Let’s talk about the Blue Bombers humble beginnings … kowtowing to kickers and the balls they boot … scar tissue from the 1980s … Drake’s spare change … au revoir Melodie Daoust … the Caitlin Clark snub … really bad pizza … and other things on my mind

Forget about the CFL gas bags on TSN. For the best take on all things Rouge Football, lend an ear to my two favorite gridiron girls, Lady Portage and Dame Main, both unabashed admirers of large lads in blue-and-gold linen. Take it away, ladies…

Lady Portage: “Oh dear.”

Dame Main: “That’s it? That’s all you’ve got to say after our Winnipeg Blue Bombers were flogged fore and aft by the Montreal Alouettes last Thursday night? Oh dear?”

Lady Portage: “That was just my starting point, girlfriend. Believe me, I’ve been full of blah, blah, blah and yadda, yadda, yadda the past two days, and a lot of what I’ve had to say isn’t the sort of thing we’d want our two kiddies to hear. If they repeated any of it, we’d be washing their mouths out with soap.”

Dame Main: “So you’re saying you’ve been salty since the Larks paddywhacked the Bombers, 27-12.”

Lady Portage: “Like Donald Trump every time a judge overrules his lawyer’s objection.”

Dame Main: “What can you say about the Bombers that’s fit for print?”

Lady Portage: “I expected so much more from the local lads, and I suspect the mob of 30,140 that assembled at the Rum Hut did too. What better way to kick off the 2024 Canadian Football League season than to avenge their Grey Cup loss to the Larks in front of a geeked-up gathering? Instead, they coughed up a hairball the size of a Portage Avenue pothole. Pitiful.”

Dame Main: “Maybe that loss wasn’t totally unexpected, though. I mean, Zach Collaros didn’t take one snap during the Bombers dress rehearsals. Zero. And Brady Oliveira was also MIA with an owie. So the starting quarterback and main running back had been in dry dock since last November, and a whole lot of rust can build up in six-plus months.”

Lady Portage: “Rust shmust! That’s dumb coaching, as least it is in Collaros’ case. Mike O’Shea has never struck me as a cocky guy, but he thinks his quarterback is so highfalutin that pre-season skirmishes are beneath him? Pffft. How’d that work out?”

Dame Main: “Quick aside, girlfriend: O’Shea ought to pass the legendary Bud Grant as the winningest coach in Bombers history some time this season. Any guesses when it will happen?”

Lady Portage: “Based on what I witnessed the other night, not before Labor Day. Maybe not at all. He’s six shy of Grant’s 102 Ws, and I don’t see any gimme games in their schedule. Well, okay, maybe the Ottawa RedBlacks will quiver at the sight of the Bombers later this week, but I wouldn’t count on it. They’ll watch film of the Thursday fiasco and realize there’s nothing to fear in Blue-and-Gold. But, listen, the O’Shea-Grant thing is a headline for another day. Let’s focus on what is, like a place-kicker who hoofs ’em right and left but rarely where he wants them to go.”

Dame Main: “Ya, Sergio Castillo had a rough night, missing two of three field goal tries and a convert. But there’s a reason for that: The chipheads at Genius Sports somehow conned the Lords of Rouge Football into sticking a microchip inside the ball this season, which allows them to collect some kind of data that we can probably live without. Castillo insists that chip does goofy things to the flight of the ball, and every time he trots onto the field he’s “praying the Rosary.”

Lady Portage: “Ha. Sergio might want to add a few novenas and Our Fathers to all those Hail Marys, because I’m not buying that computer chip baloney. David Cote of the Larks was 2-for-2 on FGs.”

Dame Main: “But other kickers across the country were singing from the same page in the hymnal as Castillo. They agree that there’s something spooky about that computer chip, like it’s the work of a mad scientist or a voodoo queen.”

Lady Portage: “Oh, come on, girlfriend. How big is the thing? It’s not like a goiter. It’s probably no bigger than the nails on your two pretty pinky fingers. You make the chip sound like it’s the size of a sun-baked cow patty. Which is kind of appropriate because it’s a pile of BS.”

Dame Main: “Commissioner Randy Ambrosie doesn’t think so. He heard the kickers squawk, and now they can pick either the microchip balls or the old balls. Hey, maybe that’s the Bombers problem—too many old balls on the roster.”

Lady Portage: “As if. That new, hot-shot kick returner, Myron Mitchell, is just 25, and he gave no indication that there’ll be life after Janarion Grant. The entire pass-catching corps is 30 and younger, and they were MIA on Thursday. Ditto the guy who lugs the mail, Brady Oliveira. Mind you, the guy flinging the football, Zach Collaros, has long teeth and—dare I say it?—this might be a sign that his best-before date is upon us. Zach’s game was ghastly. He looked every minute of his 35 years.”

Dame Main: “Whoa, Nellie! TSN just rated Zach No. 1 on its Top 50 list of the CFL’s best players, and now you’re telling me that Father Time has caught up to him?”

Lady Portage: “I’m saying he looked and played like an old man against the Larks. He wasn’t ready for the fray. None of them were ready, and that’s down to coaching. Mike O’Shea has to be better.”

Dame Main: “Well, the good news is it’s just one game, and I’d rather see a klunker in June than November.”

Lady Portage: “Amen to that, girlfriend. Now I’ve gotta run! I think I see one of our kiddies trying to stuff a microchip into the dog’s ear! If I don’t get that thing out of there pronto, ol’ Rouge will lose his bearings and start sniffing the neighbor’s trees instead of in our back yard.”

Frankly, Scarlett, I was surprised that the Lords of Rouge Football chose to kowtow to the kickers and give them a choice of which balls to boot, especially Commish Randy. He’s a former O-lineman, you see, and O-linemen look at kickers the way many among us look at UFOs—they’re out there, but we’d rather not have anything to do with them.

It would be nice if the CFL website included attendance figures in its game packages, but the stats page is something else the Genius Sports geniuses screwed up. Fortunately, we have CFLdb, the go-to website for all things three-downs.

Let’s be clear about one thing re the Stanley Cup final: The Edmonton Oilers are a National Hockey League team based in Canada, not Canada’s team. So the talking heads on our flatscreens and opinionists in print/online can cease with that faux storyline.

Let me tell you a brief tale: Back in the day, I held title to a 15-acre patch of earth south of Winnipeg, between St-Pierre-Jolys and Grunthal, and a herd of five horses. There were also barn cats. As it happened one hot summer day, I watched in wonder as one of the felines caught a mouse and commenced to playing with it. Each time the mouse attempted a dash to freedom, the cat would reach out with a paw and redirect the rodent back into its clutches. This went on for 10-15 minutes and, eventually, the cat became bored. Crunch! It sank its teeth into the mouse and enjoyed a mid-day snack. Well, that cat and that mouse were the Edmonton Oilers and Winnipeg Jets in the 1980s. So please don’t try to convince me that the fine folks in Good Ol’ Hometown have been swept up in a great swell of nation-wide Oilersmania. That’s pure twaddle. I mean, tell me that Wab Kinew has crossed the floor of the Leg to lead the Conservative Party of Manitoba and I might buy it. Tell me that Portage and Main is beach-front property and I might make vacation plans to spend a week there. But Peggers banding together to root, root, root for the Oil, the Evil Empire? We’ll see talking kangaroo at Dieter Brock’s favorite zoo before that happens. The Oilers of Gretzky, Kurri, Coffey, Messier, Anderson, Lowe, Fuhr et al used the local shinny side for their personal play thing in the ’80s, and many among the Jets faithful still have scar tissue to show for it.

I don’t know about you, but it doesn’t really bother me that Sportsnet talker Luke Gazdic is a homer, cheering for the Oilers in their Stanley Cup showdown vs. the Florida Panthers. It’s not like he’s the first TV gab guy to wave pom-poms on air, or has everyone forgotten about Don Cherry and the Boston Bruins tattoo on his butt? Kevin Bieksa doesn’t hide his affection for the Canucks during his Sportsnet hockey gig. Over at TSN, Milt Stegall wears his fondness for the Blue Bombers on his sleeve. But Gazdic got it all wrong when he appeared on something called Oilersnation everday and spouted off like a petulant school child going “na-na-na-na-na” in the playground. “Great day to be an Oilers fan. I’m happy,” he began. Then: “Canucks Twitter, you’re an absolute joke, your team’s a joke, you’re a bunch of losers. So, the Oilers are going to the Stanley Cup finals, and I hope you guys are having fun watching it on TV and watching me on the panel, because you guys are not there. Have fun with your little whining tweets.” He closed his hissy fit with “Go Oil.” That’s beyond lame for someone with a voice on a national broadcast.

Apparently rapper Drake has placed a $500,000 wager on the Oilers to win the Stanley Cup. Man, I’d love to rummage through his couch cushions just to scoop up his loose change.

On the subject of moolah, on paper every NHL outfit has an extra $4.5 million to spend now that the salary cap has been jacked up to $88 million. The Winnipeg Jets will use it to keep paying Blake Wheeler to not play for them.

Just wondering: Is Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff finally prepared to concede that sloth-like defender Logan Stanley was a mistake, or does he still believe being tall is a priceless skill he can’t live without. I mean, Ville Heinola’s career is going to rot for one basic reason—he doesn’t have to duck when walking through doorways.

My favorite hockey player, Melodie Daoust, retired last week, and there’s only one reason her departure failed to generate a bigger buzz: The men who make the decisions in mainstream sports media still think of female athletes as second-class citizens. We’re talking about an all-timer here: Twice an Olympics champion, one-time Olympics MVP, one-time world champion, one-time world tournament MVP, one-time world U-18 champion, multiple awards in university hockey. I’m not sure that those are Hockey Hall of Fame bona fides, but they ought to put her in the conversation at the least. The openly gay Melodie is also a great role model for LGBT(etc.) youth, and her next order of business, aside from being mom to son Matheo, is head coach at College Bourget in Rigaud, Que.

If it’s true that Caitlin Clark won’t be in Paris for the Olympic Games this summer, the folks who pull the strings for the U.S. national women’s hoops team have failed Marketing 101. Clark is the most talked-about player on hardwood, so why wouldn’t they want her to join the Yankee Doodle Damsels at the five-ring circus to attract more eyeballs to the women’s game. I mean, even if she were to spend most of the tournament with her butt bolted to the bench while the Yankee Doodle Damsels dismantle most of their foes by 50 or more points, her presence on the world’s biggest sports stage would be must-see TV.

Nice touch at the French Open, where organizers brought in tennis legends, life besties and cancer survivors Chrissie Evert and Martina Navratilova for the awards ceremony after Iga Swiatek had spanked Jasmine Paolini in the women’s singles championship match. Both Iga and Jasmine delivered awkward speeches, but I’m thankful they didn’t turn the microphone over to Navratilova. Who needs to hear another anti-transgender rant?

Just for the record, Jasmine Paolini is delightful. But I’m still pleased that Swiatek won her fourth French Open title and fifth Grand Slam. Some among the rabble might be tired of the Pole winning so often, but I don’t want to hear it. She’s a refreshing departure from former neighborhood bully Serena Williams.

One week into the “new dawn” for the Winnipeg Sun, I don’t see anything fresh or new on the sports pages. It’s still mostly Postmedia copy from hither and yon, put together by Postmedia deskers, so I have to wonder when new bankroll Kevin Klein plans to put more ‘Peg into a Winnipeg product. If he doesn’t have a man on site for the NHL Entry Draft later this month in Glitter Gulch, we’ll know for certain that he’s all hat and no cattle.

