Canadian Open – The River City Renegade

Let’s talk about the Chipper & Chevy Wrecking & Salvage Co. and Nashville North…LL Cool J and the Leos…a doggy diploma…smile, you’re a Leafs fan…what about our soccer women and Marie-Philip?…Stephen A. wants to be a big wheel…and other things on my mind…

If I’m reading and hearing correctly, we’re about to see the biggest teardown in Good Ol’ Hometown since the wrecking ball whacked into the old Eaton’s building to make room for The Little Hockey House On The Prairie.

Oh, yes, we’re told Puck Pontiff Mark Chipman and GM Kevin Cheveldayoff have put on their hard hats, pulled on their work boots and strapped on their tool belts, and they haven’t done any of that just to change a light bulb. Why, by the time the Chipper & Chevy Wrecking & Salvage Co. has finished its dirty work at Portage and Donald, the Winnipeg Jets roster will look like something the Property Brothers slapped together during a drinking binge.

Destined for parts unknown, we’re told, are Blake Wheeler, Pierre-Luc Dubois, Rink Rat Scheifele and Connor Hellebuyck, cornerstones all.

It’s like Pete Best kicking John, Paul, George and Ringo out of the band.

Except for this: It’s unlikely to happen, and I’ll tell you why.

The pundits on our flatscreens, the boys on the beat, the bloggers and the keyboard warriors on social media predicting a massive reno are discounting one very significant reality: Ownership/management holds hard to the illogical (idiotic?) notion that the Jets current core has not yet arrived at its best-before date. That is, Chipman and Cheveldayoff fail, or refuse, to see and hear what the rest of us see and hear.

We see a roster with greying trail horses, they see Secretariat’s offspring. We hear players braying like jackasses about head coach Rick Bowness, they hear the Rolling Stones’ greatest hits.

Thus, they continue to harbor faith in a bunch that never fails to fail them.

“If you look at all the different components as to why you think you should be able to compete for a Stanley Cup, I think we’ve got it,” Chevy said as recently as March, at the National Hockey League shop-and-swap deadline.

Has a first-round ouster from the Stanley Cup tournament softened that belief? Doubtful.

Oh, sure, they’ll do something eventually, because they really have no choice due to expiring contracts and those ugly, season-end natters with news snoops, whereby the players conspired to verbally ragdoll Bowness. But the operative word is “eventually.”

Expect the Puck Pontiff/Chevy to mostly twiddle their thumbs in the leadup to, and during, the NHL Entry Draft (June 28-29), then send the same cast of characters to skate around the mulberry bush next autumn. That’s because it isn’t in their DNA to be ballsy until someone has pushed them onto a ledge, and they aren’t quite there yet. Keep in mind they have until next year’s trade deadline to move out any or all of Dubois, Hellebuyck, Scheifele and Wheeler, so why do today what they can do tomorrow, right?

To dawdle would, of course, be folly, but I’m not sure they know how to operate at a cadence other than slow and plodding.

And that was “the plan” from the get-go.

You’re reminded that when the Jets joined the fray, Chipman wanted his franchise to become Nashville North, even if The Burt in Good Ol’ Hometown could never be a reasonable facsimile of the high temple of twang—the Grand Ole Opry House—in Music City.

As it related solely to the business of hockey, Nashville was his role model.

“That may sound strange to people in Winnipeg, that Nashville’s a team we’ve looked so carefully at,” Chipman informed news snoops in April 2012. “They’ve done it methodically, they’ve done it by developing their players and they’ve done it with a consistency in management and philosophy.”

That was said at a time when the Jets still had that new-car smell and Chipman was a man of the people, for the people, and readily shared his musings with a constituency that was in a teenage-like swoon and filled the NHL’s smallest barn in its smallest market to the brim each night.

Alas, more latterly the Puck Pontiff has had less to say than a hand puppet, and empty chairs in The Little Hockey House On The Prairie might have something to do with that.

Many reasons have been advanced to explain 1,749 customers (per night) abandoning the Jets post-pandemic—too costly, crummy game-day experience, the concessions suck, fallout from COVID-19, ownership/management don’t give a damn, etc.—but dissatisfaction with the on-ice product surely is part of the equation.

So let’s examine that Nashville North thing.

In choosing to copy-cat the Predators, Chipman wasn’t exactly going for the gusto. (He was no Bill Foley of the Vegas Golden Knights predicting, and delivering, a Stanley Cup parade by Year Six.) The Puck Pontiff fancied the Preds’ measured, steady-as-she-goes path, and we need only examine the numbers through 12 crusades and one pandemic to confirm the mediocrity of his hockey club.

Jets first 12 seasons…
0 first-place finishes
7 missed playoffs
3 playoff series wins

Predators first 12 seasons…
0 first-place finishes
6 missed playoffs
1 playoff series win

If meh-ness is what the Puck Pontiff was looking for as a Nashville wannabe, he’s succeeded.

The Jets draft-and-develop strategy always made sense (still does) because, although not the be-all and end-all of building a Stanley Cup contender/winner, it’s a tried-and-true method. And, back in the spring of 2018, it appeared to be working, with the Jets advancing to the Final Four.

But then draft-and-develop morphed into draft-develop-and-defection, and if the Jets lead the NHL in anything, it’s this repeated headline: “(Fill in player name) wants out of Dodge!”

Seriously, they’ve had more guys looking for a new home than you’ll find in a refugee camp, and skipping town wasn’t part of the original Nashville North plan.

So what’s “the plan” 12 years in?

Well, that’s the $64,000 question, isn’t it?

Since the Puck Pontiff has entered a witness protection program and Cheveldayoff has perfected the art of saying nothing while saying everything, we can only guess which direction the Jets are heading, but I’m betting they stay the course.

The Puck Pontiff wanted Nashville North and, by gum, he’s got it. And it’s meant more hurt than the songs on a Merle Haggard album for his team’s increasingly hostile fan base.

I believe that Dubois is the only one of the aforementioned cornerstones likely to be accommodated pronto. Which brings to mind something I scribbled in January 2021, after the transaction that brought Dubois to Good Ol’ Hometown in barter for Patrik Laine and Jack Roslovic: “Hey, anyone can be traded, including Patrik Laine. And the Jets will learn to live without Puck Finn. But that doesn’t mean anyone should be traded. Chevy and the Puck Pontiff bungled this one. Badly. And if they can’t convince Dubois to sign up for the long haul, they’ll really wear it.” Two years and five months later, it’s an even bigger bungle if the player they receive for Dubois has no plans to stay long enough to unpack his bags.

This is interesting: There’s a woman in Japan—Keiko Kawano—who teaches people how to smile. True story. Keiko is a smile coach at Egaoiku (translation: Smile Education), and apparently she can work wonders for people who have forgotten how to smile. You know, like Toronto Maple Leafs fans.

There are now more than 40 million folks who call Our Frozen Tundra home. And still the Maple Leafs can’t find a goaltender.

The TV numbers are in, and they aren’t flattering for shinny…
NHL final between the Golden Knights and Florida Panthers on TNT/TBS: Average of 2.6 million viewers for five games.
NBA final between the Denver Nuggets and Miami Heat on ABC: Average of 11.6 million viewers for five games.
Just wondering: Why do Americans love one of the games we invented, but treat the other like it has the cooties?

