Let’s talk about Blah, Blah, Blah Day and Chevy-speak…Hellebuyck’s best…the Leafs high-priced screw-ups…Transcona Blackie’s boy in The Show…and other things on my mind

Chevy

You call it Garbage Bag Day. I call it Blah, Blah, Blah Day.

Either way, I’m guessing the blah, blah, blah portion of last Thursday was more of a chore than a cheery exercise for the Winnipeg Jets, since they were also busy licking fresh wounds in the wake of another one-and-done ouster from the Stanley Cup tournament.

But let’s keep something in mind as we sift through the sound bites: Only one National Hockey League outfit can have an upbeat Blah, Blah, Blah Day.

The Jets have never been that team.

Thus, in their natters with local news snoops post-ouster, long faces and chatter of misgivings were as commonplace as white clothing had been at the Little Hockey House On The Prairie less than 48 hours earlier, when the Colorado Avalanche doused the locals’ Cup-hoisting aspirations with a 6-3 victory and a 4-1, first-round series success.

Central to the verbal to-and-fro was the man who generally manages the Jets, Kevin Cheveldayoff, who, among other things, is known for his inclination toward saying a mouthful without actually saying anything.

True to form, the GM delivered a tick or two more than 32 minutes of blah, blah, blah on Thursday and, as usual, much of it required translation.

But fear not. We’re here to decode his Chevy-speak. We’ll tell you not just what he said, but what he really said about another crusade gone wrong and what he plans to do to make it right.

Issue: The Jets defensive game being exposed as fraudulent vs. the Avalanche.

What Chevy said: “The other team has got, you know, talented players. Us sitting here saying it was all about us would be a disservice to the fact, you know, what kind of great players, great team and well coached and well managed in the organization that we matched up against.”

What Chevy really said: “Why can’t I have nice, shiny toys like Nate MacKinnon, Cale Makar, Mikko Rantanen and Valeri Nichushkin?”

Issue: His players navel gazing after coming up short yet again.

What Chevy said: “I don’t know that I had that same level of self-reflection in the conversations that we had with the players last year.”

What Chevy really said: “Well, duh. I don’t have to remind you that a year ago our coach Rick Bowness bruised the players egos after Vegas handed us our butts in five games, so the players stomped their feet and held their breath and threw Bones under the bus during their exit interviews. It was sourpuss central. Nice to see they’re seeing themselves, not Bones, in the mirror this year.”

Issue: An apparent lack of playoff intensity.

What Chevy said: “Well, I think…you know, you stand up here and you’re asked to, um, articulate things and put things into words or put things into labels, um, and everyone then interprets what those labels mean to them. Um, labels may not necessarily mean the same thing to a player.”

What Chevy really said: “Label me a flop. I haven’t built a playoff-ready team.”

Issue: The Jets’ habit of bowing out of the playoffs with little muss, little fuss.

What Chevy said: “Emotions right now, you know again, maybe we’re stupid to do, you know, exits 48 hours after, you know, something, you know, this hard because, um, you know again, sometimes, you know, people say things and they don’t mean it or sometimes they mean things but don’t say it. But, again, that’s why there’s open dialogue here with our group.”

What Chevy really said: “Um, you know, again, I see the same trend that you guys see, only I have to pretend I don’t see it so I don’t have to say something I don’t mean.”

Issue: The reputation of the Jets organization.

What Chevy said: “We want to, certainly, be a sense of pride for the city of Winnipeg, um, you know, for all our fans. Um, it’s important. Like, it’s um, this city is unique. Um, obviously it’s one of the smallest markets in the National Hockey League. But, um, I kind of liken it to, you know, and we’ve all kind of done it when you’re a kid or something, you drop a pebble, you know, into the water and sometimes, you know, when you’ve got a big body of water you drop the pebble in and there’s waves and it just kind of goes off. Well, in our small market like that, you drop a pebble into the water, there’s waves, and it keeps coming back, ’cause that’s the emotions. These people, you know, these fans, they’re emotional, they care, and that’s…standing here today is probably the hardest thing, honestly. Like, you can talk to the players, I feel for them, but, you know again…the whiteout just never ceases to amaze you. And, you know, when you got people saying, ‘Couldn’t put my finger on a map and tell you where Winnipeg is, but man that building was…that was off the hook.’ It says a lot about our, you know, fan base and I’m gonna do my damndest to try to keep pushing it.”

What Chevy really said: “The wave is the water and the water is the wave. And I really hope some elite free agents find us on a map this summer, Grasshopper.”

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the greatest goaltender of them all? Well, let’s ask Connor Hellebuyck, who was neither great nor ghastly vs. Colorado. “You’re probably not gonna believe when I say I was probably playing the best hockey of my career, but it’s truly how I was feeling,” the Jets keeper said, with a straight face. I’m guessing heads were scratched and jaws hit the floor when he delivered that “say-what?” sound bite, and I swear I heard a gasp. I mean, 24 goals in five appearances, a 5.23 goals-against average, an .870 save percentage? Come on, man. Hey, Hellebuyck isn’t the reason Winnipeg HC coughed up a hair ball, because they were underwhelming on every inch of the freeze, and that includes the blue paint. But that was Hellebuyck’s best work like Paul McCartney’s best work has been post-Beatles’ breakup.

I don’t think self-reflection is Hellebuyck’s strength. For example, I direct your attention to Blah, Blah, Blah Day in 2018, scant hours after he had been out-goalied by Marc-Andre Fleury in the Western Conference final vs. Vegas Golden Knights. “I like my game,” Hellebuyck said, also with a straight face. “I like it a lot more (than Fleury’s). I think it’s bad luck. The stars are aligning for them. Maybe it was just the luck. They got some lucky bounces on me. And that’s the truth.” Oy.

