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

Hustler and Remis of Winnipeg Sports Talk.

Top o’ the morning to you, Kevin Cheveldayoff.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let’s talk about 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

Darren Pang

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.

Let’s talk about a hairball from the Football Reporters of Canada…a newspaper battle in Good Ol’ Hometown…Grey Cup Sunday…three Canucks and a Jet atop NHL scoring…a Torch and a Slurpee…and other things on my mind

It’s another Couch Potato Day at Chez Swansson, listening to Matt and Milt and Bo and trying to tune out Davis and Lapo and Jim B while waiting for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Montreal Larks to grab grass at Timbits Field in The Hammer…

Chad Kelly got what he deserved last weekend.

This past Thursday, he got what he didn’t deserve.

Oh, yes, five days after Kelly had coughed up a hairball the size of Lake Ontario, the Football Reporters of Canada coughed up a hairball the size of Lake Superior and anointed the Toronto Argos quarterback the finest performer in Rouge Football.

Embarrassed? Well, football reporters should be, but news snoops are usually only red-faced at closing time.

Come to think of it, perhaps a pub is where most of them filled out their ballots for the Canadian Football League’s year-end awards, because impairment is the only possible explanation for handing the George Reed Most Outstanding Player trinket to Kelly.

It’s not that Kelly soiled the sheets during the 2023 crusade. But, individually, he didn’t do anything extraordinary. Did he lead the league in passing yards? No. Did he lead the league in pass completions? No. Did he have the best passing percentage? No. Did he toss for the most TDs? No. Did he have the highest efficiency rating? No. Did he scamper for more yards than every other QB? No.

Cripes, man, Winnipeg Blue Bombers QB Zach Collaros was better than Kelly in all but one of those six disciplines.

Meantime, the other man on the final MOP ballot, Brady Oliveira, ran like a scalded dog all season, topping out in rushing yards (1,534), yards from scrimmage (2,106) and touchdowns (13).

It sure seems to me that the football reporters are guilty of VWITG (voting while in the grog).

So, yes, they should be ashamed, and anointing Kelly MOP is a horrible optic when coupled with his calamitous performance in last Saturday’s East Division final vs. Montreal Larks. There’s only one reason the Argos won’t be grabbing grass at Timbits Field in this evening’s 110th skirmish for the Grey Cup—Kelly’s ghastly, deer-in-the-headlights quarterbacking. He was Larry, Curly or Moe. Take your pick. He kept giving the Larks the pigskin (four interceptions, two pick-sixes, one lost fumble, two failed third-and-shorts), and that seldom pays dividends in playoff football. Or on a sandlot, for that matter. Thus, the Boatmen were one-and-done, deservedly so.

Of course, Kelly’s Keystone Kop QB shtick in a 38-17 drubbing by the Larks wasn’t a consideration in MOP voting, because the ballots were in long before his deep dive into slapstick. The verdict had already been delivered (39 ayes for Kelly, 22 for Oliveira), and I suspect the news snoops know they look like twits, even if most of them won’t admit it.

But, hey, it’s not at all surprising that they’d opt for Kelly over Oliveira. They’re cult-like in their admiration for QBs and, remember, this is the same Old Boys Club that took almost half a century to elect a female to the Media Wing of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame.

Hands up all those who believe Kelly’s claim that he was concussed during the Argos-Larks skirmish. That’s the tale he told John Hodge of 3DownNation a few days after the fact, although Kelly couldn’t pinpoint the moment he had his bell rung. Which, if you’ve ever had your bell rung, makes sense. Among the many symptoms of a concussion, you see, is wonky recall. Except there’s this: It was a self-diagnosis. That’s right. QB Kelly became Dr. Kelly. He had nary a natter about a whack to the noggin with anyone holding a medical degree. Medics didn’t detect any signs of head trauma in observing his play or sideline behaviour. Nor did his coaches. Kelly never spent time in the quiet tent. He simply diagnosed himself as concussed. Thus, it lends itself to skepticism. Saying “my head was not good” comes across as a complete copout, a way to excuse a game gone horribly wrong. I mean, the guy was flinging the football to the wrong team from the get-go, which is to say the Boatmen’s opening offensive salvo. Are we to believe he hit his head on the changing room door en route to the field? But, as someone who’s suffered multiple concussions and remains affected by them to this day, I can say that they make you say and do peculiar things. Like pretending to be a doctor. Trust me. Been there, done that. It’s scary stuff. Kelly’s comments ring genuine to me.

I’m all for the Lords of Rouge Football honoring the game’s greats, but it seems odd that they’d name the MOP in honor of a running back, George Reed. Not that the Saskatchewan Roughriders legend is unworthy. It’s just that the football reporters’ fascination with quarterbacks has made it a QB award, with 17 of the past 23 winners (42 overall) behind centre. Seems to me that Ol’ Spaghetti Legs, Jackie Parker, would have been more appropriate.

If you’re wondering, Vicki Hall becomes a rose among 104 thorns this very day when FRC members gather to officially welcome her to the Media Wing of the CFHofF. And, no, I can’t explain why it took them so long to add a female member.

There’s always been a feel-good vibe between the CFL and the boys and girls on the beat, even when the Lords of Rouge Football are doing cockeyed things like swooping into the U.S. or keeping female reporters out of changing rooms (hello, Cal Murphy). The scribes and talking heads genuinely like the league, the quirkiness of the game, the characters (hello again, Cal Murphy), the accessibility of the players, and the closeness of the small community. Alas, the herd of news snoops covering the three-downs game has dwindled this century, with few outlets dispatching their people to games hither and yon. That was among the talking points in CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie’s natter with news snoops during Grey Cup week.

“It’s certainly something we talk about all the time and we think about all the time,” Commish Randy said. “There’s been an erosion of kind of the mainstream media industry and many of you have seen colleagues of yours who covered our league and covered sports for a long time come and go. I think the answer is…we know we’re gonna have to be much more self-reliant, we’re gonna have to focus on many of our own solutions to get our story told. We do have some remarkable professionals that do work inside of our league that help get that story told.

“And, of course, we rely on all of you and I do want to emphasize that I thank all of you for the role you play. We try to work as much as possible with all of you to give you the fuel and oxygen you need to tell our story, but I think longer term we are convinced that in some ways we’ll have to be able to do more of that heavy lifting on our own and be responsible for more of that.”

Translation: Will the last news snoop to leave please remember to turn out the lights?

The sports columnist at our national newspaper, Cathal Kelly, won’t be the last to leave. He’s already gone. I mean, if he was in The Hammer to opine on the Grey Cup participants or hijinks in advance of this evening’s Bombers-Larks skirmish, he wasn’t there long enough to run up a decent bar tab. Nary a word from Kelly re Grey Grail appeared in the Globe and Mail during the week. But, hey, he managed to scribble something about Jim Harbaugh, an American college football coach, so there’s that. (Trent Frayne will be spinning like a lathe in his grave.)

The Grey Cup week shocker was Paul Friesen and Ted Wyman of the Winnipeg Sun putting feet on the ground in The Hammer. Postmedia doesn’t get a whole lot of things right, but taking the travel shackles off the two Sun scribes was definitely the right thing to do with the home side in the hunt for a return to Grey Grail glory. With Friesen and Wyman on site, it made for a dandy newspaper battle between the Sun and Drab Slab, which sent Jeff Hamilton and young Taylor Allen into the fray. They all scribbled boffo stuff, of course, and the final article count was Sun 24, Drab Slab 22.

Best Grey Grail read for me was delivered by young Eddie Tait, whose rock bottom-to-top of the heap yarn on Brady Oliveira was boffo stuff. Young Eddie, of course, was once the premier writer on all things three-downs football at both the Sun and Drab Slab, and he often reminds us what we’ve been missing in our daily newspapers. Fortunately, we can always find it at bluebombers.com, where his tale-telling continues to flow.

If the Bombers topple the Larks today, remind me to ask Young Eddie if it’s difficult typing with Grey Cup rings on three of his fingers.

I couldn’t work in jock journalism today (newspaper department) if I was required to perform all the self-promotion I see on X. The boys at the Drab Slab, in particular, are unabashed braggarts, constantly pumping their own tires as if a dangling participle has never found its way onto their pages. It’s all fabulous stuff. Just ask them. Well, if it’s all the same to them, I’ll make my own call on what’s good and what should have been spiked.

Hey, look who’s taken to social media to give a shoutout to the Bombers in advance of today’s skirmish vs. the Larks: Burton Cummings, that’s who. I assume Burton sent his well wishes from his home in Moose Jaw, but don’t ask me why a rock ‘n’ roll legend is hanging his hat in a remote outpost on the Flattest Of Lands. Can we expect Mick and Keith to settle in Speedy Creek or Biggar?

When I awoke this morning, three Vancouver Canucks—Quinn Hughes, Elias Pettersson, J.T. Miller—were atop the NHL points leaderboard with 28 apiece, and Kyle Connor of the Winnipeg Jets sat in the catbird seat among goal-scorers with 14. That must be such an inconvenience for both TSN and Sportsnet. I mean, if those four puck hogs from the colonies insist on putting up those kind of numbers, our two national sports networks might take notice and be forced to pre-empt their regularly scheduled slobbering over the Maple Leafs.

