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

Chevy

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

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

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

The Jets have never been that team.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Issue: An apparent lack of playoff intensity.

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

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

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

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

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

Issue: The reputation of the Jets organization.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But who’d believe me?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sadly, not even dying young is a deterrent.

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

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

Death doesn’t matter.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hustler and Remis of Winnipeg Sports Talk.

Top o’ the morning to you, Kevin Cheveldayoff.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let’s talk about the Puck Pontiff fanning the flames of fear…giving local news snoops the cold shoulder…Gobuty and Shenkarow never went into hiding…Jen’s farewell…a Buffalo Boy in green…and guess who’s coming home?

Mike McEwen in the green of Saskatchewan.

Top o’ the morning to you, Mark Chipman.

Well, that was a special kind of nice of Gary Bettman to take time away from his irksome and tireless Save the Coyotes crusade and touch down in Good Ol’ Hometown to stomp out the brush fire you started.

I mean, I call you the Puck Pontiff, Mark, but we both know that Bettman is the real Puck Pontiff, him being commissioner of the National Hockey League and all, so anytime he braves the snow and the cold for a drop-in at 300 Portage Ave. is cause to polish the fancy silverware and break out the fine China.

Nothing’s too good for House Guest Gary, right Mark?

It wasn’t always that way, of course.

I don’t have to remind you that Commish Gary was fitted for a black hat when the Winnipeg Jets were whisked away in 1996. Even though it wasn’t his fault that no one in Good Ol’ Hometown was prepared to bankroll Jets 1.0 back then, or that the Canadian loonie was worth about 10 cents U.S., he was the bad guy in the eyes of a PO’d public. The rabble reckoned that he allowed the franchise to defect from Our Frozen Tundra to the Arizona desert with little, if any, resistance.

Thus the villainous commish was persona non grata until 2011, when you and your money-bags partner, the 3rd Baron Thomson of Fleet, cut a cheque for $170 million and gave a withering Atlanta Thrashers franchise a new home and a fresh start on the potholed streets of downtown Winnipeg.

I wouldn’t say all has been forgiven and forgotten, Mark, but I will suggest fewer among the rabble are sticking pins in Gary Bettman dolls these days.

Which brings me back to Commish Gary’s whistlestop in Good Ol’ Hometown last Tuesday.

The man engaged in a verbal parry-and-thrust with a gathering of news snoops, and among his bon mots was this: “I’m kind of mystified at the tension that seems to have developed here.” And this: “I’m not sure why people are now speculating that somehow (the Jets) not going to be here.”

Hands up anyone fooled by that “what, me worry?” side show.

I don’t think Commish Gary is a dumb man, Mark. He just sometimes plays dumb. Like, he isn’t remotely “mystified” about anything re the Winnipeg franchise. He knows the burg’s history vis-a-vis the NHL. He knows season ticket sales have sagged. He knows the Little Hockey House On The Prairie has about 2,000 unoccupied chairs most nights (87 per cent capacity to date). And he most certainly knows precisely who’s responsible for stoking folks’ fear of Jets 2.0 morphing into the Salt Lake City Saints or the Houston Apollo.

It’s you, Mark. Yes, you.

The flapping of gums re the vibrancy and viability of the Winnipeg market wouldn’t exist today if not for your sound bites.

It began last April with the Forever Winnipeg marketing campaign that you signed off on, Mark. Reminding the rabble that the original Jets skipped town for Arizona in 1996 isn’t a sales pitch. It’s a buy-tickets-or-else threat. It was daft. Also regrettable.

Then, in late October, you had a sit-down with Darren Dreger, who asked point-blank if thousands of empty seats this season have given rise to the risk of you putting up a For Sale sign and pulling up stakes. This is what you told the TSN insider: “No. I say not on our watch.”

Many believed you, myself included. Silly moi.

I mean, I ought to know better, Mark. After all this time (69 years watching, covering and writing about hockey), I should be able to recognize the barking of a carny. Yet you hoodwinked me with some slick blah, blah, blah about your Jets’ forever shelf life in Good Ol’ Hometown.

But, hey, why wouldn’t I swallow your spiel whole, like the great biblical fish inhaling Jonah? After all, you own half of downtown Pegtown and the 3rd Baron has more coin than the Royal Canadian Mint out there on Lagimodiere Boulevard. So sure, with your good name and the deepest pockets in Canada, any notion that the Jets can’t make a go of it at 300 Portage Ave. is pure piffle.

But wait. Less that two weeks ago, you engaged in a verbal to-and-fro with yet another jock journo from the Republic of Tranna—Chris Johnston of The Athletic—and this is what you had to say about empty seats and the shelf life of your Jets 2.0: “This place we find ourselves in right now, it’s not going to work over the long haul. It just isn’t.”

Yikes.

No, Mark, you didn’t literally tell the rabble that the NHL will flee Good Ol’ Hometown yet again. You were speaking your truth. Trouble is, your truth in February wasn’t your truth in October. And that’s what I don’t get. How can you assure the rabble that there’s no threat of the hockey club leaving (“Not on our watch.”) and then, just four months later, “it’s not going to work over the long haul.”

What I heard was “buy tickets or else.” I mean, I don’t know about you, but if someone tells me they’ve got a gun I’m inclined to think they plan to use it.

