STACKHOUSE’S 10 THOUGHTS

1 – MANDRUSIAK LET GO – Edmonton’s professional football team (I don’t know what to call them and I can’t say they have a league to play in, because frankly they don’t) dumped their 49-year long serving equipment trainer this week with the whisking out the door of Dwayne Mandrusiak.  Human nature is to be offended at such an unceremonious move but I’m telling you Covid has wrecked professional football in Canada. It’s done. It’s likely going to come back in some form, but not before mass economic casualties. I don’t know Mr. Mandrusiak and I feel bad for him because when you give 49 years to a company you deserve a much better fate than what he got but the reality is that his employer no longer exists despite what an eternal optimist may say to the contrary.

2 – NO URGENCY – Back in July I was begging, pleading, and imploring for people who are heavily involved in the CFL to make some racket. In particular, I found the silence of the league’s flagship – the Saskatchewan Roughriders – to be exceptionally weird. Even if the Riders aren’t in any serious danger of going under, the reality is that they aren’t viable if there is nobody left for them to play. Throughout this pandemic, it has been mind-blowing to watch the sports business self-destruct in the name of political correctness. Sure, leagues like the NBA, Major League Baseball, and the NFL are not in any real danger yet so they can afford this market downturn but there are so many other smaller professional sports leagues out there who just rolled over without a whimper and I’ve reached the point where I have no sympathy for any of them. If they don’t want to defend themselves, why should I care?

3 – NHL FUTURE – The National Hockey League, quietly, reduced salaries of many of their teams’ front office employees. It tells me they can’t play next year unless they are allowed fans to some degree. In Canada, we are nowhere near okaying fans to attend. If you have paid attention to what happened this summer with the Blue Jays, we are also in no hurry to open the border for sports teams to function and to that end, the NHL has Canadian teams in Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, and Montreal.  This isn’t a Raptors or Blue Jays situation where you can just shuffle one team to another location (Buffalo for the Jays, Orlando for the Raptors) for a couple of months and make the best of it. If those seven teams have to go to the States in order for the league to operate, you can take it to the bank that all seven are as good as gone and most of those markets will never get teams back.  

4 – FANS WILL BE ALLOWED IN THE US – Make no mistake, Canada will be extremely slow to react and follow what happens in the United States. I have my own beliefs as far as politics go as to why that will be and you can disagree with me all you want but the proof is in the pudding already. Fans are coming together in numbers (some big, some small) for sports as of today. When the NHL and NBA are ready to get going again in January, my guess is that most American cities will have some sort of plan to allow various percentages of capacity. Meanwhile Canada has already committed to zero fans at the World Juniors in Edmonton in late December because even though there is so much about this virus we don’t know (according to health experts), the one thing they are absolutely certain on is it’s going to be too dangerous to allow a handful into the hockey arena in Edmonton three months from today.

5 – SASKATCHEWAN HOCKEY – I view Saskatchewan as, perhaps, the most progressive province in Canada when it comes to trying to restore normality. As frustrated as I have been with politicians right across the country I have to say that even though I’ve also found myself upset with those in the Sask Party from time to time I need to remember we were the first in Canada to get the ball rolling on the reopen phases. Had we not done that, the entire country may still be paralyzed. However to that end, it’s time for the grips on hockey to come to an end. Officially, this is still a free country and a free province. If you have thousands of families willing to risk their safety and play, hundreds and hundreds of coaches willing to get behind the bench, hundreds and hundreds of officials willing to work the games as referees and linesmen, hundreds of bus drivers willing to transport teams, thousands and thousands of fans accepting the risk to watch the games …. don’t you have to let hockey happen? It’s not the government’s right to say all of us are stupid. Let us make the choice to be stupid if that’s how some of you feel. And, if you are someone who is appalled by that thought I have a great idea for you – STAY HOME!

6 – NFL COVID FINES – The National Football League handed out over a million dollars in senseless fines to three coaches who were caught not wearing masks during the games on the weekend. To steal a thought from former Rider Luc Mullinder, why do the coaches have to wear them anyway? The players are testing repeatedly and are all negative. The players are also out there engaging with each other as close as you can possibly get to one another and nobody is wearing a mask so why does a coach have to? I’d love nothing more than for all 32 head coaches to just get rid of their useless face coverings this Sunday and tell the league to issue fines to every last one of them and see if they have the stones to actually do it.

7 – WHEN IS IT ENOUGH – At some point people will have to fight back against nonsensical tyrannical orders. Where’s the breaking point? Mine was months ago but I recognize I’m not your average bear and many of you still think we should all be in the basement on CERB and that’s fine. But I hope you also aren’t the same people who have a bleeding heart for Mr. Mandrusiak in Edmonton because if you are going all-in on eradicating Covid then you have to understand that there will be thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people like Dwayne Mandrusiak who will just be dumped because there is either no money left from the business to keep them on staff or no money left to even run the business let alone throw a going away party. That’s a fact and it is undisputed. I don’t know Mr. Mandrusiak and I hope he’s fine. Many who lose their jobs will not be fine. Many are already not fine. Do we care? Is it just necessary collateral damage in order to squeeze a few more months of life from people who are already knocking on death’s door? Sorry it’s cold but back in March we worried about which person gets the ventilator. We are at that point now but the ventilator is simply a metaphor and the choice has already been made. It’s to avoid Covid and whatever tragedy happens to people while we are doing that….oh well.

8 – ATTENDANCE – I feel it’s important for Canadian people to take note and be aware of the number of fans at American sporting events. While we are committing sports suicide up here, there were 30-thousand at the NASCAR event in Bristol TN on Saturday night. It was a great race, by the way, won by Kevin Harvick over Kyle Busch in a contest where lap traffic was a key factor in the final few moments. NCAA football powerhouse Clemson (South Carolina) had almost 20-thousand on hand to watch them obliterate Joe Blow State and then six NFL teams have had fans so far – Dallas 20-thousand, Kansas City 17-thousand, Jacksonville 14-thousand, Miami 11-thousand, Cleveland 6-thousand, and Indianapolis 25-hundred.

9 – BASEBALL – Major League Baseball playoffs will be underway in less than a week and it sounds like they are going to be in a bubble and, at some point, fans are going to be allowed in. I have to say that, as I expected, once the other sports got up and running I ended up putting baseball on the back burner but that will change as the NHL will be over and the NBA may not have a competitive championship series so I will be returning as a fan unless it’s Thursday night, all day Sunday, and Monday night.

10 – FANTASY FOOTBALL SLEEPERS – If they are still available in your league, I would suggest taking a flier on Cincinnati tight end Drew Sample and New Orleans receiver Tre’Quan Smith. Bengals QB Joe Burrow has a terrible offensive line in front of him so he needs to look for short yardage options when passing and with starting TE CJ Uzomah going down with a season ending injury, Sample figures to be a safety valve. Smith, meanwhile, looks like a deep threat for Drew Brees and with Michael Thomas on the shelf until, probably, week 7 you could do a lot worse than Smith.

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