10 Weekend Things

Truth & Rumours …

1 – BIG BEN: To be honest, it’s been a crappy week. The family of former CFL lineman Ben Fairbrother announced on social media this weekend that the 51-year old has been killed in a tragic accident in Edmonton. The news hit very hard.

Ben listed Calgary as his hometown, played at the U of C, and spent 1997-2000 with the Saskatchewan Roughriders and 2001-2003 with the BC Lions. In his time with the Riders, Ben and I got to be very close. As a young single guy, he’d regularly join me in the broadcast booth for Regina Pats home games. No, he didn’t go on air. He just wanted to sit and watch.

He married a Regina gal and they had two beautiful daughters. Post-career they settled in Edmonton. Ben’s stepson is Brett Hyland, who spent five seasons (2019-2024) with the WHL’s Brandon Wheat Kings, so Ben and I kept regular contact over the course of Brett’s junior career. Ben always wanted updates.

This is the most horrible of news. Life is precious. Don’t waste a day.

2 – TUA: To be frank, it seems people have lost track of how many concussions Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa has had. The one suffered on Thursday Night Football here in Miami on Thursday was the third major knock of his NFL career. But they say he had at least two more while starring for Alabama in college. Everyone – incuding many former star QBs – are saying it’s time for Tua to call it a career at age 26. But not so fast …

If you’ve done any digging into Tua’s contract, he signed a 4-year/$212-million deal just prior to the season. $167-million of that is guaranteed in the case of injury. $42-million of that total has already been paid. So if Tua’s medically cleared to resume playing – and who’s kidding who, he will be – but decides to retire, he’ll have to forego the $125-million remaining. Not so easy of a decision is it?

However if Dolphins team doctors don’t clear him to play ever again, he’ll get it all. What do you think those doctors are gonna do? NFL owners want you to think they’re nice guys. But they’re not that nice.

The docs are going to clear Tua, and put this decision all on him.

#3 – UH OH: People think it’s an easy choice and all about the money, but it’s not. When a Roughriders player some years ago was faced with the decision of ending his career, I didn’t think it should be that hard either. But someone close to the situation put it to me like this: “Imagine Rod, if you were never able to write a column again, or host a show, or call a game? How would that feel?”

Yeesh. I’m not sure I’d want to live. So when you think about these players, think about the #1 thing you love in your life and then think about having it taken away forever. Not so easy.

That’s why I incorporated Pedersen Media Inc. back in 2013. My Dad had been urging me to do it since the 1990s. Now no one can take it away and believe me, people have tried.

#4 – CONCUSSIONS: It’s not amusing at all but I find it very interesting. CFL icon Matt Dunigan is the guy I remember suffering from concussions the most of any player I’d ever seen. Who doesn’t remember him being carried off the field in the 1990s, only to return for the next series? Meanwhile I just finished reading an outstanding article in The Athletic on Troy Aikman, and his concussion problems while starring with the Dallas Cowboys in the 90s.

Those guys seem to be fine in life after football, don’t they? Dave Dickenson got his bell rung as much, or more than anyone while winning Grey Cups with the Calgary Stampeders and BC Lions. However he seems to be doing just fine post-career as head coach in Calgary?

And where would Zach Collaros be if he’d decided to hang it up after his concussion problems in Saskatchewan in 2018, and for years before that in Hamilton? Zach rallied to take the Winnipeg Blue Bombers to the last four Grey Cups, winning two, and assuredly a spot in the CFL Hall of Fame.

It’s up to the player. Always will be. And the player will always opt to play.

Tua ain’t retiring.

#5 – CFL: As we barrel down the homestretch of the CFL season, I can declare that I was 0-3 in picks for Week 15. Major kudos to the Toronto Argonauts for travelling cross-country to up-end the Lions Friday night in BC. If the Lions didn’t have a QB controversy before, they do now. And Chad Kelly got one over on Nathan Rourke, his harshest critic.

Hamilton has come back from the dead, upsetting Ottawa on Saturday, and have a shot at the playoffs after being declared out of it by everyone, including me. The difference in their turnaround? It appears to be Chris Jones.

Meanwhile Montreal and Calgary tied 19-19 on Saturday and I guarantee no one predicted that. (The CFL should abolish ties).

Saskatchewan (5-7-1), Edmonton (5-8) and Winnipeg (7-6) had byes in Week 15 but the Elks and Bombers are just heating up. They probably didn’t want a week off.

