoit.
Now, I don’t think any among the rabble expected ultra-glad tidings from the first day of free agent frenzy, because selling Good Ol’ Hometown to young, millionaire NHL players is like trying to convince a teenager to go a week without their smartphone, but Namestnikov and Brossoit? Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat.
I assume you aren’t done, Chevy. You can’t be done. You can’t be telling us that Wheeler and Dubois were the only rot on your roster and that three refugees from Los Angeles will make everything right.
If that’s your message to the masses, good luck with it.
Enjoy your summer, Chevy.
If it’s no-punches-pulled commentary that you’re looking for, check out the Kenny and Renny Show. The natter between Sportsnet’s Ken Wiebe and Sean Reynolds on Wheeler is fascinating, frank and spirited. Here’s a small sampling of their gum-flapper…
Reynolds: “There was no bringing Blake Wheeler back into this room. Blake Wheeler isn’t being bought out because he’s not a productive player. When he came out and talked about Rick Bowness the way he did at the year-end press conference, that was someone saying ‘I’m not gonna be back in this room so I’m gonna say whatever the heck I want to.’ I don’t think Blake Wheeler was fighting to stick around. You’re not gonna see any fingernail marks on the jambs of the door that Wheeler left behind on the way out of here. I think he was more than happy to move on.”
Wiebe: “We’re not gonna pretend that this is the way the Jets or Blake Wheeler wanted his tenure to end. There’s no way either side wanted it to end this way. I applaud both sides for putting on a happy face and trying to do this as easy as possible, and I think all sides are being genuine in their commentary, but that’s not to say it’s a smooth thing for either side. I mean, of course Blake Wheeler didn’t want to be bought out. By the end did he want a change of scenery? Yes. Knowing Blake after covering him for 12 years, he will be carrying around an enormous chip on his shoulder. He’s definitely going to try and prove to the Winnipeg Jets that they made a mistake. It was time for a new direction. Blake Wheeler will be thanked for his contributions, his number 26 will go to the rafters one day, he will be celebrated when he returns, but it was time for both sides to move along.”
That’s good talk.
The aforementioned Pierre-Luc Dubois deal is, of course, a branch of the Patrik Laine trade tree, whereby the Jets sent Puck Finn to Columbus in barter for Dubois in 2021. This is how that transaction shakes down today: Laine/Jack Roslovic in exchange for Daniel Zhilkin, Gabriel Vilardi, Alex Iafallo, Rasmus Kupari and a 2024 second-round draft choice.
A couple of observations after watching the Free Agent Frenzy marathon yesterday on TSN: 1) Shocking that James Duthie and his cast-o-plenty managed to squeeze in a mention or two of the Toronto Maple Leafs (yes, that’s sarcasm, kids); 2) hair is really important to most women I know, so what is Cheryl Pounder thinking?
Billie Jean King
Interesting times in Ponytail Puck, with the Mark Walter Group and Billie Jean King Enterprises bullying the Premier Hockey Federation out of business by buying it out of business, and why do I get the feeling it’s about to get nasty? I mean, they’ve already voided all PHF contracts, some of them in six figures, and it’s a guarantee that one or two (more?) of its seven franchises will disappear. Also, between the PHF and the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association there are 200-plus players, many of whom will be discarded. You think that won’t lead to bitterness and anger? But, hey, those of us who pay attention to Ponytail Puck have yearned for one super league, and Billie Jean King is finally putting her money where her yap is. Question is, will the rabble buy it? At the get-go, probably. Over the long haul, iffy. PHF games and the PWHPA’s glorified scrimmages weren’t big sellers, and they were largely ignored by mainstream media. More to the point, squabbling among the women attracted more attention than what they did on the freeze. No doubt there’s a market for elite Ponytail Puck, but no one knows if it’s the size of an elephant’s ears or a house fly’s ears. Stay tuned.
Paul Bissonnette and Connor Bedard.
I’m curious: Why was Paul Bissonnette on stage at the NHL awards show in Nashville last week? If his presence was meant to provide yuks, he failed miserably, unless you consider plopping a tiara on Linus Ullmark’s head a knee-slapping moment of high comedy. Oh, and passing Connor Bedard a silly kiddie’s cowboy hat? More belly laughs? Not! Biz Nasty was incredibly unfunny. His cave-dweller shtick was lame, like a lost dog with three legs. Grade him at a George Costanza level of obnoxious on your scorecard at home, y’all.
I wondered if Jim Montgomery would mention his battle with booze in accepting his trinket as NHL coach-of-the-year. Yup, he did. And good for Jim. Here’s hoping the Boston Bruins bench jockey struck a chord with someone caught in a similar struggle.
Country music fan here, with questions: They stage a grand gala in Twang Town, home of the Grand Ole Opry, and the Brothers Osborne and Mitchell Tenpenny are the best entertainment the NHL can buy? And who were those other performers at the awards show? Anybody outside Nashville ever heard of them? Sigh. Maybe it’s an age thing, but I do believe George Strait and Alan Jackson were right when they sang “someone killed country music” at the 1999 CMA awards.
Thankfully, the NHL upped its game for the Entry Draft, with Jo Dee Messina on stage. Jo Dee sounds like country music.
And, finally, remember the kids’ nursery rhyme This Little Piggy, where a little piggy went “wee, wee, wee all the way home?” Well, they have a different slant on it down there in Georgia, where the Macon Bacon play baseball in the Coastal Plain League. It’s more like “this little piggy goes wee, wee, wee all the way to barbecue pit,” because fans are hog wild (pun intended) for the menu at Luther Williams Field. They can pig out (pun intended) on tasty items like bacon-wrapped bacon, bacon-loaded mac and cheese, bacon chips, steak-cut bacon, fries with cheese and bacon, and there’s some pulled pork on the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon sandwich. And, hey, they can scarf it down in the Bacon Box or the Bacon and Kegs Beer Garden. Even team mascot Kevin (named after actor Kevin Bacon) is a slab of swine. And it’s all too much for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, which believes all the piggyness “sends the wrong message to fans.” Thus they insist on a name change that promotes healthier eating habits, like Macon Facon Bacon. Not going to happen, though, in part because fans named the team. “Macon Bacon will be sizzling forever and will not consider a name change, ever,” says team president Brandon Raphael. So, in the immortal words of Porky Pig, “that’s all, folks!”
Fifty years is a long time. The passing of that many moons challenges the memory.
But I definitely remember the 1973 Portage Terriers, who, 50 years ago this very day, earned bragging rights over all Junior A hockey outfits on Our Frozen Tundra.
I don’t recall all the minutiae of the Terriers’ run to the Centennial Cup, because clarity is challenged when peering into the foggy moors of time, but there’s no forgetting the reputation they forged on the path to their national championship.
Tough? They were rock ’em, sock ’em hockey long before Don Cherry began making oodles of money by cranking out VHS tapes featuring back-alley thugs on skates. They were the Broad Street Bullies before there were any bullies on Broad Street. Many among the rabble were convinced the Terriers played with chain saws, not hockey sticks. One foe—the Humboldt Broncos—became so fearful five games into a best-of-seven series that they flat-out quit. Yup, forfeited. Stayed home rather than traipse to Portage la Prairie to absorb another paddywhacking.
