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 the future of Ponytail Puck…holy Moses that man is slow…chirping at Augusta National…climbing the walls…baseball and beer…Barney Fife umping in the majors…chump change in the CFL…and other things on my mind…

Once members of the Canadian and American shinny sides collect their shiny gold and silver trinkets tonight in Brampton, those of us who give more than a passing glance toward Ponytail Puck will ask the obvious question.

To wit: What’s next?

Surely it can’t be status quo for women’s professional hockey.

I mean, members of the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association have been flitting hither and yon for the past four years, participating in glorified scrimmages and dressed up in hamburger chain and bank logos, and their fervent hope has been for the Premier Hockey Federation to make like summer wages. You know, disappear. That, in turn, would inspire the National Hockey League to adopt the PWHPA orphans, and Ponytail Puck would live happily ever after as one Super League.

Hasn’t happened.

The PHF (nee National Women’s Hockey League) continues to disappoint the PWHPA by its mere existence, and it recently concluded its eighth season, with the Toronto Six emerging as the first champion north of the Canada-U.S.A. boundary. Most noteworthy, there’s no indication that the seven-team loop is inclined to vamoose and, more to the point, it shall drop the puck again next autumn with a bulked up salary cap ($1.5 million per club) and bulked-up benefits.

The PWHPA, meanwhile, is…well, that’s the mystery.

The Canadian Women’s Hockey League went up in flames on May 1, 2019, and the PWHPA rose from its ashes 18 days later with high chatter of a helter-skelter Dream Gap Tour, but there’s really no there there, unless a bunch of now-dog-eared snapshots with Billie Jean King is a bragging point. In a way, it’s like LIV Golf: When are the tournaments, where are the tournaments and, say, does anyone know if they’re on TV or where we can find them online?

There’s no argument that PWHPA membership represents the elite of Ponytail Puck. All but one player (Rebecca Gilmore of the PHF’s Boston Pride) on the current Canadian and American rosters at the IIHF Women’s World Championship in Brampton are Dream Gappers (or American college kids), but the crème de la crème has nowhere to go once the final buzzer sounds in the gold medal match tonight. Unless it’s back to the drawing board to find a solution to Ponytail Puck’s split personality that’s in “shambles.”

Kendall Coyne Schofield

That’s Kendall Schofield Coyne’s word, not mine.

The former U.S. captain made that statement in a natter with the San Francisco Chronicle in December 2019 and, unless the PWHPA has something hidden beneath its bonnet and plans to spring some glad tidings on us post-world tournament, Ponytail Puck will remain in “shambles” with one legit league and one sideshow, both of which will be largely ignored by mainstream media.

Make no mistake, jock journos and their editors have seldom done women’s professional shinny any favors, and a strong case can be made that they ignored the CWHL out of business, a disinterest that did not go unnoticed by league executives.

Calgary Inferno GM Kristen Hagg described her team as “Calgary’s best-kept secret,” and added: “We live in a society where people do not value women’s sport. Most of us have been socialized to accept men’s sport as dominant and somehow automatically more interesting. The problem is that once society internalizes falsehood, it’s not easy to correct it.”

Sami Jo Small, once GM of Toronto Furies and now president of Toronto Six, was singing from the same songbook: “People are supportive of women’s hockey. They love to watch it, but they don’t know how to watch it. That’s one of my biggest battles, to get people to know where to watch these games, how to watch these games, where to buy the tickets, and get them into the venue. Not just watching the Olympics.”

Looks like it’s deja vu all over again.

For example:

• When the Six won the PHF title in March, TSN slotted the story into the 40th minute of a 60-minute show, while Sportsnet gave it bottom-feeder play in the 53rd minute.
• In advance of a quarterfinal skirmish between Canada and Sweden on Thursday, the Toronto Sun could only find room for five paragraphs on the hockey game—in its sports briefs package on the 12th page of a 12-page section. It was bunched in with copy on UEFA futbol, NASCAR racing and, get this, an NFL player assaulting a women. (Running copy on women’s hockey together with the assault of a woman is some kind of sick joke or extremely lame news judgment.)
• In a quick scan of sports sections on Our Frozen Tundra yesterday, seven of nine had zero (0, as in zilch, nil, nada) mention of the world tournament, which had entered the semifinal round.
• At the Beijing Olympic Games slightly more than a year ago, Rosie DiManno of the Toronto Star delivered this harsh assessment of Ponytail Puck: “Women’s hockey doesn’t belong in the Games. It’s a cheap medal, in no way comparable to the paramountcy that some nations historically enjoy in a specific sport—like the Norwegians and cross-country skiing or Jamaicans and sprinting. There is at least some semblance of competition—gobs of it actually — with scads of elite athletes to make a challenge.” She closed her column with this remark on the U.S.A.-Canada rivalry: “Honestly, I’m getting sick of this mythologized rivalry and everybody else an also-ran.”

Hmmm. It’s either scant press or bad press.

None of this is to say it’s solely on mainstream media to spread the good word, and it’s important to note that the PWHPA doesn’t do Ponytail Puck any favors.

Never mind the hit-and-miss nature of their glorified scrimmages and the great divide they created with the PHF. I called up the Dream Gappers’ website this morning, and the most recent posting is dated March 3, even as a healthy portion of the PWHPA constituency has been front and centre at the World Championship for the past 10 days. What their membership is doing isn’t worth noting?

I’m sorry, but they can’t make mainstream media give a damn if they don’t give a damn themselves.

No matter what’s next for women’s professional hockey, there has to be more to sell than U.S.A.-Canada if the PWHPA membership expects to earn a living wage at their preferred craft.

FYI: If you’re wondering, and you probably aren’t, there are 10 PHF players on rosters at the world tournament.

The female gum flappers on TSN really need to refrain from calling U.S.-Canada the “greatest rivalry in sports.” It’s pure nonsense. Everyone knows the “greatest rivalry in sports” is Tiger Woods’ legal team vs. any of his ex-wives/girlfriends’ lawyers.

Some Masters tournament leftovers: For those of you scoring at home, this is Woods’ scorecard for golf majors since he drove his vehicle into a ditch two years ago:
Masters: 47th.
PGA: Quit after 3 rounds.
U.S. Open: Did not play.
Open Championship: Missed cut.
Masters: Quit in third round.

Did you catch Patrick Cantlay’s slow-poke play at last weekend’s Masters? He took so much time between shots that Aaron Rodgers changed his mind about where to play football next season another dozen times.

