Tim & Sid – The River City Renegade

Let’s talk about chess with Swamp Dog…bravo Jennifer Jones…flush go the Habs…TSN’s flawed ‘Toba Top 10…Shaq’s name game…Ali vs. Tiger…and other things on my mind

Another Sunday smorgas-bored…and, sadly, one of the old gang from the Trib, Swamp Dog Rauw, has left us…

The thing I remember most fondly about Murray Rauw is playing chess in the small hours of the morning, after we’d put the sports section to bed at the Winnipeg Tribune.

Swamp Dog and I would unwind from the grind by retreating to my modest dwelling on Leighton Avenue in East Kildonan, whereupon I would crack open the brown pops while he cracked open one of my many chess sets.

There’d be Beatles music playing in the background—on the down low since all others in the house were in slumber—and I would quietly sing along with the Fab Four while Swamp Dog contemplated a next misguided move that surely would lead to checkmate or stalemate. I sometimes wondered if my singing disturbed his thought process, but he never offered so much as a mumble in protest.

Swamp Dog seldom complained, although a small flap of fuss is how he earned his delightful nickname.

I was in the cockpit one night, laying out the Trib sports pages, while others wrote their stories, edited copy, wrote headlines, handled the phones and did rewrites. Swamp Dog, still reasonably new to staff, had two or three things on the go.

“Murray,” I said at one point, interrupting his work, “I need you to do something.”

“Me?” he yelped. “Me? I’m swamped!”

“You’re swamped?” I responded, snickering. “Let me tell you something about being swamped.”

I informed him how it worked in the Trib sports department. We were all multi-taskers, often expected to handle more than one beat on the same day. It was not uncommon for a select few of us to cover an event in the morning or afternoon, write our article, then design a six- or seven-page sports section that night. It made for long shifts, but it was an accepted part of the gig. Besides, most of us were young, full of P and V and eager to earn a “damn good stuff” from our sports editor, Jack Matheson.

“That’s okay,” I told Swamp Dog. “You just do what you’re doing. I’ll take care of the rest, because you’re swamped! You’re our Swamp Dog.”

Swamp Dog became a fabulous multi-tasker, skillfully covering everything from badminton to boxing to backing up Matty on the Blue Bombers beat, until Southam had the bad manners to stop the Trib presses for the final time in August 1980.

And now Swamp’s ticker has stopped.

Swamp Dog died last Sunday in Calgary, after a lengthy illness, and I spent much of the past week sifting through recollections of him and our cast of kooky characters at the Trib. (We would have made for a boffo sitcom.)

An unpretentious, fun guy, I can’t think of a former colleague who harbored a greater, more genuine appreciation for landing a sports writing gig than Swamp Dog. He was like a kid who sneaked in and out of the ice cream parlor every night without getting caught, and he never tried to hide his appreciation for his good fortune.

Swamp Dog made me laugh without trying. His eyeglasses, for example, were a trip. Back in the 1970s, they would sit at a 45-degree angle on the bridge of his nose, the large lenses plastered with very visible fingerprints from his constant but failed attempts to make the specs fit his face. His mustache drooped and would go months without a much-needed pruning. Then there was the day I learned he had tagged the lovely lady who would become his bride, Maureen, with the most unflattering of nicknames: Mush.

“Geez, Swamp, I don’t know many women who’d fancy being called Mush,” I said. “Doesn’t it bother Maureen?”

“Why would it?” he answered as if I had asked a very dumb question. “She’s my Mush.”

Once the Trib folded, both Swamp Dog and I found our way to Calgary, first him at the Herald and then myself at the Sun a couple years later. I didn’t know a soul, other than Swamp Dog, Maureen and the two people who had hired me. Swamp Dog promptly set me up to play slo-pitch on one of the city’s elite outfits, and he dragged me to his raquetball club. After our always-enjoyable matches, we’d sometimes retire to his home and Maureen would be kind enough to feed us.

Oddly enough, Swamp Dog and I never played another game of chess. I guess that was our Winnipeg thing. But we’d get together for some giggles, or he’d get serious on occasion and discuss his MS. He’d unfailingly inquire about my Uncle Dennis, who’d been confined to a wheelchair due to MS since I was a sprig.

After I left Calgary and returned to Good Ol’ Hometown, we seldom saw each other, basically when road assignments would take us to the Grey Cup, the Brier or Stanley Cup playoffs. The Canadian Football League and curling were his main beats, and he was among the best at both.

Foremost for me, though, are the personal recollections, and I smile at the memory of us shifting chess pieces across the board, his knight taking my rook or my bishop taking his queen. Eventually, one of us would notice the morning sun peeking through my living room drapes, and he’d take his leave.

Now Swamp Dog is gone permanently, but I’d say his sun is still shining—through Maureen and the kids, Josh and Cayley, and granddaughter Charlotte.

Rest easy, old friend.

The Grim Reaper has now fetched Matty, Swamp Dog, Gus Collins Uncle Vince Leah, and freelancers Harold Loster and Ronnie Meyers from our 1970s toy department at the Trib. And that’s not to forget photog Jon Thordarson, whom I always considered one of us. Those of us still drawing oxygen are in our 60s and 70s, or older, so Dave Komosky and I often wonder who’ll be next. My kidneys are suggesting it might be moi. If that’s how it shakes down, in lieu of flowers send laughter.

Big tip of the bonnet to Jennifer Jones, who’s now won more games at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts (159) than any curler. Ever. By the time she’s finished, Jen’s collection of Ws might be unbeatable, although I suppose Rachel Homan will have something to say about that. For now, though, Jen is the standard, and I say it’s only fitting and proper that someone from Winnipeg stands atop the heap. After all, Good Ol’ Hometown is the curling capital of the world, no matter what some folks in Alberta might want you to believe.

Is it just me, or does anyone else get the impression that the women at the Scotties have a whole lot more fun than the men at the Brier? Just saying.

Some people haven’t been impressed with the quality of play at the Scotties in Calgary. Too many flubbed shots. Iffy strategy. Well, what did you expect? I mean, they’d been away from the pebble for a year, and I’m guessing we’ll see a similar number of hairballs coughed up when the boys gather for the Brier at the end of this week.

Apparently it’s been so quiet at the fan-free Scotties that Saskatchewan skip Sherry Anderson says she “heard the toilet flush” while on the pebble the other day. But, hey, let’s not talk about the Montreal Canadiens.

I’m not saying the Habs’ hope for a successful crusade is down the toilet. If they can get rid of the imposter wearing Carey Price’s jersey, they might yet qualify for the Stanley Cup tournament. Then again, maybe O.J. will find the real killers.

Paul Stastny poached a goal from Twig Ehlers to give the Winnipeg Jets their 2-1 OT win over the Habs on Saturday night. You just don’t do that. It’s chintzy.

Let’s see if I’ve got this straight: Patrik Laine wanted first-line minutes skating alongside Rink Rat Scheifele, but Jets head coach Paul Maurice would have none of it. So they shipped him to Columbus. Now Pierre-Luc Dubois, the guy the Jets received in barter for Puck Finn, is getting first-line minutes skating alongside Scheifele. What am I missing here?

Dumb headline in the Winnipeg Sun: “Coach, teammates like new Jet Dubois.” Well, duh. What does anyone expect them to say? That he’s a sloth? Bring Patty back? Now that would be a story. The fact the Jets have warm-and-fuzzy feelings for the new kid in town isn’t newsworthy.

Good stuff from Mad Mike McIntyre in the Drab Slab on local Black shinny players who found their way to the upper levels of professional hockey. Among those he chatted with are Bill Riley and Ray Neufeld, one of the nicest men to wear Jets linen. It’s worth a look.

So why is it that I don’t believe Canadian Football League commish Randy Ambrosie when he tells us there’ll be Rouge Football this year, but I believe Winnipeg Blue Bombers CEO Wade Miller when he says the same thing? Maybe it’s because Wade transformed Winnipeg FC from a laughing stock into a Grey Cup champion, whereas Commish Randy couldn’t sell a spare tire to a guy with a flat.

Nice touch by TSN to serve up a Top 10 moments for Manitoba athletes last week. Except they should have consulted someone from the Keystone Province before revealing the list. There was no Clara Hughes collecting medals at both the Summer and Winter Olympics. There was no Donny Lalonde knocking Sugar Ray Leonard to the canvas. There was no George Knudson winning on the PGA Tour. There was no Bobby Clarke, the first captain of a National Hockey League expansion outfit to hoist the Stanley Cup. There was no Reggie Leach, scorer of 80 goals in the 1975-76 NHL season/playoffs. There was no Don Duguid going unbeaten to win consecutive world curling titles. No Jeff Stoughton. No University of Winnipeg Lady Wesmen hoops team winning 88 consecutive matches. But Anthony Coombs made the grade with a catch in a meaningless game for the Toronto Argos. Skeleton guy Jon Montgomery was featured drinking beer and pretending to be an auctioneer. Corey Koskie cracked the list for catching a foul ball in a game no one remembers. And Andrew Harris was featured running the ball for the B.C. Lions in a game no one remembers. Totally lame.

Shaquille O’Neal has taken some heat for his work as a TV analyst. It seems Shaq is unfamiliar with the first names of numerous National Basketball Association players, including Pascal Siakam of the Tranna Jurassics. “Oh, I never knew his first name,” Shaq confessed in a panel natter with Ernie Johnson in a recent NBA on TNT broadcast. I guess that makes Siakam the ultimate player to be named later.

Tim and Sid are no more. Well, okay Tim is still Micaleff and Sid is still Seixeiro, but they’re no longer Tim & Sid, after 17 years together on Sportsnet. Sid’s next gig is Breakfast Television in the Republic of Tranna and, given his penchant for goofing around, the show might become known as Dog’s Breakfast Television. Tim & Sid was sometimes-see TV for me, never must-see TV, but you don’t last that long without doing something right. Having said that, Tim drew a parallel between he and Sid breaking up and Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David parting ways. Uh, no. You don’t want to go there, man.

I’ve long admired James Duthie’s work on TSN. Who hasn’t? He’s witty, clever, knowledgeable and doesn’t take himself seriously. And he’s done it all without perfect hair and perfect teeth.

But when he waxed on about Tiger Woods last week…well, let’s just say he was showing his age.

“There’s not another…he’s the most famous athlete of our lives,” Duthie said of Woods in a squawk with Rod Smith. “Maybe you can make an argument Michael Jordan, Tom Brady, but there has been no more fascinating, complex character in sport in our lives.”

Good grief. Tom Brady is about as complex as Grade 1 arithmetic. He throws a football, wins the Super Bowl, then paints the town bland. The most fascinating thing he’s ever done is get drunk and hurl the Lombardi Trophy from one boat to another. Jordan? Best hoops player ever. Full stop.

Duthie wants fascinating and complex? Let me introduce him to Muhammad Ali, the boxer once known as Cassius Clay.

