John McEnroe – The River City Renegade

Let’s talk about jock journos who played the game (or not)…TSN’s phantom tripleheader…Argos still snubbed in The ROT…The Big Freakout in E-Town…Genie’s in a pickle…obnoxious New Yorkers…and other things on my mind

I watched Pardon the Interruption and Around the Horn on TSN this past Thursday and Friday.

The natterbugs on the two sports squawk shows were Tony Kornheiser, Michael Wilbon, Woody Paige, Clinton Yates, Frank Isola, Emily Kaplan, Kevin Blackistone, Marcel Louis-Jacques, Pablo Torre and Israel Gutierrez. They covered a vast range of subject matter, speaking with authority, conviction, insight, personal experience and mixing in a dab of humor.

To the best of my knowledge, none among them has ever drawn pay to hit a baseball, fling a football, boot a soccer ball, shoot a puck or launch and land a three-pointer in hoops.

Heck, some of them would be doing well to bend over and touch their toes without requiring prompt medical attention, let alone go mano-a-mano vs. Nikola Jokic.

So here’s the question: Should it matter that they never played the game?

I mean, is there a section in the jock journo manual that stipulates a talking head or scribe must have played the game before he or she is paid to talk or write about the game?

That became a matter for some chatter this past week because ESPN has agreed to compensate Mina Kimes to the tune of $1.7 million per year to flap her gums about the National Football League. Given that she’s no bigger than a bar stool, Mina has not played the game at an elite level, something her critics didn’t hesitate to introduce to the discussion.

Examples:

“Kimes’ role is particularly interesting when you consider that, well, she never played NFL football. Or any football, for that matter,” wrote Bobby Burack in OutKick, the Fearless Sports Media Company that leans far right politically. “In fact, she is the only general NFL analyst at the network who never played. Her counterparts include Marcus Spears, Dan Orlovsky, Bart Scott, Domonique Foxworth, Robert Griffin, and Ryan Clark. And while that group hardly impressed in the NFL, they at least spent time under coaches and film directors. They know more about football than Mina Kimes.”

Nick Adams submitted that Kimes “doesn’t know the difference between defensive holding and pass interference.” He also took aim at ESPN, claiming the re-upping of Kimes serves as a clear signal that the Worldwide Leader in Sports is on a mission “to advance communism and take jobs away from alpha males.”

Oh my. Kimes managed to get up those, and other, noses simply because she’s never had to cover Travis Kelsey on a quick slant? Oh, and she’s part of a plot to spread communism? Oy.

Those boys are permitted their opinions, of course, but it’s rubbish and they know it, especially the cartoonish Adams, a right wing blowhard who’s a parody of himself. He likely doesn’t believe half of what he says and doesn’t expect us to believe the other half. He’s spoofing us. He’s a Saturday Night Live skit and not a very good one. Unless you consider female-bashing clever humor.

Still, there are many among the rabble who genuinely subscribe to the notion that one need play the game at the elite level to talk and/or write the game.

Like I said, rubbish. It never has been and never will be a requirement for journalism school.

Look, if it’s life, I prefer someone who’s been there and done that to tell me about it. I mean, only 12 men have walked on the moon, so only 12 men can speak about the experience with any measure of authority, and eight of them are dead. If I’m going under the knife to fix a wonky heart, I want the doctor with scalpel-in-hand to have a medical degree in a frame on the office wall before she or he commences slicing and dicing.

But we’re talking the yadda, yadda, yadda and scribbling of sports here. No reader, viewer or listener is at risk of dying from a dangling participle, a run-on sentence or tripping over a tangled tongue, although I’ve known countless writers who’ve spilled buckets of blood agonizing over a lede.

Jock journos need to be informative, accurate, detailed, knowledgeable, insightful, truthful, curious, passionate, and have good contacts. It’s a bonus if they’re colorful and entertaining. All those traits can be acquired without spending time in a huddle with Patrick Mahomes.

Dave Naylor is a case in point. His sole flirtation with playing Rouge Football at the highest level was a gimmicky gig at the Saskatchewan Roughriders rookie training sessions in 1995. Yet he sits in with the hall-of-famers and former coaches on the CFL on TSN panel, and he doesn’t defer to them when the gums are flapping. His Canadian Football League knowledge is vast, and Nails is living, breathing evidence that grabbing grass is not a necessity.

That also applies to movie or music critics.

Roger Ebert delivered thousands of film reviews in print, on TV and online that influenced actors, filmmakers and movie-goers, but he was never a leading man on the silver screen. He never played the game.

Simon Cowell is a man of no known music or acting skill, other than playing the heel on TV talent shows. Yet even though he never played the game, one word from him, favorable or scathing in negativity, changes lives every week. Ask Carrie Underwood about that.

Mina Kimes certainly doesn’t hold that degree of sway as a talking head on ESPN, but she’s not there to help Mahomes or Aaron Rodgers win another Super Bowl trophy. It’s her task to critique, inform and entertain. She does a good job…even if she’s never played the game.

If a sports scribe or broadcaster was required to play the game at the elite level in order to cover the game, there would be the grand sum of zero female jock journos writing and talking about the NHL, NFL, NBA, MLB or MLS. Think about it.

I once participated in a Winnipeg Jets rookie camp, playing in the final of four exhibition games at the request of GM John Ferguson. Did that experience (assisted on the first goal) at the National Hockey League level make me a better sports scribe? Many hundreds (nay, thousands) and the Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame will tell you no, and I won’t disagree with them.

Look, there are numerous reasons why we can dis a sports broadcaster or scribe, but the bottom line is talent. That is, are they good at the job or not? And that, kids, is a matter of personal taste.

I mean, what’s appetizing to me is likely very different from what suits your fancy, especially if your preference is listening to Ron MacLean prattle on about Plato and Aristotle rather than Connor McDavid.

I think MacLean has become an insufferable gasbag whose pun-ish links to ancient philosophers and obscure authors on Hockey Night in Canada is nails-on-a-chalkboard creepy. Also idiotic. It’s as if he’s trying to impress, not inform: “Hey, listen to me…I read a history book this week! I am so smart!”

Others, however, embrace the MacLean shtick when he goes full pun-meister and works two or three Freudian references and at least one quote from a war general into a second-period natter on the complexities of a goaltender interference review.

It’s a trash and treasure thing: You says it’s treasure, I say it’s trash.

Similarly, I like Jennifer Botterill’s sound bites on HNIC, most notably when she engages Kevin Bieksa in a hissing match about cement-head hockey. Jennifer frowns on fisticuffs. She has no appetite for the dark side of shinny. Bieksa, on the other hand, is a strong and loud advocate for ruffian tactics because, hey, he’s a guy’s guy who played when a guard dog sat at the end of every National Hockey League team bench. It was beat ’em in the alley, take no prisoners and do whatever dirty deed necessary to get a mention from Don Cherry on Coach’s Corner or, better yet, featured on one of his rock ’em, sock ’em videos. Well, I think Bieksa is a boor. I think Botterill is a beauty. For many, many others it’s the opposite.

So there I was in the small hours of Saturday, watching a promo for TSN’s Super Saturday of three-down football. Three games, kicking off at 10 a.m. I made a mental note to hunker down for the day. Alas, what TSN didn’t tell me is that there was no Super Saturday out here on the Western Flank. While others in the great sprawl that is Canada watched the Montreal Larks-Toronto Argos and Winnipeg Blue Bombers-Saskatchewan Flatlanders, we were force-fed SportsCentre, mixed doubles tennis, Countdown to UFC, Amazing Race Canada, and the U.S. Open women’s singles final on TSN1. So you can mark me down as PO’d. Royally PO’d. Fact is, only one of the five TSN channels showed the tripleheader. Pathetic.
Saturday on TSN
TSN1: Stamps vs. Elks
TSN3: Als vs. Argos; Riders vs. Bombers; Stamps vs. Elks
TSN4: Stamps vs. Elks

The Toronto Argos are Grey Cup champions. They are the finest collection of grass-grabbers, growlers and creators of snot bubbles in Rouge Football, with a 10-1 record. Does anyone in the Republic of Tranna notice? Just the 14,415 who found their way to BMO Field to watch the Boatmen and Montreal Larks frolic on Saturday afternoon. If the citizenry in The ROT won’t support that outfit, there’s no hope.

I noted that the Winnipeg Jets were trending on Twitter yesterday. Just don’t ask me why.

Oh, dear, official training exercises have yet to commence for the 2023-24 NHL season and the rabble in E-Town, including the media, have already begun The Big Freakout over the potential adios of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl from the Edmonton Oilers. The Edmonton Sun ran this headline the other day: “Will they stay or will they go?” Good grief. Rein it in, people. Draisaitl and McDavid have two and three more springs, respectively, to disappoint Edmonton Oilers fans.

Has the rag trade changed so much since I left in 1999 that sports scribes are now openly cheering for teams that they write about, or might write about? Apparently so. I mean, when I read a tweet rooting on the Toronto Blue Jays to qualify for the Major League Baseball post-season (“please and thanks”), it tells me the ‘no cheering in the press box’ rule has disappeared like a stack of hot dogs in front of Joey Chestnut.

Just wondering: Will people still be talking about the Spanish Soccer Smooch 2,000 years from now, or is Judas’ record for longevity safe?

When you dream of Genie, is she on the cover of a glam mag or a pickleball court? Well, our one-time tennis darling, Genie Bouchard, is joining the Professional Pickleball Association Tour in 2024. Just wondering: Does Pickleball Illustrated have a swimsuit issue?

The U.S. Open tennis tournament has been a strange bit of business: Daniil Medvedev predicted “one player gonna die” from the swelter of a late Gotham summer, a customer was booted from Arthur Ashe Stadium for singing a Hitler-era Nazi anthem, and another glued his feet to the floor in an environment protest. Between the heat, the Hitler groupie and Glue Boy, hardly anyone noticed that John McEnroe put his foot in his mouth again.

Hey, I consider Johnny Mac to be the best commentator in tennis, if not all sports, but he shoves his foot in his yap so often that I don’t know how he has room for food.

I get that most among the rabble at Arthur Ashe Stadium were rooting for their girl Coco Gauff in the women’s singles final vs. Aryna Sabalenka on Saturday, but booing when the Belarusian botched her serves? That’s lame. Also a New York kind of obnoxious.