And, finally, I like pizza with my football, so I thought I’d try one of those new flatbread pies from Tim Hortons for the Bombers-Larks kickoff. Mistake. I’ve never eaten cardboard, but I’m reasonably certain it tastes like a Tim’s pizza with a few slices of pepperoni. Bland, bland, bland. You know, kind of like the Bombers offence last Thursday.

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

Chevy

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

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

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

The Jets have never been that team.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Issue: An apparent lack of playoff intensity.

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

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

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

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

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

Issue: The reputation of the Jets organization.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let’s talk about hosannas for Chevy …Bones gives Jets a public flogging…silliness on TSN…another Brier bust for the Buffalo Boys…UFOs…and other things on my mind

Hustler and Remis of Winnipeg Sports Talk.

Top o’ the morning to you, Kevin Cheveldayoff.

Well, Chevy, I just bet you’re peacock proud right about now, given your handiwork during the just-concluded National Hockey League swap-and-shop session. Yes, sir, you generally managed the Winnipeg Jets with such derring-do that you must be the envy of every other GM, with the exception of Kelly McCrimmon, of course.

It’s tough to keep up with Kelly, though. He sees someone who strikes his fancy and he pounces, like a pit bull on a pork chop, and—presto!—the Vegas Golden Knights are primed and prepped for another push toward the Stanley Cup.

Many believe there’s something sinister about McCrimmon’s methods, most notably the way he plays hide-and-seek with players on the limp, but, like yourself, he’s a good Saskatchewan boy and we aren’t about to accuse anyone from the Flattest of Lands of skulduggery, are we, Chevy.

But, hey, I’m not here to discuss Brad McCrimmon’s hocus-pocus.

This is about you, Chevy, and you should know the hosannas are raining down from Portage and Main to the Republic of Tranna. Lend an ear:

Paul Friesen, Winnipeg Sun: “Winnipeg’s wheeler-dealer hasn’t had this kind of deadline, with this kind of a team, since 2018, when he pulled Paul Stastny out of thin air.”

Mad Mike McIntyre, Drab Slab: “This seems like just another in a growing list of terrific Kevin Cheveldayoff deadline deals.”

Hustler Paterson, Winnipeg Sports Talk: “If you were doing a GM of the year from last year’s deadline to right now…hey listen, Cheveldayoff would get serious consideration. I would say going back to the Dubois trade in particular, he is going to get some significant consideration for some accolades he hasn’t been considered for in the past.”

Luke Fox, Sportsnet: “On paper, this is veteran GM Kevin Cheveldayoff’s best deadline to date.”

Ryan Dixon, Sportsnet: “Manitobans have to be thrilled with GM Kevin Cheveldayoff’s work.”

Cheryl Pounder, TSN: “I think that Kevin Cheveldayoff made an unbelievable move today in acquisitioning Tyler Toffoli. You can’t forget what he did earlier with getting Sean Monahan.”

Then there’s the rabble, Chevy. They might not fill the Little Hockey House On The Prairie anymore, but they’re as giddy as kids at a carnival, and perhaps some, if not most, of those 2,000 unoccupied chairs will be occupied by the time the Jets return home with the two new kids on the block—Tyler Tofolli and Colin Miller—in tow.

I swear, Chevy, you could run for mayor and dog catcher and win both elections in a landslide.

Come to think of it, Mayor Scott Gillingham and his cronies might want to put the giddyup on plans to reopen Portage and Main to foot traffic. You know, in time for the Stanley Cup parade in June.

Whatever the case, Chevy, the kids in Good Ol’ Hometown haven’t been this geeked up since the Beatles touched down at the airport in 1964, but you’ll have to excuse me if I hold my applause.

No, I’m not being a Debbie Downer. You’ve done boffo work. Fetching Toffoli from the New Jersey Devils in barter for a couple of wannabes/neverwillbes was wizardry, and the arrival of Miller shouldn’t be overlooked, especially if it convinces head coach Rick Bowness to keep Logan Stanley confined to the press box.

Yes, I know, Chevy. Stanley is so tall he has to duck low-flying airplanes, but last time I looked tall wasn’t a skill.

Anyway, before I join the hallelujah chorus, I’d prefer to see how it shakes down once the two newbes have joined the fray.

On first blush, it’s all good, Chevy. Toffoli’s 26 lamp-lighters indicates he’ll fill a goal-scoring need, while your hope is that Miller shores up the blueline, even if he’s half a foot shorter than Stanley. Your roster tinkering has positioned the locals for a deep dive in the NHL’s spring runoff, and maybe—just maybe—Tyler Toffoli will become your Butch Goring.

If that’s the case, it’ll be applause all around in June.

Jack Todd of the Montreal Gazette wonders why Toffoli has made more stops than a lost dog. “I don’t get why Tyler Toffoli is always the guy who gets traded,” Todd tweets. “He scores goals, he’s a great guy, his wife is a terrific member of the community—and yet he bounces around like the ping-pong balls on lottery day.” This will be the sixth different NHL jersey that Toffoli pulls over his head, but not to worry. Paul Coffey wore nine different jerseys. Ditto Jaromir Jagr. One’s in the Hockey Hall of Fame and the other will get there if he ever realizes there are more than 50 candles on his birthday cake.

Oh dear. Bowness delivered a public flogging to his players in the wake of their no-show vs. the Canucks on Saturday night in Lotus Land. Called the 0-5 drubbing their “worst game” in his two years as Jets bench puppeteer. “We didn’t have one player play a good game. Not one,” he told news snoops. So, do we cue the whine and cheesy party? I mean, I’m sure you recall how the workers reacted when Bones roasted them scant seconds after their ouster from the Stanley Cup tournament last spring. Their little egos were as bruised as bad bananas and, led by one-time Captain Cranky Pants Blake Wheeler, they mounted a counter attack, boo-hooing about their coach’s bad bedside manner. Well, Wheeler’s taken his exit, stage Gotham, so perhaps we won’t hear a group gripe this time.

True confession time: I did the couch potato thing on Friday. Yup, watched almost all the silliness on the TSN Trade Centre show, otherwise known The James Duthie Goof-a-Thon. (I know. Get a life.) It truly was silly (host Duthie called it “stupid,” but I’m not that harsh a critic). Still, I like silly, and the intro featuring Bruce Boudreau made me smile, while Jeff O’Dog and the Quiz Master champion skit made me laugh out loud. “It’s difficult to take myself seriously in this outfit,” O’Dog said. Ya think? … Can someone at TSN please explain Frankie Corrado in 25 words or less … Fashion review: Lindsay Hamilton looked striking in her fire engine red pant suit with the bell bottoms, but Tessa Bonhomme should sue the head of wardrobe for forcing her into a forest green pant suit. The jacket would have been loose fitting on Zdeno Chara. Meantime, Cheryl Pounder still can’t find her hair brush, and the knot in Craig Button’s neck tie was the size of a VW Beetle. Finally, do any men still wear dress shoes with a suit, or has it become sneakers all around? … When Duthie promised there’d be no lamas on the show, I thought, “Hey, I’m fine with lamas. Just don’t show me O’Dog’s butt cleavage again.” … At one point in my comatose state, I switched to Sportsnet and saw Paul Bissonnette among the talking heads. Gong. Back to TSN … Funny trade day tales from Wayne Simmonds. Good stuff … Button mentioned the possibility of a Toffoli-the-Jets transaction near the top of the show. Great call … Quote of the day goes to the aforementioned Corrado: “Sometimes as a player you are a little bit human.” Sometimes they’re human?

Among the great mysteries in life—right up there with the Caramilk chocolate bar and Trump worship—is this: Why can’t the Buffalo Boys win the Brier anymore? Manitoba has produced 27 national men’s curling championship outfits, but none since 2011, when Jeff Stoughton, Jon Mead, Reid Carruthers and Steve Gould toddled off with the Tankard. Our guys are one-for-the-21st century. By way of comparison, Buffalo Girls have won six Scotties titles since 2011 and 10 this century (12 if we count Chelsea Carey as ours). It makes no sense that our female Pebble People kick butt and the guys stub their toes every March.

Nobody asked me, but Joanne Courtney is an excellent voice on the TSN curling broadcast team. She’s knowledgeable, insightful and the banter between her, Hurray Hard Howard and Vic Rauter is healthy and good-spirited. Joanne is a keeper.

Not so good on TSN is that Anytime Goal Challenge by the SportsCentre anchors. Do they actually believe an in-house staff contest is entertaining? It’s a minute and a half of gasbagging. It’s stupid, and they should know that by now.

Lovely International Women’s Day feature by Dave Naylor on Maya Turner, the first female to play and score in a U Sports football game. The lady kicker with Brian Dobie’s University of Manitoba Bisons side was among the best feel-good sports stories in 2023.

Every International Women’s Day, I’m reminded of my favorite female athletes. Still atop the list is Wilma Rudolph, the sleek and elegant American sprinter who wowed ’em at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome. I thought her to be the most fascinating athlete I’d ever seen, male or female. I suspect that won’t ever change.

So, how’s the Professional Women’s Hockey League getting on in its third month of existence? Well, the women are still popping up on late-night highlights shows on both TSN and Sportsnet, the dailies in Montreal and the Republic of Tranna are still paying attention, and the rabble hasn’t abandoned them. These were the head counts in the past week: 2,479, 2,554, 4,585, 4,459, 4,607, 10,172 and, oops, 728. That embarrassingly low crowd count was at the New York franchise’s game in Bridgeport, Conn., but they attracted 4,459 to their skirmish vs. Minnesota at UBS Arena in Elmont, N.Y., home of the New York Islanders. And, with the playoff push on, the level of feistiness has been amped up. Ponytail Puck is holding steady.

Good grief. Sideshow Jake Paul and Mike Tyson plan to go dukes up at AT&T Stadium in Dallas in July. Tyson, former heavyweight champion of all the world’s fist-fighters, will be 58 when he and Paul touch gloves. That’s old enough to qualify for a suite in my seniors building (the notion of Iron Mike living across the hall is kind of creepy). I’m not sure what they’re trying to prove, other than there are thousands of suckers born every day, but, even at age 58, Tyson should be able to chew up Paul and spit him out. Starting with his ears, of course.

Apparently there were 570 UFO sightings reported last year in Canada. Imagine that, at least 570 people saw little green men, or their space ships, in one year, but no one in the country has seen the Stanley Cup in the past 31 years.

Things that make me go hmmm, Vol. 1,162: A woman is suing Victoria Golf Club, the District of Oak Bay and Kane Wyatt because she claims a ball came through her car’s open window and struck her in the face. Among other things, she alleges Wyatt negligently hit the golf ball. Hmmm. That sounds like every tee shot I ever made.

Seems there’s trouble with the new Major League Baseball unis: The pants are see-through. Gives new meaning to the first line of the Star-Spangled Banner—“O say can you see?”

Congrats to Andrew (Hustler) Paterson and Michael Remis on the third anniversary of their Winnipeg Sports Talk podcast. That’s a lot of blah, blah, blah.

And, finally, I had left the rag trade by the time Dave Ritchie showed up as sideline steward of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, so I can’t share any stories about the curmudgeonly coach. But he’s the fourth former Bomber that the Grim Reaper has taken from us (Kenny Ploen, Gerry James, Craig Roh) in recent days, and that’s always a sad bit of business.

