Los Angeles Dodgers – The River City Renegade

Let’s talk about silly, stupid, staged NHL fights and the blood-thirsters in the crowd…St. George’s Cross gets a “lesbian” makeover from Nike and the FA…a plague in college hoops… getting their kicks (or not) in Rouge Football…& other things on my mind

By George, that’s not England’s St. George’s Cross.

I could tell you that everyone—everyone!—thinks the staged, bare-knuckle brawl in hockey is stupid. Like, a Homer Simpson level of stupid.

But who’d believe me?

I mean, as sure as many among the rabble in Rome once upon a very long time ago enjoyed the spectacle of hungry lions and other beasts gnoshing on no-goodniks, there exists a considerable constituency that lusts for the gladiatorial spilling of blood in our 21st-century ice coliseums.

They don’t think it’s stupid. More to the point, they believe people like myself are stupid for thinking it’s stupid.

Thus, when Nicolas Deslauriers and Ryan Reaves—or Reaves and Matt Rempe, or Rempe and Deslauriers—interrupt a National Hockey League game by agreeing to serve up their faces to each other’s fists, there is glee and delight among the blood-thirsters in the audience. They rise to their feet in unison and, depending on rooting interests, they either vilify or cheer on the combatants, and at no time in history has someone said, “Say, let’s go get a hot dog and a beer while these two clowns chuck knuckles.”

“People want to see blood,” former thug Jeff Odgers once told The Hockey News.

“Make hockey violent again,” Reaves crowed earlier this year, after one of his Toronto Maple Leafs’ foes incited mayhem by—egads!—slapping the puck with excessive force into an unguarded net.

That is correct. Ridly Greig…shot…the…puck…too…hard.

Now, after observing shinny for nigh on 70 years, I thought I’d considered every reason why one player might feel obliged to shuck his mitts and use his bare knuckles to raise welts on an adversary’s noggin—slew foot, knee-on-knee hit, blind-side assault, any blow to the head, etc.—but shooting the puck too hard? That’s kid stuff meant for frozen playground ponds, not guys wearing big-boy pants.

Alas, so aggrieved were the Maple Leafs that the normally passive Morgan Rielly shook off his halo and committed a criminal act, assailing Greig with two hands worth of graphite to the side of the head.

But, hey, that’s the players’ way of “policing” the only one of five major men’s professional sports leagues in North America that accepts and condones fisticuffs, staged or otherwise, and, indeed, they often use it as a sometimes deliberate gambit designed to re-tilt the freeze in their favor.

And now even the silliest of slights has become cause for violence, because the Lords of Puck continue to convince themselves that hockey can’t be hockey without bare knuckles bouncing off bare faces and helmets.

Well, we know that argument to be pure piffle, since fisticuffs is forbidden in Olympics hockey, and there’s no better shinny than best-on-best shinny.

Sadly, not even dying young is a deterrent.

Surely NHL players, coaches, managers, owners and the men and women in commissioner Gary Bettman’s ivory tower are familiar with the findings of a study that delivered this conclusion: “NHL enforcers with 50 or more career fights or three or more penalty minutes per game died 10 years earlier and more often of drug overdose and suicide when compared with age-matched NHL player controls.”

Chris Simon died of suicide this past week, the latest name added to a roll call of enforcers who left before their time—Bob Probert, Rick Rypien, Derek Boogaard, Wade Belak, John Kordic, Todd Ewen, etc.

Death doesn’t matter.

The Lords of Puck pooh-pooh science, disregarding the evidentiary link between brain damage and bare-knuckle brawling. They just offer thoughts and prayers, then permit the boys to fight on. Business as usual.

So ask yourself this: What exactly has the NHL done to eliminate fighting? Answer: Squat.

Yes, there are fewer incidents of fisticuffs compared to the 1970s and ’80s, when too many nights were bathed in blood, but that’s not down to executive decision-making. It’s been the evolution of the game, whereby the skill level has arrived at such a lofty level that knuckle-draggers need not apply, the aforementioned Reaves being an exception.

Maple Leafs general manager Brad Treliving made a misguided rush to recruit the throw-back forward last summer, believing his fists would mean a stronger playoff push, but, trust me, there shall be no Stanley Cup parade in the Republic of Tranna this June whether Reaves is available for his eight-minute allotment of ice time or not.

Reaves and those of his ilk are Sideshow Bobs, pitiable fragments of a time gone by. Yet he and Deslauriers or Rempe are still allowed centre stage for their bicycling bear routines, because the NHL—from players to owners to ivory tower—grants them the okie-dokie to satisfy the appetites of the blood-thirsters in the audience.

And it’s stupid. It’s a Homer Simpson level of stupid.

Make no mistake, media is complicit in perpetuating the fraudulent narrative that hockey can’t exist without fighting. I mean, consider this: The week another enforcer, Chris Simon, died from suicide, Sportsnet had a highlights package featuring Reaves and Deslauriers trying to beat each other to a pulp: “Watch as Ryan Reaves and Nicolas Deslauriers drop their gloves at centre-ice and get into it with one another to put on a show for the fans.” Yup, it’s all “for the fans,” with no regard to those who die young. Meantime, scads of newsprint and air time has been devoted to low-talent New York Rangers ruffian Rempe, who has achieved folk-hero status simply because his hockey gloves are off more than they’re on. Sigh.

I agree, the NHL is a high-speed bit of business. Emotions become frayed. But why is it that there must be immediate retribution (read: fighting) for a legal body check? I mean, even though a National Football League game is played at a slower cadence, it’s a very violent sport and emotions become frayed. Yet a large, menacing, hell-bent-on-destruction defensive end can blindside Patrick Mahomes with a hit that rattles the dead and there’s not a speck of retaliation. His mates assist him to his feet, they huddle up, and they run the next play. If fists fly, ejections ensue. So what part of “legal hit” do NHL players and their overlords not understand?

For those of you scoring at home (and I know many are), the folks at hockeyfights.com tell us there have been 265 fights in the NHL this season. And, no, Matt Rempe hasn’t been in all of them. It just seems that way. (The tally was 334 in 2022-23.)

I found it interesting that both DeMar DeRozen and Dillon Brooks were excused from the Chicago Bulls-Houston Rockets joust on Thursday night, after they engaged in a squabble that was barely a notch above a tiff. DeRozen ignited the dispute by gooning Jalen Green, which prompted the villainous Brooks to stick his nose where it didn’t belong. The two large men nattered, they grabbed at one another, they were quickly separated, and a pack of people tumbled into a scrum. Zero—zero!—punches were thrown. Still they were ejected from the National Basketball Association game for their roughhousing. The NHL could apply a similar standard, but no.

Things that make me go hmmm, vol 1,175: It’s about that dust-up between greybeard boxer Mike Tyson and 27-year-old YouTuber Jake Paul scheduled for July: Current WBC heavyweight champ Tyson Fury figures it’s a swell idea. “I just don’t know what’s not to like,” he told The Stomping Ground. “Okay, the guy’s 57 years old, but he’s a former undisputed world heavyweight king, and one guy plays computers for a living and he’s come to boxing about a year ago, so pretty even match. You got to admire them both. People say, ‘Ah, it’s shit,’ and this, that and the other, but I bet they still watch it. Who’s not intrigued?” Hmmm. I’m intrigued by those who are intrigued by it.

Our Pebble People came up short at the Scotties and Brier this year, so a tip of the bonnet to Kadriana and Colton Lott for delivering a reminder that Manitoba remains the epicentre of curling in Canada. Kadriana and Colton, who play out of Winnipeg Beach, went a perfect 10-0 to win Our Frozen Tundra’s mixed doubles title on Friday in Fredericton, and now they’re bound for Sweden for the world tournament in April. Bonne chance.

Sure wish I could watch Rachel Homan and her Canadian crew in the final of the World Women’s Curling Championship today, but TSN has decided that those of us who hang our hats on the Other Side Of The Rocks would rather watch a tennis tournament from Miami. Pathetic.

Things that make me go hmmm, vol. 1,176: Apparently, organizers of this summer’s Olympic Games in Paris have ordered 300,000 condoms for athletes. Hmmm. Wonder what they’ll do during the second week.

Oh dear. They’re in quite a tizzy in jolly, ol’ England because Nike and the FA had a fiddle-about with the St. George’s Cross on the collar of the national men’s futbol kit. Out is the red cross on white background. In is a navy blue/light blue/purple cross. “Trying to sneak that Woke, Gay communist nonsense onto the England national team jersey,” former player and manager Joey Barton posted on X. “It’ll be to appease all of the lesbians who play for the Lionesses and in women’s football.” Right, Joey, it’s all part of that dreaded global gay agenda that we keep hearing about.

What genius decided Canada’s colors are black and red?

Radio host and former Crystal Palace bankroll Simon Jordan was among many providing backup vocals in L’Affaire Kit and, while declining to malign lesbians, he harrumphed, “No other country would allow this to happen.” Actually, Simon, at least one other country would and has—Canada. Our flag has a red Maple Leaf with white background and red trim. Red and White. Yet our Lords of Sports have on occasion required our athletes to dress in black unis with a black Maple Leaf crest. (Yes, even the lesbians had to wear them.) It was kind of like putting a Canadian Tire label on a bottle of Molson Canadian. It was wrong and it was ugly.

Things that make me go hmmm, vol. 1,177: Tim Micallef of Sportsnet wonders if Zach Edey is “vastly underappreciated in his home and native land.” Hmmm. Let’s see: The guy is from the Republic of Tranna, which means nine provinces and three territories don’t really give a damn about him, and he plays college basketball at Purdue, which about 40 million Canadians couldn’t pinpoint on a map. So what are we expected to do? Have a parade for Edey?

We can count American scribe and squawk box Dan Le Batard among those who vastly underappreciate the 7-feet-4 Canadian giant. “Zach Edey just plants himself like a tree,” says Le Batard. “I haven’t seen a body like that since Yao Ming’s. And his ankles are bigger than anyone’s thighs. And we’re distorting the sport. Have you seen (Victor) Wembanyama? Like he just stands over these 6-10 people who are bigger than anyone you’ve ever seen and just places the ball over them in the basket. It’s so unaesthetically pleasing. Zach Edey is a plague, I’m sorry. Purdue, you’re a plague.”

Pete Rose after hearing about the Shohei Ohtani gambling scandal: “You mean I could have gotten away with betting on baseball if I’d have pretended I couldn’t speak or understand English?”

There’s no evidence to date that suggests Ohtani has wagered on sports with an illegal bookie, thus he’ll carry on swatting dingers for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Unless, of course, his now-former interpreter and now-former Man Friday, Ippei Muzihara, rats him out when the feds come calling and ask difficult questions. Then all bets are off (pun intended). As a Dodgers fan dating back to their days in Brooklyn, I hope for the best but fear the worst.

Will someone at Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment please stand up and tell us that the Toronto Argos don’t plan to march into their 2024 Canadian Football League crusade with Chad Kelly at quarterback? The guy’s a bad egg.

Received an email last Thursday inviting me to stream the CFL combine, live and direct from Good Ol’ Hometown. “Get a front row seat” to the bench press and the 40-yard dash, it encouraged me. Hey, I realize I don’t have much of a life, but I’ll be ashes in an urn before I spend five seconds watching men lift weights. I see enough bad TV already.

Well, guess who’s pitching their tent in Victoria. That’s right, the B.C. Leos and Rouge Football. The Leos and Ottawa RedBlacks will grab grass in a regular season skirmish on Aug. 31 at Royal Athletic Park, which is exactly one block away from my humble dwelling on the edge of downtown. I might just walk across the street and ask Glen Suiter about that Keith Urban groupie thing.

To kick or not to kick seems to be a hot-button issue among the Lords of Rouge Football, and they’ve decided to punt the discussion about player safety on kickoffs down the road rather than tinker with the rules now. “The whole thing makes no sense for our game,” says longtime CFL coach and exec Jim Barker. “The injury thing? I don’t know the data, but I know it’s an exciting play in our game.” Yo! Jim! If you don’t know the data, then get the data before spouting off. (And this guy is an analyst on TSN’s CFL coverage?)

If Barker wants the data on the dangers of kickoff/returns in Rouge Football, he need only lend an ear to Kyle Walters. “From a kickoff/kickoff return standpoint, the rate of injury on that play is higher than an average offence or defensive play,” the Winnipeg Blue Bombers general manager told Ted Wyman of the Winnipeg Sun. “That’s what the statistics show, so then the Health and Safety Committee has to sit and say ‘If this is, in fact, the most dangerous play, statistically, how do we make this play safer?’ ”

I look at the top of the leaderboard at the Valspar Championship on the PGA Tour and I see these names: K. Mitchell, S. Power, P. Malnati, B. Todd, C. Phillips, C. Champ, R. Hoey. I ask myself, “Who are these guys?” Would someone please fix men’s professional golf?

And, finally, spring has sprung, the grass is riz, I wonder where my sunscreen is. Happy spring.

Let’s talk about Zach Hyman and anti-Semitism…online homophobia for women’s futbol…The Littlest Hobo and the Shohei Ohtani fallout…Toronto the Hick Town…living in Regina…the Toronto Star’s in-house award…Spike Lee’s stinky sneakers and Lionel Messi’s unscuzzy shirts…and other things on my mind

Zach Hyman is speaking out against the evil that is anti-Semitism, and I hear him.