This from the TSN website: “After being selected first overall in the NHL Draft, (Connor) Bedard is off to red-hot start and on pace to set a new mark for modern-day rookie goal scorers.” Excuse me, but Teemu Salanne lit the lamp 76 times as an NHL freshman, in 1992-93. If that wasn’t ‘modern day’ when did ‘modern day’ begin?

Montreal Canadiens saluted former captain Pierre Turgeon last week by placing him in the Ring of Honour at the Bell Centre. As part of the ceremony, Turgeon carried the Habs Torch to centre ice. When they do that in Winnipeg, the player carries a Slurpee.

Personally, I don’t care that the Professional Women’s Hockey League is still without team names, team logos and a schedule. It’s enough that they’re at training camp and they’ll drop the puck in January.

Swift Current Broncos have suspended head coach Devan Praught for being a jerk to teenage boys, that on the heels of Kevin Constantine being booted out of the Western Hockey League for being a jerk to teenage boys. What the hell is wrong with these guys?

There’s a report that the Major League Baseball competition committee is toying with the nation of reducing the pitch clock with runners on base from 20 seconds to 18. Hey, I’m all for giving the game some giddyup, but if they keep tinkering with the pitch clock they might as well just play T-ball.

Megan Rapinoe says her injury in the National Women’s Soccer League final is proof there is no God. I agree. I mean, if there really is a God, she/he would have crippled Rapinoe’s mouth, not her leg.

Hey, Tiger Woods will be teeing it up in the Hero World Challenge, a golf tournament he hosts in the Bahamas. Finally, someone who can get Taylor Swift off the sports pages.

And, finally, enjoy the game and go Bombers!

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

Kimbra and Mark Walter

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.

What are athletes like Anthony Bass afraid of and how does anti-gay speech impact LGBT(etc.) youth?

Every time I hear an athlete, coach, manager, owner, broadcaster or sports scribe spew anti-LGBT(etc.) bile, or post it on social media, I ask myself the same questions.

To wit:

“Really? They still don’t get it?”

“Why do they care who gay people date?”

“Would they say these things if they discovered one of their children was gay?”

“What are they afraid of?”

Then a wave of weariness washes over me, because hearing the vitriol has become tiresome.

I imagine it’s much the same feeling Blacks or Jews or Indigenous, or any marginalized peoples, experience when they’re the targets of hate speech and/or actions. But I don’t know that with certainty. I can only speak for myself.

And I just cannot understand why being gay/bi/transgender(etc.) is so damn damnable.

Anthony Bass

Why does it matter to Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Anthony Bass that Target has put LGBT(etc.) merchandise on its shelves? Don’t like it? Then spend your money at Walmart. Why does he care that Anheuser-Busch used a transgender person to peddle Bud Light? Don’t like it? Then pop a top on a Coors Light.

But no.

Rather than make those simple choices (as so many have), Bass felt obliged to traffic in hate and cruelty by sharing a post advocating boycotts of Target and Bud Light for “evil” and “demonic” marketing campaigns.

Evil and demonic. Sigh.

I wonder how many LGBT(etc.) youth saw, or heard about, the Bass post and retreated into themselves to wrestle with the worst kind of thoughts. Like suicide. And, no, that’s not being alarmist. It’s reality according to findings from The Trevor Project’s most recent studies (2021/22):

• LGBTQ youth are more than four times as likely to attempt suicide than their peers.
• 45% of LGBTQ youth seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year, including more than half of transgender and nonbinary youth.
• The Trevor Project estimates that more than 1.8 million LGBTQ youth (13-24) seriously consider suicide each year in the U.S.—and at least one attempts suicide every 45 seconds.

“LGBTQ youth are not inherently prone to suicide risk because of their sexual orientation or gender identity but rather placed at higher risk because of how they are mistreated and stigmatized in society,” reads the intro to one of the studies.

“We must recognize that LGBTQ young people face stressors simply for being who they are that their peers never have to worry about,” writes Amit Paley, CEO/executive director of The Trevor Project. “The fact that very simple things—like support from family and friends, seeing LGBTQ representation in media, and having your gender expression and pronouns respected—can have such a positive impact on the mental health of an LGBTQ young person is inspiring, and it should command more attention in conversations around suicide prevention and public debates around LGBTQ inclusion.”

Support from a professional athlete (a role model, if you will) seems like a simple thing, too, but here we have Bass, a marginal pitcher demonizing a marginalized community. And his employers, who have a Pride Weekend planned for June 9-10, permit him to play on.

The Blue Jays chucker, it should be pointed out, delivered a mea culpa on Tuesday, but it was noteworthy more for its brevity than its content.

“I’ll make this quick,” is how he began his 31 seconds of “my bad,” which was sincere like a Louisville Slugger is a toothpick.

But, hey, he managed to squeeze in a token mention of his “friends and close family members” who are part of the LGBT(etc.) community, so if he has gay friends and family he can’t possibly be anti-gay. As if.

This is part of the reason anti-LGBT(etc.) language has become so tiresome and weighty, like trying to push an ATM up a steep hill. If the apologists aren’t propping up their gay friends and family as unimpeachable proof of their accepting ways, they’re telling us that the dreadful thing they said “isn’t really who I am,” as if we don’t know prime rib from a Happy Meal. Their words and actions tell us exactly who they are.

I don’t know how many innings I have left, but I’d like to think Bass and those of his ilk are a vanishing breed, and they might even be gone by the time I sack my bats. I won’t make book on it, though.

This week it’s Bass. Before him it was University of West Virginia hoops coach Bob Huggins calling Catholics a bunch of “f–s.” Before him it was Cam Thomas of the Brooklyn Nets. Before him it was seven National Hockey League players balking on Pride night initiatives. Before them it was Anthony Edwards of the Minnesota Timberwolves. Before him it was football hall-of-fame coach Tony Dungy. Before him it was Jon Gruden. Tomorrow it will be (fill in the blank).

They’re seemingly everywhere and they’ve worn me out, to the point where some days I hesitate to step out of doors. I’ve heard every slight and slur imaginable, and I really don’t care to hear it anymore.

Which takes me back to one of the questions I posed at the top of this essay: What are they afraid of? I’d really like to know the answer so I can pass it on to our LGBT(etc.) youth.

Let’s talk about Commish Gary and the team formerly known as Jets 1.0…Arrrr! Ron MacLean talking about a scurvy dog…a six-pee OT…fantasy GMs…survey says!…Aaron Judge’s sideways glance…take me out to the ball game and bring the defibrillator…and other things on my mind…

Top o’ the morning to you, Gary Bettman.

Well, looks like there’s not much fight left in your desert dogs, although I’m sure there’s still some fight left in you.

If we know anything about you, Gary, it’s that you’ve got a stubborn streak as wide as the Grand Canyon and as long as the Gila River, and you won’t give up on the Arizona Coyotes until there’s no more cacti in the Sonoran Desert.

But the good people of Tempe have given up on the Yotes, turning thumbs down to a proposal for a fancy schmancy entertainment district that would have featured a swanky, new barn for everyone’s favorite National Hockey League punch line.

So what’s your next move, Gary? You’re the NHL commissioner. Are you prepared to let Coyotes ownership cry uncle and flee the desert, or do you want to throw another dart at a map of Arizona and find another loser home for your skating vagabonds? You’ve already tried Phoenix and Glendale and Tempe. I swear, you’ve covered more ground in Arizona than Geronimo. So how about Yuma? Casa Grande? Flagstaff? Tombstone?

Hey, maybe that’s the ticket, Commish Gary. You can have them set up shop in Tombstone, next door to the OK Corral. You can track down one of Wyatt Earp’s ancestors and have him drive the Zamboni. You can reenact the shootout between the Earp brothers/Doc Holliday and the Clantin and McLaury boys during intermission. That was 30 seconds of bullets flying but mostly missing the target, kind of like the Winnipeg Jets offence.

Now that I’ve mentioned the Jets, Gary, I probably don’t have to remind you that you still wear the black hat in Good Ol’ Hometown.

Oh, yes, many among the rabble remain properly PO’d because you allowed their beloved hockey team to skip town and pitch tent in Arizona in 1996. Since then they’ve watched you grant the Coyotes more second chances than a Catholic in a confessional, and they don’t understand why you failed to show the same heels-dug-in zeal for Winnipeg. Not even the arrival of Jets 2.0 in 2011 soothed all souls. You’re the bad guy. Forever.

I don’t share their anger, Gary. At least not totally.

I remember what it was like back in the day when little, old ladies were signing their pension cheques over to Save the Jets funds and, at the same time, school urchins were busting up piggy banks and donating their nickels and dimes in the hope of keeping Keith Tkachuk and Teppo Numminen in town.