And, finally, on the subject of boorish behavior, former pitcher David Wells attended a New York Yankees oldtimers gig on Saturday and offered this nugget of pure bile: “We’re in a different world. It sucks. That’s why everyone should carry a gun.” There are no words.

Let’s talk about Bones and the stripping of the ‘C’…Blue Bombers D-Dozen…a Rouge Football rumble in the parking lot…horrors, an RBC logo on La Sainte-Flanelle…a fitting tribute for good guy Baiz…Roger, over and out…the MVP and the ‘dissolvement of ego’…The Shark’s raging PGA hate-on…bull droppings and the Golden Jet…and other things on my mind…

Top o’ the morning to you, Rick Bowness.

Boy, you sure know how to make an entrance, don’t you? I thought only Sinatra could “bring it” like that. I mean, you haven’t even spent a nanosecond behind the Winnipeg Jets bench and you’ve already ripped the ‘C’ off Blake Wheeler’s jersey. Ballsy move.

Mind you, that’s the kind of decision you don’t make without first getting the official okie-dokie from on high, which is to say Puck Pontiff Mark Chipman. After all, defrocking teacher’s pet is like telling Tiger Woods he can’t wear a red shirt on Sunday. Still, you pulled it off, and I just wish I’d been a fly on the wall during those discussions, because it must have been some juicy banter.

Whatever was said, Coach Bones, it’s no more Captain Cranky Pants for Winnipeg HC, which means no more sourpuss sound bites from a guy who enjoyed his natters with news snoops the way Donald Trump likes the FBI knocking on his door.

Also no way of knowing if the stripping of the ‘C’ will translate to more Ws from the same old-same old National Hockey League outfit that you inherited due to GM Kevin Cheveldayoff’s Summer of Nothing, but I guess we’re about to find out.

One thing the Jets faithful need remember: Wheeler is now ‘C’-less, but he’s still in the dressing room and has no desire to fade into the background like an old piece of furniture destined for a yard sale. Anyone who thinks otherwise is “sorely mistaken,” he told news snoops, adding “I don’t envision changing my role at all” and “I’m still gonna be doing the things I would have done with the ‘C’ on my jersey.” It sounded more like a threat than a promise.

Something I kept thinking after the big news broke on Friday: The Puck Pontiff and GM Kevin Cheveldayoff actually hitched their wagon to Wheeler instead of Patrik Laine. It was an astonishing blunder that will continue to bite them.

I note some Jets gathered for “informal” skates last week. In other words, just like most of their games last season.

Missing Person’s Alert! Richie Hall’s D-Dozen. When last seen, they were making Dane Evans look like Patrick Mahomes and the Hamilton Tabbies offence look like the Kansas City Chiefs. If seen, call the missing persons hotline at 1-800-We STUNK. Seriously, a 48-31 paddywhacking? I don’t think the Winnipeg Blue Bombers defence has surrendered more than 40 points since leather helmets. Scoring on the Bombers is normally more difficult than opening a bag of airline peanuts, especially in the second half. But the Winnipeg FC D-Dozen decided to sit this one out, and the Tabbies much-maligned QB, Evans, and his receivers were in full frolic, finding their way into the end zone five times Saturday at Timbits Field in the Hammer. But, hey, stuff happens. The Canadian Football League season is long and taxing, and the Bombers haven’t had much time to catch their breath, with just one bye week since late May. We won’t see them again until Sept. 30, by which time we can assume they’ll have licked their wounds and won’t be in the mood to play nice with Cody Fajardo and the Saskatchewan Roughriders.

Speaking of Corn Dog Cody, he served some vintage whine after a 26-24 loss to the bottom-feeding E-Town Elks on Friday, suggesting folks on the Flattest of Lands displayed bad manners in booing their hometown heroes. “I feel like the whole world is basically against us,” he moaned. “I’ll be honest, it wasn’t great when you hear your own fans booing you. It hurt.” Yo! Cody! There’s a cure for that. It’s called winning.

Apparently, the B.C. Leos and Calgary Stampeders took their hostilities off the field and into the parking lot after their grass-grabber Saturday in the Alberta Foothills. Something was said, a punch was thrown (not necessarily in that order), and cops became involved out on the pavement at McMahon Stadium. The Leos won the quarrel over second seeding in the West Division, 31-29 in OT, and the two sides will do it all over again next Saturday, this time at B.C. Place Stadium. No word on whether they’ll be selling ringside seats in the parking lot.

Anyone out there still not convinced Quebec is a different kind of world? If so, consider the appointment of Nick Suzuki as capitaine des Canadiens de Montréal. One look at the ‘C’ stitched on Nick’s chest and Premier Francois Legault promptly inserted the matter into the provincial election campaign, insisting Suzuki “will have to learn French.” Excusez-moi? It’s essential that Suzuki learn to say “it sucks to miss the playoffs again” en francais? Only in Quebec.

At what age do people begin shouting at clouds and telling kids to get off the lawn over piffling things like tiny ads on hockey uniforms? Seriously, why would any noses be out of joint because an RBC logo is sewn onto the Montreal Canadiens’ jersey? For cripes sake, man, it’s a smelly hockey sweater. It’s not like someone stitched a Burger King logo on the Shroud of Turin. Yet, many among the rabble (no doubt with grey hair and bladder-control issues) see this as blasphemy, even though it’s done in every sport you’d care to name. The most famous uni in North American jockdom—the New York Yankees pinstripes—features a Nike swoosh. It didn’t when Babe Ruth and Roger Maris were swatting 60 dingers in a season, but Aaron Judge wears one and it hasn’t hindered his home run stroke. Something tells me an RBC patch on La Sainte-Flanelle won’t slow down Nick Suzuki either.

The fear, of course, is that those 3×3.5-inch patches will grow into a monster skating billboard. The naysayers insist that, soon enough, NHL players will look like the people who drive fast cars in F1 and/or NASCAR, and civilization as we know it will collapse like Wall Street in 1929. Oh, please. NHL outfits are allowed two patches max (worth between $5 million to $10 million each) and, unlike soccer, the team logo remains the centrepiece of the jersey.

I think the Jets should wear a 7-Eleven logo. Good Ol’ Hometown, after all, is the Slurpee Capital of the World.

All-time good guy Don Baizley has been elected to the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame in November as a builder/hockey, and I just wish he was still with us to enjoy the moment. Not that he would want a big fuss, understand. Baiz, a local lawyer who left us in June 2013 at age 71 after a battle with non-smoker’s cancer, preferred any attention be kept on the down low, even though he had a client list that read like a who’s who in hockey: AndersHeberg, Ulf Nilsson, Lars-Erik Sjoberg, Kent Nilsson, Willy Lindstrom, Peter Forsberg, Jari Kurri, Paul Kariya, Joe Sakic, Saku Koivu, etc. He surrounded himself with more Scandinavians than ABBA and was at the forefront of the European invasion, smoothing their path and transition to North American life and its oft-barbaric style of shinny. Listen to enough people in hockey, and they’ll have you convinced there isn’t a body of water on earth that Baiz didn’t walk on. He’s had more nice things said about him than Mr. Rogers. But perhaps Hedberg put it best when he described Baiz as “the kind of person we would like to be and our sons to become.”

More than half the teams in Rouge Football are playing sub-.500 football, and two of the five will qualify to chase the Grey Grail in November. A most unfortunate state of affairs, Stanley.

It’s been a boffo year for the sale of used clothing. In May, the Hand of God jersey worn by Diego Maradona in the 1986 World Cup sold at auction for $9.8 million and, just this week, a Michael Jordan top from the 1998 NBA final went for $10.1 million. I’m not saying sports memorabilia collectors are suckers, but I understand they come in 50 flavors, from grape to “give your head a shake.”

Adios to Roger Federer, sublime tennis virtuoso who’ll take his racquet and go home after this week’s Laver Cup in London. The best ever? Always debatable. All-world classy? Never debatable. In a sport rife with me-myself-and-I boors who stomp their feet and hold their breath whenever their universe fails to unfold as it should, Federer was a beacon of all that is admirable in a professional athlete.

Both Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic have superior mano-a-mano records vs. Federer (24-16 and 27-23, respectively), but this is the difference from my perch in the cheap seats: Rafa and Djokovic use a tennis racquet, Federer used an artist’s brush and painted lovely pictures with the strokes of a genius.

Our guy Denis Shapovalov lists Federer as “a role model.” In that case, Shapo should try to behave more like Roger and less like a brattish John McEnroe wannabe on court.

Chicago Bears placekick holder Trenton Gill was penalized 15 yards last Sunday for patting down a patch of soggy Soldier Field with a towel prior to a field goal attempt by Cairo Santos. Apparently that’s unsportsmanlike conduct. Why didn’t I think to tell my mom that whenever she ordered me to dry the dishes?

Just wondering: If you aren’t a Cheese Head, which is to say one of the Green Bay Packers faithful, is it possible to like Aaron Rodgers? The guy’s become all sorts of creepy weird. Seriously, I don’t care what he smokes, drinks or eats, or if he dresses like he got lost on the way to Woodstock, but if he wants us to believe his Zen shtick about “dissolvement of the ego” he should probably stop reminding us about the MVP awards he’s won. As the Wise Woman of the Village once said: “Clap with just one hand at your own good deeds.”

Every time Greg Norman opens his cake hole, the more convinced I am that someone piddles on his Corn Flakes every morning. Is there a more bitter man in sports than the LIV Golf Series mouthpiece? Maybe all that anger stems back to the final round of the 1996 Masters, when the Shark authored one of golf’s all-time gag jobs, taking 78 swings to blow a six-shot lead and lose to Nick Faldo by five strokes. Whatever the case, someone or something has really done a number on Norman.

I’ve asked this before but, given the love and admiration heaped upon Sideline Sara Orlesky last weekend in Blue Bombersville, I again ask: Why it is that broadcasters become darlings of the rabble whereas newspaper scribes are lower than a guy who farts on a crowded elevator? No doubt Sara is a lovely person and the hosannas after working the Bombers beat for 14 years were warranted, but I have it on good authority that Paul Friesen of the Winnipeg Sun is also a lovely person who’s been scribbling sterling stuff about the Bombers since the turn of the century. You think the rabble will rush for his autograph when he slaps a -30- on his final dispatch for the tabloid? You think Winnipeg FC CEO Wade Miller will present him with a team jersey in front of a packed house? You think Zach Collaros will give him a game ball? Hmph! King Charles III will stop counting all that money Mommy left him and fly into Good Ol’ Hometown to knight Friesen and dub him Sir Paul of the Poison Pen before any of that happens.