Let’s talk about Christivus gifts and the airing of Sports Santa’s grievances in a year of fart parcels and passing gas

Happy Christivus, kids, and welcome to Sports Santa’s annual gift-giving and airing of grievances, celebrated annually on the day between Festivus and Christmas. Let us begin…

GIFT: Contrary to what the supermarket tabloids tell us or what we see on our flatscreens, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce cooing and cuddling was not the feel-good football story of the year, even if their tryst has attracted more eyeballs than the moon landing.

Instead, I direct your attention to Maya Turner, lady place-kicker extraordinaire and barrier-buster.

Maya delivered the warm-and-fuzzies on a Saturday afternoon of firsts in September, when she a) became the first female to participate in a regular-season U Sports men’s football game, and b) became the first female to score. But that wasn’t the last word on her debut. It got better. There was also the matter of the storybook ending, which Maya authored with the swing of her right leg in double OT, her field goal lifting the 0-fer University of Manitoba Bisons to their first W of the season. Maya finished the year 11-for-14 in FG attempts (longest 48 yards) and 16-for-16 in converts. (Just wondering: Do you suppose she’s a Swiftie?)

GIFT: No surprise that U of M head coach Brian Dobie would pooh-pooh gender stereotyping and give Maya her chance to compete with, and against, the boys. Brian’s one of the truly good guys in sports, and he operates an equal-opportunity program on the south side of Winnipeg. He gets it.

LUMP O’ COAL: Former footy manager/Premier League player Joey Barton overdosed on misogyny pills after England and Manchester United goalkeeper Mary Earps was anointed BBC Sports Personality of the Year. Barton reckons that snooker star Ronnie O’Sullivan or jockey Frankie Dettori would have been more suitable winners, and he described Earps as “a big sack of spuds that plays in goal for a girls’ team.” He also boasted he’d score on Earps 100 times out of 100 penalty attempts, “Any day of the week. Twice on a f—ing Sunday.” Sigh. Barton previously took aim at female commentators in men’s futbol, saying, “Women shouldn’t be commentating with any kind of authority on the men’s game.” And any bloke who disagrees with him is “an absolute fart parcel.” Double sigh.

LUMP O’ COAL: Spain’s now-defrocked slimeball futbol kingpin, Luis Rubiales, celebrated the country’s Women’s World Cup title by planting a smooch on Spanish star Jenni Hermoso’s lips and also grabbed his crotch, which might have been his way of saluting the flag. Rubiales refused to go gentle into the night, but a sexual assault charge and unrelenting international scorn convinced FIFA to give him the official kiss off. He was told to get lost for three years.

GIFT: Christine Sinclair went home to beautiful B.C. to bid adieu to our national women’s soccer side in a friendly vs. Australia, and dry eyes were scarce. It was a lovely, emotional farewell to a footy legend and Canadian treasure.

GIFT: Mark and Kimbra Walter brought great gobs of coin and renewed life to Ponytail Puck when they unlocked the vault to purchase the Premier Hockey Federation in June, then create the Professional Women’s Hockey League. Six franchises to be named later will drop the puck next month, and the three Canadian sides (Montreal, Ottawa, Republic of Tranna) are talking about performing in sold-out barns and/or in front of record-setting gatherings for their home openers.

LUMP O’ COAL: Let’s make it an entire coal bin for Puck Czar Gary Bettman, who exposed the “Hockey Is For Everyone” rallying cry as the National Hockey League’s Trademark Big Lie. First, he gave the NHL’s 700-plus players his official okie-dokie to make anti-gay statements (i.e. refusing to wear Pride specialty jerseys in warmup.) “We continue to encourage voices on social and cultural issues,” he said. (Oh hell, Gary, why not just say, “You have the right to be a bigot!” and be done with it?) Next, to spare bigoted players public scorn, he banned all specialty jerseys, but we all know it was a ban on Pride jerseys. He called them “a distraction” and he was right—the bigotry became a distraction. Then he put the kibosh on Pride tape, outlawing its use pre-game, in-game, at practice, and whenever any NHL player wanted to join in a spirited game of street hockey with the neighborhood kids. Puck Czar Gary stopped short of barring those in the LGBT(etc.) community from purchasing tickets and entering the NHL’s 32 barns, but, hey, the year isn’t over.

LUMP O’ COAL: Ivan Provorov, then of the Philly Flyers, started the NHL’s Rainbow Resistance Movement last January when he refused to play along with teammates while they frolicked, pre-game, on Pride Night. As they flitted about the freeze in special Pride unis, the Russian Orthodox rearguard sat in the team changing room, searching for Bible scripture to support his anti-LGBT(etc.) beliefs. He became Pied Piper to seven other NHLers—James Reimer, Eric Staal, Marc Staal, Ilya Samsonov, Ilya Lyubushkin, Andrei Kuzmenko, Denis Gurianov—and three teams—New York Rangers, Chicago Blackhawks, Minnesota Wild—to form the Rainbow Resistance Movement. The players cited either religion or Russia’s anti-gay laws to explain their position, whichever was most convenient.

GIFT: Travis Dermott of the Arizona Coyotes, recognizing that the Pride tape ban was a truly dumb directive, flipped Puck Czar Gary the bird (figuratively) and used the Rainbow wrap on the shaft of his stick. More recently, Connor McDavid was observed with Pride tape on the blade of his stick, and New Jersey Devils players arrived at their rink wearing specialty Pride jerseys. Civilization as we know it did not crumble.

GIFT: The man is a motormouth beyond compare and his rants on various platforms, including ESPN, induce hemorrhaging of the ears, but Stephen A. Smith delivered my favorite sound bite of the year. Noting that world-class glutton Joey Chestnut had successfully defended his Nathan’s Famous International Hot Dog pigout title by scarfing down 62 tube steaks in 10 minutes, Smith said: “It’s nasty as shit. His significant other does not want to be around him for the next few days. It’s gonna be a lot of gas passed. It’s a lot of gas. I know ’cause I don’t eat hot dogs like that and I pass gas sometimes. Stay away from me. I don’t want to meet you. You might burp and I might smell it from a mile away. I don’t need that in my life. No, no, no.”

GIFT: Also in the favorite-quotes category were New York Mets broadcaster Keith (Magic Loogie) Hernandez and hockey natterbug Greg Millen.
First Hernandez, who offered this batting tip: “You want to always be erect when you make contact. Like a telephone pole!”
Now Millen, on the Calgary Flames: “If you’re not scoring, ya gotta find ways to score.”

GIFT: Scant seconds after the Winnipeg Jets had been ushered out of the Stanley Cup tournament by Vegas Golden Knights, head coach Rick Bowness was in no mood to pat his players on their delicate egos. Instead, Bones had the (apparent) bad manners to deliver a public flogging. He noted the absence of pushback against Vegas and described the Game 5 effort as “crap,” saying he was “disgusted. Their better players were so much better than ours, it wasn’t even close.” Hmmm. Rick Bowness unplugged. Bravo, Bones.

LUMP O’ COAL: Bones wanted pushback from his players? He got it on garbage bag day. His truth bomb had lower lips drooping in the changing room, and the poor dears boo-hooed their way through season-ending natters with news snoops. The Sad Sack bunch that wouldn’t push back vs. Vegas attacked Bowness, dissing their bench puppeteer as a big meanie who stole their lunch money. And, no surprise, it was now-departed former Captain Cranky Pants Blake Wheeler leading the group pout. It was a pathetic, whine-and-cheesy pity party that confirmed the time for Wheeler to leave the building was long overdue.

GIFT: Many pundits expected Puck Pontiff Mark Chipman and GM Kevin Cheveldayoff to go all Property Brothers and undertake a massive renovation of the Jets roster. You know, strip it to the studs! Instead, the reno was limited to shedding themselves of a very bad contract, Wheeler’s, and peddling sourpuss centre Pierre-Luc Dubois to Tinseltown in barter for Gabriel Vilardi, Alex IaFallo and Rasmus Kupari. They then convinced 30somethings Mark Scheifele and Connor Hellebuyck to stay for the duration, signing both to seven-year extensions that kick in next year. Those contracts will age about as well as a carton of milk in a desert sun, but they seem to have already stirred something fresh into Scheifele’s game and the Jets overall brew (see current NHL standings).

LUMP O’ COAL: The Jets season-ticket campaign Forever Winnipeg last spring came across as a buy-or-else threat to the rabble, rather than a rah-rah pep rally. I mean, you might show film of a funeral to sell caskets and long, black cars, but you don’t do it to lure warm bodies to the Little Hockey House On The Prairie. Yet the geniuses in the True North Sports + Entertainment marketing department decided Forever Winnipeg should include footage of Jets 1.0 skipping town in April 1996, a grim reminder of the Day of the Long Faces. That was totally lame-o.

GIFT: Same as last year, Kerri Einarson, Val Sweeting, Shannon Birchard and Briane Harris brought pebble glory to the centre of the curling universe, winning the Scotties Tournament of Hearts. If you’re scoring at home, that’s four in a row for the Gimli Girls and, if all goes well, they’ll hunt down a fifth title in Calgary two months from now. Go get ’em, girls!

GIFT: I suppose there are some elite curlers who wish Jennifer Jones would take up another hobby (beach combing, collecting stamps, birding…anything!) to occupy her time at age 49, but our country’s Grand Dame of Pebble People won’t oblige. Jen & the 20somethings— Karlee Burgess, Mackenzie Zacharias, Emily Zacharias, Lauren Lenentine—won the Manitoba title (Jen’s ninth as a skip) and they didn’t stop winning until the final of the national Scotties, when they ran up against the juggernaut known as Team Einarson.

GIFT: The Grey Cup champion Montreal Larks wrote a gripping yarn in Rouge Football, starting with the purchase of the orphaned franchise by media mogul Pierre-Karl Péladeau and culminating in a happily-ever-after finish in the Grey Cup game. Ya, it’s a total bummer that the Larks torpedoed the Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ bid to grab the Grey Grail for the third time in four seasons, but I like it when a filthy rich guy buys a sports toy and stays the hell out of the way so the football minds can do their work. And GM Danny Maciocia, sideline steward Jason Maas and QB Cody Fajardo definitely got the job done for Monsieur Péladeau.

GIFT: Amar Doman is another Rouge Football bankroll who has the smarts to let the football people with his B.C. Leos do the football things. Doman focuses on getting bodies into the pews at B.C. Place, and if that means recruiting LL Cool J or OneRepublic to fill chairs, he opens the wallet then steps aside.

GIFT: When he wasn’t rescuing dogs, Brady Oliveira was running over, under and around Canadian Football League defenders. The Bombers tailback topped the three-downs game in rushing, yards from scrimmage and touchdowns.

LUMP O’ COAL: The Football Reporters of Canada were under the misguided notion that Chad Kelly was the most outstanding player in the CFL, even though the Toronto Argos quarterback led the league in absolutely nothing. I’m not convinced he was the best QB, let alone the premier overall player. The George Reed MOP trinket belonged to Oliveira.

LUMP O’ COAL: Davis Sanchez of the CFL on TSN panel compared Kelly to Doug Flutie: “(Kelly’s) that good, that talented.” Oh, put a sock in it Chez!

GIFT: The football writers got one thing right: They finally inducted a woman into the Media Wing of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame. Vicki Hall became the first female to join 104 men in the old boys’ club, and it shouldn’t have taken this long.

LUMP O’ COAL: If Globe and Mail jock columnist Cathal Kelly scribbled anything from The Hammer during Grey Cup week, I missed it. How does a national newspaper skip the national football final and the accompanying hijinks? The mind boggles.

