THROWIN’ ELBOWS WITH BRENDAN MCGUIRE

1. JUDGE IS ROUGHRIDERS BIGGEST OFFSEASON LOSS: Charleston Hughes is a 37-year-old American who would not have helped the Riders with the import ratio. Cameron Judge is a 26-year-old Canadian who would have helped the Roughriders with the import ratio. And yet it’s Hughes’ departure that has Rider fans up in arms. Am I missing something, here?   

2. DON’T HOLD YOUR BREATH FOR CFL SEASON THIS YEAR: Starting to tilt toward the doubtful side of playing in 2021 and that would be a real shame. I, as are many of you, still holding out hope that a season can begin in time for Labour Day but I’m not holding my breath. I will say this: a crappy half-baked season stretching the league’s dollars more than they’ve already been stretched through all of this would be even worse than not playing at all. Let’s support the Canadian Football League in this, its darkest hour, as best we can until a return to play happens this year or next. And remember, the longer we wait for it, the sweeter it will be.

3. STOP ALLOWING CFL COACHES TO DEFINE QUARTERBACK RATIO: Maybe the best piece I ever wrote was done on the development, or lackthereof, of Canadian quarterbacks. It got some great traffic and included great quotes from now Montreal Alouettes General Manager Danny Maciocia in support of changing how the CFL does this. He even went so far as to suggest the league should mandate one of the three QB’s on each roster to be a Canadian. Now I haven’t asked Maciocia in the four years since I did that piece if he still feels that way but it needs to happen now more than ever. CFL coach Jeff Reinebold ridiculed the piece on Twitter, explaining that training a great quarterback happens long before university and that mandating Canadians to play that role won’t solve anything. He’s wrong about that and as we’ve learned over the years, football coaches are to be appreciated and respected (especially Reinebold) but they aren’t geniuses, either. This is a societal issue above the realm of any bubble most of these coaches live in and so the league needs to take it upon itself to solve this issue, even without the help of its coaches or competition committee.  

4. REGINA WHL HUB CITY: Thank you to the Western Hockey League for trying to give us something to get excited about. They will certainly lose a pile of cash over this and for that we, as fans, are indebted to them. They still need to skip the draft this year so they can stop drafting 14-year-olds and if anything good can come out of this, maybe it will help the league, and others like it, put a greater emphasis on its broadcasting package to better assist its fanbase with engaging in its product, post-COVID.

5. REGINA RED SOX RETURN TO PLAY: It’s going to be tough but they’re trying their damndest, God love ‘em. Missing last summer at the park didn’t bother me much until about November when I realized how much being away from it all for 15 months was hitting me like a shovel to the face. I hope it’s not another year, but if it is, it’ll just make the moment for when they do return that much sweeter.

6. ANDY REID’S SON: Cannot blame Andy for his son’s behavior in the days leading up to Super Bowl 55 including the traffic accident he probably caused. However, I do have a couple of problems with this situation on top of the fact there’s a poor little girl fighting for her life and may have permanent brain damage. A) Andy insists it had nothing to do with the Chiefs miserable performance in the Super Bowl. Would he be saying the same thing if it was someone other than his son who made the same mistake? B) Why does the NFL allow coaches to hire their sons to these assistant coaching jobs when they clearly have not earned it? Just more proof that the NFL is all about who you know and not what you know. It’s an old boys club and it’s a disgrace.

7. AMERICAN PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: So nice to see a grownup again leading the free world. I feel like we can look to our friends south of the border for leadership again. Something we haven’t been able to do for a few years. I suspect North America and the rest of the world would have taken the coronavirus more seriously much sooner had he been in office earlier. Not happy that he shut down the Keystone pipeline but I’m not sure that’s any worse than the tariffs on Canadian steel and threats about ending NAFTA that the guy before him was spewing out, either.

8. THE FIELDHOUSE: Been going every Sunday morning and twice at night during the week. It’s been a godsend with a nicely distanced environment for people to quietly exercise and maintain their sanity through this pandemic and awful cold snap. Never before have I been so grateful to our city for giving us this kind of stuff that we never seem to appreciate all that much.  

9. BELL MEDIA CUTS: Not happy to see anyone lose their job and especially the good folks at TSN in Toronto, TSN radio in Winnipeg, Hamilton or Vancouver, either. However, I choose to believe that with these kinds of changes bring new opportunity for startups to have their own audience and not have to share it with some big faceless corporation like Bell Media or Rogers or some other outfit that makes choices from downtown Toronto or Calgary rather than locally.  

10. GREAT PODCAST LISTEN: The Talking 306 Podcast with Dale Richardson. Found an old episode of Rod telling Dale and his listeners about changing from radio to online broadcasting. My wife and I listened to the whole thing. You can find it on Spotify and probably a few other places, too.

(Follow Brendan on Twitter at @brendanhowardmc)