I swear, if Moses had been as slow as Cantlay, we’d still be waiting for the last three Commandments.

This from Steve Simmons of Postmedia Tranna: “I do love watching the Masters, but I wonder: Can we edit out the bird chirping that’s heard in the background?” Oh, yes, by all means let’s get those pesky birds to shut the hell up. Perhaps we can take a weed whacker to all the azaleas, too. Good grief.

Just wondering: What does Simmons shout at on those days when there are no clouds in the sky?

I note F1 racing plans to put the brakes on the hazardous practice of team crews climbing the pit wall to wave their cars home. Meanwhile, Toronto Maple Leafs fans are expected to start climbing the walls any day now.

Six teams in Major League Baseball have called for a changeup on beer sales and are now serving into the eighth inning. So we’ve gone from the Juiced Ball Era to the Juiced Fan Era.

I’ve been following and watching baseball since the mid-1950s (go Brooklyn Dodgers!), and I feel obliged to say Shohei Ohtani is the best ballplayer in my lifetime. Go ahead and argue Willie Mays if you like, but the Say Hey kid never did what Shotime is doing.

Department of Dumb: Cody Bellinger of the Chicago Cubs returned to his old haunt, Dodger Stadium in L.A. on Friday night, and the faithful at Chavez Ravine acknowledged their former outfielder/first sacker with a warm ovation. Bellinger stepped out of the batter’s box for no longer than it takes to say “Jackie Robinson,” then home plate umpire Jim Wolf promptly slapped him with a pitch clock violation while the applause continued. Hey, it’s great that the pitch clock has put some lickety-split into MLB games, but this was buffoonish Barney Fife giving Goober a ticket for helping an old lady walk across Main Street in Mayberry.

Some among the rabble wonder why the Winnipeg Blue Bombers continue to make friends while folks are abandoning the Winnipeg Jets. I think it’s quite simple: Sticker price. I mean, you can purchase an 11-game season ticket package to watch Adam Bighill and the Big Blue take another run at the Grey Cup for anywhere from $150 (youth) to $1,209, whereas it’ll set you back $2,554 to $8,002 to watch Logan Stanley lumber around the freeze with the Jets. Do the math.

Mackenzie Zacharias

I don’t know about you, but Mackenzie Zacharias’ retreat from elite curling to pursue “other passions” for at least a year caught me by surprise. Mackenzie, 23, is a rising star among Canada’s Pebble People and she’s already been to two Scotties Tournament of Hearts—one skipping her own Manitoba team and, two months ago, throwing second stones for Jennifer Jones. It’s never good to see our fine, young curlers walk away from the game, but here’s hoping she finds what she’s after.

So tell us, Brent Laing, how do you think you and your bride, the aforementioned J. Jones, will get on at the World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship beginning next weekend in South Korea? “I’m old enough to remember what it was like to compete at the world championship and it used to be that Canada could go over and play pretty well and win,” Laing tells Ted Wyman of the Winnipeg Sun. “That’s just not the case anymore. It has nothing to do with Canada being worse. It has everything to do with there being more teams at the top level. There are a handful of teams over there that I know if we play our best, we may still not win. That never used to be the case. If we went and did that 10 years ago, I’m pretty confident our best would beat everybody else’s best. That’s just not the case anymore.” In other words, spare Brent and Jennifer the cheap shots on social media if they come up empty in Korea.

Looking for some curling memorabilia? Well, check out the For the Love of Curling online auction that offers items from nick-nacks to apparel signed by some of our elite Pebble People. Bidding closes at 2 p.m. Eastern on April 23.

Chad Kelly

Toronto Argos quarterback Chad Kelly has been flapping his gums again, which means we should probably give a listen since Swag’s hot takes are entertaining, even if very self-indulgent (he’s quite fond of himself). Last November, you might recall, he appeared on Pardon My Take and informed the natterbugs that he’s better than “50 per cent” of starting QBs in the NFL. Now, he has an issue with the chump change the Boatmen are paying him. “Obviously, I was on a shit contract and still am,” he says. “I mean, it’s not a shit contract, but it’s all incentive-based. Whereas guys want guaranteed money, guys want base salary. You shouldn’t want to just hit the incentives, you want to make more.” Well, okay, he collected $91,000 last season, plus bonus money, and his haul for the upcoming Canadian Football League crusade will be somewhere between $87,000 and $239,000. That’s for seven months of work. And it’s “shit” pay? Geez, maybe the 36 fans of Rouge Football in the Republic of Tranna can fire up a GoFundMe page for the poor guy. That ought to fetch at least $3.95.

And, finally, out here in Victoria, we count flowers at this time of the year. Back in Good Ol’ Hometown, they count potholes—more than 22,300 filled to date in 2023. Just wondering, do city work crews play The Beatles’ Fixing A Hole as background music when they’re on the business end of a shovel?

Let’s talk about the Winnipeg Blue Bombers D letting one get away…the Quiet Dickenson…Sportsnet snubbing the CFL…Carli Lloyd getting her kicks…Ponytail Puck vs. men?…ruffled feathers in E-Town…and poverty and the Pacific Ocean

A holiday Monday morning coming down in 3, 2, 1…and happy September, even if it means the frost soon shall be on your pumpkin…

Never mind that the Winnipeg Blue Bombers had built-in excuses in advance of the muckabout at Mosaic Stadium on Sunday afternoon—no Matt Nichols, no Andrew Harris.

All that really matters is that the large lads in blue-gold-and-white linen returned home from Pile O’ Bones with tire marks on their chests—again—and I’d say losing 14 of the last 15 holiday weekend visits to the Flattest of Lands qualifies as road kill. So maybe it’s time people stopped calling this thing the Labor Day Classic and bill it as the Road Kill Classic. Or the annual Gang Green Gives Winnipeg FC A Wedgie And A Swirly Classic.

Oh, sure, it was close. They tipped a canoe. Burned a barn.

But don’t talk to me about the Bombers deserving a better fate, not when the guys on the D-side of the ball lost the plot when it mattered most.

Corn Dog Cody Fajardo

I mean, Richie Hall’s defensive dozen made greenhorn quarterback Cody Fajardo look like a greenhorn quarterback much of the afternoon, then watched as Corn Dog Cody directed his Saskatchewan Roughriders down the field like a puffed-up, strutting halftime marching band. He, along with running back William Powell, smoothly navigated the Gang Green offence across the Mosaic terrain, whereupon Brett Lauther delivered the final and decisive points in a smash-mouth skirmish that, until then, had mostly moved to the cadence of two gnarly defences.