I also remember that the Ol’ Barn On Maroons Road was as shabby as a playoff beard, the Canadian dollar was worth about 15 cents US, and Barry Shenkarow couldn’t find any local business tycoons willing to pony up and take a lost cause off his hands.

Gary Bettman

What choice did you have, Gary, except to help orchestrate a sale to outside interests who believed there was more appetite for hockey in the Arizona desert than hockey on Our Frozen Tundra? I understood, but was it necessary to cackle like a nincompoop while the moving vans rolled out of River City. That was harsh, man. Bad optics. And it’s the reason you’re a pariah in Pegtown.

Anyway, here’s what I’m thinking now, Commish: You can do the right thing and end the buffoonery, but you won’t. You’ll continue to permit the Coyotes to frolic in rinky-dink Mulletthead Arena, a college rink that accommodates fewer than 5,000 customers, and you’ll turn over every desert stone in search of a new Arizona home before you tap out.

In the final reckoning, though, you’ll cry uncle. You’ll convince team bankroll Alex Meruelo that there are more suitable locales for your vagabonds.

All the usual suspects have been mentioned, Gary—Houston, Kansas City, Salt Lake City, Atlanta (seriously?), Southern Ontario and, of course, Quebec City, which has the kind of rink you were looking for in Tempe. But I think we all know you aren’t interested in a Ville de Quebec redo and we know the reason why—too close to the North Pole.

You know, once upon a time a return of the Yotes to Good Ol’ Hometown was a romantic notion, and we’re told it almost came to be before Puck Pontiff Mark Chipman and Jets co-bankroll David Thomson settled on Door No. 2 in 2011, the Atlanta Thrashers. It would have been poetic.

Alas, it’s all part of the “what if?” lore of the Jets-Coyotes franchise, and we’re left to wonder where the lineage goes from here.

I just hope you find a proper zip/postal code for the Coyotes, Gary.

Oh, there’s one more thing: For gawd’s sake, get them a rink that isn’t named after a bad haircut.

Weary Willie

I lowered my eyelids long before Matthew Tkachuk’s 4OT goal in Game 1 of the Florida Panthers-Carolina Hurricanes Stanley Cup skirmish the other night, but I understand Ron MacLean spent part of one intermission talking about Blackbeard and pirates. Sigh. Apparently his history lesson tonight will be Circus Clowns: Weary Willie’s Influence On Don Cherry’s Wardrobe.

When I was a kid, I thought OT games sucked because I wasn’t allowed to stay up late and watch. Now I think OT games are boffo because I’m in bed long before Ron MacLean starts talking about pirates.

How long was the Game 1 Florida-Carolina overtime? Well, by the time Tkachuk scored the winning goal, I’d woken up six times to take a pee.

Connor Hellebuyck

You know we’re fully into the silly season when news snoops are playing pretend GM and proposing trades that are about as likely as finding Wayne Gretzky’s rookie card in a Crackerjack box.

Take Kevin McGran of the Toronto Star, as an e.g. He figures it would be a swell idea for the Jets to ship Connor Hellebuyck, Pierre-Luc Dubois and Twig Ehlers to The Republic of Tranna for Mitch Marner and Ilya Samsonov.

“Hellebuyck is a Vezina-worthy goalie who could teach Joseph Woll a lot, while Dubois—a restricted free agent with arbitration right —is the closest player to Matthew Tkachuk on the trade market,” he fanticizes. “The risk for the Leafs is extensive. Hellebuyck ($6.166 million) has one year left on his deal and Dubois is an RFA hoping for a trade to the Montreal Canadiens. If not, he’ll sign there as an unrestricted free agent in 2024-25. So they’d be loading up for one year only, although Ehlers—drafted one spot behind Nylander—is the long-term play. The Jets are looking not so much to rebuild but to recalibrate. Samsonov is a restricted free agent who can be a No. 1 goalie. Getting him to sign an extension with the Jets would be the only way this works. The Jets might also look for one or two NHL-quality young players who are far from unrestricted free agency. Think Timothy Liljegren or Pontus Holmberg.”

Hey, I get it. Speculation can be a fun part of the jock journo gig. It gets tongues flapping. But it would help if it involved at least a teaspoon of logic rather than a bucket full of fairy dust and unicorns. I mean, why would the Jets want Marner? They already have enough guys who don’t score in the playoffs.

Some interesting stuff from Murat Ates in his two–part survey of the Jets faithful for The Athletic. For example, 78.4 per cent of nearly 1,000 respondents are convinced Winnipeg’s latest crusade was “a success.” Say what? Crawling into the Stanley Cup tournament as the eighth seed and surrendering meekly to the Vegas Golden Knights warrants an “atta boy” from the faithful? Meantime, 81.4 per cent gave them a passing grade of either B or C. Apparently those fans nodded off in class, because they missed the part about the Jets being a .579 outfit on the season. According to the Manitoba provincial report card, that’s a D+ grade, meaning, “limited understanding and application of concepts and skills.” That sounds about right to me, so I give the Jets faithful an F for their Bs and Cs.

Also of note in Murat’s findings: 77 per cent want Rink Rat Scheifele on the next stage coach out of Dodge, 68 per cent want a new postal/zip code for Blake Wheeler, and 60 per cent want to see the back of Dubois’ head. Tough crowd.

A 55-year-old professor at the University of South Florida, Joseph Dituri, has established a world record for living under water, passing the old mark of 73 consecutive days, and he plans to stay submerged at the bottom of a lagoon in the Florida Keys until Day 100 on June 9. I don’t know what all the fuss is about. I mean, the Maple Leafs have been treading water for 56 years.

Kidding aside, Dr. Deep Sea’s mission is a serious bit of business. Every breath he takes, every step he takes and every move he makes under water is being monitored and put under a microscope. You know, kind of like being GM of the Maple Leafs.

Things that make me go hmmm, Vol. 2,155: Cops have collared the cad who allegedly stole two of the ruby red slippers worn by Judy Garland in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. The shoes were pilfered in 2005 and recovered in a 2018 FBI sting operation, but no culprits were identified until last week. When swiped, the slippers were insured for $1 million, but today they’re valued at about $3.5 million. Hmmm. A pair of stinky sneakers worn by NBA star Michael Jordan in the 1998 NBA final sold at auction for a record $2.2 million last month. Does that make him the Wizard of Odour Eaters?

Rafa Nadal won’t play Paris later this month, and that saddens me. Rarely have we seen dominance in any sport greater than Nadal on the red clay of Roland Garros. He won 14 French Open titles and the only men to better tennis’ King of Clay in 115 matches were Novak Djokovic, twice, and Robin Soderling. That’s right, Rafa was 112-3. The only comparable I can think of is Secretariat’s gallop in the 1973 Belmont Stakes, which was a beast of another kind.

So, I turned on the Toronto Blue Jays-New York Yankees skirmish the other night just as the Go Yard Yankee, Aaron Judge, gave a sideways glance toward his first base coach, or the dugout, during an at-bat against Jay Jackson. To my shock, that prompted Blue Jays natterbugs Buck Martinez and Dan Shulman to suggest something fishing was going on—i.e. cheating. “You don’t wanna go throwing allegations around without knowing, but…” said Shulman. But nothing. Shulman and Martinez implied that Judge, who now has 13 dingers on the season, was cheating, even though no evidence existed to support such a claim against Major League Baseball’s reigning home run king. The commentary was as shoddy as Jackson’s next pitch, which Judge whacked 431 feet for another stroll around the bases.

Take me out to the ball game! Yes, the Winnipeg Goldeyes are back doing their thing at the beautiful Ball Yard By The Forks, and 5,736 ball fans were there Friday night to see the Local Nine whup Lake Country DockHounds 10-4 in the home opener. But it wasn’t just winning baseball on the menu—apparently there’s also something called a Grand Slamwich at Goldie’s Grill, and it’s Code Blue waiting to happen. Not to be confused with Denny’s Grand Slamwich (scrambled eggs, crumbled sausage, bacon, shaved ham and Canadian cheese on potato bread grilled with a maple spice spread and served with hash browns for $16.29), the Goldie’s Slam consists of four meat patties, four slabs of cheese, four chicken fingers, four strips of bacon, two butterflied hot dogs, nacho cheese, crispy onions, spicy ketchup, all served on garlic bread for $60. Defibrillator paddles and paramedics with a working stomach pump are extra.

It’s about fans booing Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka at the PGA championship yesterday: What’s the big deal? Athletes hear catcalls in every sport, so why should golfers be exempt?

There are numerous reports that James Harden wants out of Philly to play hoops for an NBA team with “a competitive roster and the basketball freedom for the star to be himself.” Translation: “My ego is too big to share the floor with MVP Joel Embiid, so I’m going to stomp my feet and take my ball and beard back to Houston.”

So, they packed ’em in at Wembley Stadium for the Manchester United-Chelsea women’s FA Cup final, with a head count of 77,390. That’s a world futbol record for a female domestic club match. Meantime, in The Republic of Tranna, 19,923 folks crammed into Scotiabank Arena for a WNBA friendly between Chicago Sky and Minnesota Lynx. Makes me wonder what the Premier Hockey Federation and the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association are doing wrong, since their games attract only friends and family. Oh wait. I remember now. They’re too busy fighting each other to do what’s right for Ponytail Puck.

