Let’s talk about “idiot kickers” and June Cleaver … nuns tsk-tsking Harrison Butker … farewell to Alan Small … Scofflaw Scottie Scheffler … friends who belong in halls of fame … and other things on my mind

June Cleaver

One thing you should know about Harrison Butker is that he kicks a football for a living, which means he spends an awful lot of time on his own.

Solitude, you see, is a way of life for a kicker of footballs.

If you see them standing on the sideline, you’ll notice that there’s usually a lot of empty space between themselves and their teammates, as if the kicker can’t stop farting. You seldom see anyone talking to them because the other guys—the actual football players—are too busy playing the game to chit-chat and, let’s be honest, nobody really gives a damn what a kicker of footballs has to say.

It’s believed that Mike Vanderjagt was the last kicker of footballs south of the Canada-U.S.A. Divide to deliver a sound bite worthy of anyone’s attention, and that was in 2003 after he’d mean-mouthed Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning and head coach Tony Dungy. The way the Indy kicker of footballs had it figured, the former was too indifferent and the latter too soft for the Colts to rise to the top of the National Football League heap.

“We’re talking about our idiot kicker who got liquored up and ran his mouth off,” Manning responded when quizzed about Vanderjagt at the 2003 Pro Bowl. “What has the sports world come to when we’re talking about idiot kickers? He has ruined kickers for life.”

That Manning rebuke put NFL kickers of footballs on notice: Be seldom seen, be never heard. Thus they retreated to their life of sideline solitude.

And what do people do when alone?

They think.

Well, okay, I suppose some among us are inclined to get up to no good given too much down time, but I’ve always found it to be conducive to deep contemplation, whereby one might study on anything from another summer of raging forest fires across the continent, or a return to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W. for the Trump troupe.

Or, if you’re Harrison Butker, you ponder women and gays and gender and abortion and unmarried couples shacking up pre-wedding vows and Latin mass and inclusion.

Oh, yes, we know the Kansas City Chiefs hoofer allows his mind to wander in those directions during his sideline solitude because, in 20 minutes of exercising his jaw bone last weekend at Benedictine College in Kansas, Butker’s commencement speech supported Manning’s notion that kickers of footballs are, indeed, idiots.

I mean, the guy who cleans up after the circus elephants doesn’t deal with this much crap.

Examples:

Diversity, equity and inclusion: That’s “tyranny.”

Gay Pride: That’s a “deadly sin.”

Transgender individuals: That’s “dangerous gender ideologies.”

U.S. President Joe Biden: He’s “delusional” for making the sign of the cross at a pro-abortion rally.

Abortion: That, like being LGBT(etc.), is the product of “pervasiveness of disorder.”

God: A life without God “is not a life at all.”

Butker also popped off about the lousy leadership of Catholic bishops and priests, but he reserved his strongest horse-and-buggy commentary for females, speaking to them directly.

“You, the women, have had the most diabolical lies told to you,” he said.

Diabolical lies? I take that to mean fibs like: You can have a career, ladies. You don’t have to be hubby-doting, baby-making machines. You can ditch the kitchen and take a seat in the boardroom, or anywhere else of your choosing. You can be doctors, lawyers, scholars, scientists, physicists (like Butker’s mother), actors, professional athletes, singers/songwriters, cops, firefighters, circus clowns, etc. And, hey, you can do any of that and have kids if that’s your thing.

But not in Harrison Butker’s world, where the 1950s gets in the way of the 21st century and every woman would hold a Mrs. Degree and be June Cleaver. You know, a dutiful “homemaker” cooking din-din in her pearls and heels, at her hubby’s beck and call 24/7, wiping runny noses and, most of all, churning out children the way McDonald’s cranks out Happy Meals.

“How many of you are sitting here now, about to cross this stage, and are thinking about all the promotions and titles you are going to get in your career?” he told the graduating female students. “Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.”

This is what you get when a Catholic kicker of footballs with too much time on his hands shares his Catholic thoughts aloud.

Sure he has the freedom to say it, just as I have the freedom to say, as a non-practising Roman Catholic, that Peyton Manning was right about those guys: Idiot kickers.

Although Butker received a standing O once he had given his gums a rest (no surprise since 85 per cent of the student body at Benedictine is Catholic), I’ll tell you who wasn’t on their feet clapping—nuns. His diatribe was met with a frown and a collective harrumph from the Benedictine Sisters of Mount St. Scholastica, and if I learned anything while attending Roman Catholic school during my sprigness, it’s that you don’t mess with the nuns. Well, Butker messed with the nuns. They gave him a figurative whack on the knuckles with a wooden ruler, posting this on Facebook: “The sisters of Mount St. Scholastica do not believe that Harrison Butker’s comments represent the Catholic, Benedictine, liberal arts college that our founders envisioned and in which we have been so invested. Instead of promoting unity in our church, our nation, and the world, his comments seem to have fostered division. One of our concerns was the assertion that being a homemaker is the highest calling for a woman. We sisters have dedicated our lives to God and God’s people, including the many women whom we have taught and influenced during the past 160 years. These women have made a tremendous difference in the world in their roles as wives and mothers and through their God-given gifts in leadership, scholarship, and their careers. We reject a narrow definition of what it means to be Catholic. We want to be known as an inclusive, welcoming community.” So there. Now go stand in the corner, Harrison Butker or, better yet, go to the chalkboard and write this down 150 times: “A woman’s place is where she wants it to be, not where a kicker of footballs wants it to be.”

Tuition at Benedictine College is $35,350 a year, or $141,400 for four years. That’s a heavy price to pay just to learn how to make brekky for the kids and darn your hubby’s socks. But, hey, if a Mrs. Degree is your thing, ladies, darn on!

Just for the record, not all kickers are idiots. Two of the better quotes among Winnipeg Blue Bombers of yore were Troy Westwood and Bob Cameron, a punter not a place-kicker. I recall one day Cameron bemoaning the curse of his “old man eyebrows,” which, he had recently discovered, required regular trimming. Impressed as he tugged at them, I devoted an entire column to Bob’s brows. Meantime, Westwood’s remark about “banjo-picking inbreds” is legendary in Prairie football folklore. Ol’ Lefty would later offer a mea culpa for labeling folks from the Flattest of Lands as banjo pickers, saying, “I was wrong to make such a statement, and I’d like to apologize. The vast majority of the people in Saskatchewan have no idea how to play the banjo.” That’s classic stuff.

I’m not liking this at all: Another week and another former colleague from the rag trade is dead. This time it’s Alan Small, a charming and delightful man and the arts and entertainment guru at the Drab Slab. Al joined us for a brief time at the Winnipeg Sun before moving across the street to the broadsheet in the late 1990s, and we had occasion to share a few pints at the original Toad In The Hole and Carlos & Murphy’s in Osborne Village. I enjoyed spending time with him. He was a tad quirky, and I enjoyed his company because he was so real in his quirkiness. I loved his laugh. I giggled whenever he would rub his hands together in glee after delivering a ripe one-liner or a joke. I liked how he saw the good in people, even though we both worked in an industry that too often is required to focus on the bad in people. I liked that he liked Bob Dylan, which served us well at the Toad since the wee Scottish barman, Des, played his music non-stop. Al’s death is a blow to the folks at the Winnipeg Free Press, and I share their sadness.

Word of Al’s death arrived a week after we lost Brian Smiley, a former colleague at Sun newspapers in Calgary and Good Ol’ Hometown. Both were younger than me and it’s a damn shame that I’m writing about them in the past tense.

I’m not sure what to make of the Toronto Maple Leafs hiring Craig Berube to pull the strings behind the players bench. I mean, yes, the guy’s kind of scary in a bite-the-head-off-a-live-chicken sort of way, and he coached a Stanley Cup champion in St. Louis. But he also has a losing record in the playoffs, with three first-round exits in five tournaments. Which, come to think of it, sounds like a perfect fit for the Leafs.

On the subject of early ousters from the playoffs, the Republic of Toronto Team To Be Named Later bowed out of the Professional Women’s Hockey League post-season in, you guessed it, the first round. My question is this: How will the rabble in The ROT blame it on Mitch Marner?

We know the PWHL won’t disappear like summer wages because Mark and Kimbra Walter have thrown a good chunk of their billions behind it, but should there be concern about playoff head counts? While business was bustling in both Montreal and The ROT, with average audiences of 9,653 and 8,518, respectively, the rabble south of the Canada-U.S.A. Divide hasn’t bought in. Minnesota drew just 3,055 for its two home assignments and the number was 2,781 for Boston’s sole game. Those two outfits will compete for the Walter Cup. Will anyone notice?

It’s generally accepted that this is a special time for professional female sports, but the lads in the toy department at the Drab Slab apparently missed that memo. In the past six editions, there has been the grand total of one article and one brief on the Ponytail Puck playoffs. One article, one brief. In six days. Sad. Completely ignored was the Toronto-Minny Game 5 showdown on Friday night. The final buzzer sounded at 8:26 Winnipeg time. What’s the deadline for the Freep sports pages? Noon?

Having said that, here’s something else I’d like to say about the Drab Slab: On the whole, they put out a bloody good Saturday sheet.

So tell us, Brady Tkachuk, what do you think about the style of hockey at the world championship? “Too bad there’s no fighting,” says the Ottawa Senators captain. Sigh.

