STACKHOUSE’S 10 WEEKEND THOUGHTS

1 – MARINO – By now, we all know the incident surrounding Garrett Marino and the screaming from rooftops to deal in a harsh manner with him. I wish I could say I find it hard to believe some of the comments I’m seeing from media and fans but alas, it’s not all that shocking. We live in a world where online outrage thrives but if you just stop for a minute and look in the mirror, are you really all that upset? Is Marino the first player to take out a quarterback with a bad hit? Sorry if this hurts your feelings as a reader but this is football and things happen. Intentional or not. How do ANY of you who are criticizing him know what his INTENT was? Unless you ask him outright, it’s impossible to know what the intent of any player is in a given situation. It’s a bad hit. I don’t know if he wanted to take Masoli out of the game or not but it’s a bad hit. So, he should be suspended for one week, we should all move on and shut the heck up. As far as the accusations of racism are concerned, I find it interesting this comes to light after the hit. If someone in a position of authority heard it, he never should have been in the game when the hit occured.  

2 – FAN PROBLEMS – Just my opinion, but the other thing about this Marino incident is all the media attention and suggestion that he should be suspended for a long time doesn’t do the league any good. The left wing virtue signaling has already turned a lot of people off and it’s showing in the attendance numbers.  Yeah, I know gas prices and cost of living is definitely a big factor but so is stuff like this where you see political and social views infiltrate the decision-making and I’m not going to rehash what they are specifically but the City of Edmonton has about a million people. It’s a major market. They’ve been bad before and the fans have, more or less, stuck by their side. They aren’t anymore. The Winnipeg Blue Bombers are dominating like never before in their history. There are 750,000 people who live there. Their attendance is also down. There are issues beyond cost of living and we can pretend they don’t exist or we can watch the entire league sink. The Riders can bow to the mob and cut Marino if they want, but my guess is that it will cost them fans if they do (assuming racism isn’t a part of the decision). 

3 – TEAM DISCIPLINE – Has any professional sports team ever suspended or released a player for an on-field/on-ice act where the league would ordinarily step in and issue the penalty? I can’t think of a situation but I can tell you Hamilton should have done this with Simoni Lawrence long ago and countless hockey teams should have done it with Ulf Samuelsson, Matt Cooke, Raffi Torres, and Brad Marchand (to name a few). When NBA player Latrell Sprewell attacked his own coach, the team didn’t step in until after the league did.

4 – BOGUS REBUILDING – You know there is something wrong with the word ‘rebuilding’ when your first round draft pick from three years ago and your 24-year-old 40-goal scorer aren’t considered part of the solution. But, alas the Blackhawks are going to sell ‘rebuild’ one year after paying a king’s ransom for Seth Jones as they’ve blown Alex DeBrincat and Kirby Dach out the door for lottery tickets. My guess is that this is all a ruse and actually a very deliberate attempt to be awful and have as good a shot as possible at landing Connor Bedard in the draft.

5 – NHL DRAFT COVERAGE – The Montreal Canadiens supposedly shocked the hockey world by passing on Shane Wright (two other teams passed on him too after the Habs did, so he wasn’t quite the consensus number one pick the talking heads promoted as such for months) and going with Juraj Slafkovsky instead.  However, retired NHL draft guru Bob McKenzie had the Slafkovsky pick accurate in his pre-draft analysis. It just goes to show how bad these supposed television insiders are. You have a group of people sitting around a table in front of a camera gossiping endlessly without an ounce of actual real knowledge. Then you have McKenzie, sitting on his back deck at Muskoka tweeting out true facts leading up to the draft.

6 – WRIGHT SYMPATHY – I’ve seen quite a pity party for Wright who, sadly, had to wait until the 4th overall pick to get chosen.  It must have been excruciating for him. Imagine waiting 3 picks before learning you will be a millionaire NHL player. Wright’s reaction (the staredown at the Habs) is one that will be applauded by some as it shows he will be determined to show them up, but it could also be part of the reason why he dropped to #4. Also, Montreal wasn’t the only team to pass on him. New Jersey and Phoenix also felt they could do better, but I don’t think they got stares. I’m trying to remember some other drafts where the consensus number one didn’t go number one and it turns out the few I can recall, the teams choosing one all made the better decision. The Nordiques took Mats Sundin over Dave Chyzowski in 1989. Quebec took Owen Nolan in 1990, Mike Ricci dropped to four (would later play for the team in the Lindros trade). I think Todd Warriner was the favorite to go 1 in 1992, but that honor went to Roman Hamrlik instead. Warriner was chosen by Quebec at 4. Ed Jovanovski was taken over Jason Bonsignore in 1994 (Bonsignore went 4th to the draft savvy Oilers). It doesn’t happen often where the clear favorite is skipped at first overall.  

7 – BOUDREAU WWE – A feel good story from the NHL Draft was when Bruce Boudreau, an avid professional wrestling fan, was surprised by the NHL Network while he was sitting on the desk doing analysis. I haven’t kept up to date on who the popular wrestlers are nowadays but apparently Kevin Owens is one of the big ones and you could clearly see Boudreau was starstruck as Owens hijacked the set and ended up talking with Boudreau for nearly five minutes.  

8 – RUSH EXPANSION DRAFT – The Saskatchewan Rush lost defenseman Jeff Cornwall in the NLL Las Vegas Expansion Draft. The Desert Dogs then flipped Cornwall to the Calgary Roughnecks for young Marshal King, a forward who had 3 points in 2 games this past season, and a first round pick in this year’s draft.  Cornwall is not only a big loss but it will suck to see him playing for a Rush rival. Perhaps the player with the biggest name recognition who was picked was goalie Frank Scigliano, who was San Diego’s number one netminder last year. Clearly, the Seals didn’t want to lose him because they ended up re-acquiring him for Mark Glicini, Brandon Clelland, a 2nd round pick, and a 3rd round pick (2023).

9 – DAVE KING MELVILLE – Former NHL coach and well-known international coach Dave King was one of the guests at this weekend’s Melville Millionaires Alumni Hockey Night banquet and he was a treat to listen to. A quick story from Saturday: King was asked about unique personalities and he brought up Sergei Makarov. Makarov was a great offensive player but a defensive liability. Late in games, King would take Makarov off the line with Joe Nieuwendyk and Gary Roberts to give the Flames a better chance at preventing goals. Makarov, who was aloof by nature as it was, always responded to that by untying his skates, removing his helmet, and taking off his gloves right on the players’ bench in the middle of the game. Nieuwendyk and Roberts, annoyed by this, went into King’s office and said to some day throw Makarov a curve and call out his name to stay on the line. One night King obliged. Makarov scurried to get ready but couldn’t tie his skates.  Nevertheless, he jumped on to the ice, sprung free on a breakaway and hit the goal post. He, immediately, came back to the bench and engaged King in a staredown. 

10 – DJOKOVIC WINS – Novak Djokovic won Wimbledon on Sunday but he won’t play in the US Open because he’s unvaccinated. This is a policy that, even the biggest Covid pushers on the planet have to admit, makes zero sense when it comes to the young and the healthy. If vaccines work for Novak’s grandmother, it shouldn’t require Novak to get it too. Therefore Novak will continue to be punished for disobeying. And, frankly, there are still way too many people who applaud or support the government’s vindictive stance.  John McEnroe said it best. “Politicians are getting in the way too much. Let the guy come in and play. This is ridiculous.” Meanwhile Elana Rybakina won the ladies Wimbledon title and everyone just pretends she’s from Kazakhstan. She’s not. She’s Russian. But, we all feel good about banning the Russians, right?

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