STACKHOUSE’S 10 THOUGHTS

1 – NHL HITS – I’m mildly surprised at the reaction to hits delivered by Ryan Reaves and Tanner Jeannot this week.  Jeannot’s hit on Nate Schmidt against Winnipeg on Thursday resulted in injury and it was a miracle that when Reaves blew up Filip Hronek of Detroit that Hronek didn’t miss any game time.  Both were devastating.  Both were headshots.  Both were hits that were unnecessary given the circumstances.  Personally, I have no problem with either of the hits but we’ve seen players suspended for much less.  So, what’s the standard?  I keep coming back to Mark Scheifele’s hit in the playoffs against Jake Evans when he was trying to thwart an empty net goal and many decried it as the dirtiest play in hockey.  I see not much difference between the three hits.  In fact, I would argue Scheifele’s, at least, was a hit designed to stop a goal and Evans could have seen him coming.  The other two were just to make a physical statement.

2 – REFEREES LIABLE – Two Junior A hockey referees have been named amongst the defendants in a $20-million lawsuit filed by a former player who allegedly suffered spinal injuries in a game played in February 2020.  Details from the lawsuit say, “The referees ignored the escalating level of intimidation and violence in the game as it became impossible for the Junior Sabres to win, and failed to warn or sanction the players and coaches or to stop the game.” Even if this suit gets tossed, what kind of stress are those referees under today and is it worth it to take up officiating if you could be staring at a massive lawsuit in the event someone on one of the teams decides you are having an off night?  Hockey associations across the country suffered a massive loss of on-ice officials since the onset of Covid and as this suit gains public awareness, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a few more drop off.

3 – JUNIORS ACCUSED – Meanwhile, police investigators in London say in a court filing they have reasonable grounds to believe 5 members of Canada’s 2018 World Junior team sexually assaulted a woman.  That number is down from the original 8 that have been accused.  It will be very very interesting to see, in a cancel culture world, how many of these 5 are currently playing hockey somewhere.  We know of 1 member of this team who may or may not have been part of this incident who is currently without a contract and not playing professional hockey anywhere.  There is some speculation he’s being used as a sacrificial lamb for the whole group, but with 5 of them now in the cross hairs let’s see if any of them are NHLers and let’s see if teams allow them to keep playing.  

4 – ARAIZA NOT GUILTY – You may or may not remember rookie Bills punter Matt Araiza, who was drafted by Buffalo this past offseason but was subsequently cut when accusations of gang rape surfaced.  Those accusations have now been dealt with on the criminal level and it’s been determined there is no evidence against Araiza that would warrant a prosecution, let alone a conviction.  Nevertheless, damage has been done to his career.  It remains to be seen if he will be signed by another team in the future.

5 – MEDIA GASLIGHTING – The media seems to have adopted the term ‘sudden death’ for just about every single premature death that is reported.  I’m not going to get into why, but the latest example was the unspeakable tragedy of London Knights player Abakar Kazbekov, who was found dead on the sidewalk, outside a downtown condominium skyrise.  There are classy ways and non-classy ways to handle these tragedies and just labeling a death as ‘sudden’ isn’t the way to do it.  In the case of Kazbekov, there should have been no public release at all until police came out with their statement. Last week, the media called Stephen tWitch Boss’s suicide a ‘sudden death’.  There was also, more locally, a young Saskatchewan man who died in a car accident but the death was called ‘sudden’ and that led to wild speculation.  The media has lost a lot of class in the last two years and I guess they figure what’s a little more?  It seems every single outlet is competing with The National Enquirer.

6 – BOSOX – The Boston Red Sox are a joke.  They DFA’d precious prospect Jeter Downs this week.  Downs was the key piece going Boston’s way in the Mookie Betts trade with the Dodgers.  For those with short memories, I’ll remind you that the Red Sox, originally, accepted a three-way deal that also involved Minnesota and saw the Sox acquire pitcher Brusdar Graterol.  But, in the backlash of this horrible trade, Boston tried to back out by claiming Graterol’s medical records gave them pause.  So, details needed to be reworked and the Dodgers ended up with Graterol, who at the age of 23, saved four games for them last year and looks every bit like a closer in the making.  Good trade Boston.  Last offseason, they signed Trevor Story to prepare for Xander Bogaerts’ inevitable free agent departure and now they’ve done the same with Justin Turner getting a 2 year deal as it will be Rafael Devers leaving town come this time next year.

7 – RIDERS JEFFREY – The Saskatchewan Roughriders have announced Kelly Jeffrey as its new Offensive Coordinator.  Jeffrey is already in damage control mode, saying he’s open to bringing back quarterback Cody Fajardo despite a relationship that would appear to be badly fractured.  Jeffrey is also on record as saying he’d like to get more from Mario Alford, their stud kick returner.  I’m on board for expanding Alford’s role for sure.  As far as Fajardo is concerned, it would be strange to see him come back and it would signify an admission from both parties that the Riders simply can’t find another quarterback and Fajardo can’t find another starting job.  

8 – BATTLEFORDS DOMINANCE – The SJHL’s Battlefords North Stars have gone 31 games without a regulation time loss.  I had an opportunity to watch them twice last week and while I’d like to pump up the other teams in the league, my guess is that there won’t be a lot of suspense and the Stars will roll to the championship.  That’s not a bad thing.  Many pundits and fans love to promote parity, but I believe sports are the most interesting when you have dominance.  When the Islanders won their Cups in the early 80s, when the Oilers and Penguins took over after that, when the Yankees ruled MLB in the late 90s, the Lakers/Celtics/Bulls won the majority of the NBA titles, and then on an individual level it was most interesting to see if anyone was going to beat Mike Tyson in boxing, or if Tiger Woods was going to lose a golf tournament.  That’s where we are in the SJHL.  I check the scores nightly to see what happened in the Battlefords game.

9 – NFL CONTENDERS – The NFL is usually the one league where you have a fair amount of parity, but the cream is starting to rise there too.  I believe you have Buffalo, Cincinnati, and Kansas City as the real threats in the AFC.  Philadelphia and San Francisco are the cream of the NFC and then it’s everybody else, with all due respect to Minnesota, who’s 11-and-3.  My only issue with the top three NFC teams is that none of them have a bonafide superstar quarterback.  Jalen Hurts may be on his way, but he’s still got lots to prove.  Brock Purdy is the best story in years but the odds are greatly against him, and Kirk Cousins is not held in high regard amongst NFL experts despite being an average to above average signal caller.

10 – SKATE CANADA – From the department of how ridiculous can we go, Skate Canada has scrubbed the words ‘man’ and ‘woman’ from its vocabulary, citing them as being discriminatory and not in line with the association’s values.  The changes only apply to domestic competitions and not those overseen internationally as the rest of the world hasn’t quite reached this level of …. Whatever you want to call it.  Meanwhile, Skate Canada reaffirmed that ‘trans persons are not required to prove their gender identity in any way and are not required to disclose that they are trans if they choose not to’.

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