Tip of the bonnet to Rick Bowness, one of three finalists as best bench boss in the NHL. Question is, would the Jack Adams Award be a parting gift for Bones? The guy’s been in hockey longer than the Zamboni, so maybe he’s tired of trying to push square pegs into round holes and would like to spend more time with his bride, Judy. My guess? The Jets will ask him back for a third crusade, but he’ll decline and spend more time with Judy.

On the subject of bench puppeteers, Jon Cooper really stepped in it last week when he suggested the NHL “put skirts” on goaltenders who are too delicate for the rigors of playoff hockey. Yup, that’s sexist. Acknowledging his verbal oops, the Tampa Bay Lightning coach and papa of twin daughters was quick to deliver a mea culpa, saying his remark was “inappropriate” and “wrong. I had to go explain myself to my girls. I sincerely apologize to all I offended. It’s pained me more than the actual series loss itself.” Cooper seems like one of the genuinely good guys in the game, so one hesitates to throw bricks at him, especially after an apology that rings heartfelt rather than the recitation of something from a team PR flack. Still, it’s disheartening to be reminded that women as lesser-thans remains one of the two main go-to put-downs in men’s hockey. It really shouldn’t be a 21st-century talking point.

Let me see if I’ve got this straight: The Vancouver Canucks were one hour away from puck-drop in Game 6 of their do-si-do with the Nashville Predators on Friday night, yet the first 13 minutes on the early edition of TSN SportsCentre was devoted to the Toronto Maple Leafs, who didn’t suit up for another 24 hours! Good gawd. The least they can do is try to pretend there are NHL teams in the colonies.

Note to TSN mucky-mucks: I realize it’s black-armband season for you now that your beloved Maple Leafs have been deep-sixed by the Boston Bruins, but be advised the Canucks and Edmonton Oilers meet in Round 2 of the Stanley Cup tournament. If you aren’t too busy showing us highlights of Mitch Marner and Auston Matthews on the golf course, would it be too much of a bother for you to squeeze in a mention or two of the only Canadian teams still standing?

Who will be the first news snoop in the Republic of Tranna to bellyache about puck-drop in the E-Town-Vancity series being past their beddy-bye time? My guess: Steve Simmons of Postmedia.

Did you get a gander of Marner on David Pastrnak’s OT goal that ended the Leafs season on Saturday night? He moved with all the urgency of a condemned man heading to the gallows. Old farts playing shuffleboard on a cruise ship are more spry. The same can be said of Toronto rearguard Morgan Rielly, who appeared to be skating in quicksand and waved at Pastrnak like he was seeing a friend off at the bus depot. But I guess that’s what $10.903 million and $7.5 million buys you these days.

Actually, if we peek into the pay envelopes of all 12 players on the freeze when Pastrnak scored to provide the Bruins with a 2-1 W over les Leafs in Game 7 of their opening-round set, we find that the Toronto six had contracts worth $46,790,366 million compared to $32,075,000 for the Boston six. Here’s the breakdown:
Leafs
John Tavares $11 million
Mitch Marner $10.903 million
Morgan Rielly $7.5 million
Nylander $6,962,366 ($11.5 next season)
Ilya Samsonov $3.55 million
Ilya Lyubushkin $687,500

Bruins
David Pastrnak $11.25 million
Hampus Lindholm $6.5 million
Pavel Zacha $4.75 million
Brandon Carlo $4.1 million
Jeremy Swayman $3.475 million
Morgan Geekie $2 million

Just wondering: Will Leafs GM Brad Treliving explain to us one more time why he felt obliged to recruit Ryan Reaves? Wasn’t his snark supposed to be a difference-maker in the playoffs? Yup. Yet while the Leafs were losing a Game 7 to the Bruins once again, Reaves was munching on popcorn. Go figure.

Saw these headlines on consecutive days on the Toronto Star website last week:
“The curtain is coming down on another disappearing act by the Maple Leafs offence.”
Then…
“Why all is not lost for the Maple Leafs against the Bruins (seriously).”
The accompanying columns were written by the same scribe, Dave Feschuk, but it’s only fair to point out that writers write and copy editors provide headlines that don’t always match the copy they’re editing.
Whatever the case, it’s the latest example of Chicken Little Syndrome and, as I’ve written, nobody does it better than the rabble in the Republic of Tranna.

Things that make me go hmmm, Vol. 1,177: Rick Tocchet is a finalist for NHL coach-of-the-year. Quinn Hughes is a finalist for top rearguard. Elias Pettersson is a finalist for the Lady Byng Trophy. All three have Vancouver postal codes. Hmmm. Does that mean news snoops on The Other Side Of The Rocks will finally shut the hell up about an eastern bias in awards voting?

Interesting question from Murat Ates of The Athletic on X: “Who is your favorite PWHL writer?” You mean there’s such as thing as favorite sports scribes? Who knew?

I could be wrong, but I seem to recall a time when the Los Angeles Lakers were one of the National Basketball Association’s class organizations. Now they seem to dispose of coaches the way Donald Trump goes through lawyers. Darvin Ham is the latest to leave the building, and it’s fair to wonder if anyone can make LeBron James happy.

Legal mouthpieces for Chad Kelly and the Toronto Argos have filed paperwork claiming he’s innocent of all wrong-doing. He did not—repeat, did not!— sexually harass or otherwise mistreat a female conditioning coach. In other news, the Argos QB also did not invade a strangers’ home, he did not start a bar brawl, he did not start a brawl at a high school football game, he was not kicked out of college, he did not punch out a videographer. Why, I suspect the Catholic church won’t wait until Chad’s ashes are in an urn before canonizing him. He’s already achieved sainthood.

