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 our two all-Leafs sports channels missing the boat on the Canucks…hug an Oilers fan…bye, bye Bo?…Rouge Football in Quebec City…neck guards and vanity…cleavage on the sports pages…and other things on my mind

A tweet is a tweet is a tweet by any name, so don’t call these the X files…

Let’s take inventory: The Vancouver Canucks have the third-best record in the National Hockey League, 8-2-1.
The Canucks are tops among the seven Canadian-based outfits.
The Canucks lineup features the league’s top point-collector, Elias Pettersson.
The Canucks lineup features the league’s top-scoring defenceman, Quinn Hughes.
The Canucks lineup features three of the league’s top-10 scorers.
The Canucks racked up another W on Saturday night, beating the Dallas Stars 2-zip.
So who did Sportsnet lead its highlights show with this morning? That’s right, the Toronto Maple Leafs, who lost.
And who did TSN lead its hockey package with this morning? That’s right, the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Well, of course they did. After all, Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe let his guard dog, Ryan Reaves, off the bench long enough to do nothing except snarl at some of the Buffalo Sabres. And sources say both Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner brushed their teeth post-game, so Sportsnet and TSN had no choice but to put the loser Leafs in front of the Canucks on the pecking order.
If it doesn’t happen in the Republic of Tranna, it doesn’t happen, right?
Pathetic. Truly pathetic. But not surprising.

If you meet an Edmonton Oilers fan today, speak softly when trying to talk her or him off the ledge. And, hey, let’s declare this Hug An Oilers Fan Day.

Looking for the name Connor McDavid in the chase for the Art Ross Trophy? Well, you’ll need a coal miner and a canary to find the Oilers captain, because he’s lower than Trudeau the Younger’s approval rating. He’s T56 with 10 points. Interesting thing, though: I still wouldn’t want to bet against McDavid winning the top-scorer trinket.

What a boffo sports weekend in Vancouver—the B.C. Leos and UBC Thunderbirds both won playoff football skirmishes, while the Canucks shut down the Dallas Stars, and now the Whitecaps are ready to join the fun with a playoff futbol kickabout this afternoon. Why, there hasn’t been this much excitement in Vancity since the rabble broke out the matches and tried to burn the place down in 2011.

Now that the Leos have booked a date with the Blue Bombers next Saturday in Good Ol’ Hometown, the big question in advance of the Canadian Football League West Division final is this: What level of nastiness will Ma Nature dial up? I mean, it’s one thing for the Leos to give the Calgary Stampeders a 41-30 wedgie in the climate-controlled environment of B.C. Place, but beating the Bombers on their frost-bitten, frozen tundra is a special kind of challenge. Prairie football in mid-November can be harsher than a hanging judge, so if Ma Nature is in a foul mood it’s advantage Winnipeg.

Chances are we’ve seen the last of Bo Levi Mitchell, Rouge Football quarterback extraordinaire. Bo spent all but 6½ minutes on the sidelines Saturday, his roll with the Hamilton Tabbies reduced to mop-up duty in a 27-12 loss to the Montreal Larks. He tossed four passes, one that went to one of his guys, one that went to one of the other guys, and two that missed the mark. It wasn’t what the Tabbies anticipated or expected when they handed the broken-down Bo a three-year contract that pays in excess of $500,000 per. “If you’re not playing your highest paid player on this team in a playoff game, I don’t foresee myself being here,” Mitchell told TSN’s Matthew Scianitti in a somber Tabbies changing room. Trouble is, his options are limited. Only one outfit in Rouge Football will be in the market for a starting QB—Ottawa—and they know Bo isn’t even a reasonable facsimile of his former self.

What in the name of Sam Etcheverry was Cody Fajardo thinking? I mean, the Montreal Larks QB chose to play the “no respect” card in advance of the CFL East Division semifinal, which is fine. Like, whatever floats your boat, right? But I’m not sure the guy who pays the bills, Pierre Karl Peladeau, appreciated his quarterback telling potential fans to get lost.“It’s too late,” Fajardo said. “It’s too late to buy stock in this football team and that’s our mindset. We’ll prove it when we get to the Grey Cup and we hoist that Grey Cup over our head.” That’s just dumb.

The Lords of Rouge Football have given commissioner Randy Ambrosie a mandate to grow by one, which is to say add an expansion franchise. But don’t bet on it being in the Maritimes. Commish Randy had a natter with Donnie and Dhali The Team the other day, and he sounded more bullish on Quebec City becoming the 10th member. “We’re trying to cross that last hurdle and be able to announce a team,” he told Don Taylor and Rick Dhaliwal. “Will we or won’t we, I don’t know for sure. But it’s not just about Atlantic Canada. We’re going to look at other markets. Quebec City is a fantastic market. In many respects, it’s the most logical next city by size—it’s just slightly smaller than Winnipeg, it’s bigger than both Regina and Saskatoon combined. It’s got a great community…Quebec has got a great football culture. It would establish a tremendous rivalry for the Alouettes. There’s lots of reasons to like that market. So we’re not exclusively Atlantic Canada focused. We need to look at these other markets.”