There were more layers to Ali than an onion. Let’s start with the name change, the Nation of Islam and the shift to Sunni Islam. Let’s talk about political activism and civil rights. Let’s talk about the U.S. government taking away his livelihood and untold millions of dollars for 3½ years because he refused to travel across the world to kill people in Vietnam. Let’s talk about his willingness to go behind bars rather than spray bullets. Let’s talk about the anger and hostility, then the warm admiration, of a nation. Let’s talk about a unanimous victory in the Supreme Court. Let’s talk about the Grammy nominations. Let’s talk about the movies and the Broadway musical. Let’s talk about whimsy, doggerel and rapping before rap was a thing. Let’s talk about the campus speaking tours. Let’s talk about the battle with Parkinson’s. Let’s talk about winning the world heavyweight title three times when it actually meant something. Let’s talk about the Rumble in the Jungle and the Thrilla in Manila. Let’s talk about media savvy. Let’s talk about showmanship and the oversized personality. Let’s talk about the multiple marriages and infidelities. Let’s talk about the irony of being meaner and more cruel to Black boxers than white fist-fighters.

Duthie is 54, which means he missed the opening act of the theatre that was Ali. He can’t relate to the Vietnam War or the civil rights movement of the 1960s, just as those who weren’t there when John Paul, George and Ringo invaded America can’t truly understand and appreciate Beatlemania.

But when he speaks of “our lives,” I have to assume that includes myself and those of my vintage.

Tiger Woods is arguably the finest to ever strike a dimpled ball. We marveled at his wizardry, how he would make the best in the game wither before they even teed it up on a Thursday. He was fascinating to watch. Gobsmackingly so. But whereas Ali allowed us inside his world, Woods tried to keep most everyone out. Except his many mistresses.

Other than his genius at golf, we knew nothing of Woods the person until caught with his trousers down and the tabloids exposed him as a raging philanderer. And, of course, he’s made headlines for getting behind the wheel of a luxury vehicle when it wasn’t wise. But cheating on your spouse and reckless driving hardly makes one fascinating or complex. It makes him one of a million guys.

So let’s put it this way: Given one word to describe Tiger Woods, it would be “golf.” Given one word to describe Muhammad Ali, it would be…sorry, can’t do it in one word. He was too fascinating and complex.

And, finally, looks like this will be a pizza-and-pebble day, because I’m hitting the couch and won’t budge until either Jen Jones or Kerri Einarson has (hopefully) won the Scotties Tournament of Hearts this evening.

Let’s talk about empty seats in the Little Hockey House On The Prairie after COVID-19…what’s on my book shelf?…tee times…horrible takes on Ponytail Puck…a bull session with Chris Streveler in the Drab Slab…and other things on my mind

There’s been much natter about National Hockey League millionaires returning this summer to perform in front of empty seats in four select cities, none of which will be named Winnipeg (reportedly).

That’s a deep concern because the NHL is a gate-driven enterprise.

There is, however, a greater fret and threat looming. Try this: How many of those empty seats will remain unoccupied once the faithful have been given the okie-dokie to gather in groups and return to rinks hither and yon?

The Jets have made due with 15,000 and change at the Little Hockey House On The Prairie since 2011 and, once they’ve finished feeding at the public trough, it’s believed there’s black ink on the bottom line of the balance sheet. The profit is likely minimal, but we don’t know for certain because True North Sports+Entertainment has never been eager to open its books, even as it smugly expects the rabble to continue opening their wallets.

Unfortunately, the scourge that is COVID-19 has many thousands of workers also feeding from the public trough, and some of them won’t have a job at the far end of the pandemic.

It’s tough to part with thousands of dollars in support of the players’ millionaire lifestyles when you’re on pogey.

So let’s say the Jets lose 1,000 customers post-COVID-19 and can’t replace them. Is the NHL doable in Good Ol’ Hometown with just 14K in the pews? Well, when the Atlanta caravan rolled into River City in 2011, I seem to recall NHL commish Gary Bettman saying something about sellouts and SRO audiences being the absolute, no-margin-for-error requirement.

If so, 14,000 customers won’t cut it.

Oh, sure, the Jets boast of a robust wait list, so any available tickets would be scooped up faster than toilet paper at the start of the pandemic. But whoa Nellie. That was pre-COVID-19. The game has changed. It costs $100 (non-refundable) per annum to stay on that list, and $50 (non-refundable) to get on that list. Know anyone with a spare C-note or 50-dollar bill lying around these days, just in the hope of spending in excess of $1,000 to watch the millionaires frolic on the local freeze?

This isn’t meant to be a doomsday essay. It’s simply a cautionary note that once there’s a vaccine and the NHL arrives at its “new normal,” crowd concern might not be limited to warm-weather locales like Sunrise, Fla, and Glendale, Ariz. It might hit hard at the frost-bitten heart of the continent as well.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been catching up on my reading during the COVID-19 lockdown. So far, these have been my favorite books:

My Pants Were Always Lower Than My Score: The Sex Scandal That Sank Tiger Woods, In His Own Words.
If It’s Too Late for a Prenup, I’m Totally Screwed: The Tiger Woods Tell-All About Infidelity and Divorce (with special forward by Elin Nordegren).
I Bit Off More Than I Could Chew: Mike Tyson Recounts the Night He Made a Snack Out of Evander Holyfield’s Ear.
D’oh Canada! The Duping of a Dope: The Rise and Fall of Ben Johnson at the Seoul Olympics.
Deflated: Who Really Let the Air Out of Tom Brady’s Balls (with special forward by Gisele Bundchen)?
The Dead Speak Scrolls: Complete Transcripts of Everything Bill Belichick has Ever Said that the Media Understood (Total number of pages-2).
Serena Williams

I’ll Shove This %$#% Ball Down Your *%$#% Throat: Memoirs of Serena Williams at the U.S. Open.
Grey Cup and the Groupie: E! News Canada Takes A Deep Dive Into the Glen Suitor-Keith Urban Broadcast Booth Bromance (with special forward by Nicole Kidman).
You People: The Official Don Cherry Code of Conduct for Wannabe Canadians, where the former star of Coach’s Corner explains Milk & Honey & Poppies & EVERYTHINK LIKE THAT!
Still Searching In A White Ford Bronco After All These Years: O.J. Simpson Takes Us to Various Golf Courses In His Hunt for the Real Killers.

Speaking of golf, it looks like some courses across the land will be opening next month (a few in my neck of the woods never closed). I haven’t swung the sticks in more than 12 years, but I’ve been thinking about my ideal foursome were I ever to tee it up again. This is it: Moi, Alison Krauss, Babs Streisand and, of course, Jesus, because I figure that walk-on-water thing might come in handy given my skill level.

Oh drat. The Scripps National Spelling Bee in the U.S. has fallen victim to COVID-19, canceled for the first time since World War II. Such a shame. I was really looking forward to watching 10-year-old kids make me feel like a complete doofus again. Or is that spelled d-u-f-u-s? Or d-o-o-f-a-s? Or d-u-f-is? Or d-u-f-f-a-s? Geez, where’s a 10-year-old whiz kid when you really need one?

I note that Scotiabank Arena in the Republic of Tranna is now a kitchen, where they’re cooking 10,000 meals a day for front-line health workers, their families and the needy. Just wondering: How will the Tranna media make that feel-good story about Drake?

So, the National Women’s Hockey League has added an expansion franchise in the Republic of Tranna and, not surprisingly, at least one of the Dream Gappers (Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association) couldn’t resist the urge to take a cheap shot at the team to be named later. That would be Liz Knox, who attempted to paint NWHL execs as uncaring, tone-deaf oafs for conducting business during the pandemic. “It’s difficult to imagine expansion being at the forefront of many business strategies,” she snarked in a text message. Oh, for sure, Liz. No businesses should look ahead to the day COVID-19 is behind us. The NHL shouldn’t make plans to finish its season or begin the 2020-21 crusade. The National Football League shouldn’t have conducted its draft last week. And, hey, Roger Federer has no business talking about a marriage between the women’s and men’s pro tennis tours. All sports operations should just sit and twiddle their thumbs. What a pathetic take, but totally in line with the PWHPA hate-on for the NWHL, which refuses to get out of the Dream Gappers’ way.

Tim & Sid granted air time on Sportsnet to another Dream Gapper, Natalie Spooner, who informed the boys that the PWHPA will “keep fighting for what we deserve.” Part of what they claim they “deserve” is a living wage, but none of the Dream Gappers has ever explained how anyone can pay for it.

Second worst take on the NWHL franchise in The ROT came from (who else?) Steve Simmons of Postmedia Tranna.

“It has been officially announced that Toronto has been awarded an expansion team in the National Women’s Hockey League,” he scribbled without allowing his grey matter and fingers to connect. “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.”

Really? There’s no credibility without a team name, a team logo or big-name players? Like the NHL’s expansion franchise in Seattle? The one that was announced in December 2018 and, 16 months later, remains without a team name, a team logo or any players. Or like the NHL Las Vegas expansion franchise that was announced in June 2016 without a team name, a team logo or any players? Or like the Jets, who arrived in Winnipeg sans a team name or a team logo in 2011?

Or does that lack of “credibility” only apply to female shinny outfits with no name, no logo and no big-name players at startup?

Simmons is on record as saying Ponytail Puck is a “charade,” so he’d be wise to concentrate on Golden Boy Auston Matthews’ mustache, Phil Kessel’s hot dog stand and Drake’s clown act, and leave the women’s game to news snoops who actually care and know something about it.

This week in jock journalism…

Jason Bell of the Drab Slab wins the prize for best off-beat yarn, with his piece on a Charolais bull named after Chris Streveler, former Winnipeg Blue Bombers quarterback and party boy. Streveler the bull is 1,499 pounds of pure Western Manitoba beef on the hoof—about the same as the entire Bombers O-line—and the brute recently sold for a whopping $45,000 at the Nykoliation family auction. The way Jason tells the story, 50 bulls were sold that day for $335,000, or about the value of a Tier-II starting QB in the Canadian Football League…I monitored bylines in the Winnipeg Sun from last Sunday through Saturday, and here’s the scorecard: Postmedia bylines 32; Toronto bylines 21; Winnipeg bylines 15; lady rassler bylines (Natalya Neidhart) 1. I swear, if I ever win Lotto Max, I’ll offer Postmedia the $1 Cdn. that the tabloid is worth today and convert it back to a local newspaper with local stories and enough scribes to actually cover the city…The NFL’s remote draft received favorable reviews from Bombers play-by-play guy Knuckles Irving and Mad Mike McIntyre of the Drab Slab. Here’s Knuckles on Twitter: “Watching the NFL draft and once again it’s completely apparent that no sports entity in the world can deliver elaborately choreographed, brilliantly produced, dragged out, mind-numbing TV hype like the NFL. Man are they good at it. Gotta be impressed.” And here’s Mad Mike: “You’ve got to hand it to the National Football League. Real life handed the league a lemon—in this case, the COVID-19 pandemic—but they showed why they’re the world’s most popular and successful sports operation by turning it into glorious, refreshing lemonade.” I never watched one second of the production, so I’ll just have to take their word for it…Laura Armstrong of the Toronto Star misses sports and feels guilty about it. I don’t miss sports and feel guilty about it. Hmmm. I never thought of COVID-19 as a guilt trip, but apparently that’s what it is.

Jesse Stone and Thelma, one of his many female admirers.

