THROWIN’ ELBOWS WITH BRENDAN MCGUIRE
1. ROUGHRIDERS LOSING 10 MILLION DOLLARS: Tom Shepherd wants to know how they spent all that money in a year they didn’t have to pay the players and so do I. If the organization comes to the public looking for handout, and I suspect they might, then the public has every right to know. We don’t need to see everyone’s salary but a sunshine list of anyone making over $100,000 would do just fine. This isn’t a lynch mob against anyone making money off the Roughriders as there are a few people over there who are still working hard and worth every penny. But this type of scrutiny comes with the territory. If you sign up to work for ‘Canada’s Team’ and draw a nice pay cheque in the process, be prepared to take bad with the good.
2. BLACK RIDER UNIFORMS: We saw them in the early 2000s during the Roy Shivers era and I was certain he was trying to duplicate the very popular 3rd jerseys worn by the Stampeders at the time. The Rider version looked sharp. Very sharp! However, the current New York Jet version proposed by Rod and a few others, isn’t helping that organization much these days and I don’t think for a second it would help ours, either. A bigger pet peeve for me is all of the trim and piping we see. Whatever happened to just a nice plain, green jersey with white numbers?
3. FAJARDO WOULDN’T PLAY FOR CHRIS JONES: Some players, like Willie Jefferson, would tell you the opposite. Young man Willie never would have played with Saskatchewan, had Chris Jones not come here. And I suspect Jefferson might still be here, had Jones not left following the 2018 season. But Saskatchewan’s resident superstar QB told Derek Taylor on the Sportscage last week that he deliberately boycotted the Roughriders back then because he felt like Jones made his players feel very insecure about their jobs. There’s something to be said for treating your staff like cattle. Real or perceived, it’s pretty clear there’s a perception that Chris Jones treated his players and even some of his coaching staff like stats on a data sheet, rather than human beings. Pro football is a brutal business. I get that. But I also choose to believe that Cody Fajardo is right when he says “You don’t ever want to be in a situation where you think if you have one bad game, you’re done — you don’t ever want to play that tight.”
4. FLEGEL FOR MAYOR: I’m warming up to the guy because he’s focusing on the downtown and, unlike most of other 6 candidates, he actually has a platform. The concept of relocating the Regina Red Sox to the railyard across from the Dewdney strip makes too much sense not to happen. The concept to build a new hockey arena downtown, however, makes no sense at all. Regina Exhibition Association Limited president Tim Reid is right to point out that dismantling the complex that has been built in one location at Evraz Place could do more harm than good, especially for hosting big events. Cities all over North America wish they could have all of these things in one spot. We have it here already! Why would we throw it away? The Regina Red Sox are due for a new home and so putting them downtown is a homerun. Wasting time and money on ideas to move the Regina Pats away from the Brandt Centre sounds like a big, fat, swing and a miss.
5. MOOSE JAW WARRIOR LOGO: I grew up a big Moose Jaw Warrior fan listening to the golden tones of Rob Carnie describe the antics of Ryan Smyth, Rob Trumbley, Donovan Nunweiler, Al Tuer and many others on CHAB radio. And I, too, grew fond of the head-dress logo. I don’t think it’s racist and I don’t think a lot of indigenous people do, either. However, it’s just a logo. My favorite uniforms they had were the originals that don’t really have a logo and the 3rd jersey they came up with about 10 years ago with the cartoon drawing of the buck-toothed moose that some suggested looked like Troy Brouwer. Solution: Switch to that and retire the head-dress. Problem solved. Y’er welcome.
6. BIG LEAGUE SPORTS HURTING NOT ALL BAD: The fact the NFL, Major League Baseball, the NBA and the NHL are all losing money and scrambling to figure things out isn’t a good thing. The damage being done to the athletes ability to compete and earn is devastating as is the elimination of ancillary jobs from broadcasting to management to concession workers, janitors, security guards and parking lot attendants. However, these leagues have all gotten pretty good at getting whatever they’ve wanted for a long time. A little humbling for these cartels (and that’s what they truly are) who bleed crazy amounts of money from our local economies isn’t such a bad thing, either. I expect the consumer to be treated better than ever and see some pretty sweet deals when we come out of this within the next year or so.
7. TRUMP GETTING COVID: My biggest fear is for him to get amazing care, recover from this in no time, and then convince his idiot voters it was all because of some bogus cure like hydroxychloroquine, lulling Americans into thinking this pandemic is all no big deal. I wish ‘The Donald’ a speedy recovery so he can face jail time or whatever else is coming his way after his presidency ends either in a few months or another 4+ years from now.
8. EMPTY NFL STADIUMS LOOK LIKE: CFL games at BMO Field or BC Place. I wonder if it will be enough to make the CFL haters ridicule the NFL as much as they do the far superior 3 down version.
9. STEFAN LOGAN: An inspiration. Guy was as good running back kicks at 38 as he was at 28. And so when he announced his retirement on The Rod Pedersen Show last week, it wasn’t a surprise but it wasn’t a small thing, either. We should all appreciate the athlete who reminds us, “We don’t quit playing because we get old. We get old because we quit playing.”
10. WEEKLY WISDOM: To all you NFL gamblers (and even if you’re using other sports betting not related to the NFL to keep yourself entertained these days), just remember the words, ”Gambling is not a bad thing if you do it within the framework of what it’s meant to be, which is fun and entertaining.” That came from Michael Jordan. If you’re losing money at this, like I did $40 over the weekend, keep asking yourself that question and be really honest with yourself about how deep you really want to go in trying to ‘make it all back.’
(Follow Brendan on Twitter at @brendanhowardmc)