Once again, I ask this: How can the Football Reporters of Canada possibly hand Chad Kelly the Most Outstanding Player trinket when he leads Rouge Football in exactly zero—zero!—significant QB categories? Of the seven guys who tossed 300-plus passes this crusade, here’s where the Toronto Argos quarterback ranks:
5th in completions
4th in completion percentage
4th in yards
3rd in TDs
T2 in fewest interceptions
2nd in efficiency
4th in rushing.
Do the math, boys and girls.

Apparently Arash Madani failed math, because the Sportsnet natterbug and Football Canada board member revealed his final awards ballot on X, and he opted for Kelly over the more worthy Brady Oliveira, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers running back who covered more ground than an 1880s Oklahoma Sooner. Oliveira was first in rushing (by 400 yards), first in yards from scrimmage (2,016) and first in touchdowns (13). What part of “first” does Madani not understand?

No surprise that Madani would give his MOP vote to Kelly, because we’re accustomed to brain farts by arrogant news snoops in the Republic of Tranna. But his indifference is inexcusable. In naming his choice for top offensive lineman, he writes. “Hardrick, I guess.” He guesses? He guesses Jermarcus Hardrick of the Bombers is the best grunt guy in Rouge Football? He didn’t give it any thought? He didn’t consult anyone? Is he not aware that winning one of these awards could benefit the player at contract time? If Madani is guessing, why did the FRC give him a ballot? Shame, shame.

If we were to poll the 700-plus National Hockey League players, asking them if wearing neck/throat protection is preferable to a trip to the morgue, little doubt the result would be unanimous on the “yes” side. That’s because they know their skate blades are razor sharp and, if dragged across human flesh, they’re apt to cause injury. Deadly injury. They knew this before Adam Johnson’s neck was sliced open by an opponent’s skate blade during an Elite Ice Hockey League game in the U.K. last weekend, and they’re aware he died on an operating table at Northern Sheffield Hospital shortly thereafter. They also know about Clint Malarchuk and Richard Zednik. So why are so many declining to wear available neck protection?

Silliest reason for balking on what could be life-saving equipment: Vanity. “To be honest, I think guys just don’t like the look of them.” Brock Boeser of the Canucks told Sportsnet. Meantime, Ottawa Senators forward Mathieu Joseph provided the backup vocals: “It bugs some guys to wear them, and they don’t think it looks good, but we don’t want to lose another player like we just did.” Yo! Boys! People are paying in excess of $100 to get into an NHL rink to watch hockey, not to stare at your neck. Your wife or girl friend might think your neck is sexy, but it isn’t a selling point to anyone else.

Other players, like Buffalo Sabres blueliner Rasmus Dahlin, gave neck/throat protection a test drive last week and found it to be cumbersome and made him too hot, so he scrapped it mid-game. I’m guessing fire fighters find their equipment cumbersome, as well, but they won’t enter a burning building without it.

Just a thought: Why do NHL players need a reminder that wagering on NHL games is a definite no-no? Are they really that dense?

As I recall, Maple Leafs GM Brad Treliving recruited Tyler Bertuzzi, Ryan Reaves and Max Domi to provide more grit and toughness and sandpaper to a roster that had been lacking in grit, toughness and sandpaper. So how’s it working out? Well, here’s Terry Koshan’s take in the Toronto Sun: “Not only have Tyler Bertuzzi, Max Domi and Ryan Reaves not provided the snot that general manager Brad Treliving envisioned when he signed them during the summer, the trio hasn’t provided much of anything.”

Love this tweet from Josh Bradshaw: “Brad Treliving at the Free Agent Drive Thru this past Offseason: ‘Hey could I get an order of piss and vinegar? On second thought, hold the vinegar.’ ”

I saw a headline the other day that said they’d found evidence of rats in supposedly rat-free Alberta. I assumed Brad Marchand had been traded to the Flames or Oilers.

What happens first, Victor Wembanyama scores 50 points in an NBA game or I spell his name correctly without looking it up?

Things that make me go hmmm, Vol. 2,161: James Harden—late of the Oklahoma City Thunder, late of the Houston Rockets, late of the Brooklyn Nets, late of the Philly 76ers and now a member of the Los Angeles Clippers—is a curious bit of business, but not in an admirable way. Arguably the most annoying man in hoops, if not all sports, he had a meet-and-greet natter with L.A. news snoops the other day and delivered a most curious sound bite. “I’m not a system player. I’m a system,” he said. Hmmm. I think he meant to say he was a symptom of the Me-First Epidemic in today’s NBA.

I mentioned Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre’s phony smile in last week’s post, and that put at least one reader’s nose out of joint. “Don’t get Canadian political,” he scolded. Fair enough. I’ll get out of politics if Poilievre gets out of politics.