And, finally, I went on a Jesse Stone movie binge last week. Watched all nine of the made-for-TV flicks. Jesse, played by Tom Selleck, is a scotch-swilling, non-smiling wreck of a cop so hung up on his ex-wife that he talks to her long distance every night. Between benders, sessions with his ex-wife’s shrink, and trying to figure out how to work a cellphone, Jesse always catches the bad guys in Paradise, Mass. He probably drinks too much caffeine, but Jesse’s coffee breath isn’t a turnoff to the ladies in Paradise. Apparently the woman who can resist his dimples has yet to be born. Jesse always gets the girl. And I do mean always. Tall, short, black, white, young, old…every woman falls prey to Jesse’s dimples and must dine or do lunch with him. Even a nun, Sister Mary John! It’s quite silly stuff, really. So why do I like it so much?

Let’s talk about the rise, fall and rise of Ponytail Puck…the NHL or bust for women…get a grip, Mitch…puffball from Tim & Sid…the return of Peter Puck…good reads…Coach PoMo’s grip…and other things on my mind

Another Sunday smorgas-bored…and the NHL all-star game was rubbish and some of you might think the following is too…

People are gushing about Ponytail Puck again.

Oh, yes, they are. Just like last year at this time, when Kendall Coyne-Schofield made her wowza dash around the freeze during National Hockey League all-star hijinks in San Jose.

Once she had completed her lap in the lickety-split time of 14.346 seconds and eyeballs were popped back into sockets, the hosannas rained down from the highest perches and from every corner of Planet Puckhead.

Bravo Kendall!

It didn’t matter that she was slower than all but one participant in the fastest-skater competition. After all, they were guys—the NHL’s elite—and Kendall’s a she. Thus, jaws dropped and people who, until that moment, truly believed girls and women only wear white skates with picks on the blades gave ponder to the notion that Ponytail Puck might be something worth checking out.

And so it was on Friday night at the Enterprise Center in St. Loo. This was the 2020 NHL all-star festival. A showcase event. Packed barn. Party atmosphere. And the women had the spotlight all to themselves for 20 minutes, playing a bit of loosey-goosey but quite earnest 3-on-3 pond hockey.

It didn’t really matter that 10 Canadians beat 10 Americans 2-1. It only mattered that there was a there there.

“I think the women’s game knocked down a door,” gushed Cassie Campbell-Pascall, the former Olympian who called the exercise in concert with play-by-play man Jim Hughson. As the game expired, she talked about “the magnitude of what has happened. It’s a big moment, it really is. That’s an understatement.”

“Cassie,” Hughson responded, “all I can say after watching that is ‘find these players a place to play.’”

And that’s the rub, isn’t it?

The Coyne-Schofield dash a year ago is considered a signature moment for Ponytail Puck. Indeed, just last week, this was the headline on an Emily Sadler article for the Sportsnet website: “How Kendall Coyne-Schofield’s clutch All-Star performance changed the game.”

But did it really?

Post-Kendall, the distaff side of the game gained all the momentum of a stalled Zamboni being pushed up the side of a mountain. First, the Canadian Women’s Hockey League folded, then between 150 and 200 of the planet’s premier performers snubbed their noses at the National Women’s Hockey League, refusing to play for pauper’s pay. So they gathered under the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association banner and created the barnstorming, hit-and-miss Dream Gap Tour, which has been met with a meh by the masses and mainstream media.

Basically, they’ve reduced themselves to a novelty act, much like the Harlem Globetrotters, but without the wizardry, the cornball antics and the packed houses.

And, yes, Friday’s 3-on-3 exhibition was a novelty within a novelty, because the NHL all-star festival is nine parts gimmickry and one part substance. I mean, if the NHL cancelled its annual glitz fest, I’m not sure anyone over the age of 13 would produce anything that resembles a pout.

But this edition was significant and special because of the women.

Question is: Will they seize the moment and take advantage of renewed interest, or will they squander it like summer wages? You know, the way they did last year.

“I think they sent a message that if you haven’t watched women’s hockey you better start,” Campbell-Pascall said in her wrap on Sportsnet.

Well, Cassie might want to have a quiet word with her sisters about that.

I mean, really, what can the Dream Gappers do to build on the St. Loo experience? They have a product to sell but nowhere to sell it. And that’s of their own doing. They quit the NWHL. Thus, they won’t make themselves available to the masses again until the final day of February, when they stage more of their glorified scrimmages in Philadelphia. After that, who knows? The events calendar on the PWHPA website is blank.

Talk about a buzz kill. And they have no one to blame but themselves.

It’s quite evident that the PWHPA has a one-prong strategy: Wait for NHL owners to step up and claim them in hockey’s version of an adopt-a-pet program, because that’s what they “deserve.” But hoping/expecting multi-millionaires and billionaires to gamble on an enterprise guaranteed to lose large boatloads of money is a questionable gambit at best and a fool’s bet at worst. NHL bankrolls don’t have to be told the CWHL was buried in a money crunch, or that only one NWHL outfit, the Minnesota Whitecaps, has shown a profit. I’m sure they’ve also heard National Basketball Association commissioner Adam Silver talk about dropping an average of $10 million per year on the WNBA side of the business. Thus the reluctance/refusal of NHL owners to skate down that rabbit hole. Plus, commish Gary Bettman has repeatedly stressed that there’d be no NHL women’s league unless he had an open landscape. So the next step is obvious: The PWHPA and the NWHL need to engage in meaningful dialogue and find a common road to travel, not separate paths. What part of that do the Dream Gappers not understand?

The aforementioned Hughson shouts about finding the Dream Gappers “a place to play,” but he (and many others) ignores the reality that the NWHL would be a seven-team league today, with franchises in Montreal and the Republic of Tranna, if not for their boycott.

The award for the dumbest comment on the women’s 3-on-3 game goes to Mitch Marner of the Tranna Maple Leafs. “I think a lot of those players can play in (the NHL),” he said, apparently with a straight face.

The Dream Gappers certainly have friends in the media, but it doesn’t really help the cause when people like Tara Slone, Ron MacLean and Tim & Sid do nothing but wave pom-poms and toss out puffball questions and hosannas. For example, Tim & Sid invited Campbell-Pascall for a natter last week, and she had this to say: “I believe we have at least 10 NHL franchises that want a team. I truly believe behind the scenes the NHL is ready for it. It’s well overdue in my opinion. I really hope that this is sort of the step to what we will see in the WNHL and I believe that it’s more imminent than it’s ever been before.” That went unchallenged. They should have asked her this: If there are 10 teams that “want” to bankroll a women’s club, why haven’t they done it? Are any of the 10 outfits in Canada? Where are the others located? Why are you waiting on the NHL instead of working with the NWHL to form a super league? Exactly what do you consider a “livable” wage? How can you convince the rabble to buy Ponytail Puck in enough numbers that a WNHL is viable and the players earn the $50,000 to $100,000 wages that Pascall-Campbell likes to talk about? I mean, you can’t make adults eat their Brussels sprouts and you can’t make them watch professional women’s hockey. But the jock journos refuse to ask pointed/fair questions because it’s considered bad manners and a betrayal of the cause. And that’s lame.

The finish of the Minnesota Whitecaps-Boston Pride skirmish on Saturday produced a classic call from the broadcasting tandem of Kelly Schultz and Alexis (Oh My God, I’m Sweating!) Pearson, not to mention some colorful commentary on Twitter. The Whitecaps won 4-3 with a final-minute goal, ending the Pride’s undefeated season (19-1), and the game was an SRO sellout at Tria Rink in St. Paul. It’ll be the same today when the teams do it all over again. It’s also noteworthy that the Pride sold out their two most recent matches at Warrior Ice Arena in Beantown, so the NWHL is getting along just fine without the Dream Gappers.

Had to laugh at this take on Ponytail Puck from Steve Simmons of Postmedia Tranna: “Here’s what I’d like to see. A six-team WNHL. Use the Original Six cities—or pick whichever six you want—and begin the process of building a steady, stable, sound, professional hockey league for women. But an NHL-backed league would have a shot. It’s still a gamble. It’s not a hugely expensive gamble. But it’s worth pushing for and pursuing. In a one-step-at-a-time kind of way.” That from a guy who has called Olympic women’s shinny a “charade” and advocated for it to be removed from the Winter Games. With allies like Simmons and Tie Domi, Ponytail Puck doesn’t have a prayer.

Of course the NHL 3-on-3 games were rubbish. What did you expect? Major League Baseball is the only big-time sport that puts on a watchable all-star game.

Also rubbish was that snake-like, Magic Marker puck tracker thingy used during some of the 3-on-3 activity. If it’s all the same to Gary Bettman and the geniuses in Gotham, I prefer my hockey without squiggly, black lines on the freeze, thank you. What’s next, the return of Peter Puck to tell us why the ice in the goal crease is blue?

Brett Hull made a cameo appearance during the all-star skills competition, and what a coincidence: The Golden Brett scored 741 goals in the NHL and he weighs 741 pounds today.

Department of good reads: 1) Murat Ates’ look at the Winnipeg Jets for The Athletic; 2) Mad Mike McIntyre’s essay on the Jets’ moms in the Drab Slab. Murat’s piece on a Jets players’ poll is a totally fun read, the kind of thing I’d like to see in the two River City dailies. It’s a good reason to subscribe to The Athletic, and that’s not a paid advertisement. It’s the truth.

For those of you who keep squawking about Paul Maurice needing a makeover, I remind you of something the Jets head knock said about his coaching style last June: “I’m not going to change the grip. We hit the ball down the fairway an awful lot. We had one go in the water on us in the playoffs, but I’m not sure that I’m changing my clubs or my grip yet.” So don’t say you weren’t warned.

Hey, lookee here. The Winnipeg Ice sit atop the East Division tables in The Dub, and I’d like to think that the rabble have noticed the new kid on the block. It’s just too bad they don’t have a bigger barn to play in. I mean, it’s a shame they can only squeeze 1,600 into Wayne Fleming Arena when there are more than 3,000 watching the Wheat Kings a hoot and a holler down the road in Brandon.

Why are so many people shocked when Serena Williams loses a tennis match? Nobody is afraid of her anymore, except perhaps line judges and umpires who’d rather not have a fuzzy ball shoved down their throats.

That’s quite the pickle the Winnipeg Blue Bombers are in. It’s reported that the Canadian Football League club wants to make Zach Collaros their main man behind centre, which would leave Matt Nichols out in the cold and his nose out of joint. For the record, I think they’d be doing the dirty to Nichols if they punt him, but it’s just another example of how cruel pro sports, especially football, can be.

And, finally, Sweet Home Alabama! Neil Young really is a Southern Man now. The Kelvin High dropout officially became a citizen of the United States the other day, just in time to vote Donald Trump out of the White House. I don’t know about you, but I won’t hold that against him.

Let’s talk about those ugly Yankee Doodle Damsels…a home run for TSN…Kaylyn Kyle’s hair…a Bronx cheer for Sid Seixeiro…writers ignoring the Raptors…terrific tweets…Trudeau’s nuts…and play it again, Sam

Serving up a special mid-week smorgas-bored…and if you thought Hope Solo was an ugly American, check out their World Cup soccer team…

The Yankee Doodle Damsels officially arrived in France on Tuesday and, boy, are they ugly.

I mean, there’s butt cleavage ugly, then there’s American ugly, and I don’t think I’ve seen Americans quite as ugly as in their women’s World Cup debut, a 13-nada paddywhacking of Thailand at Stade Auguste-Delaune in Reims.