Wasn’t that some kind of story at the PGA Championship the other day? I mean, the best golfer in the world, Scottie Scheffler, was arrested, handcuffed, hauled off to jail, fingerprinted, had his mug shot taken while wearing a prison-orange jump suit, and charged with numerous felonies. Geez, the lengths some golfers won’t go to just to get CBS broadcasters to talk about someone other than Tiger Woods.

After his brush with the law in Louisville, Scofflaw Scottie dashed to Valhalla Golf Course to make his tee time, then took just 66 swings in the second round of the PGA Championship. Now that is a crime.

Hey, the ponies will be off and galloping on the west side of Good Ol’ Hometown on Monday night, and it’s nice to know that Darren Dunn and Sharon Gulyas continue to make Assinbioia Downs a happening place. Darren’s the CEO and Sharon is VP out at the Downs, and I still harbor fond memories of my visits there back in the day. They’re fabulous hosts.

A tip of the bonnet to Andrea Backlund, who’s included in the Football Manitoba Hall of Fame class of 2024. That qualifies Andrea as a trailblazer, because she’s the first female player to make the grade. Well done.

I don’t anticipate that I’ll ever be inducted into a sports hall of fame, so I root, root, root for my friends and former colleagues, many of whom have already been honored by various halls. Next in line should be my dear friend Dave Komosky, who ought to be a shoo-in for the Canadian Curling Hall of Fame once he puts away his pen and notepad. Davey’s been cranking out the good stuff on our Pebble People for more than half a century, at four different daily newspapers, and he still isn’t prepared to slap a -30- on his Curling Canada writing/editing gig. But he has to be a first-ballot hall-of-famer once he’s done. Meantime, I also want to see another dear friend, Judy Owen, find her way into the media wing of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame. Judy is among the female pioneers in football coverage.

And, finally, there was a heavyweight championship fist fight in Saudi Arabia on Saturday night, with Oleksandr Usyk getting the better of the Gypsy King, Tyson Fury, on points. I guess that makes Usyk the Alphabet King, because he now holds the WBC, WBA, WBO, IBF and Ring magazine title belts. Just for the record, I don’t have that many belts in my clothes closet.

Female sports, male jock journos and Blithering Idiot Syndrome

Montreal and Toronto packed the Bell Centre for their Professional Women’s Hockey League skirmish last weekend.

As with many who stub their toes in public these days, the character assassination of Gregg Doyel has been swift, voluminous and “off-with-his-head!” in tone.

He’s become the Pinata of Print, battered fore and aft in mainstream media and on social media.

Doyel’s trespass?

Basically, being a doofus.

For reasons known only to himself, Doyel held to the notion that a press conference to introduce Caitlin Clark to the Indiana Fever faithful last week was about him, not the fresh new face of hoops in America. He then delivered a mea culpa that definitely was about him, not her. In short, he unleashed an ego the size of the Goodyear Blimp, at the same time confirming the existence of Blithering Idiot Syndrome (more on that later).

If you missed it, here’s how it went down:

The Fever trotted out Clark two days after they’d used the first shout-out in the Women’s National Basketball Association draft to claim the University of Iowa star as their own. Doyel was among the assembled news snoops and one of the first invited to ask a question, which the Indianapolis Star scribe prefaced by flashing a hand-heart, Clark’s signature gesture to her family post-game.

“You like that?” said Clark.

“I like that you’re here. I like that you’re here,” replied Doyel.

“Ya, I do that at my family after every game.”

“Okay, well, start doing it to me and we’ll get along just fine.”

Eeeeeuw! I think the creep-o-metre just went kaflooey.

It was an awkward bit of business with gusts up to ignorant, because it got worse.

When called upon again, Doyel said this to Fever head coach Christie Sides: “You just were given the keys to that. What are you gonna do with it?”

That? It?

Oh my.

Many have submitted that no jock journo, male or female, would be inclined to refer to, say, LeBron James or Steph Curry as a “that” or an “it,” but those words tripped off Doyel’s tongue as easily as if he was talking about a raccoon rooting through his rubbish bin.

Well, women aren’t thats or its or raccoons. They’re people, some of whom happen to excel at sports.

Which brings me to Blithering Idiot Syndrome.

It’s a curious abnormality that afflicts the male species on press row (some, but certainly not all) when they feel obliged to stray over to the distaff portion of the playground and report on the women at play. The lads are rendered clueless, and in-grained beliefs and built-in biases, if not colossal stupidity, slithers into their copy and/or commentary.

Thus, in the wake of the Doyel sideshow, the suggestion has been made that male jock journos know squat about how to cover, and interact with, female athletes.

Here’s sports scribe/commentator Jemele Hill: “Another upside of Caitlin Clark’s popularity is that it is going to finally force the sports media to grow up. Sports media has been extremely complicit in marginalizing and infantilizing women’s sports. A lot of the commentary and coverage is now coming from people who have little experience covering female athletes.”

Here’s Jackie Powell of MSNBC: “Sports coverage has generally been aimed at satisfying the stereotypical white, male sports fan. What’s going to happen, then, when journalists who are used to appeasing the interests and tastes of mostly men have to write to the interests of WNBA fans, a more diverse demographic?”

Hmmm. A more diverse demographic. Diversity is female sports, and lord help those dear boys on press row once they discover that scads of gay women populate the field and stadium pews.

Oh, yes, we all know that lesbians are plentiful in female sports. Somewhere between 25 and 30 per cent of the WNBA roll call is out and proud. The Canadian women’s hockey team that won the 2022 Olympic gold medal featured nine out gay players. Nine. That’s 39 per cent of the roster. Meantime, there’s an abundance of LGBT(etc.) players on World Cup soccer sides (96 in 2023), not to mention the National Women’s Soccer League. It follows, therefore, that a high number of lesbians count themselves among the constituents of elite female sports leagues, and they’ll be looking to read and watch informative dispatches in print, on air and online, not tripe.

But I digress.

The gay component is a sidebar to the main issue, that being the schooling of male jock journos who, until the ascendancy of women’s futbol, hockey and, especially, basketball into the consciousness of the public in recent years, were quite content to carry on with business as usual. Which is to say ignore, ignore, ignore women’s leagues.

The very idea that the rabble is now following, and enjoying, female sports with record head counts and unparalleled viewership must be such an inconvenience to a male-dominated industry (a study shows that less than 20 per cent of sports staffs at 100 newspapers and websites in North America are female). Minds must be a-boggle.

Truthfully, though, the notion that male jock journos require an immediate crash course on how to properly cover female athletes seems dopey in the extreme.

I mean, come on, man. Whether it’s Nelly Korda or Scottie Scheffler shooting under-par golf, surely the dudes on press row ought to be able to tell the story of a person who’s arrived at the pinnacle of their sport. Does it actually matter that Scottie has chin whiskers and Nelly ties her hair in a topknot?

I’d like to give the lads the benefit of the doubt and suggest Jemele Hill and Jackie Powell are conjuring up a faux boogeyman, but the Doyel buffoonery makes that difficult. Ditto the scribblings of someone like Postmedia columnist Steve Simmons, who appears to be blissfully unaware that his opinionating is sexist in tone.

For example, when National Hockey League commissioner Gary Bettman announced last week that he’d be plopping a franchise in Salt Lake City, Utah, this was Simmons’ reaction:

“Why won’t Utah have a name and logo for its first season? It’s April. The season starts in October. Surely, a name, a logo and a jersey is more than possible by then.”

Rather benign, wouldn’t you say?

Now compare that to what he wrote when the National Women’s Hockey League introduced a no-name, no-logo, no-jersey Toronto franchise in 2020.

“It has been officially announced that Toronto has been awarded an expansion team. What hasn’t been announced: the team’s name; the team’s logo; the team’s venue. And some of those things, if not all of them, can make an outsider rather skeptical and troubled about the future of this kind of endeavour. You don’t gain credibility by announcing a team with no name, no place to play, and no big-name players. When you have all that in place, then make the announcement. The press release referred to the expansion team as a ‘first class team of professionals.’ Time will answer that, but the new Toronto Whatevers are not off to a great start.”

Rather harsh, wouldn’t you say?

Also sexist. I mean, Simmons basically gives the Utah Whatevers, a men’s team in a men’s league, a questioning tsk-tsk, yet the Toronto Whatevers, a women’s team in a women’s league, was taken to the woodshed and bludgeoned. (Simmons also has repeatedly mangled the names of female leagues.)

It’s Blithering Idiot Syndrome in motion.

But, hey, perhaps dudes like Doyel and Simmons have actually done the lads on press row a solid—they’ve showed them how not to do it.

As Hill and Powell submit, class is definitely in session.

Let’s talk about in-your-face female athletes…Kim blah-blah-blah Mulkey…the Cult of Dumb on Hockey Night in Canada…Jack and jackasses…and other things on my mind

Caitlin Clark

This just in: Female athletes cuss.

Who knew?

Moreover, female athletes also get royally PO’d and act out, waving their arms like those tall, inflatable thingies that you see on used car lots. The women holler at game officials, they screech at foes, fans and sometimes their own coaches/teammates, and some spit.

You know, just like the guys do.

Yet many among the rabble were shocked—shocked, I say!—when Iowa hoops star Caitlin Clark was observed on ESPN cameras telling unknown somebodies to either “Shut the f–k up!” or “Get the f–k up!” during a rather tense tussle with West Virginia in the madness that is NCAA March basketball stateside.

Either way, it was an F-bomb and, no surprise, social media was abuzz with chatter about improper, boorish behavior, even though it wasn’t anything we hadn’t seen or heard before.