As for Saskatchewan, I predicted a 7-win season (look it up) and am bursting at the seams waiting to say “I told you so”.

#6 – COLLEGE: That photo at the top of this column is of Florida Atlantic University Stadium, aka Howard Schnellenberger Field, in Boca Raton, FL. It was the site of Saturday night’s Shula Bowl, won 38-20 by FAU over nearby FIU. (It seems confusing, but it’s not). By the greatest of fortune, I represented Cardinal Gibbons High School at the game and got the red carpet treatment by college officials. NFL Hall of Famer Cris Carter is on the coaching staff of FAU, and he and others waited out a two-hour weather delay before going out and recording their first win of the season in a game blessed by the Shula family, and named after the iconic Dolphins coach Don Shula. … If you love football, South Florida is the place for you. … Other Week 3 college notes: Coach Prime needed that one, as Colorado spanked Colorado State 28-9 on Rivalry Weekend. … The Miami Hurricanes disemboweled Ball State 62-0, and no one sees anything wrong with that. … Texas embarrassed nearby UTSA 56-7 and pundits are calling Steve Sarkisian’s Longhorns the best team in College Football. … This is so much fun!

#7 – WOLSELEY: Join veteran NHL & WHL coach Lorne Molleken, Roughriders great Bob Poley, Paralympic Curler Gil Dash and me on Saturday, October 19 in Wolseley, SK for the town’s first ever Sports Celebrity Dinner & Auction! This one’s gonna be fantastic as we tell the greatest sports stories and enjoy a fabulous Fowl Supper with all the proceeds going to the Wolseley Sportsplex. Tickets are available now and you can get yours by emailing wolseleyarenaboard@gmail.com.

#8 – GO PATS GO: The Regina Pats were hoping to have an alumni celebration during Saturday night’s home game versus the Brandon Wheat Kings however the event was cancelled due to lack of interest. I never thought I’d see the day. The Pats are hoping to host an event at a November game.

#9 – BRAXTON WHITEHEAD: Perhaps you need to be deep, deep into the hockey world to appreciate and understand how significant it was that 20-year old Regina Pats forward Braxton Whitehead announced on Friday his commitment to Arizona State University for the 2024-25 season. The Alaska product has become the very first-ever major junior player to commit to an NCAA program. As my old Yellow Grass rival Ricky Long wrote on the RP Show Facebook page, “This will be the end of Junior A hockey”.

So again, do people understand how this is the biggest of torpedoes to the rival of the WHL? Used to be players had to choose at age 15 whether they would play Major Junior or Junior A because the NCAA wouldn’t accept Major Junior players (Johnathan Toews comes to mind, or locally Chris Kunitz and Jaden Schwartz). Now the NCAA is accepting Major Junior players so, theoretically, why would the best players go the Junior A route at all (SJHL, AJHL, MJHL, etc.)?

As an NHL scout texted me Friday morning when the news broke, “The Jr A leagues, including the USHL and Canadian University won’t like this at all.”

But wait, there’s more. Those leagues aren’t taking this news lying down and just before leaving Canada this summer, I learned of even more Junior A teams across the prairies who are planning a defection from the CJHL and Hockey Canada (a la the BCHL and five former AJHL teams).

I’d report more, but it’s super hush-hush. In America, NCAA football programs bouncing conferences is well-reported but like anything hockey-related in Canada, this is all Top Secret.

As you wish. But just like when I was flamed in the spring of 2021 for reporting five AJHL teams were primed to jump to the BCHL – scorched and exiled actually – it eventually happened, just like I said it would. And that’s why you come here every week.

To get the truth.

#10 – RANDOM THOUGHTS: Life isn’t fair. Do your best anyway. … An octopus has three hearts and nine brains! … Calgary’s McMahon Stadium has hosted 546 CFL games making it #1 all-time in the country. Taylor Field used to hold that distinction, which was a proud thing to be known for. But I’d rather have the new stadium. … Would you buy Paris Hilton’s new alum? … All of a sudden Marshawn Lynch is a media star, huh. … When you don’t go looking for trouble, you don’t usually find it. … New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu came to the aid of a contestant choking on a lobster roll at a seafood festival eating contest, using the Heimlich maneuver after the man signaled for help. The contestant, Christian Moreno, recovered and resumed eating at the competition on stage this week. He didn’t win, but he did consume nine lobster rolls in all. … AND HOW WAS YOUR WEEK?

Y’er welcome,
RP
@rodpedersen