And, finally, so nice to see old friend Rod Black’s kid Tyler make his Major League Baseball debut with Milwaukee Brewers last week, and also to see and hear Blackie call young Tyler’s second base knock in a 2-for-4 baptism. “I think we’re gonna start drinking heavily,” the damp-eyed Transcona Rod joked on the Bally Sports broadcast after Tyler had stroked the ball into right-centrefield. Fabulous stuff.

Let’s talk about shaking fists and yelling at clouds…Flames get a leg up on Jets and Rink Rat Scheifele…Elliotte Friedman’s chinny, chin, chin…Eric Trump, NHL ally…the Diversity Alliance has no diversity…and other things on my mind

Another Sunday morning smorgas-bored…and, no, I didn’t watch the Jets-Flames skirmish Saturday night, because that’s past my bedtime…

Online subscribers to the Drab Slab (guilty, yer honor) receive morning briefings from sports editor Steve Lyons, who advises us what we should be reading and what he’s been reading.

It’s a nice touch. Really. It is.

Steve Lyons

It can also be revealing, which was the case on Friday when Lyons recounted a telephone tete-a-tete with the junior man in his stable of scribes, Taylor Allen. The bossman directed young Taylor’s attention southwest to Carman, where the best senior golfers in Manitoba had been swinging the sticks. His mission: “Spin a yarn” on champions Rhonda Orr and Bruce North.

“I love doing these golf stories,” responded Taylor, “but I was just wondering, does anyone care about them?”

Well, this is going to come across as one of those cranky-old-fool-shakes-fist-and-shouts-at-clouds posts, but back in the day we never would have asked such a question, and I don’t say that to pooh-pooh young Taylor. He’s excused his naivité. After all, what would he know of back in the day?

So let me shake my tiny fist and tell you what it was like.

We covered golf (shakes fist). Lordy, did we cover golf. We covered it like it was equal parts papal election and JFK assassination. We wouldn’t merely do a folo on the Manitoba Seniors Championships two days after the last putt had dropped (shakes fist again). We’d drive down Hwy. 3 and not stop until we were at the Carman Golf & Curling Club for the first round. We’d also be there when the trinkets were distributed and the winners had retired to the 19th hole (stops shaking fist long enough to take a swallow of beer).

We’d do it because there’d be hell to pay if we ignored local golf. People cared. A lot (shakes fist).

Usually it was Steady Eddie Dearden on the beat for us at the Winnipeg Tribune, and either Bags Bagley or Knobby Beck for the Winnipeg Free Press, but all of us on staff were dispatched to the links for a variety of tournaments, and it wasn’t uncommon to find our copy on the sports front the next day.

Steady Eddie Dearden

I think we even covered something called the Toymakers Tournament (shakes fist, shakes head), but memory sometimes betrays me. The Toymakers might have been a curling thing.

Whatever the case, it wasn’t just golf that received the royal treatment. It was all local sports.

To jog my grey matter, I called up the final two editions of the Trib the other day, and here’s the local content in the sports section:

Aug. 26, 1980—Winnipeg Jets, Winnipeg Blue Bombers, lacrosse, boxing, a father-and-son golf tourney, senior baseball, senior fastball, Assiniboia Downs, soccer, track and field, field hockey, motor sports, curling, senior hockey, orienteering (shakes head again).

Aug. 27, 1980—Bombers, junior hockey, fastball, soccer, motor sports, ladies golf, Assiniboia downs, baseball, basketball.

I should point out that those two editions included dispatches out of Saskatoon from the talented and delightful Lester (Ronny) Lazaruk, on assignment at the Canadian Senior Men’s Fastball Championships. Yes, we actually sent Ronny to Toontown to tell readers all about our Winnipeg Colonels and their ace hurler, a long, tall drink of water named Pallister, Brian Pallister. Name probably sounds familiar. As for Ronny, he liked it so much that he’s still there.

Anyway, readers were conditioned to opening either paper to find coverage of local sports of all stripes. We tossed a blanket over the community (shakes fist). We got to know the movers and shakers at the grassroots level, not just at the top of the food chain, and they often would thank us for coming out to their event. Imagine that.

Today, the Winnipeg Sun functions on the whims and dictates of the faceless, unknowing taskmasters at Postmedia, which is most unfortunate. If it ain’t named Jets, Bombers, Goldeyes or FC, they ain’t interested. The Drab Slab does a much, much better job, but coverage is still scant in comparison to back in the day. Today, for example, other than the Jets there isn’t a single local sports story in a five-page section. Not good.

I suppose there’s hope, though. I mean, young Taylor Allen told Freep bossman Steve Lyons that he enjoys covering local golf, and I say that warrants a fist bump rather than a fist shake.

It’s incredible, really, that Bruce North is still atop the leaderboard in Manitoba golf, albeit in a different age category. I recall editing Steady Eddie Dearden’s copy about Bruce winning this tournament or that tournament as a sprig in the 1970s, so good on Bruce.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve viewed numerous replays of the Rink Rat Scheifele-Matthew Tkachuk incident on Saturday night—from various angles and at different speeds—and I failed to see anything sinister. No question that Tkachuk’s right skate clipped the back of Scheifele’s left leg, but nothing I saw suggested it was a deliberate kick with intent to cripple. Meaning Winnipeg Jets head coach Paul Maurice is off his nut or, most likely, he’s playing mind games when he accuses the Calgary Flames forward of a deliberate “filthy, dirty kick.” Tkachuk, to be sure, is among the National Hockey League’s high-ranking irritants and the Jets will be required to rein him in if they’re to survive their best-of-five Stanley Cup qualifying skirmish, but I don’t believe there’s any Russian blood in him. The Russkies kicked. Good American boys don’t.