Just last summer, for example, there was a nasty collision during a Canada-Australia women’s World Cup footy skirmish, whereby Allysha Chapman and Hayley Raso made like bumper cars while challenging for a free ball. Raso took the worst of it, prompting Matildas’ coach Tony Gustavsson to chirp Chapman from his perch on the sideline.

Sensitive off-pitch microphones failed to pick up Gustavsson’s trash talk, but there was no mistaking Chapman’s verbal volley.

“She f–king jumped into me, you tw-t!” the Canadian defender snapped back at him.

The decorous sport of curling offered another e.g. during the recent Scotties Tournament of Hearts, whereby a mic’d-up Val Sweeting of Team Einarson was overhead dropping back-to-back F-bombs about how she was having so much “f–king fun.”

So here’s what I find myself wondering: Are female athletes still held to a different standard than their male counterparts when it comes to bedside manner? Are they still expected to be prissy missies, like so many June Cleavers in sneakers or skates? Has Caitlin Clark been battered fore and aft in large part because she’s a she?

I’d like to think not, but I suspect otherwise.

As much as female sports is experiencing a considerable, long-awaited growth spurt (see: Professional Women’s Hockey League, international futbol, women’s college hoops), it comes with greater scrutiny and I’m not convinced everyone is peering into the same lens. That is, when we see Caitlin Clark acting out, do we see an athlete whining to a referee and flailing with her arms, or do we see a female athlete whining to a ref and flailing with her arms?

There should be no such distinction.

Females athletes at the elite level have the same yearnings as men. They want to win. Did anyone want to succeed more than Hayley Wickenheiser or Christine Sinclair?

Call it passion.

Watch the upcoming women’s world hockey tournament and you’ll see passion on public display, most notably when Canada and the Yankee Doodle Damsels are on the same frozen pond. No male hockey player is more “into it” than Marie-Philip Poulin or Hilary Knight.

And because female athletes are as passionate about their work as men, they’re prone to emotional outbursts. That can mean a moment of madness, or a potty mouth.

And, by god, female athletes need not make apologies for any of it.

This is their time and they’ve earned it. They’re confident, they’re proud, they’re loud (hello, Megan Rapinoe), they’re ruthless, they’ve got attitude, some of them are angry, they’re in your face, and they aren’t interested in being ladylike once inside the lines just to satisfy a dog-eared stereotype.

And, hey, keep this in mind: Between the National Hockey League and the PWHL, only one of the two has the word “Lady” in the name of an individual award, and it isn’t the women’s league.

Having said all that, few people in sports get up my nose quite like Kim Mulkey, head coach with the LSU women’s hoops team. I swear, she’s up both my nostrils. She’s a first-class boor who seems to hold to the misguided notion that it’s her world and the rest of us are allowed to participate in life only at her beckoning. She’s Bobby Knight in pumps and a clown suit. Her threat to sue Washington Post award-winning reporter Kent Babb last weekend (for a so-called “hit piece” that turned out to be a Nothing Burger) is a case in point: “Not many people are in a position to hold these kind of journalists accountable, but I am, and I’ll do it,” she said. Well, la-di-da, your Royal Haughtiness. Let us all bow and grovel.

Mulkey was at it again on Saturday, delivering another sermon and claiming that the “hall-of-famers, legendary coaches” who taught her “probably couldn’t coach in this generation.” Right. She’s better. Other talking points were sexism, requiring her players to pray on Sundays, and a Los Angeles Times article that she decided was “awful.” It was all spoken in a pontifical tone, with Mulkey trying to look and talk as tough and menacing as a school-teacher nun with a wooden ruler in her hand, but it was a pathetic piece of theatre.

Happy Easter to all. My favorite Easter-themed athlete names:
Bunny Shaw
Rabbit Maranville
Bugsy Watson
Hopalong Cassady
Bunny Larocque

True confession time: Way back when, I figured there would be palm trees, coconuts and a nightly luau at Portage and Main before Connor Hellebuyck became a top-drawer NHL goaltender. D’oh! The guy just played his 500th game for the Winnipeg Jets, and there hasn’t been a whole lot of clunkers in the bunch. A tip of the bonnet.

Ted Wyman is miffed that Rink Rat Scheifele was excused from the Jets skirmish Thursday night, a 4-1 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights. “The penalty to Scheifele was excessive,” Wyman wrote in the Winnipeg Sun. “They could have simply called him for roughing instead of giving him an instigator penalty and fighting major. His actions didn’t warrant being banished for 17 minutes, which would have kept him out through overtime had the game gone on that long.” Well, let’s see. The Rink Rat started a fight with Nicolas Hague. That’s two minutes. He fought Hague. That’s another five minutes. And instigating fisticuffs calls for 10 more minutes in stir. Seems to me the gendarmes got it right.

The Scheifele-Hague punch-up is part of NHL rot. One guy, Hague of the Golden Knights, flattened a foe, Vlad Namestnikov, and a third party, the Rink Rat, was so mortified at the sight of his comrade laid out on the freeze that he bared his knuckles and sought retribution. To fight for no reason is, of course, the NHL “code,” except the NHL “code” is a con job that players like Scheifele swallow whole, even if it means taking dumb penalties when a game hangs in the balance. Really, about the only thing dumber than the “code” are NHL players dumb enough to believe that a bodycheck is a command to open a can of whoop ass on an opponent. So when Kevin Bieksa and Kelly Hrudey go on Hockey Night in Canada to inform us that Scheifele’s brain fart was “admirable” and “honorable,” they’re merely reminding us that they’re also card-carrying members of the Cult of Dumb.

Saw this thread on X the other day:
“I don’t expect xG and G to track as closely at 5v4 as at 5v5.”
“NST showed a modest xGF/60 bump during the hot streak—but their GF/60 went bananas.”
“Depends on the xG model. Some are trained with state taken into account, some are not.”
That’s what passes for hockey talk with the kids these days. Bless ’em.

Dumb headline on the Sportsnet website last week: “Darryl Watts and PWHL Ottawa are heating up at the right time.” Say again? The “right time?” I must have missed a memo, because I thought Ponytail Puck had shut down for three weeks and Ottawa won’t crank it up again until April 20.

Just wondering: Am I supposed to care that golf great Jack Nicklaus pals around with Donald Trump? I mean, sure, the former U.S. president tells fibs (real whoppers), he paws and gropes women, he mocks men for their disabilities, he sends his stooges to storm the Capitol, odds are he’ll spend some time in an orange jump suit, he’s a grifter like we’ve never seen and is now peddling bibles to prove suckers are born every minute. He’s total cringe, a rancid human being. But, last time I checked, none of us, including the Golden Bear, requires permission to put on a red MAGA cap and act every bit the Trump toady. Nicklaus’ political leanings won’t change my life any. But, damn, it’s still kind of sad to see ol’ Jack playing the fool instead of playing golf.

If there’s a Jackass of the Year Award, UFC fighter Julian Eroso is the clubhouse leader, and I suspect he’ll still be at the head of the pack nine months from now. I mean, how else do we explain his wacko rant after beating Ricardo Ramos last Saturday, except to say he’s a jackass? If you missed it, for reasons known only to himself and the voices emanating from inside his tin foil-lined cap, Eroso thought his post-fight natter with news snoops was the proper time and place to challenge Lia Thomas to a fight in the octagon. Yes, that would be law student and former collegiate swimmer Lia Thomas, a transgender female. The way Eroso has it sorted out in his vacuous brain pan, he would make the transition to a woman while Thomas would skip a few law classes in order to hone her mixed martial arts skills. They would then get it on in the octagon, whereupon Eroso would kick “the dude’s ass.” Good grief. How many nights did Eroso lay awake coming up with that bit of dimwitted blather? But, then, Eroso also confirmed that he’s “not the smartest crayon in the box.” None among his audience disagreed.

But, wait. Closing fast on the inside as Jackass of the Year is Chris DiMarco, who has his fingers and toes crossed in the hope that Saudi-backed LIV Golf purchases Old Fogey Golf, which is to say the PGA Tour Champions. That way, he and the rest of golf’s 50-plus fossils can start making “real money,” rather than settle for the Monopoly money available to them on the geriatric tour. “We don’t really play for much money,” he moaned to the boys on something called the Subpar Podcast. “It’s kind of a joke.” Excuse me, but it’s not like the ol’ boys are playing for beads and trinkets. There’s $67 million available to them this year, including a $2.2 million purse at this weekend’s Galleri Classic. One of the fossils, a dude named Steve Alker, has pocketed $555,707. For three months of work. DiMarco pleading poverty is like Streisand begging for singing lessons.

For the record, DiMarco has cashed cheques totaling $22,656,443 as a PGA golfer, placing him 94th for all-time loot. Unless he has Homer Simpson for an accountant, $22-plus million should have been enough to make him nice and comfy as he greys at the temples. Golf should be a hobby by now. But, no, he’s still out there hacking away, and “hacking” is the operative word—he’s earned $36,591 this year. So it’s quite simple: If DiMarco wants more coin, shut the hell up and play better golf.

On the subject of coin, if you’re bored and want to prove there’s a sucker born every minute, you can make tracks for Arlington, Texas, where Mike Tyson and Jake Paul promise to throw punches at each other in a cash grab disguised as boxing on July 20. The sticker price to watch the con job at AT&T Stadium is anywhere from $359 to $16,097. I’m guessing Chris DiMarco can’t fit that into his budget.

