Stackhouse’s 10 Weekend Thoughts

2 – LANCE A RIDER ? – The Saskatchewan Roughriders have added quarterback Trey Lance to their Neg List although it still seems like a far fetched scenario where we’d see Lance in the CFL.  Lance, simply, has not played that much football since being drafted by San Francisco third overall in 2021 and it would make a lot of sense for him to come here and get some badly needed game action.  Having said that, I’m not sure he’d even warrant a starting gig with the Riders.  Is he better than Trevor Harris?  The ceiling certainly is higher but the floor is a lot lower than Harris as well as Jake Maier.  Furthermore, if Lance impressed he’s only a short term player in the CFL.  I’d be passing on Lance and focusing on Harris and Maier.  Otherwise, you have a weird situation where you hope Lance is good but not good enough to warrant another NFL chance but his profile is as such that any amount of success he would have in the CFL is going to mean someone rolls the dice on him in the NFL. 

3 – UFL WEEK ONE – The Riders adding Lance to the Neg List doesn’t mean Lance is looking for a place to play, but if he was the UFL seems like a more logical landing spot.  This weekend is Week 1 in the UFL and there is no buzz at all about it here in Canada but I am seeing some snippets of publicity in the US.  Birmingham has won three straight titles and looking for a fourth with solid depth at QB in the form of former NFL vets Matt Corral and Alex McGough. Last year, 20 players who suited up in the UFL ended up on NFL rosters.  That tells me the league is emerging as far as a feeder system even if the attendance isn’t there in some of the markets.  The simple presence of the league damages the level of talent we get to see in the CFL and that’s the cold hard truth whether you like it or not.

4 – REBUILDS – Perhaps the biggest fraud in professional sports (even in junior hockey for that matter) is this notion that teams need to spend 4-5-6-7 years on a ‘rebuild’.  The OHL’s London Knights and the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights are living proof that tearing your team apart to the point that it’s unwatchable is not needed in order to remain competitive.  But what happens is that General Managers get hired and they see a lengthy rebuild as a form of long term job security.  The Philadelphia Flyers have missed the playoffs in 9 of the last 13 years and lost in the first round three of the four times they have made it.  This isn’t a rebuild.  This is complete ineptitude.  Their draft record over the last 13 years is embarrassing.  Sure, John Tortorella may not be the best coach to deal with the tender, sensitive professional hockey player of today but when I look at that roster, I see a team that is the worst in the NHL by far and the fact they aren’t last is a testament to Tortorella.  Also, for as bad as Tortorella may be, USA Hockey has deemed him top three as he was behind the bench at the Four Nations.  The Flyers can make the playoffs as soon as next year with a good trade, a top free agent signing to help the scoring, and adding a good goalie.  There, I fixed it for them in one sentence and it didn’t take 13 years.

5 – FIGHTING – One of my more favorite (I admit it’s also childish) things to do is to troll Sportsnet Facebook posts by commenting in an extremely obvious sarcastic manner to try and stimulate thought.  I’ve learned a lot of people don’t have such a detector in their brain but that’s a topic for another day.  On more than one occasion I’ve commented about fighting, including last Sunday’s near goalie fight involving Darcy Kuemper and Jeremy Swayman.  I said that it was a good thing the officials kept them apart because the NHL is trying to do away with fighting as evidenced by the rules they’ve instituted over the last 20 years or so.  And, because the NHL wants to please its stakeholders, it only makes sense that players, fans, and sponsors want nothing to do with fighting either, so good job on the officials for not allowing the fight to occur.  My comment was then inundated with replies telling me what a snowflake I am and that I’m stupid for suggesting nobody likes fighting.  Yet, nobody has answered why the league (and the sport in general) has fallen over backwards to try and remove fighting.  Could it be that hockey is uber focused on appeasing those who hate the game?  Yes, CTE is real.  But that doesn’t stop the UFC from continuing on.  I don’t know why we can’t just say, “Here’s our game.  This is how it’s played.  This is what can happen.  Play or don’t.”

6 – I’M SORRY LETTER – Alabama’s NCAA baseball coach has been ordered to write an apology letter to an umpire as well as the opposing team’s head coach after an outburst last weekend.  Robert Vaughn also received a four-game suspension but the governing body also feels enough damage was sustained by the ump and other coach that a ‘sorry letter’ is also warranted.  No truth to the rumour that Vaughn was offered the chance to say sorry in person and also shed some tears and he would have avoided the 4-games.  

7 – CEBL SIGNIFICANT WINNIPEG SIGNING – The Winnipeg Sea Bears have signed forward Simi Shittu for the upcoming season.  Shittu is an impact player who averaged almost 10-Rebounds Per Game with Calgary two seasons ago.  Last year he played pro in Turkey and Greece.  He’s also no slouch when it comes to scoring as he averaged 14.6-ppg with the Surge in 2023.  The Sea Bears aren’t fooling around.  They get big crowds and their management is doing what it can to pay back the fans’ support by putting a championship level team on the floor.

8 – YANKEES DOCTORING BATS – With the blessing of Major League Baseball, the New York Yankees have redesigned their baseball bats.  According to one of their television announcers, “The Yankees have put a more heavier part of the bat into the label area so that the ‘hardest part of the bat is going to strike the ball.”  Yankee bats are now more visibly thicker around the label and on Saturday the team hit 9 home runs (three by Aaron Judge) on their way to a 20-9 win over the Milwaukee Brewers.  Baseball has enough problems that they don’t need to add ‘legally corked bats’ to their agenda.

9 – NBA BLOOD CLOTS – Milwaukee Bucks star Damian Lillard has put his NBA career on hold after revealing he has a blood clot in his leg.  As we know, this is all very normal.  A month ago, San Antonio Spur Victor Wembanyama was shut down with a perfectly normal blood clot.  Last year, Detroit’s Ausar Thompson was discovered to have had a blood clot.  Some of you will think I’m being an alarmist, but I’m sure if you googled NBA blood clots in 2019, you’d get a handful.  I think Chris Bosch had one that forced his retirement in 2016 but, surely, there’s many, many more than that seeing as how we have three just in the last year.  

10 – SPORTS DEATH – 15-year-old Ontarian Nolan Ion died last weekend of a cardiac arrest during gym class at his high school.  His family feels his death was preventable.  Nolan was taken to Newmarket hospital three days earlier as they were concerned for his physical well-being but the health experts gave him a clean bill of health.  Nolan’s hockey coach backs up the family’s claims that their health concerns were, largely, ignored.  “You could see he didn’t have the wind capacity and every game he just didn’t have the energy.”  There are countless stories right across the country involving failed health care and many of them result in death and yet I encounter fellow Canadians every day who believe we have the best system in the world.  I will re-iterate that the healthcare you receive is NOT free and even if it was, you’d rather die than pay for it?

(Mike Stackhouse is a freelance writer/broadcaster)