I wouldn’t walk across the street to watch LL Cool J perform, but 30,000-plus people were in B.C. Place to watch the rapper perspire (the man is a human waterfall) on Saturday, and if that’s what it takes for Amar Doman to make his Canadian Football League franchise relevant in an indifferent market, then I say go for it. The rabble, also the TSN panel, seemed to enjoy the LL experience, even if the entertainment value dipped significantly once the large man who perspires in rhymes gave way to the large men who play football. I mean, really, the Edmonton Elks scored zero points? In Rouge Football? Like, who does that? Well, the B.C. Leos, 22-0 winners, hadn’t pitched a shutout since 1977, and the Elks hadn’t been victim of a donut since 1976. I believe that’s also when LL Cool J wrote his first rhyme.

We’re two weeks into the Rouge Football season and you might have noticed some of the quarterbacking. Gawdawful. But then there’s Zach Collaros of the 2W, 0L Winnipeg Blue Bombers. Still brilliant.

Also brilliant: Bombers kick returner extraordinaire Janarion Grant.

Things that make me go hmmm, Vol. 2,157: A service dog named Justin recently received a diploma from Seton Hall University in New Jersey. Hmmm. That puts the pooch one up on 99.9 per cent of American college football players.

Predictably, there was a great rush to find the proper place for Nick Taylor on the pecking order of grand sporting achievements on Our Frozen Tundra, after the Winnipeg-born golfer had ker-plunked a 72-foot putt on a fourth extra hole to win the Canadian Open last Sunday. Naturally, the Paul Henderson goal has been mentioned, ditto Sid Crosby’s golden goal. Then there’s Joe Carter touching ’em all and Donovan Bailey skedaddling to Olympic gold and Mike Weir taming Augusta National. But the sole female name I heard was Brooke Henderson. What about Marie-Philip Poulin’s golden goal(s)? Take your pick. She’s had four of them, notably an OT tally in the 2014 Olympics championship skirmish. How about Bianca Andreescu whupping Serena Williams to win the U.S. Open tennis title? And, correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t our soccer women win gold just 22 months ago at the Summer Olympic Games? That wasn’t as riveting, as pulse-pumping and as nation-unifying as a guy winning a golf tournament? Come on, man.

I can tell you where I was when Henderson scored in 1972 (at home in Transcona). I can tell you where I was when Marie-Philip scored in OT in 2014 (in a below-street-level nightclub, taking a break from mopping floors and scrubbing toilets). I can tell you where I was when our women’s soccer side beat Sweden on penalty kicks in 2021 (at home in downtown Victoria). But I cannot tell you where I was when Sid the Kid scored, when Carter touched ’em all, when Bailey crossed the finish line, or when Weir sank his tap-in putt at Augusta. So my personal pecking order is: 1) Henderson (always and forever), 2) women’s soccer side, 3) Marie-Philip.

If you’re looking for a fab read on freshly minted Canadian Open champion Nick Taylor, check out Mad Mike McIntyre’s recent piece in the Drab Slab. As my first sports editor, Jack Matheson, would say, it’s damn good stuff.

Stephen A. Smith says he fancies the notion of subbing for Pat Sajak, who plans to walk away from his gig as host of Wheel Of Fortune after one more season. Stephen A. also says he wouldn’t quit his day job as ESPN’s resident ranting-and-raving loudmouth on all things sports were he to step in for Sajak. He’d be willing and prepared to do it all. Is there an E, a G and an O on the board, Vanna?

The Los Angeles Country Club in Beverly Hills, site of the U.S. Open golf championship, has a lengthy list of taboos for members, like no wearing ball caps backwards, no short pants, no cash (except payment to caddies), no headphones and ear buds and, oddest of them all, no actors allowed. I can’t say that I blame them for not wanting people who pretend to be someone they’re not. You know, like Donald Trump, still pretending to be President of the U.S.

Bell Canada sent 1,300 people to the unemployment line last Wednesday, and that included jock talk radio in Edmonton. No notice. No hint. Just hit the bricks, people. Meantime, The Athletic put 20 people out of work, and Postmedia also did some slicing and dicing to sports staff in the past week. Does Bell Canada want to “Let’s Talk” about any of this, or are the suits too busy spilling blood to concern themselves with the mental well-being of employees?

A man in a cheap checkered suit from the Republic of Tranna climbed atop a desk in the Winnipeg Tribune newsroom on Aug. 27, 1980, and told us we were all out of work. Like the Bell Canada cuts, there was no heads-up. Scant hours earlier, I had been helping put together the sports pages, editing copy and writing headlines, but that morning I was wondering about finding a new gig, contemplating the possibility of relocation to another city, how long my severance package would last and, worst-case scenario, applying for pogey. I also silently cursed myself for turning down an offer to join the Winnipeg Free Press stable of sports scribes a few years earlier. I had been at the Trib since age 18, and its closure was a life-altering development, easily the most stressful time of my life. I felt lonely, lost and useless. I’m not sure I’ve ever fully gotten over losing that job. I hope all victims of the Bell, The Athletic and Postmedia cuts find their way.

Here’s how old I am: Whenever I see the name Epstein trending on Twitter, I always think it’s about the now-deceased, one-time Beatles manager Brian, only to discover it’s about the now-deceased sex trafficker and criminal creep Jeffrey Epstein.

Can we all please get past the Conor McGregor thing, whatever it is? His appearances at sporting events simply to make an ass of himself grew old quite some time ago, yet media outlets continue to insist that there’s a there there. There isn’t.

Hey, one of the all-time good guys, Ted Foreman, has been saluted and feted by the Rotary Club of Winnipeg-Fort Garry for his many years of volunteer work. I got to know Teddy through hockey, notably while working the Jets beat, but he was also heavily into the Fort Garry Blues. A good man and fun guy.

Okay, stop it right there! Winning the most men’s Grand Slam singles titles is not merit enough to certify Novak Djokovic as the finest male tennis player of all time. If that were true, Margaret Court’s 24 Slam singles titles would make her the greatest female player of all time, and who thinks that? Perhaps ol’ Maggie believes she is, but I can’t think of anyone else who’d go there. If Grand Slams are the measuring stick, Rafael Nadal has an 11-7 record vs. Djokovic and he’s 5-4 in Slam finals. Rafa also has a winning record vs. Roger Federer in Slams—10-4/6-3. So there.

And, finally, I believe America’s Got Talent sank to new depths last week when three of the four judges advanced a young Italian man to the next round. His talent? Hand farting. Only Simon Cowell gave it a thumbs down, meaning Heidi, Sofia and Howie were as dumb as the act. Lest there be any doubt about Howie’s eye for talent, he also voted “yes” for a guy whose talent is fist bumping. Good grief.

Let’s talk about 50 years after starting in the rag trade…Daniel and Gabby are Slam champs, too…Bianca’s place in the pecking order…what about Marie-Philip?…stay in your lane, young people…a good read in The Athletic…the further Torontoization of the Winnipeg Sun…High Tide and Green Grass…and other things on my mind

A special anniversary smorgas-bored…and it’s my doctor’s fault that I’m still doing this after all these years…

I walked into a newsroom for the first time 50 years ago today, fresh out of high school, and I still remember the hum of activity.

It wasn’t loud, not at that time of the morning in those days of PM papers, but it was steady and easy and soothing and vibrant.

I liked it, the way I liked Sinatra and Streisand.