And, finally, Reba McEntire will replace Blake Shelton as a coach on The Voice next season. And I can’t believe I mentioned those two in the same sentence. One is a legendary country singer, the other has fooled a whole lot of people.

Let’s talk about the mess Puck Pontiff Mark Chipman and the Winnipeg Jets are in…a serving of ruffled feathers…Becky and the Jurassics…Hot dog! Joey Chestnut was in the Blue Jays house…golf and hives…and other things on my mind…

Top o’ the morning to you, Mark Chipman.

The Puck Pontiff, Mark Chipman

Are you feeling a burning sensation in your buttocks these days? Well, it isn’t hemorrhoids, Mark. It’s the bonfire your head coach Rick Bowness lit last Thursday night, whereby he informed news snoops that he’d had it up to his chin whiskers with the Sad Sack manner in which your Winnipeg Jets go about their business.

“The same crap” is how Bones described their play in a 4-1 loss to Vegas Golden Knights, a surrender that ushered them out of the Stanley Cup tournament and ushered in another premature summer vacation.

It was a withering, scornful volley aimed mostly at your National Hockey League team’s elite and, naturally, local jock journos haven’t been shy about stoking those flames. Especially now that the workers have begun to bark back.

Oh yes, Mark, the poor dear millionaires with the eggshell-thin egos are crapping on the coach who had the (apparent) bad manners to crap on them.

I’d say it’s a fine mess you’ve gotten yourself into.

I don’t know if you read newspapers or pay attention to the talking heads online and on flatscreens, Mark, but scribes and natterbugs recognize that your Jets have issues that run deeper than your billionaire co-bankroll David Thomson’s pockets. Thus they’ve had the local shinny side rotating on the spit since its tail-between-the-legs ouster from the post-season party in Glitter Gulch, where they made like Rover and played dead on the Golden Knights’ command.

Here’s a sampling of what the boys on the beat are scribbling/squawking about…

Paul Friesen, Winnipeg Sun: “Whether Cheveldayoff stays or goes is obviously Chipman’s call. I’d be surprised if he makes the move. Hiring a savvy team president/advisor to help fill in for Cheveldayoff’s weaknesses makes some sense. From the core players to the front office, the Jets have milked what they can from this bunch.”

Scott Billeck, Sun: “This team desperately needed a new voice behind the bench. Now it badly needs a new vision behind the GM’s desk.”

Mike McIntyre, Drab Slab: “A no-holds-barred approach from veteran coach Rick Bowness in the immediate aftermath of Thursday’s embarrassing, playoff-ending defeat in Las Vegas should only accelerate—at Mach speed—what has become so obvious around here. The status quo has got to go. No doubt many, just like Bowness, are feeling ‘disappointed and disgusted.’ So now the question is what ownership is going to do about it. Trying to apply yet another shiny coat of paint when it’s clear the foundation is so deeply flawed would be a massive mistake. There must be tangible changes, along with full transparency about both the short and long-term vision from the organization so fans don’t feel like they’re being strung along. Memo to Mark Chipman, David Thomson and company: blow it up.”

Murat Ates, The Athletic: “Fans deserve better than platitudes that border on insults about fantasy hockey. They deserve the honesty Bowness gave them after Winnipeg’s loss to Vegas in Game 5. The Jets’ window to win before Connor Hellebuyck, Wheeler, Scheifele, Niederreiter, Dillon, DeMelo and most likely Dubois hit free agency is slamming shut. Winnipeg needs to move on from the players who contribute to the problem Bowness is picking at, to get returns which help the team stay competitive and to commit to a direction that fans can believe in. If the goal is to squeak into the playoffs and claw at gate revenue, name it. If the goal is to win the Stanley Cup, then name it and make it clear what the plan is to get there. The Jets are out of runway now. That 2024 free agency class is a ticking clock.”

Ken Wiebe, Sportsnet: “Make no mistake there are some solid pieces in the Jets’ organization, but the time has come to change the mix. And change it significantly. Shuffling the deck chairs isn’t going to be enough. That’s never been clearer than it is today. Don’t just take my word for it, invest the time in watching the way Bowness delivered the mic drop message that might just prove to be the impetus for a major renovation project.”

Harsh. Also to the point.

Rick Bowness

The thing is, Mark, it was your head coach who described your team’s performance in the finale vs. Vegas on Thursday as “the same crap,” so why would news snoops be inclined to disagree with Bones’ truth bomb?

They’re convinced something has to give, and they’re curious about your plans. Do you back up the truck and load on the deadwood (read: players)? Do you let GM Kevin Cheveldayoff keep his hands on the wheel? Do you really believe the rabble will buy into your ill-conceived and insulting “purchase season tickets or else” campaign after another crusade gone wrong?

As Friesen posits, it’s totally your call, Mark.

You’re the Puck Pontiff and we all know you’re a hands-on kind of guy (I prefer to describe you as a buttinski). I mean, if forensic scientists paid a visit to your workplace, they’d find your fingerprints and DNA on everything from the beer cups to the backup goaltender. Hell, they might even discover evidence that you change the oil on the Zamboni. It’s always struck me as control freakish, but, hey, the Jets are your toy and you’re free to do what you will with it.

Here’s the deal, though: You’re one of two constants in this play, Mark. The other is Chevy. You’ve had 12 seasons together to get it right and you’ve been found wanting for 12 seasons. Never failed to fail: That isn’t something one puts on a business card.

But why should you care what the nabobs of negativism think? You didn’t build your downtown fiefdom by listening to the serfs in Good Ol’ Hometown, no matter how legit their gripes might be.

You keep doing it your way, Puck Pontiff. Never mind that hitching your wagon to Blake Wheeler was a colossal miscalculation and only a fool would take his contract off your hands today. You, and only you, know what’s best for your Jets, right?

So why change, Mark? Unless, of course, it’s to do the right thing for a change.

Was that the sound of ruffling feathers we heard yesterday? Yup, sure was. Turns out that Captain Cranky Pants (without the ‘C’) Wheeler and a handful of accomplices figure Bowness got it all wrong when he administered a public flogging to the players scant seconds after they’d tapped out vs. Vegas, so he returned fire and it wasn’t friendly. “We could have had those discussions behind closed doors,” he said on Jets garbage bag day. “I didn’t agree with how he handled himself after that game. Regardless of what the message was, that could have been done more appropriately. He’s a person, too, so we don’t expect him to be perfect all the time. People make mistakes. We can all be upset and pissed off at each other, but let’s do it face-to-face. You guys (media) don’t need to be involved in that.” Interesting. They wouldn’t push back against Vegas, but they’ll push back against their coach’s sound bites.

Captain Cranky Pants

Garbage bag day was also true confession time for the Jets, and assistant captain Adam Lowry delivered this interesting nugget: “We all still look at Wheels as the captain. He’s kinda the leader in the room. He knows what to say, when to say it. He’s knows how to approach things, he’s seen a lot of things.”
If anyone finds it surprising that Wheeler continues to hold sway in the changing room, I’ll remind you of something I scribbled last September, not long after Bowness had ripped the ‘C’ off his uni:
“Wheeler is now ‘C’-less, but he’s still in the dressing room and has no desire to fade into the background like an old piece of furniture destined for a yard sale. Anyone who thinks otherwise is “sorely mistaken,” he told news snoops, adding “I don’t envision changing my role at all” and “I’m still gonna be doing the things I would have done with the ‘C’ on my jersey.” It sounded more like a threat than a promise.”
And so it has come to pass. Wheeler remains the leader of the alpha dog pack and they’re still bitching at the end of another lost crusade. Somewhere on the East Coast, Paul Maurice is nodding knowingly.

Still trying to wrap my head around the reality that the Winnipeg Sun didn’t have boots on the ground in Sin City when the Jets performed their predictable pratfall. That’s just wrong.

Oh my. The Toronto Maple Leafs have advanced to the second round of the Stanley Cup spring runoff for the first time in 19 years. Just wondering: Did they mention it on SportsCentre and Sportsnet Central last night?

Becky Hammon

Now here’s a notion I’d be quick to get behind: Becky Hammon being anointed head coach the Toronto Jurassics. If we can believe various reports—and why wouldn’t we?—the decision-makers with the NBA outfit plan a sit-down natter with Becky to discuss her bona fides for the job, and if she gets the gig to replace the defrocked Nick Nurse it’ll be ceiling shattering. First, Becky is female and, second, she’s gay. Hiring a gay female as head coach in a land of alpha male giants would be such a 21st century thing. If it happens, the Jurassics will gain at least one more fan.

Things that make me go hmmm, Vol. 2,151: Four of the Canadian Football League’s nine outfits have been caught cheating, and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers were the main offenders, soaring $64,499 over the salary cap in 2022. Toronto Argos were next in line on the scofflaw list, spending $49,735 more than they were allowed to spend. Hmmm. Those two teams met in the Grey Cup skirmish last November on the Flattest of Lands. I guess what they say is true: If you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying.