If I were to interview Poilievre, I think I’d do something rude. You know, like eat an apple while asking questions.

True story: I called up the the Toronto Sun website the other day and found an article by Dan Bilicki with the headline “Paige Spiranic says her breasts have gotten ‘a lot bigger’. If you haven’t been formally introduced, Spiranic is a one-time pro golfer and now a “golf influencer” (whatever the hell that means), and Bilicki tells us all about Paige’s girls, which are ample. I’m uncertain how the size and realness of Paige’s boobs qualifies as a sports article, but it’s rumored that a feature on the Real Housewives of Mississauga will be on the sports front next week.

Just wondering: Is it mandatory for me to include a pic of Taylor Swift with this post, or is it enough that I mention her?

And, finally, I’m a Beatles fan, but I’m not a Beatles fan who believes every song from the Liverpool lads is a classic. The Fab Four’s newest/old recording, Now and Then, is one of their non-classics, even if it brought tears to my eyes upon first listen. But after half a dozen listens since its release last Thursday, it hasn’t really grown on me. It’s similar to Free As A Bird, also not a classic. I’m glad Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr put it out, but it won’t replace A Day In the Life or I Am the Walrus or Got To Get You Into My Life or Dear Prudence or She’s A Woman on my playlist.

Let’s talk about the Jets and Canucks…craziness with the Yotes…another reason for Chris Streveler to celebrate…Ducky makes a kid’s day…sinking ships…a new kid on the MJHL block…the Joker goes wild at U.S. Open…Journalism 101…and other things on my mind

A bonus, Labor Day smorgas-bored…and it’s mostly short snappers because there’s tennis to watch and maybe some golf if Dustin Johnson hasn’t lapped the field…

Stop me if you’ve heard this before from two noted hockey observers:

“There’s a lot to be excited about.”

“This team is going to be a force for awhile in the West. Great young players.”

Sounds like they’re talking about the Winnipeg Jets, circa spring 2018, doesn’t it?

Brian Burke

But, no. Brian Burke and John Shannon were directing their hosannas toward the Vancouver Canucks, who recently vacated the National Hockey League bubble in Edmonton after coming up one shot/save short in a Stanley Cup skirmish v. the Dallas Stars.

And, sure enough, there’s reason for the jar-half-full gushing. The Canucks look to be an outfit on a favorable trajectory. You know, just like two years ago when the local hockey heroes went deep, advancing to the Western Conference final before receiving a paddywhacking from the upstart Vegas Golden Knights. The Jets haven’t been the same since, in large part due to the mismanagement of assets and a cap crunch that squeezed general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff into a corner.

Chevy lost half his blueline (Jacob Trouba, Tyler Myers, Ben Chiarot, Dustin Byfuglien) in one foul swoop, and only the retreat of Big Buff was not of his own authorship. He also couldn’t or wouldn’t keep rent-a-centres Paul Stastny or Kevin Hayes, either of whom would have been more than adequate playing second fiddle to Mark Scheifele.

Jim Benning

So that’s the cautionary tale for GM Jim Benning in Lotus Land. It can unravel very rapidly.

Quinn Hughes, Elias Pettersson and Alex Edler will be looking for new deals whenever the next NHL crusade ends and, as Burke emphasized on Hockey Night in Canada, “they’re gonna need a math professor from Harvard to figure this out.”

Chevy hasn’t been able to figure it out in Good Ol’ Hometown. The hope on the Left Flank has to be that Benning has better bean counters.

Pierre McGuire

I’ve long wondered what it would take to pry Jets 1.0 out of the Arizona desert, and anointing Pierre McGuire GM of the Coyotes just might be the thing to do it. If we’re to believe Chris Johnston of Sportsnet, Yotes ownership has been pitching woo to Pierre as a replacement for defrocked GM John Chayka, and that sounds like a recipe for disaster. Pierre has spent the past 20 years rinkside or in the studio for TSN and NBC, and I can’t see how sucking up to players and mansplaining the game to Kendall Coyne Schofield makes him GM worthy.

So, another year without a Stanley Cup champion for the True North, and did you know that’s “humiliating?” That, at least, is Cathal Kelly’s take on Canada’s drought, which dates back to the spring of 1993. “The hockey of Canadian hockey? That is not working out so well,” he writes in the Globe and Mail. “It’s beginning to seem as though the building of an NHL winner is planting it somewhere in the United States where no one cares. Then you have happy employees and the luxury of a free hand to shuffle them around.” Ya, that’s worked out soooo well for the Winnipeg Jets-cum-Phoenix/Arizona Coyotes.

Chris Streveler

Speaking of Arizona, I note that Chris Streveler has survived final cuts with the Arizona Cardinals. The former Winnipeg Blue Bombers quarterback and party boy is listed third on the depth chart, so Lord help them if they win the Super Bowl. There won’t be enough beer in the entire state to handle that celebration.