Score 13 goals? Sure. Go for it. There’s no mercy rule at that level of soccer.

But celebrate goals six through 13 like you just landed on the moon? Lame in the extreme.

You don’t squish an ant or pluck the wings off a house fly then hold a block party to celebrate. Five-year-old kids might do that, but the American soccer elite are not five-year-old kids. They just act like it.

“This was disgraceful from the United States,” said TSN analyst Clare Rustad, a former Canadian national team player. “I would have hoped they could have won with humility and grace.”

Still celebrating after all those goals.

Humility and grace are not the American way these days. Just look at the primary resident in the White House.

“I’m all about passion, but as a Canadian we would never ever think of doing something like that,” chimed in Kaylyn Kyle, also a former Canadian national, sitting next to Rustad on the TSN panel. “For me, it’s disrespectful, it’s disgraceful.”

Yup.

But wait. Here’s Abby Wambach, former American captain and the all-time leading goal-scorer in the women’s game.

“Would you tell a men’s team to not score or celebrate?” she asked.

Good gawd, woman. This isn’t about gender. It’s about being rude. It’s about being unsportsmanlike. It’s about acting like you’ve been there before instead of like a bunch of tools.

Nancy Armour provided Wambach with some backup vocals.

“Take the pearl clutching and righteous indignation somewhere else,” she snarled with righteous indignation in USA Today, proving Americans can be just as ugly in print as on the pitch. “This is the World Cup, not a rec league tournament. There are some who seem to think the U.S. women’s 13-0 thrashing of Thailand on Tuesday night was piling on, that their celebrating of every goal was unseemly. Tough. You want the Americans to impose the slaughter rule or patronize their opponents by pretending they didn’t just tack another goal onto the scoreline? Go join the six-year-olds in the park. Maybe you’ll get a participation trophy and an orange slice while you’re at it. Getting players confidence, getting momentum are the names of the game at the World Cup and that’s what the U.S. did.”

Oh, just shut the hell up, Nancy.

The Yankee Doodle Damsels might go on and successfully defend their World Cup title, but they’ll be wearing this disgrace while a FIFA official is wrapping gold medals around their necks. It’s going to stick to them like guilt to O.J.

I didn’t think it possible, but these American women actually out-uglied Hope Solo.

Kate Beirness, Clare Rustad, Kaylyn Kyle and Diana Matheson.

TSN has really hit it out of the park with its soccer panel of Rustad, Kyle and Diana Matheson. They’re insightful, intelligent and extremely blunt. Kyle is the most passionate of the trio, and she isn’t shy about expressing honest feelings. On Canadian captain Christine Sinclair she said this: “I have a massive woman crush on her.” I cannot imagine Jeff O’Dog or any of the boys on the various TSN hockey panels confessing to a man crush on Sidney Crosby or Connor McDavid.

Fashion note: I mentioned the other day that Kyle has hair to die for, but I found her mane to be extremely distracting on Tuesday. She had it done up in a top knot, and it looked like a fire hydrant growing out of her head. I couldn’t stop staring at the thing. And, no, that isn’t being sexist. I’d say the same thing about Bob McKenzie if he had a fire hydrant on the top of his head.

What a pleasure it is to watch soccer when it isn’t bogged down by needless play-acting. The women do it right. There are no Neymars in their game, at least none that I’ve noticed.

Moving back to the ugly theme, it’s about Sid Seixeiro of Tim & Sid fame on Sportsnet. This was his take on fans in the Republic of Tranna cheering when Kevin Durant of the Golden State Juggernaut was felled by injury in Game 5 of the National Basketball Association final:

“I don’t know exactly how many people in that building last night were cheering the injury, because people were cheering the injury. Anyone who suggests no one was cheering the injury is either lying or stupid. Anyone who booed that kid, whether or not they knew the severity of the injury is scum. Period. I don’t wanna talk about it. There was a lot of people in that building doing it. Now, the other part of this…if that game last night was in Philadelphia, how would they have reacted? If that’s the reaction in Toronto last night, what do Philly fans do? What do Celtic fans do? In any Eastern Conference building last night, that exact same thing would happen.”

And what? Because Philly fans are boors that makes it okay for fans in The ROT to be dinks too?

Using that logic, if the Jurassics lose the NBA final, it’s okay for the rabble in The ROT to torch the town because, hey, that’s what they did in Vancouver after the 2011 Stanley Cup final.

Get a grip, Sid.

Media in the Republic of Tranna can talk all they like about Canada being swept up in Raptors fever, but I’m sorry, it isn’t an official national party until someone rides a horse into a hotel lobby.

So, are the flowers of sports journalism across our vast land into the Jurassics like we’re led to believe? Nope. On Monday, with Tranna poised to win the National Basketball Association title, here’s what they were writing about:

Terry Jones, Postmedia Edmonton: The Edmonton Eskimos.
Ed Willes, Postmedia Vancouver: Led off his weekly musings column with a take on building a Stanley Cup champion and mentioned the Jurassics at the tail end.
Paul Friesen, Winnipeg Sun: Khari Jones, new head coach of the Montreal Alouettes.
Rob Vanstone, Regina Leader Post: The Saskatchewan Roughriders.
Postmedia Calgary: Front page story was equestrian.
Jack Todd, Montreal Gazette: Fast car racing.

Todd, in fact, took a snarky swipe at all the Jurassics hype, pooh-poohing it while praising Formula 1’s Canadian Grand Prix: “Montreal has its answer to Toronto, where the Raptors are almost certain to win the NBA championship sometime this week. Overnight, Toronto the Insufferable will become Toronto the Extremely Insufferable. Glasses of skim milk will be raised to the queen. Drake’s mug will replace that of Sir Wilfred Laurier on the five-dollar bill. To all of which, Montreal will reply with a world-weary Gallic shrug, another glass of wine and the distinctive yowl of (Sebastian) Vettel’s Ferrari as it leaps out of the Senna ‘S’ at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.”

Great tweet from Rob Vanstone of the Leader Post re the upcoming Canadian Football League season: “I’m picking the Schooners to finish ahead of Montreal.”

Best tweet so far this week was delivered by Bob Weeks of TSN, following Rory McIlroy’s victory in the Canadian Open golf tournament:
Q: Do you wish the US Open started tomorrow?
Rory: No because I’ll be hung over.”

Also got a kick out of this cheeky tweet from Terry Jones of Postmedia E-Town: “I’d like to see the Raptors win it in seven. Just like to see Toronto squirm a little more. So sue me.” Not surprisingly, hostiles with zero sense of humor surfaced to brand Jonesy a “hater” and “bitter” and “obese.” If I know Jonesy, he’s still laughing at the mooks.

U.S. speaker Nancy Pelosi and Trudeau the 2nd have one of those silly politician wagers on the NBA final. If Golden State wins, Pelosi gets Atlantic salmon, chocolates, bagels, bison meat, Nanaimo bars and beer. If the Jurassics triumph, Trudeau the 2nd receives chocolate, wine, almonds and walnuts. I don’t know about the chocolate and wine, but the nuts will come in handy for Trudea. You know, to replace the pair that Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott took from him during the SNC-Lavalin scandal.

I sometimes forget that this is my blog and I can write about whatever catches my fancy. So, this tweet from Ricky Gervais has nothing to do with sports but it piqued my interest: “What five albums have you listened to most in your life? Be honest, not trendy.”

These are mine:

Sinatra at the Sands (with Count Basie & the Orchestra)—Frank Sinatra
Classical Barbra—Barbra Streisand
Old Ways—Neil Young
Cowboyography—Ian Tyson
Greatest Hits—Steely Dan

I plunked each one of those platters on the turntable this week and I’m pleased to report they’re still brilliant.

And, finally, I like to think of all these musings as original thoughts, but how can I be sure when I don’t know what anyone else is thinking? And if you do think the same as me, be afraid. Be very afraid.

About the NHL “code,” the Coyote and the Roadrunner…the Dinosaurs 3…earning R-E-S-P-E-C-T…zip those lips…J.T. and his PJs in The ROT…the Packers and the Raiders in the Peg…and are they really still curling?

Another Sunday smorgas-bored…and it’s baseball season, so I believe I’ll enjoy the ceremonial first hot dog today…

Let’s play Jeopardy!

Contestant: “I’ll take ‘NOT THE SHARPEST KNIFE IN THE DRAWER’ for $2,000, please Alex.”

Alex Trebek: “Okay, here’s your clue: This is the only group of people on earth known to be dumber than a doorknob, dumber than a sack of hammers, and dumber than Fox News.”

Contestant: “Who are the people sitting in the front row at a Donald Trump rally?”

Alex Trebek: “Oh, I’m sorry. That’s incorrect. While those folks definitely aren’t very bright, the correct answer is: Who are National Hockey League players?”

Yes, kids, let’s face it, your hockey heroes are D’oh! boys. The biggest D’oh! boys in all of jockdom. I mean, we’re talking Homer Simpson dumb.

I say that because they believe they’re obliged to fight, and nowhere else in professional team sports do you find athletes so easily duped.

Look at football. Very physical sport. Dirty, gnarly sport. On a play-by-play basis, it’s far more violent than hockey. Blind-sided quarterbacks are cold-cocked constantly. Ditto defenceless receivers. But they rarely come up chucking knuckles. If fists do fly, the combatants are dismissed pronto because fisticuffs is taboo.

Basketball? It can get right nasty under the bucket, with elbows and forearms crunching into jaws, cheekbones and bent noses. Knees dig into groins. But the tall lads seldom feel obliged to throw down. When they do, they’re gone.

Baseball? You hit my batter with a thrown ball, I’ll hit your batter with a thrown ball. Then the benches clear, the boys slap and push one another (unless it’s Nolan Ryan delivering serious noogies to Robin Ventura), and the men in blue give the offending parties the rest of the day off.

But in the NHL, there’s a “code.” The “code” is as old as Gordie Howe’s first jock, and it’s misguided vigilantism on blades.

To wit:

You hit me with a cheap shot—or hit me legally but too hard for my liking—and I now must knock your block off. If not me, one of my guard dogs will take care of business. Might not do it immediately. Might not do it that same night. Might have to wait a year. But someone is coming after you and you better not turn tail when challenged. You want the respect of friend, foe and fan? Only way is to “man up.” That’s the “code.”

Well, the “code” is stupid and so are hockey players for following it.

The “code” has ended careers (hello, Steve Moore) and it took Paul Byron out of the Montreal Canadiens lineup last week because he felt obliged to accept MacKenzie Weegar’s invitation to go dukes up. It doesn’t matter that Byron weighs a buck 60—about 40 pounds less than the Florida Panthers defender—and gives away four inches in height. Nor did it matter that he’d already served a three-game sentence and taken a sizable wallop to his wallet for an illegal hit on Weegar in January. There’s league-mandated accountability, then there’s law-of-the-jungle accountability.

So, ya, Byron dropped his mitts…then swallowed the knuckles on Weegar’s left fist and wobbled off the freeze, presumably to a very quiet room with no windows and all the lights turned off. Post-concussion, he was unavailable to les Canadiens on Thursday night in Columbus, where they lost to the Blue Jackets in a skirmish that carried considerable playoff significance, and there was no sign of him at the Little Hockey House On The Prairie on Saturday night when the Habs tried their luck vs. the Winnipeg Jets.