LUMP O’ COAL: How does the Drab Slab (Winnipeg Free Press) continue to publish a sports section without a sports columnist?

LUMP O’ COAL: The Drab Slab ran an editorial on the hassle between Soccer Canada and our women’s national side, which stated: “This dispute is not just about resources. It’s also about respect. Women’s sport has chronically been devalued and dismissed, and often ignored entirely. It would be a shame for the beautiful game to continue to be marred by such ugly gender inequalities.” Sorry, but here’s what’s actually shameful: The opinionists at the Freep refuse to recognize the “ugly gender inequalities” on their own sports pages.

LUMP O’ COAL: Damien Cox of the Toronto Star also weighed in on the matter of male/female sports coverage, submitting this nugget of nonsense: “It certainly seems acutely unbalanced” Yikes! It seems unbalanced? That’s like saying Shaquille O’Neal seems to be bigger than Simone Biles.

GIFT: The Drab Slab continues to dispatch scribes hither and yon to cover the Jets, Bombers and big-ticket curling events. That’s how it’s supposed to be done.

GIFT: Paul Friesen, Ted Wyman and Scott Billeck keep fighting the good fight for the Winnipeg Sun, even though the parent company, Postmedia, has their hands tied behind their backs and their feet in shackles.

LUMP O’ COAL: No one is as prolific at airing grievances as Steve Simmons, and the Postmedia Tranna columnist didn’t disappoint in 2023. He spent much of the year yelling at the kids on his lawn, and his grousing included this gobsmacking gem: “I do love watching the Masters, but I wonder: Can we edit out the bird chirping that’s heard in the background?” (Oh, yes, by all means, Steve. And perhaps we can also take a weed whacker to those pesky azaleas at Augusta National. Good grief. You know a guy’s achieved cranky old man status when springtime delights like birds chirping disturbs his couch potatoing.)

LUMP O’ COAL: When Tiger Woods wasn’t missing the cut at the few golf tournaments he entered, he was playing frat boy pranks, like handing Justin Thomas a tampon after out-driving him at the Genesis Invitational. It was Tiger’s way of saying, “You play like a girl, fella.” You know, giggles between buds. Well, tee-hee. Tiger is funny like a bag of Old Dutch potato chips and a Slurpee is French cuisine. And, as an aside, where did he get that tampon? At the neighborhood 7-Eleven or from his teenage daughter, Sam?

And, finally, happy ho-ho-ho to all and may none of your sports heroes fall from their pedestals in 2024.

Two Hens In The Hockey House: It’s down the Wheeler rabbit hole with Scheifele and Hellebuyck

Another National Hockey League marathon is upon us and the Winnipeg Jets spiced up the mood before they even dropped the puck, signing Mark Scheifele and Connor Hellebuyck to seven-year contract extensions. And who better to break it all down than our all-knowing Two Hens In The Hockey House? Take it away, ladies…

Question Lady: “Well, girlfriend, most of us thought the Jets would be dealing with an elephant in the room—make that two elephants in the room—from the opening faceoff until the trade deadline next March, so Puck Pontiff Mark Chipman and GM Kevin Cheveldayoff fooled a lot of people when they convinced Scheifele and Hellebuyck to scratch their signatures on contracts that keep them in Good Ol’ Hometown for the duration. What’s your take on the deals?”

Answer Lady: “That the Puck Pontiff and Chevy didn’t learn a damn thing from their Blake Wheeler experience.”

Question Lady: “You don’t like what the Jets are selling?”

Answer Lady: “It’s Blake Wheeler all over again. They hitched their wagon to Wheels in 2018 by giving him a five-year extension. At age 32! That was their Stanley Cup window. And how did it work out? His numbers dwindled, the team imploded, the ‘C’ was stripped from his jersey, and they had to buy their way out of his unmovable contract. Now they’ve gone down that same rabbit hole with Scheifele and Hellebuyck. I mean, seven-year extensions for two 30-year-olds? Do the math. It isn’t going to end well.”

Question Lady: “You’re probably right about that, but isn’t this a clear indication that the Jets are in win-now mode?”

Answer Lady: “Win what now? Have you taken a look at their roster? Does that make you want to book a day off work for a Stanley Cup parade? The Jets are no better today than they were before Scheifele and Hellebuyck took a long swig of the Kool-Aid and signed those extensions. It’s essentially the same outfit that crashed and burned in the back half of last season, then surrendered quite meekly vs. Vegas in the playoffs, then bitched a blue streak about head coach Rick Bowness. Have you forgotten that stuff?”

Question Lady: “Not at all, but I don’t think we should look at it like the Jets are opening an eight-year Scheifele/Hellebuyck window. Shouldn’t the focus be on the present, since both those guys are in their prime now? Scheifele is coming off a career high in goals, 42.”

Answer Lady: “Ya, and there’s also a rumor that he actually skated into the defensive end of the ice once or twice last season, although there’s no video evidence to support it. But your point is well taken. Forty-two goals is 42 goals is 42 goals. Just a reminder, though, that it was also the first time since 2016 that the Rink Rat failed to deliver a point a game. It was his lowest points-per-game average (0.84) since 2015. So the question is: Was that the first hint of his inevitable 30something decline?”

Question Lady: “Are you writing him off? Are you saying he’s already reached his best-before date?”

Answer Lady: “Not at all. No doubt Scheifele still has plenty of good tread on the tires, but I direct your attention to Wheeler once again. After his extension kicked in, his production went into a tailspin, from 91 points to a low of 55 in an 82-game crusade. As the age goes north, the numbers go south unless you’re a freak, and I’ve never thought of Scheifele as freakish. He’s a Rink Rat, but not a freak. Look, I said the Wheeler contract was stupid at the time because of the term, and I’m saying the same about the Scheifele and Hellebuyck deals. The term is stupid. It makes no sense.”

Question Lady: “The money’s okay, though?”

Answer Lady: “Well, $8.5 million per year is a lot of coin, but it seems to be the going rate in today’s market. I’m not sure what the Jets will be getting for their $8.5 mill in 2031, but I’m guessing they’ll be paying one or both of them to not play before then. Which is why the term is as dumb as the Wheeler contract. Maybe dumber.

“It boggles the mind that the Puck Pontiff and Chevy would make the same blunder again. But I can’t say I’m surprised. I recall what Chevy said at the trade deadline last March: ‘If you look at all the different components as to why you think you should be able to compete for a Stanley Cup, I think we’ve got it.’ At the time, I thought he actually believed his own bluster. But if that were true, why did he and the Puck Pontiff unload Wheeler? Why does Pierre-Luc Dubois now have a Hollywood zip code? If the pieces were already in place, why change the pieces? Because Chevy didn’t believe it then, and he doesn’t believe it now. He believes in mediocrity, of sneaking into the playoffs. Ditto the Puck Pontiff.”

Question Lady: “So you think there should have been a bigger overhaul?”

Answer Lady: “Absolutely. This core has run its course. We’ll never know what the return would have been in barter for Scheifele and/or Hellebuyck, but we do know that hope has been put on hold because ownership/management sees something that isn’t there.”

Question Lady: “What do you see this season?”

Answer Lady: “A bubble team. But, hey, maybe they’ll finally end a crusade without bitching at, and about, each other and the coach. I suppose that would indicate progress.”

Question Lady: “What do you say we have a natter again at the Christmas break?”

Answer Lady: “That works for me, girlfriend. I’m good as long as it doesn’t interfere with Black Friday next month.”

Let’s talk about decoding hockey-speak…the Lady Bison puts her best foot forward…TSN doesn’t have a clue…rattlesnakes and rodents…Ponytail Puck leftovers…and Rip Van Kukuchi

Jim Rutherford

Hockey people don’t use straight talk. They speak in code. They talk in circles. They’re convinced that BS baffles brains.

Fortunately, after close to 70 years watching shinny (started in the mid-1950s), working shinny beats in the rag trade (30 years) and blogging about shinny (20 years), I’ve learned to decode hockey-speak and put it into plain language. So, what do you say we hop hither and yawn across Our Frozen Tundra and lend an ear to what the decision-makers were saying in advance of National Hockey League training camps?

Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brad Treliving, on the muscle he’s added to his roster: “I should probably not use the word snot. I’ve heard a lot about that. I firmly believe there’s a style that you need to play at the very most important times, and it’s as much a mentality as it is anything else. I know there’s been lots of talk about abrasiveness. These are also good players. We’ve all watched games in April, May and June. There’s no space, it’s a harder game, you’ve gotta fight through traffic, and so the more players you can have with that mentality, that skill set, I think it helps you.”

What he really said: “Whenever things go off the rails, I expect coach Sheldon Keefe to unleash our guard dog, Ryan Reaves, from the end of the bench and I expect Ryan to go out on the ice and beat the snot out of one of their guys. It doesn’t mean we’ll win that game or the series, but snot should fly in April, May and June.”

Jim Rutherford, president of hockey ops, Vancouver Canucks: “I think to be very to the point, the changes that we’ve made, we have a playoff team if everything goes right. Your goalie has to be good. Your specialty teams have to be good. You can’t get into a lot of injuries. Okay, now I’m not saying if one of those things go wrong, we can’t still make it. Because we have some impact players that can win games by themselves. But we want to get to a point that we have enough in our lineup, that you can have a few things go wrong on a regular basis and overcome that.”

What he really said: “If, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if…and if there was no water in the Pacific Ocean it would be the Pacific Desert and we’d still be a bubble team.”

Winnipeg Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff, on a contract natter with goaltender Connor Hellebuyck: “It was a good meeting. You know, we sat down, we chatted and, again, he’s a pro, he’s been at this for a long, long time now and, again, a lot of the focus in the meeting, and that was exactly what I said, we’re here to try to win.”

What he really said: “I don’t have a clue what it’s gonna take to sign this guy. He’s been around long enough to know what 40-below weather feels like, but he won’t believe me when I tell him that it won’t be 40-below the day we have our Stanley Cup parade.”

Edmonton Oilers GM Ken Holland, on who his No. 1 goaltender will be, Stuart Skinner or Jack Campbell: “The reality is, we’re gonna need both guys over 82 games. I would think by the end of the year one guy plays 50, one guy plays 30 or 45 and 35, we’ll play that as we go. We’re gonna need both guys. It’s really a two-goalie league. I’m confident that we’re gonna have a competent one-two punch.”

What he really said: “How long have we been talking about goaltending in Edmonton? Since Grant Fuhr? Hey, maybe we should give Fuhrsie a call. I know he’s 60 years old, but…”

Calgary Flames GM Craig Conroy: “When we get in those tight games, I want this team to get that swagger back. I didn’t feel like we had it at times last year. We were in so many tight games, and it felt like maybe we were a little tight during the game. I remember when we were the Comeback Kids and I remember thinking I never was worried.”

What he really said: “I remember when this team had Lanny McDonald and Mike Vernon and Pepper. Those guys liked it in Calgary. They didn’t want to leave for Florida or Columbus.”

Ottawa Senators head coach D.J. Smith, on his goaltending: “If one guy is playing great and the other guy is not playing great, it’s clear that the one guy playing great is gonna go and get to go as many times as possible. But if they’re both going well? That model works because you keep everyone fresh. Injuries are less. The more these guys play, they get hurt today. But we’re going to do everything we can to win every game.”

What he really said: “Hell, for all I know, our EBUG will be in the blue paint 20 times this season.”