I listened to the constant clatter of the teletype machines and discovered there was a hypnotic rhythm to their tap-tap-ta-tap-tap. There were three of them, as I recall, one for national and Southam news, another for dispatches from across Western Canada, and the third for United Press International. Every so often, one of them would send out a ding-ding-ding chirp. Breaking news. A copy boy would scurry over, read the alert, then tear off the story and distribute the front sheet to the appropriate department head and the carbon copy to the news rim.

City editor Peter Warren might have been on the Winnipeg Tribune news rim Sept. 10, 1969, or maybe it was Harry Mardon or Jim Shilliday, who later would become the first but not last editor to bark at me. (It was for messing up a coffee order, something about too much sugar or not enough cream. He was wrong, I was right, and desker Peter Salmon, noticing my body quiver like a kitten on a limb, told him so, for which I remain immensely grateful.)

I know Gene Telpner was on assignment in the Middle East that long-ago day, but I suspect Val Werier and Hugh Allan were on site. Jack Matheson, too. Matty would have been hunkered down and proofing sports pages in his bunker in the far left corner of the newsroom, opposite the artsy-fartsy department, a domain shared by Telpner, Frank Morriss and Joan Druxman, whose flair for fashion was extraordinary and resonates to this day.

As I soaked it all in, I decided then and there that the Trib newsroom was where I wanted to be. Where I belonged.

It took me 10 months to get up to the fifth floor from the business office, where I handled incoming and outgoing mail, but I made it as a copy runner and, not long after that, Matty had a notion to bring me into the toy department.

I wanted to stay at the Trib for 50 years, but the dark forces at Southam Inc. headquarters in the Republic of Tranna had other ideas and put more than 300 of us out of work, kicking if not screaming, in late-August 1980.

But here I am, half a century after my first day on the job in the rag trade, out of work again but still scribbling about Winnipeg sports, albeit from a distance. Go figure.

I sometimes wonder why I carry on with this carry-on. I mean, it’s not like someone is paying me to put this alphabet soup together, although I suspect some among the rabble might be willing to take up a collection to shut me the hell up, and I can’t say I blame them. The thing is, one of my medics tells me it’s best that I keep my mind busy, and I’m not about to go against someone who gets to stick a needle in me on a whim. So, on doctor’s orders, I look for ways to humor myself at 1:30 in the a.m., and poking fun at sacred cows and media mooks works for moi. I don’t know how long I’ll keep going, but I know the end is closer to 50 days away than another 50 years.

Daniel Nestor (left) the Wimbledon champion and partner Nenad Zimonjic.

Now that I’ve mentioned mooks, I’m surprised that so many in mainstream media have saluted Bianca Andreescu as the first Canadian to win a tennis Grand Slam tournament. It simply isn’t so. Daniel Nestor won 12 of them in doubles play, and Gabriel Dabrowski has two major titles on her resumé. Ya, ya, I know. Doubles sucks and nobody cares. But a Slam is a Slam is a Slam, and I’m not going to insult Daniel or Gabby by saying their achievements don’t matter.

Here’s something else that gets up my nose: Our flowers of jock journalism wax on about the “greatest moments” in the history of game-playing by True North athletes, and they spew the same names and the same events. The Henderson goal. Sid’s golden goal. Donovan Bailey’s lickety-split at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. Mike Weir at the Masters. Joe Carter touching them all. The Tranna Jurassics. And now, of course, Bianca’s victory over the neighborhood bully, Serena Williams, in the U.S. Open. Which is fine and fitting, except for one glaring omission: None of them ever mention Marie-Philip Poulin’s golden goal. I don’t know about you, but nothing at the 2014 Sochi Olympics had my heart beating faster than Marie-Philip’s OT goal in Canada’s 3-2 victory over Uncle Sam’s Yankee Doodle Damsels. I still get chills watching the video. Alas, Marie-Philip’s goal fails to get the respect it deserves simply because it’s women’s hockey, which appears on the radar once every four years for most news snoops, and it’s quickly forgotten.

We all have our personal “Where were you when?” moments, and this is my top five in Canadian sports:
1. Paul Henderson’s goal in the 1972 Summit Series between the good guys and the Red Menace from Red Square Moscow.
2. Marie-Philip Poulin’s golden goal.
3. Kenny Ploen’s 18-yard skedadlde in OT to nail down a Grey Cup win for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in 1961.
4. Jennifer Jones, Kaitlyn Lawes, Jill Officer, Dawn McEwen winning curling gold at the Sochi Olympics.
5. Bianca Andreescu beating Williams in Queens, NYC, on Saturday.
Honorable mention: Brooke Henderson winning the Canadian Open golf tournament in 2018.

I try to stay in my lane when it comes to rating the events from a lifetime of watching sports, and that means 1957, or thereabouts, to the present. Anything that happened pre-1957, I don’t have a clue, other than what I’ve read about or watched on grainy, black-and-white film. I suggest young opinionists do the same. If you weren’t even on the breast when Paul Henderson slid a puck under Vladislav Tretiak in 1972, you have no business comparing Bianca’s achievement to that moment. Like, if you weren’t around when John, Paul, George and Ringo landed in Gotham, don’t tell me about Beatlemania. Stay in your lane.

Even veteran jock journos like Steve Simmons of Postmedia Tranna make that mistake. Simmons likes to present himself as a sports historian, and he’s fooled TSN into believing it, but his point of reference can’t start any earlier than 1965, if not later. He tweets, “I choose not to make assertions about athletes I’ve never seen unless they’re Ted Williams or Babe Ruth,” yet he was arrogant enough to compile a list of the National Hockey League’s greatest 100 players. Except he never saw 20 of them play. He added a list of 40 honorable mentions. He never saw 16 of them play. Ergo, the list was a sham.

Here’s what legendary sports scribe Grantland Rice had to say on drawing parallels to events and athletes from one era to another: “Probably the greatest waste of time known to man is the matter of comparing some star or champion with another who lived and played in a different decade.” It’s a trap we all fall into, of course, and I’m convinced that Steffi Graf would kick Serena Williams’ butt six out of every 10 matches. But Ol’ Grantland is likely correct. It’s just that the then-v.-now debate always makes for such good barroom banter.

Best read I’ve had this week is Eric Duhatschek’s piece in The Athletic on Winnipeg Jets young defender Josh Morrissey. Really, really good stuff. If you’re looking for a reason to subscribe to The Athletic, this is it.

On the subject of Josh, why all the fuss last week about him saying he wants to stay in Good Ol’ Hometown for the duration? “I want to be a Jet” screamed a Winnipeg Sun headline, in type size normally reserved for a declaration of war, moon landings or the assassination of JFK. People, people. I agree it’s swell that young Josh wants to stick around, because he does boffo work on the Jets blueline and he seems like the kind of lad you’d want your daughter bringing home for Sunday dinner. But it’s dog-bites-man stuff. It’s not news.
Here’s Josh in May 2018: “I love playing here, I love being a Winnipeg Jet.”
Here’s Josh in August 2018: “I love being here. I love playing here. I love being a Winnipeg Jet.”
Here’s Josh in September 2018: “I love playing here and love being a Jet. I hope I can be here for a long time in the future.”
So he repeats what he said three times last year and it warrants a screaming headline? I shudder to think how large the type will be when he actually signs long term.