All that because Byron has been duped into believing he had no choice but to “man up” to the “code.”

“It’s been in the game forever,” one of his teammates, Andrew Shaw, said matter-of-factly.

Ya, and Wile E. Coyote has been chasing the Roadrunner forever, no matter how many sticks of dynamite blow up in his face or how many Acme anvils fall on his head. He just keeps coming back for more. Because Wile E. is really, really dumb.

So what does the Byron-Weegar scenario tell us about hockey players? Just that they’re as dumb as the most pathetic cartoon character ever created.

Naturally, the Dinosaurs 3—Don Cherry, Brian Burke, Nick Kypreos—weighed in on Byron-Weegar, and it was no surprise to hear their knuckles scraping the floor as they spoke.

Here’s Cherry: “I know it’s hard for people to, you know, it’s a code and all that stuff and everythink, he had to do it, he had to stand up, and I know the players respect him more. I know you people put down the code, it’s a code and it’ll always BE THERE.”

Here’s Burke: “(Byron) wasn’t compelled to take this fight. He took it, and I respect him for doing it. He does not have to take the fight. He does not have to take this fight. But keep in mind, in our league, historically, we have allowed the players to use self help, we have allowed the players to regulate, extensively, the level of violence that occurs on the ice. This is a good tradition, the code works, the injury’s unfortunate.”

Here’s Kypreos: “I had a lot of respect for Paul Byron, I have more for him today because of that.”

Well, isn’t that comforting for Byron to know. I’m sure he’ll sleep more soundly at night now that he’s earned a higher level of respect from a former thug who, when last seen on an NHL freeze, was lying face down and unconscious as blood oozed from his mouth. How did Kypreos get there? He lost an argument with Ryan VandenBussche’s left fist, whereupon a neurosurgeon suggested he get on with life, one that didn’t include disputes settled with bare knuckles. Yet here he is, 22 years later, faithfully clinging to and preaching the “code.” Also praising the latest victim.

Like I said, dumb.

I agree, it’s illogical that a guy whose career ended in a pool of his own blood would use his Sportsnet pulpit to repeatedly and, without apology, advocate violence. It’s like the victim of a drunk driver promoting “one more for the road.” But here’s where Kypreos confirms he has truly lost the plot.

“Two things I wanna tell people,” he said on Hockey Central At Noon, as if delivering a sermon. “When you step on the ice to play the game of hockey, two things a player always remembers: That you’re either trying to earn respect, or you’re trying to maintain respect. Okay? People don’t understand that, that aren’t there, and they never will because you gotta be there to understand that.”

How arrogant. Because 99.99999 per cent of us never laced ’em up in the NHL we know nothing about earning or maintaining respect? Perhaps Kypreos can tell that to any female news snoop who’s been assigned to cover men’s sports. Earning respect is an every-day, never-ending challenge for them. Same goes for female fire fighters and cops. Ditto openly gay athletes. Doctors, lawyers, teachers, actors, singers, artists, writers, parents—women and men—we all strive for respect. The difference, of course, is that we don’t feel the need to punch anyone in the face to achieve it.

Kypreos is either delusional or a damn fool, and I’m inclined to believe it’s the latter.

Offering an anti-goon voice in the discussion was J.P. Barry, who represents Byron and called out the “code” for what it is: A sham. Bogus. “I’m sure you will hear from many others who see things much differently than me and will say ‘look at Paul Byron, what a warrior, he answered the bell.’” Barry said. “These are the people that believe in the old ‘code.’ It’s time for Player Safety to be the new ‘code.’ What really matters is eliminating avoidable concussions wherever we can in our player safety rules going forward.” Imagine that, a voice of reason. To which Burke responded: “J.P. should have kept his mouth shut.” That’s rich. A guy who now makes his living as a squawk box is telling others to zip their lips. What freaking ever.

Astonishing headline on the Sportsnet website last week: “Tavares’ excellent season with the Maple Leafs flying under the radar?” They were kidding, right? Nope. On the Tim & Sid chin-wag, the boys discussed John Tavares being “overlooked.” Said Sid: “I can’t believe I’m about to say this—there’s been so much other stuff—he has been overlooked to a certain extent.” Oh, pu-leeze. The leading goal-scorer with the Tranna Maple Leafs has been “overlooked” like the moon landing and the JFK assassination. His name has been in more headlines than Robert Mueller’s. Cripes, man, how often have we seen that pic of J.T. in his PJs? A dozen? Two dozen? Until I see Connor McDavid or Sidney Crosby in a onesy, no player in the Republic of Tranna is “overlooked.” Ever. And certainly not by Leafsnet.

What’s this? The Winnipeg Blue Bombers are in discussions to bring the Green Bay Packers and Oakland Raiders to Good Ol’ Hometown for a National Football League preseason skirmish? Please, say it ain’t so. I mean, what if the Raiders refuse to leave?

Interesting tweet from Winnipeg FC voice Knuckles Irving on the Packers-Raiders invading three-down country: “Any CFL team that offers to host an NFL pre season (sic) game should have their franchise revoked. And I might not just be kidding.” I agree with Knuckles. But only if we get to keep Aaron Rodgers and the Packers.

And, finally, now that the Major League Baseball season is upon us, shouldn’t the curling season be over? Will anyone actually be watching the men’s world championship from Lethbridge? I can’t imagine that it’s must-see TV for many folks, not even hard-core Pebble People on the Prairies.

About Major Junior hockey and Benny’s pie in the sky…put that WHL name on Ice…Barnum & Bailey & Mayhem on Maroons Road…Jeff Hamilton racing a woman…Jake and les Leafs…open season on Puck Finn…and good reads from Teddy Wy and Mike M.

A midweek smorgas-bored…and it’s a good day for stepping into the Junior shinny Way Back Machine to a time when some hockey coaches wore fedoras…

Major Junior hockey. Winnipeg.

Some of us are old enough to recall the days when those two went together, like Johnny Carson and late-night laughter.

That’s right, kids, once upon a brief time Major Junior worked in Good Ol’ Hometown.

Bobby Clarke, Chris Worthy and Reggie Leach

Oh, they didn’t exactly sardine-can them into the old shinny barn on Maroons Road every night, but it wasn’t just family and friends who surfaced to watch the Winnipeg Jets. Especially when the Flin Flon Bombers of Bobby Clarke and Reggie Leach rode into River City with a sneer and something to prove to the big-city boys.

Logically, the Brandon Wheat Kings, being just a hoot and a holler down the road, should have been cast in the role of the Jets’ antagonist in what was then known as the Western Canada Hockey League. But no. It was the bunch from the northern Manitoba mining town named after the fictional Josiah Flintabbatey Flonatin who wore the black hat.

The dreaded Bombers were piloted by Paddy Ginnell, a rascalish head coach given to filling news snoops’ notebooks with goading, in-your-face candor.

In the spring of 1969, for example, the Jets evened a playoff joust with the Bombers at 2-2-1 (yes, there was a tie game), which meant the eight-point series was heading back to intimidating Whitney Forum in Flin Flon.

“How the hell are they going to win up there?” a cocksure Ginnell scoffed. “They’ve never won there. If I was Ben (Hatskin, Jets bankroll), I’d forfeit the series and save the money.”

Turns out Paddy was right.

The Jets couldn’t quite figure out a way to win in the Flin Flon Forum, which provided cozy comfort for the Bombers but served as a chamber of horrors for the Winnipegs in ’69 and the following spring.

The thing is, whatever pre- and post-game hype Ginnell and his counterpart, Eddie (Pistol) Dorohoy, were selling to anyone with a notebook or microphone, the rabble was buying. The Jets topped out at a head count of 7,326 and totaled 20,516 for three home dates in ’69, and upped that in 1970 with a WCHL single-game record of 9,043 and 33,206 for their four home dates vs. Flin Flon.

Queen Liz looked down approvingly from the north end of the barn.

That all changed, however, when the aforementioned Ben Hatskin saw two bigger pies in the sky. One was called the World Hockey Association. The other was Robert Marvin Hull.

Five years after Benny and the WHA Jets reshaped the local shinny landscape in 1972, Major Junior hockey disappeared, despite the earnest intentions and heavy sledding of people like Gerry Brisson, Muzz MacPherson, Gordie Pennell, George Dorman and so many others.

My perch in the press box allowed me to witness the slow, steady decline of a franchise that morphed from the Jets to the Clubs to the Monarchs, and customers disguised as empty seats was not only a bad optic but a killer on the bottom line.

“I don’t understand why people won’t come out to watch us,” Brisson would lament the day after a home assignment would attract an audience numbering no more than 1,200 diehards.

It didn’t help, of course, that Brisson did some goofy things, like replacing his head coach with the team trainer in the middle of a game and later demoting the same head coach to assistant coach, to scout, then firing him via Canada Post. Correct. He sent George Dorman a Dear John letter. And, in general, Brisson iced outfits that could scarcely lick their lips.

Bottom line, though, was the WHA and the Jets. That was the nut nobody could crack.

I’m guessing that Greg Fettes and Matt Cockell are aware of this unfortunate history (not to mention the aborted re-entry of the WHL in the early 1980s), yet they’re still planning to pitch their tent in the boonies (RM of Macdonald) and swim upstream next autumn. Their Kootenay Ice will become the Winnipeg Ice, and Fettes/Cockell seem convinced they can make a go of it in a hockey pool that includes the NHL Jets and American Hockey League Manitoba Moose. You can take them for fools if you like, but, hey, it’s their coin.

Someone please tell me that Fettes and Cockell plan to rename their franchise. Ice doesn’t work for me, nor does an angry Sasquatch as a team logo. We haven’t seen anything resembling a Sasquatch in Good Ol’ Hometown since Jimmy Mann was dragging his knuckles around the freeze.

Among the selling points of the old WCHL were the owners/operators. Guys like Brisson, MacPherson, Ginnell, Pistol Dorohoy, Punch McLean, Scotty Munro and Wild Bill Hunter were Sideshow Bobs, equal parts Barnum, Bailey and Ringling Bros. Some, notably McLean and Ginnell, were maestros of mayhem. It wasn’t uncommon for all hell to break loose on any given night, and the lads really frothed at the mouth with Flin Flon in town. Then it was Mayhem on Maroons Road, and much of it seemed orchestrated. Neither Fettes or Cockell strikes me as a carnival barker, and I somehow doubt their head coach, homeboy James Patrick, is inclined to hurl garbage cans onto the ice when his universe isn’t unfolding as it should. Oh, the good, old days.

Here’s how popular the Junior Jets of Ben Hatskin, Pistol Dorohoy and coach Nick Mickoski were: Some fans actually purchased passage on the team charter to attend playoff skirmishes in Flin Flon.

Young Jeff Hamilton of the Drab Slab writes this about the Ice’s entry into the River City shinny glut: “A WHL franchise in Winnipeg, together with the unprecedented investment in hockey development, would create a unique sports marketplace and position Winnipeg as the hockey capital of North America, home to teams in the NHL, AHL and the Canadian Hockey League.” Whoa there, young fella. There’s this little burg I call the Republic of Tranna that trumps Good Ol’ Hometown. The ROT has the Maple Leafs, the Marlies, the Mississauga Steelheads, plus the Furies and the Thunder. Unless young Jeff is one of the many men who pooh-pooh the distaff side of the game, The ROT’s two Canadian Women’s Hockey League franchises give it the edge. If young Jeff isn’t convinced, let’s see him beat Kendall Coyne Schofield in a foot race and then we’ll talk.