Montreal Canadiens head coach Martin St. Louis, on team bonding: “When the guys care for one another, they can accomplish way more. That’s in anything, any sport, guys have to care for one another and I think they do. The success on the ice…sometimes starts so far from the ice.”

What he really said: “When the guys care for one another, they can accomplish way more. That’s in anything, any sport, guys have to care for one another and I think they do. The success on the ice…sometimes starts so far from the ice.”

There are feel-good stories, then there’s what Maya Turner authored on the first day of autumn. All Maya did Saturday was make Rouge Football history, first by fitting herself into the brown-gold-and-white livery of the University of Manitoba Bisons and trotting onto IG Field on the south side of Winnipeg, then by becoming the first female to score points in a U Sports regular-season skirmish and, finally, by hoofing a 21-yard field goal in OT to deliver the decisive points in a 27-24 decision over the Regina Rams. Oh, and did I mention she was 5-for-5, with three successful PATs? That’s goose bumps stuff. So, a big tip of the bonnet to Maya and Bisons head coach Brian Dobie, a progressive thinker and one of the all-time good guys.

TSN scours the globe in search of good copy to fill its hour of air time on SportsCentre, but I guess the camera people and news snoops in Winnipeg called in sick on Saturday. What other explanation can there be for Maya’s exploits escaping their notice? Seriously. Not a word on the highlights show in the small hours this morning. No video evidence either. Maya didn’t happen. But wait. They managed to find time to squeeze in a mention of Haley Van Voorhis, the first female non-kicker to participate in an NCAA football game for Division III Shenandoah University. The mind boggles.

If you’re wondering, yes, Sportsnet Central had a brief item on Maya’s special day in U Sports.

Speaking of Sportsnet, Ray Ferraro will be in the Vancouver regional Blab Box for a limited number of games (about 20) this NHL season, and his bride, Cammi Granato, is an assistant GM with the Canucks. Can you say conflict of interest, kids? Naw. Not Ray. He’s been shooting straight on hockey broadcasts for years now (best in the biz), and I don’t expect pillow talk will cause him to holster his frankness.

What’s that sound I hear whenever Frank Corrado surfaces on TSN to share his pearls of blah, blah, blah on all things shinny? The clicking of the mute button.

I can’t say I was surprised to learn that the Boston Bruins had anointed Brad Marchand team captain. I mean, he’s changed his rodent ways. Why, I’d wager that he hasn’t licked another player’s face in at least two years.

Favorite headline from the past week, on the Sportsnet website: “Why this year will be different for Matthews and Maple Leafs.” I swallowed the bait and called up the video to discover Auston Matthews explaining the “why.” Apparently he and his accomplices are going to “take steps. Try to take steps in the right direction. Take those steps and be hungry for more.” All right! Let’s map out the parade route!

The Vancouver Giants are stockpiling celeb bankrolls, with one half of the cornball Property Brothers, Drew Scott, signing up to help pay the bills for the Western Hockey League franchise. He joins crooner Michael Bublé on the ownership roster, so they have a singer and an actor from a reality TV show that isn’t as real as it’s made out to be. Apparently Drew’s twin brother, Jonathan, would also buy in, except he’s too busy faking all the heavy lifting on their fix-it show.

Things that make me go hmmm, Vol. 2,160: Rattlesnake wrangler Marissa Maki in Mesa, Ariz., was called to rid a garage of three rattlers recently. When she arrived, Marissa discovered 20 of the reptiles, five adults and 15 babies, all huddled near a hot water heater. “This is our record for the most caught in one call!” said Rattlesnake Solutions owner Bryan Hughes. Hmmm. Catching 20 rattlesnakes in one foul swoop…kind of what happened when Rick Westhead of TSN made a house call on Hockey Canada headquarters last year.

Amar Doman has rekindled interest in the first-place B.C. Leos since purchasing the franchise midway through the 2021 Canadian Football League crusade, but he’s receiving very limited help from broadcast rights holder TSN in selling the product as a whole to the Left Coast. This weekend, for example, there were four skirmishes on the docket, and we saw one out here on the Other Side Of The Rocks. Two weeks ago there was a Saturday tripleheader. We saw one game. This is how TSN generates interest in the CFL at the most significant state of the season? They’ve reduced Rouge Football to a rumour in B.C. As much as I’d rather hear less than more of TSN’s Resident Keith Urban Groupie, Glen Suiter, it’s pathetic.

Once upon a time, the Leos were a hot ticket in Rouge Football. Honest. True story. The average head count at B.C. Place Stadium in 1986 was 46,637 and 40,888 in 1991. Now they attract half that (23,348), unless LL Cool J or OneRepublic are in the house (34,082 and 33,103 at the last two home-openers). But it’s a quantum leap from the 12,507 average in 2021. Doman is doing his part.

Things that make me go hmmm, Vol. 2,161: Colorado Buffalos quarterback Shedeur Sanders, son of head coach Deion Sunglasses, drives a Rolls Royce. Hmmm. Canadian university QBs are doing well if they can afford to use the drive-thru at McDonald’s.

Leftovers from the Professional Women’s Hockey League draft: The three opinionists/analysts on the CBC/SN1 natter panel were excellent. Shannon Szabados and Hailey Salvian have high energy and good insight. Cheryl Pounder at times lets her mouth race ahead of her thoughts, but she’s insightful, informative and, like the others, not afraid to have fun, even if it means using herself as a foil. They seem to genuinely enjoy each other and the gig. And, of course, host Andi Petrillo is an ideal fit…Appearance is part of the gig for a TV natterbug, whether they like it or not, and that applies to the women and men. So how did the panel make out on the fashion file? Petrillo, great hair. Szabados, great hair. Salvian, great hair. Pounder—oh my. Apparently Cheryl still hasn’t found her hair brush…Just wondering: Did Petrillo choose to wear the six-inch hooker heels, or was that call made by a cruel CBC wardrobe meanie who’s never worn anything but flats? Either way, Andi’s dogs must have been barking after squeezing her feet into those tootsie-killer pumps for the duration of the draft…Tessa Bonhomme was an excellent choice as on-stage host. Unfortunately, she had to step away for about half an hour and some wise acre thought it would be a swell idea to have Cassie Campbell-Pascall step in as a sub. It wasn’t. Someone—anyone!—needed to tell Cassie in advance that the draft wasn’t about her career, her shoes and her mom’s pot roast…Nice touch: Natalie Spooner, plucked by Toronto in the fourth round, had her 10-month-old son Rory in tow. That’s something we aren’t apt to see at next year’s NHL Entry Draft…If you’re scoring at home (and that’s unlikely), 33 of the 90 players chosen on Monday performed in the Premier Hockey Federation before Mark and Kimbra Walter swooped in to purchase (and kill) the league, lock, stock and ponytail this past summer. That’s about 15 more than I expected.

Here’s how the daily rags across Our Frozen Tundra played the PWHL auction the morning after:
Winnipeg Free Press: Sports front.
Winnipeg Sun: Page 2.
Toronto Star: Sports front.
Toronto Sun: Page 4.
Montreal Gazette: Last page.
Ottawa Sun: Page 3.
Ottawa Citizen: Last page.
Regina Leader Post: Last page.
Calgary Sun: Page 2.
Edmonton Sun: Sports front.
Vancouver Province: Page 8.
Vancouver Sun: Last page.
Saskatoon StarPhoenix: Last page.
Question is: Will mainstream media interest dwindle to non-existent once the puck is dropped in January?

Things that make me go hmmm, Vol. 2,262: Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Yusei Kikuchi had a bad day at the office last week, getting the hook in the sixth inning vs. New York Yankees due to neck cramping. And the neck owie was, apparently, due to Yusei not getting enough shuteye. He managed just 11 hours sack time the night before, instead of his normal 13-14. Hmmm. The only people I know who sleep that long are in a morgue or a boneyard.

And, finally, Rip Van Kikuchi would fit in with the rabble in Brezna, a village in northern Montenegro. They stage a Laziest Citizen competition every year, the object being to lie down longer than your opponents, and sitting or standing results in prompt expulsion—except to use the toilet for 15 minutes every eight hours. Which confirms no senior citizens are involved. I mean, I’ll be 73 in two months and I’m off to the biffy 15 times every eight minutes at night, never mind once every eight hours.

Let’s talk about shinny sinners and the impossible search for sainthood…Fibs ‘R’ Us in the TSN blab booth…Pebble People head to Montana’s…Ponytail Puck name-dropping…the Anointed One with the Vancouver Canucks…Donnie & Dahli…and other things on my mind

Mike Babcock

We can assume that L’Affaire Phone Flap has not escaped the attention of both Joel Quenneville and Stan Bowman.

The two hockey lifers carry hall of fame bona fides, except while they collaborated in transforming the Chicago Blackhawks into a Stanley Cup champion they were also pretending the sexual assault of one of their charges, Kyle Beach, didn’t happen.

It took them a decade to ‘fess up, and the coverup became a large pile of dirty laundry that landed them on the National Hockey League persona non grata heap in 2021.

Now we hear that both Coach Q and GM Bowman seek to be invited back into the Old Boys Club, but I find myself wondering if they might want to have a serious rethink about a redo.

I say that because it would place them in the same unenviable, no-win position as Mike Babcock, whose bad bedside manner had him on the ‘buyer beware’ list and kept him out of the NHL from 2019 until this past July 1, when the Columbus Blue Jackets took a leap of faith and handed him their coaching gig.

The ask of Babs was basic: Achieve sainthood (a tall task since it’s unlikely that Pope Francis knows a Blue Jacket from bluetooth).

Babcock had always walked heavy and carried a big stick behind NHL pine (a bully), but this time around it had to be walk softly and leave the big stick at home if his desire was to continue collecting a paycheque as bench puppeteer with Columbus.

Well, not going to happen.

Babcock, who was under more scrutiny than a lab rat, wasn’t permitted so much as a misstep, and he’s gone from puck purgatory to hockey hell after the Stanley Cup and Olympic champion coach resigned Sunday following some sleuthing by the NHL and the NHL Players Association.

Babcock’s folly this time around was a fondness for looking at family photos. Not his. His players’.

Apparently, it was part of his getting-to-know-you process with the serfs, an opportunity to develop warm-and-fuzzies before they all set out on another NHL crusade later this week. He asked to see pics of their families and they handed him their phone.

The players weren’t obliged to do it, of course, but they were obliged to do it. You know, hockey culture and all.

It was seen by many as a perversion, an invasion of privacy, a boss-worker powerplay to confirm class structure and remind the serfs who carries the big stick. Others, meanwhile, accepted it as a team-building gambit akin to gathering friends around the campfire, toasting marshmallows, singing Kumbaya and swapping lies.

Indeed, two of the team’s prominent players, captain Boone Jenner and Johnny Gaudreau, wondered what all the fuss was about.

“While meeting with Babs he asked me about my family and where I’m from, my upcoming wedding and hockey-related stuff,” Jenner said. “He then asked if I had pictures of my family and I was happy to share some with him. He showed me pictures of his family. I thought it was a great first meeting and good way for us to start to build a relationship. To have this blown out of proportion is truly disappointing.”

“Personally, I had a great meeting with him,” is how Gaudreau explained it to Kristen Shilton of ESPN. “We got to share things together, pictures of our family. I was a little upset to see the way it was handled and how it came out…but nothing you can do about it. We got off to a great start, had a great meeting with him and looking forward to working together.”

If any among the Blue Jackets had objected, his voice is yet to be identified.