I had the Jets pegged to take out the Flames pronto. I actually thought they’d get out the brooms. Now, after Saturday’s 4-1 loss, I can’t see them winning three of the next four if the Rink Rat’s wonky left limb puts him in the infirmary for the duration. I know, I know. Winnipeg HC overcame other inconveniences during the crusade that was paused in March due to COVID-19, but losing your No. 1 centre is more than a speed bump.

Elliotte Friedman

There was much talk about the lengthy absence of David Pastrnak from Boston Bruins’ training camp, but he returned to the NHL club last week. Apparently they found him in Elliotte Friedman’s beard.

Friedman’s epic chin whiskers are so thick and unruly that O.J. plans to make them his next stop in the search for the real killers.

You know you’re on Planet Puckhead when the Twitterverse is abuzz about Friedman’s foliage and also explodes into a loud howl over which man is the bigger cad, Don Cherry or Ron MacLean. Both Grapes and Sideshow Ron were trending mid-week, and I’d call it a debate over who does and doesn’t belong on Hockey Night in Canada, except much of it was your typically toxic Twitter trolling. In other words, name-calling. Let me sum up the rabble’s to-and-fro in one sentence: Cherry is a zenophobic bigot and one woman wants to punch MacLean in the face. For the record, I’m fully against bigotry and the punching of faces, but I’m not an anti-beardite.

Donald Trump’s boy Eric tweeted his thanks to NHL players for standing during the playing of the Star-Spangled Banner when they returned to the ice last week, but Hockey Diversity Alliance co-founder Akim Aliu was having none of it. “Yo, real talk Eric Trump, you’re the last guy the NHL and the hockey world want support from. It’s not real patriotism if you’re using it to divide us,” he responded on Twitter. Hmmm. Once upon a time, not so long ago, it was news when an athlete or coach took a knee during the national anthem. Now it’s news when they stand.

Based on numerous Twitter comments, Americans actually believe it’s near impossible to take a knee while attired in full hockey kit. Are they really that dense? Little kids do it, for gawd’s sake.

I was in a local watering hole Saturday afternoon and the grand total of two people, one wearing an Edmonton Oilers jersey and both clutching Oilers face masks, came in specifically to watch their E-Town hockey heroes play the Chicago Blackhawks. They both departed after the Chitowners took a 3-1 lead. Meanwhile, there was considerable bustle (but no TV) on the patio. So much for the notion that people will go inside, and stay, to watch shinny on a warm, sunny weekend afternoon during the drowsiness of August.

Is it permissible to question the Hockey Diversity Alliance, or is that taboo? I mean, the HDA roll call is comprised of nine hockey players, all of them men of color. There are no Indigenous hockey players. There are no female hockey players. There are no gay hockey players. Which tells me it’s actually the Hockey Anti-Racism Alliance. And that’s a commendable cause. Racism is a pox. But so, too, is misogyny. Ditto sexism. And homophobia/transphobia. Do we not want to blot out all those blights? I think yes. So this would be my question for Evander Kane and the aforementioned Aliu: If it’s truly about diversity, why is there zero diversity in your diversity group?

If anyone has a clue what’s going on in the Canadian Football League these days, please dial 1-800-4-A-ROUGE immediately and ask for Commish Randy Ambrosie. He’d like to know, too.

I’m still not sold on Winnipeg serving as a hub bubble for a potential three-down season, because it would mean an invasion of Yankee Doodle Footballers numbering in the hundreds. Seriously. They want to welcome all those large lads from COVID Country? I’m hard pressed to think of a worst-case scenario, except maybe hiring Harvey Weinstein to do odd jobs in a sorority house.

If the Miami Marlins lose another player to a positive COVID-19 test, is there any truth to the rumor that Dr. Anthony Fauci automatically moves into the starting rotation?

If enough top players take a pass on the U.S. Open tennis tournament, will Serena Williams win by default and will it count in her career Grand Slam total? That might be the only way the former neighborhood bully can still beat the top women.

I always say if there’s something you do better than all others, do it. So Megan Rapinoe, who’s been flapping her gums ever since the Yankee Doodle Damsels lapped the field at the 2019 women’s World Cup of soccer in France, now has a talk show to call her own on HBO—Seeing America with Megan Rapinoe. If Megan sees the same America as a lot of us looking in from the outside, she should really have something to talk about in November.

Sarah McLellan

And, finally, couldn’t resist posting this pic of Sarah McLellan, hockey scribe for the StarTribune in Minneapolis. That’s Sarah in Edmonton after completing her required quarantine before covering the Minnesota Wild-Vancouver Canucks playoff joust. Take special notice of Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s vast mountain vista in the background. It’s truly spectacular. Oh, wait. There are no mountains in E-Town. They only exist in Kenney’s propaganda machine.

Let’s talk about little green men in River City…greybeard boxing…baseball orphans shuffle off to Buffalo…Jeremy Roenick’s ungay legal gambit…a 1964 prophecy…jock journos whinge and whinge…the Big M was “unfit to practice”…and many other things on my mind

Another Sunday morning smorgas-bored…and today’s post is dedicated to my lovely friend Beverley, who died earlier this month and always appreciated my quirky sense of humor…

According to those who like to track the whereabouts of little green men, UFO sightings were up in Manitoba last year, with folks in Winnipeg observing the third most in the entire country.