But were the Terriers really a collection of Freddy Kruegers? Naw. I swear I saw a few of them helping little, old ladies cross the street between games.
Oh, sure, they raised more than a little hell, and certainly crossed the line a time or two, but that was unavoidable since their maestro was Muzz MacPherson, a fedora-topped, combustible head coach who favored players with as much gravel in their game as he had in his voice.
Although a proponent of heavy-handed hockey, Muzz was every bit the cartoonish rascal and big on gamesmanship, an example being the banter between himself and Mac MacLean, head coach of the Terriers’ final foe, the Pembroke Lumber Kings.
MacLean had observed the Terriers once—just once—in advance of the national final and arrived at these conclusions: “They’re a lot slower than Penticton Broncos, but also a lot bigger and a lot rougher. Terriers defence is slow, they’ll leave you alone in the neutral zone but really hit in the corners. Portage, like Penticton, is a two-line hockey club with little on their third combinations. Portage is weak in goal and susceptible to a good power play.”
To which Muzz gasped, with a wink and a nod, “I didn’t know we were that bad.”
They weren’t that bad, but Muzz and his band of rowdies made the most of the bulletin board material.
The Terriers took out the Lumber Kings in five games, applying the finishing touch on May 14, 1973, in front of 4,192 witnesses at the Winnipeg Arena. (The previous night for Game 4, the head count was 8,962 in Ol’ Barn On Maroons Road.)
Scant seconds after his team’s deciding 4-2 win, I cornered Muzz in the winning changing room and asked for a quick synopsis.
“Well,” he said, again with a wink and a nod, “for a team with no goaltending, no penalty killers and slow defencemen, we did pretty well, eh?”
This was a terrific Junior A shinny side featuring a roster of mostly 19-year-olds and a 16-year-old, Danny Bonar, with sublime skill.
The Terriers rolled to the Manitoba Junior Hockey League title in the minimum eight games, sweeping both the Kenora Muskies and St. James Canadians. Next up were the Broncos from the Flattest of Lands and the Broncos from B.C. The Humboldt quitters tapped out, then Penticton took the Terriers to the limit before bowing out (the B.C. Broncos had led the series 3-1). Finally, Pembroke gave it a go, but fell well short.
The Portage Terriers went 19-6 (forward Randy Penner scored 34 goals in those 25 games) and brought a national shinny title to the tiny Prairie burg for the first time in 31 years.
Some of the boys are gone now, and the dearly departed include the coach, ol’ Muzz, who left us in 1997. He truly was a character who carved out a place for himself in local shinny folklore. And I guarantee one thing—wherever Muzz is today, he’s still winking and nodding.
I was 22 when those Terriers won the Centennial Cup. Twenty-freaking-two! That was just three years older than most of the Portage players and three years into my time at the Winnipeg Tribune. I was so wet behind the ears that sparrows mistook the back of my head for a bird bath. Even though intimate details are now sketchy, if not completely gone, covering that team remains a highlight 50 years later. They were good guys who had a lot of fun, and Muzz was a friend. I enjoyed being around them.
On the subject of days of yore, Joe Kapp has left the building, and I remember the former B.C. Lions quarterback for two things, other than his tire-iron toughness on a football field: 1) Being a pitchman for Squirrel Peanut Butter in the 1960s, which earned him the nickname Peanut Butter Joe; 2) decking the fearsome Angelo Mosca with one punch during Grey Cup week 2011. The Squirrel commercials and his association with Nabob Foods helped Kapp get over a fear of public speaking, while his feeding big Angie a knuckle sandwich in a dustup of 70somethings remains a source of giggles.
The large lads in pads have commenced grabbing grass and growling hither and yon across the Canadian Football League landscape, so this is the right time to remind one and all of quarterback movement during six months of down time. Here’s where the gunslingers are hanging their hats now: Lotus Land-Vernon Adams Jr.- E-Town-Taylor Cornelius Calgary-Jake Maier Flattest of Lands-Trevor Harris Good Ol’ Hometown-Zach Collaros Republic of Tranna-Chad Kelly The Hammer-Bo Levi Mitchell Bytown-Jeremiah Masoli Montreal-Cody Fajardo
Things that make me go hmmm, Vol. 2,154: A couple of Winnipeg Blue Bombers newbes—Anthony Bennett and Barrington Wade—have commented on the “angry geese” in Good Ol’ Hometown. Hmmm. They haven’t seen angry until they’ve seen a Winnipeg Jets fan who just watched Mark Scheifele drag his butt back to the bench at the end of another two minute, 45 second shift.
Jeff Reinebold is one of those been there, done that kind of guys. He’s covered more ground than Lewis and Clark and he’s back for what seems like his 99th go-round in Rouge Football, this time as special teams coordinator and assistant DB coach with the Hamilton Tabbies. It’s Coach Harley’s third whirl in The Hammer and sixth port-o’-call in the CFL—Winnipeg, B.C., Edmonton, Montreal, Las Vegas—and he’s coached everywhere from Germany to New Mexico. I don’t know if he still rides a Harley to practice or wears flip-flops on the field, but it’s nice to have him back in our quirky, three-downs game.
Michael Wilbon
I generally enjoy the afternoon banter on Pardon The Interruption, but co-host Michel Wilbon totally lost the plot in the Big Finish segment of Friday’s chin-wag with Frank Isola. Pleading for the Toronto Maple Leafs to topple the Florida Panthers in Game 5 of their Stanley Cup skirmish, Wilbon said: “Toronto’s gotta win this game. Come on, let’s have some drama, let’s have some Maple Leafs keep this thing going, represent the whole country again.” Yo! Mikey! I think you’ve spent a tad too much time soaking up that hot, Arizona sun. You might want to flee your desert hideaway and spend some time up here on Our Frozen Tundra (which isn’t so frozen these days), where you’ll discover a vast land with different people, different languages, different cultures, different points of view. So, to suggest the Leafs represent the nation is to say all of us hosers believe King Chuckie III and his band of dorky, dysfunctional royals are as beloved as poutine, back bacon and Gordon Lightfoot. More to the point, one of the things that unites many of us who live in the colonies is a healthy dislike for most things Republic of Tranna. You know, things like Drake. Get with the program, Mikey.
It’s not like Leafs loyalists can’t be found beyond the boundaries of the Republic of Tranna. Fact is, they’re everywhere. A recent online Research Co. survey of 1,000 adults (May 4-6) confirms the breadth of Leafs Nation, with 53 per cent of Canadians rooting for the Buds prior to their ouster from Beard Season on Friday night. However, the largest portion of that support was in Ontario (79%) and Atlantic Canada (70%). In Quebec and points west of The ROT, it was mostly meh. Also of note: The Leafs were found to be the most loathed NHL franchise on Our Frozen Tundra (17% overall, 25% in Montreal).