Just wondering: What was the first thing Alain Vigneault read or watched after his Philly Flyers were ushered out of the NHL bubble in the Republic of Tranna? Do you think he knows that Black Lives Matter yet?

Randy Ambrosie

Did you know that it takes eight to 10 hours to deep clean each hotel room once they’ve been vacated in the Edmonton and ROT bubbles? Hmmm. Wonder how long it will take Randy Ambrosie to clean up the mess he’s made.

The Montreal Canadiens now have $15 million tied up in two goaltenders, Carey Price and Jake Allen. Hmmm. That would pay for half a Canadian Football League shortened-season.

Enjoyed this tweet from Terry Jones of Postmedia E-Town: “If I ever own a race horse I might name him ‘Pink Fred’. That’s what Hugh Campbell called Pink Floyd when he announced a change in the Edmonton EE schedule to accommodate the then very hot act.”

Coolest recent tweet was delivered by Rob Vanstone of Postmedia Flatlands: “How amazing was Dale Hawerchuk? I wrote to him c/o Winnipeg Jets in 1982, requesting an autograph. Yes, I got the autograph—and so much more! He must have been deluged with fan mail, but he still made time to go above and beyond.” What made the tweet so special was the pic that Rob attached. It helps explain why there were so many long faces the day Ducky died.

Rob’s tweet brought to mind my first experience as an autograph seeker. I was a sprig of no more than 10 years, living on Melbourne Avenue in Good Ol’ Hometown. One day I took pic of broadcasting pioneer Foster Hewitt from a hockey magazine and mailed it to his radio station in the Repblic of Tranna, asking for a signature. Two weeks later, a brown envelope arrive in the mail box, and there it was…Foster Hewitt’s autograph. He called me “a real hockey fan.” I don’t know what became of that autographed pic, but Foster’s gesture made me want to get into sports journalism.

Mark Spector

Mark Spector of Sportsnet E-Town is confused: “It’s official: the term ‘learning lesson’ has replaced ‘irregardless’ as my pet peeve,” he tweets. “Can someone define a ‘lesson’ from which the recipient did NOT ‘learn?’ Are their ‘non-learning lessons’ out there?” Yo! Mark! As the venerable Zen master Dalai Jocklama tells us, “A lesson taught is not always a lesson learned.” As my mom was wont to say, I hope you’ve learned your lesson.

According to Donald Trump, canned soup is now the weapon of choice for bad guys because bricks are too heavy to throw. I can just hear it next time I’m in my local market: “Clean up on the ammunition aisle! Clean up on the ammunition aisle!”.

They held a Lake Travis Trump Boat Parade off the shore of Auston, Texas, the other day and at least four craft went glub, glub, glub to a watery grave. There’s no truth to the rumor that the Milwaukee Bucks were among the sunken ships, but they have sent out a Mayday signal.

Andy Murray

Cathal Kelly likes to write about tennis, but I’m not sure how much tennis he actually watches. I mean, he claims that our guy Felix Auger-Aliassime put “an end to the whole idea of the Big Four in men’s tennis” when he whupped Andy Murray at the U.S. Open last week. Apparently, Kelly hadn’t noticed that there’s only been a Big Three—Rafa Nadal, Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic—for the past three years. Andy Murray last won a Grand Slam tournament in 2016. He hasn’t been a top-10 player since 2017, when he was world No. 3 in October. He hasn’t been in the top 100 for more than two years. He’s beaten just one top-10 player since 2017. He’s part of a Big Four like Miley Cyrus is one of the Beatles. What part of all that does Kelly not understand? Furthermore, he listed Djokovic as the “reigning champion” at Flushing Meadows. That will come as news to Rafa Nadal.

A wounded lines judge gives Novak Djokovic the stink eye.

Djokovic’s departure from the U.S. Open on Sunday was sudden and deserved. Tennis players can be a right petulant lot, few more so than the Serb. He’s long been prone to bouts of pique, and it caught up to him when, in another hissy fit, he whacked a ball that struck a female line judge in the throat. Automatic ouster. Even if it wasn’t deliberate. Why it took officials 10 minutes to convince Djokovic that he wouldn’t be allowed to play on is a mystery, but I’m sure he’ll put his tin foil hat back on and figure it out in time for the French Open later this month.

ESPN certainly had the perfect guy in the blurt box to talk about poor on-court manners Sunday—John McEnroe. The one-time brat of tennis called Djovik’s hissy fit “bone-headed,” and Johnny Mac ought to know more about that than most.

Hey, there’s a new kid in town. The Manitoba Junior Hockey League has added a second Winnipeg-based franchise for its 2020-21 crusade, and that’s interesting news for those of us who can remember an MJHL that included four outfits in Good Ol’ Hometown. 50 Below Sports + Entertainment is the money behind the freshly minted outfit, to be dubbed the Freeze according to Mike Sawatzky of the Drab Slab, and I can only hope they aren’t hitting parents with a $12,000 tab to have their kids play Junior shinny.