I suppose that D-dominance was predictable, given that the two QBs had a combined total of 14 Canadian Football League starts going in.

Chris Streveler

Still, it appeared that Chris Streveler, subbing for Nichols, had squeezed enough juice out of Winnipeg FC’s anemic offence to get ‘er done. It should have been game, set and bring on the Banjo Bowl when the Riders offence assembled for their final thrust, trailing 17-16 with three minutes and 18 ticks on the clock and the ball on their five-yard stripe.

What ensued went entirely against the grain, with the stingy Winnipeg D suddenly becoming as submissive as a house pet. Eleven plays, 87 yards, one 26-yard Lauther field goal, and a 19-17 W for a home side that has strung together half a dozen victories.

There was nothing classic about that 3:18 of football, unless you wear a watermelon on your head.

Should we look for more of the same when the large lads gather for a redux next Saturday, this time at Football Follies Field in Fort Garry? Well, I don’t think we should expect the Winnipeg D to cough up a hairball the size of a small horse again, but Nichols will still be in the repair shop and Harris in detention, so I suggest it’ll be on the D to rule the day.

For 60 minutes, not just 56:42.

Craig Dickenson

Why don’t I hear the name Craig Dickenson included in chatter about the top sideline steward this season? Is it because, unlike his brother Dave, the Gang Green rookie head coach doesn’t have a non-stop, 24/7 squawk box? Seems to me that the Quiet Dickenson deserves to be in the discussion.

What’s the deal with the CFL giving three teams a bye on this Labor Day weekend? Shouldn’t the Montreal Larks and Bytown RedBlacks be included in the fun? As for the also-inactive B.C. Lions, they don’t have a natural rivalry and, frankly, the 12,000 people in Lotus Land who actually know the Leos exist probably prefer to sit on a patio sipping their latté or having a toke rather than watch Mike O’Reilly be roughed up like a Gitmo prisoner one more time.

Speaking of indifference, can anyone at Sportsnet explain why they basically ignore the CFL? I realize that Rouge Football is a TSN property, but sports news is sports news is sports news. Call up the CFL on the Sportsnet website and you’ll find three videos: One from July, one from February and one from December 2018. That’s disgraceful.

As a folo to an item in my Sunday smorgas-bored, in which I insisted Edmonton is a better CFL market than Winnipeg, I feel obliged to point out that not since 1973 have the Bombers out-performed the Eskimos at the box office, never mind on the field. This will make it 46 successive seasons with a higher head count in E-Town, and you simply can’t argue with that. Good Ol’ Hometown is a boffo market but, as much as it pains me to say it, both E-Town and Saskatchewan are better.

Carli Lloyd

So, Carli Lloyd hoofed a 55-yard field goal at a Philadelphia Eagles/Baltimore Ravens training exercise, and there’s been breathless natter about the U.S. women’s fitba star booting balls in the National Football League. Uh, not so fast says old friend Troy Westwood. “Carli Lloyd could not beat out the best competing for the job and kick in the #NFL. No chance,” he tweets. Is it because she’s a she? Or because she lacks the skill? Ol’ Lefty declined to explain why Carli would be in over her head, and I can see how someone would view his blunt analysis as sexist. Well, that ain’t Westwood. I submit that Ol’ Lefty was speaking purely from his vantage point as a former place-kicker with the Bombers, so you might want to holster any PC outrage.

Longtime NFL boot meister Adam Venatieri is among the many to weigh in on Carli’s right leg: “For you to go out and hit a ball without a rush and a snap and a hold and no get-off time and stuff, it’s different than doing live stuff. But I saw it, it was pretty impressive how far she kicked the ball.” I guess there’s only one way to know for sure: Give that girl a tryout.

Except there’s this: On the day in question, video evidence showed Lloyd whomping that 55-yarder, but we didn’t see two misses at shorter distances and at 57 yards. By her own accounting, Lloyd was 2-for-5 in pristine conditions. No pads, no defence, no urgency, and a five-yard runup to the ball. NFL kickers who go 2-for-5 also go to the unemployment queue.

Nancy Armour

Commentary on Lloyd’s kick ranged from enthusiastic to supportive to dismissive to absolute drivel. Not surprisingly, the latter was supplied by Nancy Armour of USA Today. Armour writes, “Lloyd absolutely deserves a chance with an NFL team.” Based on what? One kick? “There is little doubt Lloyd could be an NFL placekicker.” Well, actually, there’s considerable doubt. “The heckles and jeers of ignorant and misogynistic NFL fans aren’t going to faze Lloyd.” So, if Lloyd were to get booed off the field after going 2-for-5, it’s not because she’s lousy at her job, it’s because all those loutish, beer-swilling men are empty-headed oinkers? I see. Armour’s gob-smackingly uninformed piece suggests she landed her columnist gig as part of a PR stunt or she won it in a raffle. (Yes, it’s that bad, and so is she.)

Jayna Hefford

On the subject of female athletes, Ponytail Puck will be coming to a neighborhood rink near you this autumn if you live in the Republic of Tranna, Hudson, N.H., Chicago, Boston and San Jose, and the ForTheGame200 boycotting players also have barnstorming plans for other locales. They’re calling it the Dream Gap Tour, and I say good for them. Stay visible. Don’t let the rabble forget about you. But here’s what scares me: There’ll be regional training centres hither and yon, two of them in The ROT, and Jayna Hefford tells The Athletic “(They could play) against men’s teams…” Whoa. Stop it right there. Jayna, head of the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association, might want to rethink that part of the scheme. Our Olympic distaff team is tooth-and-toenail to beat Midget boys in exhibition skirmishes, and those results are usually kept on the QT. But skating against, and possibly losing to, a bunch of beer-leaguers is a marketing grenade waiting to go ka-boom. That wouldn’t be ignored and the argument that the women “deserve” a living wage would be totally lost, if it hasn’t been already.

Centre Court Wimbledon

Why are people calling Arthur Ashe Stadium in Gotham the “biggest court” in tennis when we all know it’s Centre Court Wimbledon? In literal terms, sure, Ashe can accommodate a flock of 23,771 observers and that dwarfs the main stage at SW19 (14,979), but in stature you’ll find the “biggest court” in tennis is a lawn and it’s at the All-England Club.

I don’t get it. Why is Denis Shapovalov losing at the U.S. Open a bigger story than Bianca Andreescu winning at the U.S. Open? It shouldn’t be, of course, but Shapo’s loss to Gael Monfils was the lead story on TSN at 3 in the a.m. on Sunday and that’s just wrong.