The world’s oldest dog, a purebred Rafeiro do Alentejo in Portugal named Bobi, celebrated his 31st birthday on Thursday. According to American Kennel Club calculations, that makes Bobi about 169 in human years, or about the same as the Maple Leafs defence looked vs. Florida (apologies to Morgan Rielly) on Friday.
You’ve heard of a dog’s breakfast? Well, Bobi arrived at his ripe, ol’ age by eating nothing but human food soaked in water, according to owner Leonel Costa. Interesting. I’ve been on a steady diet of human food for 72 years and all it’s done is give me indigestion and heartburn.
Canada is a hockey nation, right? Then would someone please explain how female hoops teams from Minnesota and Chicago can attract 19,800 customers to a WNBA friendly at Scotiabank Arena in the Republic of Tranna, yet the rabble gives the best female shinny players on the planet the cold shoulder when they gather to strut their stuff? The head count for the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association all-star tournament in Ottawa was approximately 1,500, while it was basically friends and family when Toronto Six and Connecticut Whale faced off in a Premier Hockey Federation semifinal skirmish in The ROT. I don’t get it. Hey, I’m fully on board with female basketball players performing to packed houses, but where’s the love for Ponytail Puck in a hockey nation?
I don’t know about you, but every time I see Cheryl Pounder talking hockey on TSN, I want to reach into my flatscreen and hand her a hair brush. Seriously. The other night Cheryl looked like she’d just gotten a perm at Coif du Pancake. And, no, that isn’t being sexist. I say the same thing about Elliotte Friedman when he has the Box Car Willie look on Sportsnet.
A sports term that has to be deep-sixed: “Their best players need to be their best players.” Well, duh. It’s like telling me beer is better served cold. I’ve heard the “best players” nonsense more often than Leon Draisaitl has scored during the Stanley Cup tournament, and it’s lazy analysis. Be better, boys and girls.
Ryan Reynolds
So, Hollywood hunk Ryan Reynolds is out of the bidding to bankroll the Ottawa Senators. Not to worry. I mean, it’s not like Bytown is short on celebrities. There are scads of them in our nation’s capital. And when I think of one other than Alanis Morissette, I’ll let you know.
There’s talk of Tom Brady becoming a limited partner with the Las Vegas Raiders and I’m thinking, “Great! Anything to keep him out of the broadcast booth!” Then I learned that Fox Sports is prepared to give Brady the okie-dokie to become their main gab guy (at $375 million over 10 years) on National Football League coverage. What part of “conflict of interest” do Fox and the NFL not understand?
Not a good past few days for talking heads. First, Oakland A’s broadcaster Glen Kuiper mentioned, on air, a visit he’d made to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, except the N-word he used for Negro is best not spoken in polite society. Kuiper delivered a mea culpa, saying he didn’t mean to use the N-world he used, but the N-bomb earned him a suspension. Meantime, this was the way ESPN gab guy John Anderson described a goal by First Nations defenceman Zach Whitecloud of the Vegas Golden Knights: “What kind of name is Whitecloud? Great name if you’re toilet paper.” That isn’t funny, it certainly isn’t clever. It’s just ugh.
Not to outdone, Bob Huggins, men’s hoops coach at the University of West Virginia, appeared on WLW’s Bill Cunningham Show in Cincinnati and dropped a double gay F-bomb, calling Xavier fans “f–s, those Catholic f—s.” Two slurs for the price of one. How charming. It was meant to get cheap yuks at the expense of gays and Catholics, but there was little, if any, knee-slapping in the UWV ivory tower. The task-masters frowned and informed Huggins that he’d be persona non grata for the first three games next season, at the same time docking $1 million off his pay. One assumes he was also told to lay off the gays and Catholics if he expects to collect the remaining $3 million owed.
A few months ago, we mentioned school officials in Florida had banned books on baseball greats Henry Aaron and Roberto Clemente, because they mention racism and segregation. Well, now they’re taking aim at a tennis/women’s/civil rights champion. The book I am Billie Jean King is part of the Ordinary People Change the World series of biographies, and it includes a mention of her gay marriage to Ilana Kloss, which horrified one parent (just one) of a student at Hawks Rise Elementary School in Leon County. Thus, it is now under review and might land in the discard bin, simply because one parent doesn’t want her children to know that gay people exist. Sigh.
And, finally, it’s incredible, yet not at all surprising, that the transphobes are in full and loud squawk because Hannah Wilson is rocking it on Jeopardy!, earning $229,801 through eight wins. Good grief. The woman isn’t lobbing bombs at Ukraine or stealing Girl Guides cookies. She’s answering trivia questions on a TV game show, for gawd’s sake. So why the hate?
I took a deep sigh before beginning this essay because, you know, it’s 2023 and Pride nights at a hockey rink near you shouldn’t be a thing anymore.
Yet here I am, talking about the same old thing. (Another sigh.)
As far as I can determine, Pride nights at sporting events are designed to convey one basic message to a specific, marginalized group. To wit: Members of the LGBT(etc.) collective are welcome.
And it’s meant to be a broad-stroke embrace, a virtual hug not just for fans, but employees, as well.
“You’re lesbian? A gay man? Bisexual? Transgender? Queer? Etcetera? It’s all good. Come on down and join all the heteros to sample some of our over-priced hot dogs and beer in our safe space!”
So what does it say when a National Hockey League franchise’s most-visible, highest-paid and fawned-over employees—the on-ice workers—decline to play along?
Ivan Provorov didn’t want to play along two months ago on Philadelphia Flyers Pride Night, so he flashed the religion card after refusing to wear a team-approved jersey in support of the LGBT(etc.) community.
“My choice is to stay true to myself and my religion,” the Russian Orthodox rearguard explained, without actually explaining anything.
Houyee Chow and the Pride jersey she designed for the San Jose Sharks.
Perhaps James Reimer of the San Jose Sharks can explain it to us, because he joined the NHL’s Rainbow Resistance Movement on Saturday. While his comrades adorned themselves in LGBT(etc.)-themed jerseys in a pregame frolic, the veteran goaltender remained hunkered down in the players’ lair, perhaps quietly wondering why Jesus spent three-plus years roaming the countryside mostly in the exclusive company of 12 hand-picked men, one of whom betrayed him with, yes, a kiss.
“I am choosing not to endorse something that is counter to my personal convictions, which are based on the Bible, the highest authority in my life,” was Reimer’s reasoning in a Sharks-sanctioned statement.
He later told news snoops this: “I get what the message is. I think people are trying to support the community and I’m sure people in the community feel marginalized. For me, to some extent, that’s what you want to do is you want to love them, but what I keep reiterating is where it intersects with a Christian…you love them, but you can’t support the activity or lifestyle.”
Hmmm. Who knew that being gay was an “activity?” Or a “lifestyle?”
But if by “activity” Reimer means sex, yes, gay people are guilty of having sex, just like heterosexual men and women. If by “lifestyle” he means a 9-to-5 job, or feeding the homeless, or going to movies and dinner parties and church every Sunday, or getting married and raising families, or shopping for groceries, yes, also guilty, yer honor. You know, just like heterosexual men and women.