“Jewish people…don’t feel safe,” the Edmonton Oilers forward was telling Mark Spector of Sportsnet last week. “There are attacks on synagogues. My high school (in Toronto) has had two bomb threats. This is just for being Jewish. It’s just because you’re Jewish. There’s no other reason.

“Being a Jewish person doesn’t feel comfortable right now, and that’s a scary feeling. It’s supposed to be getting better.”

I hear Hyman even though I’m not Jewish. I hear him because I’m part of the LGBT(etc.) collective, and it’s supposed to be “getting better” for us, too.

Yet then we learn that the American Hockey League has told Chicago Wolves coach Bob Nardella to go away for 10 games, because he spewed anti-gay remarks at a referee. Naturally, Nardella denies saying what he said because “that is not the type of person” he is. Except there were witnesses, so that’s exactly the “type of person” Nardella is.

We also learn of findings from a study of online abuse at this year’s Women’s World Cup, in which 96 players in Australia and New Zealand were out lesbians. The report includes this discouraging note: “Making up almost 50% of all detected abuse across the tournament, Sexist, Sexual and Homophobic messages appear to be the weapon of choice to target players.”

“The weapon of choice.” What an interesting, albeit accurate, way to describe it. Sigh.

Also worth noting from the FIFA Social Media Protection Service/global players’ association: The women received 28.5 per cent more abuse online than men at their 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Double sigh.

Apparently the Los Angeles Dodgers’ winning 10-year, $700-million sales pitch to land baseball free agent Shohei Ohtani included a video from late hoops legend Kobe Bryant. The Toronto Blue Jays tried to match it by showing reruns of The Littlest Hobo. According to those familiar with negotiations, Ohtani said, “Why am I watching this German Shepherd lost in Toronto? I already have a dog.”

When last seen, some of the natterbugs on TSN and Sportsnet were still off their feed, moaning about the Blue Jays’ failed bid to lure Ohtani to the Republic of Tranna for the 2024 season and beyond. Not to worry. To turn those frowns into happy faces, James Duthie plans to host an Auston Matthews home movie marathon for staff at both networks, showing each of the Maple Leaf centre’s 322 career goals. Matthews will be in attendance. Boot licking is optional and by appointment only.

Ohtani’s official mouthpiece, Nez Balelo, told USA Today that he felt “really, really bad for the country of Canada,” after his prized client chose to play his baseball in Dodgers blue. Hey, don’t cry for us, Nez Balelo. We’ve still got Nickelback, the rouge and real beer, eh.

Count Jon Heyman of the New York Post among those tickled that Ohtani won’t be hitting and (eventually) pitching in the Republic of Tranna: “No offense to the Toronto Blue Jays, but this is much better for Major League Baseball,” he writes. “The Jays may have been a better opportunity for marketing dollars because they represent an entire country, but he has to live, too. At this point all that matters is that Ohtani made the right call. Not only for him but us too. Sorry, but reality is reality. The Jays are a fine team and organization. They’ve made the playoffs three of the last five years. Toronto is a beautiful city, too, but for non-hockey sports, there’s a small-time feel to the place.” I’m aghast. I mean, can Heyman really be talking about The Six? The Big Smoke? He makes it sound like a way station no bigger than a parking lot, with all the glitz and glam of a church service. Does Drake know about this, and shouldn’t he be making a rap album about ugly Americans dissing his burg?

Those of us who live in the colonies know Heyman has got it all wrong. The Republic of Tranna is the Centre of the Universe. Just ask them.

A case in point would be this item from Elliotte Friedman in his 32 Thoughts column for Sportsnet: “Connor Bedard and Connor McDavid at 10pm ET? Come on. Should be Prime Time, nationally televised everywhere in North America.” What Friedman actually meant was this: “Any game featuring Connor Bedard and Connor McDavid should face off before me and all my friends in the Centre of the Universe are in our jammies.”

Jeff Hamilton of the Drab Slab took a shot at the Flattest of Lands re the hiring of Corey Mace as head coach of the Saskatchewan Roughriders: “They wanted a guy who was willing to live in Regina year-round. Talk about sacrifice.” Love it. Atta boy, Jeff.

Drab Slab editor Paul Samyn was scribbling about Artificial Intelligence as it relates to media in his weekly newsletter the other day. If you want an example of genuine artificial intelligence, don’t read a newspaper or magazine. Just spend a night in a pub and listen to the voices around you.

It occurred to me last Monday that the Drab Slab sports section is printing Saturday news in its Monday editions. Whatever became of the seven-day world?

So I note the Eastern Cartel of Canada’s sports media has determined that hoopster Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is the top jock in all the land for 2023. I won’t quibble about the choice of SGA as winner of the Northern Star Award, but I still have trouble with the process, whereby a supposed “national panel of reporters, columnists and broadcasters” makes the call. There were 39 people on the selection committee, only eight of whom work west of the Manitoba-Ontario border. A 31-8 split tells me the Northern Star is still a Toronto Star in-house award, and it always will be until Damien Cox finds more friends out here in the colonies and lets them have a voice.

This from Steve Simmons of Postmedia Tranna: “If you don’t know the name Shai Gilgeous-Alexander please don’t embarrass yourself by admitting it. Especially if you think you know your sports in Canada.” That from a guy who said this about futbol during the women’s World Cup in June 2019: “My knowledge of the game and my interest in the game is so limited. I don’t know the ABCs. Honestly, I couldn’t tell you all the positions. I don’t know how many players are on the field. Honestly, I have no connection to this game at all. I didn’t grow up with it, I didn’t play it, I never watched it, I didn’t care about it.” Now that’s embarrassing.

The Toronto Sun acknowledged the existence of the Professional Women’s Hockey League with a two-page spread on the upstart group last Thursday, with this headline: “Crash course: Everything you need to know about the PWHL.” Trouble is, everything readers needed to know isn’t what writer Mike Ganter was telling them. For example, “all six PWHL teams are owned by the Mark Walton Group,” and “the Walton family’s net worth” is $238.5 billion. Wrong and wrong. It’s the Mark Walter Group that’s bankrolling the PWHL’s six franchises, not the Walton family. I doubt we’ll be seeing John Boy or Mama Walton at the rink. As for wealth, Mark Walter’s personal fortune is pegged at $5.8 billion and his Guggenheim Partners has more than $325 billion in assets under management. Still, it’s encouraging to see the TorSun take an interest in Ponytail Puck.

If you’re scoring at home, Taylor Swift has attended six Kansas City Chiefs skirmishes this season. My only concern is for those among us who actually track how often Her Royal Swiftiness shows up to watch her main squeeze, Travis Kelce, catch passes from Patrick Mahomes. Seems to me that falls into the “get a life” file.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Patrik Laine is injured.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before (Vol. II): Bianca Andreescu will skip the Aussie Open due to injury.

This is cool: A rare pair of gold Air Jordan 3 sneakers designed for filmmaker Spike Lee and discovered in a donation bin at a shelter in Portland, Ore., is up for auction until tomorrow. Sotheby’s indicates the size 12½ sneakers could fetch up to $20,000, and the entire winning bid will go directly to the Portland Rescue Mission.

On the subject of clothing and auctions, six jerseys worn by Lionel Messi during last year’s World Cup sold for $7.8 million online and, according to a Sotheby’s spokesperson, “they all smell fine.” He couldn’t say the same for Spike Lee’s sneakers.

And, finally, Shohei Ohtani isn’t the only person who’ll live on deferred payments in retirement. I already do. They’re called CPP, OAS and GIS.

Let’s talk about Darren Pang’s poop…the Mark Chipman School of Journalism…Winnipeg news snoops under fire…No ShoTime in the Republic of Tranna…LIV Golf is Rahm tough…and other things on my mind

So, now that the Social Media Mob has reduced its commentary on L’Affaire Perry/Bedard to a dull roar, what have we learned?

Well, a couple of things, actually:

1) Darren Pang is full of crap.

2) Apparently Puck Pontiff Mark Chipman has appointed himself Official Apologist for news snoops on the Winnipeg Jets beat.

Let’s start with Pang.

You might remember Panger as a one-time National Hockey League goaltender who needed to stand on a bar stool just to reach up and touch the crossbar. (Seriously. The guy’s shorter than a two-year-old’s attention span. The Chicago Blackhawks didn’t get him a boarding pass for team flights. They just stored him in an overhead luggage bin.)

Nowadays, of course, Pang is a natterbug on Blackhawks and TNT broadcasts, and those duties took him to downtown Winnipeg last weekend, at which time the Corey Perry scandal was still a live grenade and the Family Bedard was still catching internet shrapnel from a Social Media Mob (SMM) that had taken a class-action dive into the deep end of the cesspool known as X.

Just to refresh: Perry had done something ghastly.

So ghastly that the Hawks still won’t talk about it, except to say the veteran forward’s misdeed “does not involve any player or their families.”

So ghastly that the club lit a match and torched his contract.

So ghastly that Perry vanished to put his personal house in order, leaving us to wonder when/if he’ll be seen on an NHL freeze again.

Meantime, rookie Connor Bedard and kin were caught in the swirl of truly odious online innuendo, a rumor that should have ceased with Chicago general manager Kyle Davidson’s disclaimer about players and families.

Alas, the NHL insists that half of Chicago’s skirmishes take place in foreign territory, so last Saturday’s matinee vs. the Jets in Good Ol’ Hometown provided curious news snoops an opportunity to back Bedard against a wall, form a semi-circle around hockey’s latest “it” kid, and ask him about life in a fish bowl that includes enough internet piranha to bite all four legs off an elephant.

This is Pang’s version of that natter (beginning at the 45:45 mark):

“Mark Chipman, the president and owner of the Winnipeg Jets, took the time, as the Hawks were getting on the bus to leave, and made sure he went up to Connor and apologized,” he told Mike Russo on The Athletic Hockey Show on Dec. 5. “It was really one reporter, his name’s Paul Friesen. And he…one question was asked. Connor answered it beautifully. He’s not afraid to answer it. He’s not afraid to tell people that he’s aware of what goes on, and basically it’s a bunch of BS, we’re okay, our family’s…we’re good. But then Paul Friesen asked another question, another question, another question, another question. And so that’s what Mark Chipman was apologizing for.”

What a load of hooey.

This is what I saw and heard on video of that scrum:

Sean Reynolds of Sportsnet sought the first sound bite, asking, “I wonder, you knew you were coming into this league with a spotlight on you. Have you learned or taken any lessons away from the kind of unfortunate place that spotlight can take you?”

Paul Friesen of the Winnipeg Sun then added his voice to the natter. He did not—repeat, not!— ask another question, another question, another question, another question. He had two follow-ups to Reynolds’ kick-start. Two!

“What’s it been like going through it?”

“Is there a message to people who take part in it? I mean, maybe they forget you are people, you are young people.”

There was zero mention of young Connor’s parents or his sister. Both reporters simply sought a sense of how the kid was coping with unwanted attention born of the Perry scandal, and the ‘life in a fish bowl’ portion of the to-and-fro took less than two minutes.

Yet Pang makes it sound as if Friesen went all-60 Minutes on Bedard, badgering him like he’d been O.J.’s driver during the white Ford Bronco slow-speed chase. So lame.

As for Chipman delivering a mea culpa to Connor, spare me.

Last I looked, the Puck Pontiff was co-bankroll, chairman and governor of the Jets, not lord and master of local news snoops. Hell, he rarely talks to them, so I’d suggest he spend his time trying to fill the 3,000-plus unoccupied chairs in the Little Hockey House On The Prairie rather than play the role of journalism prof.

But, hey, perhaps the mea culpa didn’t actually happen. I mean, Pang’s power of recall is highly suspect, given his version of the Bedard-Reynolds/Friesen exchange, so maybe he dreamt it while snoozing in an overhead luggage bin.

Many among the rabble were appalled that Reynolds and Friesen would quiz an 18-year-old kid on such a sensitive subject, but here’s something that Hawks insider Pang tells us about Bedard: “He’s beyond 18.” And here’s Ben Pope of the Chicago Sun-Times, who referenced Bedard’s “remarkable maturity” and added this: “He’s not just mature for an 18-year-old. He’s mature, period.” In that case, he ought to be able to handle big-boy questions, which he did, albeit with a degree of discomfort. His poise was admirable. Good for him.

Friesen, who absorbed an unwarranted and fierce flogging on X for his part in the Bedard exchange, is a friend and former colleague, and I can tell you he wouldn’t have approached that scrum with the notion of digging down to the scuzzy elements of internet innuendo. That isn’t how he rolls. He came from a base of empathy, and I’m convinced Reynolds did the same thing. I don’t know Reynolds, but I’ve seen and heard enough of his work to conclude he’s above board. “My idea behind asking that question is to take a family that was victimized and allow people to understand how it affected them, and then maybe think twice about the way that this carried out, the way that this thing spread like wildfire,” he explained to listeners to The Kenny and Renny Show on Dec. 3. Works for me.

