10 Things

Truth & Rumours

1 – ALL SHE WROTE: Well that’s that. The 2025 Western Canadian Baseball League season ended for my Moose Jaw Miller Express in a stunning playoff game at the Berry Patch in Saskatoon Saturday night. In Game 3 of the Best-of-3 Division Semifinal, the hometown Berries jumped out to a 10-3 lead, saw the Millers roar back to take a 12-10 lead, only to have Saskatoon tie it up and force extra innings. That’s when – in the bottom of the 10th – 2024 league MVP Carter Beck launched a walkoff grand slam for a 16-12 Saskatoon victory. That earned Saskatoon a date with Regina in the East Final (the Red Sox won Game 1 by an 8-7 score in 11 inning on Sunday). The latest Beck Bomb is further proof that the Carnduff, SK product is on his way to being the 10th player from Saskatchewan to make it to Major League Baseball. Head-shaking! Great season Millers, and it’s an honour to be your broadcaster. Thanks for having me for another season. Okotoks meets Sylvan Lake in the West Division Final.

2 – WHAT A WEEKEND!: It may have been the best week of Canadian Football League play in history. The four games were decided by a total of NINE POINTS and all went down to the final minute. In Week 10 the scores were: BC 41-Hamilton 38 (OT), Edmonton 23-Montreal 22, Ottawa 46-Toronto 42 and Calgary 28-Winnipeg 27. … Road teams went 3-1, and have won 22 of 39 games played so far this season. … It’s fruitless to discuss who would be the league MVP at this point because there’s still half a season to be played but there have been some incredulous performances by players so far. … People can bang on the CFL all they want but NO ONE can form a legitimate complaint about the product, especially this season.

3 – LUKE WILLSON: Love him or hate him, the CFL On TSN sideline reporter and Super Bowl-winning tightend has us hanging on his every word. Following Cody Fajardo leading Edmonton to a stunning comeback in Montreal on Friday, Willson Tweeted, “The pundits at CFL On TSN have created a false narrative on Cody Fajardo. Do not believe this narrative. He is a baller.” (Obviously, that’s something I’ve been saying for years). Regarding Friday’s game overall, Willson wrote, “I personally thought (Friday’s) game was one of the worst games I’ve ever seen until the last two minutes. Almost hard to replicate how bad the football was played yesterday.” Hardly a glowing endorsement of the CFL! However I love Luke and know where he’s coming from. He comes from the NFL and wants to see mistake-free football. I look at it this way: I now cover the NHL on a nightly basis and see defencemen who can’t turn both ways backwards. Who cares?! We are where we are and the entertainment is fantastic. Potato, potawwwto.

*BREAKING*: On Monday morning Willson announce he will no longer be Tweeting about the CFL. Stay tuned …

4 – PUB: All the CFL’s missing – in my opinion – is having media talking about it en masse, therefore creating a stir with the public from coast-to-coast. There’s still plenty of media and more social media platforms than ever, but the CFL needs to do a much better job of being *everywhere*. For instance, I really enjoyed Stampeders President Jay McNeil’s interview on the Hughes Sports Podcast out of Calgary this week. Jay talked about why he wanted to be Stamps President (“I love football, I love Calgary, and I love the Stampeders”) as well as why he stayed with the Horsemen for his entire career between 1994-2007. Just be everywhere. It’s not that hard. It just takes effort.

5 – NFL PRESEASON: It’s everywhere. There were eight games on Saturday and the highlight was Jacksonville kicker Cam Little nailing a 70-yard field goal. It would’ve been an NFL record, but won’t stand because it came during exhibition play. Should it? … All the rookie/young quarterbacks were impressive this weekend including Shedeur Sanders, J.J. McCarthy, Jaxson Dart and Cam Ward. #2 overall pick Travis Hunter got into the Jaguars game, taking 18 snaps combined on both offense and defense. … If it’s true the opening play, or series, is an indication of how your season will go, Arizona is in big trouble. The Cardinals fumbled the opening kickoff against Kansas City and Patrick Mahomes put the ball in the endzone literally seconds later. … An absolute buffet of things to talk about.

6 – COLLEGE FOOTBALL: We’re less than a month from kickoff and Steve Sarkisian’s Texas Longhorns are #1 in the Coach’s Poll for the first time in program history. … 5-time Grey Cup champion Jim Barker was on the RP Show Friday at Western Dodge in Moose Jaw and said College Football will become no different than basketball (i.e. the teams with the highest payroll from NIL will win year after year). It actually already happened last year, with Ohio State and their $20-million payroll winning the Nattie. … We think Sarkisian, the former Rider quarterback, will replace Pete Carroll as head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders. For a great inside look at College Football, check out the new Netflix series Any Given Saturday, SEC Football.

7 – HOCKEY: Famed coach Lorne Molleken famously said, “As soon as Buffalo Days is over, it’s hockey season.” The Regina Fair is over now, isn’t it? WHL teams will be reporting to camps in a matter of weeks while the coaches are already in their offices. Want some hockey talk? Read on …

8 – SCOUT’S HONOUR: Last week was such a blur that I didn’t have time to put my thoughts from the Western Canada Pro Hockey Scouting Foundation Wall of Fame induction banquet into the newsletter. Where to start? For one, a longtime NHL scout observed that #1 NHL prospect Gavin McKenna – who fled Medicine Hat for a *rumoured* $900,000 per season at Penn State – “won’t dominate at the college level like he would’ve in junior”. This scout wonders if jumping for the easy, early money will affect Gavin’s draft stock. … Chicago Blackhawks star Connor Bedard cut his teeth in the CHL before jumping to the NHL at age 18 but another scout offered, “Bedard’s getting a bad wrap in Chicago.” The pundits are on Bedard’s back and the whispers are that he’s not happy in the Windy City. “He won’t be there long,” offered another veteran birddog. Keep in mind this is just Fake News and hockey guys like to gossip more than old women. But dang is it fun! That WCPHSF event was the highlight of my year so far.

9 – AUGUST 9/1988: Saturday marked the 37-year anniversary of The Trade. The history-making Wayne Gretzky-to-LA deal gets NO remembrance in Edmonton and only the odd hockey Instagram account made mention of it this weekend. Was it the best trade ever? Not a chance. The Kings never won a Cup in Gretzky’s time and even though the Oilers won it in 1990, Gretzky himself said in the 30 For 30 documentary A King’s Ransom that they’d have won four more Cups, at least, had he stayed in the City of Champions. All in all it’s just a painful memory, a reminder that some owners have always been jerks, and that Peter Pocklington proved that anyone can be traded. In any sport.

10 – RANDOM THOUGHTS: The Blue Jays won one of three at the L.A. Dodgers on the weekend in a potential World Series preview. Did you see the final stages of Sunday’s Jays victory at Chavez Ravine? If it’s a preview, sign me up! … You would think people would give up on counting out/crapping on Cody Fajardo. … The latest health studies show that you don’t need to walk 10,000 steps for heart health. 7,000 steps are optimal. Anymore is just marketing. … Time exposes everything. … Apparently there’s a difference between being proud and being prideful. … A motorist was clocked driving at more than 320 km/h (199 mph) on the Autobahn west of Berlin, Germany, a record high at more than 124 mph above the speed limit, German police said. The driver was handed a fine of 900 euros ($1,043), stripped of two points from his driver’s license and banned from driving for three months. The driver couldn’t give a reason why he was in such a rush! … AND HOW WAS YOUR WEEK?

Y’er welcome,