Steve Nash

The appointment of Steve Nash as head coach of the Brooklyn Nets stirred up considerable controversy, given that his experience as a bossman totals zip and, significantly, he’s a White man in the very Black National Basketball Association. “Two words that never, ever, should be attached to Steve Nash: White privilege,” Steve Simmons of Postmedia Tranna harrumphed in his always-pompous weekly alphabet soup column of odds and ends. “But there they were, the screamers of black and white, somehow insisting that Nash’s surprising hiring as coach of the Brooklyn Nets was yet another example of white privilege in North American professional sports.” What that is, folks, is “another example” of shoddy journalism. Simmons failed to identify the “screamers of black and white,” nor did he tell us what they said or what they’re saying. We’re talking Journalism 101 here, folks: Who, what, when, where and why. Apparently that doesn’t apply to big-shot columnists who refuse to burden themselves with the pesky details.

I have often lamented the lack of lower-level local sports coverage in the two Winnipeg dailies, most notably the Sun, which has been ransacked by Postmedia. To underscore how woeful it has become, I monitored the amount of ink devoted to outfits not named Jets, Blue Bombers, Moose, Goldeyes and Valour FC in August. The results are discouraging, but not surprising:
Drab Slab (31 editions)—32 articles, 6 briefs (Assiniboia Downs, amateur hockey, junior hockey, amateur golf, university volleyball, curling, junior football, junior baseball, tennis, sports books).
Winnipeg Sun (30 editions)—1 article (junior football).

At least sports editor Steve Lyons and his boys on the beat at the Drab Slab are trying, but the Sun surrendered to the whims and dictates of Postmedia suits in the Republic of Tranna long ago. I mean, one local story in an entire month? That isn’t just sad, it’s wrong. Amateur Sports Matters, dammit.

And, finally, I’ll conclude this holiday edition of the RCR with a Matty-ism from my first sports editor Jack Matheson: “You don’t have to be strange to live in B.C., but it helps.” Hey, I resemble that remark.

Let’s talk about Paul Maurice’s ruffled feathers…passing on Perry…get a grip, Coach Pollyanna…the Bettman boo birds…NHL awards night…Connor McDavid’s shoe-string budget…back up the Brinks truck for Mitch…and other things on my mind

Another Sunday smorgas-bored…and happy third day of summertime, when the livin’ is easy…

This just in, kids: Those “ruffled feathers” that Paul Maurice was talking about at the close of business in April? They’ve been downgraded to “growly” and “sour.”

More to the point, when the Winnipeg Jets head coach mentioned there were “ruffled feathers” that he needed to “flatten out” before the boys reconvene in autumn for their National Hockey League preseason training exercises, it was “maybe a poor choice of words.”

Meaning? Well, we have two schools of thought here.

First, we can consider what Coach Potty Mouth said at his exit chin-wag with news snoops on the heels of Winnipeg HC’s one-and-done ouster from the Stanley Cup runoff. To refresh: “We’ve got a few ruffled feathers in there that we’re gonna have to flatten out.” Many among the rabble and at least one news snoop, Mad Mike McIntyre of the Drab Slab, took that as confirmation that les Jets changing room was a house divided. “Rotten to the core,” is how Mad Mike described it, and he’s been flogging that narrative for more than two months. Without, I emphasize, a shred of hard, cold evidence to support the notion of in-fighting.

But now along comes Maurice to give his gums a workout on Friday in Vancouver, and he was reading from a different script during a half-hour natter session with news snoops. Here’s a portion of that palaver:

Mad Mike: “That ruffled feathers comment on the exit day, any more thought on that?”

Maurice (totally puzzled): “Which one was that?”

Mad Mike: “Well, you talked about ruffled feathers we need to smooth out when we come back in the fall which some people, you know, took to mean a number of things.”

Maurice (finally clued in): “Oh, it was at the end of the year…”

Mad Mike: “Ya.”

Maurice: “What’s the bigger context on that?”

Mad Mike: “Everybody didn’t like how the season ended, right?”

Maurice: “We’re all growly.”

Mad Mike: “Does time just heal all wounds in that case?”

Maurice: “You don’t want them all healed. You want to bring a little bit of that pain back. You want to keep some of that. Sour is a better word. Whether you’re right or wrong, but if you think you’re in that mix of teams that are good enough to win and you don’t win, it hurts like hell. The last thing you want is everybody coming back happy the next year. It was good enough. The golf season was longer. That’s the exact opposite mindset of what you want. Maybe I just made a poor choice of words.”

Coach PottyMo also said: “I like our room and I like the people that are building that next layer of leadership we’ve got coming in.”

Doesn’t sound dark and dire to me. Just some gibberish about a bunch of “growly” and “sour” guys really and truly PO’d because their hockey season turned into a pumpkin prematurely.

