Stackhouse’s 10 Weekend Thoughts

2 – RIDERS SUCCESSFUL SEASON – I know it’s hard to just ignore a seven game losing streak, but the Riders sandwiched a 9-1-and-1 record around that this season and I felt that made them the deceptive favorite against the Bombers, who I also figured may not be as hungry and also, after a while, you have to just go with that fact that surely the Riders can’t get blown out in Winnipeg forever and, at some point Winnipeg is bound to lose and not make the title game.  Alas, it won’t be 2024. For the Riders, I think they have to be very satisfied with their year as a whole. It would appear they’ve got a really good head coach and while the people who are employed above Corey Mace take a fair amount of heat from Rider Nation, the reality is that they delivered a solid year and I wouldn’t be surprised if another contract extension was handed out.

3 – WHAT’S HE WATCHING – I don’t know if he’s trying to be a contrarian or whether he’s just lost a few steps as an analyst but Glen Suitor trying to suggest a first half non-catch by Kian Schaffer-Baker was actually a catch when replays clearly showed the ball hit the ground and aided the ‘catch’ came off as non-credible and there were numerous instances this season where I felt that way about the long time color man. Meanwhile, during the early game, Duane Ford was at his usual best and continues to be the best on-air personality in the entire CFL.

4 – ARGOS WIN EAST FINAL – The Toronto Argos won their game against Montreal to advance to the Grey Cup, although with the late injury to Chad Kelly you have to wonder if the best team actually ended up losing this one. Nevertheless, you can’t turn the ball over five times and expect to win, even though Cody Fajardo approached 400 yards passing, he was responsible for two interceptions. Kelly’s leg injury appears to be serious and he’s not expected to play in next Sunday’s Grey Cup, which means Nick Arbuckle draws the unlikely start but if there is a coach who can relate to Arbuckle’s situation it would be Ryan Dinwiddie, who found himself in the same role back in 2007 when Kevin Glenn was injured and Dinwiddie was called upon to try and win the big game. Of course, the ending wasn’t a happy one as Kerry Joseph and the Riders emerged victorious.

5 – MORE CANADIAN FOOTBALL – The Regina Rams defeated the Saskatchewan Huskies 19-14 on Saturday and will face Laval next week at Mosaic Stadium. I’m super curious to see what kind of a crowd the national semi-final will draw.  With the Riders done and with fans whining about the high costs associated with watching professional football, perhaps this is an opportunity for the Rams to capitalize on the market and fill the stadium. Meanwhile, the St. Clair (Windsor) Saints won the CJFL Canadian Bowl on Saturday by shocking the Okanagan Sun 37-22 to give the OFC its first national title in 25-years (the same two teams played in that game). St. Clair QB Maurice Sodja ran for over 100 yards and three majors in dominating the contest. St. Clair destroyed Ontario teams all season and trailed this game 22-9 in the third quarter before reeling off 28 unanswered points.

6 – DAK DOWN – Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott will miss the rest of the season with a hamstring injury and while Cooper Rush is expected to assume the starting role, the reality is that the Cowboys season is over and while Prescott has, recently, signed a big contract it would be prudent for them to see what they have in Trey Lance. The former top draft pick of the 49ers simply hasn’t played much football at all as he’s made just four starts since the 2021 draft. The ceiling on Rush is, relatively, low.  Lance has been injured and also has watched for a couple of years. I’d like to see if he can play because four games is hardly enough to make a career assessment on a first rounder.

7 – NHL JETS DOMINATING – The Winnipeg Jets are 14-and-1 and appear to be for real.  I watched Saturday afternoon’s dismantling of the Dallas Stars, who should be a fairly good team in their own right but they looked like an AHL club compared to the Jets, who (for the first time in about six years) have become a very heavy team to face.  The lineup is deep up front, the defense is solid, the special teams are great, and Connor Hellebuyck is delivering an encore to his Vezina winning season of 2023-24.  With repeated playoff disappointments, you will forgive me if I reserve total judgement on the Jets until the postseason but all indications are that they’ll be one of the last teams standing whenever it is the playoffs end (August?) provided Hellebuyck can give them all-world performances like he has thus far.

8 – MICHKOV NO GOOD – The Philadelphia Flyers benched Matvei Michkov on Thursday night.  Michkov was named NHL Rookie Of The Month for October but his defensive play is lacking so John Tortorella wanted to send a message to him that he needs to be a more complete player.  Hockey is weird in that you see a guy like Michkov, who is an excellent offensive player, get punished because he’s not good defensively but you never see a good defensive player get benched because he can’t put the puck in an ocean.  Bob Gainey, Brian Skrudland, Guy Carbonneau, Bobby Holik, etc. never missed a shift because of bad offensive play.  For the amount of goals Michkov is sure to produce, I’d just put a really good defensive player on his line to make up for his shortcomings and call it good.  Yes, you can still try and get him to be better but he’s never going to win a Selke.  Utilize his strengths rather than punish him for his shortcomings.  For what it’s worth, I watch the Flyers and Owen Tippett misses the net so often that I’m not sure he can actually even see it.  Footnote – the Flyers won on Thursday so why mess with success?  They sat Michkov again on Saturday in a shootout loss to Florida.  They may actually run him out of town before he ever has a chance to emerge as the superstar everyone outside of Tortorella’s office can see he will soon be.

9 – GIVE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT – I know it should be sports, but I often get people asking me my thoughts on the political climate so here’s my two bits on what I’ve noticed in elections that have taken place in BC, Saskatchewan, and the United States: what people in rural areas want in a government is drastically different than what people in the cities want and I think it’s time we sat down and tried to give both urban and rural what they want.  People in the cities support the turning over of parental rights to the state, while those in rural communities do not. Therefore, governments should mandate that individual schools decide on what gets parental consent and what doesn’t. Urban areas love government bread crumb handouts, rural people don’t want them. So lower the taxes in rural areas, but don’t give them hardly any services. Make them figure things out on their own.  I’ve had to settle down my right wing friends who are offended that a riding in Regina elected a man raising two sons as girls and is trying to force his agenda on an entire school.  Fact is this—it’s what the people of Regina want or they wouldn’t have voted for it. It’s that simple. Respect their wishes. Federally, this is a very unique idea, but maybe Canada should have a ruler (Justin Trudeau) for Toronto, Montreal, Winnipeg, Halifax, and Vancouver. Let someone else run the rest of the country with the two leaders working together on the few commonalities we have.

10 – GRETZKY – The left is going berserk over Wayne Gretzky being spotted at Donald Trump’s post-election party.  The right isn’t quite sure what to make of it either as Gretzky was a vaccine hustler for big pharma a year ago. Here’s an idea: why don’t you folks just make up your own mind instead of waiting for some famous person to tell you what to do. Wayne Gretzky is the greatest hockey player of all time but who he votes for and which drugs he pushes have no bearing on decisions that I make. When I was young, I used to try and influence parental decisions by saying ‘well my friend gets to do it’. Mom used to reply saying, ‘if your friend jumped off a cliff, would you do it too’? Turns out, most people (in Canada especially) would, indeed, jump off a cliff if a few other influentials went first.

(Mike Stackhouse is a freelance writer/broadcaster)