The Lords of Rouge Football have hopped into bed with the CBS Sports Network in United States, signing a partnership that’s reportedly worth $1 million. They’ll broadcast 34 games this year. Question is: Does anyone actually watch CBSSN? I have a hunch viewership will be similar to pickleball or frisbee golf.

Joey Chestnut and a friend.

It was Loonie Dogs Night last Tuesday at Rogers Centre in the Republic of Tranna, and public pig-out champion Joey Chestnut was in the house along with 28,917 other souls. While the Toronto Blue Jays and Chicago White Sox played nine innings of rounders, the gathering went to work on 51,629 Schneiders one-dollar hot dogs, a local record for gluttony. No word on how many of the 51,629 tube steaks that Chestnut scarfed down, but medics on site confirm they performed an emergency wienerectomy on a lumpy man with ketchup and mustard stains on his shirt.

Did you know there’s something called a Paternity List in Major League Baseball? It’s true. Players are permitted to skip out on 1-3 games for the birth of a child. Good thing they didn’t have that in boxing back in the day, otherwise George Foreman would have missed his entire career.

Just so you know, Foreman has 12 kids, including five boys, each of them named George but known as Junior, Monk, Big Wheel, Red and Little Joe when they’re sitting around the dinner table.

If you’re keeping score at home, this is what our Pebble People did in the three main global curling competitions this year: World women’s, bronze medal; world men’s, silver medal; world mixed doubles, nada. A cause for alarm? Only if this was the 20th century.

Interesting exchange between Eric Nehm of The Athletic and Giannis Antetokounmpo after Milwaukee Bucks had been drummed out of the NBA championship tournament:

Giannis Antetokounmpo

Nehm: “Do you view this season as a failure?”

Antetokounmpo: “You asked me the same question last year, I think. Do you get a promotion every year? No, right? So, every year you work is a failure? Yes or no? No. Every year you work, you work toward something—to a goal—which is to get a promotion, to be able to take care of your family, to be able to provide a house for them or take care of your parents. You work toward a goal. It’s not a failure. It’s steps to success. Michael Jordan played 15 years. Won six championships. The other nine years was a failure? Exactly, so why you ask me that question. It’s the wrong question.

“There’s no failure in sports. There’s good days, bad days, some days you are able to be successful, some days you are not, some days it is your turn, some days it’s not. That’s what sports is about. You don’t always win. Some other group is gonna win and this year someone else is gonna win. Simple as that. We’re gonna come back next year and try to be better, try to build good habits, try to play better.

“So, 50 years from 1971 to 2021 we didn’t win a championship, it was 50 years of failure? No it was not. There were steps to it. And we were able to win one and hopefully we can win another one.”

Many among the rabble have saluted Antetokounmpo for his thoughtful perspective. Others have panned Nehm for his question, suggesting it was purposely inflammatory. Nonsense. It was a fair question and Antetokounmpo was both right and wrong with his answer.

Turning to another sport and another natter, it’s a good thing Emma Raducanu isn’t paid by the word. In a to-and-fro with news snoops prior to the Madrid Open, Britain’s No. 1 female tennis player used 58 words to answer 16 questions, which works out to 3.625 words per answer. That isn’t a press conference. It’s an audition for a gig as a street mime.

Genie Bouchard

I don’t know if we’ll see our Genie Bouchard win another tennis tournament, but the quest to get there is keeping her from becoming a layabout. “I could just chill, I guess, for the rest of my life,” she tells The Telegraph. “I could sit on my couch and watch Netflix. And that sounds appealing, for sure. But after two days, I would go crazy. I want to be top 100 as soon as possible because then you start really feeling like a player on tour.” Genie’s right about chilling. Between tournament earnings ($6,785,645), product endorsements and taking most of her clothes off for Sports Illustrated, she’s amassed a small fortune and could live on Easy Street.

A swarm of bees disrupted play at the Mexico Open last week in Puerto Vallarta. All the golfers got hives.

Looking for a good read? Check out George Williams’ piece in the Drab Slab about two women who escaped Ukraine and found a home at Assiniboia Downs. As my first sports editor, Jack Matheson, would say, it’s “damn good” stuff.

Now that Aaron Rodgers is a member of the New York Jets, can we all get back to regularly scheduled living? Personally, it means that I can root, root, root for the Green Bay Packers again.

When I think of Packers quarterbacks, it’s Bart Starr, Brett Favre and Rodgers. Anybody else of note either played before my time or got lost on a darkness retreat.

It’s about all the glut of gambling ads in print, online and on our flatscreens these days: Pete Rose demands a recount.

Steve Simmons of Postmedia Tranna writes this: “Under the department of dumb: Edmonton fans booing Drew Doughty, who was brilliant for Canada at the 2010 and 2014 Olympic Games. And he would have been on two more Olympic teams had NHL players been sent in 2018 and 2022.” Now that is truly “under the department of dumb.” I mean, last time I looked, it was an L.A. Kings logo on the front of Doughty’s jersey when he was in E-Town, not our Maple Leaf. So boo him to your hearts content, kids.

And, finally, my heart skipped a beat on Saturday when I saw the name Willie Nelson trending on Twitter. I feared the worst. Turns out it was people with glad tidings for Willie on the occasion of his 90th birthday. Gee, ain’t it Funny How Time Slips Away?

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.”

Kendall Coyne Schofield

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.

Mackenzie Zacharias

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.

Chad Kelly

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 NHL’s “holy” hockey players and bogus ballyhoo…hey, what about Wick?…wagering $222,000 to win $2,000 on Tiger losing…digging the long ball…a gay man is the world curling champion skip…calling old West Kildonan North Stars…and other things on my mind…

What are we to make of the growing Rainbow Resistance Movement in the National Hockey League?

Well, in the grand scheme of things, a hockey jersey seems like a piffling talking point when there are more than 60 countries on our planet where it’s a crime to be gay or transgender (punishable by death in 11 locales), and a mind-numbing 400-plus anti-LGBT(etc.) bills have been introduced in statehouses across the U.S.A. this year.

So, ya, petite pommes de terre.

Except Pride nights in the NHL have become a talking point because it shouldn’t be a talking point.

That is to say, I always hold out hope that those of us in the LGBT(etc.) community are past being told we don’t belong. We are, after all, 23 years into the 21st century and I wouldn’t expect a prominent business that trumpets ‘Hockey Is For Everyone’ to tell us we aren’t welcome.

Yet, when Ilya Samsonov refuses to put a Pride decal on the back of his goalie mask; when James Reimer, Eric and Marc Staal, Ivan Provorov, Ilya Lyubushkin, Andrei Kuzmenko and Denis Gurianov decline to don rainbow-themed apparel and/or stick tape for 15 minutes; when the New York Rangers, St. Louis Blues, Chicago Blackhawks and Minnesota Wild keep their Pride sweaters in storage—that’s what many in the LGBT(etc.) collective hear. We aren’t welcome.

Some naysayers suggest that’s selective hearing rooted in our own insecurities, but I suggest those people have never been required to justify their very existence while looking for lodgings, service, employment, a marriage licence, the opportunity to adopt children, etc. You know, basic human rights.

So I posit that it’s more accurate to say what some in the LGBT(etc.) collective are feeling is the fallout from many lifetimes of indignities.

A number of years ago, for example, I was shopping in a funky clothing boutique, searching for a gift. An employee approached and, in a harsh tone loud enough for others in the shop to hear, barked at me: “We don’t want your kind in here!”

Since that day, I’ve been harassed, maligned, ostracized, assaulted and bullied based strictly on sexuality and/or gender identity. It hurt like hell. And most, if not all, the people I know in the LGBT(etc.) community have experienced similar affronts meant to make them feel like lesser-thans or disenfranchised.

Thus, as much as a small group of hockey players/teams declining to support a marginalized community under increasing attack is a trivial matter to some, it serves as a haunting echo to myself and others. It saddens me and exposes the NHL’s broad-stroke claim of inclusiveness as bogus ballyhoo.

So let’s talk about “Hockey Is For Everyone.”

If it’s women’s shinny, yes, it appears to be for everyone.

Elite female hockey has featured Black players, Indigenous players, Asian players, gay players, bisexual players and transgender players, and we see it in the faces in the stands. If aliens were to touch down and inhabit our blue orb tomorrow—and some of them could skate and shoot a puck like Marie-Philip Poulin—I’m sure there would be room for the extraterrestrials in Ponytail Puck.

If, on the other hand, it’s the NHL we’re talking about…well, gays are the extraterrestrials.

The NHL trotted out its Trademark Big Lie about “Hockey Is For Everyone” in February 2017, at which time there had never been an openly gay player. Ever. That box still hasn’t been checked off. Not even by someone who’s come out in retirement. Which is astoundingly illogical, since that takes in approximately 8,000 men and 106 years. Nary a gay man? Right. And there are no Catholics in Rome.