Speaking of the Winnipeg Sun and headlines, what’s up with that sports front this morning? There are pics of Bianca and hoops guy Kawhi Leonard towering over the CN tower and the Republic of Tranna skyline, with this captioning: “Bianca Andreescu and the Raptors got the country buzzing—and have changed sports forever in Toronto.” Excuse me, but we care about the sports landscape in The ROT why? The article was written by a ROT scribe, Steve Simmons, and aimed at a ROT audience. Neither the column or the cover belong in a River City rag. But it’s just the latest example of Postmedia’s pathetic Torontoization of its newspaper chain, and it sickens me.

I really hope boycotting women’s shinny players are getting on with their lives, because Dani Rylan isn’t in any hurry to shut down her National Women’s Hockey League to make way for an NHL takeover. “I see us as an international league spanning both the U.S. and Canada with a great broadcast deal, the best players in the world, and a fan base that is continuing to grow exponentially,” commish Dani told The Ice Garden. “So I think the options are endless. The future of women’s hockey is incredibly bright.” As for the recently formed Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association, Dani reports that “unfortunately, they have refused to communicate with us.” The five teams have 83 players under contract for a fifth season.

Be advised that I scribbled a good portion of this post while groovin’ to the Rolling Stones album BIG HITS (High Tide and Green Grass), which might be the best 12-song, 36-minute set in the history of recorded rock ‘n’ roll. You’ve got Keith’s kick-ass guitar licks, the thumping beat of Charlie’s drum kit, Mick’s snarl and sass, and some of the best, straight-ahead rock songs ever written—Satisfaction, The Last Time, It’s All Over Now, Get Off My Cloud, 19^th Nervous Breakdown. Brilliant.

And, finally, on the occasion of the 50^th anniversary of my entry into the rag trade, a quick tip of the bonnet to a few of my all-time faves, news snoops who made the journey more enjoyable and still inspire me: Dave Komosky, with whom I spent a sizable portion of 50 years in the trenches, young Eddie Tait, Knuckles Irving, Shakey Johnson and Ringo Mingo, Big Jim, Greaser, Uncle Tom, the Caveman, Homer, Ketch, Sinch, Swampdog, Scotty Morrison, Trent Frayne, Shaky Hunt, Willie Lever, Downsy, Jon Thordarson, Ronny (Les Lazaruk), Judy Owen, Paul Friesen, Marty Falcon, Buzz Currie, Doc Holliday, the Friar, Sod, Pick, Witt, Cactus, Matty, Peter Young, Blackie, Reyn, Joe Pascucci. And thanks to the late Don Delisle for hiring me right out of Miles Macdonell Collegiate.

Let’s talk about those ugly Yankee Doodle Damsels…a home run for TSN…Kaylyn Kyle’s hair…a Bronx cheer for Sid Seixeiro…writers ignoring the Raptors…terrific tweets…Trudeau’s nuts…and play it again, Sam

Serving up a special mid-week smorgas-bored…and if you thought Hope Solo was an ugly American, check out their World Cup soccer team…

The Yankee Doodle Damsels officially arrived in France on Tuesday and, boy, are they ugly.

I mean, there’s butt cleavage ugly, then there’s American ugly, and I don’t think I’ve seen Americans quite as ugly as in their women’s World Cup debut, a 13-nada paddywhacking of Thailand at Stade Auguste-Delaune in Reims.

Score 13 goals? Sure. Go for it. There’s no mercy rule at that level of soccer.

But celebrate goals six through 13 like you just landed on the moon? Lame in the extreme.

You don’t squish an ant or pluck the wings off a house fly then hold a block party to celebrate. Five-year-old kids might do that, but the American soccer elite are not five-year-old kids. They just act like it.

“This was disgraceful from the United States,” said TSN analyst Clare Rustad, a former Canadian national team player. “I would have hoped they could have won with humility and grace.”

Still celebrating after all those goals.

Humility and grace are not the American way these days. Just look at the primary resident in the White House.

“I’m all about passion, but as a Canadian we would never ever think of doing something like that,” chimed in Kaylyn Kyle, also a former Canadian national, sitting next to Rustad on the TSN panel. “For me, it’s disrespectful, it’s disgraceful.”

Yup.

But wait. Here’s Abby Wambach, former American captain and the all-time leading goal-scorer in the women’s game.

“Would you tell a men’s team to not score or celebrate?” she asked.

Good gawd, woman. This isn’t about gender. It’s about being rude. It’s about being unsportsmanlike. It’s about acting like you’ve been there before instead of like a bunch of tools.

Nancy Armour provided Wambach with some backup vocals.

“Take the pearl clutching and righteous indignation somewhere else,” she snarled with righteous indignation in USA Today, proving Americans can be just as ugly in print as on the pitch. “This is the World Cup, not a rec league tournament. There are some who seem to think the U.S. women’s 13-0 thrashing of Thailand on Tuesday night was piling on, that their celebrating of every goal was unseemly. Tough. You want the Americans to impose the slaughter rule or patronize their opponents by pretending they didn’t just tack another goal onto the scoreline? Go join the six-year-olds in the park. Maybe you’ll get a participation trophy and an orange slice while you’re at it. Getting players confidence, getting momentum are the names of the game at the World Cup and that’s what the U.S. did.”

Oh, just shut the hell up, Nancy.

The Yankee Doodle Damsels might go on and successfully defend their World Cup title, but they’ll be wearing this disgrace while a FIFA official is wrapping gold medals around their necks. It’s going to stick to them like guilt to O.J.

I didn’t think it possible, but these American women actually out-uglied Hope Solo.

Kate Beirness, Clare Rustad, Kaylyn Kyle and Diana Matheson.

TSN has really hit it out of the park with its soccer panel of Rustad, Kyle and Diana Matheson. They’re insightful, intelligent and extremely blunt. Kyle is the most passionate of the trio, and she isn’t shy about expressing honest feelings. On Canadian captain Christine Sinclair she said this: “I have a massive woman crush on her.” I cannot imagine Jeff O’Dog or any of the boys on the various TSN hockey panels confessing to a man crush on Sidney Crosby or Connor McDavid.

Fashion note: I mentioned the other day that Kyle has hair to die for, but I found her mane to be extremely distracting on Tuesday. She had it done up in a top knot, and it looked like a fire hydrant growing out of her head. I couldn’t stop staring at the thing. And, no, that isn’t being sexist. I’d say the same thing about Bob McKenzie if he had a fire hydrant on the top of his head.

What a pleasure it is to watch soccer when it isn’t bogged down by needless play-acting. The women do it right. There are no Neymars in their game, at least none that I’ve noticed.

Moving back to the ugly theme, it’s about Sid Seixeiro of Tim & Sid fame on Sportsnet. This was his take on fans in the Republic of Tranna cheering when Kevin Durant of the Golden State Juggernaut was felled by injury in Game 5 of the National Basketball Association final:

“I don’t know exactly how many people in that building last night were cheering the injury, because people were cheering the injury. Anyone who suggests no one was cheering the injury is either lying or stupid. Anyone who booed that kid, whether or not they knew the severity of the injury is scum. Period. I don’t wanna talk about it. There was a lot of people in that building doing it. Now, the other part of this…if that game last night was in Philadelphia, how would they have reacted? If that’s the reaction in Toronto last night, what do Philly fans do? What do Celtic fans do? In any Eastern Conference building last night, that exact same thing would happen.”