None among us knows what was said behind closed doors during Commish Gary’s drop-in last week, Mark, but I submit he’d have been wise to advise, or instruct you, to stop playing ping-pong with people’s emotions. It’s disgraceful.

Also disgraceful is Puck Pontiff Chipman’s relationship with local jock journos. On the rare occasion when he believes he has a sound bite worthy of our consumption, he runs to a reporter from the Republic of Tranna rather than one or more of the girls and boys on the Jets beat. Once he’s provided the outrider from The ROT the full-meal deal, he might (might!) hand one of his pets at the Drab Slab a table scrap. I don’t know who penetrated the Puck Pontiff’s ultra-thin layer of skin (I have my suspicions), but Chipman is being petty and petulant.

Bettman had places to be and people to see, so his “what me worry?” to-and-fro with news snoops was limited to 15 minutes. But get this—his close encounter with the local media didn’t turn him into a block of salt! Gasp! Take note, Mark Chipman.

I don’t recall either Michael Gobuty or Barry Shenkarow running and hiding from those of us with notepads and recording devices during their time as stewards of Jets 1.0. It didn’t matter if it was the NHL or World Hockey Association, Michael and Barry were usually a phone call away. And, hey, they even returned calls. What a concept.

Do many among the rabble give a damn that the Puck Pontiff isn’t warm and fuzzy with local news snoops? Probably not. Does his cold shoulder make a reporter’s or a columnist’s job more difficult? A reporter perhaps, a columnist absolutely not. So what’s he trying to prove, other than he can be petty and petulant?

Still missing in action at the Drab Slab is a regular sports columnist, but if they’re ever inclined to fill the position I recommend they give Jeff Hamilton a shot at the gig. Jeff appears to be the only guy in the toy department at 1355 Mountain Ave. who’s willing to deliver opinion, sometimes with snark, and a case in point would be his recent piece on Toronto Argos loose-cannon quarterback Chad Kelly. This was his most-biting line: “There’s little evidence to suggest CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie understands the league’s violence against women policy.” Atta boy, Jeff.

I once saw Kelly on an American podcast, and he came across as a full-of-himself, my-stuff-don’t-stink frat boy, so I’m not surprised that a female, now-former Argos coach has sued him for being an oinker.

The Jennifer Jones farewell at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts last Sunday was a curling Kodak moment, even if the legend finished the night on the short end of the scoreboard vs. Rachel Homan. My main question was this: Why the hell did Jennifer allow coach Glenn Howard to talk her into making a second-choice shot at the end? Howard made it sound like drawing the lid with all sorts of gunk blocking the way is as simple as sorting socks and, frankly, I was astonished that Jennifer bowed to his wishes.

I don’t know about you, but my mind’s eye will always see Mike McEwen with the Manitoba Buffalo on his back, so I’m not keen on him wearing Saskatchewan green at the Brier. I mean, Kermit the Frog is green. St. Paddy’s Day is green. Envy is green. But Manitoba’s great Pebble People shouldn’t be seen in green. It’s as wrong as Pope Francis wearing a pair of MC Hammer pants while saying mass. Yes, I realize that curling’s new-age rules have expunged long-held geographic imperatives, but I don’t have to like it when a four-time ‘Toba champion from Brandon/Winnipeg is representing the folks on The Flattest of Lands.

Speaking of change, when did the Brier Patch become the Original 16 Patch? Did I miss the memo?

Michael Jordan says he could score 100 points in today’s NBA: “It’s less physical, and the rules have changed, obviously. Based on these rules, if I had to play with my style of play, I’m pretty sure I would have fouled out, or I would have been at the free throw line pretty often, and I could have scored 100 points.” I call BS on that. His Royal Airness is 61 years old. He couldn’t score more than 80 or 90 points in a game today.

My first impressions of the current season of The Voice: I’ve yet to hear an exceptional voice, and rookie judges Dan + Shay seem to think the show is about them rather than the singers.

And, finally, I’m coming home. Not that anyone cares, but that’s the plan after a quarter century on the Left Flank of our vast country. I just need to find suitable lodgings in a suitable area of Good Ol’ Hometown (I’ve discovered it’s not the easiest thing to do via the internet), and I’ll be back. Hey, maybe I can get there in time for the Stanley Cup parade. The Jets are going to win the Stanley Cup aren’t they?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Bombers win Grey Cup; mayor cancels parade

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

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

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

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

Mayor Gillingham later apologized for his bad dad joke.

• Sarah Nurse becomes answer to PWHL trivia question

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

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

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

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

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

• Female athletes have come a long way, baby

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Grapes ripe for return to Hockey Night in Canada

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Snowy Owls will begin play in 2025.

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

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

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

• All bets are off if new law passes

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

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

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

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

• Olympics shocker: Russian runner is clean!

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

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

The clean Russian in Paris is distance runner Natasha Kusnetzov.

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

• Merry New Year

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Littlest Hobo

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Darren Pang

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

Well, a couple of things, actually:

1) Darren Pang is full of crap.

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

Let’s start with Pang.

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

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

Just to refresh: Perry had done something ghastly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What a load of hooey.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“The rumor, of course. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chad Kelly got what he deserved last weekend.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And, finally, enjoy the game and go Bombers!