I covered the Jets/NHL for 20 years and the Bombers/CFL for 20, and the closet thing I got to a salute was a bunch of middle fingers. And, you’re right, I probably deserved every one of them.

The Sara Sendoff makes me wonder: Will she be the first female inducted into the ultimate all-boys club known as the Media Wing of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame? By my count, the current roll call is 101 men, 0 women, even though females have written and talked about the three-downs game from pee wee to the pros for decades, and that math just doesn’t add up.

The show of affection for Sara (totally deserved) reminded me of my first encounter with Robert Marvin Hull, on my initial visit to the Winnipeg Jets lair. It was the season of 1977-78 and I sought sound bites from young Kent Nilsson, a dazzling young player in his freshman whirl. While talking to Kenta, I noted the Golden Jet and Lars-Erik (The Shoe) Sjoberg standing nearby, both of them clad only in white towels wrapped around their flat midsections. This was their conversation as they gave me the once-over:
The Shoe: “It looks like we’ve got a new reporter with the team.”
Hull: “Just another asshole to try and stir up shit.”
Yup, Hull could be a real charmer.

And, finally, old friend Peter Young confirms the Golden Jet’s attendance at the WHA’s 50th anniversary hooraw next month in Whistler. Hmmm. Maybe I should drop by. You know, just to stir up shite for old time’s sake.

Let’s talk about sayonara, Sara…a salute to Scotty…greatest Oilers vs. Jets…failing the sniff test…gay golden girls and role models on the ice and hardwood…a clown act on court…balls and strikes and robots…park it, Cam…goodbye Queen Liz…and other things on my mind

Top o’ the morning to you, Sara Orlesky.

Gonna miss watching you do your thing on Rouge Football sidelines. Truly enjoyed your yadda, yadda, yadda during Canadian Football League broadcasts on TSN. Very professional, with a nice blend of knowledge, insight, good-hearted banter, and girl-next-door charm. That’s role model material for little and big girls everywhere.

And, hey, I don’t suppose there are many better ways of going out than working the Banjo Bowl in front of a packed ballyard of Melon Heads and blue-and-gold beer-snakers in Good Ol’ Hometown. Hope you didn’t let them drag you up to the Rum Hut while you were still on the clock yesterday.

Best of luck at your new gig with the Winnipeg Jets. I’m not sure the local shinny side deserves you, Sara, but hopefully you can help Captain Cranky Pants find a personality.

Speaking of guys who wear/wore the ‘C’ with the Jets, so sad to learn of the passing of the uncranky captain Scott Campbell. Scotty lost his battle with cancer (screw cancer!) at age 65, and let it be known that he was one of the truly good guys. Or, as legendary squawk box Friar Nicolson would say about salt-of-the-earthers like Scotty, he was “good people.” Always obliging, always a good sound bite, always quick with a smile and a giggle, forever genuine, Scotty took whatever life threw at him and kept swinging for the fences.

Always loved this story about Scotty: Drill sergeant Tom McVie became bench puppeteer of the Jets in the back half of the World Hockey Association’s final fling, and he made a habit of working the lads like rented mules. During one punishing session, Scotty, who had a broken jaw, could take no more and began upchucking. Unmoved, McVie snarled, “Get sick on your own time!”

Nice tribute piece on Scotty by Mike Sawatzky in the Drab Slab, with commentary from former teammates Terry Ruskowski, Morris Lukowich, and Jimmy Mann. Alas, Scotty’s death didn’t warrant a mention on the sports pages of the Winnipeg Sun, because the suits at Postmedia in the Republic of Tranna decided the rabble in Good Ol’ Hometown would rather read a full page on a golfer from The ROT than a guy who wore Jets linen in both the WHA and National Hockey League. It’s ultra disappointing that the local tabloid continues to be the Torontopeg Sun.

I note the Edmonton Oilers have established a franchise Hall of Fame and will induct this Class of 2022 at a gala in early November: Wayne Gretzky, Grant Fuhr, Al Hamilton, Jarri Kurri, Mark Messier, Paul Coffey, Kevin Lowe, Glen Sather, Glenn Anderson and broadcaster Rod Phillips. Hmmm. Powerful lineup. But let’s compare that group to the Jets Hall of Fame—Teemu Selanne, Teppo Numminen, Thomas Steen, Randy Carlyle, Ab McDonald, Lars-Erik Sjoberg, Dale Hawerchuk, Anders Hedberg, Ulf Nilsson, Bobby Hull—and let’s imagine they played a game of pond hockey. Conclusion: The Jets wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in Fiji for one basic reason—no goalie.

Come to think of it, who would be the Jets all-time best masked man? Old friend Joe Daley, that’s who.

This is how brilliant B.C. Leos QB Nathan Rourke was prior to an owie aborting his 2022 Rouge Football crusade: In nine games, he flung the football for 3,281 yards; it took Macleod Bethel-Thompson of the Toronto Argos 12 games to pass Rourke, and Winnipeg Blue Bombers QB Zach Collaros is still trying to track him down after 13 skirmishes.

I always thought Dave was the wingnut of the CFL’s coaching Dickenson brothers, but it turns out it’s Craig, sideline steward of the Saskatchewan Roughriders and official apologist for the dumbest players in the three-downs game. They were ticketed for another 13 felonies and 141 yards in yesterday’s 54-20 paddywhacking by the Bombers. They should be clad in orange jump suits, not green-and-white football togs.

In terms of nose-holding optics, I can think of few things more odious than Hockey Canada CEO Scott Smith doling out gold medals to members of our national shinny side at the world championship in Denmark. The sight of Smith smiling like Lewis Carroll’s Cheshire Cat as the Canadian women skated forward to receive their just rewards last Sunday at the KVIK Hockey Arena in Herning was rotten eggs kind of foul. It’s like getting your law diploma from Rudy Giuliani.

Tessa Bonhomme, Jayna Hefford and Sami Jo Small did a lot of yakkety, yak, yakking on TSN during the Ponytail Puck tournament in Denmark, but I wish they had told us why Melodie Daoust was MIA. Melodie has been a Team Canada mainstay for years, and if they explained her absence I missed it.

The TSN talking heads, which included Kenzie Lalonde on play-by-play and Cheryl Pounder flapping her gums faster than a scofflaw fleeing a crime scene, kept insisting that U.S.A. vs. Canada in women’s shinny is the “best rivalry in sports.” Hmmm. I think the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees and their faithful might have something to say about that. And, hey, the E-Town Oilers and Calgary Flames don’t exactly play “friendlies.” Nor do Man U and Liverpool.

Nobody asked me, but I like Kenzie Lalonde’s play-by-play. Bigger and better gigs await that young lady.

Julie Chu, Caroline Ouellette and the kiddies, Liv and Tessa.

Did you know or do you care that the woman whose two goals staked Canada to its 2-1, gold-medal win over the Yankee Doodle Damsels, Brianne Jenner, is a lesbian? Ditto one of the True North coaches, Caroline Ouellette. True story. Both are gay, both are married, and both are moms. Brianne and bride Hayleigh Cudmore have a daughter, June, while Caroline and bride Julie Chu are moms to Liv and Tessa. Chances are you don’t care about this sort of thing, but I believe we should all care about inclusivity, especially in sports, which if often slow on the uptake. LGBT(etc.) youth need role models like Brianne and Caroline. It matters.

On that note, it’s adios to Sue Bird, among the finest female athletes of any sport, any era. Sue, who’ll have 42 candles on her birthday cake next month, played the final game of her WNBA career with Seattle Storm last week, and she leaves the hardwood with more decorations than a Christmas tree: 4 WNBA titles, 5 Oly gold, 2 NCAA crowns, 4 FIBA World Cup titles, 5 EuroLeague championships. And did I mention she’s lesbian and her main squeeze is yappy Yankee Doodle soccer star Megan Rapinoe? Can you say “role models,” kids?

I don’t know about you, but after watching and listening to mainstream jock journalists lather Serena Williams with the highest hosannas at the U.S. Open, I’m now convinced she’s the only female athlete in history to continue competing after giving birth, she’s the planet’s foremost fashion designer, she’s the first person to ever slice a loaf of bread, and now that she has some spare time on her hands she’ll probably swan off to Moscow for a tete-a-tete with Vlad the Bad Putin and bully him and his KGB butt out of Ukraine. As if.

Chrissie Evert told her ESPN audience that “no man” could do what Williams has done at age 40. Oh, for gawd’s sake. I mean, what did Williams do? She won two matches, bringing her W/L tally on the year to 3/4. That’s it. Full stop. By comparison, a year ago at age 39 years, 11 months (let’s round it off at 40), Roger Federer won four matches to reach the quarterfinals at Wimbledon. So stick a sock in it, Chrissie.

Why is it that whenever someone suggests Queen Hissy Fit is sub-saintly they’re immediately branded a racist or a misogynist? Before S. Williams came along, my least-favorite tennis players were John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors and Ilie Nastase, all male, all white and all off-the-chart boors. That didn’t make me anti-white or anti-male. It made me anti-jerk. So it isn’t always about race and gender. It’s okay to not worship at the S. Williams shrine simply because you think she’s a self-absorbed jerk.

Another question: Why is Nick Kyrgios so popular among the tennis mob? Ya, I know. The guy has immense skill. So do circus clowns. And the Kyrgios shtick is the same sort of carnival sideshow. I swear, Nick the Carny doesn’t sign autographs for kids after his matches. He makes them balloon animals instead. All that’s missing are the big, floppy shoes, clothes that look like something Don Cherry would wear, and a big, round, red nose that goes honk-honk.

After being vanquished in a quarterfinal match vs. Iga Swiatek at the U.S. Open, American Jessica Pegula was observed sipping on a tall can of Heineken during her post-match natter with news snoops. “I’m trying to pee for doping,” she told them. The marketing geniuses at the brew giant promptly launched an ad campaign, resurrecting an old Heineken tagline but changing it from “It’s All About the Beer” to “It’s All About the Pee Bottle.”

On the subject of brewskies, wasn’t that golfer John Daly tossing out the ceremonial first pitch for the St. Louis Cardinals-Washington Nationals rounders game last Wednesday at Busch Stadium? Sure was. Long John looked like Santa on vacation, and he threw a stee-rike! Apparently he then retired a six-pack of Budweiser before the home half of the first inning.