And what? Because Philly fans are boors that makes it okay for fans in The ROT to be dinks too?

Using that logic, if the Jurassics lose the NBA final, it’s okay for the rabble in The ROT to torch the town because, hey, that’s what they did in Vancouver after the 2011 Stanley Cup final.

Get a grip, Sid.

Media in the Republic of Tranna can talk all they like about Canada being swept up in Raptors fever, but I’m sorry, it isn’t an official national party until someone rides a horse into a hotel lobby.

So, are the flowers of sports journalism across our vast land into the Jurassics like we’re led to believe? Nope. On Monday, with Tranna poised to win the National Basketball Association title, here’s what they were writing about:

Terry Jones, Postmedia Edmonton: The Edmonton Eskimos.
Ed Willes, Postmedia Vancouver: Led off his weekly musings column with a take on building a Stanley Cup champion and mentioned the Jurassics at the tail end.
Paul Friesen, Winnipeg Sun: Khari Jones, new head coach of the Montreal Alouettes.
Rob Vanstone, Regina Leader Post: The Saskatchewan Roughriders.
Postmedia Calgary: Front page story was equestrian.
Jack Todd, Montreal Gazette: Fast car racing.

Todd, in fact, took a snarky swipe at all the Jurassics hype, pooh-poohing it while praising Formula 1’s Canadian Grand Prix: “Montreal has its answer to Toronto, where the Raptors are almost certain to win the NBA championship sometime this week. Overnight, Toronto the Insufferable will become Toronto the Extremely Insufferable. Glasses of skim milk will be raised to the queen. Drake’s mug will replace that of Sir Wilfred Laurier on the five-dollar bill. To all of which, Montreal will reply with a world-weary Gallic shrug, another glass of wine and the distinctive yowl of (Sebastian) Vettel’s Ferrari as it leaps out of the Senna ‘S’ at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.”

Great tweet from Rob Vanstone of the Leader Post re the upcoming Canadian Football League season: “I’m picking the Schooners to finish ahead of Montreal.”

Best tweet so far this week was delivered by Bob Weeks of TSN, following Rory McIlroy’s victory in the Canadian Open golf tournament:
Q: Do you wish the US Open started tomorrow?
Rory: No because I’ll be hung over.”

Also got a kick out of this cheeky tweet from Terry Jones of Postmedia E-Town: “I’d like to see the Raptors win it in seven. Just like to see Toronto squirm a little more. So sue me.” Not surprisingly, hostiles with zero sense of humor surfaced to brand Jonesy a “hater” and “bitter” and “obese.” If I know Jonesy, he’s still laughing at the mooks.

U.S. speaker Nancy Pelosi and Trudeau the 2nd have one of those silly politician wagers on the NBA final. If Golden State wins, Pelosi gets Atlantic salmon, chocolates, bagels, bison meat, Nanaimo bars and beer. If the Jurassics triumph, Trudeau the 2nd receives chocolate, wine, almonds and walnuts. I don’t know about the chocolate and wine, but the nuts will come in handy for Trudea. You know, to replace the pair that Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott took from him during the SNC-Lavalin scandal.

I sometimes forget that this is my blog and I can write about whatever catches my fancy. So, this tweet from Ricky Gervais has nothing to do with sports but it piqued my interest: “What five albums have you listened to most in your life? Be honest, not trendy.”

These are mine:

Sinatra at the Sands (with Count Basie & the Orchestra)—Frank Sinatra
Classical Barbra—Barbra Streisand
Old Ways—Neil Young
Cowboyography—Ian Tyson
Greatest Hits—Steely Dan

I plunked each one of those platters on the turntable this week and I’m pleased to report they’re still brilliant.

And, finally, I like to think of all these musings as original thoughts, but how can I be sure when I don’t know what anyone else is thinking? And if you do think the same as me, be afraid. Be very afraid.

Merry Sportsmas! Will it be goals or lumps o’ coal for the Jocks and Jills?

Not the usual Sunday smorgas-bored today, kids, because Sports Santa is on his way to town and he’s given us a sneak peak at what he has tucked inside his bag for the good and not-so-good girls and boys in the toy department…

GOAL: Wasn’t that a party that Mark Scheifele, Blake Wheeler and their Winnipeg Jets accomplices threw last spring on their merry way to the National Hockey League semifinals? They fell seven victories shy of a Stanley Cup parade, but good times were had by all, especially the mosh pit on Whiteout Way outside the Little Hockey House On The Prairie.

COAL: Frank Seravalli of TSN wouldn’t know Portage and Main from a port-o-potty, and he proved it by describing the Sedin twins, Henrik and Daniel, as “the faces of hockey in Western Canada for much of the 21st century.” Ya, like Don Cherry has been the face of Mother Russia since the days of the Soviet politburo. Seravalli is a mook. A Philly mook.

GOAL: Brooke Henderson, the sweetheart of the golf rodeo. Delightful, charming and all those other good things we like in our athletes, Brooke earned two LPGA titles, including the Canadian Open, something no home-grown woman had done in 45 years.

COAL: Brad Marchand, the Boston Licker. The Bruins agitator just couldn’t keep his tongue to himself, twice mistaking foes for lollipops. Ugh. Beyond disgusting.

GOAL: Kaitlyn Lawes and John Morris struck for Olympic Games gold in the quirky brand of curling known as mixed doubles. Kaitlyn, like Brooke Henderson, is an absolute delight, and Johnny Mo is both a great curler and a great quote.

COAL: TSN gets an entire coal bin for its shameful adulation of Johnny Manziel, on-again/off-again quarterback with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats/Montreal Alouettes. Let’s forget for a moment that Manziel once beat up and threatened to kill a woman and should not be allowed to play in the Canadian Football League. As a QB, he was dreadful. The absolute worst. Yet the talking heads on the TSN panel and in the broadcast booth created a Cult of Johnny. They were like teenage groupies, gasping in worship for their favorite lousy QB. Totally creepy.

GOAL: Tessa Virtue is another sweetheart and her fancy skating partner, Scott Moir, is a total hoser, eh? After striking gold twice at the Olympics in South Korea, Tessa had fans swooning while Scott went all McKenzie Brothers by tossing back pints of beer and getting glassy-eyed and noodle-legged during the Canada-U.S. women’s hockey game. Beauty, eh?

COAL: Phil Mickelson is a cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater. After missing a putt at the U.S. Open, Lefty scurried after his still-moving ball like a donut-fueled cop in pursuit of a bad guy, then stopped the Titleist before it could roll off the green. He laughed and shrugged it off as no big deal, telling everyone to lighten up. What a drip.

GOAL: Jennifer Jones, Jill Officer, Kaitlyn Lawes, Dawn McEwen and Shannon Birchard got it done on the pebble. Together, they won a provincial curling title, a Canadian curling title, a world curling title, two Grand Slam titles, and an Olympic curling title. That’s the best haul this side of Santa’s bag of goodies.

COAL: Fans booed when Winnipeg Blue Bombers QB Matt Nichols appeared on a giant screen at Football Follies Field in Fort Garry to deliver a public service announcement against the evils of drunk driving. Are you kidding me people? Can you slink any lower than that? Who will you boo next? Rudolph if his red nose goes on the fritz Christmas eve? Shame, shame.

