I cannot survive in a 140-character world, so here are more tweets that grew up to be too big for Twitter…
Gadzooks! Bombers win! With some dashing and daring!
It’s a good thing head coach Mike O’Shea didn’t listen to me and fire special teams coach Mike O’Shea last month after the Winnipegs soiled the sheets in Montreal, because he didn’t just dial up one fake punt in the Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ 29-26 defeat of the B.C. Lions on Saturday night in Vancouver. He did it twice. Just to confirm the first one wasn’t an accident, I suppose.
Winnipeg’s special teamsters also blocked a punt, which resulted in an Ian Wild touchdown. And they blocked an extra point attempt. And they forced a fumble.
Then there was Sergio Castillo, whose right leg replaced that of defrocked place-kicker Lirim Hajrulla-oops. All Castillo did was hoof two PATs and five field goals in five attempts, the last of which sealed the deal and was his first game-deciding three-pointer since high school.
Special teams always has been O’Shea’s specialty. It’s finally paid off for the Bombers.
If I’m Wally Buono, general manager of the B.C. Lions, I’m having a fireside chat with Andrew Harris. Not due to anything Harris has or hasn’t done on the field, understand. It’s about the B.C. running back running off at the mouth. Although still drawing a paycheque from the Leos, Harris is already openly discussing a new area code once his current contract expires at the conclusion of this Canadian Football League season. And, given that his daughter, Hazel, and other family reside in his hometown Winnipeg, Harris makes no secret that area code 204 would be favorable. I admire his frankness. It’s refreshing. But if I’m Buono, I don’t want to be signing cheques for an employee who’s already talking like the door has already hit him in the butt.
A Friday morning headline should have read: Blind Squirrel Finds Acorn. The squirrel in this instance would be Chris Thorburn, who actually scored a goal the other night when the Winnipeg Jets beat the Bruins, 3-1, in Beantown. Well, he sort of scored. Upon further review, which is to say evidence provided by super slow-mo replay, David Krejci of the Bruins, not the much-maligned Thorbs, flipped the puck past Boston goaler Tuukka Rask. Doesn’t matter. A goal is a goal is a goal. Atta boy, Thorbs.
In his National Hockey League baptism against the St. Louis Blues, Connor McDavid was McOrdinary, yet there were four pics of the Edmonton Oilers rookie on the Sportsnet website front page the following morning, while this was a headline on the TSN website: McDavid shows flashes of brilliance in debut. How many pics will we see and what will the headlines say when he actually does something other than skate fast? Make no mistake, McDavid is going to be a dynamic player, but I believe we need to turn down the volume on the McHype and McRhetoric. Just let the kid play.
So, now that TSN talking head Aaron Ward is spending the weekend behind bars on domestic misdemenour charges, will the media eat their own, meaning will they skewer the former NHL defenceman the way they did Ray Rice, Slava Voynov, Greg Hardy and other sports figures who’ve roughed up women? Just asking.
Baseball pariah Pete Rose thinks Josh Donaldson is a wuss. A real wimp. The way Pariah Pete sees it, the Toronto Blue Jays third sacker displayed extremely bad manners when he let a silly little thing like a rattled brain remove him from Game 1 of the Jays American League Division Series vs. the Texas Rangers. “I just don’t understand,” Rose harrumphed in his miscast role as analyst on Fox Sports. “I got a little light-headed how many times in my career? I still went out there and played.” What’s the problem, Pete? Lose your over/under wager with Donaldson out? Take a nap, man.
It’s agreed. Officiating in Game 2 of the Rangers-Jays joust was atrocious. Home plate umpire Vic Carapazza, for example, had a strike zone that was, at times, larger than Pete Rose’s ego, and, at other times, smaller than Pete Rose’s credibility. But Carapazza and the other boys in blue didn’t silence Blue Jays’ bats. Texas pitching did that. Blaming the umps for a loss in a baseball game is a copout 99 times out of 100.
Anyone for some genuine sour Grapes? Well, look no further than Donald S. Cherry’s bully pulpit on Hockey Night In Canada. There’s no surprise, of course, that the conspiracy theorists are in full-throated voice these days, what with the Blue Jays trailing the Rangers 0-2 in their best-of-five engagement. But I didn’t expect to see and hear Cherry use his Curmudgeon’s Corner platform to suggest there’s a sinister figure lurking behind the grassy knoll. “We’re getting stiffed,” the Lord of Loud laments. “You know why we’re getting stiffed? Because they do not want a Canadian team in the final.” I, for one, refuse to believe that. At least until I see them fly the Canadian flag upside down.
Twit of the week is Steve Simmons, Toronto Sun columnist who tweeted: “Under the department of dumb: Booing PK Subban. Great player. Local guy. Charitable. You should all applaud.” Hoo boy. Tsk-tsking Maple Leafs loyalists for giving P.K. Subban the Bronx cheer when he and the hated Montreal Canadiens were in the Republic of Tranna last week is some special kind of stupid. Even dumber is Little Stevie Blunder telling Leafs Nation to shower Subban with hossanas. For sure, Stevie. That’s what they should do. And while they’re at it, they can also root, root, root for an autumn snow storm and the second coming of Rob Ford. I’m not certain if Simmons writes this sort of stuff to get a rise out of the rabble of if he truly believes it, but for his twit tweet he earns a stay in the Bow Wow Bungalow.
Patti Dawn Swansson has been writing about Winnipeg sports for more than 40 years, longer than any living being. Do not, however, assume that to mean she harbors a wealth of sports knowledge or that she’s a jock journalist of award-winning loft. It simply means she is old and comfortable at a keyboard (although arthritic fingers sometimes make typing a bit of a chore) and she apparently doesn’t know when to quit. Or she can’t quit.
She is most proud of her Q Award, presented to her in 2012 for her scribblings about the LGBT community in Victoria, B.C., and her induction into the Manitoba Sportswriters & Sportscasters Association Media Roll of Honour.
The River City Renegade 
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