The aforementioned Sun-Times beat guy Pope delivered this odd commentary on X: “Winnipeg media asked Connor Bedard about the impact of the Perry ‘rumors’ today. Frankly, I don’t think this was an appropriate time to do so. But I do think his response is worth posting.” Let me see if I’ve got this straight: It wasn’t the proper time to ask the questions, but it was the proper time to record and report the answers. Interesting concept. I mean, without the question there is no response to post. Perhaps Pope developed that twisted logic at the Mark Chipman School of Journalism.

Pope’s colleague, Rick Morrissey, gave Winnipeg news snoops a scolding.

“This was a fire hose pumping gasoline on a blaze that should have been allowed to go out by itself,” he scribbled. “Bedard’s quotes went all over the world.

“Now, what will have staying power—the rumor or Bedard’s response to the rumor?

“The rumor, of course.

“It’s why the questions never should have been asked of him. He never should have been asked about something that had never occurred. And if the Winnipeg reporters went on to write sympathetic stories that painted the rookie as a victim, it doesn’t change the fact that the stories’ foundation was a false rumor—even if the Winnipeg media reported his response, not the rumor itself. You can put nice wrapping paper around a box of poop, but it doesn’t change the box’s contents.”

“Standards separate the media from social media. Reporters have standards that are meant to keep them in check and push them to be fair. Social media has few restrictions, very little conscience and a snuffed-out guiding light.

“If we’re not careful, we in the media eventually will be doing laps in that same cesspool.”

Apparently, it didn’t occur to Morrissey that his own man, Pope, had also “put nice wrapping paper around a box of poop” by reporting Bedard’s response, if not the rumor itself.

If you’ll permit me a philosophical thought, all of the above is a reminder that the human race would be a brilliant concept if not for the people.

Perhaps I’m slow on the uptake, but weren’t the Jets adorned in Royal Canadian Air Force jerseys on Canadian Armed Forces Night at the Little Hockey House On The Prairie on Dec. 4? And won’t they be wearing the same livery on April 1 to acknowledge the 100th anniversary of the RCAF? And here I thought specialty unis on theme nights were taboo in the NHL.

I swear I heard Sportsnet gab guy Sam Cosentino rank Jets legend Dale Hawerchuk among the top 20 NHL players of all time. No doubt Ducky was statue-worthy. I’ve always admired him. But top 20? I’m not so sure about that.

On a similar note, there’s an RBC commercial that identifies Auston Matthews as “world’s best hockey player.” Connor McDavid and a handful of other guys demand a recount.

Hey, if you plan a visit to Montreal to watch les Canadiens, you can arrange a personal meet-and-greet visit from mascot Youppi! That’s right, Youppi! At your seat! For $195! Good grief. How much would Mickey and Minnie cost?

Given just one word to describe the Toronto Blue Jays failed pursuit of baseball unicorn Shohei Ohtani, it would have to be “heartbroken.” They’re saying it on our flatscreens, they’re saying it online, they’re saying it in our newspapers, they’re saying it on the streets in the Republic of Tranna. Well, you’ll have to excuse me, but my heart isn’t broken. I bleed Dodgers blue, you see, so I’m delighted that the best player in Major League Baseball is taking a U-Haul up the I-5 from Anaheim to Los Angeles, and I don’t care if they broke the bank ($700 million, 10 years) to land him in a World Series-or-bust gambit.

It’s about the Ohtani saga: Is it just me, or did anyone else find the unabashed cheerleading by Canadian media cringeworthy? I mean, all the “Please, please, please pick us!” groveling was positively hick-townish. I expect to see professional jock journos on the TSN and Sportsnet anchor desks, not Ma and Pa Kettle gushing like ninnies who swilled too much moonshine at the county turkey shoot.

Little wonder rapper and Toronto Raptors courtside sideshow Drake wanted to see Ohtani in Blue Jays linen next season. Except, based on ShoTime’s salary, if the Jays had reeled him in Drake would have been the only person in the Republic of Tranna who could afford tickets.

It’s easy to understand why TSN props up Steve Phillips as its baseball insider/expert—he simply tells the Canadian audience precisely what they want to hear. Are the Blue Jays a World Series contender? “Absolutely?” Is Bo Bichette the best shortstop in baseball? “You bet.” Are the Blue Jays screwed after going all in on Ohtani? “Not at all. They’ll go out and get all the best guys not named Ohtani and they’ll be a better team for it.”

LIV Golf introduced Jon Rahm as its shiny, new toy last week, and many observers were quick to document the Grand Slam champion’s hypocrisy. In June 2022, for example, he said: “To be honest, part of the (LIV) format is not really appealing to me. Shotgun, three days to me is not a golf tournament, no cut. It’s that simple. I want to play against the best in the world in a format that’s been going on for hundreds of years. That’s what I want to see.” Yet now the Spaniard loves those LIV quirks and, hey, he’ll have an extra day off every week to count all the Saudi money that lured him away from the PGA Tour, all of which prompted Eamon Lynch of Golfweek to opine: “In citing his need to feather the family nest for future generations, the appeal of innovative formats and an overwhelming ambition to grow the game, Rahm checked every box in the bullshit bingo that attends all LIV signings.”

It’s only fitting that Sports Illustrated would anoint Deion Sanders its Sportsperson of the Year. I mean, an artificial football coach for an artificial sports magazine sounds about right.

Like many of my vintage, I sometimes yearn for what once was, and SI once was the best sports mag on newsstands everywhere, give or take Sport magazine and the Street and Smith’s Baseball Yearbook. I long ago ceased reading SI, but I do remember a time when you had to do more than lose football games and wear sunglasses to earn the Sportsperson of the Year nod. Any one of Nikola Jokic, Coco Gauff, Lionel Messi, Caitlin Clark or Simone Biles would have been a better choice, but the self-promoting braggart won. Sigh.

The Christine Sinclair farewell last week was superbly orchestrated and tear-inducing, yet, given her accomplishments on soccer pitches around the globe, it still somehow seemed inadequate.

I really enjoy the ‘Weekends With’ feature in the Saturday Globe and Mail. Yesterday it was Simon Houpt in conversation with CBC broadcaster Andi Petrillo and, as always, we discovered more about the person than the talking head. Like, did you know Andria once taught piano and her favorite tune to play is Terms of Endearment? It’s always good copy, and I don’t know why more newspapers don’t put that kind of magazine-style stuff on their sports pages, rather than dreary, day-old info.

Interesting piece from Ted Wyman in today’s Winnipeg Sun about the lack of diversity in Canadian curling. He notes that the vast majority of our Pebble People are white, and Curling Canada seeks to get more people of color, LGBT(etc.) folks and other minorities involved. Ironically, our female champion, Kerri Einarson, is Metis and the men’s world champion, Bruce Mouat, is gay.

Just wondering: Does anyone actually place bets on the information Davis Sanchez provides on TSN? Somehow I doubt it. So why, TSN, why?

Apparently the NBA in-season tournament was a rousing success, but I still don’t know what it was all about. Except, of course, to prove that a soon-to-be 39-year-old LeBron James is still better than 95 per cent of everyone in hoops.

And, finally, I don’t know about you, but I’m still trying to wrap my head around the Winnipeg Blue Bombers losing the Grey Cup game, and that was three weeks ago.

Once the PWHL gets past the loud, nasty noise, it will swim or sink on merit

We can assume that Mark and Kimbra Walter knew what they signed up for when they staged their bloodless coup and gained absolute control of the female hockey fiefdom at the back end of June.

I mean, it’s not like they’re novices at bankrolling sports franchises, because their portfolio includes one of Major League Baseball’s most-storied outfits, the Los Angeles Dodgers, futbol’s Chelsea FC of the English Premier League, and female hoopsters the L.A. Sparks.

They also own a wildlife preserve in Florida, and they’re zookeepers (Lincoln Park Zoo) which, one supposes, might be beneficial when dealing with professional athletes.

Meantime, Mark and Kimbra aligned themselves with similar been-there, done-that accomplices in the overthrow of the Premier Hockey Federation, and their freshly minted Professional Women’s Hockey League is top heavy with know-how—Stan Kasten, whose hand has been at the wheel of three MLB clubs and he has the World Series rings to prove it, and the gay power couple, tennis legend Billie Jean King and wife Ilana Kloss.

So there’s little, if anything, that these people haven’t heard, especially King and Kloss because the rabble is seldom shy about reminding gay people that they’re the spawn of Satan.

Still, when the freshly minted Poohbahs of Ponytail Puck introduced the general managers of their six franchises and revealed the order for shoutouts at the inaugural player draft on Sept. 18, there was an outpouring of sexism, misogyny, transphobia, ignorance, adolescent smarm and a healthy dose of doomsdayism.

Here are sample comments from the peanut gallery on the Sportsnet website:

“Will the first person chosen be non binary or otherwise?”

“I’m actually thinking about selling tickets so people can watch me sleep.”

“And with the first pick Minnesota picks Lia Thomas. They’ll teach him to skate.”

“I can hear it now…with the first overall pick…Minnesota selects…William Nylander.”

“Hope Bruce Jenner and the Kardashians get drafted, just think of the box office appeal. Sellouts would be common. Heck, I would even buy tickets when they are in town.”

“I would take the Williams sisters, Venus and Serena late in the draft, easy to transition from tennis to hockey. A couple of power forwards in the making with the proper coaching.”

“I heard the Hansons, Ogie Ogilthorpe, Tim ‘Dr. Hook’ McCracken, André ‘Poodle’ Lussier, Ross ‘Mad Dog’ Madison, and Gilmore Tuttle are all going to do the ‘change’ and play in the PWHL.”

“LFL, Lingerie Football League is the one to watch.”

“It’s doomed because very few care about professional women’s hockey.”

“Hasn’t folded yet?”

“How long before the women demand to be paid the same as NHL players? Social justice.”

“Will each team have a quota of a maximum of 3 former (born) males per team, like some leagues (CFL) that have quotas?”

Etcetera, etcetera.

True, it’s nothing but noise (abhorrent noise), but I remember the World Hockey Association startup in November 1971 and I don’t recall the doubters straying so far off-topic with cheesy claptrap about gender and reality TV ninnies.

Oh, sure, there was scoffing and rude laughter aplenty (I confess, I’m guilty) when the WHA carnival barkers announced a 10-franchise operation, stretching from Miami to San Francisco and as far north as Edmonton. I mean, there had never been a pie in the sky that big. A bunch of yahoos (apologies to Benny Hatskin) were prepared to kick sand at the mighty National Hockey League? It was David vs. Goliath, except this time David only had a handful of confetti to try and slay the giant, not a slingshot and a rock. The over/under on WHA life expectancy was about a week and a half.

The thing is, criticism of the WHA and its predicted doom was confined to lack of on-ice talent and the imposing competition.

The PWHL has no such impediments.

Now that women’s hockey is a one-trick pony, the planet’s finest female talent is available for the plucking and it’s the only game in town (six towns to be precise—Montreal, Ottawa, the Republic of Tranna, New York, Boston, Minneapolis/St. Paul).

That, in turn, should prompt an exchange of logical talking points, not bottom-feeder banter from people who’ve spent too much time alone and don’t know how to behave in mixed company.

But that’s what the Poohbahs of Ponytail Puck are up against as they attempt to succeed where the Canadian Women’s Hockey League failed in 2019.

Some suggest the Premier Hockey Federation also failed, but that isn’t so.

The PHF was cruising toward an eighth season, with jacked-up salaries, better benefits and improved off-ice facilities, when the Walters group came along in June and the PHF was swallowed whole—lock, stock and ponytails—by folks who know how to turn one dollar into two dollars.

The fear, of course, is that they’ll be turning two dollars into one dollar with this PWHL venture.

Many of us have long wondered about the market for Ponytail Puck. What is it? Who is it? Where is it? Is there a there there?

Since the CWHL shut its doors in 2019, it’s been a colossal mess, with the PHF and members of the Dream Gap Tour squawking like teenagers squabbling over who’s going to wear what to the prom. The feud sometimes turned ugly, featuring spicy trash talk of a “glorified beer league” and harsh criticism of PHF founder Dani Rylan Kearney.

Meantime, mainstream media, which basically ignored the CWHL out of business, wasn’t doing the PHF or Dream Gappers any favors. Coverage of either group was as scarce as a Stanley Cup parade in Canada.

There’s also the very significant matter of credibility in the eyes of the rabble.

The astute observer will know that our Canadian Women’s National Hockey Team has used teenage boys to prep for Olympic Games, and the results have not been flattering. In friendlies vs. Junior A sides from Alberta, British Columbia and U17 boys from across the country in late 2021, the CWNHT went 0-9 and was outscored 52-9.

Meanwhile, the Dream Gap All-Stars had 11 friendlies vs. teens from the United States Premier Hockey League in early 2021 and went 8-3.

If the finest female pucksters on the planet can’t beat teenage boys, how saleable is the product, right?

Well, the United States Women’s National Soccer Team once lost to a team of teenage boys, yet the NWSL has an average head count of 9,556 league-wide this year, and individual sides average anywhere from 4,033 and 19,690 customers.

If it works for soccer, surely it can work for shinny.

We’ll know soon enough, because the Walter group drops the puck in January, and I’m guessing there’s a healthy appetite for a league that features the elite of the elite female players (give or take a few Europeans).