GOAL: Barry Trotz, a local boy who made good by coaching the Washington Capitals to the Stanley Cup. The former Dauphin Kings and University of Manitoba bench maestro was out of work shortly after swilling beer from Stanley, but he landed safely on Long Island, so it’s all good.

COAL: If Damien Cox of Sportsnet/Toronto Star wasn’t blaming victims for cyber bullying, he was describing the Vegas Golden Knights as a “shitty” team. Well, that “shitty” team reached the Stanley Cup final. Mr. Smarm was a creepy irritant on Hockey Central at Noon, although I haven’t seen him taking up space on the gum-flapper this season. Perhaps a suit at Sportsnet finally wised up.

GOAL: Andrew Harris of the Bombers earned himself another Canadian Football League rushing title.

COAL: Darian Durant stiffed the Bombers on the eve of training camp by promptly retiring, then kept the $70,000 signing bonus he’d been paid. Bad form. Truly lame. Sort of like many of the passes he threw in his final season in the CFL. So, hey, good riddance.

GOAL: Former Toronto Blue Jays manager John Gibbons offered this quote during another trying season for the Tranna Nine: “My experience in this game is that sometimes it’s better to be smart than stupid.” Somewhere Yogi Berra is nodding in approval.

COAL: I’m not sure you could mine enough coal to stuff into Steve Simmons’ Christmas stocking. The Postmedia Tranna print hitman totally trashed mixed doubles curling (he presented fiction as fact) at the Olympics, he totally trashed team fancy skating at the Olympics, he totally trashed Pedro Martinez’s induction into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame, he totally trashed Marc Savard for not returning phone calls…basically, his entire year was a trash-a-thon. He really is Grandpa Simpson at the keyboard.

GOAL: Alexander Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals went into party-animal mode with Lord Stanley, dragging him hither and yon while acting like drunken curlers. Apparently they ran out of booze, so they agreed to start playing hockey again in October.

COAL: Serena Williams staged a different kind of party—a pity party at the U.S. Open tennis tournament. The former world No. 1 woman came completely unglued in the final vs. Naomi Osaka and attempted to turn her temper tantrum into a crusade for motherhood and gender equality. In reality, she simply behaved like a spoiled-brat loser that no mother could be proud of.

GOAL: Chris Streveler came out of nowhere and gave rise to the possibility that the Blue Bombers have actually unearthed their QB of the future.

COAL: Postmedia has completely destroyed the Winnipeg Sun sports section for readers interested in local clubs not named Jets, Bombers or Goldeyes. If you aren’t one of the big three, you no longer exist. Instead, Sun readers are force-fed a steady diet of copy on athletes and teams from the Republic of Tranna, pro rasslin’, UFC, sports betting, fantasy sports, etc.

GOAL: Winnipeg Free Press football scribe Jeff Hamilton’s podcast with Andrew Harris—The Handoff—was boffo stuff.

COAL: Randy Ambrosie kicked Jerome Messam out of the CFL after the running back was charged with voyeurism, but the commish allowed Johnny Manziel to play, even though he beat up a woman and threatened to kill her. As I have written: “What part of its own policy on violence against women does the CFL not understand?”

GOAL: Kirk Penton keeps cranking out the good CFL stuff for The Athletic.

COAL: Jock journos in the Republic of Tranna couldn’t stop slobbering over hip-hopper Drake at Raptors games. I haven’t seen that much drool since the day I brought a St. Bernard home for my kids. The press box in The ROT is groupie central. It’s really quite simple: Ignore Drake.

GOAL: Mike O’Shea, who doesn’t share warm-and-fuzzies with the media, gets high marks for this glib response in an exchange with a news snoop…

“Do you have any plans for your bye week coming up?” the Bombers coach was asked.

“I do…you’re not included in them,” he replied.

COAL: Mark Masters, a man, actually asked another man, Darren Cahill, to put the last year of Serena Williams’ life into context. Given that tennis analyst Cahill has never been pregnant or given birth (we won’t even talk about breast feeding), he could not possibly relate to what Williams had lived through. It was the dumbest question. Ever, ever, ever.

GOAL: Curmudgeonly Brian Burke is as grumpy as Scrooge with a toothache, as blunt as the business end of a hammer, and as harsh as turpentine. He’s also extremely insightful and a boffo addition to Sportsnet’s stable of gum-flappers. He even wears his necktie properly some nights.

COAL: The Houston Astros claim to have a zero-tolerance policy re domestic violence. Any man who strikes a women need not apply. Unless, of course, he can also strike out the side in the ninth inning. In that case, the Astros will overlook domestic violence and sign a relief pitcher like Roberto Osuna. When the disgraced former Blue Jays hurler imploded in the Major League Baseball playoffs, it was poetic justice.

GOAL & COAL: Dave Dickenson is a yappy, little lap dog, but Coach Chihuahua of the Calgary Stampeders also came up with a perfect description of the Bombers braintrust during one of his sideline squawk sessions—The Canadian Mafia.

COAL: TSN continues to trot out Dave Poulin as a hockey expert. Ya, and I’m Julia Roberts’ movie double. Any guy who leaves Connor McDavid off his all-star ballot is no expert, and Poulin’s no expert.

GOAL: A lot of people don’t like Bo Levi Mitchel. They reckon he’s too cocky and/or arrogant. Well, I like him. So much that I hope the Stampeders QB lands work in the National Football League.

About Paul Friesen peeing on Corn Flakes…is it 2021 already?…what does Brooke Henderson have to do?…goofy stuff from the Globe and Mail…Argonauts’ 44th head coach is back-page news…the myth of Tranna bias at Sportsnet…and Bob Cole is no Sinatra

Another Sunday smorgas-bored…because I couldn’t find anything better to do at 2 o’clock this a.m….

Got a giggle out of the reaction to a recent column by old friend Paul Friesen, whose refusal to wave pom-poms while writing essays about the Winnipeg Jets tends to put many knickers in many knots.

If you missed it, the Winnipeg Sun columnist had the (apparent) bad manners to inform his readers that the local shinny lads have been feasting on National Hockey League bottom feeders this crusade. Friesen even supplied concrete evidence (they’re known as facts in his business) to support the notion that les Jets have been kicking sand in the faces of 98-lb. weaklings.

Well, don’t you just know that a segment of the rabble was aghast. Facts be damned!

“So you have to pee in our Corn Flakes,” wrote one Twitter follower, no doubt guzzling a gallon of official Winnipeg Jets Kool-Aid as he typed.

“Shocker! Paul Friesen concentrated on the cloud as opposed to the silver lining,” wrote another who made no mention of Paul piddling on anything resembling breakfast cereal.

“Do you ever say anything good about the Jets?” a third wondered.

It reminded me of the been-there, done-that bad ol’ days. Only tamer.

Like Friesen, apparently I had bad manners. I declined to write about les Jets while wearing rose-tinted glasses and, upon their entry into the NHL in 1979, I refused to gloss over the reality that Winnipg HC was a talent-challenged outfit.

“Jets will win no more than 20 games this season,” I wrote in the Winnipeg Tribune.

I used some of those pesky facts to prop up my position, and predicted a last-place finish. Wouldn’t you know it? Les Jets collected exactly 20 Ws (good call) and 51 points to finish 18 shy of the playoffs.

