MIKE STACKHOUSE’S 10 THOUGHTS

1 – FAJARDO WARRIOR EFFORT – There is plenty of blame to go around for the Roughriders loss on Sunday, but none of it should fall on the shoulders of Cody Fajardo, who played through two torn oblique muscles to pass for 366 yards.  While he didn’t throw a touchdown, I hardly single him out. Fajardo looked every bit like a top CFL quarterback and every time I hear him talk I’m convinced more than ever that he’s one of the rare athletes of today that ‘gets it’.  He’s a role model every Rider fan in this province can be proud of and I hope he’s here for a very long time.

2 – FITTING – The Riders have a knack of writing story book finishes for their losses.  I’ve written about it before and Sunday was another chapter as their oft injured pivot, Zach Collaros, emerged with another team to stay healthy enough to be the quarterback that eliminated Saskatchewan from the playoffs.  I don’t analyze with hindsight so I’m not about to criticize the Riders for trading Collaros, but you have to wonder had Collaros stayed on the roster all year would he have been the Saskatchewan starter on Sunday instead of Winnipeg’s?

3 – PLAY CALLING – I’ve promoted Stephen McAdoo for his work this season and pointed out the frustration of fans the last couple of years was largely due to the face McAdoo was doing his best with a group of players he, rightfully, had no faith in to execute his game plan.  Well, McAdoo wears the goat horns for me in the West Final unless he was overruled by Craig Dickenson for the ineptitude of the offense in the red zone. Again, I don’t like analyzing after the fact but watching the game live I found myself confused as to why Bryan Bennett would be in shotgun formation when he should have been under center and could have just pushed his way through the line for a touchdown.  Some will question why Bennett was in the game at all, but I didn’t mind that so much as I minded what was called with him in there. The other frustration was seeing William Powell have success running the ball, yet the Riders didn’t call his number on first down with three yards to go. I think Powell had one opportunity out of all the chances the Riders had with goal to go. A complete waste. One comment that resonated with me was that Winnipeg didn’t stop the run, Saskatchewan stopped running.

4 – OTHER ERRORS – There were a couple of other glaring errors, including bad clock management at the end of the first half, as well as the total absence of blocking on Nick Marshall’s punt return late in the fourth quarter.  However, I liked the fact Dickenson owned up to the mistakes on the coaching side and took accountability. For me, that’s real quality leadership. I think the Riders are in good hands moving forward and there will be big expectations as Regina hosts next year’s Grey Cup. 

5 – ROGERS NHL TV DEAL – The first season of that Rogers deal was 2014-15.  If you go back and look at the Hockey Night In Canada schedule, it was quite common to see as many as seven games available for viewers.  Usually 3-4-5 options for the early telecast and 2-3-4 selections for the late one. The odd time, there’d be 8 games being broadcast on various channels (Sportsnet, CBC, City) from 6pm until past 11pm.  Jump ahead to 2019-20 and there are three options for the early game and one for late contest. I recall their head honcho, Scott Moore, saying there would be a smorgasboard of hockey like never before available for the viewer.  Yeah right. They’ve been a poor flagship network for the NHL. They haven’t grown the game at all through any of their programs (viewership is much lower than anticipated by the suits who flubbed this up) and it’s just been an overall abject failure from the George Strombo hosting experiment–to the employment of low end analysts who are a clear step down from what TSN employs–to their attempted phase out of Ron MacLean (which backfired)–to their failed promises to sponsors that resulted in free ads being run during Blue Jays telecasts at the peak of their popularity–to the pink slips issued to many of the personalities they had that were credible (if not as good as the TSN talents)–to their botching of the Don Cherry firing–to the now tainted reputation of MacLean as some sort of sports Judas.  A mess. A disaster. An embarrassment. We all need jobs. But, the faces of those who show up on Sportsnet on a daily basis are ones I can’t take seriously and haven’t taken seriously for quite some time. There are a select few that could afford to save themselves some pride and walk out the door and they’d not have to worry about future employment. I’m not sure why they haven’t already.  