And the number of gay or non-binary or transgender coaches/players won’t have any bearing on the buy-in from fans or news snoops. I mean, that’s just stupid.

Let’s talk about the future of Ponytail Puck…holy Moses that man is slow…chirping at Augusta National…climbing the walls…baseball and beer…Barney Fife umping in the majors…chump change in the CFL…and other things on my mind…

Once members of the Canadian and American shinny sides collect their shiny gold and silver trinkets tonight in Brampton, those of us who give more than a passing glance toward Ponytail Puck will ask the obvious question.

To wit: What’s next?

Surely it can’t be status quo for women’s professional hockey.

I mean, members of the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association have been flitting hither and yon for the past four years, participating in glorified scrimmages and dressed up in hamburger chain and bank logos, and their fervent hope has been for the Premier Hockey Federation to make like summer wages. You know, disappear. That, in turn, would inspire the National Hockey League to adopt the PWHPA orphans, and Ponytail Puck would live happily ever after as one Super League.

Hasn’t happened.

The PHF (nee National Women’s Hockey League) continues to disappoint the PWHPA by its mere existence, and it recently concluded its eighth season, with the Toronto Six emerging as the first champion north of the Canada-U.S.A. boundary. Most noteworthy, there’s no indication that the seven-team loop is inclined to vamoose and, more to the point, it shall drop the puck again next autumn with a bulked up salary cap ($1.5 million per club) and bulked-up benefits.

The PWHPA, meanwhile, is…well, that’s the mystery.

The Canadian Women’s Hockey League went up in flames on May 1, 2019, and the PWHPA rose from its ashes 18 days later with high chatter of a helter-skelter Dream Gap Tour, but there’s really no there there, unless a bunch of now-dog-eared snapshots with Billie Jean King is a bragging point. In a way, it’s like LIV Golf: When are the tournaments, where are the tournaments and, say, does anyone know if they’re on TV or where we can find them online?

There’s no argument that PWHPA membership represents the elite of Ponytail Puck. All but one player (Rebecca Gilmore of the PHF’s Boston Pride) on the current Canadian and American rosters at the IIHF Women’s World Championship in Brampton are Dream Gappers (or American college kids), but the crème de la crème has nowhere to go once the final buzzer sounds in the gold medal match tonight. Unless it’s back to the drawing board to find a solution to Ponytail Puck’s split personality that’s in “shambles.”

That’s Kendall Schofield Coyne’s word, not mine.

The former U.S. captain made that statement in a natter with the San Francisco Chronicle in December 2019 and, unless the PWHPA has something hidden beneath its bonnet and plans to spring some glad tidings on us post-world tournament, Ponytail Puck will remain in “shambles” with one legit league and one sideshow, both of which will be largely ignored by mainstream media.

Make no mistake, jock journos and their editors have seldom done women’s professional shinny any favors, and a strong case can be made that they ignored the CWHL out of business, a disinterest that did not go unnoticed by league executives.

Calgary Inferno GM Kristen Hagg described her team as “Calgary’s best-kept secret,” and added: “We live in a society where people do not value women’s sport. Most of us have been socialized to accept men’s sport as dominant and somehow automatically more interesting. The problem is that once society internalizes falsehood, it’s not easy to correct it.”

Sami Jo Small, once GM of Toronto Furies and now president of Toronto Six, was singing from the same songbook: “People are supportive of women’s hockey. They love to watch it, but they don’t know how to watch it. That’s one of my biggest battles, to get people to know where to watch these games, how to watch these games, where to buy the tickets, and get them into the venue. Not just watching the Olympics.”

Looks like it’s deja vu all over again.

For example:

When the Six won the PHF title in March, TSN slotted the story into the 40th minute of a 60-minute show, while Sportsnet gave it bottom-feeder play in the 53rd minute.
In advance of a quarterfinal skirmish between Canada and Sweden on Thursday, the Toronto Sun could only find room for five paragraphs on the hockey game—in its sports briefs package on the 12th page of a 12-page section. It was bunched in with copy on UEFA futbol, NASCAR racing and, get this, an NFL player assaulting a women. (Running copy on women’s hockey together with the assault of a woman is some kind of sick joke or extremely lame news judgment.)
In a quick scan of sports sections on Our Frozen Tundra yesterday, seven of nine had zero (0, as in zilch, nil, nada) mention of the world tournament, which had entered the semifinal round.
At the Beijing Olympic Games slightly more than a year ago, Rosie DiManno of the Toronto Star delivered this harsh assessment of Ponytail Puck: “Women’s hockey doesn’t belong in the Games. It’s a cheap medal, in no way comparable to the paramountcy that some nations historically enjoy in a specific sport—like the Norwegians and cross-country skiing or Jamaicans and sprinting. There is at least some semblance of competition—gobs of it actually — with scads of elite athletes to make a challenge.” She closed her column with this remark on the U.S.A.-Canada rivalry: “Honestly, I’m getting sick of this mythologized rivalry and everybody else an also-ran.”

Hmmm. It’s either scant press or bad press.

None of this is to say it’s solely on mainstream media to spread the good word, and it’s important to note that the PWHPA doesn’t do Ponytail Puck any favors.

Never mind the hit-and-miss nature of their glorified scrimmages and the great divide they created with the PHF. I called up the Dream Gappers’ website this morning, and the most recent posting is dated March 3, even as a healthy portion of the PWHPA constituency has been front and centre at the World Championship for the past 10 days. What their membership is doing isn’t worth noting?

I’m sorry, but they can’t make mainstream media give a damn if they don’t give a damn themselves.

No matter what’s next for women’s professional hockey, there has to be more to sell than U.S.A.-Canada if the PWHPA membership expects to earn a living wage at their preferred craft.

FYI: If you’re wondering, and you probably aren’t, there are 10 PHF players on rosters at the world tournament.

The female gum flappers on TSN really need to refrain from calling U.S.-Canada the “greatest rivalry in sports.” It’s pure nonsense. Everyone knows the “greatest rivalry in sports” is Tiger Woods’ legal team vs. any of his ex-wives/girlfriends’ lawyers.

Some Masters tournament leftovers: For those of you scoring at home, this is Woods’ scorecard for golf majors since he drove his vehicle into a ditch two years ago:
Masters: 47th.
PGA: Quit after 3 rounds.
U.S. Open: Did not play.
Open Championship: Missed cut.
Masters: Quit in third round.

Did you catch Patrick Cantlay’s slow-poke play at last weekend’s Masters? He took so much time between shots that Aaron Rodgers changed his mind about where to play football next season another dozen times.

I swear, if Moses had been as slow as Cantlay, we’d still be waiting for the last three Commandments.

This from Steve Simmons of Postmedia Tranna: “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 let’s get those pesky birds to shut the hell up. Perhaps we can take a weed whacker to all the azaleas, too. Good grief.

Just wondering: What does Simmons shout at on those days when there are no clouds in the sky?

I note F1 racing plans to put the brakes on the hazardous practice of team crews climbing the pit wall to wave their cars home. Meanwhile, Toronto Maple Leafs fans are expected to start climbing the walls any day now.

Six teams in Major League Baseball have called for a changeup on beer sales and are now serving into the eighth inning. So we’ve gone from the Juiced Ball Era to the Juiced Fan Era.

I’ve been following and watching baseball since the mid-1950s (go Brooklyn Dodgers!), and I feel obliged to say Shohei Ohtani is the best ballplayer in my lifetime. Go ahead and argue Willie Mays if you like, but the Say Hey kid never did what Shotime is doing.

Department of Dumb: Cody Bellinger of the Chicago Cubs returned to his old haunt, Dodger Stadium in L.A. on Friday night, and the faithful at Chavez Ravine acknowledged their former outfielder/first sacker with a warm ovation. Bellinger stepped out of the batter’s box for no longer than it takes to say “Jackie Robinson,” then home plate umpire Jim Wolf promptly slapped him with a pitch clock violation while the applause continued. Hey, it’s great that the pitch clock has put some lickety-split into MLB games, but this was buffoonish Barney Fife giving Goober a ticket for helping an old lady walk across Main Street in Mayberry.

Some among the rabble wonder why the Winnipeg Blue Bombers continue to make friends while folks are abandoning the Winnipeg Jets. I think it’s quite simple: Sticker price. I mean, you can purchase an 11-game season ticket package to watch Adam Bighill and the Big Blue take another run at the Grey Cup for anywhere from $150 (youth) to $1,209, whereas it’ll set you back $2,554 to $8,002 to watch Logan Stanley lumber around the freeze with the Jets. Do the math.

I don’t know about you, but Mackenzie Zacharias’ retreat from elite curling to pursue “other passions” for at least a year caught me by surprise. Mackenzie, 23, is a rising star among Canada’s Pebble People and she’s already been to two Scotties Tournament of Hearts—one skipping her own Manitoba team and, two months ago, throwing second stones for Jennifer Jones. It’s never good to see our fine, young curlers walk away from the game, but here’s hoping she finds what she’s after.

So tell us, Brent Laing, how do you think you and your bride, the aforementioned J. Jones, will get on at the World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship beginning next weekend in South Korea? “I’m old enough to remember what it was like to compete at the world championship and it used to be that Canada could go over and play pretty well and win,” Laing tells Ted Wyman of the Winnipeg Sun. “That’s just not the case anymore. It has nothing to do with Canada being worse. It has everything to do with there being more teams at the top level. There are a handful of teams over there that I know if we play our best, we may still not win. That never used to be the case. If we went and did that 10 years ago, I’m pretty confident our best would beat everybody else’s best. That’s just not the case anymore.” In other words, spare Brent and Jennifer the cheap shots on social media if they come up empty in Korea.

Looking for some curling memorabilia? Well, check out the For the Love of Curling online auction that offers items from nick-nacks to apparel signed by some of our elite Pebble People. Bidding closes at 2 p.m. Eastern on April 23.

Toronto Argos quarterback Chad Kelly has been flapping his gums again, which means we should probably give a listen since Swag’s hot takes are entertaining, even if very self-indulgent (he’s quite fond of himself). Last November, you might recall, he appeared on Pardon My Take and informed the natterbugs that he’s better than “50 per cent” of starting QBs in the NFL. Now, he has an issue with the chump change the Boatmen are paying him. “Obviously, I was on a shit contract and still am,” he says. “I mean, it’s not a shit contract, but it’s all incentive-based. Whereas guys want guaranteed money, guys want base salary. You shouldn’t want to just hit the incentives, you want to make more.” Well, okay, he collected $91,000 last season, plus bonus money, and his haul for the upcoming Canadian Football League crusade will be somewhere between $87,000 and $239,000. That’s for seven months of work. And it’s “shit” pay? Geez, maybe the 36 fans of Rouge Football in the Republic of Tranna can fire up a GoFundMe page for the poor guy. That ought to fetch at least $3.95.

And, finally, out here in Victoria, we count flowers at this time of the year. Back in Good Ol’ Hometown, they count potholes—more than 22,300 filled to date in 2023. Just wondering, do city work crews play The Beatles’ Fixing A Hole as background music when they’re on the business end of a shovel?

Let’s talk about the bearded ladies of Winnipeg…cheering in the press box and on the anchor desk…Box Car Willie on Sportsnet…trading Auston Matthews…Tiger’s still a saint on CBS/ESPN…garbage in the outfield…and other things on my mind

Another Sunday smorgas-bored…and a heaping, helping of media stuff right off the hop, because someone should keep their tootsies to the toaster oven…

Mad Mike McIntyre of the Drab Slab has done the math, and he tells us that the Winnipeg Jets have more wins and points than all Western Conference outfits since the puck was dropped to start the 2017-18 National Hockey League season.

“Remind me why we seemingly can’t go a week or two around here without hearing calls from some quarters to fire the coach, axe the general manager, bench this lousy player and trade that bum,” he writes.

Geez, I don’t know Mad Mike, ya think it might have something to do with the Jets’ first-round ouster in 2019 and their failure to qualify for the Stanley Cup tournament last summer? I mean, you can lead the first 199 laps at the Indy 500, but the driver leading lap 200 gets the checkered flag, the bottle of milk and a kiss from a pretty girl.

Truly bizarre headline on that Mad Mike column: “Ladies and gentlemen…Start your playoff beards.” Seriously? Bearded ladies? Little wonder Good Ol’ Hometown is at the top of most no-trade lists for young NHL players.

Did anchor Ken Reid actually say he and his fellow talking heads at Sportsnet don’t cheer for any specific team? Yup, sure did. That is to laugh. The company that signs his paycheque, Rogers Communications, owns the Toronto Blue Jays and, in partnership with Bell Canada, holds a 75 per cent stake in Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, which bankrolls the Maple Leafs, Raptors, Toronto FC and Argos. So, make no mistake, the squawk boxes on both Sportsnet Central and TSN ‘s signature SportsCentre are full of sis-boom-bah and rah, rah, rah for Team(s) Tranna. I mean, they couldn’t contain their glee during the Tranna Jurassics run to the NBA title a couple of years back, and they positively choked on their pom-poms when their hoops heroes were ushered from the playoffs last year. A funereal, long-faced Lindsay Hamilton began SportsCentre by saying, “This one stings,” and, over at Sports Central, reporter Michael Grange blew his cover when he said, “As Raptors fans, we…” That’s right, he confessed to being one of the fawning flock. That’s never a good look.