The Minnesota Twins swatted six home runs on Saturday and lost. How do you do that?

Jesse Puljujarvi

Definition of Ruffled Feathers: See Puljujarvi, Jesse. Many among the rabble in River City believe a “fractured” dressing room undid the Winnipeg Jets last spring, in part because head coach Paul Maurice mentioned something about “ruffled feathers” in his season-over natter with news snoops, but mainly due to the narrative the Drab Slab has been spreading for five months. Now along comes Puljujarvi in E-Town to show us what ruffled feathers actually look like. Not only has the Finnish forward bailed on the Oilers, choosing to stay home and play with Oulun Karpat of the Liiga, he’ll only return to the National Hockey League if given a new postal code. Those, kids, are ruffled feathers.

Murat Ates of The Athletic has taken a deep dive into the Jets (it’s an excellent late-summer perspective), and he briefly touches on the “ruffled feathers” issue. “Let me state this clearly: I have been asked about ‘the room’ all summer and my position is the same as it’s always been; if I ever learn anything that I can fairly and accurately attribute, I’ll write that,” he scribbles. “Until then, not only do I allow for discord as a healthy component of a team’s dynamics, I expect it—Winnipeg was a bottom-third NHL team in the second half of 2018-19. That should piss people off.” So, he hasn’t sniffed out a smoking gun. No one at the Winnipeg Sun has sniffed out a smoking gun. No one at the Drab Slab has sniffed out a smoking gun. No on-air pundits have produced a smoking gun. Ergo, there is no smoking gun.

Welcome to my backyard.

And, finally, it was 20 years tomorrow when I put Good Ol’ Hometown in the rear-view mirror and arrived in Victoria with little money, no job and no prospects for work. Since then, I’ve been an apartment block manager, a golf club maintenance/office/desktop publishing guru, an editor, a cleaner at a pub, a golf pro shop call centre/graphics guru, an antique/vintage furniture salesperson, a cleaner at a downtown eatery, a cleaner/cover girl/Jill of all trades at a gay nightclub, and I live in poverty. So why am I smiling? Because I can step outside today, take a 20-minute stroll and dip my toes into the Pacific Ocean while gazing at the Olympic Mountains and maybe observe some bald eagles or orcas. And I can do it 12 months of the year. Na, na, na, na, na.

Let’s talk about the CFL’s QB carnage…“remarkably ugly” football…Argos no laughing matter…Popp’s big hairy deal…news snoops in a snit…Miss Manners’ son Stevie…old broadcasters and friends…and green leaves and jujubes at Carnarvon Park…

Another Sunday smorgas-bored…and if I want to eat plants I’ll have a salad, not a plant masquerading as a hamburger…

If that was a Grey Cup preview Friday night at Timbits Field in the Hammer, I might opt for a Steve McQueen or Duke Wayne marathon on the final Sunday in November.

Shabby? Like an old hobo’s hair.

Alas, that’s what we get when there’s a neophyte quarterback on one side and a veteran quarterback playing like the neophyte’s understudy on the other.

The Hamilton Tabbies certainly were the superior outfit in the short time Jeremiah Masoli was behind centre during their 23-15 W, but a wonky left knee forced the all-star QB to excuse himself and the Tiger-Cats spent the remainder of the evening in safety-first mode, with tenderfoot Dane Evans barking signals into one of TSN’s live mics. He was meh at best.

If only the game itself had reached that level.

This was (supposedly) the Canadian Football League marquee match, with a pair of first-place outfits grabbing artificial grass and growling. The visiting Winnipeg Blue Bombers arrived in the Hammer sans an L on their registry. A perfect 5-nada. The Tabbies had just one hiccup in five assignments. So, ya, it walked and talked like a Grey Cup dress rehearsal.

Then they kicked off and the large lads forgot how to play.

Matt Nichols

Correction: Matt Nichols forgot how to play.

I keep hearing that football is the ultimate team game, but the Bombers’ first stumble of this crusade is mostly down to QB Nichols, who kept throwing passes he had no business throwing, and three of them landed in the eager and welcoming arms of guys dressed in black and gold.

Had a quarterback more accomplished than Dane Evans been available to make Winnipeg FC pay for Nichols’ (also the kick returners) sins, we might be talking about a rout of biblical levels.

Sadly, Evans’ presence and Masoli’s absence is part of the CFL’s increasingly bleak big-picture story.

Bo Levi Mitchell

Forget that Masoli has the worst QB body since Danny McManus. (Seriously. He looks like Fred Flintstone in shoulder pads.) He gets the job done. He’s elite. But he’s the sixth starter to go down for the count this summer, joining Bo Levi Mitchell, Zach Collaros, Antonio Pipken, Dominique Davis and James Franklin in the repair shop. And it’s only due to extreme good fortune that someone hasn’t put a toe tag on Mike Reilly’s season.

Commissioner Randy Ambrosie spent much of the past winter and spring blah, blah, blahing about a new vision that he likes to call CFL 2.0. What I didn’t know is that CFL 2.0 meant every team would be starting its QB 2.0 before Labour Day.

I mean, by the time the playoffs commence, the body count will be so high that we might be watching Andrew Sheer and Justin Trudeau fling the football in the West Division final instead of Nichols and Trevor Harris.

Can anything be done to halt the QB carnage?

Simoni Lawrence took out Zach Collaros.

Well, quarterbacks are now treated like pricey porcelain figurines, with better protection than Queen Liz. Hostile defenders breath on them at their own peril, and Commish Randy underscored the CFL’s keep-QBs-vertical agenda by ordering Simoni Lawrence to take a two-game respite for the unlawful hit that sent Collaros to a dark room.

Unfortunately, threats of vacations without pay couldn’t have prevented the Masoli owie. It was the result of a freakish play, whereby his left knee caved in during his attempt to escape large, angry men with a different agenda.

So on came neophyte Evans and, with the inept Nichols far off his game, it made for rather dreary theatre with four picks, seven turnovers and not a single play from scrimmage exceeding 27 yards.

I hate to say this because the CFL is my favorite pro sports league, but it’s becoming almost unwatchable.

It doesn’t help, of course, that TSN insists on trying to doll up its broadcasts with that annoying split screen, the voices of natterbugs in the booth competing with live-mic’d players/officials, and cameras that appear to be located in a distant area code. Live mics are boffo for curling and golf, and even baseball, but not so much during a football telecast.