And, finally, interesting post on X from Paul Samyn, editor at the Winnipeg Free Press: “HIRING ALERT: Come join a newspaper that wants to grow rather than gut the newsroom. Opportunities include the chance to work in our legislative bureau.” This is terrific news. Now, if only he’d recruit a female sports scribe and a sports columnist, then they’d be up to speed.

Let’s talk about things that make me go hmmm, volumes 1,163 to 1,174, and a few things that don’t make me go hmmm…

Happy St. Paddy’s Day to the Irish and those who wish they were Irish.

But, hey, don’t drink green beer today, because that’s a dumb American thing and a dead giveaway that you aren’t actually Irish. A real Sionainn or Padraig wouldn’t whet their whistle with a brewski laced with food coloring.

Sure would be swell to be down at The Toad in Osborne Village today for a gathering of the Irish and wannabe Irish. I hear the lovely Shannon will be holding court, and her lovely sister Maura might sit in as well. I have fond memories of sitting on a Toad stool during St. Paddy’s Days past.

The all-St. Pat’s team:
Padraig Harrington
Patrick Ewing
Pat Summitt
Patty Berg
Patrick Kane
Patrick Mahomes
Patrick Roy
Pat Quinn
Pat Riley
Lynn Patrick

What in the name of Arthur Guinness were the Toronto Maple Leafs wearing for their skirmish vs. Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday night? Unless my peepers were playing tricks, that sure looked like a green shamrock on the jersey front. And green pants, green gloves, green trimming and green lids. Yup, they were as green as Kermit. I’d swear it was a nod to the Irish and St. Paddy. Hmmm. Perhaps National Hockey League commish Gary Bettman can remind us of the ban on all specialty unis on specialty nights, which is actually a ban on the Pride Rainbow.

It’s about those 18,000 missing Jaromir Jagr bobblehead dolls: The kidnappers are demanding a 2010 Barbie doll in exchange for their safe return, although word on the street is that the scofflaws would settle for a Barbie original from 1959. Hey, don’t laugh. The Mattel-Stefano Canturi 2010 Barbie is valued at $302,500, while a Barbie original once sold at auction for $27,450. And that was before Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie made a big deal out of Barbie on the big screen.

I don’t spend a whole lot of time on X, but I caught this post from deep-dive analytics guy Garret Hohl last week, re the Winnipeg Jets: “All 3 lines with Ehlers on them was over 60% xG. Ehlers highest xG on the team.” Hmmm. Something tells me I should have paid more attention during Mr. Shlanka’s algebra class at Miles Mac.

There wasn’t a spare seat to be had in the Little Hockey House On The Prairie the other night when the Disney Ducks came calling on the Jets, yet there were close to 2,000 unoccupied chairs two nights earlier for a visit from division rival Nashville Predators. That makes sense to whom?

On the subject of head counts, two Professional Women’s Hockey League games attracted 13,736 customers to Little Caesars Arena in Motown and another 9,006 to the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul on Saturday. Hmmm. The bigger the venue, the bigger the gatherings. Seems to me Ponytail Puck might have sold itself short by booking most of its frolics in small barns.

So, the goon element has arrived in Ponytail Puck, with Toronto’s Brittany Howard told to sit down for a game after taking the lumber to Catherine Daoust of Montreal. Howard is also out of pocket $250, ditto Rebecca Leslie, for yanking their foes’ face cages. Hmmm. Somewhere Deputy Dawg of the NHL, George Parros, is saying to himself, “So that’s how it’s supposed to be done.”

The PWHL trade deadline is Monday afternoon at 4 o’clock eastern. Hmmm. Does James Duthie know about this? I mean, will James gather his cast of thousands at TSN and spend nine hours hosting an exercise in excessive tongue-wagging? Of course not. Other than Cheryl Pounder, they’d struggle to name nine players in Ponytail Puck, let alone gab about them for nine hours.

Headline on the Sportsnet website: “Flames mailbag: What to expect from Brzustewicz?” Hmmm. Another vowel would be nice.

Anson Carter is leading a push for an NHL expansion franchise in Atlanta, which is already a two-time graveyard. Hmmm. How does a former journeyman forward who could score only when in collaboration with the Sedin twins collect enough coin to get involved with high rollers? Do TNT, MSG Network and Rogers pay him that much to flap his gums?

Caught a bit of a Blue Jays game the other day while channel surfing, and I noted Toronto shortstop Bo Bichette doing a bit of the hot dog thing. Hmmm. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone so obsessed with their hair since Farrah Fawcett in the 1970s.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is on the hunt for a running mate in his bid for the White House, and New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers is on his short list. Hmmm. I wasn’t aware of a Tin Foil Hat Party in the U.S.

Apparently former rassler Jesse Ventura has also been shortlisted by RFK Jr., which brings to mind this quote from funny guy Alex Kaseberg when grappler Jesse was governor of Minnesota: “Many people criticize ESPN for selecting a horse, Secretariat, as the 35th of the 50 best athletes of all time. I say why not select a big animal that can’t verbally communicate? The voters of Minnesota did.”

No one asked me, but I’m prepared to give Briane Harris the benefit of the doubt in the Curious Case of the Contaminated Curler. I don’t care what the squints in lab coats say. There’s no way Briane had her hand in the juice jar. Not knowingly. Pebble People don’t do that sort of thing, unless they’re Russian, in which case Vlad Putin’s mad scientists use all athletes’ butts for pin cushions. There must be a logical reason why gremlins appeared in Briane’s pee, rendering her unavailable to Kerri Einarson and the Gimli Gals at the recent Scotties Tournament of Hearts. There just has to be.

I find it interesting that when an athlete in a warrior sport like football is outed as a doper (hello, Andrew Harris) many ignore his squeals of innocence and assume him to be guilty. Yet there’s been no such tut-tutting of a curler. Why is that? Because the rabble still doesn’t think of Pebble People as true athletes, or they can’t see the benefits of curlers juicing up? Well hello. Have you seen the size of some of the guys on the grunt end of a push broom these days? The front ends of some men’s teams look like they come off the assembly line at John Deere or New Holland. But no. Briane Harris does not look like farm equipment.

They’ve done the unthinkable and recruited a head hunter to ferret out a Sugar Daddy for the community-operated Edmonton Elks, and the one-time Canadian Football League flagship franchise could have a private bankroll in place sometime during the upcoming crusade. If not before. Hmmm. That ought not be viewed as a bad thing. The last two men to join the Lords of Rouge Football, Amar Doman in B.C. and Pierre Karl Peladeau in Montreal, have made a difference in their once-ailing markets. Head counts on the Other Side Of The Rocks have risen dramatically since Doman began to pay the bills for the B.C. Leos, while Pierre Karl knows enough to let his football people make the football decisions, and his Larks are Grey Cup champions. So there.

I wonder if we’ll ever see something similar unfold in Good Ol’ Hometown, where the Winnipeg Blue Bombers have become the flagship franchise of Rouge Football under the guiding hand of CEO Wade Miller and the watchful eyes of a community-run board of directors. You don’t suppose David Asper is still holding out hope, do you?

So the Dickenson boys have become a tag-team in Calgary, where Craig has joined little brother Dave as a senior consultant with the Stampeders. Hmmm. How is that going to work? Since little brother Dave is both head coach and GM, what exactly does big brother Craig bring to the table, except maybe Dave’s lunch? I mean, it sounds to me like a go-fer job.

And, finally, it appears that Winnipeg doesn’t want me as much as I want Winnipeg. That is to say, reports of my return to Good Ol’ Hometown have been greatly exaggerated, since landlords don’t seem to like the cut of my jib. Hmmm. Was it something I wrote? Well, I don’t know what I can tell them, except to say it’s the only jib I have.

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 the PWHL, the sports media and Cabbage Patch Kids…PWHL players sticking their necks out…PWHL Minny outdraws the Jets…the Drab Slab still failing on the female file…Jen jawin’ with the ol’ boys on Sportsnet…and other things on my mind

When you’ve been taking in oxygen for 73-plus years, you’ve seen some fads.

You know, things like Cabbage Patch Kids dolls. The Pet Rock. Hula hoops. Hacky sacks. Mood rings. Lava lamps. Davy Crockett coon-skin caps. Rubik’s Cube. ThighMaster. The Macarena. Lava lamps. Waterbeds.

Some of them lasted about as long as summer wages, while others had considerable staying power.

I mention these now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t items because there’s a faddish feel to the Professional Women’s Hockey League.

I mean, the upstart PWHL is clearly the flavor du jour and, judging by the smiling faces in the crowd, it’s quite evident that parents don’t have to drag their kids to the rink kicking and screaming. Our little people can’t get enough of their female hockey heroes.

The demand has been significant, with these head counts to date: Toronto 2,537 (sellout); Ottawa 8,318 (world record for professional Ponytail Puck); Boston 4,012; New York 2,152; Minnesota 13,316 (new world record). That’s not to ignore a boffo TV audience for the New York-Toronto opening act (2.9 million on CBC, TSN and Sportsnet).

It all adds up to a feel-good story and, notably, early indications tell us that media is all-in on the PWHL.

It’s been sunshine, lollipops and a sprinkling of fairy dust since the rollout began in the Republic of Tranna on New Year’s Day, with the first five skirmishes of the season airing on both linear TV and online, and there’s been no shortage of attention from the print side.