Hockey is an “activity.” Many gays are very good at it.
So did the Bible allow Reimer to root, root, root for Canada during the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in China? There were seven out lesbians on that Canadian team that struck gold. Brianne Jenner, one of those lesbians, was the tournament MVP. Did the Bible allow him to cheer for our soccer women who collected the gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics? There were four out lesbians, one non-binary player and an out coach on that outfit.
I’m guessing that because Reimer is of good Manitoba stock, he was fully on board with our hockey and soccer sides.
But, hey, heaven forbid he slip a rainbow-colored jersey over his head, lest he turn into a pillar of salt, like Lot’s wife.
Both Reimer and Provorov are right about one thing, though: It is a “choice” to support or pooh-pooh an LGBT(etc.)-friendly initiative, but it’s such a convenience to have the Bible, or any other religious dogma, to use as a defensive reflex when the predictable, yowling mob arrives to collect its pound of flesh on social media.
I just wonder if they believe the entirety of the Holy Book, or do they pick and choose which chapter and verse to accept as gospel? Do they buy into the Jesus walking on water story? How about the multiplying of loaves and fish? Water into wine? Raising the dead?
Whatever the case, spewing scripture earned Provorov and Reimer a public flogging, but it’s all good because their employers have their backs: “It’s okay to be anti-gay as long as you thump a Bible.” As if.
None of this is to ignore the New York Rangers and Minnesota Wild, two franchises that reneged on Pride Night promotions promising rainbow togs to be worn pregame, then auctioned in support of LGBT(etc.) causes. Both clubs declined to come clean on the reasoning behind the twin about-face, except, of course, to issue statements pledging unwavering support for the LGBT(etc.) community, even as their unwavering support wavered. Ditto the Sharks on Saturday.
I think we all know where this thing is headed: Pride nights will remain on team calendars, but players no longer will be paraded in rainbow-themed warmup garb. Thus, anti-gay players on NHL rosters (I like to think they’re in the minority) won’t be required to hide behind the Bible anymore. They can keep their religion and anti-gay bias on the QT.
Sigh.
This isn’t purely an NHL issue. Five pitchers with the Tampa Bay Rays didn’t want to play along on Pride Night last June, when the Major League Baseball club asked players to wear uniforms adorned with rainbow sleeve patches and rainbow TB lettering on their caps.
“A lot of it comes down to faith, to like a faith-based decision,” Jason Adam told news snoops. “So it’s a hard decision. Because ultimately we all said what we want is them to know that all are welcome and loved here. But when we put it on our bodies, I think a lot of guys decided that it’s just a lifestyle that maybe—not that they look down on anybody or think differently—it’s just that maybe we don’t want to encourage it if we believe in Jesus, who’s encouraged us to live a lifestyle that would abstain from that behavior, just like (Jesus) encourages me as a heterosexual male to abstain from sex outside of the confines of marriage. It’s no different.”
I turned on my flatscreen this week and the 1970s NHL broke out: Anthony Stewart was on Sportsnet promoting meathead hockey. Luke Gazdik was on Sportsnet telling us that “there is a major need” for fighting in hockey. “This is what I did for a living, so I truly love this part of the game.” And on the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League banning fisticuffs: “I think it’s a bit of a joke.” (Holy cement head, Batman!) St. Louis Blues trotted out rasslin fossil Ric Flair to crank up the crowd and the home side. Blues goaltender Jordan Binnington went off his nut (again), challenging the Minnesota bench, then turning total meathead by attacking Wild players. Marc-Andre Fleury raced from one end of the freeze to the other in a bid to chuck knuckles with Binnington. The men in stripes kept the two goalies from scratching each other’s eyes out. Brayden Schenn said a goalie fight would have been boffo for “viewership and ratings and talking about the game.” Good grief. Did I nod off and miss a successful coupe d’état by Vince McMahon and Triple H? Is the NHL now a WWE sideshow?
If you missed it (and my guess is you did), a burger joint beat the bankers last weekend to win what The Canadian Press described as the “coveted” 2023 Secret Cup. Translated, that means Team Harvey’s one-upped Team Scotiabank in the final skirmish of this winter’s Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association series of glorified scrimmages. The frolic was conducted in Palm Desert, Calif., where it was mostly ignored, but it did produce the PWHPA’s 1,189th photo-op with Billie Jean King.
Now that the PWHPA has ceased storming barns hither and yon, we await official word that the women have formed a second professional league to compete against the Premier Hockey Federation, with teams representing cities or states/provinces, not burger joints and banks. Ponytail Puck couldn’t make a go of it with two loops in 2019, when players were basically paid with food stamps and Canadian Tire money, so word that salaries will be in the $55,000 range makes this is an extremely iffy bit of business. That doesn’t mean it’s doomed before they drop the puck, but a roster of 20 at $55,000 per player is a $1,100,000 payroll. Couple that with the PHF’s per team salary cap of $1.5 million in 2023-24, and I’m not convinced there’s a market for competing leagues. Especially if the PWHPA invades already established PHF locales.
Avril Lavigne and Nippleback.
Wow, some unexpected goings-on during the Juno Awards last weekend. Hockey star Connor McDavid made a cameo appearance to intro his “friends” and newly minted Canadian Music Hall of Fame inductees Nickelback, then an Avril Lavigne intro was hijacked by a woman with her bare boobs hanging out. It’s believed she’s the lead singer for a new all-girl group, Nippleback.
Separatist Pierre Karl Péladeau has been Lord of the Montreal Larks for more than a week now, and there hasn’t been the slightest hint of buyer’s remorse from Monsieur Pierre. His takeover of the CFL orphans seems to be popular in La Belle Province, and he and his $1.9 billion bankroll certainly are a godsend to the eight teams that won’t be required to foot the bill for the Larks had they remained foster footballers. It’s a 100 per cent good-news story. So why do I expect the other shoe to drop? Maybe I just don’t trust billionaires.
Here’s Jack Todd of the Montreal Gazette on the Larks freshly minted papa gâteau: “It’s not inconceivable that Péladeau’s tenure as owner of the Alouettes could become an audition of sorts for the NHL. If eight other CFL owners can swallow their distaste for Péladeau’s politics, perhaps some future NHL commissioner less obdurate than Bettman will be open to repatriating the Nordiques.
“For the present, we’ll keep an open mind. The Alouettes were desperately in need of a local owner, preferably French-Canadian, with passion and deep pockets. Péladeau checks all the boxes.
“Yes, Péladeau has his weaknesses. But in the CFL galaxy, he is a superstar, a charismatic billionaire with a chequebook and a plan. We wish him luck.”
Vicki Hall
This just in: Hell has frozen over! I say that because the Football Reporters of Canada has opened the door to the ultimate Old Boys Club and invited Vicki Hall to enter. Yup, Vicki will become the first female to join 100-plus men in the media wing of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame later this year, but don’t ask me why it took them so long to acknowledge a woman. I’m just surprised that Vicki’s the first, because I thought it would have been a pioneering female football reporter from the 20th century who got the call. One of Robin Brown, Joanne Ireland, Ashley Prest or Judy Owen would have been my choice, but I guess the football reporters don’t have me on speed dial. Either that, or I was in the john when they called for my input.