Here’s truth in broadcasting: During the first half of the Calgary Stampeders-Bytown RougeNoir frolic on Thursday night, TSN natterbug Duane Forde described it as “remarkably ugly.” That is remarkably honest. Also remarkably refreshing.

Yoko Ono

Neither of the two skirmishes on the Thursday menu will be included in CFL promo material. On the entertainment scale, they were somewhere between an Adam Sandler movie and the ear-blitzing screeching of a Yoko Ono concert. I mean, three teams—Tranna Argonauts, Calgary and Bytown—had a combined total of one touchdown. In 148 plays from scrimmage. The Argos couldn’t even scrounge up a measly rouge vs. the Eskimos in E-Town. You know how difficult it is to get blanked in the CFL? O.J. Simpson will have an easier time getting through the Pearly Gates. But the bottomless Boatmen managed it. Uh-glee. I suffered through both jousts and, yes, I’d like to have those six hours of my life back, if you don’t mind.

Many of us who dwell in the colonies aren’t opposed to crude jokes and rude laughter when outfits from the Republic of Tranna perform face plants, but there’s nothing funny about the oarless Scullers being oh-fer-2019. The Argos are the boil on the CFL’s butt. On and off the field. Their freshly completed (mis)adventure on the Prairies was a ghastly bit of business, and you know losing three games and being outscored 100-37 won’t win them new admirers. Mind you, they’re still mourning the loss of Kawhi Leonard in The ROT, so it’s unlikely that anyone there noticed. That, too, is sad.

Jim Popp

In the department of ‘what have you done for us lately,’ I present Jim Popp, GM of the Boatmen. Once considered a gridiron guru in three-down circles, it’s become apparent that Popp has a fabulous head of hair and not much else. He failed to find a replacement for Anthony Calvillo in Montreal (the Larks have been paying for it ever since) and he hasn’t found a replacement for Ricky Ray in The ROT. No QB, no hope, no job for Popp if he doesn’t do something about it.

Beastmo Bighill

Prior to the Bombers’ departure to our eastern precincts last week, it was noted that neither Beastmo Bighill or Chris Matthews was made available for chin-wags post-practice on Monday. Not surprisingly, there was harrumphing among news snoops. “This is the CFL,” Steve Simmons of Postmedia Tranna squawked on Twitter. “Every player should be available to media every day. Doing the opposite is small-time, small-town backwards thinking.” Hmmm. You mean like Kawhi Leonard and the Tranna Jurassics? He spoke less often than a street mime during his one-and-done pit stop in The ROT, yet somehow those pesky jock journos managed to get the job done without Kawhi’s daily pearls of wisdom. Is every player on every team in the National Hockey League available every day? Nope. Problem is, some news snoops have a misguided sense of entitlement and still believe athletes/coaches are at their every beck and call. Doesn’t work that way, kids. Not anymore. So boo freaking hoo. Find someone else to talk to.

The outrageously arrogant Simmons didn’t limit his pompous tsk-tsking to the CFL last week. No sir. He slid into full Grandpa Simpson, fist-shaking mode after Kawhi Leonard was introduced as a member of the L.A. Clippers. “Four people Kawhi had to thank and didn’t,” he tweeted from the fetal position. “1) Masai (Ujiri) 2) Larry Tanenbaum 3) Alex (load management) McKechnie 4) Nick Nurse. He did thank restaurants for giving him free food, though.” Why, shame on Kawhi. I mean, such nerve. How dare he wag his tongue without first conferring with Miss Manners’ son Stevie. I hope all the nominees for Emmy Awards in September realize they must clear their acceptance/thank you speeches through Stevie before approaching the microphone.

Others on the hoops beat in The ROT resisted any urge to play the jilted lover role, offering less of an emotional take on Leonard’s first utterings as a Clipper:
Bruce Arthur, Toronto Star: “(Kawhi) did it right.”
Leo Rautins, TSN: “(Kawhi was) very thoughtful in his words.”
Tim Micallef, Sportsnet: “I don’t care about any of that stuff. I really don’t. I understand the fans do. I really don’t care about it.”

Brian Williams

So nice to see Brian Williams on TSN’s coverage of the Prince of Wales Stakes last Tuesday. Brian is a lovely man and an exceptional broadcaster. Not many talkers on TV are more polished and, hey, he’s one of us. Which is to say, he drew his first breath in Good Ol’ Hometown.

I hear they had a big adios bash last week for three Globe and Mail sports scribes, including Dave Shoalts. I worked with Shoaltsy in Calgary and I can report that he’s one of the truly good guys in a business full of good guys. He’s also a funny man. Enjoy the rocking chair, Shoaltsy.

A big hi-de-ho to old friend Peter Young. Pete’s ticker gave him a spot of grief not so long ago, but I see the old broadcaster is back on social media and taking aim at Bob Cameron.

Michelle Liu

And, finally, ever since I heard that 12-year-old Michelle Liu had qualified to play with the grown-ups at the CP Women’s Open golf tournament next month in Aurora, Ont., I’ve been trying to remember what I was doing in the summer of 1963, when I was her age. I believe I was building sand castles at Willows Beach in Oak Bay (Victoria). No. Wait. Now I remember. They wouldn’t allow me to play with the 14-year-olds in a baseball tourney at Carnarvon Park (arrived too late for registration), so I sold programs instead and made $5 one day and $3 the next. That bought a kid a lot of green leaves and jujubes back in the day.

About a Barracuda on the judge’s bench…those surprising Winnipeg Jets…same old, same old from Grapes…a pot calling a kettle white…kid stuff in Vegas…Box Car Willie Belichick…grappling with the idea of a new football league…women’s tennis…Roger Federer’s arms…and other things on my mind

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

I can’t help but weep when I hear the many victims/survivors of diabolical Larry Nassar tell their stories of sexual abuse at the hands of the predator doctor when they were sweet, innocent little girls with dreams of Olympic Games gymnastics glory.

Judge Rosemarie Aquilina, the Barracuda.

So it’s damn straight that I gave a fist pump and let loose a mighty “hell ya!” when Judge Rosemarie Aquilina booted Nassar’s sorry ass back to a jail cell on Wednesday, saying, “I just signed your death warrant” as she tacked 40-175 years onto the 60-year sentence the defrocked doctor is already serving on a child pornography conviction.

The lady judge rocks. Assistant Attorney General Angela Povilaitis rocks. Investigative journalists Marisa Kwiatowski, Tim Evans and Mark Alesia at the Indianapolis Star rock. The 156 women who appeared in a Michigan courtroom to confront Nassar with victim-impact statements rock.