Says local Ufology researcher Chris Rutkowski: “People are seeing things for the first time that they may not have noticed before.”

Ya, it’s called the Grey Cup.

Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister dug into his slush fund and came up with $2.5 million in support of Good Ol’ Hometown as the Canadian Football League’s official hub city should there be a 2020 season. Hmmm. That ought to take care of Chris Walby’s bar tab, but it won’t leave much for COVID-19 testing.

Greybeard Mike Tyson

Greybeard boxers Mike Tyson and Roy Jones Jr. have signed to go dukes up sometime in September, and they’ve agreed to wear head protection. So let’s see if I’ve got this straight: Two fiftysomething guys with a combined 133 fights behind them think it’s a swell idea to exchange punches for another eight rounds. Seems to me it’s a little too late to be thinking about head protection.

So, the orphaned Tranna Blue Jays have finally found a home for their 2020 Major League Baseball crusade. They had hoped to play in the Republic of Tranna, of course, but when that notion was nixed by Trudeau the Younger, the Tranna Nine sought Pittsburgh as a playground, then Baltimore, before landing in Buffalo. That’s kind of like trying to book John Lennon or Paul McCartney or George Harrison to play your birthday gig, but settling for Ringo.

Big league ball players are kneeling during the Star Spangled Banner. Hoops stars are kneeling. Fitba’s best are kneeling. NFL players have vowed to kneel. I feel a Donald Trump Twitter rant coming down in 3, 2, 1.

Seriously. Why are they even playing the national anthem at fan-free sporting events? Come to think of it, why do they play it when patrons are in the pews?

Dr. Fauci—D’oh!

Nice ceremonial first pitch by America’s favorite doc, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the other night at the Washington Nationals-New York Yankees opener in DC. Flame-Thrower Fauci he ain’t. The ball never made it halfway to home plate and dribbled into foul territory on the first base side of the field. It was the worst. You know, like Donald Trump’s COVID strategy.

Former NBC gab guy Jeremy Roenick is suing the Peacock Network for wrongful dismissal, claiming his lewd comments about lusting after a co-worker’s “ass and boobs” and having sex with a male co-worker had nothing to do with his ouster. He was punted because he’s an ungay guy, don’t you know. It’s an interesting gambit. I don’t know if Roenick’s “I’m a straight man” case will ever get to court, but I have a pretty good idea what Judge Judy would tell him to do with it.

Roenick also claims his removal was due, in part, to his support of Donald Trump. Again, more about an ass and a boob.

Fanless, TV-only sports has arrived, which makes the following comment eerily prophetic: “I’m fully prepared to hear not more than 10 years from now that a hockey game, for instance, will be played behind the locked doors of an arena. The only people in the place will be the players, two cameramen, a floor director, a script assistant, a sound technician, a play-by-play man, a color man and two guards on the door. The guards will have a simple duty. They’ll intercept loiterers and old-fashioned hockey fans and put them to flight. The vagrants will be advised they have exactly 15 minutes to get to the nearest television set.” That, girls and boys, is a passage from a column written by the great Jack Matheson for the Winnipeg Tribune on Nov. 14, 1964. Today it’s so very real.

Gary Bettman

Kevin McGran has a gripe. The Toronto Star shinny scribe is miffed because Commish Gary Bettman has ruled mainstream news snoops persona non grata in the National Hockey League’s two playoff hub bubbles, Edmonton and the Republic of Tranna. Only in-house scribes need apply. In a lengthy grumble, McGran grouses that there will be “no colour from inside the room.” Right, we’re all going to miss those emotional renderings from players reminding each other to “keep our feet moving.” McGran closes with this: “Don’t get me wrong. This access isn’t about us. It’s about you. The reader. We do this for our readers. We want to do it the best we can, and now the NHL is not letting. They are shortchanging you, the fans.” If McGran listens closely enough, he’ll hear the sound of readers not giving a damn.

Some of us saw this day coming quite some time ago, it’s just that the COVID-19 pandemic hastened its arrival. This is what I wrote in January 2017: “Pro sports franchises will find fresh ways to increase the disconnect between press row and their inner sanctums, thus making it more difficult for news scavengers to perform their duties. What must newspapers do to combat this? Well, bitching won’t help. They can caterwaul about lack of access as much as Winnipeg Jets coach Paul Maurice whinges about the National Hockey League schedule, but that doesn’t solve anything. They have to be innovative. Newspapers must stop choking on their indignation and feeling sorry for themselves. It isn’t up to pro sports franchises to revert to the old ways of doing business, it’s up to the newspapers to discover new and better ways of doing business.” So there.

It’s rather ironic, don’t you think, that news snoops have their boxers in a bunch because the NHL will control the message during its Stanley Cup runoff when, in fact, no enterprise this side of Vlad (The Bad) Putin controls the message more than media?

The Big M

I am an unfamous person, therefore there is no interest in my health chart.

If I catch the sniffles or develop a mild case of fanny fungus, it’s my business. If my kidneys go kaput, you could squeeze the number of people who’d actually give a damn into a phone booth, and there’d still be enough room for a couple of circus clowns.

But pro athletes are not unfamous. Well, okay, some are. But, in general, the faithful like to know everything about their sports heroes, from their fave brand of toothpaste to whether or not they hoarded toilet paper at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The rabble is keen on knowing about owies, too, especially if it impacts their fantasy leagues or office pools. But usually they’re satisfied to learn how long Sidney Crosby or David Pastrnak will be on the shelf.

Jock journos, meanwhile, demand to know the details, as if it’s a birthright.

