10 WEEKEND THINGS

Taking shots …

1 – THANKSGIVING: Well this weekend turned out to be a major dud! (From a sports perspective). What was billed as a super sports tripleheader on Friday turned out to be a turkey, as the Blue Jays, Roughriders and Pats all lost. The Blue Jays topped it all off with their season-ending implosion on Saturday but fortunately the Regina Pats salvaged things that same night with a 4-3 home win over Swift Current. Hopefully you found something to be thankful for this weekend! I’ll do my best to keep things positive …

2 – RIDERVILLE: Pretty tough to find anything positive with the Jolly Green Giants right now. Faced with a must-win, “Win And You’re In” scenario Friday night at Hamilton, Saskatchewan fell on its face losing 18-14 at Tim Hortons Field. Head coach Craig Dickenson applauded the effort afterwards, but not the execution. Truth be told, the game was there for the taking as the Ticats shot themselves in the foot countless times, but it was a case of same old, same old with the Green & White. They gave up seven sacks, couldn’t stop the run, and dropped to 6-10.

I often wonder what iconic Regina sports writer Bob Hughes would have to say about the Riders in times like this. (We’re nearing the 9-year anniversary of Bob’s passing). Knowing Bob as well as I did – we spent a ton of time together – he’d have written, “Dickenson was right. They’re not very good.”

Anyway now the Riders head into a bye week and linebacker Darnell Sankey says it’s not a good time for a bye. He’s right. You truly have to wonder what can be fixed at this stage of the game, as the Riders head into a regular season-ending home-and-home series with Calgary. And although the Stampeders have clinched a playoff spot, they’ve got plenty to play for as they’re dead even with B.C. for second-place in the West, each with 20 points with two games to go.

3 – FLATLINING: Beloved – by me anyway –  Rider quarterback Cody Fajardo said “We’re not dead yet!” after Friday’s loss but the Riders’ cardiogram looks as flat as the #6 Highway between Regina and Melfort. Even the most diehard among the Rider faithful have scrapped this season and have started the, “Who should stay and who should go?” argument regarding the off-season.

But it’s not as simple as that. Barring a miracle, and if this season ends the way it’s looking, one would have to go back and see where it all went wrong. There are plenty of those moments but one that stands out above the rest is the release of embattled defensive lineman Garrett Marino on September 6. While it was an opportunity for the locker room to galvanize, they’ve come apart and haven’t won since. Marino wasn’t that key of a player, but if he’s as bad of a dude as it appears, you’ve gotta wonder why he was on the team in the first place?

Craig Dickenson’s done his best to stay positive – remember he has Coach of the Year credentials from 2019 – but it seemed like he was armed with a knife for a gunfight right from the start. 

4 – POST-MORTEM?: Is really time for that yet? Why not. The Insiders felt the Riders opened training camp with a roster nowhere near capable of contending for the Grey Cup. We kept waiting for the “Big Move”, or moves, in the spring and throughout the season but they never materialized.

Looking back at this regime’s track record since Chris Jones left in January of 2019, Saskatchewan’s win totals are 13, 9 (in a shortened season), and now 6. 

You can’t blame that on injuries, the flu, food poisoning or anything other than sub-par operations.

This all seems a little premature to be dissecting now considering the team still has a chance at making the playoffs but we’ve noted for weeks in this space that you can see where it’s going.

Famed CFL coach Mike Kelly said on this week’s RP Show regarding the Roughriders that, “Something seems wrong.”

He’s correct, but we’ll get into that more in the weeks ahead.

Pro football is a cruel, merciless, unforgiving bitch and in the end, your record is what you are and as Brendan Taman is fond of saying, “It’s a results-based business.”

Trouble is, the results aren’t in yet.

5 – THE INSIDERS: I put my phone away for much of the long weekend so I didn’t field any calls from the pro football types sprinkled across Canada and the USA. However I did talk to a few influential movers-and-shakers and they tell me something’s afoot on the football landscape. For certain we’ll hear much more about this over the winter months but I’m told potential buyers for CFL teams – particularly Montreal and Toronto – have been rebuffed. Clearly something is planned for these teams. The Insiders feel we may start to hear a lot about the Argonauts and Alouettes breaking off from the CFL to join a U.S. pro league, perhaps the XFL or USFL. Former USFL Commissioner and current Liberty Bowl Executive Director Steve Ehrhart alluded to this on Friday’s RP Show, in case you missed it. What a fascinating interview that was!

There are plenty of rich guys with deep pockets in the U.S. whom are eager to get their hands on pro teams and with CFL community-owned teams clearly reluctant to change or expand, the major market, bigger-thinking, teams may be left with no choice.

6 – HOCKEY: This “rich guy” thing is permeating sports at all levels. Is anybody following the Regina Pats situation as closely as me and hockey people? There’s not much talk in the media about it but with the acquisition of star 17-year old forward Sam Oremba this week, the Pats served notice that they’re going to at least attempt to win the WHL’s Eastern Conference title and possibly earn a berth into the Memorial Cup. (At 3-1, the Mem Cup-host Kamloops Blazers lead the B.C. Division).