And now Nassar can pound rocks. Or whatever it is that sexual predators pound behind bars.

Judge Lance Ito

Watching Judge Aquilina sentence former U.S. Olympic gymnastics/Michigan State University doctor Nassar, I couldn’t help but think the outcomes of the original O.J. Simpson (Judge Ito) and Oscar Pistorius (Judge Thokozile Masipa) murder trials would have been different had she been on the bench. It’s little wonder Judge Aquilina’s nickname while serving in the Michigan Army National Guard was Barricuda. She’s a nasty bit of business, in a good way.

Quick question for those who insist that we keep sports and the real world separate: How is that possible when the real world refuses to stay out of sports? Nassar was the top medic for USA Gymnastics and the MSU women’s gymnastics teams. He sexually abused the girls. Sports, meet real world.

I woke up to a tsunami warning (true story) in the small hours of Tuesday morning, after a 7.9 shaker rocked and rolled offshore of Alaska, and I had visions of my high-and-dry, eighth-floor home in downtown Victoria being swamped and swallowed by the Pacific Ocean. Turns out the ‘quake had all the bite of a Jimmy Fallon monologue. Yup, that tame. There’s more oomph in American beer. So, after review, the tsunami warning was overturned due to goaltender interference. Just like every goal scored in the National Hockey League this week.

Moving on to more pleasant matters, it seems that most times I look up the Winnipeg Jets are winning another game. Who saw that coming? I mean, okay, at the commencement of their current crusade I figured Team Draft & Develop for a wild-card playoff spot. At best. But first place? In the NHL’s toughest division? There was a better chance of the Paid Pinocchio in the White House, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, dissing her boss Donald Trump for his take on immigration.

Here’s what I wrote re the Jets on Sept. 14: “It appears that the Western Conference road to the Stanley Cup is likely to go through Northern Alberta. If not, it’ll be Southern Alberta, where the Calgary Flames are shaping up to be a force, even as ownership squabbles with politicos and beats the drums about relocation should the city refuse to pony up substantial coin for a new shinny palace. The trouble with the Jets—aside from the people behind the bench—is geography. Until they prove otherwise, they’re still the third best outfit on the Canadian prairies.” D’oh! D’oh! D’oh!

I note that two members of the San Jose Sharks—Tomas Hertl and Justin Braun—have issued an apology for calling Winnipeg a “dark and cold” locale with no smart phones, WiFi or any other 21st-century gadgetry. Apparently, the mea culpa should arrive by Pony Express, carrier pigeon or Western Union telegraph in time for the NHL playoffs.

Don Cherry

This just in—Don Cherry doesn’t like Europeans. Who knew? In related news, dogs don’t like cats, Donald Trump doesn’t like the FBI, and Taylor Swift isn’t fond of Kim, Kanye or Katy. Seriously. Grapes needs a new script writer. Once again he’s dredged up his antiquated Cold War-era lament about Euros taking jobs away from homebrews, in this case on the rosters of Major Junior outfits across our vast land. “What happens is, if you look at it, there’s a Canadian kid not playing,” says the resident curmudgeon/blowhard on the Hockey Night in Canada intermission feature Coachless Corner. “You’re asking me, ‘Do I believe in Europeans playing in (the) Canadian Hockey League?’ No. I don’t.” Fine, Grapes, and while we’re at it let’s keep all those French kids in Quebec.

Kid Rock

Paul Wiecek offers some interesting thoughts on the NHL misreading the climate of the day by hiring Kid Rock as the intermission act for its all-star frolic this afternoon in Tampa.

The way the Winnipeg Free Press sports columnist has it figured, the two of them deserve each other because the NHL is whiter than a virgin bride’s wedding gown and Kid Rock’s neck is redder than a rooster’s wattles.

“If the Confederacy had won the U.S. Civil War, America today would look a whole lot like an NHL hockey game,” Wiecek writes. “The NHL is not only the whitest professional sports league in North America—by a mile—it also has the whitest fans of any of this continent’s four major pro sports. Again, by a mile. If you’re anything other than white and heterosexual, you’re every bit as much of a minority sitting in the stands at an NHL game as Dustin Byfuglien is skating out on the ice. Hockey is played by white people, for white people.”

Canada’s newspaper sports writers are white, white, white.

This is a classic case of the pot calling the kettle white. I mean, has Wiecek taken a look at press row in Canada (newspaper sports division)? Nothing but white, heterosexual, mostly male faces.

Full marks to the Freep scribe for calling out the NHL on the Kid Rock hire, because the guy has a fondness for the Confederate flag and a history of anti-gay/anti-transgender spewings. But Wiecek’s own business has all the diversity of…well, the white NHL.

Ask Wiecek to name all the black sports writers with whom he’s worked. Ask him to name all the openly gay sports scribes. None and none. Ask him to name all the women. Two. I worked at five different dailies. I recall one non-Caucasian colleague. Just one. In 30 years. I worked with only four females scribes. In 30 years. I worked with zero openly gay sports scribes. In 30 years.

At least the NHL has some African-American players. But blacks and gays can’t even be called a minority in Canadian newspaper sports writing, because they simply don’t exist.

So, signature scrawl is now restricted to kids in Sin City. That’s right, only kids 14 and under are allowed access to Vegas Golden Knights players for autographs at the NHL club’s practice facility, City National Arena. Adults need not apply. Seems it’s a safety measure, because grown-ups were “pushing kids out of the way” and kids were “running into the street.” My question: Why would a grown man want another grown man’s autograph? Except, of course, to profit. In which case, he should get a life.

Box Car Belichick

Yes, kids, you can grow up to look like Box Car Willie after spending a night sleeping on a slow-moving freight train and still become a five-time (do I hear six?) Super Bowl-winning head coach. Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots remains the ultimate example of a man not letting success go to his clothes, so the next time a cynic takes a cheap shot at Winnipeg Blue Bombers sideline steward Mike O’Shea for his “goofy shorts,” show him this pic of Belichick, taken scant seconds after his Patriots had won their eighth American Football Conference title on his watch.

Vince McMahon

Grappling guru Vince McMahon made it official last week, advising us that his aborted and gimmicky XFL from 2001 will reboot in 2020, sans the WWE-scripted shtick and the up-the-skirt cheerleader cams. Vince is going legit—from sleazy to squeaky clean—and he vows to hire only boy scouts (“Even if you have a DUI, you will not play in the XFL.”). He’ll order players to stand during the national anthem. He wants games to be completed in two hours or less. He wants us to “reimagine” football. Okay, I reimagine football in 2020 without Vince McMahon.