Can someone, anyone, at Sportsnet explain why they continue to permit Elliotte Friedman to appear on camera looking like the back end of a nasty all-nighter? His Box Car Willie shtick is disgraceful and, again, it’s a blatant double standard because none of the female talking heads would be allowed on air looking like a bridge troll.

Damien Cox continues to astound and amaze on Twitter. Last Thursday, the Toronto Star columnist took a moment to give himself an enthusiastic on the back by tweeting, “From the beginning said Matthews would be the best player the Leafs ever drafted.” That doesn’t exactly make him Nostradamus, and it’s positively belly-laughingly hilarious when you consider this tweet he sent out in November 2018: “John Tavares is playing so well it makes you think; why not sign (Mitch) Marner and (William) Nylander and trade Matthews for a whole pile of goodies? Not saying they would, but it’s not such a crazy idea anymore.” There are no words.

Cox didn’t stop there. In his latest alphabet phart in the Star, he wrote this: “More than 95 per cent of senior positions in the NHL remain reserved for white men. In sports, only golf is more dominated by white culture than hockey.” Apparently he’s never seen a NASCAR race.

So tell us, Phil Mushnick, what say you about the talking heads on CBS/ESPN for their continued hero worship of Tiger Woods, absent from The Masters golf tournament after driving into a ditch and almost killing himself in February? “Even those who wouldn’t recognize a con if it were sold with multiple, fill-in-the-blanks certificates of authenticity, now know that this 25-year anointment of Tiger Woods as a saint on earth was a media con,” the New York Post columnist writes. “Again, it wasn’t enough that he was the world’s best golfer, he additionally had to be the best son, best husband, best father and finest human being. But if that had been you instead of Woods, the one who, unimpeded at almost double the speed limit, rolled his SUV off the road, you’d have been charged with a pile of negligent driving charges—even while hospitalized and before your blood results returned. For him to still be sainted on the national telecast of a major as a gift from above was designed to be swallowed by the tiny fraction of fools still available to be fooled. That’s supposed to be all of us. Again. And it’s nauseating. Again.” Harsh. But I don’t disagree.

I kept waiting for one of the CBS gab guys, or Dottie Pepper, to call out Bryson DeChambeau on Saturday, not for his wonky game but for his arrogance. You might recall that golf’s incredible bulk basically pooh-poohed Augusta National as nothing more than a pitch-and-putt course prior to the 2020 Masters last November, boasting, “I’m looking at it as par-67 for me.” So, here’s his scorecard at the par-72 course since then: 70, 74, 69, 73, 76, 67, 75. He goes into today’s final round sitting 38th among the 54 guys who teed it up on the weekend. Yet there wasn’t so much as a peep about DeChambeau’s disrespect for one of the most challenging and treasured golf courses on the planet, because that’s not how it’s done during coverage of The Masters. You don’t dare ruffle the azaleas or disturb the piped-in bird chirping and the soothing piano music. So they gave him a pass. Sigh. If only Johnny Miller was still sitting behind a mic.

Best line I read or heard about The Masters was delivered by longtime, now-retired sports scribe Cam Cole. After noted cheater Patrick Reed had swatted a ball into the azaleas, Cam tweeted: “Breaking: Patrick Reed has hit into the flowers behind 13 green. Rules officials are racing to the spot.” That’s funny.

Talk about a day late and a dollar short. It took the Drab Slab two weeks to acknowledge the death of Todd Kabel, a kid from McCreary who got his break riding the ponies at Assiniboia Downs for five seasons then made it big at Woodbine in the Republic of Tranna. Todd’s death on March 27 had been reported hither and yon, but somehow escaped the notice of the Winnipeg Free Press sports desk. Not good. That’s a major whiff. George Williams has a real nice piece on the seven-time Sovereign Award-winning jockey that you might want to check out in the Saturday’s edition, not that it excuses the negligence.

I’d say the Winnipeg Sun missed the boat on Kabel, too, except the suits at Postmedia in The ROT don’t allow Paul Friesen, Ted Wyman and Scott Billeck to fill their two or three pages with anything other than the Jets, Blue Bombers and curling.

One more note on the Drab Slab: They often run a full-page, poster pic on the Sunday sports front, and that seems like a colossal waste of space to me. Why not a quality feature or something light and bright? Plopping a large pic in that premium space shows zero initiative or imagination. It’s just lazy.

Three months in, I still really don’t know what to make of this NHL season, except to submit that it’s kind of like the breakup of the Beatles. Instead of one genius rock band, we were left with three solid solo artists and Ringo Starr. That’s what the NHL is today, a quartet of separate house leagues, although I haven’t decided which of the four is Ringo. I am, mind you, leaning toward the Central Division because, once you get past Tampa, Carolina and Florida, you’re left with nothing but a band of bland clubs and a guy named Torts who, come to think of it, is a lot like Yoko Ono. You know, a dark, foreboding presence determined to ruin a good thing (for evidence see: Laine, Patrik).

If nothing else, this NHL crusade is a study in the distortion of facts. Media pundits insist on taking numbers and pro-rating them over an 82-game crusade, as if delivering a weighty message, but in truth it’s delusional, like imagining Patrik Laine and John Tortorella sitting by the campfire and singing Kumbaya. Consider the Jets. They’d be on pace for a 106-point season, which would be their second best since the Atlanta caravan rolled into River City in 2011, but it’s false currency. We wouldn’t be looking at similar numbers if they were required to play the Vegas Golden Knights and Colorado Avalanche 9/10 times each instead of the Ottawa Senators and Vancouver Canucks. But, hey, I’m not here to piddle on your Corn Flakes. Enjoy it, Jets fans. Much like the Edsel, this kind of season won’t happen again.

All power to the Edmonton Oilers for getting the brooms out and sweeping the Senators, 9-nada, on the season, but, I’m sorry, that should never happen in any big-league sport.

Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl ate the Senators’ lunch to the tune of 21 points each in those nine games, so if they got to play Ottawa 82 times they’d finish with 191 points. That would still leave them 24 shy of Wayne Gretzky’s best year.

Hey, check out the Los Angeles Dodgers 2020 World Series championship rings. They’re as big as a Volkswagen Beetle. I swear, they won’t be able to take those things to a jeweler for cleaning. They’ll need a car wash. But they’re 11-karat, 232-diamond, 53-sapphire beauties. Much nicer than the Houston Astros 2017 WS rings, which featured diamonds set into a replica trash can lid.

Speaking of garbage, Anaheim fans tossed trash cans onto the field when the Astros were in town last week. We haven’t seen that much garbage in the outfield since the 1962 Mets.

By the way, if you’re looking for something special for that special Dodgers fan in your life, limited-edition replica World Series rings are available to the faithful. Cost: $35,000US. Let me just say this about that, though: If you have a spare $35K kicking around to spend on finger decoration, I have the number of a food bank that would love to hear from you.

The Chicago Cubs plan to erect a statue of Baseball Hall of Fame hurler Ferguson Jenkins outside Wrigley Field, and the New York Mets will unveil a pigeon perch of pitching legend Tom Seaver outside Citi Field in July. Meanwhile, the Toronto Blue Jays are starting to wonder if they’d be better off with a statue at shortstop rather than Bo (Oops) Bichette.

Brendan Bottcher and his group from Wild Rose Country came up empty at the men’s world curling championship in Calgary. Someone please alert the six people outside the Prairie provinces who actually give a damn.

And, finally, I have never engaged in a chin-wag about “TV’s most-talked-about show,” mainly because I’ve never watched “TV’s most-talked-about show.” I have never overheard a conversation about “TV’s most-talked-about show.” What show am I not talking about? Well, if you don’t know, then perhaps it isn’t “TV’s most-talked-about show” after all.

Let’s talk about Boomer and Rouge Football…Cris who?…ads on NHL unis…homophobia on the diamond and golf course…sticking to sports…and other things on my mind

A one and a two—the second Sunday morning smorgas-bored of 2021…and the year’s only going to get better, kids…

Oh, the humanity. CBS backup blurt box boy Boomer Esiason crapped on the Canadian Football League, and it was as if he’d peed on a Mountie’s horse. During the Musical Ride.

I swear, we haven’t heard this loud a hue and cry since Maggie Trudeau went clubbing with the Rolling Stones and hitched a late-night ride in Mick’s limo.

If you missed it, Boomer worked the L.A. Rams-Arizona Cardinals skirmish last Sunday, a National Football League growler featuring former Winnipeg Blue Bombers backup quarterback, Grey Cup champion and resident party boy Chris Streveler. As it happened, Streveler hurled an ill-advised, second-quarter pass that was taken the other way for a pick-six by Roy Hill of the Rams.

“What a horrific mistake by Reveler (sic), barked Boomer, who was keeping the broadcast booth seat warm for disabled talking head Tony Romo. “This isn’t the Grey Cup. This isn’t the CFL. You can’t just take chances and throw the ball down the middle of the field and expect somebody not to come down with it. There’s just no reason to throw the ball there.”

Cue the outrage.

Players and coaches with the lived experience of actually suiting up in 12-man football took to social media and pounced on Boomer, like a panhandler spotting loose change on a sidewalk.

Many among the rabble and media pundits across the tundra also weighed in with wagging tongues and fingers, defending Rouge Football with the same fervor that Rudy Giuliani has Donald Trump’s back (only without the black shoe polish dribbling down their faces and audible farting).

“That’s a silly comment,” one-time DB Davis Sanchez said of Boomer’s cheap shot, in a natter with TSN’s Kate Beirness that was meant to be a tsk-tsking of Esiason but instead detoured into a negative riff on the Arizona QB, leaving me to believe Streveler doesn’t know how to bend down and tie his own boot laces, let alone fling a football.

“I get joy in watching guys in the CFL get a shot down there and succeed,” Sanchez continued in his peculiar brand of English, “but when I’m looking at all the high-level quarterbacks we have in the CFL, Chris Streveler’s not the guy I’m gonna put out there on display to represent the great quarterbacks we have in the CFL. They said that Chris Streveler, on the broadcast, was a star in Canada. Well, a little research may be necessary, Boomer. He wasn’t a star. He’s a star personality and a great athlete, but he was actually a backup quarterback. Actually, he was really the third-string quarterback, because when the quarterback got injured, instead of playing Chris Streveler at quarterback at the end of the season, they brought in a third-string quarterback, so he’s a third-string quarterback.”

Way to keep it classy, Davis. Crap on one guy by taking an even bigger dump on the other guy.

Meantime, Sanchez’ loud-squawking colleague at TSN, Kayla Grey, tweeted, “the CFL slander has to stop.”

Or what? She’ll lecture Boomer with her phony southern “y’alls” and “thangs” at 150 decibels or higher?

Look, Rouge Football boosterism is great. Been there, been doing that since the 1950s. But let’s not get our knickers in a twist just because Boomer Esiason doesn’t know Flutie Flakes from Corn Flakes.

I mean, what do you expect? He’s an American, and most Americans couldn’t find Winnipeg if you plunked them down at Portage and Main. Think about it. Have you ever noticed the look on a Jeopardy! contestant’s face when the category is anything Canada? That’s right, it’s the same look a dog gets when it sees itself in the mirror for the first time. You know, head cocked to one side, blank stare, curious, no clue.

The difference, I suppose, is that it’s funny when a dog does it, not so much when it’s a high-salaried football analyst on national TV in the stooge role.

But, hey, we don’t kick the dog for being dumb. We laugh, call him over, rub his head and tell him he’s “such a good boy.”

Well, you’re such a good boy, Boomer. Now go play fetch and bring Tony Romo back.

Since I’ve mentioned Jeopardy!, if there’s any category that contestants know less about than Canada, it’s sports, a truism underscored on the game show last Thursday. The clue: “The announcers on NBC Sunday Night Football are Al Michaels and this former wide receiver.” None of the three contestants buzzed in to say, “Who is Cris Collinsworth?” even though the one-time Cincinnati Bengals pass-catcher has been providing the backup vocals for Michaels on the Peacock Network since 2009. A lot of women can relate. They talk and talk and talk, but their husbands/boyfriends don’t hear a word they say.

Now that you’ve asked, no, I don’t believe pasting corporate logos on players’ helmets or attaching corporate names to National Hockey League divisions is a sign that the apocalypse is nigh. Matter of fact, I fully expect to see brand names on jerseys before long, although it will be subtle as opposed to the vulgar, billboardish displays in European shinny or NASCAR. I actually think players ought to be allowed to sell themselves, like they do in tennis and golf. Phil Kessel could skate about the freeze with a Nathan’s Fabulous Franks patch on his Arizona Coyotes jersey. Auston Matthews, first at the NHL pay window, could be sponsored by Brinks. The possibilities are unlimited.

My first year in baseball, each of us kids on the Melrose Park Little League team had an individual sponsor, with the company name displayed on the back, directly above our uni number. Mine was Red Patch Taxi. By the end of the season, the C and H in Patch had disappeared, so I was Red Pat Taxi, something that did not escape the notice of my mom. “Why do you always come home with such a dirty and torn uniform when your brothers’ are clean?” she demanded to know one day. I had no answer. She washed my uniform, put it in my closet, and I got it dirty again.