So all the negative noise we heard came from outside the Columbus changing room, starting with the rude and vulgar Paul Bissonnette on the Spittin’ Chiclets podcast and amplified by grudge-clutching former players like Frank Corrado of TSN.

“He’s a weird guy,” Corrado told the boys on the Sekeres & Price Show. “He has a hard time kind of levelling with players. And to be honest with you, I’ll be completely honest, he does not care about your family. He just doesn’t. He’s not gonna remember their names, he doesn’t care. That’s my experience, I lived it and for me it’s a little bit phony. Even the other thing I saw, a three-part article about Babs and he’s talking about mental health again…doesn’t care about your mental health. He flat out does not care. All he cares about is himself. This communication plan thing, it’s such a bogus thing. It really is. I think the whole thing is weird, but I’m not surprised because he’s just an awkward guy.”

Corrado cited one example of the perceived Babs weirdness: Both were at a Toronto Maple Leafs Christmas party and the sparingly used defenceman introduced Babcock to his then-girlfriend, a law student. A day or two later, the coach approached Corrado and said, “Ya, you’re hittin’ way out of your league there.”

Good grief. Any shlub with a babe on his arm has heard that line, but apparently it’s bad manners when Babcock says it to Corrado.

Look, Corrado’s actual beef with Babcock is rooted in his playing time with the Leafs, not words exchanged while slurping egg nog. Basically, Babs instructed him to sit in the press box and munch popcorn while the more skilled guys were in frolic on the freeze.

“The coach is the one who makes the lineup and if the coach doesn’t like you, then you’re not going to play,” he boo-hooed in December 2016.

(I suppose the coaches in Vancouver and Pittsburgh didn’t like Corrado, either, because they mostly had him munching popcorn, too. In sum, he suited up for 76 games across six NHL seasons, and played out the string with seven games in Latvia, where the popcorn probably isn’t as good.)

Guys like Johan Franzen and Mitch Marner, on the other hand, have expressed legitimate gripes about Babcock’s bad bedside manner.

L’Affaire Phone Flap is an inglorious finish to Babcock’s NHL coaching career. He’s been tarred and feathered for past trespasses in the court of public opinion, and judged guilty by former players who hold hard to the notion that he didn’t stroke their egos sufficiently. He won’t rise from these ashes, not in the NHL.

So now Quenneville and Bowman know what they can expect if they receive the okie-dokie to return from NHL commissioner Gary Bettman. They’ll be observed like lab rats. Former players might tell tales, true or false. Nothing less than sainthood will be sufficient in their quest to remain employed.

Is that something they want to sign up for? Probably.

According to GM Kevin Cheveldayoff, the Winnipeg Jets will be operating with “new purpose” this NHL season. Just curious: What was the old purpose?

The first thing I noticed while looking at the Edmonton Elks-Saskatchewan Flatlanders on my flatscreen Friday night was the swath of unoccupied seats in Mosaic Stadium. Turns out the head count was 25,304 (announced), the lowest gathering this season and the worst since July 24 last year. So why did the Resident Keith Urban Groupie in the TSN blab booth feel obliged to advise us that there was “a great crowd” at the Regina ballyard? Does Glen Suitor not realize that we can see all those empty green chairs on our flatscreens, or has lying to us become a routine part of the CFL on TSN script?

The Resident Keith Urban Groupie also informed us that Flatlanders QB Jake Dolegala heaved one pass “75 or 80 yards.” No. The football travelled 61 yards.

I found this interesting in a negative way: During the pre-game natter at the Hall of Fame Game in The Hammer on Saturday, CFL on TSN panel host Kate Beirness saluted every newly minted inductee to the Canadian Football Hall of Fame except one—Vicki Hall, the first female reporter to gain entry into the media wing. She then doubled down on the snub at halftime. I guess it only counts if you’re a guy and work for TSN. Purely shameful, Kate.

So, the Canadian men’s curling championship, more commonly known as the Brier, has a new title sponsor, Montana’s BBQ & Bar. That loud noise you just heard was Ben Hebert licking his lips. Benny, of course, is one of the planet’s elite and funniest Pebble People, and I’m guessing he hasn’t missed too many meals over the years. “I’ve never been one to shy away from a Montana’s steak,” he confirmed at the big announcement in Regina on Friday.

The Brier sponsorship has moved from a tobacco company to a beer company to a communications company to a donut shop and now a cookhouse. Put them all together and you could eat, drink, smoke and call a cab on your mobile phone if you had too many Labatt Blue in the Brier Patch.

The American sports media is overdosing on Deion Sanders. Is there a 12-step program to fix that?

Things that make me go hmmm, Vol. 2,159: Some among the rabble are disjointed because a couple of men have been hired to generally manage Professional Women’s Hockey League outfits, and there are also three male head coaches. Hmmm. I must have missed the memo that said the PWHL is a female-only club. I mean, when did PMS become a job requirement? NHL outfits are no longer shy about hiring female assistant GMs (e.g. Cammi Granato and Emilie Castonguay with the Vancouver Canucks), coaches, scouts and player development personnel, so it follows that the PWHL wouldn’t hesitate to bring qualified men on board in Ponytail Puck. My oh my, the things we get twitchy about these days.

It needs to be said: The PWHL website is gawdawful. Absolutely dreadful.

All six PWHL franchises remain teams to be named later, so let’s give Billie Jean King and her ownership partners some help:
The Toronto Maple Beliebers.
The Ottawa Filibuster.
The Montreal Cathedral.
The Twin Cities Doppelgangers.
The Boston Midnight Ride.
The New York Minute.

Nice to see Island Girl Micah Zandee-Hart sign with New York in the PWHL. We still don’t know where the franchise will set up shop, but if it’s in spitting distance of Gotham she’s in for culture shock. Micah, you see, is from beautiful and cozy Brentwood Bay, north of Victoria on the Saanich Peninsula. Population: 17,385. There are that many pickpockets on a Times Square street corner.

I’ll say this for the Vancouver Canucks: They sure know how to do bland. I mean, they could have waited until their home opener vs. the Edmonton McDavids on Oct. 11 for the coronation of the franchise’s 15th captain, using all the bells and whistles available at Rogers Arena. But no. They chose to go unplugged. They simply propped up the Anointed One, young defenceman Quinn Hughes, in front of a coterie of news snoops who spoke in respectful tones while documenting his respectful sound bites for a few ticks under 20 minutes. No applause, no fanfare. No fuss, no muss. It had all the pomp and pageantry of a trip to the corner store. It was as if they were introducing the newest hot dog vendor. It couldn’t have been more low key if a street mime had made the announcement. But, hey, it’s the laid-back, Left Coast way of doing things, which, we’re told, dovetails nicely with Hughes’ personality. So, ya, make the guy they call Huggy Bear available for a natter with anyone holding a recording device, then do the photo-op thing to show the rabble the nifty new needlework on his jersey. That way all sideshows are struck from the to-do list by the time the Canucks storm the shores of Vancouver Island and commence training exercises in Victoria four days hence. Works for me.

If you’re keeping score at home, Donnie and Dhali The Team took the pulse of the people not long after the Hughes appointment, and a large majority (88.1 per cent of 1,930) gave the Anointed One their official okie-dokie.

I get a kick out of Donnie and Dhali, otherwise known as Don Taylor and Rick Dhaliwal. Guaranteed at some point during their two-hour gum-flapper (Monday-Friday, CHEK TV) they’ll make me laugh, especially Rick, who’s apparently convinced that everyone in sports is a “good guy, GOOD GUY!” Taylor, meanwhile, is fond of playing the “old man shouting at clouds” role and talking about “back in the day,” which could mean anywhere from the turn of the century to Gordie Howe’s teenage years. Some days you’d swear Joe Kapp and Nub Beamer are still on the B.C. Leos roster, but that’s okay. I like back in the day, too, and I can dial it back as far as Donnie. Farther actually. What I like most about Taylor and Dhaliwal is their high goofability quotient. They recognize they’re talking sports, not trying to stop the great glacial melt, even if they sometimes detour into a non-jock issue. They’re off-the-wall fun, and we can use more of that in jock journalism.

Donnie & Dhali wonder why neither of our national sports networks gave the just-concluded Mann Cup championship series between Six Nations Chiefs and New Westminster Salmonbellies the time of day. Simple answer: No player on either outfit is named Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner or Willy Nylander. Cheekiness aside, it’s not like lacrosse is the only sport TSN and Sportsnet put on ignore. We see scads of highlights from NCAA football every weekend, but scarcely a mention of USports grass-grabbers. Our university gridirons stretch from the Pacific to the Atlantic. There are 27 teams. Twelve games were on the docket this weekend. But I guess if there’s no FanDuel betting line neither TSN nor Sportsnet gives much of a damn.

And, finally, caught SportsCentre on TSN during the small hours of Tuesday and noted that the first 14 minutes of the show were devoted exclusively to Aaron Rodgers’ owie, suffered in the New York Jets-Buffalo Bills skirmish. Then there was an additional segment, for the grand sum of 23 minutes in the initial half hour. I’m not sure the Second Coming will get that much attention. Unless, of course, Christ arrives in a Toronto Maple Leafs jersey.

Let’s talk about the Summer of Chevy (so far)…Kenny & Renny telling it like it is…peace in Ponytail Puck…an unfunny man at the NHL awards gala…and ball fans going hog wild in Georgia…

Top o’ the morning to you, Kevin Cheveldayoff.

Geez, Chevy, where do we begin? With the Pierre-Luc Dubois trade? The Blake Wheeler buyout? The National Hockey League Entry Draft? Free agent frenzy?

I swear, you’ve had a busier week than a bartender at last call, and I’ve gotta tell you, if you get one more pat on the back in the next 24 hours you’ll have to spend the remainder of the Summer of Chevy in traction. At the cottage, of course.

Chevy

I mean, by most accounts you turned a sow’s ear into a silk purse last week with your sleight of hand at the annual NHL off-season festival down there in Twang Town, and it’s been “atta boy, Chevy” ever since.

Little wonder, though, because you generally managed to pry three live bodies and a draft choice away from the Los Angeles Kings last Tuesday, and all it cost your Winnipeg Jets was Dubois, who certainly didn’t let the door smack him on the ass on his way out of Good Ol’ Hometown.

Dubois ran to Tinseltown faster than a scalded dog, and he promptly put his John Hancock on an eight-year agreement that averages out to $8.5 million per.

The big forward wasn’t prepared to spend eight more minutes in Good Ol’ Hometown, let alone eight years, so you and Puck Pontiff Mark Chipman made the best of a bad hand. And I say good riddance, because you’ll never convince me that a 63-point player merits that kind of coin, and I’m guessing neither of you boys will lose a wink of shuteye fretting because Dubois calls Hollywood and Vine home now instead of Portage and Main.

As a quick aside, Chevy, don’t you think the name Dubois might have possibilities in La La Land. Think about it: The House of Dubois. Sounds like a fancy shmancy night spot where only the beautiful people get past the large men posted outside the front door. Or an exclusive, by-invitation-only clothier where the glam crowd goes to purchase their finery for an evening at the Oscars. Why, just saying “The House of Dubois” reeks of high-class, turned-up-snout snootiness.

By contrast, a place called The House of Dubois in Winnipeg would be a deli next door to a 7-Eleven.

Anyway, Chevy, you and the Puck Pontiff have wiped Dubois off the Jets’ to-do plate, and I hope you recognize the lesson to be learned. That is, you can’t keep recruiting guys who regard playing in Good Ol’ Hometown as a hostage-taking. Do your homework, for gawd’s sake.