McMahon’s no-bad boys statute seemingly rules out Johnny Manziel, the former Cleveland Browns quarterback who likes to brawl in bars when he isn’t beating up women. So let’s see…the National Football League has washed its hands of Manziel and the not-ready-for-prime-time XFL wants no part of him, yet the Canadian Football League is eager to welcome him with open arms. What part of embarrassing does CFL commish Randy Ambrosie not understand? (For the record, if Manziel shows serious interest in the XFL, bet the mortgage money that McMahon will turn a blind eye to his rap sheet.)

Caroline Wozniacki

For those who insist that there’s no depth in women’s tennis, the past five Grand Slam events have produced five different champions—Serena Williams (Australian Open), Jelena Ostapenko (French Open), Garbine Muguruza (Wimbledon), Sloane Stephens (U.S. Open) and Caroline Wozniacki (Aussie Open). Five events, 13 months, five different champions. The men, meanwhile, have produced two different champions in that time frame—Roger Federer (three titles) and Rafael Nadal (two). I suppose an argument can be made that the universe would have unfolded differently for the women had mama Serena not been away having a baby, but that isn’t necessarily so. After all, she won just one Slam in 2016. Might have been the same last year. The point is, there’s intrigue on the women’s side.

Is there anything more cruel in sports than what Simona Halep and Marin Cilic were forced to endure after losing their respective Aussie Open singles championship matches this weekend? She battled Wozniacki for three hours less 11 minutes, he 20-time Grand Slam champion Federer for three hours and three minutes. Then, after being vanquished, they likely just wanted to crawl into a hole and cry. Alas, they were required to loiter on court for the parting-gifts ceremony and boring speeches that seemingly droned on longer than the matches…then make a speech and smile…then listen to the victor’s speech and smile…then pose for photos and smile. Half an hour later, they were permitted to depart and lick their wounds (which, in Halep’s case, meant a retreat to the hospital for IV treatment). Like I said, cruel.

Rafa Nadal

This week’s notable quotable: Before meeting his Waterloo vs. Marin Cilic, Rafael Nadal was rocking the sleeveless look at the Aussie Open. The guy’s got guns. Serious guns. Which did not escape the notice of commentator Jim Courier, who, during a courtside gab session about Rafa’s fashion statement, asked Swiss maestro Federer if he’d be following Nadal’s lead and show us his pipes. “That’s not gonna happen,” a laughing Federer said, glancing quickly at his chicken arms. “You know why? My arms are not like his arms. It’s pretty simple.”

This week’s Stevie-ism from Steve Simmons of Postmedia Tranna, taking a cheap shot at the XFL: “Did anybody out there ask for another football league? Anyone?” I have a better question, Stevie: Does anybody in the Republic of Tranna know they have a professional football team? Anyone?

About a guard dog for Puck Finn…the goalie blind Winnipeg Jets…soccer stupidity in hockey…a classy King…classy curlers…and adios to a classy Ken Fidlin

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

As Dire Straits advised us in the early 1990s, sometimes you’re the windshield and sometimes you’re the bug. We know which one Patrik Laine was on Saturday afternoon, and let’s agree that the Winnipeg Jets rookie extraordinaire was the victim of a clean hit. Not clean-ish. Clean.

If you can’t agree, please proceed to another blog, because I’m not prepared to debate it.

I will, however, happily engage in a verbal to-and-fro re the suggestion that the Jets ought to send an SOS to former guard dog Anthony Peluso.

I mean, seriously? Anthony Peluso?

Yes, some among the rabble think it a swell idea to insert Peluso’s bare knuckles into the Jets’ lineup to discourage ruffians like Jake McCabe of the Sabres from taking liberties with the likes of Puck Finn, as he did in Buffalo. Well, sure. And some people also believe Donald Trump in the White House is a swell idea.

Look, it’s bad enough that a roster spot is occupied by Chris Thorburn, a loyal foot soldier whose sole purpose when not munching on popcorn appears to be dropping his hockey mitts and wrestling a foe of equally limited skills for 30 seconds or less. Unless this is 1975 and the Broad St. Bullies are pillaging the National Hockey League, adding another no-talent thug who would be tethered to the end of the bench or banished to the press box is not a wise use of personnel.

So no. Anthony Peluso is not the answer.

Puck Finn

As one who has suffered multiple concussions (10 at last count), I know what a dark and nasty place La La Land can be. The nausea, the dizziness, the ringing in the ears, the headaches, the imbalance, the forgetfulness…horrible. I was first concussed at age 13. Got hit in the head by a baseball. When I awoke in St. Boniface Hospital, the kid in the bed next to me had control of the TV. I asked him to put on Hockey Night in Canada. It was mid-July. I thought it was winter. I hope Laine knows it’s winter and there’s plenty of hockey to be played. More to the point, I hope Puck Finn doesn’t miss too much of it.

Almost lost in the hue and cry that arose after McCabe sent Laine to La La Land was the numbing reality that the Jets coughed up a huge hair ball in losing 4-3 to Buffalo. Ahead 3-1 less than 20 minutes from time, they gagged and it didn’t help that they received more minor league-level goaltending from Connor Hellebuyck. I’m not prepared to close the book on Hellebuyck, but I do find it odd, also annoying, that general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff and his bird dogs can recognize blue-chippers up front (the Lickety-Split Line of Puck Finn, Twig Ehlers and Rink Rat Scheifele, as an e.g.) and on the blueline (Jacob Trouba, Josh Morrissey) but they continue to be goalie blind. Should it really take six years to find a legitimate starting goaltender?

Interesting to note that Jets head coach Paul Maurice doesn’t discuss the NHL standings with his workers. “I don’t talk about the standings and I don’t talk about any of that in the room,” he says. “It’s on a board somewhere and they can look at it if they like.” Perhaps that explains their lack of urgency some nights.

We can do without this and the shootout in hockey.

At the risk of sounding like Don Cherry, it occurs to me that Europeans have brought two things to hockey—soccer’s twin evils of diving and the shootout. Yes, of course, some hockey players (hello, Bill Barber) were acting like Italian footballers in their death throes before the great European wave arrived on our shores, but it got so bad that the NHL was motivated to pass anti-diving legislation in an effort to nip it in the bud. As for the shootout, I’m sure most of us would agree that it’s the devil’s handiwork. Under no circumstances should the gold-medal match at the World Junior Championship be determined by gimmickry. The Canadian and American kids put on a boffo show the other night, and they deserved better than soccer stupidity to decide the issue. I mean, it’s not like anyone was in a hurry to leave the rink.