Crosby and Pastrnak are “unfit to practice?” Sports scribes demand to know if it’s cancer, a canker sore or COVID-19. Except the NHL is shy on health specifics these days, a policy that continues to put so many knickers into so many knots. Numerous news snoops like Steve Simmons of Postmedia Tranna and Mad Mike McIntyre of the Drab Slab have flailed at Commish Bettman for his don’t-ask, don’t-tell directive on absenteeism during the attempted reboot of the paused 2020 crusade. Basically, they’d like him to take his hush-hush dictate and shove it where you won’t find any daylight.

The thing is, the NHL and its member clubs are under no obligation to make jock journos, or the rabble, privy to the personal health information of workers. It’s no different today than in the 1960s, when Frank Mahovlich went from the hockey rink to the hospital.

The Big M

The Big M’s disappearance from the Toronto Maple Leafs’ lineup on Nov. 12, 1964, was sudden and mysterious. Officially, he was in sick bay for “constant fatigue,” which, in today’s parlance, translates to “unfit to practice.”

“If you want any information on my condition you will have to talk to Dr. Smythe,” he told news snoops.

So that’s what they did, only to discover that Dr. Hugh Smythe was no more forthcoming when prodded by the pen-and-paper pack.

“Without discussing the diagnosis, I can say there’ll be no embarrassment to Mr. Mahovlich or myself when the nature of it is known,” he explained.

The specifics of what ailed Mahovlich remained shrouded in secrecy by the time he returned to the fray on Dec. 9, yet somehow the media mob managed to file their daily copy. If privy to the particulars, they kept it on the QT.

Similarly, in the small hours of the morning on Nov. 2, 1967, the Big M walked off a sleeper car at Union Station in the Republic of Tranna and went directly to hospital, while his teammates departed for Detroit.

“I realize this is a difficult thing to request, but the less said by the press, radio and TV people about the reason he is in hospital, the better it would be for Frank,” Dr. Smythe informed news snoops.

Turns out Mahovlich had suffered a nervous breakdown, and the boys on the beat were informed that he might be hors de combat for two weeks, two months or for the duration of the season. He was “unfit to practice.” Case closed. Nothing more to see.

Fast forward to the present, and we have had many mysterious disappearances. Or mysterious no-shows. All explained as “unfit to practice.”

Well, that’s all anyone need know until such time as the athlete and/or team choose to come clean. What part of that do news snoops not understand?

Commish Randy

Simmons’ pout on the NHL’s posture re players deemed “unfit to practice” was truly silly, and I had to laugh at Mad Mike’s take. In a 1,000-word whinge, he suggests that the cone of silence is ill-conceived because it leads to “speculation.” Oh, the horror! Stop the presses! Sports scribes forced to speculate! That, my friends, is a wholly bogus take. What does Mad Mike think he and the rest of them have been doing for the past four months? They’ve speculated about hub cities. They’ve speculated about playoff formats. They’ve speculated about life in a bubble. They’ve speculated about a Canadian Football League season. They’ve speculated about Trudeau the Younger tossing CFL Commish Randy Ambrosie some spare change. They’ve speculated about a roost for the orphaned Blue Jays. They’ve speculated about Donald Trump’s head exploding if one more athlete takes a knee. Sports is, if nothing else, speculation, and so is sports scribbling. It’s a large, and fun, part of the gig. Get a grip, man.

Geez, that last item included my third mention of Donald Trump this morning. This makes it four. I promise that the remainder of this post will be a Trump-free (five) zone.

To all the sports scribes who insist there’s no stigma attached to a positive COVID-19 test, tell that to Hutterites in Manitoba.

Say, those Seattle Kraken unis are spiffy. Love the logo, love the design, love the colors, love the name. Now we wait for some self-interest group like PETA to bellyache about cruelty to sea monsters and demand a name change.

On the subject of fashion, who’s responsible for dressing the women on Sportsnet Central, which returned to air last week? I swear, Carly Agro looked like a giant, upholstered chocolate bar, while Martine Gaillard and Danielle Michaud wore outfits that someone must have dug out of the freebe box at a thrift store. Either that or they’ve hired Don Cherry’s former tailor.

Doc Holliday

A tip of the bonnet to Scott Oake of Hockey Night in Canada and old friend and colleague Bob (Doc) Holliday. Scotty’s one of the truly good guys among jock journos, so it’s no surprise that he’s included in this year’s inductees to the Order of Manitoba, while Doc, one of my all-time favorite people, has had a street in St. Vital named in his honor—Bob Holliday Way. I’m not sure where you’d find Bob Holliday Way in St. Vital, but it’s probably the first stop on a Streetcar Named Retire, just past the Red Top Drive-In.

Both Bob and Scotty, by the way, are also members of the Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame, so their trophy rooms are getting cluttered.

I once dreamed of being in the MHHofF, but my dad ran off with my hockey equipment one day and I never played another game.

Nice to see the Winnipeg Sun back to publishing on Mondays, and I must say that the Winnipeg Free Press package on Saturdays is first rate. I’m not just talking about sports in the Drab Slab. It’s the entire Saturday sheet, from front to back. Terrific stuff.

Alyssa Nakken

Kudos to Alyssa Nakken, who became the first female to coach on-field in a Major League Baseball game. Alyssa worked first base for the San Francisco Giants v. the Oakland A’s last week, and I think that’s fantastic.

Scott Billeck of the Winnipeg Sun is convinced that Connor Hellebuyck was snubbed in Hart Trophy balloting for the NHL’s most valuable performer. Scotty submits that being a goaltender worked against the Winnipeg Jets keeper, opining, “if your name isn’t Dominik Hasek, it’s not an easy code to crack.” Wrong. Carey Price cracked the code in 2015.