6 – MCCOWN – I used to be a very loyal listener of the Bob McCown show on the Sportsnet radio station, but as soon as Rogers secured the NHL deal, he was neutered.  He’ll never admit it because his ego is as such that nobody can ever tell him what to do, but any person who listened to his program knows he took quite a different and much friendlier tone towards how the NHL does business once Rogers signed that contract.  And, that’s the problem when broadcast companies and sports teams/leagues go into these types of partnerships. Journalism goes out the window and the media all become shills for the league/team. Sportsnet never even covered the concussion lawsuit. Ignored it completely.  McCown was the last form of critical sports journalism when it came to the NHL and he was kneecapped. It meant any form of an independent thought that questions the NHL about the state of the league or how it does business went out the window. Right now, you’d think all NHL franchises are healthy and sold out every night. We never hear a peep in the media about it. I don’t know if it’s true or not. Do you?

7 – LEAFS TURMOIL – Mike Babcock is on the hotseat as his Maple Leafs have lost six in a row, including a 4-2 loss at Vegas Tuesday night.  While there is no denying Babcock has under-performed as the highest paid head coach in the NHL, let’s not forget the Leafs are being run by a President (Brendan Shanahan) who has no previous experience running a team as well as a General Manager (Kyle Dubas) who has no previous experience running an NHL team and Dubas’s assistants are geared towards analytical formulas and solving issues through computers instead of person to person.  Why are the Toronto Maple Leafs, who have more financial resources at their disposal than any other club, trying to re-invent the management wheel? Sure, there is a time and place for analytics, but hooking up Auston Matthews to a GPS or running a 28 minute practice and making the coaches pick up the pucks does what exactly?

8 – NO MORE MIDGETS – I guess the Saskatchewan Midget AAA Hockey League will become the Saskatchewan U18 AAA Hockey League next year as Hockey Canada has announced they are doing away with Novice, Atom, Peewee, Bantam, Midget, and Junior terms as they’ll now be known as the age group with each is associated.  I was hoping to honour the request of a couple of commenters from last week and not put politics into my article, but here we go again with triggered leftists forcing their agenda on hockey. Make no mistake, the problem here is the word ‘midget’ and how Canadians, apparently, find the word offensive and so we have to change the entire structure with how we identify the age groups.  Lefties make nice and say this does no harm to anyone, it makes it easier for newbies to figure out which age group their child will play in, and other sports have already adopted similar age appropriate terminology. This is how agendas get pushed. ‘What harm is there in changing?’ Well, there was no harm in how we were doing it. The word midget wasn’t being used with the same meaning as what those offended claim and the last time I looked in a dictionary, it’s possible for words to have more than one meaning.  However, this is Canada and we are the softest and easiest offended society in the world so here we are. The identifying structure of hockey that made hockey unique is destroyed and those who never play the game get their way because we don’t have anyone in a position of leadership to have the courage to tell someone claiming to be offended to get over themselves.

9 – ASTROS CHEATING – The Houston Astros have been accused of stealing pitching signs and that was a big reason why they won the World Series in 2017.  I’m really not sure what my opinion on this is. On one hand, it’s long been considered a no-no to do it, yet everybody must do it because pitchers and catchers go to great lengths to disguise their communication with each other.   I think it’s time to get with the times and put an ear piece on the pitcher and allow the dugout to call the pitches electronically.

10 – BASEBALL COACH SUED – In the States, a high school baseball coach was sued for millions of dollars after he called for a 15-year-old base runner to slide on a bang bang play at third base.  The youth ended up shattering his ankle and is now 19 and hasn’t been able to play sports ever since. Fortunately, the judge ruled in favour of the coach this week and he won’t have to pay for ruining the teen’s career.  But, it does make one wonder if getting into the position of volunteer community coach is worth it if this could be the outcome.

(Mike Stackhouse is a freelance writer/broadcaster. Follow him on Twitter at @Stack1975)