It is, however, one thing for elite gay male hockey players to remain closeted, but it’s another matter to tell the LGBT(etc.) community that there’s no room at the inn.

Two reasons have been advanced for this: Russia and Bible scripture.

We’re told there’s a fear, real or imagined, among Russian players that wearing Pride gear is in conflict with Vlad Putin’s anti-gay propaganda law, and the wrath of the dictator’s henchmen shall descend upon them or their families back home should they play along with Pride initiatives.

Well, I can’t speak to that fear because, thankfully, I don’t live in Russia, nor have I ever visited. I just know it to be an untrustworthy nation, a feeling that took root for me in the late 1950s/early 1960s when it was the Soviet Union and Nikita Khruschev was threatening to lob his nuclear weapons at us and blow us all the hell up. The Cuban Missile Crisis and air raid drills, those were the fears I knew, and I can’t say anything’s different today. I still don’t trust the comrades.

Religion, meanwhile, is a different head of lettuce. I have an acquaintance with the church.

I was baptized and raised Roman Catholic.

I had confirmation and received my first Holy Communion at age 7.

I spent time in the confessional, often feeling obliged to ‘fess up to sins I actually hadn’t committed.

(True story: I’d whisper through the screen window between myself and the parish priest to inform him that there was a black blotch on my soul because I had stolen a candy bar from the corner store, which was a lie. So I’d then confess to lying, which was the truth. My penance was usually five Hail Marys, and I always walked out of the confessional feeling cleansed and not at all bummed out about lying.)

I attended mass every Sunday and on the first Friday of every month, which was mandatory for students at my Catholic schools.

I was taught by nuns through Grade 8, always wary of their 12-inch, wooden knuckle-rappers (you probably called it a “ruler”), and time was devoted each day to Catechism, which is when us sprigs learned of the miracle man Jesus and his 12 hangers-on.

And, my oh my, such stories we were told: Raising the dead, stilling storms, walking on H2O, hocus pocus involving fish and bread, turning water into wine, selling out a dear friend with a kiss, healing the lame, the sick, the deaf and the blind with the touch of a hand, wandering the wilderness for 40 days and nights without so much as a snack. That stuff was better than anything on TV. It left me gobsmacked.

The nuns with the 12-inch, wooden knuckle-rappers would regale us with these, and other, biblical tales that seemed more fable than fact, and we were expected to accept them as the gospel truth, no matter how far they stretched the boundary of reason.

We were a captive audience, awash in naiveté and prepared to believe anything those nuns, or the parish priests, told us. If they informed us Jesus fed thousands with no more food than what we had in our school lunch boxes, then it was true. If they told us Catholics are the only people who qualify for entry into Heaven (they did) or that we’d literally burn in a place called Hell if we committed a mortal sin (they did), we bought it, lock, stock and Bible scripture.

Odd thing, though: My strength of recall (which, admittedly, has ebbed) fails to recapture a single moment (not one) when the nuns/priests of my youth gave us the Bible’s, or Jesus’, take on the (apparent) evils of homosexuality.

But, based on “Sacred Scripture,” the Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that gay sex acts are “of grave depravity” and “intrinsically disordered” and “under no circumstances can they be approved.” The inclination toward gay tendencies, meanwhile, is “objectively disordered.” Gay people have a “condition.”

So if I read it correctly, gay sex is a sin while gay people have something akin to dandruff, which can be treated and remedied.

I suppose this is what the NHL players believe when they tell us they love LGBT(etc.) people yet their religion doesn’t allow them to use a rainbow-themed jersey for a welcome mat.

I hesitate to question the depth and sincerity of anyone’s faith, but those outriders leave themselves open to accusations of hypocrisy. They cannot support the LGBT(etc.) community because gay sex is a sin? Fine. Yet how many among them have lusted after a woman who isn’t their wife?

The Sermon on the Mount Carl Bloch, 1890

In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), Jesus told the people: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

It’s the seventh commandment: Thou shalt not commit adultery. It’s considered such a grave sin that it’s mentioned 52 times in the Bible.

I know male hockey players. Trust me, they lust after women, and many of them act on that lust. According to Jesus, that’s a sin long before clothes begin to come off. Yet I’ve never read or heard of a player, or talked to a player, who denied or turned away a teammate based on adulterous behavior.

In other words, the sinners condemn the sinners (gay people) but not the sinners (adulterers).

Sounds positively unChristian to me.

So, again, from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount: “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

Faith can be a beautiful thing. To this day, I carry a rosary with me, I wear a medallion of the Virgin Mary and a cross of Jesus, I believe in angels and anticipate the day they come and carry me to the other side of the river.

But I don’t pick and choose scripture to serve an agenda that disenfranchises a beleaguered and oppressed people. It appears to me that’s what the “holy” hockey players are doing.

Matthew 23:28: “Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.”

Amen.

Whenever an LGBT(etc.) issue in sports becomes a topic du jour, I look and listen for gay voices in mainstream jock journalism to bring perspective and personal insight to the discussion. Alas, other than Devin Heroux of the CBC, those voices don’t exist. Maybe there are LGBT(etc.) news snoops on Our Frozen Tundra that I don’t know about. If so, I wish they’d join the conversation. Allies are wonderful, but I’d rather read or listen to someone with skin in the game.

Interesting read on Ponytail Puck from Hailey Salvian in The Athletic. She took the pulse of women’s hockey by asking 30-plus elite players from Canada and the U.S. their views on the game, and she included this question: What is the biggest issue facing women’s hockey? One answer: “We need to get back to having a league with a real season where we can play hockey.” I don’t know if that’s arrogance or ignorance from a member of the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association, but it’s definitely stupid. There is a league with a real season—the Premier Hockey Federation, which crowned the Toronto Six champion on March 26.

So who’s the best female player of all time? Gotta be Hayley Wickenheiser, no? No. According to Hailey’s poll, Marie-Philip Poulin is numero uno (62% of the vote), with Hilary Knight (21%) and Cammi Granato (9%) next in line. Jayna Hefford, Cassie Campbell-Pascall also received votes. And the great Wickenheiser? Nary a vote. Go figure.

No surprise that the TV talking heads continue to fawn over Tiger Woods, as if he’s still leaping tall buildings in a single bound. Apparently, his making the Masters cut is undeniable evidence that his Superman cape is not torn and tattered, and it doesn’t matter that 63-year-old Fred Couples qualified to play the weekend with a better score. Woods finished Saturday last on the leaderboard, but the squawk boxes couldn’t make it all about him today because he withdrew.

That was some kind of scary stuff during second-round play at the Masters golf tournament at Augusta National on Friday, when stormy weather and high winds brought down three giant trees. Fortunately, the area was clear of patrons, thus no injuries.

Actual BBC headline: “Trees fall at stormy Augusta.”

How TV announcers described it: “Boy, that was quick-thinking and fast-acting by Tiger Woods, who prevented a disaster by moving patrons away from 17 tee and out of harm’s way just seconds before those giant trees toppled to the ground. No one saw it coming except Tiger, and we can only imagine how many lives the great man saved today.”

Things that make me go hmmm, Vol. 2,147: Would you wager $222,000 on Woods to not win the Masters? Well, one bettor did that very thing at Circa Sportsbook before the boys teed off on Thursday at Augusta National. The payout when Tiger comes up short? Just $2,000. Hmmm. Sounds like my last grocery bill.

Things that make me go hmmm, Vol. 2,148: According to researchers at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, there’s been a jump in dingers in Major League Baseball due to our shifting climate. In a paper published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, scientist and co-author Justin Mankin writes, “Global warming is juicing home runs.” Apparently, more than 500 HRs since 2010 are the fallout from “historical warming.” Hmmm. And here I thought it was due to syringes and butt cheeks.

To arrive at their conclusion, the Dartmouth climate nerds pored over data from 100,000 games and 200,000-plus balls swatted into play, as well as weather, facilities and other pertinent points. I don’t know if chicks still “dig the long ball,” but Greta Thunberg disapproves.

Yogi Berra

What’s that Yogi Berra line about attendance? Oh ya: “If the people don’t want to come out to the ballpark, nobody’s going to stop them.” And no one in Oakland is stopping the rabble from attending Athletics games. The head count at Oakland-Alameda County Colisum last Tuesday was 3,407. Twenty-four hours later, 4,930 took in the ol’ ballgame. Imagine that, less than 5,000 fans. Or, as the Arizona Coyotes call it, “a near sellout.”

Real nice read from young Taylor Allen in the Drab Slab last week. He tells us all about local volleyball player Averie Allard, who’s now playing pro in Italy. Good stuff.

Our women won a bronze medal at the world curling championship and our men collected silver Sunday in Bytown. So I ask: Do the alarmists still demand a major overhaul of our entire system, or have the flaws in the program been greatly exaggerated?

Chalk one up for the LGBT(etc.) community: Skip Bruce Mouat of the freshly minted world champion Scottish team, which whupped Brad Gushue and the boys 9-3 in the men’s final Sunday afternoon, is an openly gay man.