Two animal rights activists interrupted the L.A. Rams-Buffalo Bills NFL lid-lifter on Thursday night at SoFi Stadium in Tinsel Town. Apparently their squawk had something to do with abuse of hogs, but after a brief interruption those two little piggies went wee, wee, wee all the way to the hoosegow.

I don’t care what anyone thinks or says. If Aaron Judge swats 62 home runs to surpass the 61 dingers Roger Maris clouted in 1961, he’ll hold the Major League Baseball single-season mark for most round-trippers. What about Barry Bonds, you say? Sorry, it doesn’t count if you had to stick a needle in your butt cheeks to do it.

How do I know Judge isn’t also on the juice? Because, unlike Bonds, his head hasn’t grown to the size of a prize-winning pumpkin at the county fair.

The lords of Major League Baseball will put in a hurry-up-and-throw-the-damn ball pitch clock and outlaw infield shifts next season. Big changes. If they keep this up, baseball will start to look like baseball again.

There was also talk of replacing the home plate umpire with a robot to call balls and strikes, but the notion was nixed when seven-times ejected New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone protested, saying, “Oh no you don’t. If I’m going to toss a temper tantrum and kick dirt on anyone, it’ll be Angel Hernandez, not that cute, little R2-D2.”

The PGA Tour-LIV Golf Series war continues, and the latest casualty is Cameron Smith’s parking space outside the clubhouse at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. As Players Championship titleholder, mullet-boy Smith had earned the right to park his ride in the prime location, but then he had the bad manners to accept $145 million in Saudi blood money and become persona non grata in the Sawgrass parking lot. I’d feel really bad for the guy, except I can never find a decent parking spot when I go to the mall, and I don’t have $145 million to buy my own mall.

This from Cathal Kelly of the Globe and Mail: “Few professional athletes are likeable any more.” I wonder if that’s true, or has Kelly become jaded? I mean, I had natters with hundreds (thousands?) of play-for-pay jocks during my 30 years in the rag trade, and there might have been five whom I found to be flat-out unlikable. The jock-news snoop dynamic has changed since my exit, stage west, 23 years ago, but has it soured that much?

Steve Simmons of Postmedia Tranna tells long-time shinny scribe Ken Campbell that he was “too young” to understand the Us-vs.-Them political backdrop of the 1972 Summit Series between Canada and the Soviet Union. Campbell was eight years old at the time. Well, let me say this about that: When I was a sprig growing up in Good Ol’ Hometown in the 1950s and ’60s, the Cold War and the accompanying air raid drills scared the hell out of me. Whenever I heard those sirens wail, I’d either duck for cover or look to the sky for nuclear bombs, because I understood that Nikita Khrushchev was one push of a button away from blowing us all the hell up. Even at a tender age, I understood that Dwight Eisenhower/JFK were the good guys and Khrushchev was the bad guy. Us vs. Them. And, believe me, no one ever mistook me for a political science savant. All of us kids understood. But, sure, tell us more about what we were “too young” to know back in the day, Grandpa Simmons.

And, finally, I’ll leave you with this because it seems like the right thing to do…

Let’s talk about Burkie being Burkie…the watered-down U.S. Open…an openly gay hockey player…a sports editor who doesn’t watch sports…no women’s golf on TV…and here’s smoke in your eyes

A Monday morning smorgas-bored..and we should hear about Connor Hellebuyck and the Vezina Trophy any day now…

Brian Burke has spoken and many knickers are in many knots.

This is nothing new, of course, because much of what Burkie spews on Sportnet and Hockey Night in Canada is highly offensive to the many easily bruised psyches on Planet Puckhead.

Seriously, the man has been up more noses than a COVID tester.

So you had to know that his pot-stirring tete-a-tete with David Amber on Saturday night would set gums to flapping, even before his own gums went into motion.

The question asked and answered was this: Which Canadian-based outfit is most likely to end a Stanley Cup drought that dates back to 1993? A nation turned its lonely eyes to Burkie, and here’s what he had to say:

1. Toronto Maple Leafs
2. Edmonton Oilers.
3. Vancouver Canucks.
4. Calgary Flames/Winnipeg Jets.
5. Montreal Canadiens.
6. Ottawa Senators.

Cue the outrage.

How dare he lump the Jets in with the Flames. The Maple Leafs winning the Stanley Cup? Ya, talk to me about it in another 53 years. The Oilers? Only if Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl can play up front, on the blueline and in goal—at the same time.

So let me say this about that: I can think of more important things to talk about, like the burning in my eyes and throat from wildfires in Washington state.

I mean, on the silly metre, the Amber-Burke natter rates a 10.

The Jets he’s talking about won’t be the Jets in December, or whenever it is that the National Hockey League decides to drop the puck on a 2020-21 crusade. The Oilers of today won’t be the Oilers of tomorrow. The Canucks won’t be the Canucks who made an admirable run in the current Stanley Cup runoff. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

There’s swapping to be done. There’s the annual auction of freshly scrubbed teenagers yet to come. There’s free agent frenzy, with or without Bob McKenzie on TSN.

As it stands, only three defencemen who skated with the Jets in their qualifying go-round last month v. Calgary—Josh Morrissey, Neal Pionk, Tucker Poolman—are under contract. They have one goaltender, Connor Hellebuyck. They have dead weight up front to be replaced—Matty Perreault and the most unfortunate Bryan Little.

The current lineup couldn’t win a dinky-toy-sized Stanley Cup in a table hockey tournament, let alone the real thing.

So, let’s face it, Burke was spitballing, and he knows it.

It’s a dumb discussion and you shouldn’t get sucked into it. Let’s see how Jets general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff plays his dominos in the next two month, then we’ll talk.

For the record, here’s how Burke assessed the Jets: “They’ve gotta solve a goaltending problem, the No. 2 goaltender. They’ve got a great No. 1. They’ve gotta rebuild their defence. Most of their defence are unrestricted free agents. They’re gonna have to rebuild their defence, same as Calgary. I think Travis Hamonic might end up in Winnipeg. He’s a Winnipeg boy, but they’ve got to upgrade their defence is No. 1, and they don’t have enough secondary scoring.” I’d say he’s spot on.

Interesting men’s final at the U.S. Open on Sunday. Interesting, but certainly not high quality tennis. Dominic Thiem, the winner in five sets, and Alexander Zverev took turns self-destructing in the four-hour match, and it was only gripping theatre at the end because there appeared to be a very real danger of Thiem collapsing from leg cramping. The guy’s a gamer, I’ll give him that, but no way he beats Rafa Nadal, Roger Federer or Novak Djokovic with the level of tennis he played v. Zverev.

Kind of surprised to see Thiem and Zverev shake hands and hug at the conclusion of their match, because it’s considered a no-no during the COVID pandemic, but it was a nice touch. Gave me the warm-and-fuzzies.

Natually, the squawkers on ESPN tried to convince us that it would have been a Thiem-Zverev championship match, even had Nadal and Federer been in the draw and Djokovic hadn’t been defaulted. “There’s no asterisk on this tournament, none whatsover,” Brad Gilbert said pre-match. “If everybody was here, (Thiem) would probably still be (in the final).” Chris Evert said the same thing about the women’s draw, which was minus six of the world’s top eight players. Even the normally blunt John McEnroe fudged on the notion of an asterisk earlier in the tournament, suggesting it would be a “positive” asterisk. Such tripe. It was a watered-down event, on both sides of the draw.

I’ll be watching the progress of Yanic Duplessis with considerable interest, now that the 17-year-old from New Brunswick has come out as gay. Young Yanic was drafted by Drummondville Voltigeurs of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, and I just hope they look past his sexual identity and provide him equal opportunity. After all, hockey is for everyone. Well, isn’t it?

I note that the Drab Slab will be dispatching Mad Mike McIntyre back to the Edmonton bubble for what’s left of the Stanley Cup tournament. One question: Why? Well, okay, if Dallas Stars advance to the final, he has two built-in stories—good guy head coach Rick Bowness and good guy GM Jim Nill, both of whom have strong ties to Jets 1.0. But, unless Mad Mike is a super sleuth, he’ll only have Zoom access to them, same as every other news snoop with feet on the ground. If he’s being sent to E-Town just to say the Drab Slab is there, that’s as silly as the David Amber-Brian Burke natter.

Quiz me this, kids: Should the sports editor of a major daily newspaper watch sports? I ask that because SE Steve Lyons of the Drab Slab made this confession in his daily Playbook last week: “I have not watched a single moment of sports since Aug. 6. The closest thing to athletics I’ve watch was Eco-Challenge Fiji on Amazon Prime. I keep up to speed by reading about sports, watching video highlights on a couple of apps and chatting with Mike McIntyre every week during our Jetcetera podcast.” Interesting. I read the Drab Slab before the actual paper lands on doorsteps every morning, and I can’t say that the product suffers because Steve pulled the plug on TV sports viewing. In general, he has the right stories in the appropriate places. That being said, I can’t help but wonder what storylines he might be missing by cutting off TV sports cold turkey.

Hey, I can relate to what Lyons is talking about. My time watching sports on the flatscreen has been greatly reduced. Difference is, I do this blogger thing as a hobby and I’ve only got five or six readers, not fifty or sixty thousand.

I sure wish TSN or Sportsnet would arrange to broadcast LPGA Tour events, at least the majors. Sure would have been nice to watch our Brooke Henderson in the ANA Inspiration tournament on the weekend, even if she did come up one swing shy of a win.

Looking for a good read? Check out young Eddie Tait’s piece on the oral history of the Banjo Bowl. It’s boffo stuff.

And, finally, the only parts of the West Coast of North America that aren’t on fire are under a thick shroud of smoke, and I can report that it isn’t anyone’s idea of a good time. It’s very apocalyptic and I’m having trouble breathing.

Let’s talk about Bill Belichick and his Patriots games…fan girls and fan boys on TV…a clueless Bayless…long live Emma Peel…the mother of all tennis tournaments…Danny Gallivan and the Kit Kat Chunk-O-Rama…and other things on my mind

Another Sunday morning smorgas-bored..and apparently the border closing doesn’t apply to wild fires because I’ve spent the past three days sucking in smoke from Washington state. Most unpleasant…

The National Football League season has kicked off, and the New England Patriots will try to win the Super Bowl with Cam Newton at quarterback instead of future Hall of Famer Tom Brady.

Patriots fans need not worry, though.

