THROWIN’ ELBOWS WITH BRENDAN MCGUIRE
1 – VLAD ENTERS HALL AS AN ANGEL: Nearly a week has passed since we found out Montreal Expos great Vladimir Guerrero will go into the National Baseball Hall of Fame wearing an Anaheim Angels cap on his plaque. Montrealers immediately reacted with furor and saw it as yet another slight against les Quebecois from Major League Baseball.
As an obsessed Expo historian, my response is: Get over it!
The Expos have 3 more hats in Cooperstown than the Angels (Vlad will be their first) and still more than the Blue Jays who only have one (Roberto Alomar).
2 – RUSH BUBBLE NOT BURSTING: The Saskatchewan Rush’s latest overtime win in Calgary has me wondering, ‘When is this love affair between Saskatoon and professional lacrosse going to end?’ My partner, Sheena, and I attended our first Rush game in the spring of 2016 and were blown away by the young, energetic, sellout crowd of 15,000. The high energy was fantastic and the music was great until the 4th quarter when we had had enough.
You can only listen to the same scoring song so many times (think it was 13 that night) and to see Matthew McConaughey repeatedly pounding his chest on the big-screen went from amusing to exhausting in about 2 hours. The perfect game for me would be something almost as high scoring as lacrosse and maybe on ice. I wonder what on earth that could be? Hmm.
3 – TOM BRADY’S TOO SENSITIVE: A Boston radio deejay drew nary a reaction recently when he referred to Tom Brady’s 5-year-old daughter as an “annoying little piss ant” while reviewing a documentary about the personal life of Tom Terrific. What got everyone’s Twitter blazing was when Brady walked off his weekly morning show interview early Monday in a huff. The radio station has already suspended the deejay for his comments. The disc jockey was just trying to entertain his audience while at the same time promoting the documentary FOR BRADY. He (Alex Reimer is his name) will probably lose his job over Tom’s temper tantrum.
My advice to Brady: Quit being a suck!
You signed up for all this. Deal with it. And maybe apologize to Reimer for blowing this thing into a mountain out of nothing. Not forgiving a minimum wage deejay over this says more about Brady than anyone else.
4 – SUPER BOWL PICKS: This Denver Bronco fan has no dog in this race so I’m just going to go ahead and root for the Eagles to beat New England. Why, do you ask? Check out point number 3 about Tom Brady being too sensitive.
5 –HALIFAX CFL LOGOS EXPLODING: The CFL-to-Halifax thing has gotten so big we’re seeing possible names and logos floating all over social media. The Halifax Explosions name and logo is angering people everywhere and probably grabbed the most attention for its reference to a Maritime disaster which killed 2 thousand people more than a century ago. This really is much ado about nothing. I would bet my next paycheque (so not much, but still) this team won’t be called anything but the Atlantic Schooners. And the Giant “S” is my favorite logo so far.
6 – NHL ALL-STAR GAME SUCKED: Give the NHL some credit for trying new things by scrapping the traditional all-star game with a quick 4-team tournament by division but it was still a dud. As much as I’d love to pick on Gary Bettman and the league for not making this thing more watchable, the NFL pro bowl yesterday was even worse.
7 – WHO’S BROCK BOESER?:Apparently Vancouver Canucks rookie Brock Boeser is the NHL’s hottest new thing but before Sunday’s all-star game I had barely even heard of him. Am I the only one tuning out the NHL completely?
8–REGINA PATS WINDOW ABOUT TO OPEN: Once Super Bowl Sunday is passed, the Regina Pats will be front and centre for even the casual sports fan around the Queen City. After making hay with last spring’s playoff run, the southern 306 has been disappointed with an underwhelming start which prompted ownership to cancel the outdoor game and management to finish trading away all 1st and 2nd round draft picks for the next three years in a desperate attempt to salvage a Memorial Cup hosting season. Can they come through in the clutch this time? No one knows because they’re 4-4 since the trade deadline. They’ll have to do better than that to satisfy the 5,200 who ponied up season tickets for what supposed to be a historic year. But there’s still time.
9– TIGER WILLIAMS IS AN UNSUNG HERO: Was informed earlier this month that I’ll have the great fortune of MC’ing a senior hockey sportsman’s dinner in my hometown of Kipling, Saskatchewan in April. The headliner this time, Dave “Tiger” Williams. I’ll never forget the first time I met Tiger was at a fundraiser in Bienfait the same day his legendary coach Roger Nielsen died. Tiger was very emotional that day when talking about it. What stood out for me the most? A handful of nameless NHL celebrities had promised organizers they would show up. Let’s just say all but one of them ditched. By now you can tell who kept his word and who didn’t (again not going name names here but you can ask me on twitter).
10– BUTLER SITUATION NIGHT AND DAY DIFFERENT FROM WILDER: As much as I agree with James Wilder Jr. of the Toronto Argos – and pretty well all CFL players – that the salary cap needs to go up, I feel no sympathy for Argonauts sack-star Victor Butler who’s whining about not being let out of his contract to try the NFL. Butler has already played 5 years in the NFL, enough to qualify him for a full pension, unlike Wilder who has yet to collect the big money. And if Butler thinks the NFL is lining up to sign him when he’s on the wrong side of 30 a year after no one showed interest, then he’s dreaming in technicolor. He should suck it up, honor his contract and play ball. Or maybe go work construction for a living if that’s so much better than coming to Canada.
That’s all from me everybody! See you all at the Sober Bowl on Sunday!
(Follow Brendan on Twitter at @brendanhowardmc)