Coach PottyMo

Naturally, I wouldn’t expect Coach PottyMo to air out any dirty laundry in public, but, quite frankly, he didn’t have a clue what the hell Mad Mike was talking about when he referenced “ruffled feathers.” It was as if he’d been asked to explain why B.C. gets mountains, ocean and mild temps while Manitoba gets mosquitoes, potholes and frozen car batteries.

Still, Mad Mike insists “it’s no secret that the Jets were a fractured bunch by the end of last season.”

If there was even a sniff of substance to this “rotten to the core” narrative, I thought perhaps Jacob Trouba might let the kitty out of the burlap on his way out the door. But no. The now-departed defender talked of his fiancée, his friendships and a fresh start in Gotham, but he uttered nary a discouraging word about management, his teammates or toxicity in les Jets changing room. That’s right, crickets.

So maybe there’s no sinister story to tell. Unless someone produces a smoking gun, it’s time to move on from that narrative.

Corey Perry

Noted NHL irritant Corey Perry soon will be available to the highest bidder. Would les Jets be interested in the one-time MVP? If they sign him, consider my feathers officially ruffled.

So, if you’re a Jets loyalist, here’s what you might find bothersome, if not positively frightening: Maurice likes what he sees in the mirror. That is, he’s pushing the right buttons and don’t even think about asking him to do it any other way. “I’m not going to change the grip,” he said in Friday’s natter. “We hit the ball down the fairway an awful lot. We had one go in the water on us in the playoffs, but I’m not sure that I’m changing my clubs or my grip yet. We’ve got a pretty good hockey team.” Well, thanks for that, Coach Pollyanna. But what you’ve been doing hasn’t worked and, in case you missed the memo, you just lost one half of your top defence pairing, with Trouba swanning off to the New York Rangers. Coach Pollyanna doesn’t just need to change his grip, he needs to get a grip.

Why are so many among the rabble surprised that they don’t hear the name Blake Wheeler in trade rumors? The reason is quite simple: His bromance with Maurice. Wheeler is teacher’s pet and he isn’t going anywhere as long as Coach PottyMo is behind the pine.

Still with Maurice, a yet-to-be-identified broadcaster gave him a first-place vote in balloting for the Jack Adams Trophy as NHL coach-of-the-year. True story, that. The rest of us know that Coach PottyMo was the top bench jockey like I’m Carrie Underwood’s twin sister, so I’m guessing the culprit shall remain anonymous forever more because you don’t wet the bed then brag about it.

Commish Bettman and the Sedins.

Say this for Gary Bettman: The guy wears the villain’s robe well.

The NHL commish, naturally, was booed at the launch of Friday night’s entry draft in Vancouver, because that’s become a ritual anytime the little man with the bobbing head and needle nose steps out in public. But in this case, he turned it into a skit that was funnier than anything I saw or heard at the awards gala last week in Las Vegas.

“Wait, I have something for you which I think will change the mood,” he announced devilishly as the boos poured down like April showers.

He then walked off stage at Rogers Arena, only to resurface with a couple of fan favorites in tow—Vancouver Canucks legends Daniel and Henrik Sedin. It was good fun.

Shortly thereafter, of course, the boos resumed, and it became boorish and just bloody rude.

Oh, well, I suppose we should be grateful that Vancouverites didn’t try to burn down the town this time.

What I like most about the NHL’s annual garage sale of freshly-scrubbed teenagers: Those young men are so gosh-darn, aw-shucks polite and boy-next-door respectful during their intro interviews with Tara Slone. They’re what every mother’s son should be. If only they didn’t have to grow up and learn hockey-speak.

Anderson Whitehead and hero Carey Price.

NHL Awards Night I (the good): There are a lot of terrific people in hockey, but I can’t imagine anyone registers higher on the Nice-O-Metre than Carey Price. I mean, you don’t get many better feel-good or warm-and-fuzzy moments than the goaltender’s cameo appearance on stage to present little Anderson Whitehead with a Montreal Canadiens jersey, not to mention a trip to the all-star game. If you know the back story (Anderson lost his mom to cancer), try and watch that without getting teary-eyed. I dare you…There were three noteworthy acceptance speeches. 1. Elias Pettersson, the Canucks hot-shot frosh who copped the Calder Trophy, acknowledged the passing of Postmedia Vancouver scribe Jason Botchford. Total class from the kid. 2. Masterton Award winner Robin Lehner of the New York Islanders spoke of his struggle with addiction and mental illness, recognizing his “amazing” bride Donya, head coach Barry Trotz “for thinking of the human first,” and his medical support staff. “I’m not ashamed to say I’m mentally ill, but that doesn’t mean mentally weak,” he said in closing. Powerful stuff. 3. In accepting the Lady Byng trinket, Aleksander Barkov of the Florida Panthers took a cheeky, irreverent shot at his team’s sparse fan base, noting, “We have more fans from Finland than from Florida here.” Ouch…Aside from little Anderson Whitehead, the big winners on the night were Jason Zucker (King Clancy Trophy for humanitarian work) and Rico Phillips (Willie O’Ree Community Hero Award)…Let’s play Jeopardy! Category: “I’ll take NICE TOUCH for $2,000 please.” Answer: “What was bringing Alex Trebek on stage to present the Hart Trophy to Nikita Kucherov?”