So nice to see Dave King acting like a kid on Christmas morning after Canada’s success at the recent Spengler Cup tournament in Davos. King, who was Luke Richardson’s associate coach at the Swiss event, is among the finest men I met in 30 years of covering sports in mainstream media. He was always classy, always honest and always obliging. No doubt he still is.

Speaking of classy, former world champs Kerry Burtnyk and Jeff Ryan were two of the reasons I enjoyed working the curling beat back in the day, and now their names are in the news again. Only this time, it’s their kids chasing glory. Laura Burtnyk and Hailey Ryan teamed up to win the Manitoba Junior women’s title, while J.T. Ryan skipped his team to the men’s crown. The kids will be wearing the Buffalo on their backs at the Canadian championships later this month in Victoria, and it’s never wise to bet against a Manitoba outfit at a national curling event. Especially if their names are Burtnyk and Ryan. Go get ’em, kids.

Ken Fidlin

Another good one has left the toy department. That would be the now-retired Ken Fidlin, longtime jock journalist with the Toronto Sun. Fids and I arrived at the Sun at the same time, in late 1980, after his Ottawa Journal and my Winnipeg Tribune both ceased operation in the same 24-hour period. I bailed after a year and a half in the Republic of Tranna, moving to Calgary and then back to Pegtown, but Fids never left and the Little Paper That Grew was always better for it. He’s a terrific writer and an even better person.

Postmedia truly has done a nasty number on sports writing in Canada. Fidlin joins a lengthy parade of quality writers and people who have been bought out, forced out or walked out on the newspaper chain in the past 12 months—George (Shakey) Johnson, Cam Cole, Bill Lankhof, Dave Stubbs, Randy Sportak, John MacKinnon, Joanne Ireland and Kirk Penton, among others. I suppose Terry Jones of the Edmonton Sun will be next on the chopping block. Sad.

Patti Dawn Swansson has been writing crap about Winnipeg sports for 47 years, which means she is old and probably should think about getting a life.

 

Swimming in a sea of Canuckleheads; Winnipeg Jets over the Disney Ducks in 6 games; and who sprinkled Ondrej Pavelec with Dominik Hasek dust?

I am already seeing it. Canuckmania.

People are wearing the jerseys with the big C-shaped, angry Orca on the chest. Flags flutter from car windows. It is all the talk in my favorite watering hole and, no doubt, most pubs on the left flank of the land. I live a short hop across the water from the B.C. mainland, and make no mistake about one thing—Victoria is Vancouver Canucks country.

One might assume that the reality that I, a member of Jets Nation, am surrounded by Canuckleheads to be discormforting. Not at all. If anything, I am quietly humored by their zeal, particularly those among their number who seldom discourse on matters of athletics but now give voice to the goings-on of the National Hockey League and the commencement of the Stanley Cup tournament.

Why is the Canucks orca such an angry whale?

For example, just yesterday afternoon the boys on the bar stools in Bart’s Pub were prattling on, in not-so-hushed tones, about the Canucks’ upcoming engagement with the Calgary Flames, when one of them squeezed a mention of the Winnipeg Jets into the chin-wag.

“Did you see how the Jets got in?” he asked without expecting a reply. “They lost their last game. Got shut out. And they make the playoffs!”

The inference, of course, was that the Winnipegs had exercised the very bad manners of using a back door to gain entrance to the tournament. That they had not won their way in. This while the Jets were, at that very moment, featured on a corner TV, laying a 5-1 licking on the Flames to earn their 99^th point of the regular season, just two fewer than the Canucks.

My instinct was to correct this fellow. I mean, if blanking the Wild in Minny, the Blues in St. Loo and the Avalanche in mile-high Denver—three shutouts in succession, on the road, in the final week of a 6 1/2-month campaign—is his idea of backing into the playoffs, well…whatever.

I chose to sit in silence, listening as they shifted their deliberations to the Canucks’ goal crease, an area of considerable concern given that the starting goaltender, Ryan Miller, had, until Saturday night, spent seven weeks on the shelf due to a wonky right knee. The consensus: Understudy Eddie Lack should start when Team Orca opens playoff hostilities vs. the Flames on Wednesday night in Van City.

That, of course, bears no importance for me. My area of interest would be the blue paint at the Jets’ end of the rink once they face off against the Disney Ducks in the Magic Kingdom on Thursday. But no one out here wishes to discuss Ondrej Pavelec, the Jets goaler who apparently has been sprinkled with Dominic Hasek dust and whose net has been a puck-free zone for a few ticks less than 187 minutes. Do the math. That’s three-plus games.

Pavelec’s play is among the reasons why the Jets qualified for their first post-season crusade since arriving in River City in 2011, and he shall be among the reasons the Winnipegs upstage the Ducks in their opening-round skirmish.

Oh, yes. That is an early prediction. Jets over Ducks. In six games.

I say that not only because Pavelec has become inpenetrable, but because Bruce Boudreau is head coach of the Disney Ducks. Bruce Boudreau-coached teams and playoff hockey are not a favorable combination. They do not win. Ever. They implode.

Which means…the Jets shall advance to Round Two of the tournament, whereupon they shall rattle sabres with none other than the Vancouver Canucks, who shall vanquish the Flames.

This puts me in a bit of a pickle. As mentioned, I am surrounded by Canuckleheads, a tribe of very sore losers prone to rioting whenever their universe does not unfold as it should. I have made no secret of my affections for the Jets, which positions me as the enemy in these here parts. I fear the worst. I shall not, however, be intimidated should the Jets meet the Canucks. That’s not the Paul Maurice way. I shall proudly display the Jets logo.

That, I hasten to point out, would be the Jets logo circa 1970s-80s. I still cannot embrace the current logo, which is…well, as one Canucklehead asked yesterday, “What exactly is that Jets logo supposed to be?”

“I don’t know,” I answered. “Just like I don’t know why that Orca whale on the Canucks logo is so angry. I guess it’s because the Canucks have been in the NHL for almost half a century and they still haven’t won the Stanley Cup. You know, just like the Maple Leafs.”

Logo wars aside, I hope the Jets and Canucks do meet in the second round of the Stanley Cup tournament for a couple of reasons: 1) It would be a one-anthem series; 2) it would guarantee one Canadian outfit a berth in the Western Conference final.

So bring it on, Canuckleheads.

 

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.