Indeed, The Athletic reports that scant seconds after the Montreal-Ottawa game at The Arena at TD Place in the nation’s capital last Tuesday, home side head coach Carla MacLeod encountered a gathering of two dozen news snoops and seven TV microphones.

“I don’t know what to say,” she said. “This is incredible. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Meanwhile, Ponytail Puck was front page of the newspaper in Toronto, Ottawa and Boston. Not just front page of sports. Front page of…the…newspaper.

PWHL predecessors—Canadian Women’s Hockey League, Premier Hockey Federation—were never favored with that level of interest. Any reporters who attended CWHL games came dressed as pallbearers.

Question is, what does the media do once the PWHL’s new-car smell has worn off? Do those Page One articles, top-of-the-hightlight-show mentions and live broadcasts on multiple channels disappear?

I mean, as the new kid on the jock block settled in comfortably during the past week, I couldn’t help but recall a Winnipeg Free Press editorial from last February.

The opinion piece spoke to an increasingly nasty dispute between Soccer Canada and the country’s national women’s side, and it was quite scolding in tone, mentioning “ugly gender inequalities” and arguing that “Women’s sport has chronically been devalued and dismissed, and often ignored entirely.”

It cited a 2021 University of Southern California/Purdue University study that found 80 per cent of televised sports news and highlight shows in the United States included “zip, zilch, nada” mention of female athletes.

Let’s set aside for a moment the reality that the Freep was a pot looking for a kettle to call black (its record on the female file is dismal; see below). Let’s deal strictly with the female/male across-the-board imbalance we see on our flatscreens, in our newspapers, online and on digital platforms.

Most studies tell us that females receive 4-6 per cent of overall sports coverage, although Waserman’s The Collective indicates a more accurate figure is 15 per cent.

Either way, the freshly minted PWHL is trudging uphill in a quest to stake out a plot on a sports media landscape divvied up mostly on the whims of men, many of whom have been brainwashed into believing female athletes are second-hand Roses best kept on the periphery, if not out of sight. (Unless, of course, some cleavage is showing, in which case the Postmedia tabloids will find ample room for a lede and sidebar, right beside the Sunshine Girl.)

It’s a tough haul for any new jock op to make a go of it, but more so on the distaff side of the playground where, as the aforementioned Free Press editorial accurately summarized, female athletes/teams have “chronically been devalued and dismissed, and often ignored entirely.”

So let’s be clear on one thing: The PWHL needs the sports media. It’s not the other way around.

The PWHL is like that new chew toy you bring home for your dog. Ol’ Yeller is keen to gnaw on the thing the first few days, but he soon loses interest and goes back to chewing the couch cushions. A lot of sports editors/directors are like Ol’ Yeller.

Put it another way: You can still buy a Cabbage Patch Kids doll today, but it isn’t the riotous bit of business we witnessed 40 years ago, when body armor was a requirement for any parent brave enough to face the toy store mobs in search of the ugly, little things. People actually suffered broken limbs in the chaos (true story). But who even talks about Cabbage Patch Kids these days?

Perhaps this first-week, widespread media embrace of the PWHL is a signal that attitudes are adjusting and that sports editors/directors won’t be quick to abandon this iteration of Ponytail Puck.

Maybe, just maybe, Ol’ Yeller has learned a new trick.

As mentioned above, an example of the great female/male divide in sports coverage can be found on the pages of the Free Press, or as I like to call it, the Drab Slab. As much as they talk a good game about their attention to female athletes/teams, they’re miserable slackers on the female file. Here are the numbers for articles/briefs exclusive to female and male sports for 2023:

Male: 3,892 M (324 per month ave.)
Female: 696 F (58 ave.)
Local female: 192 (16 ave.; average of 10 for the last nine months of 2023.)

Here’s something else: In seven of 12 months, half or more of the total e-editions contained 0 local female coverage. Yes, zero. As in “zip, zilch, nada.”

And yet they have the balls to talk about “ugly gender inequalities” and how female athletes have been “devalued and dismissed, and often ignored entirely.”

If they recognize it’s wrong, why the hell don’t they do something about it?

In the department of Things You Thought You’d Never Hear, I give you Daniella Ponticelli, play-by-play voice with the PWHL. After a late, third-period goal by Laura Stacey in Montreal’s OT win over Ottawa, an excited Ponticelli delivered this gem: “And how about that? First person she gets to hug, her teammate, her linemate Marie-Philip Poulin. Of course those two are engaged and it’s just an incredible moment to share.” It was also an incredible call by Ponticelli, who humanized the occasion by referencing the off-ice relationship between the two gay women. Loved it.

Just a thought: I don’t recall play-by-play pioneer Foster Hewitt ever describing a fiancé-fiancé goal during his time in the Gondola (Google it, kids).

Not so lovely are numerous juvenile comments online that make sport of the sexual orientation and/or question the gender of PWHL players. The specifics of the ugliness won’t be repeated here, but suffice to say some people truly need to get a life.

Count me surprised that the PWHL hasn’t mandated neck protection. Players are required to wear full cages to guard against facial owies, but they’re one skate blade away from a ghastly neck wound (or worse). Doesn’t make sense.

If you’re scoring at home, the eye-popping 13,316 head count for the PWHL Montreal-Minnesota do-si-do at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul on Saturday was a better number than 12 of Winnipeg Jets home dates this season. It tops the average attendance at the Little Hockey House On The Prairie. But, hey, no one wants to watch Ponytail Puck, right?

Again, if you’re scoring at home, women take care of business quicker than the men: All five PWHL skirmishes in the past week were less than 2 1/2 hours from faceoff to final buzzer, whereas nine of last night’s 12 NHL games took more than 2 1/2 hours to complete. The difference isn’t great, but it gives fans at an NHL game ample time for an extra beer run.

A brief comment about the actual PWHL on-ice product: There aren’t enough players with a shoot-first mentality. So many in prime scoring position, so many dumb passes. Shoot the puck, ladies.

There’s been much chatter about the Jennifer Botterill-Jamal Mayers-Sam Cosentino natter the other night on Sportsnet, whereby the trio discussed the merits of the men’s hockey “code,” which, albeit unwritten, is a twisted version of the golden rule and states one must do unto others what others have done to you. In other words, poke out a foe’s eye if said foe has already plucked out a teammate’s eye.

Naturally, Mayers and Cosentino threw in with all advocates of goon hockey, saying two-handed head-bashing with a club is an admirable bit of business to be celebrated rather than scorned. They sounded as dopey as they looked, especially Mayers.

Botterill, meanwhile, pooh-poohed that caveman mentality, shrieking that “it is archaic” and submitting “there’s a difference between tough and physical and cheap and dirty.”

No surprise that many keyboard warriors were quick to pounce on Botterill, insisting that the great Olympic champion has no business opining on such matters because she never played in the NHL.

Well, I’ve got news for you keyboard warriors: Neither did you.

Interesting tweet from Murat Ates of The Athletic: “I can’t speak for any other sports reporter but, for me, the idea of being a perfectly objective robot about the team I cover is a myth.” Amen to that, Murat. I’ve been there and done that, and I can confess that I wanted the 1979 Winnipeg Jets to win, I wanted the 1973 Portage Terriers to win, I wanted Donny Lalonde to knock Sugar Ray Leonard’s block off, but I tried not to let my rooting interest creep into my copy. Were I still in the rag trade, I’d be cheering like hell for the PWHL to succeed. Harboring an unspoken rooting interest for the athletes/teams you cover isn’t a flaw. It’s being human. Back in my day, us beat writers were part of the travelling party, riding on the team bus and often sitting beside them on team flights, which were commercial. I once had American Thanksgiving dinner with Pat Stapleton and his family, at their home, when he coached the Indianapolis Racers. What, I’m not supposed to root for him?

It wasn’t shocking that Connor McDavid scored five points in a game last week. It’s shocking that the Edmonton Oilers captain did it in just 16 minutes and 35 seconds on the freeze. Four forwards and five defencemen had more ice time.

So, the Hamilton Tabbies have performed a nip-and-tuck on brittle quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell’s contract, reducing the bottom line from $522,000 in salary to $225,000 and a $50,000 signing bonus plus incentives. That’s good pay for a guy who’ll spend 2/3 of the Rouge Football season in the infirmary.

My first thought when I heard the Edmonton Elks had signed McLeod Bethel-Thompson to play QB in the 2024 crusade? Is it April 1?

And, finally, apparently a teenage boy in Oklahoma, Willis Gibson, became the first human to beat Tetris. I’d say I’m impressed, but first someone will have to tell me what Tetris is.

PWHL debut was a red-letter day for the Pride Rainbow

I don’t recall the exact moment goose bumps began to sprout on my arms, and I can’t say for certain when I first reached for a Kleenex to dab at my moist eyes.

What I can tell you is this: What went down at Mattamy Athletic Centre on the first day of this new year tugged hard, but not heavy, on my heartstrings, and I’m not sure any sporting event since Canada vs. the Soviet Union in 1972 has held me in such an emotional grip.

This was a red-letter day on so many levels. For girls/women. For female sports. For the LGBT(etc.) community, shunned by the National Hockey League in the past 12 months but wholly embraced on Monday afternoon, as the dream of a one-size-fits-all Professional Women’s Hockey League gave way to reality.

That reality was Toronto vs. New York in the inaugural skirmish in PWHL history, an ‘if you can see it, you can be it’ moment for so many toque-topped kids among the 2,537 witnesses who’d gathered for the first of what will be 12 sold-out games this winter at Mattamy AC, inside the shell of fabled Maple Leaf Gardens.