Head coach Bill Belichick assures them that Newton can throw a deflated football as far and as accurately as Brady, and the rest of the cheating will take care of itself.

Zack Wheeler was unable to make his scheduled start on the mound for the Philly Phillies on Saturday, because he tore the nail on his middle right finger while putting on his pants. Serves him right for breaking one of those “unwritten rules” of baseball and trying to put his pants on two legs at a time.

Just a thought: In this truly bizarro, upside-down/inside-out 2020, I wonder if the real killers are searching for O.J.?

Okay, let me get this straight: Last year, Kawhi Leonard was God of Hardwood and a legend. There was talk of a statue. This year, Kyle Lowry is God of Hardwood and a legend. There is talk of a statue. If this keeps up, the Tranna Jurassics will have as many statues as the Maple Leafs blueline.

The shameless cheerleading for the Jurassics on TSN reached epic levels following their win in Game 6 of the now-concluded National Basketball Association playoff skirmish v. Boston Celtics. Fan girls Kara Wagland and Lindsay Hamilton were borderline orgasmic, with a breathless and swooning Wagland clutching her prayer beads and gasping, “Hopefully, the Raptors will find a way to keep it going in Game 7.” I swear, I haven’t seen anyone at TSN so smitten since Glen Suitor leaned in and gave Keith Urban a hickey during last year’s Grey Cup game. Meantime, after the Jurassics had been ushered out of the NBA bubble, Hamilton began SportsCentre by saying, “This one stings.” Geez, I hope her dog doesn’t dies.

Similarly, Michael Grange of Sportsnet went all fan boy scant seconds after the Jurassics’ Game 7 ouster in Florida on Friday, saying: “As Raptors fans we…” As Raptors fans? We? C’mon, man. You’re supposed to be covering the team, not waving pom-poms.

Did anyone miss Drake jumping to his feet and doing the court jester thing during the Jurassics’ aborted playoff push? Didn’t think so.

I don’t know Skip Bayless, but I’m pretty sure he’s a complete ass. If you haven’t been introduced, Bayless is one of those TV gum-flappers who long ago fell in love with the sound of his own squawk box, and that somehow led him to a gig as blowhard-in-residence on the Fox Sports rant-and-rave show Undisputed. And that’s where he decided that World Suicide Prevention Day was the ideal time to trash Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott, who had appeared on In Depth with Graham Bensinger and spoke candidly of battling depression. “I don’t have sympathy for him going public with ‘I got depressed, I suffered depression early in COVID, to the point that I couldn’t even work out,” Bayless barked in a chin-wag with Shannon Sharpe. “Look, he’s the quarterback of America’s Team, and you know and I know, this sport that you play, it is dog-eat-dog. It is no compassion, no quarter given on the football field. If you reveal publicly any little weakness, it can affect your team’s ability to believe in you in the toughest spots, and it definitely can encourage others on the other side to come after you. You just can’t go public with it, in my humble opinion.” Well, first of all, if you’ve seen and heard Bayless, you’ll know that he’s humble like a bowl of Corn Flakes is a cure for COVID. Second, what he said was disgraceful. Depression should be discussed. Out loud. And it’s beneficial when someone in Prescott’s position isn’t shy about sharing his experience and vulnerability.

Dame Diana Rigg is dead. Long live Emma Peel, probably the sexiest, most kick-ass woman in the history of television. Dame Diana as Mrs. Peel on The Avengers was Audrey Hepburn with a fencing sword, guns and serious smarts. Adorned in black leather cat suits, 1960s-chic jump suits, mini-skirts and heels, she whomped more bad guys than John Wayne, and a swift kick to the groin never looked so elegant and graceful. “Give a man a pudding and Diana Rigg during the lunch hour and experience shows he will be a thing of slobbering contentment from start to finish,” New York Newsday declared in 1994. Men who remember The Avengers will nod in agreement. Ditto some women I know.

Olympic champ Mo Farrah of Britain ran 13¼ miles in one hour recently. No man has run that far, that fast since Saddam Hussein heard there were U.S. boots on the ground in Iraq.

Why is it that when someone whispers a discouraging word about Serena Williams her apologists go into attack mode like junkyard dogs and make it about race and gender? I don’t like her because she’s been the neighborhood bully for years, also a total drama queen. Those are the same reasons I detested tennis brats John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors when they’d go off their nut during the 1970s and ’80s. It isn’t always about race and gender. Sometimes it’s about being a poor sport and ugly loser.

Apparently, the U.S. Open was the mother of all tennis tournaments because there were nine moms in the draw, and the squawk boxes on ESPN took the motherhood theme and milked it as though they were the first female athletes to give birth. As if. The talking heads might want to check out the Scotties Tournament of Hearts some time. It’s not official unless at least a dozen players are pregnant or breast feeding.

Naomi Osaka and Serena Williams after the 2018 U.S. Open final.

When is a tennis Grand Slam not a Grand Slam? When six of the top eight women in the world, and 15 of the top 50, take a pass. Which means, yes, Naomi Osaka’s victory in the women’s singles final at Flushing Meadows in Queens, NYC, warrants an asterisk. I can’t recall a weaker women’s draw, and I’ve been following tennis since I was knee high to Billie Jean King. No Ash Barty (No. 1), no Simona Halep (No. 2), no Elina Svitolina (No. 5), no Bianca Andreescu (No. 6), no Kiki Bertens (No. 7), no Belinda Bencic (No. 8). Having said that, it was nice to see young Naomi enjoy a U.S. Open title without Serena Williams taking the moment hostage with her boorish bullying.

The same has to be said about the men’s draw, which began sans Rafa Nadal and Roger Federer and lost Novak Djokovic due to a hissy fit, whereby the world No. 1 launched a tennis ball into the throat of a line judge and was told to leave the building. You have to beat the best to be the best, and neither Dominic Thiem or Alexander Zverev have done that in Gotham.

Gasbag Stephen A. Smith of ESPN says U.S. Open officials were too harsh and hasty in defaulting Djokovic. “You’ve gotta be kidding me. I’m like, you’ve got to be kidding me,” he squawked. The way Stephen A. has it figured, a whispered tsk-tsk and slap on the wrist would have been sufficient punishment because the Joker “showed up to play during a pandemic when he didn’t have to.” Ya, that makes him a real hero. Look, Djokivic only showed up because he wears tin foil on his head and thinks COVID is a rumor. And, of course, he saw a U.S. Open title that should have been easy pickings.

Got a kick out of a Cathal Kelly column in the Globe and Mail last week. “That golden age of Canadian tennis everyone started talking about 10 years ago? It’s no longer coming. We’re in the middle of it,” he declared. Sounds reasonable, except Kelly informed us that Canadian tennis was already “in the midst of its golden age” back in 2016. Hmmm. Milos Roanic won the grand total of one tournament that year, although he flirted with history at Wimbledon, and Genie Bouchard was already into her plummet from world No. 6 to bikini model (she was ranked No. 272 this morning). In 2016, it was more like the Golden Age of Coming Close and a Dizzying Freefall.

Kelly also noted that three homebrews—Felix Auger-Aliassime, Vasek Pospisil, Denis Shapovalov—advanced to the round of 16 at the current U.S. Open, making it “already the greatest tournament in Canadian history.” Good grief. Two guys getting properly paddywhacked in the fourth round and a third bowing out in the quarters of a watered-down tournament is “the greatest?” That’s like sitting in a five-star restaurant and saying the scraps under the table next to you are better than anything you see on the menu. I mean, at Wimbledon 2014 we had one finalist, Genie Bouchard, one semifinalist, Milos Raonic, and one doubles champion, Pospisil. And oh, by the way, I seem to recall a young lass named Bianca Andreescu collecting all the marbles just a year ago at Flushing Meadows. Yup. Whupped Serena Williams in the 2019 U.S. Open final. But, hey, perhaps Kelly was napping that day. Ya, that must be why he’s telling us that winning in the third and fourth rounds trumps Wimbledon 2014 and Bianca’s Grand Slam singles title. Also her win at Indian Wells. And the Rogers Cup. Kelly needs a Tennis 101 primer.

Depending on one’s definition of “Golden Age,” here’s what our net set has delivered in singles play on the main WTA and ATP tours in the past decade:
Whenever I see the name Dayana Yastremska in a tennis draw, I always think someone has misspelled Yastrzemski.

Hey now, here’s some dandy news: Squints at the University of Helsinki and the University of Eastern Finland claim to have discovered a cure for the hangover. It’s something called L-cysteine supplements and it also reduces “the need of drinking the next day.” If true, it’ll be the greatest discovery since Sandy Koufax found the strike zone in the 1960s.

Great tweet from long time broadcaster and former Hockey Night in Canada host Dave Hodge: “The ultimate definition of ‘priceless’ would have been the look on Danny Gallivan’s face if they told him to identify power plays as brought to you by ‘Kit Kat Chunky, now 20% chunkier.’” I can hear the great Gallivan doing the play-by-play now: “There’s the Savardian spinorama and now a cannonading blast by Lafleur, who couldn’t beat Gerry Cheevers’ rapier-like right hand as the 20 per cent chunkier Kit Kat Chunky power play comes to an end and Cheevers adjusts his paraphernalia.”

How does this figure? Marc-Andre Fleury, a goaltender, finished 19th in Lady Byng voting as the National Hockey League’s most gentlemanly player, and another goaltender, Connor Hellebuyck, finished 21st. Either some members of the Professional Hockey Writers Association don’t take their voting privilege seriously, or they shouldn’t be casting ballots.

This made me laugh…
Steve Simmons, Postmedia Tranna, on Sept. 6: “Two words that never, ever, should be attached to Steve Nash: White privilege.”
Steve Nash, head coach Brooklyn Nets, on Sept. 9: “I have benefited from white privilege.”
D’oh!

More stupidity from Simmons: “Suddenly, the Vancouver Canucks matter. They haven’t mattered much since the years of the Sedin brothers, Roberto Luongo and the Stanley Cup that should have been. They didn’t matter much before that.” Sigh. Only someone in the Republic of Tranna would write something so foolish. For the record, the Canucks have mattered since 1970 on the West Coast, long before they didn’t win “a Stanley Cup that should have been.”

Simmons scribbles his slop about the Canucks, then has the gonads to call out “writers and broadcasters spreading falsehoods.” I have four words for him: Phil Kessel, hot dogs.