As one who has bled Dodgers blue since their final days as “Dem Bums” in Brooklyn, Tommy Lasorda became one of my all-time favorite characters in baseball, and his passing the other day at age 93 brought two things to mind—sound bites and the denial of his son’s homosexuality.

First the sound bites. These are my two favorite quotes from the longtime Los Angeles manager:

“I walk into the clubhouse today and it’s like walking into the Mayo Clinic. We have four doctors, three therapists and five trainers. Back when I broke in, we had one trainer who carried a bottle of rubbing alcohol, and by the seventh inning he’d already drunk it.”
Prior to the 1988 World Series between L.A. and Oakland, Lasorda approached A’s slugger Jose Canseco and said: “Jose, I just want you to know, if we don’t win this thing I hope you guys do.”

Now the gay son part. Most tributes to Lasorda were glowing in praise and completely ignored, or merely glossed over, his relationship with Tommy Jr., who died of complications from AIDS at age 33. A year after Tommy Jr.’s death in 1991, Lasorda Sr. told Peter Richmond of GQ magazine that his son “wasn’t gay. No way. No way. I read that in a paper. I also read in that paper that a lady gave birth to a fuckin’ monkey, too. That’s not the fuckin’ truth. That’s not the truth.” He also denied that Tommy Jr. had died of AIDS. When Tommy Jr. began chumming around with the Dodgers Glenn Burke, known to his teammates and others in Major League Baseball as gay, the outfielder was promptly banished to Oakland. Those are the kind of words and actions that keep young gay people in the closet. Still.

Justin Thomas is another reason why gay youth remain hidden. The world No. 3 golfer coughed up a hairball on a five-foot par putt at the Sentry Tournament of Champions in Hawaii on Saturday, then expressed his annoyance by dropping the homophobic F-bomb. “It’s not who I am. It’s not the kind of person that I am,” he insisted while delivering a mea culpa. Except he went on to say it was only “when I was done with my round” that he realized he’d spewed the slur. That suggests this wasn’t a one-off. It’s just the first time he was caught on mic.

Tip of the bonnet No. 1: To Lance Hornby, who last week reached the 40-year signpost of scribbling boffo shinny stuff on the sports pages of the Toronto Sun. There are a lot of good people in jock journalism, and Lance certainly is one of them.

Tip of the bonnet No. 2: To Team USA’s Theresa Feaster, the first female to be part of a coaching staff to win the World Junior Hockey Championship. Asked by Fluto Shinzawa of The Athletic what message she has for mothers with young daughters, Feaster said: “Work hard and keep dreaming. Don’t let naysayers or obstacles get in your way. You can achieve great things. Put your head down and work hard. You can accomplish great things.” Exactly.

On the subject of ponytails and pucks, members of the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association spent the past three days in Florida, playing teenage boys from the United States Premier Hockey League. The women opened with a 5-3 win v. Tampa Bay Juniors, then dropped a 4-2 verdict to the South Shore Kings and absorbed a 5-zip whupping from the Philadelphia Hockey Club. It pains me to say it, but losing to teenage boys won’t convince many people that Ponytail Puck is worth buying into.

MeTV is showing classic cartoons every morning, Monday-Saturday, with all the usual suspects—Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Popeye and Bluto, Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner, etc. What, there wasn’t enough violence on TV already?

After 15 years together, Mookie Betts of the L.A. Dodgers has finally asked his childhood sweetheart Brianna Hammonds for her hand in matrimony. Talk about a human rain delay.

No surprise that there was plenty of political/social commentary from jock journos in the wake of the siege on the Capitol in Washington, D.C., last week, and I’m not one of those people who expect them to “stick to sports.” I figure if they have a platform, use it. And did they ever. Examples:

Damien Cox of the Toronto Star called Rudy Giuliani a “moron” and Donald Trump “the Orange Clown,” then attacked Ontario health officials and the government for allowing the Toronto Maple Leafs and Ottawa Senators to set up shop for the NHL season.

“WHY CAN THE NHL PLAY IN ONTARIO WHEN NONE OF US CAN PLAY A SPORT—ANY SPORT—INDOORS???” went his Twitter rant.

“Share your pain Damo,” Pat Hickey of the Montreal Gazette moaned in concert. “Had to cancel my tennis after QC locked down this week and my gym has been closed since March.”

Jack Todd of the Gazette on Trump: “One of the worst human beings who ever lived. Any country, any era. Given enough time and power, he would have gone into the history books with Hitler, Stalin and Caligula.”

Bob Irving, CJOB: “As I anxiously await this weekend’s NFL wildcard games, I also anxiously await the day when we’re not hearing about or talking about the worst human being to ever lead the most powerful country in the free world.”

Ken Campbell, The Hockey News: “Hockey icon Bobby Orr endorsed Donald Trump two months ago. Now it’s time for him to repudiate the man who incited the violence and anarchy that was unleashed on the U.S. Capitol Wednesday.”

Mad Mike McIntyre, the Drab Slab: “This is the America Trump created. This is the America Trump wanted. History will never forget that U.S. President Donald Trump said “we love you” today to a group of armed domestic terrorists who dropped pipe bombs and stormed the U.S. Capitol in his name (leaving at least one woman dead) while also calling them “very special.”

Troy Westwood, 1290 TSN: “Donald Trump has been a horrible human being his entire adult life. His history is well documented. Yet tens of millions of people line up behind him as if he has the virtues of Jesus Christ. Please Trumpsters, Christians, Evangelicals, explain this to me.”

Terry Jones, Postmedia Edmonton, after the Americans won gold at the World Junior Hockey Championship: “At least the USA has a fine group of young men with gold medals around their necks to be proud of today. Hard to believe they’re from the same country as those that were part of the mob in Washington, D.C.”

And finally, Space X guy Elon Musk is now richest man on the planet, with a worth of $188.5 billion. Just wondering: Do you think he’d be interested in bankrolling a quirky, three-downs football league? I really don’t want to go another year without watching all those Rouge Football quarterbacks that Boomer Esiason thinks are lousy because they throw the ball down the middle of the field.

Let’s talk about goals and lumps of coal in the toy department

Sports Santa arrives on the morrow and he’s given us a sneak peak at what he has tucked inside his bag, so let’s see if it’s Goal or a Lump o’ Coal for the good and not-so-good girls and boys in the toy department of life…

GOAL: If at first you don’t succeed…get it right in an extra end. And that’s what Kerri Einarson and her Buffalo girls—Val Sweeting, Shannon Birchard, Briane Mielleur, Jennifer Clark-Rouire, coach Patti Wuthrich—did to win the Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Moose Jaw. Kerri had a chance to end it all in the 10th end of the title match vs. Rachel Homan and her Ontario group, but she was heavy with her last-rock draw to the four-foot. She got the job done in the 11th, though, sliding her final stone to the button for an 8-7 victory and the Canadian women’s curling championship.

LUMP O’ COAL: The year 2020. Seriously. Someone needs to give it a good, swift kick to the groin, and it’s not too late.

GOAL: Connor Hellebuyck won the Vezina Trophy as top goaltender in the National Hockey League, putting a bit of shine on an otherwise empty season for the Winnipeg Jets.

LUMP O’ COAL: Sportsnet was guilty of a blatant double standard when it allowed Elliotte Friedman to repeatedly appear on Hockey Night in Canada with a ghastly, unruly beard that made him look like he’d been sleeping under a bridge for three months. No chance a female broadcaster would be allowed on camera with a head of hair that looks like a cluster of dead animals.

GOAL: The Winnipeg Sun celebrated its 40th anniversary, not bad for a sheet that wasn’t supposed to last much longer than a pint of beer in front of Chris Walby.

LUMP O’ COAL: 50 Below Sports + Entertainment ignored provincial health rules and allowed Winnipeg Freeze and Winnipeg Blues of the Manitoba Junior Hockey League to practice outside the city. So make that two lumps o’ coal, one for 50 Below bossman Greg Fettes and the other for bossman Matt Cockell.

GOAL: The good ol’ boys in NASCAR banned the Confederate Flag from race sites. Full sets of teeth, corn squeezin’s and MAGA caps remained optional.

LUMP O’ COAL: Mike Milbury, Brendan Leipsic, Thom Brennaman, Cris Collinsworth, Brett Hull, Evander Kane spewed sexist, racist and/or homophobic slurs. Come on, guys. We’re 21 years into the 21st century, and that language just doesn’t cut it.

GOAL: Katie Sowers became the first female to coach in the Super Bowl, albeit in a losing role with the San Francisco 49ers, Kim Ng became the first female GM of a Major League Baseball team, Alyssa Nakken became the first uniformed female to coach on-field in MLB, Kathryn Nesbitt became the first female to referee in a Major League Soccer championship match, and Sarah Fuller became the first female to play in an NCAA Power 5 men’s football game.

LUMP O’ COAL: Canadian Football League commissioner Randy Ambrosie went panhandling on Parliament Hill, asking PM Trudeau the Younger for anywhere from $30 million to $150 million in welfare to get Rouge Football on the field during the COVID-19 pandemic. Trouble was, he failed to receive input from the Players Association, and the feds were not amused. Commish Cap-in-Hand was spurned repeatedly, and the CFL finally fell off the grid when Trudeau the Younger batted away his final Hail Mary beg in early August. Thus, there was no season, no Grey Cup week. Just a whole lot of radio silence from the commish.

GOAL: Kid curlers Jacques Gauthier and Mackenzie Zacharias joined Einarson in bringing more glory to Manitoba with their world junior championship wins in Russia.

LUMP O’ COAL: Damien Cox and the Exalted Guardians of the Lou Marsh Trophy at the Toronto Star. The Marsh trinket is supposed to honor Canada’s athlete-of-the-year, except Cox and Co. don’t invite jock journos west of the Republic of Tranna to the top-jock party. Well, okay, that’s not quite true. They granted a voice and a vote to four news snoops from the colonies. That would be four out of 37 voices and votes. How gracious of them.

GOAL: O-lineman Laurent Duvernay-Tardif walked away from the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs and millions of American dollars to fight the good fight against COVID in long-term care homes.

LUMP O’ COAL: TSN named its all-time Winnipeg Jets roster and didn’t include the great Lars-Erik Sjoberg among the top six defencemen. But wait. The geniuses declared The Shoe to be the franchise’s “foundational” player. Sigh. That’s like telling Jesus he has to sit at the kids’ table for the Last Supper. Neither the original Jets franchise nor the second coming knew a better blueliner than The Shoe.

GOAL: Paul Friesen of the Winnipeg Sun and Jeff Hamilton of the Drab Slab showed us their fab journalistic chops with fab features. Freezer relived the Winnipeg Blue Bombers 2019 Grey Cup championship with a nine-part series, while young Jeff took a deep, deep dive into the dark and sordid world of disgraced sexual predator and former hockey coach Graham James.

LUMP O’ COAL: Mainstream jock journos, shinny division, held a group pity party when the NHL revealed it wouldn’t make public the various owies suffered by players during the summer made-for-TV playoff tournament. It was as if they’d been ordered to gather in a small room to watch an Adam Sandler movie marathon, or listen to Barry Manilow’s greatest hits 24/7.

GOAL: Various sports franchises played the name game, including the CFL team formerly known as the Edmonton Eskimos, the NFL team formerly known as the Washington Redskins, and the MLB team to be named something other than Cleveland Indians. We still don’t know what any of them will be called, but it’s believed the animal kingdom has the inside track and they can only hope the people at PETA don’t have a beef with any new names.

LUMP O’ COAL: Former NBC Sports hockey gab guy Jeremy Roenick went on a podcast to declare his admiration for a co-worker’s “ass and boobs” and mentioned something about three-way sex with his wife and the co-worker. He was promptly punted. But wait. There’s more. Rather than go quietly into the night, Roenick decided to kick up a legal fuss and sued NBC Sports for wrongful dismissal, claiming discrimination based on his sexual orientation. His argument: If he was a gay man and said the things he said, he’d still have a job. But because he’s a straight man, he’s out of work. Ya, good luck with that, hetero boy.

GOAL: Sue Bird of the Seattle Storm won her fourth WNBA title and became engaged to soccer diva Megan Rapinoe, while another gay woman, triple jumper Yulimar Rojas of Venezuela, was named female athlete-of-the-year by World Athletics.

LUMP O’ COAL: Bryson DeChambeau spouted off about Augusta National prior to the Masters in November, boasting that it would be a pitch-and-putt course for him while the mere mortals on the PGA Tour would be playing to par-72. “I’m looking at it as a par-67 for me,” he said. In that case, DeChambeau shot 18-over par with rounds of 70-74-69-73, which left him tied for 34th, 18 swings behind winner Dustin Johnson and one behind 63-year-old Bernhard Langer.

GOAL: It was girl power on Sportsnet in March, when an all-female broadcast crew worked a Calgary Flames-Vegas Golden Knights skirmish on Hockey Night in Canada. Leah Hextall handled the play-by-play call, Cassie Campbell-Pascall delivered color commentary and Christine Simpson was rinkside. Question is: Was it a one-off, or will they be back?

LUMP O’ COAL: Justin Turner of the Los Angeles Dodgers was yanked from the deciding game of the World Series due to a positive COVID test, but he returned to join his teammates in an on-field celebration and removed his mask. MLB chose not to punish Turner for allowing his bare face to hang out and expose L.A. players and hangers-on to the virus, so it gets a lump o’ coal, too.