Something tells me the Maple Leafs made a trade this week. And I think it involved Jake Muzzin. I could be wrong, though. I mean, maybe I was just dreaming when I saw those 12 headlines about Muzzin on the front page of the Leafs blog known as the Sportsnet website on Wednesday. They usually reserve that kind of over-the-top coverage for Auston Matthews’ grooming habits (film of toenail clipping at 11). So I guess I’m mistaken and Muzzin is still working the Los Angeles Kings blueline.

Let’s be clear about something: Les Jets do not have to make a significant move just because les Leafs snared Muzzin. This isn’t tit-for-tat. The Muzzin transaction has no impact on Winnipeg HC unless they’re the last two National Hockey League clubs standing in the Stanley Cup runoff. If that’s how it shakes down, it won’t be because general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff was prodded into action by Leafs GM Harry Potter.

Tough week thus far for Patrik Laine. The young Jets winger still can’t score, he spent most of Tuesday night in Beantown glued to the pine, and the natterbugs in print and on air went off on the kid. According to my scorecard, Ted Wyman, Jason Bell, Tim & Sid, Noodles McLennon and Jeff O’Dog all had a go at Puck Finn and, to sum up their deep, penetrating analysis, Laine “isn’t moving his feet.” Tough to move your feet when you’re sitting on the bench.

I’m not saying coach Paul Maurice was wrong to plop Puck Finn on the plank vs. the Bruins, but there’s more at play here than the moving of feet. I say Laine’s issues are at the opposite end of his lanky body—between the ears.

If you’re looking for a good read, check out Mike McIntyre’s piece on former U.S. Navy SEAL James Hatch in the Drab Slab. Hatch is in town as part of a dumb bet he made against les Jets last year, and Mike M. hits it out of the park with his yarn. Also worth a look is Ted Wyman’s feature on former Jets forward and all-round good guy Randy Gilhen in the Winnipeg Sun. Good stuff.

And, finally, I have personal links to two of the main players in the old WCHL. Pistol Dorohoy is the only coach who ever cut me, and I played for Gerry Brisson. So, ya, I feel the warm and fuzzies for Junior shinny and I hope it works for Fettes and Cockell.

About the Blue Bombers coughing up a hairball…Jacob Trouba’s shelf life with the Winnipeg Jets…shoddy journalism…liars, liars in sports…happy 25th to the Goldeyes…a female voice on jock talk TV…a really dumb question about Serena Williams’ pregnant pause…who’s the duchess of what?…Joey Votto and a rat’s ass…numbers crunching in The Athletic Winnipeg…and other things on my mind

I cannot survive in a 140- or 280-character world, so here are more tweets that grew up to be too big for Twitter…

Loved the headline in the Winnipeg Free Press after the Winnipeg Blue Bombers coughed up a 17-point hairball and lost 20-17 to the Lions at B.C. Place Stadium on Saturday night: GOOD GRIEF!

Good grief, indeed, Charlie Brown.

Winnipeg FC had no business losing to the inferior Leos, but that’s what happens when you play and coach stupid football. Seriously. Three roughing-the-passer violations? Twice ignoring a gimme three points? That’s dumb, dumber and dumbest.

Asked post-game why he twice gambled on third-and-short rather than kick field goals, head coach Mike O’Shea said: “To me it’s a no-brainer.”

Exactly. No brains.

I don’t know about you, but I look at the signing of Connor Hellebuyck as an appetizer, something for the rabble to nibble and nosh on until the main course arrives, hopefully later this week.

I mean, yes, the freshly minted agreement between the Winnipeg Jets and their all-star goaltender takes care of the blue paint for the next six National Hockey League crusades. It’s a favorable development. But the real intrigue in Jets Nation is on the blueline, in the form of Jacob Trouba and, to a much lesser degree, his running mate, Josh Morrissey.

Trouba is the X factor.

Given his history that includes a training-camp/early-season work stoppage and a trade request, skeptics abound when it comes to the 24-year-old defender. They won’t be convinced that Trouba is, as they say at the Vegas poker tables, “all-in” with Winnipeg and les Jets until they know his signature is at the bottom of a contract. Long term. As in six or eight years.

Trouba has an audience with an arbitrator scheduled for the morning of July 20, a bargained-for option exercised by 43 other NHL players this summer. If dealings with les Jets stall this week and he meets with the arbitrator, all bets are off on his shelf life in Good Ol’ Hometown.

My guess? Trouba stays. Six years. Then he leaves.

Apparently, Paul Wiecek has insider intel on Trouba. If only he’d be kind enough to let the rest of us in on the scoop. But no. When Wiecek writes that “Trouba is a problem. Again.” it’s his little secret. He isn’t prepared to share the gory details. We have to guess what it is that makes No. 8 “a problem. Again.”

Well, here’s the actual problem: Wiecek harbors a stalker-like obsession with Trouba, one that began in September 2016 and has become an obscenity.

Twice in the past 10 days, Wiecek has launched gratuitous, factless attacks on the Jets young defender. First the Winnipeg Free Press sports columnist informed us that “Trouba, for one, has a long track record of doing what’s right for Trouba, even when it’s been what’s wrong for Trouba.” (It’s uncertain exactly how Wiecek could possibly know what’s right and what’s wrong for Trouba, but, hey, perhaps the guy’s got a life-coaching gig on the side.) He then doubled down with his cryptic “Trouba is a problem. Again.” Ah, but Wiecek provided not a sliver of evidence to prop of his allegation.

Why is Trouba so far up Wiecek’s nose?

Is it the arbitration thing? Naw. Can’t be. Forty-three other NHL players filed for arbitration, including four of Trouba’s teammates. I hardly think that qualifies any of them as a problem child.

Maybe it was the trade demand two years ago. Naw. Can’t be that either. Plenty of people have wanted out of Winnipeg, the great Dale Hawerchuk among them. No one thought of Ducky as a problem child.

So what is it? Simple. During the 2016 World Cup of Hockey, Trouba told Wiecek a mistruth. Said he was happier than a pig in slop to be playing in River City, and he hoped to be on board for the long haul. Shortly thereafter, Trouba was a no-show at training camp and he was AWOL through the first month of the season. So he had lied (just like everyone else in hockey, including writers). Wiecek took it as a personal affront and he’s waged a one-man, two-year vendetta to discredit Trouba, branding him a liar, petulant, a malcontent, impetuous, the biggest loser, reckless, greedy, phony and, most recently, selfish and a problem.

It’s irresponsible, tawdry journalism, and someone high on the food chain at the Freep ought to step up and nip it in the bud.

I had issues with fibbers during my time in sports. Jets GM John Ferguson once told myself and Friar Nicolson a flat-out lie about Bobby Hull. It was a whopper. So I called him out, in print. Fergy was steamed. I was, too. We didn’t talk to each other for two weeks. Not at the rink. Not on the team bus. Not at the airport. Not on the phone. He would just glare down the gun barrel that passed for his nose, and I would ignore him. I don’t recall how we arrived at détente, but Fergy and I eventually got along just fine. Whatever fibs he told me thereafter were little and white. The worst was Sam Katz, owner of the Winnipeg Goldeyes. Sammy was a carnival barker. He would tell the boys at the Free Press that a baseball was round, then he would tell us at the Winnipeg Sun that a baseball was a hockey puck. I couldn’t believe anything that fell from that man’s mouth, so I simply stopped interviewing him and took to calling him The Unmentionable Man in print. Sammy and I were cordial when our paths crossed, but we never warmed to each other. No big deal. I didn’t need him to do my job and he didn’t need me to fill seats in the Ballyard At The Forks.

Speaking of Sammy, his Goldeyes celebrate their 25th anniversary this season. There were ample doubters at the beginning for the independent ball club—and I still wish he’d named his rounders side something other than Goldeyes—but Sammy pulled it off and the Fish have been a rousing success at the box office and between the foul lines with four titles. So good on him and them.

More kudos to Sportsnet for putting Caroline Cameron on the Tim & Sid show while Tim and Sid are goofing around off-set. She was co-hosting with Donnovan Bennett last week and, among many issues, they discussed the eventual return of Roberta Osuna, the Tranna Blue Jays relief pitcher who faces a court hearing on a domestic violence charge and is under suspension by Major League Baseball.

Bennett: “Are you okay with him being back with the Jays before the actual court case is resolved?”

Cameron: “No I’m not, and for a few reasons. If the Blue Jays see this as a baseball decision, it’s not simply that. A situation like this never is. And in sports at lot of time we see that it mirrors what’s happening in society, and that includes the things that are going wrong with society. And the nice thing about sports—and excuse my use of the cliché—is sports you can play by your own rules, right? You can make your own decisions and figure out how you want to deal with these societal, moral issues. If the Jays bring Osuna back because they think they need his arm in a season that’s already lost, what message are you sending to the fans? And even on the flip side, innocent until proven guilty, do you want to have Roberto Osuna out there, out on the field, out in the bullpen when this is not resolved? What kind of reaction do you think he’s going to get? I just think you have an opportunity—and I’m not saying the Blue Jays have to set a precedent—but someone at some point has to set a precedent or else change will not happen and this will continue to be just a ‘baseball move’ as opposed to what it actually is.”

Imagine that. A woman, rather than a man, giving voice to a topic so significant to so many women. On a Canadian TV sports gab show. That’s as rare as a Serena Williams loss on Centre Court Wimbledon. Most of the women on Canadian jock talk TV get to read a teleprompter, nothing more. This is refreshing.

Did one man, Mark Masters of TSN, really ask another man, ESPN tennis analyst Darren Cahill, to put the past year of Serena Williams’ life into “context?” Yes. Yes he did. Which means Masters wins the award for the dumbest question ever, ever, ever. I mean, how in the name of Mama Liv Walton can a man possibly give context to carrying a fetus for nine months, giving birth to a six-pound, 13-ounce girl, breast feeding, then returning to play in the ladies’ championship match of a tennis Grand Slam tournament? Only three people—Margaret Court, Evonne Goolagong Cawley, Kim Clijsters—can answer that question, and none of them are men. What will Masters do next? Ask John McEnroe what it’s like to be a lesbian on the tennis tour? To his credit, Cahill politely answered the questionable question about Williams’ pregnant pause, saying, “You can’t put that into context” before mentioning that Clijsters and other women have put their careers on hold to start a family and returned to win Slam titles.

I suppose with a soon-to-be 37-year-old mom navigating her way to the Wimbledon final in just her fourth post-childbirth tournament, pundits will be slagging the quality and depth of women’s tennis. But in besting Williams on Saturday, 6-3, 6-3, Angelique Kerber became the seventh different champion in the past seven majors. So, I’d say the distaff side of the sport is just fine, thank you. The real issue is on the men’s side, where all four semifinalist at the All England Club are 30somethings. Generation Next simply cannot break through.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t tell my British duchesses without a program. Is Kate the Duchess of Cambridge and Meghan the Duchess of Sussex, or is Kate the Duchess of Sussex and Meghan the Duchess of Cambridge. If they’re going to sit in the Royal Box at Wimbledon, I think they should be obligated to wear duchess name tags.