And, finally, as we approach the back end of July and I look out my window to gaze upon the Olympic Mountains in the United States, I note that there’s still snow on the peaks. What’s up with that? Is it something I should be telling Greta Thunberg about?

About the myth of (un)fairness in sports…no No. 1 for the Oilers (yay!)…licking the Leafs…Nick Kypreos fanning flames of a family feud in The ROT…sloth-like defencemen…it’s a “fine” mess you’ve gotten the Leafs into, Jake Gardiner…Damien Cox and Steve Simmons: separated at birth……Keith Gretzky no draft-day genius…hopping on the Canada’s (Only) Team bandwagon…and other things on my mind

I cannot survive in a 140- or 280-character world, so here are more tweets that grew up to be too big for Twitter…

There’s been considerable teeth gnashing, hand wringing and chin wagging devoted to the flawed National Hockey League playoff schematic in the past week, all of it an echo of the squawking we heard during the spring runoff a year ago.

The Tranna Maple Leafs and Boston Bruins meeting in Round 1? Stupid.

The Winnipeg Jets, henceforth known as Canada’s (Only) Team, and the Nashville Predators obliged to engage in hostilities in Round 2. Also stupid.

Apparently, it isn’t “fair” either.

Well, excuse me, but I must have missed the memo that says sports is supposed to be fair.

Spud Webb and Manute Bol: Is this fair?

Is it fair that Connor McDavid is stuck in Edmonton? Is it fair that Brent Burns has that magnificent beard and Patrik (Puck Finn) Laine has the world’s worst collection of chin whiskers? Is it fair that Michael Phelps has flippers instead of feet? Is it fair that Secretariat had a heart the size of a keg of beer while most other race horses have hearts the size of a shot glass. Is it fair that 5-feet-7 Spud Webb had to climb a stepladder to look 7-feet-7 Manute Bol in the eye?

Expecting fairness in sports is a fanciful notion.

Ask New York Islanders fans about fair. If sports was meant to be fair, someone not named Garth Snow would be generally managing their NHL club. Instead, they’re still saddled with him, 12 years in.

Ask Jets Nation about fair. Every time Dale Hawerchuk and the boys were feeling their oats in the 1980s, Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier and pals were eating their lunch. (Les Jets and Edmonton Oilers played 19 games across five series in the ’80s. Final tally: Edmonton 18 Ws, Winnipeg 1.)

Elin Nordegren

I think the last truly “fair” thing in sports was Elin Nordegren’s divorce settlement with Tiger Woods.

In an ideal world, sure, the Preds and Canada’s (Only) Team wouldn’t meet until Round 3 of the Stanley Cup tournament. They, after all, collected the most points in the regular season, finishing 1-2, respectively. But, hey, it’s not like the NHL has a monopoly on stupid. The National Football League, Canadian Football League, Major League baseball…all dumb.

The NFL has been known to reward sub-standard outfits with home playoff dates simply because they had the good fortune of competing in a turtle division. The CFL is worse. The East Division has been without a plus-.500 team since 2015, but the Ottawa RedBlacks and Tranna Argonauts won the past two Grey Cup games in large part because they were granted a bye and home field in the playoffs. In Major League Baseball, both the Chicago Cubs and Pittsburgh Pirates had more Ws than two of the three National League division champions in 2015, yet they were required to compete in a wild-card game.

None of that’s fair. Sports was never meant to be fair.

Rasmus Dahlin

You want to talk about fairness in sports? Any club other than the Oilers winning the right to choose Rasmus Dahlin at the NHL entry draft in June…that’s fairness in sports. I mean, what was the most oft-heard conversation once the ping-pong balls stopped bouncing at the draft lottery on Saturday in The Republic of Tranna? Try this:

“Thank gawd those messed-up, misfit SOBs in Edmonton don’t get another first pick overall.”

“You got that right, man. ABO—anybody but the Oilers.”

It’s bad enough that the Oil Drop gets the 10th shoutout in June (it’ll be their eighth top-10 pick this decade if you’re keeping score at home), but a fifth No. 1 would have brought serious calls for entry draft reform. As it turns out, the Buffalo Sabres will get Dahlin (not wild about that; was hoping for the Vancouver Canucks).

Did the NHL Department of Tsk-Tsking really call the Boston Bruins and instruct them to instruct Brad Marchand to stop licking opposing players? Marchand, you’ll recall, was observed licking Leo Komarov of the Tranna Maple Leafs on the neck during their just-concluded Stanley Cup series. What’s the big deal? Everybody’s been licking the Leafs since 1967.

Nick Kypreos

Interesting times in the 6ix, which, I’m told, is what the happening people who hang out with Drake call The Republic of Tranna. Les Leafs, of course, have put away the pucks in favor of more seasonal pursuits, but they couldn’t retreat from The ROT without Nick Kypreos tossing a lit match into the dumpster of another crusade that ended in wanting. “Babcock lost Matthews,” he told the boys on Sportsnet 590’s Starting Lineup. “I don’t know what happened, but he lost him. There was no trust anymore. For whatever reason, Babcock lost Matthews.” Kypreos failed to offer a shred of evidence to support his thesis that head coach Mike Babcock and his main stud, Auston Matthews, were/are at odds, except to mutter something about “body language.” Lame, lame, lame. This story will lose some of its giddyup over the summer, but it’ll be a fresh brush fire when les Leafs reconvene in autumn, with the possibility of gusts up to an inferno. Simply because Kypreos opened his gob and out fell innuendo, then reporters and opinionists chased after it.