Between their NHL baptism against the Penguins in Pittsburgh on Oct. 10 and their final assignment vs. the Colorado Rockies on April 6 at the old barn on Maroons Road, I continued to write the truth and was called “a sawed-off little runt,” “a weasel,” “a scumbag” and “a child molester.” (Yes, they were that charming.) One reader threatened to put me in the hospital and another offered to ram a newspaper down my throat. (That surely would have required a hospital visit or, at the very least, the Heimlich maneuver from John Ferguson). Not surpisingly, I wasn’t invited to the Jets Booster Club picnic.

All of that was, of course, pre-Twitter, and I shudder to think what names they’d call me today. I’m pretty sure it would have something to do with female body parts.

Speaking of boobs, John Shannon of Sportsnet isn’t normally a “D’oh!” boy, but he totally lost the plot while delivering a hossana to Josh Morrissey, the Jets’ terrific young defender who scored in overtime last week. Morrissey “did what they expected him to do after signing that new, long-term deal,” Shannon said. To which all of Jets Nation says, “If only.” Morrissey, unfortunately, is on a two-year bridge contract.

I don’t think I’d enjoy working the Jets beat today. From what I understand, it’s very restrictive in terms of accessibility to players and management. We had open access back in the day. Rode the bus and planes with them. It wasn’t uncommon to call at player, coach or GM at home. It was a fun gig, especially in the World Hockey Association.

Did I pull a Rip Van Patti and fall asleep for 2 1/2 years? I mean, is this actually June 2021? I ask that because Murat Ates of The Athletic Winnipeg has delivered a yawn-a-thon of a piece projecting les Jets’ protected list in advance of the 2021 Seattle expansion draft. Seriously? You want to have that discussion today? C’mon, man. Call me 24 months from now and we’ll talk.

Quiz me this, kids: If a Canadian male golfer had won the Canadian Open and one other stop on the PGA Tour this year—and finished second in the season-long points race—would he be anointed our country’s top jock? As sure as Tiger Woods likes pretty blondes he would. There wouldn’t even be a discussion. Yet when Brooke Henderson does that very thing on the LPGA Tour, it isn’t good enough for the collection of unidentified news mooks who choose our country’s athlete of the year. She loses the vote for the Lou Marsh Trophy to Mikael Kingsbury, a guy from the niche world of moguls skiing. Two years ago, Henderson won twice—including the Women’s PGA Championship, which is an LPGA major—and lost the vote to a swimmer, Penny Oleksiak. So I ask this: How many tournaments must Brooke Henderson win before she warrants their approval?

Cathal Kelly of the Globe and Mail provides some interesting insight into the goings-on of the Lou Marsh voting process, and mentions that he “stumped” for doubles tennis player Daniel Nestor. I don’t know if that was a revelation or a confession. Either way, what a total mook. I mean, thanks for dropping by, Cathal, but you cannot be serious, man. Nestor did one noteworthy thing this year. He quit. Otherwise, he was 8-21 with zero tournament titles. And he’s Kelly’s idea of our top jock? Up next: Kelly stumps for Adam Sandler as an Oscar winner.

Not to be out-dumbed, G&M sports editor Shawna Richer had herself a little hissy fit and left her ballot blank in protest over the decision to rule fancy skaters Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir ineligible. So if you’re scoring at home, the main sports columnist at our national newspaper believes a guy who accomplished squat in the past 12 months is our top jock, and the sports editor at our national newspaper didn’t get her way so she (boo hoo) took her ball and went home. And we’re supposed to take this award seriously? (Just wondering: If the Globe and Mail has a sports editor, shouldn’t it also have a sports section?)

Canadian Football League outfits are dumping coaches, scouts and management at an alarming rate. We haven’t seen this kind of cost cutting since the suits at Postmedia lost their minds. I don’t know if the CFL is still a professional sports league or a thrift store.

The United States has had 45 presidents in 229 years. The Tranna Argonauts have had 44 head coaches in 101 years. I’m not sure what that means, but I find it interesting.

If you want to know where the Argos rate on the pecking order with media in the Republic of Tranna, consider this: The day after Corey Chamblin was anointed the 44th sideline steward of the Boatmen, it was shoved back to Pages 9-10 in the Toronto Sun sports section. If that happened at either the Winnipeg Sun or Winnipeg Free Press after a head coach hiring with the Blue Bombers, someone would be fired.

So I turn on Sportsnet in the small hours of Wednesday morning to catch the NHL highlights, knowing six of the seven Canadian outfits were on the ice the night before. But what’s their top story? The Tranna Raptors. And here I thought this was a hockey country. Silly me. Anyway, I moved to the Sportsnet website to check out Jets coverage. Nothing. Not one word. On the entire main page. Nothing on the Ottawa Senators either. There were 32 articles/videos on the Raptors, Maple Leafs and Blue Jays, and just 18 for the rest of the country’s clubs combined. Here’s the story/video count:

Blue Jays 13
Leafs 10
Raptors 9
Oilers 9
Canucks 5
Habs 2
Flames 2
Senators 0
Jets 0

And, to think, some eastern scribes (I’m looking at you, Damien Cox) actually believe Tranna bias is like Sasquatch, the mythical creation of insecure western news snoops.

And, finally, Steve Simmons of Postmedia Tranna calls Hockey Night in Canada play-by-play fossil Bob Cole the “voice of a lifetime” and “the Hockey Sinatra.” Oh, please. Apparently he never heard Danny Gallivan call a game. No one did it like Gallivan. His voice was electric. His vocabulary immense. I still get chills when I hear his call of Guy Lafleur’s tying goal in Game 7 of the 1979 Stanley Cup semifinal. “Lafleur, coming out rather gingerly on the right side…” Rather gingerly. Who says that? Only Gallivan. Bob Cole is the Hockey Sinatra like I’m Celine Dion.

About TSN’s CFL gab guy Milt Stegall getting it wrong…the Winnipeg Boo Bombers…O Canada, Brooke’s the champion…Maple Leafs like the ladies…the Paris fashion police…where’s Josh?…and other things on my mind

Cold pizza and some weekend leftovers for a Monday morning breakfast…

These are the worst of times for Matt Nichols. First, his elbow was bruised. Then his ego. And now his eyesight has betrayed him.

I mean, how else do you explain the pass he tossed to Ja’Gared Davis late in the fray Saturday afternoon at McMahon Stadium in Cowtown? Davis is as large as a prairie silo, for cripes sake. He’s visible from outer space. Yet Nichols didn’t see him when he flipped the football in the direction of Nic Demski. End result: Pick six.

This, of course, was salt-to-the-wound stuff, because the Calgary Stampeders had matters well in hand before Davis arrived in the end zone, but that play served as a snap shot of Nichols’ life on and off the field for the past 10 days.

To recap, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers starting quarterback was booed by some of the faithful in a sub-standard performance in a losing cause vs. the Ottawa RedBlacks. He allowed that to get under his thinning skin and felt obliged to expose his frayed feelings to news snoops. Discussion ensued for much of the week in advance of the skirmish with the Stampeders, prompting Nichols to suggest his gripe with Winnipeg FC loyalists was “way blown out of proportion.” Then came Calgary and a 39-26 paddywacking, followed by a tsk-tsking from two of three talking heads on TSN’s panel of retired grid guys. They accused him of hurling his teammates under the bus because he mentioned something about “finding no one open.”