It was a landscape-shifting occasion and, seemingly at every turn, it included an LGBT(etc.) presence.

There was a mention of LGBT rights on the public address system, and Billie Jean King, a gay woman and member of the PWHL board, was there to drop one of two pucks for the ceremonial faceoff, the other handled by Jayna Hefford, also a gay woman and senior VP of hockey operations for the new league. Joining them were the team captains, Blayre Turnbull of Toronto and New York’s Micah Zandee-Hart, another gay woman. The two women opted for a hug, rather than a handshake.

Billie Jean also had a sit-down natter with Andi Petrillo of CBC, during which she mentioned her wife, Ilana Kloss, another of the PWHL’s driving forces, and said the players were “so excited. They keep pinching themselves.”

Perhaps the most influential woman in the history of female sports, King entered the Toronto boudoir to shout out the names of the starting six, at the same time suggesting the women absorb the moment.

“This is a day to cherish for the rest of your lives,” said the tennis legend and equal rights champion, wearing a wrist watch with a Pride rainbow band. “I cannot tell you how meaningful it’s going to be as you get older.”

There can only be one first game, and this was it, two teams-to-be-named-later sending the PWHL off on its maiden voyage. For now, they’re just Toronto and New York, but nicknames and logos are in the hopper for all six franchises (Ottawa, Montreal, Boston and Minneapolis/St. Paul are the others).

The final tally, 4-0 for the visiting New Yorkers, was important yet not important.

“Today, it was about soaking it all in,” said Cheryl Pounder, a former Canadian national team player and now a TSN natterbug.

These dovetailing moments had been almost five years in the making, beginning spring 2019 when the Canadian Women’s Hockey League was razed to the ground and, scant days later, the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association rose from those ashes.

Rather than throw in with the Premier Hockey Federation (nee National Women’s Hockey League), the finest female players on the planet became a band of barnstormers (Dream Gap Tour), flitting to-and-fro across the tundra and engaging in glorified scrimmages largely ignored by the rabble and mainstream media.

The PHF and PWHPA shared a common interest—one sustainable, professional super league that would allow the women to quit their day jobs—but they didn’t share methodology.

The PHF was an actual league, whereas the Dream Gappers had a beer league vibe and a simple-minded and flawed strategy—trash talk the PHF out of existence; failing that, wait for NHL commissioner Gary Bettman to file papers and adopt the Hockey Orphan Annies.

Both sides were prepared to soldier on in conflict this winter, but Mark and Kimbra Walter, at the urging of King and Kloss, opened their vast vault (personal net worth $5.9 billion) in June and purchased the PHF, adding to an ownership portfolio that includes the Los Angeles Dodgers, Chelsea FC, Los Angeles Sparks and a wildlife reserve in Florida.

Detente and one super league had arrived in Ponytail Puck, and what ensued was a six-month sprint, headed by Stan Kasten, taking the Walter group to go-time and all that gay-friendly energy at Mattamy AC in downtown Toronto on Monday.

It’s noteworthy that two of the game’s goal-scorers—Alex Carpenter and Jill Saulnier—are gay, and perhaps the most poignant moment was delivered in the broadcast booth, when the all-female crew squeezed in a mention of gay spouses/retired Olympians Gillian Apps and Meghan Duggan and newborn news (also a pic) of baby Sophie, a sister for George and Olivia.

As a member of the LGBT(etc.) collective, I took nourishment in all the gay-positive attention, especially given Bettman’s buffoonish and idiotic bans on Pride jerseys and Pride tape, which permitted bigotry to take root, if not flourish, in the NHL.

It was a beautiful occasion, this PWHL birth. An emotional occasion. An occasion special enough to make you want to believe that hockey truly is for everyone.

Crystal Clear: Sports headlines we’ll see in the New Year (or not)

It’s only fake news if we make it up, and some of the following might be fake news…

• Mark Scheifele disappears into giant pothole
  during Winnipeg Jets Stanley Cup parade

WINNIPEG—Over the years, fans of the Winnipeg Jets have often accused Mark Scheifele of disappearing during games.

Well, the now-you-see-him, now-you-don’t veteran literally vanished before their eyes as the National Hockey League club’s Stanley Cup parade inched its way along Portage Avenue during the noon hour here Wednesday.

The caravan had arrived in front of Canada Life Centre when the earth suddenly opened and the car carrying Scheifele plunged into a pothole the size of Grand Beach.

“I swear to gawd, man, that hole absolutely inhaled Scheif,” said one horrified onlooker, wearing a Jets jersey with the name Scheifele stitched on the back. “He was there one second and gone the next. It was like watching Joey Chestnut eat a hot dog.”

“It was like Alice falling down the rabbit hole,” said his friend, “except this won’t be no tea party. I hope they find the dude.”

Work crews were delayed in arriving on the scene, due to the enormous crowds lining both sides of the street, and they weren’t confident the crisis would have a happy-ever-after ending.

“All things being equal, we ought to have Mark out of that pothole and back on the street by suppertime,” said crew chief Mo Redwood. “But there’s no guarantee. You know how it is with us city workers…one guy does all the work and the other five guys stand around and watch him do all the work. Then, when you take into account a Slurpee break every 10 minutes, we could be in for an all-nighter.”

Mayor Scott Gillingham held an impromptu presser at the corner of Portage and Main, offering “thoughts and prayers” to Scheifele but also striking an optimistic note.

“Finally,” he said, “players from other NHL teams can come to Winnipeg and squawk about something other than our crappy WiFi.”

• Bombers win Grey Cup; mayor cancels parade

WINNIPEG—Due to near tragedy during the Winnipeg Jets championship parade in June, Winnipeg City Council has voted to cancel a scheduled Grey Cup parade for the Blue Bombers.

“We can’t take the risk,” Mayor Scott Gillingham said. “Think about it: If a scrawny guy like Mark Scheifele can cave in Portage Avenue, what would happen if a couple of 300-pounders like Stanley Bryant and Jermarcus Hardrick rode in the same car? I cannot in all good conscience allow our great football players to put their careers at risk by riding in a motorcade on our potholed streets.”

Hizzoner Gillingham said in lieu of a parade there will be a rally at The Forks.

“We just hope Stanley and Jermarcus don’t fall into the Red or the Assiniboine Rivers,” he quipped. “We like it when the Bombers make a big splash, but not that kind of splash.”

Mayor Gillingham later apologized for his bad dad joke.

• Sarah Nurse becomes answer to PWHL trivia question

REPUBLIC OF TRANNA—Sara Nurse rang in the New Year with a large dose of history.

It took Nurse just one minute and 22 seconds to score the first goal in Professional Women’s Hockey League history, then she added another to send Toronto on its way to a 4-2 victory over New York before a sellout crowd at Mattamy Athletic Centre on Monday afternoon.

Nurse, a mainstay with Canada’s national team, scored on her first shot in the first PWHL game, much to the delight of 2,600 patrons, some of whom likely arrived at the site of storied Maple Leaf Gardens with New Year’s hangovers.

“I’m sure that would have sobered them up,” Nurse joked. “And I guess that makes me the answer to a trivia question. It doesn’t rank up there with Paul Henderson’s goal or Sidney Crosby’s golden goal or any of Marie-Philip Poulin’s golden goals, but only one player can say they scored the first goal in the PWHL, so I’ll take it. Most important, we won the game.”

Nurse’s stick, sweater and the puck were promptly turned over to a Hockey Hall of Fame official wearing white gloves.

• Female athletes have come a long way, baby

VICTORIA TO ST. JOHN’S—Mainstream media have finally discovered what numerous websites and bloggers have known for years—females play sports. And many of them are very good at it.

Female athletes have moved from the back pages to the front page of sports sections across the land, and they’ve become top-of-the-show material on sports hightlight programs on TSN and Sportsnet, rather than end-of-the-hour filler.

“It’s like they used to say in the Virginia Slims ads back in my day: You’ve come a long way, baby,” said tennis legend and activist Billie Jean King, who’s part of the Professional Women’s Hockey League braintrust. “Media and sponsors that haven’t come on board aren’t reading the room properly. Female sports is where it’s at today, and the male sports editors and male program directors who are slow on the uptake will find themselves on the wrong side of history.”

• Gary Bettman’s gay grandson chosen 1st overall in NHL draft

LAS VEGAS—The No. 1 pick in today’s NHL Entry Draft, Richie Petty, is the out and proud gay grandson of commissioner Gary Bettman.

“Yes, it’s true,” Bettman told a gathering of news snoops. “My grandson is gay. And by sheer coincidence, we’ll now be using rainbow-colored pucks this season. We call it the Pride Puck. And we’re replacing the pre-game national anthems in all rinks with recordings of Judy Garland’s classic Over the Rainbow from The Wizard of Oz.”

When asked to explain his about-face on the LGBT(etc.) file—from anti-gay rulings such as bans on Pride warmup jerseys (a “distraction”) and Pride tape to now embracing the Rainbow—Puck Czar Bettman said: “Who me? Anti-gay? Like most things, the anti-gay narrative, as it relates to myself, was the creation of an over-imaginative, snowflake media. I think if you talk to young Richie, my grandson will assure you that his Grandpops isn’t anti-gay and has never been anti-gay. If you had done your due diligence, you’d know that whenever I babysat him over the years we always watched Ru Paul’s Drag Show together.”