GOAL: Zamboni driver David Ayres took over the blue paint for the Carolina Hurricanes one night in the Republic of Tranna, and the emergency goaltender beat the Maple Leafs. Not since Sid Crosby and Nathan MacKinnon pulled into the Tim Hortons drive-thru has a Zamboni driver received so much attention.

LUMP O’ COAL: Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz thought COVID-19 was a big joke, so he mocked news snoops about the virus at a press session. A couple days later, he tested positive and the kibitzing stopped. As did the NBA and the rest of the sports world.

GOAL: Our leading lady of soccer, Christine Sinclair, became the top goal-scorer of all time in international fitba. She finishes the year with 186, and there might be more to come if the women get back on the pitch in preparation for the Tokyo Olympics.

LUMP O’ COAL: Novak Djokovic, who wears a tin-foil hat and might lead the sports world in hissy fits, ignored scientific and medical advice and staged a mini-tennis tour when almost all sports had shut down due to the COVID pandemic. Social distancing was ignored by players and fans, and the Joker was one of four players to test positive. The final tourney was canceled. Later, he was ushered out of the U.S. Open tennis tournament for whacking a lines judge in the face with a ball. What a doofus.

GOAL: Rafael Nadal won his 13th French Open title and his 20th tennis Gran Slam, at the same time running his career record at Roland Garros to 100-2.

LUMP O’ COAL: Steve Simmons of Postmedia Toronto spent much of the year shaking his fists and shouting at clouds, as is his wont, and he reserved his most ignorant hit pieces for PM Trudeau the Younger and the National Women’s Hockey League expansion franchise in the Republic of Tranna. He claimed Trudeau had “let us down again” by permitting the Blue Jays “to play their home games this summer in Toronto. That is beyond stupid.” He later doubled down, calling the decision “beyond ridiculous.” Except Trudeau and the feds never gave the Jays the okie-dokie to play in the Republic of Tranna. In fact, he told them to pack their bats and balls and find a home in the U.S., which they did in Buffalo. Meantime, Simmons assailed the NWHL when it would add a team in The ROT. “You don’t gain credibility by announcing a team with no name, no place to play and no big-name players,” he harrumphed. He also noted there was no team logo. “When you have all that in place, then make the announcement. The press release referred to the expansion team as a ‘first-class team of professionals.’ Time will answer that, but the new Toronto Whatevers are not off to a great start.” Except he had no such harsh words for the NHL when it introduced expansion franchises in Las Vegas and Seattle. They were introduced without team names, without team logos, and without big-name players. They were the Vegas and Seattle Whatevers for two years. So let’s see if I’ve got this straight: If women do it, bad; if men do it, cool. I believe we can file that under subtle sexism.

And, finally, GOAL: To everyone who indulged an old lady by visiting the River City Renegade. We’ve topped 57,000 views this year, and that’s a new high-water mark for the third successive year. So thanks. Happy Christmas.

Let’s talk about L’Affaire Laine…Winnipeg the armpit…a Jumbo fossil in the ROT…Chelsea’s the best free agent available…Jennifer Jones and the ‘Notables’ of Manitoba’s Pebble People…’ear ye, ‘ear ye, Mike Tyson is trying to speak…the Dodgers’ two K men…a Bird named Sue…and other things on my mind

Another Sunday morning smorgas-bored…and someone told me that I really should quit while I’m ahead, but I’ve never been able to get ahead…

So, according to the pundits, the acquisition of Paul Stastny was supposed to accomplish two things for the Winnipeg Jets:

1. Fill the long-standing need for a second-line centre.

2. Put a happy face on Patrik Laine and put the skids on the galloping gossip that has hounded Puck Finn for more than a year.

Well, insofar as the first point of the equation, we can continue to debate the pros and cons of the Jets reeling in the aging Stastny—and I’m squarely on the con side of the discussion—but it’s probably best that we allow his play in Winnipeg HC’s next National Hockey League crusade to settle the argument.

As for point No. 2, good luck with that.

It took less than a week for one of TSN’s hockey “insiders” to fan the flames of L’Affaire Laine once again, and this time it isn’t a campfire. It’s a bonfire with possible gusts up to a five-alarm inferno.

Here’s what LeBrun told host James Duthie last Thursday:

“There’s been some scuttlebutt around the National Hockey League of late that Patrik Laine may not show up at camp if he’s not dealt by the Winnipeg Jets.

“I reached out to his representation agents, Andy Scott and Mike Liut, to get some clarity and they absolutely deny that. That Laine has not asked for a trade, he’s not threatening to not be at camp if he’s not dealt.

“Having said that, his agents also made clear that it’s fair to say that given that Laine knows his name has been in trade discussions as we’ve talked about here, and given that his usage in the lineup the last couple of years has been a constant topic of conversation, the fact that he doesn’t get consistent first-line minutes, his agents Mike Liut and Andy Scott do confirm that it probably would be mutually beneficial to both the player and to the team if Patrik Laine is traded and that there is clear communication between them and Kevin Cheveldayoff, the GM of the Winnipeg Jets, about this.

“Now I spoke to Kevin Cheveldayoff on this day. And he reiterated that he’s looking at all options when it comes to trade and that Patrik Laine remains a big part of the organization.

“What I would say, not Cheveldayoff, is that he’s not going to just trade Patrik Laine for the sake of it, that it’s going to have to be something that makes sense for the Winnipeg Jets. But I will say this, as Andy Scott, the agent for Patrik Laine, said to me, there is a clear understanding between both sides about where this is probably headed.”

Now, you can pooh-pooh LeBrun’s bona fides as an “insider” if you like, but one thing should be abundantly clear by now: Patrik Laine will remain the centrepiece of trade rumors until a) Chevy hands him a one-way ticket out of town or b) Puck Finn signs long term. Nothing else will dim the natter.

I’m just surprised that so many among the rabble and in mainstream media are surprised that it’s come to this.

I mean, I don’t have my feet on the ground in Good Ol’ Hometown, but this is how I read the room 16 months ago: “You think Patrik Laine’s agent hasn’t noticed how the (Jacob) Trouba saga played out? If it’s true that Puck Finn’s nose is out of joint, all he has to do is sign a two-year bridge deal, take les Jets to arbitration down the road, then force a trade.”

So how has it played out to date? Laine signed a two-year bridge deal, he’s eligible for arbitration after next season, and already his two mouthpieces sound like they’re trying to force a trade.

Yet I keep hearing and reading that the Jets are in control of this game of chicken. To a point, that’s true. But they can only delay Puck Finn’s departure if that’s his intent. They can’t stop him. Just like they couldn’t stop Evander Kane and they couldn’t stop Trouba.

We don’t know who or what is up Laine’s nose. His beef could be with the captain, Blake Wheeler, or the head coach, Paul Maurice, or maybe he’s bought into the silly “Winnipeg has lousy WiFi” nonsense. If it’s Wheeler, it wouldn’t be the first time two teammates refused to exchange Christmas cards. If it’s Coach PoMo, it’s not like there’s never been conflict between a bench boss and a worker (for evidence see: Bowman, Scotty). If it’s the city, he isn’t the first guy who’s wanted out of Dodge.

Whomever or whatever, I repeat what I wrote in February 2019: “I doubt Puck Finn will finish his career in Jets linen.”

But, hey, what do I know? Like I said, I don’t have feet on the ground. Except I predicted in 2012 that Evander Kane would one day walk into Chevy’s office and demand a new postal code. He did that very thing—repeatedly—and Chevy obliged, in 2015. In September 2018, I peered into the tea leaves and predicted Trouba would be gone in less than two years. He left the building nine months later. So tell me I’m wrong about Laine.

Interesting read from Scott Billeck of the Winnipeg Sun on the challenges Chevy faces in attempting to lure top-drawer free agents to Good Ol’ Hometown, and also navigate his way around no-trade clauses. “There’s no happy ending for this,” he writes. “It’s an ongoing problem for the Jets. What it does underscore is the need to ensure the team is a winner, by whatever means possible, and in spite of unfavorable geography. And it means the organization needs to be that much more creative when it comes to recruitment. Getting players in the door begins with a pitch that centres around winning the Cup. For most, that’s the dream. If you can show a pathway to that dream, you can probably get folks into the house. And that’s when perceptions die and new ones are made, and the word spreads. Winnipeg’s advertising comes via word of mouth. There just has to be something enticing other than frigid winters. And it may be as simple—and as difficult—as putting a winning product on the ice.” That’s fair analysis, but it’s worth remembering that the original Winnipeg Jets lineup was crafted 100 per cent on guys who chose to play in Good Ol’ Hometown, including the most significant free agent signing in pro hockey history—Bobby Hull, at the time the game’s glamour guy. Every player on that team came to River City without kicking and screaming. So can anyone tell me exactly when Winnipeg became the armpit of hockey? I’d really like to know.

When I hear the San Jose Sharks have signed Patrick Marleau, it tells me that they’ve already tapped out on next season.

And what is Kyle Dubas trying to prove in the Republic of Tranna? The Maple Leafs haven’t won the Stanley Cup since 1967, so the kid GM thought it would be a swell idea to sign Marleau’s former running mate Jumbo Joe Thornton who, coincidentally, broke into the NHL that same year. Okay, okay. Jumbo hasn’t been around quite that long. But Dubas seems to be setting up a Fossil Factory in the ROT, with Jumbo Joe, 41, and Jason Spezza, 37, on board.

Scant seconds after becoming one of the newest Maple Leafs, Wayne Simmonds did the Zoom thing with news snoops and warned foes that “I can punch your head off if need be.” He calls what he does on a hockey rink “functional toughness.” Back it the day we called it “goon.”

I keep hearing about all the free agents still available in the NHL, but the top free agent in sports right now is Chelsea Carey, champion curler without a team to call her own. We don’t know how this season will shake down for our Pebble People, but it’s hard to imagine a two-time Scotties queen being stuck on the outside looking in with her nose pressed against the window.

Jennifer Jones, Kaitlyn Lawes, Jill Officer, Dawn McEwen.

On the subject of our fab provincial Pebble People, the deep thinkers at the Manitoba Curling Hall of Fame want to know what you think. They’re looking to name the Most Notable Team in local lore, and that’s where you come in. The MCHF is accepting votes until Dec. 5 for its 25 Most Notable Teams and, really, this should be a no-brainer. I mean, it doesn’t get more “notable” than winning Olympic Games gold, so Jennifer Jones and her gal pals Kaitlyn Lawes, Jill Officer and Dawn McEwen have to be at the top of the heap. It doesn’t hurt that they were also Canadian and world champions, and they had longer sustained success than any foursome I can recall. Next in line would be the Digit, Don Duguid, and his gang from the Granite—Bryan Wood, Jim Pettapiece and the Arrow, Rod Hunter—who went 17-0 to win back-to-back world titles in 1970 and ’71. Completing my top three would be Bronco Braunstein and his team of brother Ron, Moose Turnbull and Jack Van Hellemond. Still just school kids, the teenagers copped the Manitoba men’s title then fell one game shy of winning the 1958 Brier in Victoria, losing to Matt Baldwin of Alberta in a one-game showdown.

Fans of fist fighting were shocked to hear Mike Tyson on Good Morning Britain last week. In a natter with hosts Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid, the former heavyweight boxing champion was muttering unintelligibly and slurring his words badly. Hey, cut the guy some slack. It can’t be easy to talk with your mouth full of Evander Holyfield’s ear.

Sticking with boxing, I stayed up well past my bedtime Saturday to watch Teofimo Lopez and Vasiliy Lomachenko chuck knuckles in a lightweight title bout. At the end of the night, Lopez had four belts. Hmmm. Four belts—sounds like the Rat Pack at closing time.

So, the Houston Astros have been drummed out of the Major League Baseball playoffs (karma, baby). Some teams run out of pitching, some teams run out of hitting. Some teams run out of time. I guess the Astros ran out of trash cans.

Is there a Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher with a worse post-season record than Clayton Kershaw of my Los Angeles Dodgers? Kershaw will be in Cooperstown one day, but it won’t be due to anything he’s done in the World Series or playoffs. The guy’s 175-75, .697, 2.43 ERA in the hum-drum of spring and summer ball, but a dismal 11-12, .478, 4.31 ERA when it matters most. And, to think, some people have compared him favorably to Sandy Koufax. Ya, like a box of Timbits is fine dining.

Some good reads in the past week: Paul Friesen’s series on the Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ journey to the Grey Cup; Freezer’s running mate at the Winnipeg Sun, Ted Wyman, dishes on Hockey Hall of Famer Serge Savard; Luke Fox’s Q&A with Brian Burke on the Sportsnet website.

When the National Women’s Hockey League restructured its business model and assigned founder and commissioner Dani Rylan Kearney to a lesser role last week, shouldn’t it have been a big deal in the media? No women would be drawing pay to play shinny if not for Dani, who gave the NWHL its jump start in 2015, but her removal from the big office was a blip at best in most newspapers, websites and on air. Seems to me the story, and Dani, warranted better play than that.