“I just think that he’s gotta check himself, get his emotions under control because the pressure’s only gonna get hotter. Get used to it,” said Matt Dunigan, the old QB.

“He needs to come out there and play and keep his mouth shut,” added Milt Stegall, the old receiver who, it should be pointed out, does not own a Grey Cup ring.

Dunigan is right about the pressure. Stegall is full of horse hooey.

Nothing Nichols said in his post-joust discussion with Knuckles Irving on CJOB, or during his scrum with news snoops, was a hatchet job on his pass-catchers or his running backs. If anything, he acknowledged the skill of Calgary’s defensive dozen, which takes no prisoners and is, by the numbers, the stingiest group in the Canadian Football League.

But Nichols is under siege. He might want to consider a witness protection program this week.

Here’s the deal, though: He still provides the Bombers with their best opportunity to win. His understudy, neophyte Chris Streveler, is more popular than Christ in a cathedral, but he’s still as raw as garden vegetables.

Could and should head coach Mike O’Shea utilize Streveler more often? Totally. It’s not like Nichols has been lighting it up lately. Streveler can fling the football and he’s definitely got better wheels than Nichols (so does a sloth), so allowing him rot on the sideline is non-productive. Also dopey. But that’s O’Shea—a sometimes very dopey coach.

O’Shea says the whole Boo Bombers thing re his QB was “driven by the media,” as if that’s a bad thing. “There’s comments made and it’s probably easy to make news out of that,” he says. Ya think, Mikey? That’s kind of how the news thing works. People in prominent positions, like Nichols, do and say things. News snoops record and report it. The rabble talks about it. And they’ll continue to talk about Winnipeg FC quarterbacking in the leadup to the Labor Day weekend joust vs. the Saskatchewan Roughriders. That’s the main narrative.

In Winnipeg, a game between the Roughriders and Bombers is called the Banjo Bowl. In Saskatchewan, a game between the Riders and Bombers is called “another win.”

Coordinator Richie Hall’s defence has surrendered 1,016 yards of real estate in the past two games. That’s the equivalent of nine football fields. It’s a $25 cab ride. Just spitballing here, but Richie might want to try something different when the Bombers arrive in Regina.

Interesting that no one at TSN has noticed how truly unremarkable Davis Sanchez is as a gab guy on the CFL panel. The former defensive back offers nothing but poorly delivered, fractured thoughts, and he allowed Stegall to bully him into silence on Saturday.

Meet Brooke Henderson, my new favorite athlete. It’s still August, but with her victory in the Canadian Open golf tournament, distaff division, the delightful young woman from Smiths Falls, Ont., has ended any discussion about this country’s athlete of the year. No one can touch her. And I find myself wondering how many little girls will want to pick up a golf club now that Brooke has won our national championship. What she did Sunday was beautiful and inspiring.

Speaking of inspirational women, there’s something special going on in the Republic of Tranna, where the Maple Leafs added three females to their payroll—Haley Wickenheiser, assistant director of player development; Noelle Needham, amateur scout; and Dr. Meg Popovic, director of athlete well-being and performance. I don’t know if that gets them any closer to a Stanley Cup parade, but you have to know that Humpty Harold Ballard is spinning like a lathe in his grave.

I note that the Paris fashion police have outlawed Serena Williams’ black catsuit at the French Open. So here’s my question: Would French Tennis Federation president Bernard Giudicelli and cronies have banned the form-fitting catsuit if glam gal Maria Sharapova had arrived at Roland Garros wearing one? Of course not. It would have taken the grounds crew the entire French fortnight to mop up their drool.

If pro golfers had to tote their own bags, I think Brooks Koepka would win every tournament. The guy is a beast.

It’s Aug. 27, Jets Nation: Do you know where Josh Morrissey is?

I suppose he might be in a gym, refining his fettle for the rigors of an advancing hockey crusade. Or he might be on the first tee somewhere in the urban forestry of Winnipeg. Or he might be at his favorite fishing hole on one of Manitoba’s 100,000-plus large puddles, impaling a big, fat, juicy, wiggly worm on a hook.

Bait? Did I mention bait? Well, yes I did, and Morrissey has yet to take it.

Whatever temptation Puck Pontiff Mark Chipman and his main point man, general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff, have dangled in front of their young defender has been ineffective. They’d have more success getting a rainbow trout to swallow a football. Thus Morrissey remains an unsigned chattel of les Jets, less than a month in advance of their annual gathering of National Hockey League incumbents and wannabes.

And speculators speculate.

Oh, yes, the blah, blah, blah machine has been operating at full throttle—must be contentious negotiations; Morrissey must be demanding too much term and money; les Jets must be offering too little, in both term and compensation; Morrissey’s another Jacob Trouba and won’t report to training camp; could be that some prickliness has developed between the two sides.

“No, not at all. None whatsoever,” Morrissey informed Jason Bell of the Winnipeg Free Press last week. “At the end of the day, everything’s been going great.

“Everyone’s confident (a fresh contract) will be handled and done, definitely in time for the season. I think things have really started to progress. For me, I love being here, I love playing here. You look at the playoff run last year that we had and just the support from the fans, I love being a Winnipeg Jet.”

I’ve never met Josh Morrissey. Probably never will. So I have no cause to doubt him. When he says he’ll be part of the group that commences another Stanley Cup crusade next month, I don’t think his pants are on fire or his nose is longer than a Winnipeg winter. I expect it’ll be business as usual, with Morrissey working in tandem with Trouba on les Jets back line.

Then we all can move on to a fresh narrative. Like what kind of coin it will take to keep captain Blake Wheeler on board. That ought to hold our attention for the next 10 months.

Morrissey’s hyper-positive comments to Bell stand in stark contrast to the scribblings of Freep sports columnist Paul Wiecek. Exactly two weeks earlier, the Drab Slab’s resident ray of sunshine (not!) suggested there was something foul afoot, advising us that the young defenceman’s “darker side is on display this summer” and “it’s no accident we’ve reached this point.” It was, of course, a sourceless serving of codswallop that placed responsibility for any contract obstruction on Morrissey’s doorstep. Like, Chipman and/or Cheveldayoff could never be the hangup. It has to be the worker. As if. Again, that essay is yet another example of why jocks don’t trust jock journos.

A social gathering at The Little Hockey House On The Prairie in Winnipeg.

And, finally, Wiecek also took out another of his favorite chew toys last week—rich people. Apparently, there’s a gap between the wealthy and poor among us. Who knew? That’s like telling me there’s some empty space between Donald Trump’s ears. But here’s where Wiecek lost me: He dismissed the social worth of athletes and sports, like a horse’s tail swishing away a barn fly.

“Look, rich people are allowed to spend their money any way they want,” he writes. “If you can find someone dumb enough to give you millions of dollars a year just because you can shoot a frozen disc into a six-by-four foot net, that buys a lot of freedom. I wish I had a skill that was in high demand despite serving no useful social purpose.”

Say what? No useful social purpose? I suppose that’s why city, provincial, state and national governments devote so much money to the construction and upkeep of sports facilities. Because they serve “no social purpose.”

Sorry, but nowhere in our society does the rabble assemble in greater numbers and on a more frequent basis than at sporting events. They are the ultimate social gatherings, the notable exceptions being rock concerts and religious revivals when Billy Graham was still alive to preach the word.

The notion that skilled athletes serve “no useful social purpose” is totally daft.

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