Stackhouse’s 10 Weekend Thoughts

2 – TROUBLE FOR LUKE – Luke Willson got into some trouble this weekend, criticizing the CFL Board of Governors and you just don’t do that without repercussions.  We live in a country where inferior people are at the controls of just about everything but they are the ones with the power and if you point out ineptitude, or worse, you run the risk of being canceled.  I said from the start Willson would only be effective for as long as TSN allows him to be and it would appear as though his time is drawing to a close. What hasn’t been anticipated by the inferiors is that Willson doesn’t need TSN or the CFL’s approval to maintain his own relevance.  His following has expanded to the point where he could get terminated tomorrow and it would actually make him even more influential because he’d have the ability to speak freely without potential punishment from the corporate suits.  Think of him as the Tucker Carlson of the CFL.  I’m sure you lefty football fans love the thought of that.

3 – WHY LUKE WAS IN TROUBLE/VIDEO REPLAY – Because of the FIFA World Cup next summer, the Toronto Argonauts have to surrender three home games.  Instead of playing them in nearby London or some other decently sized city (Kitchener, Windsor, Guelph, come to mind) the Argos are headed to Regina, Winnipeg, and Hamilton. Why try and grow the game in a new community that doesn’t have CFL exposure?   What’s worse is the Argos are going to assume their season ticket holders will make the trek and are charging them as if they are playing at BMO Field unless they happen to notice the trick and call the ticket office and ask for a refund.  These are the types of greasy people you are dealing with when it comes to controlling the CFL and when Luke Willson points it out, he is made to delete his comment so that the bad people in charge can keep right on being bad without recourse.  Unrelated note, I have never liked and still don’t like the video replay of pass interference.  You are basically letting referees get a second look at a play that, simply, requires judgment rather than a black and white situation where a call was missed.  Not to mention the fact that video replay grinds the game to a halt and negatively impacts the experience for those who are there at the stadium.  

4 – MAKING A ROSTER PUSH – Taylor Elgersma is starting to get a little bit of attention as he engineered three touchdown drives playing almost a full half for Green Bay in their exhibition game against Indianapolis.  If he is getting a fair shake at making the roster, I’d say he has closed the gap and given the coaching staff something to chew on when it comes to his competition with Sean Clifford for the number three job.  Overall, Elgersma was 7-for-11 and 109-yards with one more preseason game for Elgersma to overtake him.  Clifford does have the benefit of being on the Packer roster for the last two seasons and is more of a known commodity.

5 – JUNIOR FOOTBALL – In a shocking start to the CJFL season, the Saskatoon Hilltops were schooled 31-11 by the Winnipeg Rifles last week.  The Hilltops have been such a dominating team that it’s more news when they lose than when they win.  They play their first home game of the season this afternoon against the Edmonton Huskies.  At first glance, it would appear the offense could use a bit of fine tuning although it’s also not a bad thing to see some new teams contending.  Nevertheless it would still be a surprise to see anyone other than Regina and Saskatoon playing in the PFC title game come October. 

6 – UFC 319 – Khamzat Chimaev dominated Dricus Du Plessis for five rounds to win the UFC Middleweight championship last night.  Du Plessis had no answer for Chimaev’s wrestling takedowns as he spent just about all of the 25 minutes on his back and it was a miracle he lasted all five rounds.  It wasn’t until the fifth round that Chimaev was hit at all and even though the middleweight division is full of really good fighters, I don’t see any of them in the class of Chimaev.  Perhaps the most intriguing match would be with Fluffy Hernandez, who has won eight in a row dating back to 2021, but I’d like to see Hernandez defeat one more top contender before a title shot.  The commentators feel as though Reinier De Ridder would be a good fight for Chimaev because of his grappling ability but De Ridder was not impressive last month in taking a five round decision from Robert Whittaker.