Just so no one runs off with the wrong notion, that isn’t a slight against Vicki, a deserving inductee who earned her chops at the Edmonton Journal and Calgary Herald. But she didn’t have to deal with a horse-and-buggy thinker like Cal Murphy, who took absurd measures to prevent females from entering the Winnipeg Blue Bombers changing room in the 1990s. Both Brown and Prest dealt with the Winnipeg GM/coach’s roadblocks, and I’d say that alone qualifies them for sainthood and a spot in the Football Hall.
Hey, check it out. The ReStore outlet at 60 Archibald St. in Good Ol’ Hometown has been peddling Saskatchewan Roughriders gloves for a buck a pair. Yup, just $1. That’s a tough sell in Winnipeg, though. According to 3DownNation, they moved just five pair last week.
Now that I’ve mentioned 3DownNation, let me go on record as saying it’s a fabulous site, full of info and opinion on all things Rouge Football.
Old friend young Eddie Tait, who isn’t so young and doesn’t have a full head of hair anymore, continues to churn out the quality stuff for the Bombers website. It doesn’t seem so long ago that Eddie left the daily grind of newspaper deadlines behind to join Winnipeg FC, and I’d say typing with two Grey Cup rings hasn’t soured his skill. His stuff is better than ever.
Oh, dear, FIFA has expanded the men’s World Cup futbol tournament from 64 to 104 games. You know what that means, don’t you? That’s right, an additional 3,600 dives (4,600 if Italy qualifies) and an extra 400 minutes of fake injury time (500 if Italy qualifies).
I’m not sure what to make of the current state affairs among our Pebble People. I mean, is it good that the same small clutch of curlers keeps winning the big baubles? Check out the Scotties Tournament of Hearts in the past 10 years: The champion skips have been Kerry Einarson (4), Jennifer Jones, Chelsea Carey and Rachel Homan (2 apiece). At the Brier, Brad Gushue (5), Kevin Koe (3), Brendan Bottcher and Pat Simmons (1 apiece), have gone home with the Tankard. Further, on the men’s side, the recently concluded Brier was the first time since 2013 that an Alberta team wasn’t in the final. Has everybody else forgotten how to play the game?
Here’s the odd part for me: I’m delighted that Einarson and her gal pals from Gimli keep winning the Scotties, but I long ago grew weary of watching Gushue win the Brier.
Former Canadian and Olympic champion Ryan Fry says he’s slid from the hack for the last time, but I’m not buying it. I’m wagering we’ll see Small Fry back on the pebble before the next Olympic Trials.
And, finally, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will replace Tom Brady at quarterback next season with Baker Mayfield or Kyle Trask. That’s like replacing Einstein with Homer Simpson as class valedictorian.
Top o’ the morning to you, Kevin Cheveldayoff. Have a nice summer? Hope the fish were biting more than the black flies out there at your Lake of the Woods hideaway.
I know you fish, Chevy, but you sure don’t do much of it on land. I mean, the lads have hit the ice for another crusade—your 12th general managing the Winnipeg Jets—and your group looks strikingly similar to the Sad Sack side that stumbled and (mostly) grumbled its way through the 2021-22 National Hockey League frolic.
I don’t need to remind you that those Jets missed the boat (pun intended), and you shored up your non-playoff roster by landing a goaltender nobody wanted and an aging forward nobody wanted. Oh joy. What were you using for bait that so many others passed on? The iffy wifi or even worse weather?
I suppose it’s only fair that I point out you did manage to land yourself one big, off-ice catch, Chevy. That would be Rick Bowness, a wrinkled, good-guy coach who might have been No. 2, 3, 4 or 5 on your wish list of head knocks not named Barry Trotz. Bones’ mission is simple: Turn leftovers into a scrumptious, full-course meal that includes dessert with a cherry on top, which is to say a seat on the Stanley Cup merry-go-round and a deep run next spring.
Bones aside, Chevy, call it a Summer of Nothing, and it wasn’t your first. Is it your last, though?
Some of us think your seat should be hotter than a ticket to an Adele gig in Vegas, but the guy whose opinion matters most, Puck Pontiff Mark Chipman, has your back, and the three-year contract extension he handed you for never failing to fail is the evidence.
Justified or not, Chevy, it’s bonus time for you to finish what you and the Puck Pontiff started in 2011. Otherwise, the Gone Fishin’ sign needs to go up permanently.
Rink Rat Scheifele had a natter with Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek on their 32 Thoughts podcast the other day, and the Jets centre insists there’s a “tight knit” team sitting in the changing room. Ya, we saw that at the end of last season when they all got together, linked arms and held a group gripe about too many guys more interested in padding their stats than playing the right way. Oh, but wait. Apparently, a culture shift is afoot. We’re told a bunch of the boys gathered to witness Josh Morrissey take a bride during the summer, and the lads shall assemble in the Rocky Mountains next month for a 1960s-style love-in, where it’s assumed Rick Bowness will read bedtime stories and tuck them in each night. Hmmm. Wedding bells? A mountain retreat? Are they building a hockey team or making one of those hokey Hallmark movies?
Sydney Daniels
I suppose some will view the addition of Sydney Daniels to the Jets’ stable of bird dogs as a “woke” hire or “virtue signaling,” but I’ll take their word that she’s got the chops to handle the college scouting portfolio. Sydney’s from the Flattest of Lands, which is a good place to start any hockey resumé, and she’s familiar with the U.S. college scene, having played and coached at Harvard. She’s also Indigenous, which makes her a double-barreled role model for girls and women. Good for Sydney and good for Winnipeg HC.
This from hockey scribe Kevin McGran in his 13 Musings column for the Toronto Star: “The Winnipeg Jets are going to be a train wreck, right?” Ouch. And Michael Traikos of Postmedia Toronto describes Winnipeg HC as “a rudderless ship.” Ouch again. Actually, I’m not surprised that they would take a dim view of the Jets. I’m only surprised that shinny scribes in the Republic of Tranna acknowledge there are NHL teams out here in the colonies.
This also from McGran: “Gotta believe the Leafs will go slowly before putting a sponsor’s logo on the front of their game sweater.” D’oh! He wrote that Tuesday. Scant seconds later, the Toronto Maple Leafs introduced their 2022-23 jerseys with—you guessed it—an advertising patch (Farmers of Ontario “Milk”) on the right chest.
No surprise that Patrik Laine and Johnny Gaudreau will be together on the left and right flanks once the puck is dropped on Columbus Blue Jackets dress rehearsals. Evidently the lineup for auditions to play centre with Puck Finn and Johnny Hockey is longer than the queue for Queen Liz’s funeral.
Always worth noting that Laine is all-in with the Blue Jackets, having signed for the next four seasons, and that’s something Puck Finn refused to do with the Jets. So it’s fair to wonder what Columbus, Ohio, (of all places) has that Good Ol’ Hometown is missing. Oh, well, his loss I guess. I mean, he’ll miss all that warm-and-fuzzy bonding next month in the Rockies.