• Great 8 flees home to Mother Russia;
  Great Gretzky’s goal-scoring record safe

MOSCOW—Alex Ovechkin has given up his quest to become the NHL’s all-time greatest goal-scorer.

The Great 8 announced yesterday that he would finish his career with CSKA Moscow, even though he’s just 46 goals shy of Wayne Gretzky’s record of 894.

“I cannot be seen shooting and scoring with this new Pride Puck the NHL will use,” Ovi told the Russian news agency TASS during a hastily called news conference in Red Square. “My close comrade and leader-for-life Vladdy P. has put in place strict laws against promoting the gay lifestyle. Penalties are harsh, like Siberian winter. If I’m breaking Gretzky’s record, they would want photograph of him and me holding rainbow Pride Puck and smiling like two stupid gay men. It would maybe mean gulag for me. I will instead lick Vladdy P.’s boots and shoot and score with black puck on CSKA team.”

Meantime, the Great Gretzky issued this brief statement: “It’s a real shame that Alex has chosen to lick Vladimir Putin’s boots instead of chasing my record.”

• Grapes ripe for return to Hockey Night in Canada

REPUBLIC OF TRANNA—Sources say Sportsnet has reached an agreement to bring Don Cherry back to Hockey Night in Canada.

“It’s a done deal,” said a person with knowledge of negotiations. “It’s my understanding that they’ve agreed to all of Grapes’ demands, foremost among them being the removal of Ron MacLean as host of Hockey Night.”

The source also said the new intermission segment with Cherry will be called You People, not Coach’s Corner, and he will have “free rein to talk about poppies, milk and honey, foreigners, French-Canadians…any marginalized group he thinks he can offend.”

Contacted for a comment, the 89-year-old Cherry would neither confirm nor deny: “I can’t tell you anythink about that. But if it’s true, MacLean won’t be SITTIN’ BESIDE ME! If he wants to talk about history and philosophy, then he should apply for a JOB WITH PBS!’ But I ain’t sayin’ nothink about that. I guess all you media pinkos will have to WAIT TO FIND OUT! I might tell my friends at the Toronto Sun first. They aren’t pinkos. They didn’t crucify me when I was fired, and they wear poppies and EVERYTHINK LIKE THAT!”

There’s no word on who’ll serve as Cherry’s sidekick, but it’s believe Tucker Carlson is being considered.

• RCMP act ‘Swift-ly’ when Taylor’s flight detours to Moose Jaw

MOOSE JAW—A flight carrying pop star Taylor Swift to the next gig on her Eras Tour was forced to detour and make an unplanned stop in this Canadian prairie outpost.

According to airport officials, RCMP boarded the plane upon landing and restrained an unruly passenger later identified as Travis Kelce, a tight end with Kansas City Chiefs of the NFL and Ms. Swift’s boyfriend.

An RCMP spokesperson said Mr. Kelce was extremely loud and belligerent when they approached.

“He’s a very large man and in excellent condition, so he was difficult to handle…I sure wish the Saskatchewan Roughriders had a big, strong boy like him on their roster,” the spokesperson said. “As to his behaviour, Mr. Kelce kept screaming something about ‘goddamn wide receivers who can’t catch a pass if their mother’s life depended on it!’ and ‘Why do Mahomes and I have to do everything?’ Fortunately, Ms. Swift was able to calm Mr. Kelce down by reminding him that he’s her plus-one wherever they go, not the other way around.”

She added that there hadn’t been “this kind of nefarious activity” since Prohibition, when gangsters Al Capone and Diamond Jim Brady were running a bootlegging business in the Moose Jaw tunnels.

Meantime, Ms. Swift was visibly shaken by the ordeal.

“This is insane!” she said. “It’s bad enough that Travis lost his mind. But is there really a place on earth named Moose Jaw?”

• Football rivalry in La Belle Province is no lark;
  CFL adds 10th franchise in Ville de Quebec

QUEBEC CITY—The Canadian Football League has its long-desired 10th franchise, but it isn’t on the East Coast.

Les Harfangs des Neiges de la Ville de Québec/Quebec City Snowy Owls were ushered in by commissioner Randy Ambrosie at a press conference yesterday in the Jacques Cartier Room of Le Chateau Frontenac, with Eric Tillman and Marc Trestman introduced as president/general manager and head coach, respectively.

The Snowy Owls will begin play in 2025.

Asked by Dave Naylor of TSN why the new franchise would hire a head coach with such strong links to the Snowy Owls’ soon-to-be arch rival Montreal Alouettes, Ambrosie said: “I’ll remind you, Dave, that Marc won a Grey Cup with the Toronto Argonauts as recently as 2017, and that might be what some of our younger fans recall. But, yes, you’re right that he’s remembered mostly for the success he had with the Alouettes, winning two Grey Cups. What’s most important to remember here is that our owners and general managers are convinced that there’s only about 20 men in the world qualified to coach a CFL team. Nine of them already have jobs and, of the other 11, half are dead. Marc is one of the undead guys. And so, like so many, he comes out of the recycle bin. But we believe his ties to the Larks will add to the provincial rivalry. Football is gonna be for the birds and lots of fun in Quebec come 2025.”

Meanwhile, Herb Zurkowsky of the Montreal Gazette tracked down retired quarterback Kevin Glenn, the only man to have played for, or was the property of, all nine CFL teams. He wondered if Glenn would contemplate signing a one-day deal to make it a perfect 10-for-10.

“I always wanted to retire as a Snowy Owl,” Glenn replied with a chuckle.

• All bets are off if new law passes

OTTAWA—The Liberal government introduced a bill yesterday that would outlaw advertising for betting sites during live sports events and news shows such as SportsCentre on TSN and Sportsnet Central.

The ban would include programming before midnight and 24 hours on weekends.

“They’ve crapped out,” said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. “The gambling ads are ruining the broadcasts. They spend more time talking about betting odds than the actual games. I’m sure kids watching would rather hear about their favorite players, not the over/under on how often Connor McDavid spits during a game or how many teeth Brent Burns is missing. And, on a personal note, I’ve been losing my shirt betting on the Senators. They lose more than they win, but I can’t bet against them.”

Bet99 bookies list Bill C-389 (also known as Bill Lose Your Shirt) at +1000 to pass through the House and Senate, and -250 for Trudeau to lose the next federal election.

• Olympics shocker: Russian runner is clean!

PARIS—The Summer Olympic Games were rocked by scandal yesterday when International Olympic Committee officials discovered a clean Russian athlete.

“We were shocked,” said IOC president Thomas Bach. “We didn’t recognize her as Russian at first, because she didn’t have a syringe stuck in her butt. I don’t think we’ve seen a clean Russian Olympian since…well, since ever. Russians with beards and mustaches and tattoos have been showing up at the Games since the 1960s and ’70s—and those were the women! East Germany was just as bad back in the day. Their female weightlifters had 5 o’clock shadows at 5 a.m.”

The clean Russian in Paris is distance runner Natasha Kusnetzov.

“I worry for her well-being, and that of the mad scientists in Moscow,” said Bach. “Vladimir Putin is going to pitch a fit when he finds out they haven’t been cheating.”

• Merry New Year

VICTORIA—A little old lady has refused to shout at clouds on the final day of 2023, and she wishes the five or six people who read her blog a merry New Year instead.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let’s talk about a double dose of Rouge Football…one MOP candidate had a day, the other was a day late and a dollar short…buyer beware on the Flattest Of Lands…the Great Biffy Burglary…and other things on my mind

You can find the Edmonton Oilers season in here.

There’s nothing like going all couch potato for Rouge Football, so let’s share some random and cheeky observations collected during seven hours in front of the flatscreen on Saturday…

Montreal Larks vs. Toronto Argos: Apparently there’s a record head count at BMO Field in the Republic of Tranna. Hmmm. If so, a lot of people are disguised as empty seats…Seriously, though, it’s nice to see 20,000-plus people in the Republic of Tranna finally noticed the Argos exist…Boffo start for Chad Kelly on this Canadian Football League Double Dip Day—NOT! The Argos QB and presumed (by a brain-frozen eastern media) Most Outstanding Player award winner flung the football into the flat on the Argos first drive and Marc-Antoine Dequoy took it 101 yards the other way for a Larks TD…I’m guessing Kelly’s day will get better…Oops. Nope. Another interception by Kelly. And another. And another pick six. And a lost fumble. And two failed third-and-shorts…Kelly gets the Bronx Cheer late in the third quarter. Little wonder. He’s playing like a floor mop, not a MOP…Corn Dog Cody Fajardo, the Larks QB, isn’t much better, but at least he’s mainly flinging the football to his guys…Hey, there’s Argos legend and current GM Pinball Clemons. It’s always a good day when there’s a Pinball sighting, even if he isn’t smiling…It’s about that Save On Foods Touchdown to Win contest: If a player returns a kickoff for a TD, the prize is a year’s supply of food. If there are two kickoffs returned for TDs, the prize is $1 million. Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t a year’s worth of food cost $1 million these days?…The Argos are getting mauled. They look like this is their first day together. Come to think of it, the Boatman clinched first place in the East Division halfway through August, and head coach Ryan Dinwiddie has been diddling with his lineup ever since. Serves him right for being a smart-ass and sitting out his starters…I swear, the TSN mics are picking up more F-bombs than you’ll hear in a biker bar. Larks head coach Jason Maas unloaded the loudest expletive during his post-match rant. They might want to do something about that before the large lads arrive in The Hammer for next Sunday’s tussle for the Grey Grail…Worst part about the Larks whupping the Argos and advancing to the 110th Grey Cup game: QB Corn Dog Cody will spend the week squawking about “all the doubters and all the haters” who didn’t believe in him and his mates. Yo! Corn Dog! Nobody hates you and some didn’t believe in you because you hadn’t beaten anyone with a winning record all year until this semifinal. So spare us the “poor us” shtick…Final score: Montreal 38, Republic of Tranna 17.