Toward that end, I trust your forensics people performed CSIS-level background checks on the newest kids in town—Gabriel Vilardi, Alex Iafallo and Rasmus Kupari—and found no allergies to snow, potholes and bad WiFi among the now-former Kings. Otherwise it’ll be same old, same old, whereby one or more of them will follow Evander Kane, Jacob Trouba, Patrik Laine, Jack Roslovic, Andrew Copp and Dubois out of Dodge. Heck, we can add Dustin Byfuglien to that group of escapees, although Big Buff has never explained his beef with the club. We know it couldn’t have been the weather, because fishing, even in an ice hut, is his jam, so we still wonder why he took a walk and never looked back.

All those guys skipping town might not be an exodus on a biblical scale, Chevy, but it’s not just a couple of kids playing hooky, either.

Chevy and Colby Barlow

Speaking of kids, it looks like you landed yourself a good one in Colby Barlow, your first shoutout at the auction of teenage talent in Nashville. Rumor has it he grew his first playoff beard at age 7 and, after seeing him on my flatscreen the other night, I can believe it. I mean, Pittsburgh Penguins GM Kyle Dubas looks like his little brother.

And I must say, Chevy, that’s quite a stockpile of brainiacs you and your bird dogs have collected. Cole Perfetti, Adam Lowry and Josh Morrissey were scholastic player-of-the-year winners in Junior hockey, and now Barlow and Connor Levis, your fifth pick at the Entry Draf in Nashville, join that group. So many smart players. Now if you can only get rid of the smart asses in the room.

Hopefully you’ll have fewer malcontents in that room come autumn, Chevy, and you took a turn in that direction with the adios to former Captain Cranky Pants, Wheeler.

I’m actually mildly surprised that you and the Puck Pontiff freed Wheeler. I didn’t think you boys had the brass monkeys to go that route, because you tied your wagon to him in 2018 and gave him the run of the room. He was still the lead alpha dog among the alpha dogs in the most recent crusade, even without the ‘C’ stitched on his jersey, and he delivered the loudest bark at head coach Rick Bowness during the players’ whiny, post-season pity party. So the guy had to go, even if it means co-bankrolls Chipper and the 3rd Baron Thomson of Fleet will be paying him $2.75 million not to wear Jets linen the next two crusades.

No doubt the split with Wheeler tugged hard on the heart strings, but, frankly Chevy, it came two seasons too late and I think you know it. Ditto the Puck Pontiff.

Hey, I understand your loyalty to a guy who rolled into Good Ol’ Hometown with the Atlanta caravan in 2011, but I figure if the Beatles can break up during the Get Back sessions, it shouldn’t be so difficult to part company with a hockey player whose best-before date has expired.

Patrik Laine

Naturally you, also many others, had some parting hosannas for Wheeler, and that’s understandable. But you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t join the warm-and-fuzzy chorus. Unless I hear evidence to the contrary, I’ll go to my urn convinced that he cost you Patrik Laine (with Paul Maurice and Rink Rat Scheifele as his accomplices), and I didn’t fancy his oft-acidic natters with news snoops.

Truthfully, the former captain came across as a boor, a bitter man, and I suspect your Jets are well shed of him.

But here’s the concern, Chevy: Wheeler will leave residue, some of it good, some of it rancid. Your task, also Bowness’, is to make certain that only the good clings to the holdovers in the changing room. Failing that, you’re destined for another crusade that ends in a whiny pity party next spring.

I know you’re trying, Chevy, but I just don’t know who you’re trying to be. I mean, it’s out with the old, Wheeler, and in with the old, Vlad Namestnikov and Laurent Brossoit.

Now, I don’t think any among the rabble expected ultra-glad tidings from the first day of free agent frenzy, because selling Good Ol’ Hometown to young, millionaire NHL players is like trying to convince a teenager to go a week without their smartphone, but Namestnikov and Brossoit? Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat.

I assume you aren’t done, Chevy. You can’t be done. You can’t be telling us that Wheeler and Dubois were the only rot on your roster and that three refugees from Los Angeles will make everything right.

If that’s your message to the masses, good luck with it.

Enjoy your summer, Chevy.

If it’s no-punches-pulled commentary that you’re looking for, check out the Kenny and Renny Show. The natter between Sportsnet’s Ken Wiebe and Sean Reynolds on Wheeler is fascinating, frank and spirited. Here’s a small sampling of their gum-flapper…

Reynolds: “There was no bringing Blake Wheeler back into this room. Blake Wheeler isn’t being bought out because he’s not a productive player. When he came out and talked about Rick Bowness the way he did at the year-end press conference, that was someone saying ‘I’m not gonna be back in this room so I’m gonna say whatever the heck I want to.’ I don’t think Blake Wheeler was fighting to stick around. You’re not gonna see any fingernail marks on the jambs of the door that Wheeler left behind on the way out of here. I think he was more than happy to move on.”

Wiebe: “We’re not gonna pretend that this is the way the Jets or Blake Wheeler wanted his tenure to end. There’s no way either side wanted it to end this way. I applaud both sides for putting on a happy face and trying to do this as easy as possible, and I think all sides are being genuine in their commentary, but that’s not to say it’s a smooth thing for either side. I mean, of course Blake Wheeler didn’t want to be bought out. By the end did he want a change of scenery? Yes. Knowing Blake after covering him for 12 years, he will be carrying around an enormous chip on his shoulder. He’s definitely going to try and prove to the Winnipeg Jets that they made a mistake. It was time for a new direction. Blake Wheeler will be thanked for his contributions, his number 26 will go to the rafters one day, he will be celebrated when he returns, but it was time for both sides to move along.”

That’s good talk.

The aforementioned Pierre-Luc Dubois deal is, of course, a branch of the Patrik Laine trade tree, whereby the Jets sent Puck Finn to Columbus in barter for Dubois in 2021. This is how that transaction shakes down today: Laine/Jack Roslovic in exchange for Daniel Zhilkin, Gabriel Vilardi, Alex Iafallo, Rasmus Kupari and a 2024 second-round draft choice.

A couple of observations after watching the Free Agent Frenzy marathon yesterday on TSN: 1) Shocking that James Duthie and his cast-o-plenty managed to squeeze in a mention or two of the Toronto Maple Leafs (yes, that’s sarcasm, kids); 2) hair is really important to most women I know, so what is Cheryl Pounder thinking?

Billie Jean King

Interesting times in Ponytail Puck, with the Mark Walter Group and Billie Jean King Enterprises bullying the Premier Hockey Federation out of business by buying it out of business, and why do I get the feeling it’s about to get nasty? I mean, they’ve already voided all PHF contracts, some of them in six figures, and it’s a guarantee that one or two (more?) of its seven franchises will disappear. Also, between the PHF and the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association there are 200-plus players, many of whom will be discarded. You think that won’t lead to bitterness and anger? But, hey, those of us who pay attention to Ponytail Puck have yearned for one super league, and Billie Jean King is finally putting her money where her yap is. Question is, will the rabble buy it? At the get-go, probably. Over the long haul, iffy. PHF games and the PWHPA’s glorified scrimmages weren’t big sellers, and they were largely ignored by mainstream media. More to the point, squabbling among the women attracted more attention than what they did on the freeze. No doubt there’s a market for elite Ponytail Puck, but no one knows if it’s the size of an elephant’s ears or a house fly’s ears. Stay tuned.

Paul Bissonnette and Connor Bedard.

I’m curious: Why was Paul Bissonnette on stage at the NHL awards show in Nashville last week? If his presence was meant to provide yuks, he failed miserably, unless you consider plopping a tiara on Linus Ullmark’s head a knee-slapping moment of high comedy. Oh, and passing Connor Bedard a silly kiddie’s cowboy hat? More belly laughs? Not! Biz Nasty was incredibly unfunny. His cave-dweller shtick was lame, like a lost dog with three legs. Grade him at a George Costanza level of obnoxious on your scorecard at home, y’all.

I wondered if Jim Montgomery would mention his battle with booze in accepting his trinket as NHL coach-of-the-year. Yup, he did. And good for Jim. Here’s hoping the Boston Bruins bench jockey struck a chord with someone caught in a similar struggle.

Country music fan here, with questions: They stage a grand gala in Twang Town, home of the Grand Ole Opry, and the Brothers Osborne and Mitchell Tenpenny are the best entertainment the NHL can buy? And who were those other performers at the awards show? Anybody outside Nashville ever heard of them? Sigh. Maybe it’s an age thing, but I do believe George Strait and Alan Jackson were right when they sang “someone killed country music” at the 1999 CMA awards.

Thankfully, the NHL upped its game for the Entry Draft, with Jo Dee Messina on stage. Jo Dee sounds like country music.

And, finally, remember the kids’ nursery rhyme This Little Piggy, where a little piggy went “wee, wee, wee all the way home?” Well, they have a different slant on it down there in Georgia, where the Macon Bacon play baseball in the Coastal Plain League. It’s more like “this little piggy goes wee, wee, wee all the way to barbecue pit,” because fans are hog wild (pun intended) for the menu at Luther Williams Field. They can pig out (pun intended) on tasty items like bacon-wrapped bacon, bacon-loaded mac and cheese, bacon chips, steak-cut bacon, fries with cheese and bacon, and there’s some pulled pork on the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon sandwich. And, hey, they can scarf it down in the Bacon Box or the Bacon and Kegs Beer Garden. Even team mascot Kevin (named after actor Kevin Bacon) is a slab of swine. And it’s all too much for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, which believes all the piggyness “sends the wrong message to fans.” Thus they insist on a name change that promotes healthier eating habits, like Macon Facon Bacon. Not going to happen, though, in part because fans named the team. “Macon Bacon will be sizzling forever and will not consider a name change, ever,” says team president Brandon Raphael. So, in the immortal words of Porky Pig, “that’s all, folks!”

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

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

The Puck Pontiff and Chevy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Connor Hellebuyck

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blake Wheeler

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

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

So let’s examine that Nashville North thing.

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

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

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

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

Rink Rat Scheifele

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

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

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

So what’s “the plan” 12 years in?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Also brilliant: Bombers kick returner extraordinaire Janarion Grant.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal

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

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

Let’s talk about Secretariat 50 years later while wondering if we really saw what we saw…Hot dog! Bombers win…football and Father Time…adieu Pierre-Luc…no love for the Golden Knights?…the Golf Tour To Be Named Later…golden Goldeyes voices…Provorov’s Pride Month gift…“Norm!”…and other things on my mind…

Anyone who’s made the journey around the sun 72 times has seen some things and harbors “I remember where I was that day” recollections.

Like the Belmont Stakes on June 9, 1973, a Saturday.

I was covering the Manitoba Amateur Hockey Association annual meeting for the Winnipeg Tribune that day and, during a lull in the shinny summit, a few of us gathered in a room at the Airliner Hotel on Ellice Avenue in Good Ol’ Hometown to watch the great Secretariat attempt to become horse racing’s first Triple Crown winner since Citation in 1948.

There was a lunar-landing type of anticipation as we scrunched around a TV set as bulky as a St. Bernard, each of us hoping to witness something special.

And what we watched on that TV screen was, well, surreal.

Was it actually happening? Was Secretariat really leading the race by five…10…15…20 lengths? Even as Big Red was in full, unparalleled giddyup, time seemed suspended, frozen if you will. Our eyes were as wide as dinner plates, our jaws planted on the floor. The only sound we heard was the voice of race announcer Chic Anderson.