Joey Votto of the Cincinnati Reds swatted his 266th home run last Monday to climb above Matt Stairs on the all-time dinger list for Canadians in Major League Baseball. He now stands second to Larry Walker. Well, to borrow Votto’s words when he piddled on our Corn Flakes earlier this year, “I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about that,” and I won’t give “a rat’s ass” if he goes on to surpass Walker’s record of 383 HRs.

I heard Dave Poulin gabbing about the Connor Hellebuyck contract on TSN the other day, and I had to tune out because the guy no longer has street cred. Not after he was one of seven voters to leave Connor McDavid off their all-star ballot. I mean, McDavid was the scoring champion, for cripes sake. And Poulin is telling us he wasn’t among the top three centre-ice men last season? What would he have us believe next? That Bobby Orr was a slowpoke? Sidney Crosby needs to work on his hand-eye coordination? Bobby Hull never wore a rug? It’s one thing for shinny scribes/broadcasters to dumb down, but there’s no excuse for a former NHL player to be such a d’oh boy. If you’re wondering, the other geniuses who made their ballots a no-McDavid zone were Dave Shoalts (Globe and Mail), Mike Colageo (New Bedford Standard Times), Stephen Conroy (Boston Herald), Emily Kaplan (ESPN), Gann Matsuda (Frozen Royalty), and Arthur Staple (The Athletic New York). Off with their press passes!

There’s a lot of good reading in The Athletic, but I’m deeply disappointed in the Winnipeg content. A chap named Murat Ates is the man about the Jets, and he’s advertised as someone who delivers a blend of “modern hockey analysis with engaging storytelling.” Sorry, but what I’ve seen to date is nothing but number crunching. All the “engaging storytelling” must be hidden in the math and, since I’m not a numbers geek, his copy is a total, also lengthy, yawn. Reading all those numbers makes my eyes glaze over. I don’t say that to be mean, but math and I have been at odds since Grade 1 at St. Alphonsus, and I believe sports is more about people than salary dumps and contract term. Meanwhile, if The Athletic Winnipeg has someone on the Bombers beat, he or she must be in a witness protection program. I realize the online newspaper is still looking for good people, but giving the Canadian Football League short shrift when Winnipeg FC is the only game in town until September is bad form. The Athletic Winnipeg needs a jolt of creative juice. Pronto.

And, finally, I note that 680 CJOB in Good Ol’ Hometown is getting back into the jock talk business. All sports director Kelly Moore needs now is a host, and I find myself wondering if he’d be brave enough to do something radical. You know, like hire a female as the lead voice on the gabfest. Actually, I wonder if any women will bother to apply. As mentioned earlier, jock talk in Canada is very much an old boys club.

About the Winnipeg Jets being built on free agents…the ice fishing is great, right Big Buff?…Richie’s a Hall of a coach this week…pigging out in the (hot) dog days of summer…media friendly Vic Peters…Caroline Cameron gives Tim & Sid a fresh voice and look…those wacky Wimbledon women…don’t diss Ronaldo…and a sports scribe who preaches one thing but writes about another

I cannot survive in a 140- or 280-character world, so here are more tweets that grew up to be too big for Twitter…

Welcome to Winnipeg, armpit of the National Hockey League.

Well, okay, that’s not exactly how shinny scribes Scott Burnside and Sean McIndoe worded it when Paul Stastny chose Glitter Gulch over Good Ol’ Hometown, but that was the sentiment of each pundit’s analysis—River City sucks. Still. Otherwise Stastny wouldn’t have vamoosed from the Winnipeg Jets to the Vegas Golden Knights scant seconds after the NHL opened its grab bag of free agents a week ago this very morning.

Here’s Burnside of The Athletic:

“While he did choose to waive his no-trade clause to go to the Jets at the trade deadline, Stastny’s departure as an unrestricted free agent merely reinforces the idea that, as good as the Jets are—and they are really good—they still aren’t at the stage where they are a destination for free agents. Not yet at least.”

Here’s McIndoe of Sportsnet:

“They were a darn good team before Stastny arrived, and they’ll be a good one with him gone. But seeing a top UFA walk away will reinforce the old idea that the Jets are at a disadvantage when it comes to attracting top players.”

Both scribes stopped short of stereotypical jabs about the dark, the cold, the crappy WiFi, the pothole-to-person ratio, and summer skeeters the size of a Zamboni in River City, but the gist of their analysis is unmistakable, and this Winnipeg-as-NHL armpit narrative is oh so dog-eared. Also wearisome.

I mean, I’d buy it if Stastny had gone on record saying he defected to Sin City because “Winnipeg is a garbage dump with a lousy zoo and an ugly museum.” But no.

“In the end,” the 32-year-old centre-ice man told the Las Vegas Sun, “sometimes you just have to go with your gut feeling. Sometimes it’s just one of those things that is the best fit, hockey-wise, family-wise and everything in between.”

Doesn’t sound damning to me.

Yet those of the Burnside/McIndoe ilk trot out the woe-is-Winnipeg refrain every time someone gives Good Ol’ Hometown the cold shoulder, mainly because it’s a convenient and lazy plot line that plays to the ill-informed among the rabble and, at the same time, ignores history. Yes, history.

Benny Hatskin and Bobby Hull on a happy day in Winnipeg.

Go ahead, kids. Name the most significant free-agent signing—ever—in professional hockey. That’s right, the name is Hull, Bobby Hull. And where did that game-shaping event take place? At the intersection of Portage Avenue and Main Street, where a flock of thousands gathered to witness Robert Marvin Hull, fresh off his fifth 50-goal season for the Chicago Blackhawks, scrawl his John Hancock on a Winnipeg Jets contract on June 27, 1972. This was the NHL’s glam guy, choosing Pegtown over Chitown. The sport and salaries were forever altered by one free-agent signing.

More to the point, the very foundation of the Winnipeg Jets was built exclusively on free agents, guys who willingly came to River City to form the World Hockey Association’s flagship franchise.

Ab Mcdonald, Joe Daley, Sudsy Sutherland, Ernie Wakely and others from the ‘hood came home from hither and yon to wear Jets linen. Anders Hedberg chose Winnipeg over Toronto. Kent Nilsson chose Winnipeg over Toronto and Atlanta. Willy Lindstrom could have played anywhere in North America. He chose Winnipeg. Ulf Nilsson and Lars-Erik Sjoberg chose Winnipeg. Peter Sullivan chose Winnipeg. Etcetera, etcetera and blah, blah, blah.

So enough of the tired, old refrain about Pegtown being a shinny leper colony.

Are there guys who’d rather not play in River City? Absolutely. We’re told Good Ol’ Hometown makes most no-trade lists. Just ask Ilya Bryzgalov. But, hey, John Tavares rejected 30 cities just last week, so it’s not like Winnipeg is unique. Look, players talk about three main things when wrestling with free-agency options: 1) Money; 2) the opportunity to win; 3) location. Well, Ben Hatskin wasn’t paying Hull $2.7 million in Monopoly or Canadian Tire money in 1972, and David Thomson and Mark Chipman aren’t paying Dustin Byfuglien $7.6 million per annum in food stamps with the present-day Jets. Competitively, les Jets were a final four team in this past spring’s Stanley Cup runoff. As for location, the ice fishing is boffo, thank you. Just ask Big Buff. So what’s not to like?

Just wondering: Are we still calling for Richie Hall’s head to roll? Probably not. Hall is the much-maligned man tasked with mapping out strategy for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers defensive dozen, whose deficiencies were exposed like a porn star’s privates in two of their first three skirmishes this Canadian Football League crusade. Then along came the B.C. Lions with a benign offence designed to heal whatever ails a wonky defence. So I assume Winnipeg FC’s 41-19 victory over the Leos on Saturday evening at Football Follies Field in Fort Garry means it’s safe for Hall to go grocery shopping and pump his own gas this week. Just to be safe, though, he should have Adam Bighill tag along.

Here’s something to chew on: Joey Chestnut celebrated the dog days of summer by successfully defending his Nathan’s hot dog eating title, scarfing down 74 tube steaks in 10 minutes. It’s believed that no one has ever gone through that many dogs. Except the Edmonton Oilers, of course.

Richard Deitsch of The Athletic asked this question of jock journos on Twitter: “Who is the most media-friendly athlete you have dealt with?” For me, that’s a no-brainer: The late Vic Peters, with about 100 other curlers tied in second. Vic, in the grand scheme of jockdom, was a smooth-edged gem on a beach full of sharp stones. A most obliging, engaging man, he had time for us all. Always.

Loved the new look and sound on the Tim & Sid show last week. Unfortunately, it’s only temporary. Caroline Cameron has been sitting in for the vacationing Sid Seixeiro on the Sportsnet gabfest, and they’re as different as a pit bull and a kitten. I mean, Sid’s shtick is to talk tough. He dresses the part, too. He looks like he belongs on the set of a gangster movie, skulking around with Luca Brasi and nervously glancing over his shoulder to see if Eliot Ness is on his tail. He wears his sneer on his sleeve. He’s prone to prop humor and theatrical orations that would earn him a failing grade in a high school drama class, and his rants are usually about as sincere as a Neymar dive-writhe-and-roll. Caroline, on the other hand…we’re talking Mary Richards from the Mary Tyler Moore Show. Polished, professional, knowledgeable, smiling, impeccable, pretty, a girl making her way and succeeding in a guy’s world. A lot of viewers (read: guys) pooh-pooh women on sports talk TV as empty heads. Well, Caroline Cameron is compelling evidence that there should be more female voices in the jock gab game. She’s very good.

Yes, now that you mention it, the goings-on in London are very strange, most notably on the women’s side of Wimbledon. They’re spitting out seeds like it’s a baseball dugout. Gone are nine of the top 10 seeds and 25 of 32 overall. Wimbledon has never seen such carnage. Serena Williams will have to break both legs and carry her baby on her back to lose this tournament. Even at that, she could probably win the thing and claim her 24th tennis Grand Slam title on crutches.

A lot of British accents on our flatscreens during the World Cup, one of them belonging to Danny Dichio, former forward in the English Premier League. Sportsnet trotted him out as an analyst during the group stage of the event, and he had this exchange with Jesse Fuchs…

Fuchs: “People love to compare Lionel Messi and Christiano Ronaldo…Messi missed a penalty earlier in the tournament, now so has Ronaldo. And it ends up costly, as Portugal are held to a draw. Is it fair at all to criticize CR7?”

Dichio: “No. Not at all fair.”

So, let’s see if I’ve got this straight: The president of the United States, the Pope, Queen Liz, the Beatles, any journalist you care to name, and Jesus Christ himself are fair game for a roasting when they cough up a hairball, but Ronaldo, a guy who’s supposedly god’s gift to soccer, is untouchable when he gags on a shot from the 12-yard spot? As if. Dichio gets a red card for being a nincompoop.

And, finally, based on his scribblings over the years, it’s apparent that Paul Wiecek of the Winnipeg Free Press does not harbour a healthy fondness for professional athletes. He often writes of them with resentment, contempt and scorn, painting them with one broad brush stroke—they’re all money-grubbing elitists who look down on the rabble from their perch of privilege.