Not sure where Pats Head Coach/GM John Paddock lands on trading Connor Bedard, but the buzz is it’s Pats owner Shaun Semple who doesn’t want to trade his superstar. As one hockey man told me this week, “All the owners have more say than ever. They have all the money so they make all the rules.”

I’m not going to get into the Pats roster construction here today – and maybe I never will – but the Pats were schooled by Canada’s #1 team, the Winnipeg ICE, on Friday night.

They’re just not in the ICE’s class, so therefore Bedard needs to be moved for top young talent, prospects and picks before the trade deadline. Given the fact Bedard is statistically the greatest player the WHL has ever seen, he would fetch a beautiful haul which would set the franchise up for years to come.

Should the Pats keep Bedard and fail to get out of the division, they’ll be languishing for years, playing in an empty arena.

We’ve seen it before.

7 – NHL NOTES: The puck dropped on the 2022-23 NHL regular season in Europe this weekend with the Nashville Predators sweeping the San Jose Sharks. Not a surprise, since the Preds are expected to be stout while the Sharks are expected to sink. … The biggest news of the week was the Calgary Flames awarding Darryl Sutter with a multi-year extension. Sutter is a perfect example of how “Things change”. In the Fall of 2019, the Jolly Rancher told the crowd at a sports banquet in Paradise Hill, SK that he’d only get back into coaching if he could work out a deal where he only had to coach home games. Luckily for the Flames, he changed his mind! … Darryl’s great but I thought his parting shots at Matthew Tkachuk last week were unnecessary. … I’ve had the good fortune of watching the Florida Panthers play live twice in the preseason and it says here they’ve got a lot to prove in the early going. The absence of Johnathan Huberdeau and MacKenzie Weegar is glaring. “Chucky” didn’t play in Thursday’s 3-2 home win over Tampa Bay. … The Lightning left FLA Live Arena that night with an 0-4 preseason record however unlike Vancouver and Montreal, NO ONE WAS PANICKING! The Bolts did cap the preseason with a 5-2 home win over the Panthers on Saturday. … A disturbing trend emerged this NHL preseason in which the media whipped the Canucks and Canadiens fanbases into a frenzy over their winless exhibition records. WHO CARES!? I’m chalking it up to the growing number of wet-behind-the-ears media in Canadian markets who know nothing about the game. Scary stuff.

8 – HOCKEY CANADA: Talk about trying times for Canada’s national hockey governing body. All I’ll say on the controversy is this: having been around Hockey Canada people for two solid weeks at the World Juniors in Edmonton in August, I sympathize with their plight. For one, there’s a ton of misinformation being spread around and it’s incredibly dangerous. And for two, many of the people being skewered right now weren’t even around when the fallout happened and are being unfairly maligned. Most of the people I dealt with haven’t even been with Hockey Canada for 12 months. It seems they’re going after the wrong guys.

And it must be very awkward to have TSN taking the lead role in the coverage given the fact they’re Hockey Canada’s TV and radio rightsholder. Such a dicey, heated, unfortunate situation.

9 – BLUE JAYS: Saturday night’s blown 7-run lead in Game 2 of the American League Wild Card Series has to go down as one of the biggest implosions in Toronto sports history. Obviously I’m not the biggest baseball guy but if it’s true manager John Schneider yanked starter Kevin Gausman in the sixth inning because the analytics said he should, then the Jays have bigger problems. What do they even need managers for?

Like we say in the media business, you need a computer to write a book but that computer can’t write the book.

10 – RANDOM THOUGHTS: The U.S. media’s fascination with the Tom Brady-Gisele Bundchen split is weird but it’s produced some gems too. One writer quipped on Sunday that if the couple splits their assets, Gisele will have three times as many Super Bowl rings as Aaron Rodgers! … Coverage and hype in the U.S. media leading up to Week 5 in the NFL got so crazy I had to turn it off. I mean, how much can you talk about it? Imagine TSN & Sportsnet’s NHL coverage combined, times 1,000. No wonder it’s the #1 league on the continent. People can’t get away from it! … Funny conversation with a Las Vegas sports guy who was trying to convince me to move the RP Show to Sin City. “C’mon man, Vegas is where it’s happening!” he prodded. “Florida is old and worn out.” To that I barked, “I’M OLD AND WORN OUT!” This place suits my pace of life beautifully. … South Florida has been absolutely amazing but we’ll be making the trip northward next week, for appearances in Assiniboia, Lampman, the Grey Cup, and Calgary’s Grey Eagle Resort & Casino … Speaking of, we’ll be hosting an NHL Season Preview special on the RP Show on Tuesday from the Beach House in Pompano Beach, FL. The NHL’s Panthers are sending down TV colour commentator Randy Moller and they’ve promised a player too! The cooperation we’ve had from the Panthers, and the Florida sports community, leaves me speechless. … Here are 10 life tips from a psychologist who’s dealt with thousands of clients in his practice: 1) Don’t make decisions when you’re angry, 2) Be yourself, 3) Don’t sweat the small stuff, 4) Know your worth, 5) It’s okay to ask for help, 6) Your life partner is one of the most important decisions you’ll ever make, 7) Make time for people you love, 8) The best time to start is now, 9) The best revenge is living well, and 10) Treat others the way you’d want to be treated. … And how was YOUR week?

Y’er welcome,
RP
@rodpedersen