Three-toed sloth

What’s the difference between a sloth and Zdeno Chara? Two toes on each foot. I mean, to say that Chara is sloth slow would be an insult to dawdling mammals everywhere. I swear, if a fire alarm went off, a sloth would beat Chara out the door. Incredibly, the Bruins captain continues to get the job done and, at age 41, he gobbles up more minutes for head coach Bruce Cassidy than the mere mortals on the B’s blueline. I just wonder if it’s sustainable through three more rounds of the Stanley Cup tournament. I don’t see it happening, but more power to him if he can pull it off.

A rough night for Jake Gardiner.

I sometimes think Damien Cox of the Toronto Sun/Sportsnet and Steve Simmons of Postmedia Tranna/TSN were separated at birth. Seriously. They must be blood related. How else do we explain their shared penchant for the absurd? Last week, for example, Cox wrote: “The (Nashville Predators) have always been competitive under the only GM they’ve ever had, David Poile.” Apparently, “always competitive” means missing the playoffs eight times. “Always competitive” means missing the playoffs in the first five years of the franchise’s existence. “Always competitive” means missing the playoffs as recently as both 2013 and ’14. Cox then doubled down on his “D’oh!” boy hockey analysis by submitting that the Maple Leafs defence was “fine” in a 7-4 Game 7 loss to the Bruins on Wednesday. Fine? Jake Gardiner was totally inept. His game was like a spring day in Winnipeg—minus-5. It was biblical in its awfulness. The puck was a live grenade on his stick. He wanted no part of it. (Neither, for that matter, did his equally inept goaltender, Frederik Andersen.) It’s hard to imagine any player inflicting so much damage on his own side during 24 minutes of ice time, but, according to Cox, a defence that featured Gardiner was “fine.” At the end, I found myself wondering what the Leafs could possibly fetch in barter for Gardiner during the off-season. Certainly no one who’s breathing.

I used to enjoy listening to the boys banter on Hockey Central at Noon, but it has become a chore now that Cox seems to have secured a regular seat on the soup-and-sandwich-time gabfest. The man is an interruptive, insufferable, eye-rolling, lip-licking, fact-fudging, ego-driven, know-it-all squawkbox who talks down to people and gets agitated at the slightest suggestion that his might not be a persuasive or prevailing opinion. Other than that, Cox is “fine.”

Jailbird Slava Voynov

Word out of Russia is that disgraced wife-beater Slava Voynov will seek re-entry to North America and the NHL, and his wish list includes the Florida Panthers, Montreal Canadiens, New York Rangers, New York Islanders and—horrors—Winnipeg. I think maybe Slava might want to scratch the Jets off his list. They took heat for inducting Bobby Hull into their Hall of Fame, so I can’t see them flopping down the welcome mat for the former Los Angeles Kings defenceman who spent two months in the brig and was deported from the U.S. for kicking the crap out of his wife.

Keith Gretzky

This week’s Steve-ism from Steve Simmons of Postmedia Tranna: “The brother you don’t hear about, Keith Gretzky, left the Boston Bruins after the 2016 season to join his friend, Peter Chiarelli in Edmonton. But here’s what Gretzky left behind as scouting director: Future Norris Trophy winner Charlie McAvoy, David Pastrnak, Jake DeBrusk, Ryan Donato, Danton Heinen, Matt Grzelcyk and Brandon Carlo. He passed on Mathew Barzal. Stuff happens. Name another team that’s drafted better?”

Okay. I’ll name another team: The Winnipeg Jets—Mark Scheifele, Patrik Laine, Jacob Trouba, Josh Morrissey, Connor Hellebuyck, Adam Lowry, Kyle Connor, Nikolaj Ehlers, Jack Roslovic, Tucker Poolman, Sami Niku, Kristian Vesalainen.

Second, Gretzky’s work in the first round of the 2015 entry draft can’t be written off as “stuff happens.” Ya, he got the B’s a keeper in Jake DeBrusk, but he used picks 13-14-15 to claim Jakub Zboril, DeBrusk and Zachary Senyshyn when Mathew Barzal (16th) Kyle Connor (17th), Brock Boeser (23rd), Travis Konecny (24th) and Jack Roslovic (25th) were there for the taking.

Third, Gretzky didn’t draft Grzelyck for the Bruins. He was taken in 2012, two years before the Great One’s brother became the B’s top amateur bird dog.

Just the facts, ma’am. They aren’t hard to find.

Party time at Portage and Main in 1972.

And, finally, it’s about Canada’s (Only) Team: Peggers are already partying like it’s the 1970s again—when Ben Hatskin was hijacking Bobby Hull and the Jets were riding in championship parades as a regular routine—but will the cross-country rabble rally ’round the flag and adopt an outfit from little, ol’, out-of-the-way Winnipeg as Canada’s team as the NHL playoffs lurch along? I have my doubts. I mean, sure, there’ll be pockets of hosers across our vast land whose patriotic pangs will inspire them to root, root, root for Tinytown North, because beating the beasts of the south and returning Hockey’s Holy Grail to its rightful home is a compelling, warm-and-fuzzy narrative. But I can’t imagine les Jets catching the fancy of the masses in The Republic of Tranna, Ottawa and all points east. Nor on the far side of the Rocky Mountains, where locals mourned the passing of the Sedin twins with much reverence for a respectful 48 hours then returned to the shade of their palm trees and regularly scheduled patio lattés. I’m thinking nothing shy of a trip to the Stanley Cup final will stir up national fervour for Canada’s (Only) Team. But it’s never too early or too late for outriders to hop on the bandwagon.