When I was a sprig, Babe Ruth was more myth than man, someone who seemingly had sprung from the pages of a dime novel.
Elders would regale us with tales taller than a New York skyscraper about the Babe, claiming one swing of the Bambino’s bat would send a baseball hurtling from the Bronx to Baton Rouge. The Babe was Bunyanesque. His 60-home run season in 1927? Also mythical. I mean, who did that? Not Willie Mays or Mickey Mantle or Henry Aaron or Ted Williams. Only the Babe. The Sultan of Swat.
Then Roger Maris came along and we saw it actually happen.
I was 10 when Maris whacked a Tracy Stallard pitch into the right field porch at Yankee Stadium, then made his 61st home run trot of the 1961 Major League Baseball season. No, I didn’t see it live on TV. We were limited to televised games on Saturday afternoons back then, and Roger passed the Babe on a Sunday. But I read all about it in the next morning’s Winnipeg Tribune, so it had to be true.
And now we have another damn Yankee, Aaron Judge, doing Ruthian and Marisian-type things. He has 60 dingers, and there’s counting yet to be done.
Will kids 60 years from now listen to grandpa spin yarns about a larger-than-life, mythical man who didn’t have a catchy nickname? Somehow I doubt it. Aaron Judge is too real to be a myth. He doesn’t stick needles in his butt. He doesn’t call his shots. He doesn’t booze it up and consort with fancy females on the road. He isn’t into dramatic, diva-like bat flips. He just plays baseball. Hey, maybe that’s become the myth…a guy who just plays baseball.
What’s the going rate for a souvenir baseball? Well Sal Durante, a Brooklyn truck driver, caught Maris’ 61st HR ball and eventually peddled it for $5,000 to restaurant owner Sam Gordon, who promptly handed it to Maris. Durante gifted half his poke to his parents, then spent the remainder on furnishing a house with soon-to-be bride Rosemarie. They said their I do’s three weeks after Sal snatched the Maris HR ball, and they honeymooned in San Francisco, Las Vegas, Reno, Palm Springs and Sacramento, all on Gordon’s dime. Durante, now hospitalized with dementia at age 80, also received a Zippo cigarette lighter with a Yankees logo on the front and Roger’s name on the back from the Yankees slugger. The guy who hauls in Judge’s 62nd HR ball (assuming he hits it) could easily afford a three-bedroom home a block away from Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, and have enough coin left over for yearly around-the-world honeymoons and a solid gold Zippo.
The cost of making a baseball is about $7, but you can buy one designed to exact MLB specifications on Amazon for $33.16 (goop and nasty toxins that Yankees pitcher Gerrit Cole applies not included).
Alejandro Kirk
Okay, Alejandro Kirk doesn’t have the body perfect (nor did the Babe, for that matter). He’s squat, with an ample girth. Stand him next to Aaron Judge and you’re looking at an igloo beside the Empire State Building. But is the sight of the rotund Toronto Blue Jays catcher rumbling around the base paths “embarrassing for the sport” of baseball? TSN radio guy Matthew Ross thought so, and said so, on Twitter, prompting keyboard warriors to pounce with loud squawks and accusations of body shaming. No surprise that Ross delivered a mea culpa, saying in part, “defaming people for the way they look is not where my heart or intent was in this moment—or ever!” Sigh. Why do these guys always use the “that’s not who I am” copout? As the Wise Woman of the Village once said: “No matter who and what we claim to be, what we say and do is who and what we are.” So just own it, for gawd’s sake, then vow to do and be better.
The Kirk clatter brought to mind the time late-night gab guy David Letterman went off on Atlanta Braves relief pitcher Terry Forster. Among others things, Letterman called Forster “the fattest man in all of professional sports. The guy is a balloon. He must weigh 300 pounds. He is a looaad.” Just so his national TV audience didn’t miss his meaning, Letterman closed his body-shaming bit by labeling Forster “a fat tub of goo.” That’s the way it was in 1985. People yukked it up over stuff that brings out the tar and feathers today.
Some good copy in the Drab Slab lately, starting with Jeff Hamilton’s deep dive into the matter of disgraced high school football coach Kelsey McKay. It isn’t the first time Jeff has gone into the dirty areas of sports, and he always delivers the goods. Meantime, Mike Sawatzky has a nice piece on the 1962 U of M Bisons football team, which had old friends George Depres and Jeep Woolley on the coaching staff. Jeff and Mike are the best weapons in the Freep’s toy department.
On the subject of the write stuff, you might want to check out Eddie Tait’s piece on Joe Poplawski over at the Winnipeg Blue Bombers website. Joe Pop is this year’s inductee to the Winnipeg FC Ring of Honour, and young Eddie has the background poop on a guy recognized hither and yon as one of the finest people in sports. Any sport. Any era.
Danny Maciocia
Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that Montreal Larks head coach Danny Maciocia always looks as confused as a guy who’s forgotten where he parked the car?
The Larks got the better of the Hamilton Tabbies on Friday night, 23-16, and Montreal QB Trevor Harris mentioned Jesus three times during a brief post-victory natter with John Lu on TSN. Hmmm. I realize Larks legendary QB and current O-Coordinator Anthony Calvillo is revered in Montreal, but when did they start calling him Jesus?
So, who becomes the fall guy in Bytown, where the 3-10 RedBlacks looked shockingly inept in a 45-15 paddywhacking from the Toronto Argos last night? Well, it’ll be Paul LaPolice, of course. It isn’t Coach LaPo’s fault that he lost his starting QB, Jeremiah Masoli, to a dirty bit of business by the felonious Flatlander Garrett Marino, but consecutive three-win crusades doesn’t cut it. This is his second head-coaching gig in Rouge Football, and at 22-49 I believe there’s a warm seat waiting for Coach LaPo beside Kate Beirness on the TSN panel.
Nice to see Darren Dutchyshen backon SportsCentre with Jennifer Hedger while he fights the good fight against cancer. Dutchy has been a mainstay at TSN since 1995, which seems so darn long ago, .
Apparently ’tis the season to retire. Zdeno Chara, P.K. Subban and Keith Yandle all said toodle-oo on the same day last week, and one of them is destined for the Hockey Hall of Fame, another probably has a future in the gab game if he chooses, while Yandle packs it in as the NHL’s iron man, having clocked in for work in 989 consecutive games from March 26, 2009, to March 29 this year. Meanwhile, no word on Jumbo Joe Thornton’s NHL future until scientists complete carbon dating analysis of his beard.
I don’t like the term “GOAT.” It’s overused to the point of being nails-on-a-chalkboard icky, and when an unGOAT like Blake Shelton tries to use an actual goat as a prop on The Voice, you know it’s also become cheesy and Oklahoma cornball. I think “GOAT” should be banned as it relates to sports, and I certainly won’t use it, except to tell you I won’t use it. I mean, Secretariat was the greatest race horse I’ve ever seen, but do we really want to call Secretariat a GOAT? Not gonna happen.