And, finally, the Stars are aligning for a big reunion bash on April 15 at Shooters Golf Course in Good Ol’ Hometown. I’m talking about my old outfit, the West Kildonan North Stars, and organizer Gord Homenick is looking for more former players to join in the fun. If you wore the colors, coached or worked with Westkay in the Manitoba Junior Hockey League, get in touch with Gord, at ghomenick@shaw.ca or 204-782-1884.

Happy Christivus: A day for gifts and the airing of grievances in the sports world!

You might think of today as Christmas Eve, kids, but it’s also Christivus, a day-before-Christmas and a day-after-Festivus celebration of all that is good in the playground and, just as important, a time for the airing of grievances. Some athletes/sports figures discover lovely gifts under the Christivus treepole, while others find a big, ol’ lump o’ coal with their name on it…

GIFT: There’s just no beating the Gimli Girls at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts. Kerri Einarson, Val Sweeting, Shannon Birchard and Briane Harris are three-peat belles of the ball, and you wouldn’t want to bet against them when they Go For Four two months hence at the national women’s curling championship in Kamloops. Only the Colleen Jones quartet from Nova Scotia has managed to put up a four-spot at the Scotties (2001-2004), so Kerri and her gal pals could be breathing rarified air in beautiful B.C. And, by the way, last time I checked, the Gimli Girls were ranked No. 1 among all the world’s female Pebble People, and I’d say that sounds about right.

GIFT: Juggernaut. That’s the word to describe Manitoba’s female curlers. You’ve got Einarson and her gal pals from Gimli, plus the Jennifer Jones, Kaitlyn Lawes, Abby Ackland and Cheleas Carey rinks ranked in the world top 22. All together now: Buffalo Girls rock!

GIFT: Let’s have a show of hands. Who among us believed that Mike O’Shea would one day become the winningest head coach in the lengthy and lore-filled history of the Winnipeg Football Club? Not me. Not you, either. I mean, Coach Grunge was greener than St. Paddy’s Day when they handed him the headset in 2014, and I doubt even Blue Bombers CEO Wade Miller and GM Kyle Walters figured they had an all-timer on their hands. It was as unlikely as prayer service in the Rum Hut. But now that O’Shea is locked in as sideline steward of the Bombers for another three Canadian Football League seasons, it’s a question of when, not if, he reaches the most hallowed of gridiron ground in Good Ol’ Hometown. Bud Grant, a legend in a trench coat, collected 102 regular-season Ws in his 10 crusades of mostly pushing the right buttons. O’Shea, a legend in the making in short pants, faded t-shirt/hoodie and ratty, ol’ ball cap, has 82 notches on his belt. Do the math. Sometime in the autumn of 2024, Coach Grunge should pull astride the Silver Fox, if not pass him. Who had that on their radar? Nobody.

GIFT: Zach Collaros became a two-timer, collecting the Most Outstanding Player Award in Rouge Football for the second successive season and, no, we aren’t going to talk about his dodgy performance in the Bombers 24-23 loss to the Toronto Argos in the grass-grabber for the Grey Grail in late November.

LUMP O’COAL: We will, however, discuss Marc Liegghio’s right leg. Two missed converts in the West Division final, one missed convert and a botched field goal attempt in the Grey Cup game doesn’t cut it. He has the worst limb since Long John Silver and everyone from Buzz and Boomer to Dancing Gabe knew all about it, but it somehow escaped the notice of Bombers brass and it cost them dearly. We can talk all we like about other foulups (there were plenty) in the bid for a Grey Grail three-peat, but a kicker has one job to do and Liegghio failed miserably.

LUMP O’ COAL: Yo! David Asper! I think maybe you’ve been spending too much time at the Journey to Churchill exhibit at Assiniboine Park Zoo. Either that or you’ve been having nightmares about polar bears lumbering through the pot-holed streets of Good Ol’ Hometown. I mean, the Winnipeg Sea Bears? And a polar bear logo? Seriously? That’s the best you could come up with for your newbie, summertime Canadian Elite Basketball League outfit? C’mon, man. Winnipeg is a seaside locale like a box of Crackerjack is fine dining, and there hasn’t been anything resembling a polar bear near Portage and Main since Chris Walby retired.

AN ENTIRE COAL MINE: Oh, woe is Hockey Canada, guardian of our national pastime and keeper of secrets, slush funds and trafficker of lies. We discovered that HC had stacks and stacks of coin to quietly pay off victims of sexual assault, and some board members summoned to Parliament Hill to explain themselves looked like so many Pinocchios after a big, fat fib. This was the biggest and, by far, the most disturbing sports story on Our Mostly Frozen Tundra in 2022. It rocked HC to the core.

AN ENTIRE COAL MINE: As Hockey Canada roiled in the guck and muck of egregious wrong-doing and a sex-assault scandal, since-defrocked CEO Scott Smith had the dreadful manners to surface in Denmark and strut on-ice to dispense gold medals to our Canadian women at the world championship. It was like the graduating class at a police academy receiving their badges from Tony Soprano. Smith’s appearance was callous, tacky and a rented-bowling-shoes level of odious.

GIFT: Rick Westhead of TSN was at the forefront of reporting on L’Affaire Hockey Canada and all other manner of misdeeds in the playground.

GIFT: Our national women’s team provided a ray of light in the Hockey Canada darkness, striking gold at the Winter Olympic Games and the world tournament. Brianne Jenner was our leading goal-scorer and MVP in Beijing, and Sarah Nurse set an Olympic record for most points, 18. Meantime, Jenner scored both goals in a 2-1 victory over the U.S. in the gold-medal match in Denmark, while Sarah Fillier was our leading scorer and a world tournament all-star.

LUMP O’ COAL: Rosie DiManno of the Toronto Star decided that Beijing 2022 was an appropriate time to piddle on Ponytail Puck at the Olympics. “I’ll get crucified for saying so, but women’s hockey doesn’t belong in the Games,” Rosie informed her readers. “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 added: “It will doubtless come down, as ever before, to a U.S.-Canada final on Feb. 17, with the Canadians looking for revenge after their loss to the Americans in Pyeongchang. Honestly, I’m getting sick of this mythologized rivalry and everybody else an also-ran. It ain’t sportin’.” Whatever you say, Rosie. But, honestly, I’m getting sick of mainstream media pooh-poohing or ignoring females in the playground.

GIFT: Two of my favorite Dons—Baizley and Duguid—received overdue hosannas this year. Baiz, a lawyer and player agent to many of hockey’s glitterati, was inducted into the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame, while Dugie, a world curling champion and pioneer among Pebble People, became an official member of the Order of Canada. I just wish Baiz was still around to enjoy the honor, even if he was never comfortable with people fawning over him.

GIFT: There’s been a Rouge Football revival on the Wet Coast of the land thanks to B.C. Leos bankroll Amar Doman and his foot soldiers. The Leos attracted an average audience of 20,387 to B.C. Place Stadium during the past CFL season, which is a hefty bump of 7,879 customers from a year ago, and they had a league-high gathering of 34,082 for their home opener. (Does it matter now that half the audience was there for a OneRepublic concert?)

LUMP O’ COAL: They have a Grey Cup champion football team, yet the rabble in the Republic of Tranna avoid the Argos the way a letter carrier dodges a mutt baring fangs. The average head count at BMO Field was 11,875 with a low of 9,806, and it’s apparent that only a halftime show featuring Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner streaking au naturel will bring The ROT rabble out to Argos games.

LUMP O’ COAL: Good grief. Another year and still zero female news snoops in the media wing of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame. By my count, the CFHF media wing has a roll call of 103 members, 100 per cent of them male, 99.9 per cent of them white, 0 per cent of them female or gay. News snoops are quick to call out sports organizations for a lack of diversity, but apparently the same rules don’t apply to their own houses. The Football Reporters of Canada need to recognize that any female news snoop who survived close encounters with Cal Murphy in the 1980s and ’90s belongs in the Hall of Fame.

LUMP O’ COAL: The staggering proliferation of betting banter on sports TV news/highlight programming is a distressing bit of business.

GIFT: There’s been considerable gum-flapping about a play-for-pay women’s futbol league on Our Mostly Frozen Tundra three years hence, and the people doing the yakkety-yakking seem to have a clue. Diana Matheson and her business partner, Thomas Gilbert, have yet to put all their ducks in a row, but they’ve got two franchises in place (Vancouver and Calgary), they’ve brought Christine Sinclair on board (it’s never a bad idea to link arms with the all-time international goal-scoring leader), and they’re playing with CIBC and Air Canada money. By the time they kick off in 2025, the League To Be Named Later will feature eight teams across the land (four west, four east), and players can expect salaries ranging from $35,000-$75,000. My question: Is there anyone in Good Ol’ Hometown anxious to pony up with a $1 million up-front fee and $8-$10 million in operating costs for women’s soccer?