And, finally, how can the 2020-21 PGA season already be underway when they haven’t played the 2020 U.S. Open yet? Or is next weekend’s golf tournament the 2021 U.S. Open? I’m so confused.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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?

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 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.

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.

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 a fresh batch of ruffled feathers…Wheeler’s classy gesture…no-throw Jimmy G…the real NFL MVP…a lesbian at the Super Bowl…Denis the Tennis Menace…Tie Domi and the Dream Gappers…and curlers have day jobs, too

Monday morning coming down in 3, 2, 1…and I had a dream last night that dozens of enormous meteorites hit Earth and the only thing to survive was women’s hockey. Unfortunately, there was no one else left to watch it…

Oh…my…gawd.

The Winnipeg Jets held a players-only, closed-door, navel-gazing session immediately after their 5-2 loss to the Blackhawks on Sunday in the Toddlin’ Town, and you know what that means, don’t you?

That’s right. Cue the controversy and scandal.

I mean, the last time the Jets blocked entrance to their changing chamber and told news snoops to twiddle their thumbs on the heels of an irksome stumble, we were advised that the National Hockey League club was “rotten to the core” and the dressing room was “fractured.”

Why else would the local lads duck and hide, right?

Thus, galloping gossip ensued and we heard about fist fights in the room, fist fights in the parking lot, one player dating another player’s lady, Blake Wheeler and Dustin Byfuglien in an alpha dog power struggle, Patrik Laine pouting, jealousy over the amount of money in pay envelopes, and head coach Paul Maurice tossed some petrol on that bonfire of speculation at his season-end squawk with the boys and girls on the beat, mentioning something about “ruffled feathers.”

None of those charges was ever proven in a court of law, or even a kangaroo court, but there was no stuffing that genie back in the bottle. The Jets were “rotten to the core” and a closed-door meeting was the smoking gun.

As if.

Let me tell you something about closed-door meetings in hockey: They’re as commonplace as spitting.

There’s been a handful of them this crusade, and I believe the Tranna Maple Leafs have held two, although defrocked head coach Mike Babcock described the first one as a “family discussion.”

So, hopefully, news snoops at the Drab Slab won’t do the Chicken Little thing this time around and commence to writing fiction. Unless, of course, they can provide ample evidence that there’s something rotten in the state of Denmark. If so, we’ll be all ears..

Classy gesture by Jets captain Blake Wheeler when, before departing the freeze following Sunday’s skirmish, he congratulated Patrick Kane of the Blackhawks on his 1,000th NHL point. Nice touch.

A question about the San Francisco 49ers offence: Do they have any receivers? I mean, quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo tossed what, eight passes in Sunday’s 37-20 victory over the Green Bay Packers? He went more than an hour and a half without flinging the football. I’ve seen guys in straightjackets get more use out of a right arm. I can’t see Jimmy G getting away with that against the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIV, though. Let’s see him try to beat them with one arm tied behind his back.

After watching Patrick Mahomes do his thing in dismantling the Tennessee Titans on Sunday, I can’t imagine anyone in the National Football League is more valuable to his team than the Chiefs QB. Lamar Jackson will get the MVP nod, but it won’t seem right when Mahomes is playing in the large match on Feb. 2 in Miami.

Hey, check it out: One of the 49ers assistant coaches is a woman. And gay. That would be Katie Sowers, who works with the San Fran offence that put 37 points on the board v. the Packers. Imagine that. A lesbian coaching in the Super Bowl. Who’d have thunk?

Early Super Bowl LIV prediction: Kansas City XXXV, San Francisco XVII, JLo/Shakira X out of X stars.

Something tells me we’ll be seeing more of the spoiled-brat side of Denis (The Tennis Menace) Shapovalov on tour this year. Our guy Shapo is strung tighter than banjo strings, and he was reduced to a racquet-tossing mess in bowing out of the Australian Open on the weekend, losing 6-3, 6-7(7), 6-1, 7-6(3) to Marton Fucsovics of Hungary in the opening round. At one point, Shapo was tsk-tsked by umpire Renaud Lichtenstein for racquet abuse, which produced this growl: “It’s my racquet. I can do whatever the hell I want with it. What are you talking about? It’s a terrible call! Do your job! Do your job! That’s an absolute joke!” It wasn’t quite up to John McEnroe or Serena Williams standards on the rant-o-metre, but Shapo’s young. Give him time.

The Dream Gappers need to do themselves a favor—tell Tie Domi to shut his pie hole. Pronto.

Domi, you see, awoke one recent morning and, much to his deep disappointment, arrived at the disturbing realization that the world wasn’t paying him enough attention, thus he started talking about women’s hockey.

That would have been acceptable, I suppose, had Domi confined his comments to the family dinner table or a convenient man cave. Alas, he was given voice on the Spittin’ Chiclets podcast; the deep-thinkers plotting strategy for the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association thought it would be a swell idea to include him in their Closing The Gap function; Tara Slone and Ron MacLean provided him a pulpit on Hometown Hockey; and, finally, he used his Twitter feed to insult anyone who has the bad manners to disagree with the Gospel According to Tie.

“I’m gonna do whatever I can to help these women have a real league, and they deserve it,” Domi informed Slone and MacLean a week ago. “The NHL started with six teams and I think we could start, in good markets, I think we could start with six teams and, uh, that’s my goal, to help them, whatever I can do.”

“Amen,” swooned Slone.

Well, let me just say this about that: Ponytail Puck needs Tie Domi about as much as Michael Jordan needs a comb.

Domi was an NHL thug and still acts like one (more on that shortly). He couldn’t cut it in today’s NHL, because players need more in their tool box than two fists and a head full of poured concrete. He wears his 333 career fights—plus one with a spectator—as a badge of honor, and seems to think his history of cement-head hockey and an out-of-nowhere interest in the distaff side of the game qualifies him as a spokesman for Ponytail Puck.

“I’ve watched it three times now,” Domi boasted on Spittin’ Chiclets.

Three women’s games. Wow. That many, eh? I suppose if he watches three episodes of Grey’s Anatomy or New Amsterdam he’ll begin to share his knowledge of open-heart surgery with us, too.

Domi adds nothing to the conversation, except a bad attitude and to parrot what others have already said about the absence of a viable women’s pro league: “The NHL and the NHLPA really have to get involved. Fifty per cent of the crowd is girls, or women, so, like, you’re gonna have interest. And what do they have right now? They don’t have anything right now. They don’t have anything ’cause it got taken away from them, so…I’m a true believer it’s gotta be fixed, and that’s on the NHLPA and the NHL to get that right.”

Actually, they do have something right now. It’s called the National Women’s Hockey League. It’s just that Domi and those he pretends to squawk for—the PWHPA and its Dream Gap Tour—would rather trash talk than discuss ways of bridging the great divide in Ponytail Puck.

Consider this Twitter exchange last weekend:

Domi: “If you think that’s the best quality woman’s (sic) hockey has to offer your (sic) 100% wrong! NWHL is hurting woman’s (sic) hockey and the sooner they figure that out the better for the Sport! The time has come!”

Corinne Buie Stan Account: “Can you explain to me, in your own words, how the NWHL is hurting women’s hockey?”

Domi: “Your (sic) dumb.”

(We’ll have to excuse Domi has glaring spelling errors. After all, it must be difficult typing with two clenched fists.)

Anyway, the always-charming Domi went on to insult other NWHL supporters, telling them, “your (sic) dumb” and “your (sic) dummer (sic).”

That from a guy who, on Spittin’ Chiclets, claimed, “What’s most important is when people treat you with respect, you give it back, and I’ve always been that way.”

Sigh.

Once a thug, always a thug, and I’m surprised a number of the Dream Gappers have welcomed his voice to their crusade. Mind you, it wasn’t so long ago when Hilary Knight of the PWHPA was mean-mouthing the NWHL as a “glorified beer league,” so I suppose crapping on the women who just want to play hockey in an actual league is part of their strategy.

And that’s sad.

By way of contrast, consider what the NWHL has to say about members of the PWHPA participating in a 3-on-3 game at next weekend’s NHL all-star shindig: “Congratulations to the outstanding national team players from the U.S. and Canada selected to participate in the Elite Women’s 3-on-3. Every major showcase of women’s hockey is an important moment and a victory for all who care about the sport. This game will have speed, skill and magic, and we can’t wait to see it.” So, one group wants a cat fight, the other wants to keep it classy.

According to the PWHPA, total attendance was 4,310 for their six Dream Gap Tour scrimmages last weekend in the Republic of Tranna and Vaughan, Ont., which works out to an average of 718. The top head count was 1,151, the lowest 203 (there were actually less than 100 when they dropped the puck). Meanwhile, the Dream Gappers were in Waterloo on Saturday, and let’s just say the empty seats greatly outnumbered the occupied seats. How anyone expects to earn a livable wage at those numbers is a mystery, but I’m sure Tie Domi will be presenting his business plan any day now. And, naturally, he’ll dig into his own pocket and help bankroll the league.

Just as an FYI, here are the average attendance figures for three professional women’s leagues in 2019:
Women’s National Basketball Association: 6,535 (high: L.A. Sparks, 11,307; low N.Y. Liberty, 2,239).
National Women’s Soccer League: 7,337 (high: Portland Thorns, 20,098; low Sky Blue FC, 3,338).
National Women’s Hockey League: 954 (high: Minnesota Whitecaps, 1,200; low Connecticut Whale, 423).
I couldn’t find official head counts for the dearly departed Canadian Women’s Hockey League, but the Toronto Furies averaged about 200 patrons per game pre-Christmas 2018, and it was 500 after Santa’s annual visit.

With so many people anxious to spend the NHL’s money, I find myself wondering what Puck Pontiff Mark Chipman thinks about subsidizing a women’s league. I’d really like to know if the Winnipeg Jets co-bankroll is for or against the notion, and I wish someone in mainstream media would ask that very question.

I find it interesting that Billie Jean King has thrown her full support behind the PWHPA, but she says squat in favor of the NWHL, which actually pays its players and has a 50/50 split on merchandise sales. Is the tennis legend and social activist in favor of all female athletes getting ahead, or just the select few that ask her for photo-ops?

Tip of the bonnet to The Hockey News, which doesn’t consider the NWHL to be hockey’s evil empire and continues to cover both sides of the great divide without prejudice.