7 – OTHER MATCHES – On the main card, two fights ended in the first round with spinning back elbows, including Lerone Murphy beating Aaron Pico.  Murphy is 17-0-and-1 and figures to headline a future UFC event in a championship match against Alexander Volkanovski in the Featherweight Division.  The UFC is currently going through a transition where most of the top fighters are not marketable in the US because they don’t speak great English.  Chimaev, Merab Dvalishvili, Magomed Ankalaev, Islam Makhachev, Ilia Topouria, and Alex Pantoja are the household names and there really isn’t a villain or a marquee Connor McGregor type that draws instant attention although I wonder if Paddy Pimblett will, eventually, get there.  

8 – RATTLERS SEASON END – After humming and hawing for most of the week, I decided to take in the meaningless season finale of the Saskatchewan Rattlers last Sunday and I’m glad I did.  The Rattlers played their best game of the season and won 96-85 over Brampton to finish 7-and-17.  I also took my son to the game, who is in his early 20’s, and he isn’t one to get too terribly excited over much but he was outwardly cheering by the end of the game as Anthony Tsegakele ended it with a jump shot to cap an 18-point performance.  For whatever this is worth, he said it was the most exciting professional sporting event he’s been to and that includes Riders, Rush, and NHL Jets.  He’s not one to frequent live sports so I would take this as high praise for the Rattlers and CEBL.  He also asked about the price of tickets for each and was astounded when I told him similar prime tickets to a Rider game are 3x as much as the Rattlers.  I stand by my belief that a more competitive Rattlers team would put, in excess, of 5000 fans in the arena on a nightly basis provided it also had local ownership invested.

9 – CEBL PLAYOFFS – The East and West Division finals for the CEBL take place next weekend in Winnipeg.  I did my best to give the divisional semis a fair shake even though the Rattlers weren’t involved but the Scarborough-Ottawa game on Saturday morning didn’t at all resemble what we saw from the Blackjacks in the regular season.  Ottawa played without (50% of its roster) leading scorer Javonte Smart, top three point shooter Zane Waterman, as well as other impact starters Isiah Moore, Canadian guard Keevan Veinot, and Deng Adel.  There’s no doubt in my mind, the Rattlers would have beaten Ottawa on this day and so it’s not surprising to see the end result being a 33-point margin victory for the Shooting Stars.  This is the biggest hurdle the CEBL has to overcome going forward.  I’ve talked a lot about the Rattlers not being able to keep top players around for a full season but it’s even worse when you have them for the regular season and then come playoffs, they are just gone such as the case with Ottawa.  The other issue I have is very limited news.  Where in the world were these four guys?  Adel was listed on the game sheet but didn’t play.  The other four just vanished into thin air (Smart and Waterman had other international commitments that you have to search for in order to find out).  The Calgary-Vancouver game was much more competitive and I found myself watching more of that than I did the Rider game.  Unfortunately, there were four video foul reviews to end the game (damping the excitement) and the Surge were 105-103 upset winners as Evan Gilyard sunk all three free throws to end Target Time.

10 – CEBL AWARDS – The Canadian Elite Basketball League has announced its award finalists with the winners being announced on August 21st and Saskatchewan’s Isaac Simon (Regina native) has been named along with Edmonton’s Aaron Rhooms as the top contenders for Developmental Player Of The Year.  Simon has an excellent chance to win this as Rhooms averaged under 8 minutes a game and 4.5-ppg.  Simon averaged almost 14 minutes a game and 4.7-ppg.  Simon had a personal season high of 19-points July 3rd against Montreal and he posted four games of double digit scoring and had five games where he logged in excess of 20-minutes of playing time.  Simon, I assume, is headed back to U of A, where he put up 19.2-ppg last year (3rd season). Saskatoon’s Easton Thimm finally made it into a game in the season finale last Sunday and played 7-minutes, scoring 2-points.  He didn’t look at all out of place.  He’s eligible for a third season at U of S, where he averaged 13.4-ppg last year, however he was closer to 16.5-ppg over his last eight and is primed for a breakout season.  I feel like I have some duty to inform you of these great Canadian university athletes because nobody who works at U-Sports seems to care enough about it to publicize.  Meanwhile, Rhooms was the OUA (Toronto Metropolitan) Player of the Year after averaging 21.6-ppg in his fourth season at the Canadian collegiate level.

(Mike Stackhouse is a freelance writer/broadcaster)