Connor McDavid

NHL Awards Night II (the grim): Let’s play Jeopardy! again. Category: “I’ll take LAME for $2,000 please.” Answer: “What were the jokes at the NHL awards night?”…Apparently I’m in the minority, but I thought host Kenan Thompson’s numerous attempts at giggles missed the mark. His opening monologue: Lame. His skits: Lame. His impersonations: Lame. Unfortunately, Thompson had (bad) company. The nattering blonde woman prattling on about the various nominees: Lame. The Good Burger guy: Totally lame. The Tony Babcock character (a takeoff on the unfunny Ron Bergundy): Insufferably lame (although he believed himself to be quite the cut-up, because he kept laughing at his own jokes). Overall entertainment grade: F…Just wondering, do NHL players no longer wear socks?…Every time the camera focused on Connor McDavid, he looked like a guy in search of the nearest exit. I swear, he hasn’t looked that sad since the day the Edmonton Oilers won the lottery in his draft year…You’d think that with an annual wage of $12.5 million, McDavid could afford a belt to hold up his trousers. I mean, really. An old skate lace? Talk about a shoe-string budget…I’m surprised P.K. Subban doesn’t have an endorsement deal with French’s mustard. He is, after all, the biggest hot dog in hockey…Is it just me, or does former Jeopardy! champion James Holzhauer seem really geeky and stiff? But, hey, I guess when you have more than $2 million worth of trivial information stored in your brain pan, it’s cool to be geeky and stiff.

If Kevin Hayes is worth $7.14 million per annum, Kyle Dubas and the Maple Leafs might as well park the Brinks truck at Mitch Marner’s front door and leave the keys. Seriously. Hayes has never produced more than 55 points in an NHL crusade. Marner has that many by Christmas. By my count, 44 centre-ice men had more points than Hayes last season, but he’ll be ahead of about 40 of them in the pay queue. I never thought of Philly Flyers GM Chuck Fletcher as a sucker before, but another signing like Hayes and they’ll be calling him Lollipop.

And, finally, nothing GM Kevin Cheveldayoff did this weekend in Vancouver improved the Jets. Does anyone expect anything different once the free agent season opens?

About dumb stuff from “D’oh!” boys in the press box…Peter Chiarelli’s grey matter…this girl’s got game…Blue Bombers boss lady Dayna Spiring…Naomi Osaka gets to celebrate Aussie title…and other things on my mind

Another Sunday smorgas-bored…and I’m no all-star so I won’t be taking an all-star break…

This past week in jock journalism was brought to us by the word “D’oh!”

Seriously. News snoops must have been passing the Homer Simpson stupid pills around the press box and the newsroom, because much of what I read and heard was really, really dumb.

Examples:

Nazem Kadri

* The struggling Tranna Maple Leafs got the best of the struggling Washington Capitals on Wednesday night, winning 6-3. Nazem Kadri tallied three times and added an assist. His linemates, Willy Boy Nylander and Connor Brown, contributed three and two assists, respectively. That’s nine points total from that troika. Yet this was the main headline on the Leafs blog known as Sportsnet:

“Matthews-Marner combo pays immediate dividends for Maple Leafs.”

Say what? Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner contributed a goal apiece, one on the powerplay and one into an empty net. The “combo” collaborated on zero scores.

So that headline is really, really dumb.

* Mike McIntyre of the Drab Slab went off on Professional Hockey Writers Association midseason polling, whereby more than 125 scribes determined the top three leading candidates to collect National Hockey League year-end trinkets.

The freshly minted sports columnist described Winnipeg Jets capitano Blake Wheeler as the club’s “heart and soul,” which is fine. Also accurate. But wait. He then confessed that, if allowed to vote for more than three people in each category, he would have “given Mark Scheifele some Hart Trophy consideration as most valuable to his team.” So Wheeler is the “heart and soul” of les Jets, but his linemate Rink Rat Scheifele is more valuable?

That’s really, really dumb.

John Shannon

* John Shannon, the sometimes smug gab guy on Sportsnet, delivered what was labeled his Power 25—the top movers and shakers in the NHL—and he listed wet-eared Elias Pettersson of the Vancouver Canucks the sixth most-powerful person.

What Shannon failed to do was explain exactly what makes Pettersson more of a power broker than, say, Puck Pontiff Mark Chipman, co-bankroll and governor of les Jets and a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame selection committee. Perhaps Shannon will also tell us that a parish priest in Moose Jaw holds more sway with Catholics than the Pope. Or that Adam Sandler makes better movies than Steven Spielberg.

That’s really, really dumb.