I’m fully on board with one pro women’s league, but I really wish they’d stop talking about what they “deserve,” simply because they’re the best in the world and shouldn’t have to hold down day jobs to put food on the table. Look, Kevin Koe is a world-class curler (perhaps the best), and he holds down a day job as a surface landman with Repsol Canada. “The day somebody says I’m going to quit (her or his day job), I’m going to be a full-time curler because I’m making so much money, well I don’t see it happening,” he told The Morning Cup during the recent Continental Cup event in London, Ont. “I’m not complaining, but I’m not about to quit my job…and I’ve been a pretty good curler over the last decade.” Pretty good? How about four Brier championships and two world titles worth of good? The planet’s top Pebble People spend anywhere from $150,000-$200,000 a year to compete, and they pray they break even. They receive no health benefits. They spend upwards of 200 days on the road, playing from August to May. Koe throws rocks during lunch hour so he can be home with his bride and their two daughters at night. He trains on his own time and on his own dime. The only way curlers get paid is to win, and that’s the only way they can attract sponsors. It’s the same story for 99.9 per cent of them, but I’ve yet to hear any of them talk about what they “deserve” out of life. When they believed they were getting a raw deal, they started their own league and made it work. It’s called the Grand Slam of Curling.

And, finally, some have asked why I’m still writing this blog after I vowed to shut it down. Simple: Doctors orders. I’m supposed to take two Aspirin and write in the morning.

Let’s talk about Mike O’Shea feeding Chris Streveler to the wolves…CFL MOP candidates…Coach PottyMo’s milestone…scandal brewing in The ROT…the price of hot dogs and beer…Shapo gets it done…a Yankee-free World Series…and autumn leaves

Monday morning coming down in 3, 2, 1…and if you’re old enough to vote today, you’re old enough to do the right thing…

Okay, it’s agreed. Chris Streveler is one tough dude.

I mean, someone could huck a live grenade down the guy’s pants and he might miss a play or two while medics re-attached both his legs with a tube of Gorilla Glue and some Scotch Tape. But he’d be back in the fray pronto.

We know this because Streveler, when last seen, was walking like a man who’d just let a Rottweiler use his right ankle for a chew toy. While a dingo gnawed on his right wrist.

The Calgary Stampeders didn’t just chew him up and spit him out on Saturday night in the Alberta foothills. They turned him into a blue-and-gold pinata. I haven’t seen one man take that bad a beating since Mel Gibson let the Romans thrash Jesus Christ for two hours.

Somebody should have called a cop. And arrest Mike O’Shea.

Apparently Coach Grunge was the only person who didn’t notice that his starting quarterback’s body parts were strewn all over the field at McMahon Stadium. Wrist at the 40-yard stripe. Ribs at the 52. Ankle at the 35.

Instead of turning over control of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers offence to understudy Sean McGuire or newby Zach Collaros in the last-gasp moments of a Canadian Football League game that was every bit the barroom brawl, Coach Grunge instructed the much-mangled Streveler to finish what he had started, even though he belonged in ICU rather than a mosh pit of large, angry men. It was like telling Custer to have another go at Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and their braves.

The result was predictable, of course. Streveler, try as he might, was unable to muster another score and the Bombers were left wanting in a 37-33 loss that exhausted their aspirations of a first-place finish.

But never mind regular-season bragging rights. It’s about O’Shea’s refusal to sit Streveler down when there’s another weighty dosey doe with the Stampeders on Friday night, not to mention November football when there are no more excuses or tomorrows.

Streveler is O’Shea’s guy, we know that, so why did Coach Grunge jeopardize his health and Winnipeg FC’s playoff aspirations?

“You trust your players,” he told news snoops after the fact. “If he says he can go, he can go. At this time of year all these guys are nicked up, but obviously Strev got a little nicked up in that game.”

A little nicked up? Ya, like Evander Holyfield’s ear was just a “little nicked up” after Mike Tyson had it for a late-night snack.

It was reckless coaching, the sort of thing I thought O’Shea had gotten past. But no. Apparently, someone will have to saw off one of Streveler’s legs at the hip and hand the limb to Coach Grunge before he considers an alternative course of action at the most important position on the field.

And it isn’t good enough that Streveler wanted to re-enter the skirmish due to some warrior code.

“When guys do that they just, they’re putting it on the line for teammates,” said O’Shea. “They wanna be out there for ’em, they just love working for their teammates.”

Look, we all know professional athletes are wired differently than us mere mortals. Broken ankle? No biggie. It’s a long way from the heart, kid. Walk it off. Sometimes, however, they need to be protected from themselves. This was one of those times, and O’Shea ignored the risks because that’s the way he played the game. Balls to the wall, baby.

That’s what Coach Grunge knows best. That’s what got him into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame. And Streveler has that same linebacker mentality. It’s admirable. But dumb for a QB.

Just not as dumb as a head coach allowing it to happen.

So who do you like for the Most Outsanding Player Award in the CFL? I’ve got Speedy B of the Hamilton Tabbies, but Reggie Begelton of the Stampeders is closing fast on the inside. And, yes, even though the B.C. Leos have been a bust, Bryan Burnham warrants consideration because he’s a human highlight reel and the trinket goes to the most outstanding player, not most valuable.

I fully expect the Winnipeg chapter of the football writers to nominate Andrew Harris as the local MOP candidate, but I’d vote for Willie Jefferson. Sorry, but Harris is a tainted tailback.

On the subject of head coaches, a tip of the bonnet to Paul Maurice, whose Winnipeg Jets outlasted the Edmonton McDavids, 1-nada in a shootout, on Sunday night at the Little Hockey House On The Prairie. If you’re scoring at home—and aren’t we all?—that gives Coach Potty Mouth 700 Ws as a National Hockey League bench puppeteer, and I say that deserves something more than the sound of one hand clapping.

Got a kick out of Blake Wheeler’s reaction to Coach PottyMo’s milestone. “What an accomplishment,” said the Jets captain, who also happens to be teacher’s pet. “Obviously, been in the game a long time, he’s turned into an old man on us and, you know, I think the biggest quality of Paul is his ability to adapt to different seasons and different teams. Throughout his tenure as a coach, I think that’s why he’s had such great longevity. Players never tune him out, never get sick of his message, ’cause he’s able to keep it fresh and refreshing, and I think when you see teams really fall off and really struggling big time it’s ’cause the players stop buying into the coach’s message. Not even close to what’s happening here.” No, they only tuned out Coach PottyMo in Carolina (twice), Toronto, and Russia.

Hey, I’m not here to scoff at or trivialize Coach PottyMo’s accomplishment. Just to prove it, I won’t even mention that his 624 losses put him No. 1 on the NHL all-time loser list.

I don’t know about you, but the Jets are exactly what I figured them to be this crusade, which is to say all over the map. Really, nobody should be surprised by their herky-jerky start, and I suspect it’ll be like this for the long haul. Question is, will .500 hockey be good enough to get them to Beard Season?

Oh, dear, is there a controversy—indeed, a scandal—brewing in the Republic of Tranna? I ask that, because Mitch Marner says he wants to skate alongside his good buddy Auston Matthews. “Hopefully,” he told news snoops on Sunday, “we do play together a little more often.” Does this mean young Mitch’s feathers are ruffled? Is he calling his coach, Mike Babcock, a bit of a bozo? Is he saying he considers John Tavares a slug? Of course not. And nobody’s nose appears to be out of joint in The ROT. It’s strictly meh stuff, unlike in Good Ol’ Hometown after Patrik Laine expressed similar sentiments about his role with the Jets. Puck Finn told a Finnish reporter that he wanted to play with the big dogs, Rink Rat Scheifele and Blake Wheeler, and that was interpreted as a mortal slap at Coach PottyMo and centre Bryan Little. A tempest ensued. Big headlines. Puck Finn texted an apology to Little. Didn’t matter. Many among the rabble wanted him on the first stage out of town. Some jock journos suggested he zip his lips. I’d never thought of local news snoops as bigger drama queens than the mob in The ROT, but apparently they are.

As a folo to my Sunday post, whereby I mentioned something about a beer and a hot dog costing more at a Jets game today than an admission ticket in 1974, this was the going rate back in the day at Winnipeg Arena: Reds $7, Blues $6, Nosebleed $4. There was also a promo that allowed a parent to purchase a seat in the greys at the old barn on Maroons Road for the regular $4 fare, plus a second seat for their son or daughter for $2. Buy the kid a hot dog and Coke, and you were still under a 10-dollar bill for the night. Now the hot dog alone is $10.

Came across this interesting tidbit from my first boss at the Winnipeg Tribune, legendary scribe Jack Matheson: “You Read It Here First Dept.: The Jets will be long gone by 1976 because too many big business people in this town are big four-flushers,” he wrote in October 1974. Matty was out by 20 years, but his prediction came true, nonetheless. And he was spot-on in reasoning why the Jets would disappear. As he forecast, they split for Phoenix because none of the high rollers in town were interested in losing money.

Our guy Denis Shapovalov has finally won an ATP tournament, besting Filip Krajinovic of Serbia, 6-4, 6-4 on Sunday, and let’s not quibble about the Stockholm Open having less glitz and glam than in the past. A win is a win is a win, and anytime you can put your name in the same grouping as tennis legends Bjorn Borg, Arthur Ashe, John McEnroe, Stefan Edberg, Ivan Lendl, Mats Wilander, Boris Becker and Roger Federer you’ve done alright for yourself. They’re all past champions in Stockholm, so I’d say Shapo is keeping good company.

I must say, I’d be more interested in the World Series if the New York Yankees were involved. Not that I like the Yankees. Can’t stand the Yankees, because I was weaned on the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers and the damn Yankees always seemed to have our number. So I like to see them lose in the annual Fall Classic. As it is, neither the Houston Astros or Washington Nationals do it for me. Should be boffo pitching, though.

And, finally, this tweet from Steve Simmons of Postmedia Tranna: “The autumn colors are spectacular this time of the year.” What, as opposed to the autumn colors in winter, spring and summer?

Let’s talk about Patrik Laine’s loose lips

Okay, it’s official. Patrik Laine has put more noses out of joint than Mike Tyson in his prime.

Everyone from the Golden Boy to Dancing Gabe is PO’d at the gum-flapping Finn, and it’s only a question of exactly how much tar and feathers it will take to coat his 6-feet-5 frame.

But let’s take a deep breath and a step back, shall we?

Puck Finn isn’t going anywhere just because he shot off his gob—again—and some egos might have been bruised during a 24-hour news cycle.