Speaking of not getting their due, it’s about Sue Bird: Not many hoopsters can boast of her bona fides. When Seattle Storm won the Women’s National Basketball Association title recently, it was her fourth. You know, the same number as LeBron James has won in his NBA career. Sue also has four Olympic gold medals, four FIBA World Cup titles, five EuroLeague titles, two NCAA titles, one national high school title, five Russian National League titles, two Europe Super Cup titles, she’s the all-time WNBA assists leader, she’s started the most games in WNBA history, she’s an 11-time WNBA all-star, a two-time EuroLeague all-star and a former Naismith college player of the year. She’s the High Priestess of the Hardwood, but somehow manages to fly under the radar of most mainstream media. Shame that.

And, finally, this is the 50th anniversary season for the Manitoba Major Junior Hockey League, and I’d say that calls for some sort of special feature piece in either or both of the Winnipeg dailies. So why hasn’t either the Sun or Drab Slab done something about it?

Let’s talk about the Untouchables and Winnipeg Jets…horse racing in a Bizarro World…Hee! Haw! It’s the Bradshaw Bunch…open season on anything wearing green-and-white…Steve Nash and Robin Hood…Strat-O-Matic Baseball…and other things on my mind

Another Sunday morning smorgas-bored…and it’s another long weekend until the next long weekend…

Okay, let’s get this out of the way right off the hop:

Babe Ruth was sold. Wayne Gretzky was traded. The New York Mets told Nolan Ryan to get lost. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wanted out of the U.S. Midwest and the Milwaukee Bucks obliged. Three husbands dumped Marilyn Monroe.

So don’t talk to me about untouchables with the Winnipeg Jets.

I mean, untouchables? You’re talking untouchables? Tell that to Peter Pocklington.

Peter Puck’s the dude who dispatched Gretzky to the Los Angeles Kings, then sat in a flashy convertible during a Stanley Cup parade in downtown Edmonton less than two years later.

It doesn’t always work out that way, of course, and we need look no further than Fenway Park in Boston for evidence. The Red Sox peddled the Bambino to the dreaded Evil Empire in New York for the kingly sum of $100,000, the first of four $25,000 payments made on Dec. 19, 1919.

“I do not wish to detract one iota from Ruth’s ability as a ballplayer nor from his value as an attraction, but there is no getting away from the fact that despite his 29 home runs, the Red Sox finished sixth in the race last season,” Bosox bankroll Harry Frazee harrumphed. “What the Boston fans want, I take it, and what I want because they want it, is a winning team, rather than a one-man team which finishes in sixth place.”

Well, the Red Sox didn’t celebrate another World Series championship until 2004. Ruth and the Yankees, meanwhile, sprayed each other with bubbly after seven American League pennants and four WS victories by the time the Sultan of Swat bid adieu to the Bronx and Yankee Stadium in 1934.

So, ya, parting ways with a young blue-chipper can blow up in your face like a Wile E. Coyote scheme gone wrong, but the value is in the return. Always.

Frazee accepted paper money in barter for Babe Ruth. Poor return. Pocklington, on the other hand, insisted on live bodies (Jimmy Carson and Martin Gelinas) in exchange for Gretzky, plus first-round picks in 1989, ’91, ’93, plus $15 million of Bruce McNall’s bankroll. The Oilers won a title sans No. 99, the Kings had a sniff in 1993 but never won with him.

Which brings us back to the Jets and untouchables.

Let’s suppose, for the sake of discussion, that general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff answers the phone one day and it’s Joe Sakic on the line. The Colorado Avalanche GM is offering Cale Makar. He wants Patrick Laine in return. Is Chevy supposed to say “Sorry Joe, but Patty’s an untouchable,” and hang up? Maybe Jim Benning will call and offer up Quinn Hughes, asking for Nikolaj Ehlers in barter. You don’t really believe Chevy would decline because “Nik is an untouchable” do you?

Sorry, kids, but there hasn’t been an Untouchable since Eliot Ness and accomplices went after Al Capone’s booze dens in Chicago.

Certainly there are players you’d like to keep in Jets linen, but if the right offer falls onto Chevy’s lap, damn straight he has to pull the trigger. (Assuming, of course, that the Puck Pontiff, Mark Chipman, gives it the official okie-dokie from on high.)

This, remember, is an outfit that failed to qualify for the Stanley Cup tournament. A side that hasn’t won a post-season skirmish since skating to the National Hockey League’s final four more than two years ago. So it doesn’t matter if we’re talking Rink Rat Scheifele, Twig Ehlers, Puck Finn, Josh Morrissey or Kyle Connor.

If the right deal comes along, you do it.

What about goalkeeper Connor Hellebuyck, you ask? Same thing. In case you haven’t noticed, with the exception of Andrei Vasilevskiy of the Tampa Bay Lightning, teams still alive in the current Stanley Cup runoff are doing it without Vezina Trophy-winning puck stoppers. The Colorado Avalanche were one Michael Hutchinson save away from advancing to the final four. Ditto the Vancouver Canucks and Thatcher Demko. The New York Islanders won Game 7 vs. the Philly Flyers with backup Thomas Greiss in the blue paint. And don’t get me started on Anton Khudobin. So repeat after me: There should be no untouchables with the Winnipeg Jets.

The Kentucky Derby: Big hats and mint juleps.

In this, the strangest of years, the first leg of horse racing’s Triple Crown, the Kentucky Derby, became the second leg, and the second leg, the Preakness Stakes, will be the third leg, and the third leg, the Belmont Stakes, became the first leg. I swear, there hasn’t been this much confusion about legs since Joe Namath did that pantyhose commercial in the 1970s.

No horse had better legs than Authentic on Saturday at Churchill Downs in Louisville. The Kentucky-bred bay colt showed 14 other ponies his heels in the Run for the Roses, which means his four legs now have one leg. And if that sounds like some kind of a Zen koan, blame it on the Dalai Jocklama.

Normally, of course, the Kentucky Derby goes to the post the first Saturday in May, and the pews at Churchill Downs are full of fashionable ladies trying not to spill their mint juleps while bumping into one another with their big hats. Not so on the first Saturday in September 2020. The grandstand was basically barren before and after Authentic stuck his nose under the wire, and it just didn’t feel right without the Derby day buzz. Then again, is there anything about 2-aught-20 that feels right?

Come to think of it, were I a horse breeder, I’d have named my first foal this year Bizarro World. You know, as a salute to a time in history when up is down, over is under, right is left, and Terry Bradshaw gets his own reality TV show.

For real. Bradshaw has a show on the telly to call his own. The concept for The Bradshaw Bunch on E! Channel seems simple enough: The former Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback surrounds himself with a bevy of beauties (his wife and three daughters), and cameras follow them about the ranch in Oklahoma while they discuss such urgent family matters as one of the girls getting a boob job. In other words, it’s the Kardashians do Hee Haw.

Hey, it’s the Labor Day weekend. The Saskatchewan Roughriders and Winnipeg Blue Bombers should be grabbing grass and growling this very afternoon in the annual Labor Day Weekend Classic on the Flattest of Lands. Not happening, though, because Canadian Football League coffers are as empty as a politician’s promise and its line of credit is worse than the COVID curve stateside. But that doesn’t mean the true tradition need end—taking cheap shots at Flatlanders and their football team. Which brings to mind a Matty-ism from a Jack Matheson column in the Winnipeg Tribune after a trade sent Tom Clements from the Ottawa Rough Riders to Saskatchewan in 1979: “Mrs. Tom Clements is said to have been the push behind her QB husband’s recent move because she felt ‘Ottawa’s a hick town,’ so you have to wonder how Regina will grab her.”

Premier Scott Moe has declared this Saskatchewan Roughriders Day on the Flattest of Lands, and he’s encouraged the rabble to adorn themselves in green-and-white garb. To which every citizen in the province said: “Huh? Ya means to tell us they makes tank tops and ball caps in other colors?” Seriously, a melonhead needs urging to wear green and white like a priest needs a reminder to say prayers on Sunday.

I haven’t watched a great portion of the NHL’s made-for-TV frolic in the Edmonton and Republic of Tranna bubbles, but my sampling has been sufficient enough to know that Sportsnet’s Chris Cuthbert calls a terrific game. He’s going to be missed in the TSN blurt box once the CFL is back in business, whenever that is.

I agree, the hiring of Steve Nash as head coach of the Brooklyn Nets is a peculiar bit of business. I mean, he’s a scrawny white guy in a league full of large Black men, he’s Canadian in a league of mostly Americans, and he has zero experience. We haven’t seen anyone that miscast since a movie mogul put Kevin Costner in a pair of tights and told him he was Robin Hood.

Speaking of media, cheering in the press box is supposed to be taboo, but news snoops in the Republic of Tranna must have missed the memo. Just watch the sports highlights shows on TSN and Sportsnet and you’ll hear them openly swooning and unabashedly root, root, rooting for the Toronto Jurassics in the National Basketball Association playoffs, and the same must be said of the boys on the beat at the daily newspapers. They don’t give the Maple Leafs, Blue Jays, Tranna FC or Argonauts a similar amount of sugar, which leaves me to wonder what it is about the Jurassics that has won over such a normally hard-scrabble lot.

Got a kick out of Gregg Drinnan’s piece on his time at the Winnipeg Tribune, a tour of duty that included a case of mistaken identity. No spoilers here, though. I’ll let Gregg tell the story. I’ll just say it involved the Greaser (that’s Gregg), Knuckles Irving, Cactus Jack, Kenny Ploen, Blue Bombers GM Earl Lunsford and a fancy, shmancy hotel suite in Calgary (don’t worry, it’s not X-rated). Gregg also confirms that some of the Trib tales I told last week might actually contain a morsel of truth.

One of the things I didn’t mention in my remembrances of the Trib folding 40 years ago was Strat-O-Matic Baseball, a board game based on the actual stats of Major League players. We’d play it during our down time, waiting for late copy or phone calls to come in, and the death of Hall of Fame pitcher Tom Seaver last week reminded me of the year we held a Strat-O-Matic player draft. Seaver was among my starting hurlers, and one night he spun a no-hitter against the Ian (Caveman) Dutton Nine. A few years later while with the Calgary Sun, I had occasion to interview Tom Terrific and, as an ice-breaker, I mentioned the no-no he had hurled v. the Dutton Nine. He looked at me like I was speaking Casey Stengelese, but chuckled. “Don’t laugh,” I told him, “that board game no-hitter will probably be the deciding factor that gets you to Cooperstown some day. The Hall of Fame voters won’t be able to ignore it.” Sure enough, the great New York Mets righthander was elected in 1992, and you can only imagine my disappointment when he failed to mention that Strat-O-Matic perfect game in his acceptance speech.

I’m not sure if Ed Willes left the building by choice or if he’s the latest victim of Postmedia buffoonery, but he’s done after 38 years in the rag trade, the last 22 at the Vancouver Province. Some of you might remember Ed’s time with the Winnipeg Sun, where he detailed the daily goings-on of the Jets and wrote a column during the 1990s. It was always high-end stuff. The guy can flat-out scribble. Ed turns 65 in November, so perhaps this was the end game all along, but I’m always suspicious whenever quality writers walk away from Postmedia, which has destroyed newspaper competition everywhere west of Winnipeg. If it was his call, good on him. He’s earned his warm corner. If he was nudged by the suits in the Republic of Tranna, shame on Postmedia.

The Willes adios brings to mind a quote from Trent Frayne, the finest jock essayist in my lifetime: “It is an axiom of sports that the legs go first. For sportswriters, it’s the enthusiasm.”

Once upon a time, I officiated kids sports, so I speak from lived experience when I tell you it can be a thankless, often intimidating experience. Some coaches, parents and officials are at odds with acceptable behavior in mixed company, which is putting it politely. So what in the name of Pele was the Manitoba Soccer Association thinking when it instructed its game referees to play the role of rat fink and virtually red card fans who fail to observe physical distancing protocol at kids’ matches? Expecting whistle blowers to be, well, whistle blowers isn’t just unfair, it’s stupid.

Last week we mentioned that Jennifer Lopez and her main squeeze, Alex Rodriguez, had failed in their bid to buy the New York Mets. If successful, JLo would have joined a short list of female owners in Major League Baseball. The first was Helene Britton, who inherited the St. Louis Cardinals from her uncle, Stanley Robison, in 1911, when women still hadn’t won the right to vote in the U.S. This is how the St. Louis Post-Dispatch described the Redbirds’ new lady owner: “She is small and round and trim, with decided chic. Her mourning costume (for her uncle) failed to subdue certain lively touches that indicate a love of life and gayety…her attitude is ever alert.” Other National League owners, all men, tried to bully the small, round and trim Helene into selling the Cardinals “for the good of the game,” but she held out until 1917, finally accepting $350,000 for the club and ballpark. Among other things while bankrolling the Redbirds, she introduced Ladies Day providing free attendance to women. But only if accompanied by a male escort.

And, finally, today marks the 20th anniversary of Major League Baseball’s first Pride-themed night. It took place at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, mainly because a lesbian couple had been escorted out of the ballpark a week earlier by eight heavy-handed security guards. The crime? The women shared a smooch in the bleachers. Who could imagine back then that two lesbians, Billie Jean King and partner Ilana Kloss, would be part-owners of the Dodgers today?

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