So, does Becky Hammon’s success leading the Las Vegas Aces to the WNBA title move the needle closer to her becoming the first female head coach in the NBA, or is she now pigeon holed into women’s hoops?
The WNBA final, by the way, featured two openly gay head coaches—Hammon, who’s married to Brenda Milano and the mother of two young kids, and Curt Miller of the Connecticut Sun. More role models for LGBT(etc.) youth.
Dumb Headline of the Week, from the Sportsnet website: “Exciting developments from PWHPA won’t include new league in January.” Good grief. There can be just one “exciting” development with the Dream Gappers—a league. Everything else is last week’s baked goods. I mean, there’s nothing fresh and “exciting” about playing glorified scrimmages for a fourth successive winter. Jayna Hefford and her Dream Gappers can dress up their “friendlies” six ways to Sunday, but Team Harvey’s vs. Team Sonnet will never get the pulse racing. The PWHPA needs to be something more than photo ops with Billie Jean King and hit-and-miss weekend scrimmages if they expect the masses to take Ponytail Puck seriously.
Another Sunday smorgas-bored…and the days are getting longer and so is this blog…
A “shambles.”
That’s the word Kendall Coyne Schofield used to describe the state of women’s hockey in 2019, and it was a harsh truth.
Kendall Coyne Schofield
The mostly ignored Canadian Women’s Hockey League had shuttered its doors permanently, giving rise to a group of malcontents demanding, among other things, a living wage, preferably from billionaire owners in the National Hockey League. Rather than sign on with National Women’s Hockey League outfits and form one super league, 150-200 orphaned players chose to participate in mostly ignored pickup games hither and yon, pose for photos with Billie Jean King, and trash talk the NWHL, which was wrestling with its own credibility demons in its fifth season.
“The women’s professional game is in shambles,” Coyne Schofield, the brightest star in the female shinny galaxy, told the San Francisco Chronicle in December 2019. “I dream of the day a young girl can dream of one day being a professional hockey player, and we’re nowhere near that.”
So, fast forward 15 months, and it’s fair to wonder if that dream is any nearer. Is Ponytail Puck any less in shambles?
Well, let’s take inventory:
The Isobell Cup champion Boston Pride.
The NWHL emerged from its COVID cocoon in January and assembled in Lake Placid for a two-week frolic meant to determine an Isobel Cup winner. Alas, the pandemic put the kibosh on that. The semifinals and final were aborted, but the NWHL returned to the freeze to complete its unfinished business on Friday and Saturday in Boston, declaring the Boston Pride as champions, and all three skirmishes were broadcast live on NBCSN.
Coyne Schofield and friends in the PWHPA, meanwhile, cranked up their second Dream Gap Tour last month, first strutting their stuff in a true sporting cathedral, Madison Square Garden in Gotham, then shifting their barnstorming showcase to the United Center in Chicago. Both friendlies were broadcast live on NBCSN, a first in the United States.
Finally, there’s loud chatter about the NWHL adding a seventh franchise, in Montreal, for its seventh season, and the planet’s elite are scheduled to gather in Nova Scotia for the 20th Women’s World Championship, May 6-16, and TSN will be all-in for the global showcase.
Thus, it sounds like the women are gaining traction. Or not.
As much as the national TV exposure is boffo, certain among the Dream Gappers can’t resist the urge to slag the NWHL, indicating that Ponytail Puck is as much a house divided as in late December 2019, when Coyne Schofield talked about an enterprise “in shambles.”
Cassie Campbell-Pascall
“I don’t think you’ll get the PWHPA and the NWHL together,” Cassie Campbell-Pascall informed Tim Micallef early this month on Sportsnet’s Tim & Friends.
The former Canadian Olympian and current Sportsnet squawk box suggested it would be “awesome” if the NWHL survives, and that it might one day be “a great league,” or grow up and become “a feeder system” to a Women’s NHL featuring Dream Gappers. But it’s “not the future of women’s hockey,” she harrumphed. So there.
“I think the PWHPA is gonna go down as that moment in women’s hockey, that group in women’s hockey, that really, truly made a difference in providing a professional women’s hockey league,” Campbell-Pascall tooted. So there again.
Dani Rylan Kearney
It should be pointed out that Campbell-Pascall is not a member of the PWHPA board. Nor is she an official adviser. But she’s thrown in fully with the Dream Gappers, and Sportsnet continues to provide a pulpit for her unchallenged propaganda. She uses her position for divisive dialogue, sometimes spewing inaccuracies about the NWHL, other times accusing former NWHL commissioner and founder Dani Rylan Kearney of “ulterior motives” without naming her and without introducing evidence.
Others among the Dream Gappers have shown an inclination toward schoolyard banter. Hilary Knight branded the NWHL a “glorified beer league” and former board member Liz Knox tsk-tsked the NWHL for having the (apparent) bad manners to add an expansion team during a sports-wide pandemic shutdown, even as every other jock operation was plotting strategy for a return to the playing fields.
“There is a lot of history there that is uncomfortable,” Tyler Tumminia acknowledged in a natter with Jeff Marek and Elliotte Friedman on their 31 Thoughts podcast three weeks ago.
Tyler Tumminia
Tumminia became a fresh voice in the discussion after stepping forward as interim NWHL commissioner last October. She earned her executive chops in the boardrooms of baseball (she’s named after Ty Cobb), and she’s attempting to apply lessons learned to Ponytail Puck. Not just the NWHL, understand. The big picture. Which explains her sweet tweet saluting the PWHPA for its landmark appearance at Madison Square Garden on Feb. 28.
“To me, (the tweet) was saying, ‘I value and I see you and I applaud what you guys are doing for the women’s game, for women’s hockey in particular.’” she said. “I shouldn’t be commissioner of a women’s hockey league if I didn’t applaud that. I’m not dismissing the fact that there’s some raw emotions around it. What I’m saying, is that, you know, some of that narrative is actually outdated now, so let’s sit at the table and have a true sense of what is actually going on here and how we can get to where everybody wants to get to. We all want to get to the same spot. So how can we get together. But, ya, I think that there needs to be some therapeutic conversation, and I’m open to that of course. Now, I don’t have much history there, but I’m open to having those conversations of what had happened but, mostly, what can we do going forward.”
The difference in tone between Tumminia and Campbell-Pascall is startling. One is reaching out with an olive branch, the other is swinging a wrecking ball.
Their views on the direction of Ponytail Puck are just as conflicting.
Here’s Campbell-Pascall: “I think the next step is an announcement, the NHL to step up and make an announcement. ‘This is what we’re gonna do, here’s how we’re gonna do it, and this is when we’re gonna do it.’ That’s the only logical step and the only thing in my opinion that makes sense. Ya, I’m putting pressure on the NHL, because I’ve sat in meetings and worked with them for a long time and talked and discussed this for a long time, and it is time. They know it’s time. They have the infrastructure. Obviously COVID has hit the league hard and they’re losing money as well. Obviously timing is not ideal, but the time is now. The time is now for them to step up and make an announcement about how they want to support women’s hockey.”