* Luke Fox (Sportsnet seems to have an over-abundance of ”D’oh!” boys) wrote: “(Nikita) Kucherov is running away with the (NHL) scoring race.”

Hmmm. Last time I looked, Kucherov was four points ahead of Mikka Rantanen. Johnny Gaudreau and Connor McDavid are a mere five in arrears. Any one of those guys could erase that deficit in 20 minutes of hockey. That’s a runaway like Lady Gaga is a lumberjack.

So that’s really, really dumb.

Bobby Orr

* Apparently Ken Campbell was napping during Bobby Orr’s career. I say that because of this click-bait the senior writer at The Hockey News posted on Twitter:

“Former NHLer Mathieu Schneider, now with the NHLPA just referred to Nicklas Lidstrom ‘as the greatest defenceman of all time.’ Bold statement. And it’s a worthy debate.”

Sure, and maybe Campbell would also have us debate who’s taller, Zdeno Chara or Johnny Gaudreau. Or what’s whiter, freshly fallen snow or coal.

That’s really, really dumb.

Brian Burke

Okay, that’s enough dumbing down for one day. But staying on the subject of grey matter, best comment in the wake of Peter Chiarelli’s dismissal as general manager of the Edmonton Oilers was delivered by Brian Burke of Sportsnet: “He didn’t become terminally stupid overnight.” Actually, he did. Chiarelli went to bed one night, then woke up the next morning and signed Milan Lucic to a seven-year, $42-million contract.

Hey, the Oilers have finally found someone who can keep up with Connor McDavid—Kendall Coyne Schofield, the young lass who dropped jaws with her dash in the fastest skater segment of the NHL all-star skills competition in San Jose. There is, however, no truth to the rumor that Kendell will replace Lucic in the Oil lineup.

Kendall Coyne Schofield

Coyne Schofield was a revelation. Her long, blonde ponytail flapping and her short legs (she’s 5-feet-2) churning like pistons, she finished her lap in 14.346 seconds, a heartbeat behind McDavid’s winning lickety-split of 13.378 and a blink-of-an-eye better than Clayton Keller of the Arizona Coyotes. It was the “wow” moment of the all-star hijinx, and here’s what I’m wondering: Will people (read: media/men) now view women’s hockey in a more favorable light? I doubt it. It’ll be same old, same old. News snoops will continue to ignore the women except in Olympic years.

Leave it to smarmy Damien Cox of the Toronto Star to make an ass-clown comment about Coyne Schofield’s performance. “The only surprise is so many men didn’t realize female hockey players are great skaters. Geez, people, it’s 2019,” he tweeted. Apparently Cox believes he’s the only penis person on the planet who has the skinny on women’s shinny. He saw this coming, don’t you know. The rest of you guys, including the NHL all-stars who were totally gobsmacked by Kendall’s giddyup? Ignorant louts. Cox truly is a doofus.

Boys being oinkers, do you think the boys will let Keller forget about the night he “got beat by a girl?” No. Not ever, ever, ever.

Dayna Spiring

On the subject of women doing wonderful things, Dayna Spiring is the freshly minted chair of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers board of directors, and it seems to me that both the Winnipeg Sun and the Drab Slab were out to lunch on her story. Becoming the first female chair in the club’s 89-year history is worth more than a few paragraphs that read like a boring club press release. I’d like to know Dayna’s thoughts on Winnipeg FC. On the Canadian Football League. On Commish Randy. On breaking into the old boys’ club. Is it too much to ask a news snoop at either of the River City rags to pick up a phone and have a chat with the Bombers boss lady?

Will someone please give me a wakeup call when men’s tennis becomes interesting again? I mean, where are all those hot-shot, Next Gen players who were supposed to shove Novak Djokovic, Rafa Nadal and Roger Federer to the curb? MIA. All of them. Mind you, Nadal was also MIA in the Australian Open championship match vs. Djokovic on Sunday. Can you say complete dud, kids?

Naomi Osaka

The best part of Naomi Osaka’s win in the women’s singles final Down Under? Poor sport Serena Williams wasn’t there to soil the moment with her brattish behavior. Osaka seems like a delightful, humble young woman who, at age 21, is already halfway to a career Grand Slam. Now the world No. 1, her emergence speaks favorably for the quality and intrigue of the women’s game, which has produced eight different champions in the past nine Grand Slam events. On the men’s side, there hasn’t been a Slam winner not named Nadal, Federer or Djokovic since 2016.

I don’t know what you make of the PHWA midseason NHL awards polling, but it seems to me that it’s very self-serving. That is, news snoops give themselves something to write and gab about during the all-star lull, but in reality it’s a non-story. It doesn’t even tell us which way the wind is blowing, because last year half of the midway leaders failed to pick up a trinket at the awards gala in June. So, I’m sorry, but I fail to see the purpose of the exercise.

And, finally, I think if I was a kid today, my favorite NHL player would be Mitch Marner. Always liked the small, zippity-do-da, water bug guys.