“A tiny cadre of coddled millionaires,” is how he described the Jets players in one of his tamer remarks.

Therefore it wasn’t out of character that he assailed play-for-pay jocks—defrocked Jets goaltender Steve Mason in particular—while making the case that the amateur athletes in our great nation are underfunded by the feds and underappreciated by the unwashed masses.

“Such is the deification that we accord professional hockey players in this country that we think nothing of paying the washouts millions not to play, while at the same time throwing chump change at our amateur athletes and then scolding them if they dare return home without Olympic medals every four years when we remember again that they exist,” he writes.

He calls financial support for our top amateurs “laughable” and “a complete joke.”

Actually, the joke is a sports columnist prattling on about underfunding and underappreciation for amateurs when 95 per cent of his yearly material is devoted to his personal hot-button issues like Jacob Trouba’s attitude, Mike O’Shea’s “goofy” short pants, and Mark Chipman’s past life as a used-car salesman. His own newspaper treats amateur athletes like they have the cooties. Unless, of course, they’re holding a curling rock in one hand and a broom or sliding apparatus in the other. Kaitlyn Lawes, Jennifer Jones, Mike McEwen, Reid Carruthers and other pebble people get the jock star treatment from the Freep. The rest? Basically bupkus.

Here’s the professional/amateur story scorecard from the past seven editions of the Drab Slab: 140-13. Granted, seven days of sports sections is a small sample size, but just 8.5 per cent of all articles was devoted to amateurs.

In that same seven-paper time frame, Wiecek wrote three columns: his apples-to-oranges argument about amateur funding vs. greedy professional jocks getting too much coin for not enough work; the Blue Bombers lousy defence and firing lousy coaches O’Shea and Hall; and, once again, greedy pro athletes.

What’s that you say? Some sports scribes must be overpaid, underworked and coddled, too? Who knew?

About bringing your Eh game…no QB controversy with Winnipeg Blue Bombers…F-bombs on TSN…QB carnage in the CFL…more blah, blah, blah about Johnny Rotten…the real CFL power rankings…shinny and museums…hockey is not for everyone…putting the bite on Luis Suarez…and carpool karaoke with Sir Paul

I cannot survive in a 140- or 280-character world, so here are more tweets that grew up to be too big for Twitter…

Happy Canada day, kids. Great country. Best country. Land of maple syrup, peameal bacon, the McKenzie Brothers, the good, ol’ hockey game and the rouge. Wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. Whatever you choose to do today, bring your eh game.

The suggestion that there might be a quarterback controversy on the boil in Winnipeg is, well, silly. Also totally asinine.

It’s the sort of thing a bored jock journalist might dream up on a slow news day, giving so many lumps on so many bar stools something to bark about when too much of the brown pop is flowing in their local watering hole.

So don’t run off with the notion that Blue Bombers head coach Mike O’Shea will experience a moment of sheer madness once Matt Nichols is given the okie-dokie from medics and he’s freed from the repair shop. As sure as Donald Trump will tweet about “13 Angry Democrats,” Coach Mikey will insert Nichols behind centre Matthias Goossen, at the same time reducing Chris Streveler’s responsibilities to staring at tablets on the sideline.

O’Shea shall do this for two basic reasons: 1) He likes his job and would prefer to keep it; 2) Nichols gives Winnipeg FC its best chance to win, ergo O’Shea keeps the job he likes.

None of that is to suggest Streveler has been inept as Nichols’ stand-in. He’s done boffo business, a sketchy effort Friday night at Timbits Field in Hamilton notwithstanding. Raw like road kill, the greenhorn out of South Dakota finally looked the part of rookie in a 31-17 loss to the Tiger-Cats, but let’s keep perspective here: When a wonky leg felled Nichols during training exercises, what was expected of Streveler as the Canadian Football League’s first true freshman starting QB since Anthony Calvillo in 1994? Not much. The rabble hoped he’d win a game. Two if the pointy ball took a few favorable bounces. Well, he’s performed admirably enough to be 2-1 rather than 1-2 in three starts, but a Charmin-soft defensive dozen has betrayed Streveler and the Bombers, who sit at the bottom of a West Division that surely shall produce four playoff teams for the third successive season.

Here’s my take on Streveler: He’s provided ample evidence to support a belief that the Bombers have found their future starter and, in the present, he’s a most capable QB in a pinch.

But be certain, this never was about auditioning for Nichols’ job.

Anyone who thinks otherwise is a jock journalist with too much time on his hands, or a lump on a bar stool who’s been overserved.

TSN’s “live mic” broadcast of the Bombers-Tabbies skirmish, with head coaches and quarterbacks wired for sound, was brought to you by the letter F, as in F-bombs. Mind you, I’m surprised there were so few of them. I heard just six, maybe seven F-bombs. Profanity is “part of the game,” advised the ever-enthusiastic Matt Dunigan, the one member of TSN’s panel of natterbugs who clearly wishes he was still on the football field getting his bell rung and cussin’ about it. Matty’s right, of course. Football players cuss. They sometimes couple their F-bombs with a reference to another player’s mother. It’s crude and raw. You know, the same kind of language you hear in most schoolyards.

This is never good: We’re only three weeks into the 2018 CFL crusade and already four starting QBs are on the wonk. Nichols, of course, couldn’t answer the opening bell for the Bombers, Zach Collaros of the Saskatchewan Roughriders is on the six-game injury list, Drew Willy couldn’t finish what he started for the Montreal Alouettes on Saturday night, and the fabulous Ricky Ray is probably lost to the Tranna Argonauts and the CFL forever. Watching Ray being carted off BMO Field last weekend was disturbing, and it reminded me of Chris Walby, perhaps the greatest of all Blue Bombers. That’s how big Bluto’s career ended, on a Gator cart. Such a sad and cruel way to go out for such grand performers.

Can TSN do us a favor and ditch the split screen feature, whereby we’re shown a replay on the left side and live ant-sized action on the right? Not all of us have a 70-inch flatscreen that allow us to count Johnny Manziel’s nose hairs, and I don’t think I should require the Hubble Telescope to watch a football game.

Speaking of Manziel (isn’t TSN always talking about him?), finally someone in mainstream media has called out the broadcaster for its shameless pandering to Johnny Rotten. That would be Mike Ganter of Postmedia Tranna, who, in his CFL Blitz package, writes about “the TSN-pushed agenda to make (Manziel) a starter in this league regardless of the stunning numbers put up by Jeremiah Masoli.” Last week on the The Johnny Manziel Network, the boys (Michael Landsberg, Dave Naylor, Mark Roe and Carlo Colaiacovo) discussed a possible trade of Johnny Rotten to the Argonauts, while Naylor and Davis Sanchez discussed a Manziel trade to either the Argos or Roughriders. Then, in the chin-wag preceding the Bombers-Ticats joust, gab guys Dunigan, Milt Stegall and Jock Climie spent more time talking about Johnny Rotten than Chris Streveler. I swear, if Manziel actually steps foot on the field and takes a snap, someone’s head at TSN is going to explode.

So let’s see if I’ve got this straight, the Tiger-Cats womped the Edmonton Eskimos 38-21 in Week 2, but Scott Cullen’s TSN power rankings had the Esks rated second in the CFL and the Tabbies No. 5. Go figure. Meanwhile, at cfl.ca, the Esks were listed at No. 2 and the Tabbies No. 3, and somehow the B.C. Lions, who had won their only game, were ranked lower than the Tranna Argonauts, who are 0-2 and don’t have a quarterback. Does any of that make sense? To anyone? I didn’t think so. Thus, I give you the first weekly River City Renegade power rankings:

1. Calgary: Same old, same old.
2. Hamilton: Won two of three against tough West Division opponents.
3. Edmonton: Back on track.
4. Ottawa: A split against tough West Division opponents.
5. Winnipeg: Defensive deficiency.
6. B.C.: Didn’t look sharp vs. Montreal and Wally Buono’s swan song took a big hit vs. Eskimos.
7. Montreal: Thought they’d go 0-for-2018.
8. Saskatchewan: Gotta get Duron Carter back on offence.
9. Toronto: No quarterback, no hope.

If rumors are true, Dougie Hamilton is the first National Hockey League player to be traded for a museum to be named later. Hard to believe that the Calgary Flames would ship out Hamilton because his head is shaped like an egg. I mean, so the guy would rather spend time in a museum or reading than join the boys for some back-slapping and hoo-rawing at Moxie’s. Last time I looked, being smart wasn’t the new stupid. The Hamilton situation brings to mind Kim Clackson, guard dog for the Winnipeg Jets during their final two World Hockey Association crusades. I don’t recall ever seeing Clacker without a book in his hands on road trips. Can’t say that I remember the subject matter, but he was always reading on team flights. Didn’t seem to bother his teammates or management when Clacker put down the book to chuck knuckles with Dave Semenko.

Caught an episode of Tim & Sid on Sportnets last week, with the boys and guest John Shannon interviewing Hockey Hall of Fame inductee Willie O’Ree, the first black man to play in the NHL. Immediately after the chin wag, they mentioned how “hockey is for everyone.” No. It isn’t. I’ll believe hockey is for everyone the day there’s an openly gay man on one of the 31 NHL rosters. I’ll believe hockey is for everyone the day a woman is standing behind an NHL bench. Major League Baseball has had an openly gay umpire. The National Basketball Association has had an openly gay player, female coaches and female game officials. The National Football League has female coaches and game officials. The Canadian Football League has had an openly gay player and a female general manager. Major League Soccer is the only major men’s team sport in North America that currently features an openly gay player, Collin Martin of Minnesota United FC. So I don’t want to hear about hockey being “for everyone” when the NHL is the least diverse of all major men’s sports leagues.

Luis Suarez is having a great World Cup. His Uruguay side is into the quarterfinals and he hasn’t bitten any Italians. It helps, of course, that the Italians didn’t qualify for Russia, but it’s comforting to know that soccer’s Count Dracula seems to have curbed his nasty biting habit. Three times the Uruguay striker has been punished for putting the bite on foes, including an incident in the 2014 World Cup, whereby he chomped on Giorgio Chiellini’s left shoulder. “I know biting appalls a lot of people, but it’s relatively harmless,” he wrote in his autobiography, Crossing the Line: My Story. “None of the bites has been like Mike Tyson on Evander Holyfield.” Like, that makes it okay?

Interesting comment from Tranna Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins when asked if pitcher Roberto Osuna would be welcomed back to the fold next month after serving a 75-game suspension for violating Major League Baseball’s domestic violence policy: “Roberto is our closer. We’re running a baseball team and our goal is to win championships. Roberto could potentially be very much a part of that.” In other words, it doesn’t matter how many women Osuna beats the hell out of. As long as he throws a nasty cutter, he’ll be in the Jays bullpen.

Quote of the week was delivered by baseball’s non-steroid home run king, Hank Aaron: “Would I visit the White House? Would I go? I have no reason to go. I’ve been there once or twice. And there’s nobody there I want to see.”

And, finally, this item has nothing to do with sports, but it’s too cool by far, so I wanted to include it: I’m not a fan of James Corden or his late-night gab show, because he’s always shouting. I am, however, a big Beatles fan and Corden’s Carpool Karaoke with Paul McCartney was a brilliant and beautiful segment that should be shared. Watch it to the absolute end and enjoy.

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