Winnipeg Blue Bombers vs. B.C. Leos: Hmmm. It looks crisp, but not too brrrrr-ish to sway this skirmish to determine official bragging rights in the West Division. But, hey, I’m happily stretched out under the blankets on my loveseat, not sitting in the chill of the Football Field In Fort Garry. So what do I know about brrrr-ish?…Whatever, Ma Nature served up crisp, running back weather and, sure enough, Bombers RB Brady Oliveira is a man on a mission, churning up 70 yards of prime South Winnipeg real estate and a TD on the opening salvo for the defending champs. He has 100 yards by recess. That’s what an MOP does…This is snot-bubble football, and no team does that better than Winnipeg FC. If that’s how it’s going to be, this one is over. Trust me…Oh dear. Biggie Bighill leaves the grid rather gingerly. Actually, he’s flat-out hobbled. We won’t see him again today, unless one leg is in a boot and he’s on crutches…I don’t know about you, but I wish that young girl in the Save On Foods commercials would spend more time in school and less time in the grocery store. All the kid does is boss everyone around, and she’s never once let her little brother speak. Not in two years. I’ve decided she’s annoying…My goodness. Willie Jefferson’s arms are so long that the Bombers could rent him out to stop traffic at railway crossings…Willie J. and Jackson Jeffcoat are the definition of mayhem, and that’s not to overlook the rest of Richie Hall’s defensive dozen…What’s this? Leos QB Vernon Adams puts six points on the board with a Hail Mary floater to close the first half? Not to worry. The Leos are still going home with their tails between their legs…Good grief. When did Sergio Castillo morph into Marc Liegghio? I mean, two missed field goals? That wrong-footed nonsense better not follow Castillo to The Hammer and the Grey Grail next Sunday…TSN natterbug Glen Suiter tells us that “it literally takes all 12” Leos to bring down Oliveira. I realize the gasbags in the booth are prone to hyperbole, but that’s just stupid…I don’t know about you, but I’m all for Bo Levi Mitchell replacing Davis Sanchez on the TSN panel…Bombers kick returner Janarion Grant looks fast when he’s standing still…Can’t say enough about the rabble at the Football Field In Fort Garry. No gathering in Rouge Football is louder than that bunch…Ouch. How black and blue will Adams’ body be after this beating by the Bombers?…Nice touch by the local football heroes to invite their wives/girlfriends and kiddies onto the field to celebrate a fourth successive West Division title? Lovely…My only concern right now is Biggie’s health for the Grey Cup game…Final score: Winnipeg 24, B.C. 13.

Just wondering: Is it too late for members of the Football Reporters of Canada to call back their ballots for Most Outstanding Player and X out the name Chad Kelly and insert Brady Oliveira? Ya, it’s probably too late. But, I swear, if Kelly is anointed MOP later this week there’ll be a whack of news snoops with eggs on their kissers. Scrambled, of course.

Yesterday’s football/hockey Double Dip in Good Ol’ Hometown, with both Winnipeg FC and the Jets playing on the same day/night, aroused fond memories of days of yore. Us news snoops would watch the Blue Bombers grab grass on one side of Maroons Road in the afternoon then scoot across the street to Winnipeg Arena, where the Jets would feed us or we’d dine on press box popcorn while they frolicked on the local freeze and we cranked out our football/hockey copy. As I recall, the Bombers usually won, the Jets usually lost in those Double Dips. You know, just like yesterday. Good times.

If you’re looking for a good read, check out dear friend Judy Owen’s piece on the aforementioned Brady Oliveira. It’s good stuff.

The name Scott Milanovich is mentioned in any discussion about the vacant Saskatchewan Roughriders head coaching post, but it’s buyer beware on the Flattest Of Lands. Yes, Milanovich earned a Grey Cup ring as head coach of the Argos, but he’s 43-47 as a sideline steward. Also keep in mind that GM Jeremy O’Day will make the coaching call, and he’s the same guy who ushered Corn Dog Cody Fajardo and Jason Maas out of town, yet both will be in The Hammer with the Montreal Larks to participate in the 110th Grey Cup skirmish next Sunday.

Strange headline on the 3DownNation website last week: “Scott Flory committed to Saskatchewan Huskies but will listen if CFL calls.” In other words, he’s committed to coaching university football until a CFL outfit tells him he isn’t committed to university football.

Four dudes were charged last week with the burglary of a toilet, even though the theft was four years ago and the biffy hasn’t been seen since. But there’s no truth to the rumor that it’s the same toilet the Edmonton Oilers season just went down.

Actually, the Great Biffy Burglary was a special kind of heist, in that this was a 227-pound, 18-carat crapper once on display at New York’s Guggenheim Museum and, more latterly, Blenheim Palace in England, where it was pilfered on Sept. 14, 2019. A work of “art” titled America by Italian Maurizio Cattelan, it was worth $5.95 million, totally functional and visitors at both the Guggenheim and Blenheim were invited to use it to take a dump. You know, just like the Oilers goaltenders.

Apparently, folks would stand in the loo queue for up to two hours at the Guggenheim, while an appointment was required to use the golden loo at Blenheim. Either way, folks on both sides of the pond were keen to pee and poop on America.

If you’re wondering, the golden biffy was cleaned every 15 minutes while at the Guggenheim. Or about as often as the Oilers change coaches.

Here’s why many among the rabble refuse to believe the Vancouver Canucks are what their record says they are: They go east and are outplayed badly in Ottawa, even though they stole two points, then they’re given a wedgie by the Maple Leafs in the Republic of Tranna. Two iffy outings makes one wonder what all the noise is about.

There’s nothing fraudulent about Canucks captain Quinn Hughes, though. The guy’s a stud.

Got a giggle out of this: The Leafs were assessed two minor penalties for initiating fisticuffs after clean body belts by the Canucks on Saturday night, and one of the bare-knuckle exchanges featured blueline fossil Mark Giordano. “Important we’re showing other teams that you’re not going to get away with things like that,” Giordano told news snoops. Get away with things like what, tough guy? Body checking? Good grief.

It seems to me that the Winnipeg Jets are a better team now that Blake Wheeler has been removed from the mix. But it’s still early. They have plenty of time to revert to old habits.

Beauty feature by Cheryl Pounder of TSN on her former teammate with Canada’s national women’s shinny side, Caroline Ouellette, who officially enters the Hockey Hall of Fame on Monday night. While focusing on Caroline’s on-ice career, the piece also makes room for her life away from the rink, which includes wife Julie Chu and their daughters, Liv and Tessa. It isn’t often that a gay couple/parents receive the royal treatment on a sports show, so this is special.

Speaking of special women, here are the final numbers for University of Manitoba Bisons placekicker Maya Turner this U Sports football season: Field goals 11-for-14 (longest 48 yards), converts 16-for-16. Total: 27-for-30. I’m guessing head coach Brian Dobie would say young Maya earned her keep.

Is it just me, or does anyone else think the U.S.-Canada Rivalry Series has lost some of its oomph? It’s difficult to gauge the buzz because Hockey Canada and USA Hockey like to keep things like attendance a secret, so the size of the gatherings is a mystery. When I last looked, there were ample tickets available for yesterday’s friendly at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, but perhaps there was a rush to the box office and they sold scads of tickets. Or not. At any rate, the women are two friendlies into a seven-game dosey-do (U.S. ahead 2-zip) and it feels like an after-thought, especially with Professional Women’s Hockey League training camps set to go on Wednesday. That’s where the focus ought to be.

Perhaps I’m not feeling it for the Rivalry Series due to the scheduling. I mean, playing seven games across four months doesn’t lend itself to building interest (we won’t see them again until mid-December, with the final three faceoffs in the front half of February). And, of course, the PWHL drops the puck in January, so that will warrant all the attention.

Question: If a guy is scribbling about women’s sports, shouldn’t he actually know something about women’s sports? You know, like the league names? Yes, he should. So someone at Postmedia needs to clue in hot-shot jock columnist Steve Simmons, who doesn’t know a PWHL from a “WPHL” or a National Women’s Soccer League from a “Women’s Pro Soccer League.”

Could someone please explain the NBA in-season tournament to me in 25 words or less? I mean, it strikes me as a parlour trick that wouldn’t fool a daft school kid. The only difference between regular-season skirmishes and the so-called NBA Cup is…well, nothing. It offers nothing fresh, other than paint-by-numbers floorboards, and some of them are hideous and distracting. As far as gimmicks go, it ranks right up there with Peter Puck (Google him, kids).

A Spanish couple, Fernando Fitz-James Stuart and his bride Sofia Palazuelo, had their second child baptized recently and named her Sofia Fernanda Dolores Cayetana Teresa Angela de la Cruz Micaela del Santisimo Sacramento del Perpetuo Socorro de la Santisima Trinidad y de Todos Los Santos. Good lord. I’ve lived in towns that didn’t have that many names in the phone book.

And, finally, high admiration to all our armed forces, most notably those who served in World War I and II. Precious few of them are still with us, so it’s important that they know their bravery won’t be forgotten.