“He is moving like a TREMENDOUS MACHINE!” Chic said as Secretariat began to put considerable dirt between himself and his four foes on the backstretch.

There was more than a slight suggestion in Chic’s voice that, like us, he wasn’t convinced he believed what his eyes were telling him. No horse, ever, had moved like that, with such speed and power and strength and beauty and perfection. And seemingly so effortlessly.

As Canadian jockey Ron Turcotte turned Secretariat for home and the big colt with the blue-and-white checkered face covering began thundering down the stretch, it suddenly became real. This was actually happening. It wasn’t something Rod Serling had conjured up for his Twilight Zone.

And now we were drowning out Chic’s voice.

“Don’t break a leg! Don’t break a leg! Don’t break a leg!” barked Muzz MacPherson, head coach of the freshly minted Centennial Cup champion Portage Terriers.

Muzz’s face was flush and red. He was clutching his fedora in both hands, pleading and praying.

By the time Secretariat poked his nose under the wire, the rest of the field (Twice A Prince, My Gallant, Pvt. Smiles and Sham) was running in another time zone. Thirty-one lengths (31!) separated Big Red and second-place finisher Twice A Prince. That’s almost the length of an American football field. This chestnut three-year-old (Anderson described him as a “miracle horse”) had galloped the mile and a half in 2:24 flat, a record for equine lickety-split that stands unassailed.

By way of comparison, Arcangelo won the Belmont on Saturday in a (comparatively) slow-pokeish 2:29.23.

On occasion, I watch a replay of the 1973 Belmont Stakes just because. Sometimes I do it to confirm that I truly saw what I truly saw in a hotel room 50 years and two days ago. Whatever the case, I don’t mind admitting it always renders me teary-eyed, as does the movie Secretariat. It’s such feel-good stuff, and I shall forever marvel at the great horse’s majesty and the magic-like spell he cast on an entire continent while romping to wins in the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and the Belmont.

I’ve been following sports since the mid-1950s, and Secretariat’s gallop at Belmont Park in Elmont, N.Y., on June 9, 1973, is the most astonishing athletic performance I’ve ever seen. For me, there really is no comparable.

Kind of hard to believe that Jena Antonucci became the first female trainer to win a Triple Crown race on Saturday at Belmont Park, but, at the same time, it isn’t so hard to believe. The ponies at that level are very much a man’s business, so bravo to Jena.

And so it begins. The Winnipeg Blue Bombers opened their Rouge Football redemption tour with a W on Friday night—a 42-31 beatdown of the Hamilton Tabbies—and they also introduced a hot dog that’s big enough to feed half the 29,057 folks at the Football Field In Fort Garry. Well, okay, that’s a stretch. But the tube steak is 32 inches long and goes for $45. And, hey, it includes fries. So if almost three feet of wiener doesn’t have you reaching for the Tums, the fries ought to do it.

To hear Milt Stegall tell it, the Bombers entered the 2023 Canadian Football League fray with a bunch of guys using walkers and canes, also living in personal care homes and cashing old age security cheques. “The window will close on the foundation, the nucleus of this team, after this year,” Milt said on TSN’s pigskin panel in advance of the opening kickoff. “I say that because Father Time is undefeated. Adam Bighill 34, Stanley Bryant 37, Zach Collaros 34, Jackson Jeffcoat 32, Willie Jefferson 32, Mike Miller 34, Patrick Neufeld 34, Jermarcus Hardrick 33…all those guys will not be back next year. They can’t stand pat. I don’t care if they go 18-and-oh and win the Grey Cup, they will start making changes, so those guys need to understand this is the final run for the nucleus, for the majority of the nucleus, for this team.” Milt must have a dulled memory. So I’ll remind the Bombers’ legend what he accomplished once his teeth had begun to grow long: Eight 1,000-yard seasons in his 30s; a 1,000-yard receiver at age 37; 22.8 yards per catch at age 35; took the rock to the house 23 times at age 32; the second longest TD jog of his career (101 yards) at age 35. So, I say “age shmage.” Team Long In Tooth is the morning-line favorite to swill bubbly from the Grey Grail come November, and they can worry about next year next year. And, hey, they also can cash their winner’s cheques the same day as their OAS cheques.

Interesting to note that four of the greybeards Stegall mentioned are listed in the top 10 of TSN’s 50 best players in Rouge Football—Collaros (1), Bryant (4), Jefferson (6) and Bighill (10).

Anyone notice the head count for the Stampeders home-opener in Calgary? Just 17,942. The fact they were thumped by the B.C. Leos won’t do anything to attract repeat customers. Not good.

Pierre-Luc Dubois

Report: Pierre-Luc Dubois wants to see Winnipeg in his rear view mirror. Reaction: JFK is dead and WWII is over. Like, tell me something I don’t know. Let me know when the Jets move their No. 1/No. 2 centre to another National Hockey League way station and, more important, give me the skinny on what the local shinny side receives in barter, then we can discuss.

Here’s a thought: Few NHL players list Good Ol’ Hometown as a desired destination, so, whatever the return for Dubois, how long will the new guy(s) last in Jets linen? Dubois, the compensation for Patrik Laine and Jack Roslovic, managed to stomach 2 1/2 seasons, meaning a priority for Puck Pontiff Mark Chipman and GM Kevin Cheveldayoff has to be guys with term (four or more years) coming back their way. That way, they avoid a similar scenario. Until the next time.

This is an odd bit of commentary from Mad Mike McIntyre of the Drab Slab re Dubois’ bid for freedom: “There’s another query in this saga that few, if any, are asking. And I’d suggest it’s the most important one of all. What the heck is going on around here that a player like PLD is so eager to get a one-way ticket out of town at his earliest opportunity? The Jets would be wise to figure that one out, and fast, even if it’s likely to uncover some uncomfortable truths.” Say again? Few, if any, are asking? Mad Mike might want to up his reading game, because that question has been asked numerous times by jock journos and bloggers, also fans, who’ve noticed the lengthy queue of players looking for an escape route out of Good Ol’ Hometown (Evander Kane, Jacob Trouba, Dustin Byfuglien, Patrick Laine, Jack Roslovich, Logan Stanley, Dubois).
Here’s just one example…
Arctic Ice Hockey, January 2021: “Why did another player leave Winnipeg? The Jets really need to look at the mirror when they see the early departures. Something is not right and needs to be fixed. With so many young players leaving the Jets, the onus needs to be on the Jets to figure out how to retain them because at this point it seems like it is an internal factor pushing players away instead of an external one like the weather.”
Seems to me that Mad Mike is parroting what was written by a blogger two years ago. But, hey, AIH isn’t a big city daily newspaper, so I guess what bloggers write doesn’t count.

Boffo piece on Harvey Rosen in Saturday’s Drab Slab. Geoff Kirbyson paints a wonderful picture of Harvey, longtime Canadian Press and Jewish Post sports scribe who was everyone’s favorite press box neighborhood. Harvey left us a while back.

I’ve been seeing a lot of anti-Vegas Golden Knights commentary on social media, and I don’t get it. Is it because the NHL supposedly made it too easy for them to be competitive from the get-go? If so, mule muffins! They started six years ago with a bunch of guys nobody else wanted, and they’ve moved on from the original group with smart roster tinkering through barter and free agency. When did it become a felony to be good?

I don’t care that his team is in the Stanley Cup final, I still think Florida Panthers head coach Paul Maurice is a potty-mouth, snake oil salesman. But news snoops can’t get enough of his sound bites, so I guess that’s all that matters.

How poetic: Anti-LGBT(etc.) defencemen Ivan Provorov has been traded during Pride Month. Provorov, of course, was the first of seven NHL players who wanted no part of their teams’ Pride night initiatives during the 2022-23 season, and now he finds himself house hunting in Columbus, an LGBT(etc.)-friendly burg that received a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign’s 2022 Municipal Equality Index. If Provorov hurries, he can get to his new home in time for the annual Pride parade.

Given the amount of trash talk between the warring sides in the past 12 months, the PGA Tour climbing into bed with Saudi oil barons/LIV Golf has to be the oddest match since Andre Agassi and Barbra Streisand got cozy in the 1990s. It’s kind of like the Pinkertons going into the bank-robbing business with the James-Younger Gang, but great gobs of cashola sometimes makes for strange bedfellows. LIV Golf was never about anything more than purse strings and power, even if high-profile dudes like Phil Mickelson, Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed and Sergio Garcia tried to con us into believing their escape from the PGA Tour was “good for the game.” In truth, $100 million-plus signing bonuses was good for their bank accounts and, one presumes, their stress levels. I mean, one need not sweat over five-foot par putts when there’s a Brinks truck parked beside the Benz in the driveway.

After news of the Saudi takeover broke last Tuesday, there was concern about Rory McIlroy, who wasn’t heard from or seen for 24 hours. Not to worry, though. They found him right where PGA Tour commish Jay Monahan had left him—under the bus.

Something tells me it won’t be long before Rory and the players hurl Monahan under the same bus.

The freshly minted PGA Tour-DP World Tour-Saudi Public Investment Fund co-op needs a name. How about the Oil’s Well That Ends Well Golf Tour? After all, an abundance of oil wells is the reason the Saudis are picking up the tab for global golf (male division).

Now that détente seemingly has arrived, here’s what I want to know: Will the Golf Tour To Be Named Later allow its players to wear short pants?

Peter and Ronny

Loved seeing this pic of two of my all-time favorite news snoops, Peter Young and Lester (Ronny) Lazaruk, the original voices of the Winnipeg Goldeyes. Spent more than a minute sharing yuks with Peter in the Bombers/Jets press boxes back in the day when we knew a lot less than we thought we knew, and Ronny and I were colleagues when the good ship Winnipeg Tribune ran aground in August 1980. Such a nice, friendly, fun guy.

Hip-hip-hooray and a tip of the bonnet to Hustler Paterson and Michael Remis, whose Winnipeg Sports Talk on YouTube has passed the 2,000,000-views milestone. That’s boffo.

According to Guinness World Records, a Labrador/German shepherd pooch named Zoey has the longest tongue among all the world’s living dogs, five inches. Meantime, in the human category, it’s believed Guinness wanted to credit ESPN blabbermouth Stephen A. Smith with having the world’s most worn-out tongue, but he won’t shut up long enough for anyone to take an accurate measurement.

It occurs to me that patrons at Roland Garros have been rather boorish at times during the French Open fortnight. I mean, booing Daria Kasatkina, a Russian, because of something Elina Svitolina, a Ukrainian, didn’t want to do (shake hands post-match)? Beyond stupid. If anything, Kasatkina should be applauded for a) publicly denouncing her homeland’s invasion of Ukraine and b) having the courage to come out as openly gay in the face of Vlad Putin’s anti-LGBT(etc.) laws. I can think of some Russian hockey players who don’t have balls that big (looking at you, Ivan Provorov).

Meantime, booing Svitolina because she declined a handshake with Aryna Sabalenka, a Belarusian, after their quarterfinal match? Totally lame. What part of the Russia/Belarus invasion of Ukraine do the French not understand? If they were keeping score at home, they’d know Russia has been lobbing bombs at Ukraine and killing innocent people for the past 17 months.

And, finally, Sam Malone’s bar from the TV sitcom Cheers sold at auction for $675,000 last weekend in Dallas. Coincidentally, $675,000 was also the bar tab that Norm Peterson rang up during the show’s 11-season run. I watch Cheers most days on CMT, and I don’t recall ever seeing Norm reach into his pockets to pay for a pint. Kind of like a few sports scribes I once knew.