STACKHOUSE’S 10 HOLIDAY THOUGHTS

1 -RUSH NEW YEARS EVE – The Saskatchewan Rush are slated to host San Diego on New Year’s Eve at 8:30pm with a party to follow.  The Seals are led by a couple of former Calgary Roughnecks in Dane Dobbie and Wesley Berg.  They also boast prolific rookie Tre Leclaire, who may be the best first year offensive player in the league.  The elephant in the room, of course, is Covid and my guess is the New Year’s Party gets cancelled and the number of fans admitted to the game is greatly reduced.  The Rush, the WHL, and the SJHL are low hanging fruit for politicians to bring down the hammer on without doing too much damage to the economy, all the while appeasing those begging to be locked up.

2 – INTERNATIONAL HOCKEY – The IIHF created some ripples by calling off all tournaments scheduled for January, which means the World Women’s U18 gets axed for the second year in a row.  Meanwhile, the highly popular and money making Men World Juniors begins on Boxing Day in Edmonton/Red Deer.  Again, just a guess, but if this event gets off the ground at all I do not see it reaching a conclusion but I wish them the best. 

3 – STEVIE Y – Which brings me to Steve Yzerman’s comments last week whereby he said, “I don’t see it (Covid) as a threat to their health at this point.  I think you might take it a step further and question why are we even testing, for guys that have no symptoms.”  Winnipeg Jets goalie Connor Hellebuyck has been quoted as saying the recent shutdown and cancellation of Olympic participation amongst the NHLers is “Overkill”, to which he was roundly criticized in the local media.  Both the NFL and NBA have said they are going to resist shutting down and will find ways to live with Covid while also altering various policies with regards to testing.  The NFLPA has even gone so far as to say they may push for Covid rules to be dropped entirely.

4 – NHL DILEMMA – I’m not saying who’s right and who’s wrong but it’s very clear the United States is going to move forward in a way that Canada is not.  This will result in no impact for the NFL and the NBA has just one Canadian team so they should be able to navigate their way around whatever rules Canada puts in place.  The NHL is a much different story.  They have seven teams up here and in a pre-Covid world, it’s the Canadian teams that drive a significant amount of revenue which, in turn, helps the salary cap.  It’s just speculation on my part, but my guess on why the NHL was so quick to take the chopping block to their games before Christmas was because of the uncertainty of the border situation and what may or may not happen to those people crossing it. The players, clearly, didn’t want to be in limbo over the Holidays and now it wouldn’t surprise me to learn of discussions at the league office level on what to do about Canadian arenas that are going to ban fans from attending games.  Do they reschedule and put all Canadian teams on extended road trips after Christmas?  Do you move them entirely for the remainder of the season?  Do you eat the lost revenue and, simply, resume as per normal?  Or is the NHL of a differing mind than the other two major sports and are they accepting of a prolonged stoppage altogether until things subside?  What if they don’t subside?  

5 – FAN INTEREST – The NHL’s decision to go dark while the NFL and NBA continue wasn’t a good choice and the longer they go without playing only stands to hurt the league economically as even from a television viewing perspective you have people watching other things.  Lots of attention has been paid to the CFL and it’s attendance woes, but the same thing is happening in the NHL only on a smaller scale.  Let’s take the vaccine passports out of the mix and say there are other reasons, namely that it’s perceived to be unsafe to attend, people have changed their habits, and people no longer have the disposable income they once did.  How do NHL teams (and junior ones for that matter) win back those who have moved on to other things?  I don’t have any answers aside from a reduction in ticket prices and a public awareness campaign showing people that it is, in fact, safe to go.  Both would be bitter pills because cheaper tickets may mean a reduction in salaries for players and you can’t proclaim to have a safe environment when you are cancelling games left, right, and centre.  Gimmicky things like human bowling won’t cut it.

6 – CALGARY ARENA – The private owners of the Calgary Flames have backed out of an agreement with the City on construction of a new home after it was revealed the City was looking for an extra $4-million (or so) as a means to help cure climate change.  They call it a ‘climate mitigation’ fee.  I don’t blame the Flames one bit for leaving the table.  It’s never been more clear just how closed Canada is for business.  I don’t know what it will take for some powerful people who can change this to wake up, but I worry there is still a lot of damage to come (on top of what’s already been done, as it’s estimated over 700,000 private sector jobs have gone bye-bye during the pandemic due to government orders). 

7 – GREEN BAY PACKERS – So much for my theory on a disgruntled locker room and a dysfunctional front office resulting in disaster for the Packers. Aaron Rodgers is poised to win the MVP (broken toe and all) and the Packers are slated to go into the playoffs as the top seed in the NFC and they may even be the odds on favorite to win the Super Bowl.  I think Rodgers missing a game earlier this year may turn out to be a blessing in disguise.  What it did was show the Packer suits that Jordan Love can’t play and there is no Plan B after Rodgers.  I think it’s possible that relationships are being rebuilt behind the scenes and Rodgers comes back next year.  It would be in the best interests of Rodgers, the Packers, the fans, the other players, and the NFL as a whole to have Rodgers back where he belongs next September.

8 – CFL FOUR DOWNS – Raise your hand if you have stopped watching the CFL because it’s not four-down football.  Didn’t think so.  I’d rather see the league start over with smaller budgets and build a business model that works.  I’ve mentioned it before and I’ll mention it again.  Maybe it’s time to look at two leagues (one East and one West) to minimize travel and maybe you reduce the schedule to 12 games.  I see Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, and Okanagan as being very viable markets in the west with teams in Toronto, Hamilton, Ottawa, Montreal, London, Quebec City, and Windsor in the east (forget the Maritimes, they are too far away).  This is a much tougher sell to the east, admittedly, and there are all kinds of hurdles preventing this from occurring but changing the rules should be the last thing considered. By now, we should know how much money it takes to run a successful CFL team and then you pare things back based on that.

9 – UNDERRATED BASEBALL PLAYERS – I saw a very engaging tweet from a writer with The Athletic on Christmas Day.  He was asking people to name great baseball players who we have forgotten were great.  My submission was El Presidente, El Perfecto (Dennis Martinez).  Other worthwhile nominations were Alfonso Soriano, Albert Belle, Kevin Brown, Carney Lansford, Eric Davis, Kevin Millwood, Jay Buehner, Bret Saberhagen, Brandon Webb, Jason Kendall, Frank White, Dave Parker, and Mike Scott.  For some reason, as a Red Sox fan, I also thought of Nick Esasky, who hit 30 homers in 1989 but played just 9 more games as his career was cut short due to injury.

10 – CLOSING REMARKS – Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to each of you who takes time out of your day to read my ramblings.  Your time is valuable and even getting five minutes of it to read my thoughts isn’t lost or unappreciated by me.  I recognize there are some of you who are happy I’m speaking out against a narrative that makes less and less sense with each passing day and there are also a lot of you very upset with me for various reasons for speaking out.  But understand that no matter what I say, it always comes from an opinion and position of care.  I will admit when I’m wrong (see Rodgers paragraph above LOL) rather than double and triple down on lies and I am not looking for any sort of vindication or praise when I’m right.  Just like everyone else I can put check marks in both columns but when you say as much as I do it only stands to reason you are going to look like a fool from time to time.  I don’t want us to be satisfied with ‘well Saskatchewan has been the best place to live in Canada’ because even though that may be true, it’s still unacceptable and we should all demand better no matter what side you are on.

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