LUMP O’ COAL: TSN natterbug Kara Wagland described the creation of a women’s pro futbol circuit in Canada as a “monumental development.” Ya, it’s so “monumental” that TSN slotted it as the final item on its hour-long, overnight SportsCentre news/highlights package. Cripes, man, Joey Chestnut eating perogies got more prominent play that night, and I think we can all agree that the sight of Chestnut stuffing food into his gob is right up there on the cringe-o-metre with Glen Suitor swooning over Keith Urban on TSN’s broadcast of the 2019 Grey Cup game. Beasts with cloven hooves have better table manners than Chestnut. Yet TSN determined that his stomach-turning pigout was more newsworthy than the “monumental” women’s fitba story. Sigh.

GIFT: Sue Bird retired after 19 seasons and four WNBA championships with Seattle Storm, also five hoops gold medals at the Olympic Games…Brooke Henderson won two LPGA tournaments, including a major…Hoopster Brittney Griner found her way home to the U.S. after spending too much time in a Russian gulag…Felix Auger-Aliassime won four events on the ATP Tour and anchored Canada’s successful run at the Davis Cup…Iga Swiatek won 37 tennis matches in a row from February to July and two Grand Slam titles, the French Open and U.S. Open. Overall, she was 67-9 with eight titles…Roger Federer retired and the tennis maestro went out the same way he came in—with class…Aaron Judge swatted 62 dingers, more than any non-steroid-era player in Major League Baseball history…Nathan Rourke dazzled Rouge Football audiences until a foot owie laid him low nine games into the B.C. Lions crusade…Phil Kessel became the NHL’s iron man with a Pilsbury Dough Boy body. Go figure…Ironically, the first World Series since 1950 with zero U.S.-born Black players on either roster was won by a U.S.-born Black man, manager Dusty Baker of the Houston Astros.

GIFT: The Premier Hockey Federation remains the sole women’s shinny league in North America that actually is a league and—get this—it pays its players in salary, benefits and marketing share. In other words, it walks the walk. Now in its eighth season, there’s a $750,000 per-team player payroll that doubles to $1.5 million a year from now. Notably, that’s a 10-fold increase since 2021.

LUMP O’ COAL: The Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association. Created in May 2019, there was no league then—just a hissy fit—and there’s no league today—just the same old, tiresome hissy fit. Rather than play in the Premier Hockey Federation or unite to form a Ponytail Puck super league that the rabble might want to watch, PWHPA members prefer to hold their breath, stamp their feet and assemble for a scattering of glorified scrimmages that are mostly ignored by fans and mainstream media each winter. In the meantime, they talk, talk, talk and hope someone is listening. Oddly enough, the talking stopped at the recent all-star gala in Ottawa—PWHPA officials refused to make players available for natters with news snoops after the event. Way to sell your game, ladies.

LUMP O’ COAL: Back on Nov. 3, the puppetmasters at Postmedia informed Winnipeg Sun readers that they would be spiking the weekly TV listings and bulking up the sports section, “so you can get more from our award-winning sports reporters.” To which I responded: “Let’s hope going forward they fill the additional space with local copy, or off-beat copy, not a bunch of dreary rot from the Republic of Tranna.” Well, as advertised, Postmedia has bulked up the sports section in the Winnipeg Sun on Sundays, averaging 12 pages. But, as feared, it’s being filled with rot originating from hither and yon, with only 1-to-3 pages devoted to local sports and the majority of bylines from Republic of Tranna scribes. Don’t believe me? Well, in the four Sunday sections since Nov. 27, this is the byline tally:
Toronto writers: 25
Winnipeg writers: 10
So, yes, it reads like the Torontopeg Sun. (Or should it be the Winnironto Sun?)

LUMP O’ COAL: Why does Postmedia insist on forcing Steve Simmons’ weekly alphabet fart on the Winnipeg market? His musings and cheap shots are almost totally Republic of Tranna-centric, and he mentions the goings-on in Good Ol’ Hometown about as often as a squandron of pink elephants perform a fly-by before a Bombers game. In his most-recent offering, for example, Simmons had 17 items on athletes/teams from the The ROT and the grand total of one (1) on the Jets/Bombers/anything Winnipeg. Do the suits at Postmedia truly believe that’s what the rabble in River City want to read?

LUMP O’ COAL: Management geniuses at the Drab Slab refuse to hire a sports columnist. The guy they bill as their sports columnist, Mad Mike McIntyre, has never written a piece on the fabulous female curlers in Manitoba, which is like scribbling for National Geographic and not writing a word about Mother Nature. I mean, the jock news pecking order in Good Ol’ Hometown is Jets, Bombers and curling. So how do you snub female Pebble People when all they’ve done is win four of the past five Scotties (it’s five-for-five if you want to include homegrown Chelsea Carey in 2019)? He also mostly ignores the Bombers, who’ve been in the past three Grey Cup games, winning twice. It’s lame, negligent and unacceptable, and I’ll never understand how a big-city daily allows its sports columnist to snub two of the three major beats.

GIFT: Between Ted Wyman at the Winnipeg Sun and Jeff Hamilton at the Drab Slab, Good Ol’ Hometown receives the best print coverage of Rouge Football on Our Mostly Frozen Tundra. Teddy and Jeff lap the field every year.

LUMP O’ COAL: Carey Price put up a pro-gun post four days prior to the 33rd anniversary of the Ecole Polytechnique massacre, in which 14 women were slaughtered. It’s okay for the Montreal Canadiens goaltender to be pro firearms, but the timing of his post was ghastly. Almost as bad was teammate Joel Edmundson, who said this about that: “None of us are really aware of what happened 30 years ago. The (Polytechnique) anniversary is fast approaching—it’s news to all of us, to be honest.” Good grief.

GIFT: To say Rick Bowness came in with a bang would be the biggest understatement since Noah said, “Geez, it smells like rain.” The Winnipeg Jets freshly minted head coach hadn’t been in town long enough to order a cup o’ java and cheese nip at the Sals when he instructed the seamstress to snip the ‘C’ off Blake Wheeler’s jersey, and I’d say it’s been win-win for both parties. Bones’ Jets are running with the National Hockey League’s big dogs, and Wheeler, until being felled by an owie, had been productive with less ice time and less face time with news snoops. That’s the bonus, of course: No more daily sourpuss sound bites from the former Captain Grumpy Pants.

GIFT: The Jets hit all the right notes when they unveiled a downtown pigeon perch to legend Dale Hawerchuk in October.

LUMP O’ COAL: Let’s be clear, Greg Norman and Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson et al have a right to earn a living with the LIV Golf Series, even if it means they need to wash the Saudi blood off their hands every time they cash a paycheque. But does Norman have to be so bitter about it? My goodness, it’s as if every horse in the Kentucky Derby piddled on the Shark’s Corn Flakes one morning.

LUMP O’ COAL: Here’s all you need to know about the Saudi/Greg Norman LIV Golf Series: Pat Perez was handed a four-year, $10 million deal, just to stick a tee in the ground. “Look, I know I can’t beat those kids (on the PGA Tour) anymore. This was a great opportunity for me. I have nothing against the PGA Tour; they did a lot for me, but I had to earn everything I got out there.” Imagine that. Earning your wage. What a concept.

LUMP O’ COAL: TV talking heads made complete donkeys of themselves with their gushing over has-beens Tiger Woods and Serena Williams like they’re still at the top of their games. Hey, maybe Tiger will win another golf tournament (doubtful), and perhaps Williams hasn’t actually retired and she’ll return to win another tennis tourney. Until then, the boys and girls in the blurt box need to use their yakkety-yak time to talk about athletes winning today, not back in the day.

LUMP O’ COAL: Damien Cox and friends of the Toronto Star still believe they have the final say on Canada’s athlete-of-the-year. As if…Novak Djokovic is still wearing tin foil on his head…Bob Costas sat behind the play-by-play mic during MLB playoffs and he refused to shut the hell up. He talked about everything but baseball…The Arizona Coyotes play in a 4,800-seat rinky-dink rink…Danny Maciocia canned Khari Jones due to a lack of discipline and hired himself as head coach of the Montreal Larks. So what happened in the fourth quarter of their East Division final vs. the Toronto Argos? Maciocia’s Larks took four undisciplined penalties to seal their fate…TSN talking heads continually lied about head counts for CFL games. Yo! Boys! We aren’t stupid. We can see the empty seats. Glen Suitor was the worst, constantly blabbing about “packed” ballparks and telling us there was “close to 40,000” at B.C. Place Stadium for the West semifinal, even if attendance was scarcely more than 30,000. Meanwhile, Milt Stegall informed us the Bombers had “sellouts through the season.” There were, in fact, two sellouts, both in September…Kyrie Irving, just because he’s Kyrie Irving…The Boston Bruins signed bully Mitchell Miller and the Montreal Canadiens signed Logan Mailloux, a young man who likes to take pics of women engaged in sexual activity and, without their consent, share the photos with his frat boy buddies. Oinkers.

LUMP O’ COAL: Dumbest tweet of the year from Theoren Fleury, the former NHLer and current conspiracy theorist who, when last seen, was plummeting into a deep rabbit hole: “The biggest spreaders of misinformation are the ones who are spreading misinformation.”

And, finally…