Oh, sure, it might sound like he wants out, and the blah, blah, blah he’s spewed this summer indicates he wouldn’t kick, scream and hold his breath if Kevin Cheveldayoff were to send a text to Switzerland today, informing the fed-up Finn that he’s got a new postal/zip code.

But do you really think the Winnipeg Jets didn’t see this coming?

The local shinny side knew exactly what it was getting when it marked its territory and claimed Laine with the second shoutout at the 2016 grab bag of teen talent known as the National Hockey League entry draft. By then Puck Finn was already filling notebooks and delivering the kind of sound bites that had news snoops fairly swooning at the prospect of jotting down his bon mots for the next 15 years or so.

To refresh:

June 2016, talking about Auston Matthews: “I think we’re quite even and he’s better than me in some stuff and I’m better than him in some of the things. I wouldn’t say that one of us is better than the other. I think we’re quite even right now.”

September 2016: “I know how good I am. I can say that. It’s not a problem for me. If it’s a problem for somebody else, it’s not my problem. I don’t care what people think. I know I’m a good player. I’m going to stick with that.”

Back then, that meant he had swagger. Confidence. A cocksure strut. The gift that keeps giving.

When Puck Finn backed up the bravado with a 36-goal snot-nose season, followed by 44 snipes as a super soph, he could have scaled the Legislative building on Broadway Avenue and piddled on the Golden Boy and none among the rabble would have batted an eye. Except to say “Betcha Auston Matthews can’t do that.”

Yet here we are today and the faithful want Laine’s mom to wash his mouth out with soap or, at the least, get out the needle and thread and stitch her son’s loose lips together. Even some news snoops want him to zip it.

But why? What has Laine said that’s a get-out-of-Dodge offence?

True, when Chris Johnston of Sportsnet traveled to Lahti for a chin-wag with Puck Finn in mid-August, Mrs. Laine’s boy provided some sound bites that were less than rah, rah, rah for the home side.

“You never know. It’s still a business, you’ve got to be prepared for anything,” he told Johnston. “But, ya, you never know where you’re going to play next year, so I’m just prepared for anything. I’ve got nothing bad to say about Winnipeg, you know? It’s been good so far.”

That ignited a bit of a brush fire and now, almost a month later to the day, he’s skipping more stones across the ocean and an inferno rages.

Puck Finn thinks head coach Paul Maurice is a bit of a tool. The guys he’s forced to skate alongside are beer-league slugs. If only he had someone special to feed him the biscuit, instead of being saddled with Bryan Little, he’d pot 50 goals for sure.

And he’s supposed to say what? I don’t want more ice time? I don’t want to skate with the best guys?

First of all, Puck Finn remains an unsigned restricted free agent. An offer sheet from a predatory outfit is a possibility. What if Chevy and Puck Pontiff Mark Chipman choose not to match (highly, highly unlikely)? So Laine is “prepared for anything.” Makes sense to me.

Is Laine insulting Little and others by saying he’d prefer different playmates? Well, maybe we should let Chevy answer that. After all, the GM has insulted Little the last two springs by surrendering first-round draft picks to bring in rent-a-centres for the playoff push. Apparently Chevy doesn’t believe Little is up to the task, either.

Is Laine insulting Maurice? Hardly. Who among us hasn’t done some serious head scratching over Coach Potty Mouth’s deployment of personnel? The guy juggles more than a street busker. He’s blind to his favorites (hello Chris Thorburn, Mark Stuart) and he allows young talent to rot on the vine (hello Nic Petan).

But that’s for us to say and not Laine, right? As if.

Let me remind you of something else Puck Finn said last November: “You always have to think about what you’re going to say, but you have to be yourself. That’s the most important thing; just be yourself, and say what you think.”

So Laine is saying what he thinks and that’s no longer cool because he had the bad manners to score only 30 goals last winter?

Well, don’t say you weren’t warned. In early June 2016, I wrote this: “Is the Flamboyant Finn and his loose lips a fit for the Winnipeg Jets or will he give them fits?”

Looks like Puck Finn’s gift of the gab might actually be the Curse of the Gob, but I’m guessing that 110 snipes in three NHL seasons means the Jets will learn to live with it.

As for news snoops who want Laine to zip it? As tennis great John McEnroe once said to a chair umpire: “You CANNOT be serious!”

About Ugly Bowl 53 and a tit-for-tats halftime show…dinosaurs in the NHL broadcast booth…Connor McDavid and the Helicopter Line…the skinny on women’s curling in Manitoba…there goes Johnny…foreigners and three-down football…the Winnipeg Blue Bombers boss lady…and let’s play ball

Monday morning coming down in 3, 2, 1…and if you thought Super Bowl 53 was a bore, wait until you read Smorgas-Bored 187…

Brief takeaways from the National Football League championship skirmish: Julian Edelman’s beard gives new meaning to the term “winning ugly,” don’t you think? I mean, it was the only thing uglier than the New England Patriots’ win over the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday…Final score: Patriots 13, Maroon 5, Rams 3…I don’t know how the Las Vegas bookies made out on Super Bowl wagering, but Adam Levine of Maroon 5 lost his shirt…Officially, Levine did not have a wardrobe malfunction during the halftime show. He was simply flashing his tats as opposed to Janet Jackson flashing her tit. I guess you could say it was tit-for-tats…Just wondering: Am I allowed to use the word “tit” on a family blog?…I’d like to write more about Super Bowl 53, but I think I’ll do what the Patriots and Rams did most of the day—drop back and punt.

Contrary to popular belief, the dinosaur is not extinct. They are very visible, very vocal and you can find them flapping their gums on Hockey Night in Canada and/or Sportsnet.

Let’s start with Meatheadosaurus Nick Kypreos, who, just scant days ago, was seen and heard bellowing about Connor McDavid, suggesting the Edmonton Oilers captain take his hockey stick and “Send a message. Jam it down (an opponent’s) throat.” If that means a suspension for the National Hockey League’s most-dynamic offensive talent, “I don’t care. So be it.”

Same goes for Auston Matthews, the Tranna Maple Leafs highly skilled centre.

“There’s times when I wish Auston Matthews would (fight),” Kypreos told the Starting Lineup on Sportsnet 590 The Fan last week. “There’s times when I think Auston Matthews hopefully gets that in his game, especially around the playoffs.”

So Kypreos would rather have talents like McDavid and Matthews on the shelf or in the penalty box. Interesting.

Next up is Truculentosaurus Brian Burke, who used his HNIC pulpit on Saturday night to promote rough house hockey and fisticuffs. Noting that elite performers Steven Stamkos and Evgeni Malkin had thrown down on each other, the bombastic former general manager said, “You love it when blue collar players do their job, you love it even more when white collar players step into the mud.”

Then, showing video of the Calgary Flames and Washington Capitals mucking about at the end of a recent skirmish, Burke gushed: “This is playoff intensity in February. It’s fantastic. Our league needs this type of intensity to bring people in and get viewers watching. It’s a critical part of our DNA, it’s a critical part of what we sell. This is good stuff.”

Yes, by all means, let’s sell more goonery.

Not to be outdone, Lordofloudosaurus Don Cherry weighed in on the Winnipeg Jets.

“The big thing about these guys, they stick up for themselves,” he grunted.

Cue the fight films.

“This is a beauty. This is a pretty good fight, I have to say,” he had to say while we watched video of Brandon Tanev chucking knuckles with Trent Frederic of the Boston Bruins. “These guys stand up for themselves and that’s why, on the road, at home, they never lose at home, at that’s one of the reasons they win.”

There are numerous reasons to admire les Jets, but Cherry chose to highlight their pugilistic prowess.

These, understand, are three of the most prominent voices in hockey broadcasting, and they’re all singing from the 1970s Broad Street Bullies songbook: Let’s have less finesse and more fisticuffs.

That’s like telling Heidi Klum to act more like Simon Cowell.

The NHL has never been younger, faster and more highly skilled. It’s because knuckle-dragging neanderthals have been eliminated from the game. Isn’t it time someone removed them from the HNIC panel and Sportsnet, as well?

Checked out the Oilers-Montreal Canadiens skirmish on Sunday morning, and Oil head coach Ken Hitchock sent out his Helicopter Line to take the first faceoff—centre Connor McDavid and no wings. Actually, he had Milan Lucic and Ty Rattie on his flanks, but that’s like making Usain Bolt run a 100-metre race with a Steinway piano strapped to his back. No way the Oil qualify for the Stanley Cup runoff if that’s their top forward unit, which means there’ll be no Hart Trophy for McDavid.

Is old friend Randy Carlyle still employed, or have the Disney Ducks handed him his walking papers? Can’t see him surviving the season.

Caught the women’s final of the TSN Skins curling event and a few things came to mind: 1) It’s strange watching the Jennifer Jones team play without Jill Officer throwing second stones; 2) Jocelyn Peterman is a most capable replacement for Officer; 3) the women’s field in Manitoba is incredibly deep, but the last three champion skips are imports—Tracy Fleury, Ontario resident; Jones, Ontario resident; Michelle Englot, Saskatchewan resident.

Now that I think about it, Adam Levine would be ideal entertainment for a Skins game.

No more Johnny Miller on NBC golf broadcasts. This weekend’s Phoenix Open was his final gig. So who’s the best color commentator in TV sports now, John McEnroe or Tony Romo?

Commish Randy Ambrosie continues to spread the Canadian Football League’s wings in foreign countries. First it was Mexico, and now he’s finalized a working agreement with German football. Yo! Commish Randy! Three-down football is foreign to folks in the Republic of Tranna, Quebec and B.C., too. What do you say you do something to prop up those failing markets?

A week ago I mentioned how both newspapers in Good Ol’ Hometown were out to lunch when Dayna Spiring became the first female board chair in the 89-year history of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. I wanted to know more about her, and couldn’t understand why none of the news snoop at the Drab Slab and Winnipeg Sun had picked up a phone to chat with her. Lo and behold, young Jeff Hamilton has done that very thing, and his feature on Dayna is excellent. Best takeaway on the Bombers boss lady: She isn’t shy about butting heads with CEO Wade Miller.

I must say the Drab Slab absolutely clobbered the Sun on the Kootenay Ice relocation story. It’s been a rout from the start.

And, finally, pitchers and catchers report to Major League Baseball training camps in less than two weeks. Does anyone know where Bryce Harper and Manny Machado are?

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