And now Tumminia: “I think it’s kinda unfair on the NHL’s part for me to say, ‘Hey, they should take it on themselves and, you know, help this all out.’ Meaning, we’re in the middle of a pandemic, everybody’s hurting financially. For them to take on the entire business model, I don’t know. I think that would be a little unfair at this time to ask them to do that. That’s a little bit tough to ask at this point. Now, in a couple years that might be a little bit different. Right now what I think it should look like, is you get a business model that’s strong in a league that goes past a couple of years, in combination with other parties involved and kinda go in the direction where it’s sustainable on its own. And at the time there’s market share, there’s viewership and there’s tribal fandom in these markets, and the markets are actually showing there’s growth and it’s sustainable and it’s fueling and funding revenue streams that are consistent. Then I think at that time, you know, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s something they take on.”
We can only speculate what’s ahead for Ponytail Puck, but I submit the cause can use a lot less of Campbell-Pascall’s militant mutterings and a lot more of Tumminia’s reasoned rhetoric.
Let’s put it another way: I know which of the two women I’d choose to represent me in a boardroom. (Hint: It isn’t the one making demands of NHL owners who aren’t fishing for fresh ways to squander money.)
Here’s a reason the NWHL and PWHPA need to get their crap together: The English Women’s Super League just hit the mother lode, signing a three-year TV deal with BBC and Sky Sports. Total value: 24 million English pounds, which translates into $33M in U.S. greenbacks. The BBC will show 22 matches and there’ll be as many as 44 more on Sky. Our practitioners of Ponytail Puck will drool at those numbers. That’s where they want to be, visible and with substantial TV revenue. And if it’s doable in English soccer it ought to be doable for shinny in North America, especially in Canada. How do they arrive at that point? Simple: Follow Tumminia’s lead. Sit down and talk. Hash out differences. Clear up misconceptions. Grab an oar and row in the same direction. Campbell-Pascall has said more than once that “this isn’t about one league versus the other league,” but that’s exactly what the Dream Gappers have done to Ponytail Puck. They’ve turned it into a family feud. Now they have a chance to grab an olive branch. We’ll see.
Every time I see and hear Jennifer Botterill talk hockey on Sportsnet, I’m reminded what a local treasure she is and how the decision-makers got it right in making her the first female player inducted to the Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame. One of the all-timers in local shinny lore, Jennifer is an Olympic champion, world champion, two-time winner of the Patty Kazmaier Award as the top player in NCAA women’s hockey, team captain at Harvard, CWHL scoring champion, CWHL all-star, and now a respected voice on hockey TV. It’s just too bad Jennifer had to leave home to do all that heavy lifting. Wouldn’t it have been nice if the final notation on her career read: Played professional hockey in Winnipeg?
Having said that, I wonder if the Puck Pontiff, Mark Chipman, harbors an appetite for bringing a women’s team under the True North umbrella. Has anyone asked the Winnipeg Jets co-bankroll about it? If not, why not?
This is an example of what Ponytail Puck is up against in terms of coverage in mainstream media: The Toronto Six met the Boston Pride in an Isobel Cup semifinal skirmish on Friday. Number of column inches devoted to the match in the Toronto Sun pre- and post-game, zero. But, hey, they managed to squeeze in a full-page Sunshine Girl. Meanwhile, both TSN and Sportsnet used the Boston-Minnesota Whitecaps championship joust as bottom-feeder filler on their highlight shows Saturday night/Sunday morning. The Isobel Cup final was a 52nd-minute afterthought on SportsCentre and a 47th-minute snippet on Sports Central, scant seconds in front of two NASCAR mud-racing pickup trucks.
Mike Tyson takes a chomp out of the champ’s right ear.
I note that cannibal boxer Mike Tyson, who once ate Evander Holyfield’s right ear for a late-night snack, won’t be fighting his former foe for a third time, thus losing out on a multi-million-dollar payday. Guess that means Iron Mike will have to find himself a new meal ticket.
Apparently negotiations between the greybeard boxers broke down when Tyson scared off Holyfield by arriving at one bargaining session with a knife and fork.
Here’s a transcript from the final Tyson-Holyfield verbal to-and-fro: Tyson: “We have an offer you can’t refuse, Evander.” Holyfield: “Talk to me, Mike…I’m all ears.” Tyson: “No you’re not.”
There was also a hangup over the marketing slogan for the proposed Tyson-Holyfield III at Hard Rock Stadium. The two sides agreed it should be something catchy like Rumble in the Jungle or Thrilla in Manila, but Holyfield balked when the Tyson camp insisted on Finger Lickin’ Fightin’ ‘n’ Late Night Munchies In Miami.
Chevy
The Winnipeg Jets lost Jacob Trouba, Tyler Myers and Ben Chiarot from their blueline in June/July 2019. Dustin Byfuglien disappeared in September that year. So we started discussing the pressing need for a top-four defenceman 18½ months ago. Question is, why are we still talking about it a year and a half after Big Buff and the boys bailed? What, general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff hasn’t noticed those four guys are missing? Of course he has. Yet we still await his next move. It’s official then: Chevy actually moves slower than the Arctic ice melt.
According to the 2021 World Happiness report, Finnish people are the happiest on the planet for the fourth straight year. Hmmm. Did anyone think to ask Patrik Laine about that?
There’s a large cargo ship stuck in the Suez Canal and, after a week of failed attempts to free the vessel, the captain and crew are desperate to get out. You know, just like anyone who plays for the Buffalo Sabres.
Seems to me that the Ottawa Senators might become an NHL force once all their players are old enough to shave. Then, of course, Eugene Melnyk will sell them off like used tupperware containers at a yard sale.
Commish Randy
Go figure the Canadian Football League. One week commissioner Randy Ambrosie is talking tall about a budding bromance with Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson and his XFL, and the next week he’s pleading poverty (yes, again) and asking players to take an across-the-board hit at the pay window (yes, again). So let’s no longer wonder why Commish Randy and the Lords of Rouge Football would consider an iffy alliance with a fly-by operation south of the 49th, let’s instead wonder why The Rock would consider a partnership with a bunch of guys whose sole game plan appears to be begging. I don’t know if Commish Randy and his bosses are embarrassed, but they should be.
The CFL has become an arms race, and it has nothing to do with quarterbacks. It’s all about how many needles medics can poke into fans’ arms. Rouge Football isn’t doable without patrons in the pews, so what’s the over/under on the number of COVID-19 vaccine shots required before the faithful can flock into ball yards hither and yon? Is it 20 million? Twenty-five mill? Is Vegas offering odds?
And, finally, the other day I watched a replay of Secretariat’s gallop in the 1973 Belmont Stakes, and I must report that it remains the most gob-smacking, astonishing individual athletic performance I’ve ever witnessed. And that’s taking in a lot of turf, because I started watching sports in the mid-1950s. I suppose some folks might get emotional gazing upon the Mona Lisa or the Shroud of Turin, but I get teary-eyed watching Big Red romp to the wire in the Belmont. It’s very spiritual.
The River City Renegade 
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