10 Things

Truth & Rumours

1 – QUEEN CITY SHINES: Saturday, August 16 was a great day for sports fans in the Saskatchewan capital. The CFL’s Saskatchewan Roughriders trounced the visiting Hamilton Tiger-Cats 29-9 before a sellout crowd at Mosaic Stadium and later that night the Regina Red Sox won their first Western Canadian Baseball League championship since 2012 when they took down the Sylvan Lake Gulls 5-4 in Game 3 of the Best-of-3 in Central Alberta. The night capped a remarkable, improbable, run for the underdog Red Sox and this won’t hurt their efforts to get a new baseball stadium constructed downtown. As for the Riders, they keep rollin’…

2 – GREEN IS THE COLOUR: The Roughriders are 8-1 for just the second time in franchise history and the first time since 2013. They are doing historic things, and are anchored by the CFL’s best defense which is giving up a miniscule amount of rushing yards. On the other side of the ball, it’s taken awhile but QB Trevor Harris is in MVP form and seems to have the fans on his side which is difficult for Rider QBs to do, historically. All this, yet what I see the most today is veteran kicker Brett Lauther being torched for his first-half struggles with splitting the uprights. Tough crowd, and for those always searching for the negative in a great story, that’s a shitty way to live.

3 – THE LAST TIME: The Green & White were 8-1 back in 2013 when the famed “Dewdney Incident” occurred. Ironically, I think it happened on August 17 when three players – Dwight Anderson, Taj Smith & Eron Riley – were charged for their role in a brawl outside a Downtown Regina nightclub. Personally, I felt they should’ve been awarded medals and keys to the City but authorities felt otherwise. Anyway, that fractured the locker room, caused a mild rift between team President Jim Hopson and his football people (GM Brendan Taman & HC Corey Chamblin) and spawned a four-game losing streak. Those with the team at the time will tell you that Chamblin leaned on veteran receiver Geroy Simon to help heal the locker room and they turned it all the way around on the way to a Grey Cup title. That’ll be a fun story to tell when I publish my memoirs. As for adversity, it’s always looming. If we could only predict when it will hit the 2025 Roughriders …

4 – AROUND THE LEAGUE: We just completed Week 11 and the games were “meh”. Statisticians have informed me the 9-point combined margin of victory in Week 10 was the narrowest in CFL history, and that sure seemed like the wildest, most-entertaining week of games ever. … This week, Ottawa put a scare into Winnipeg but the Blue Bombers are still the Blue Bombers until proven differently. And they won. … Death, taxes and Cody Fajardo winning. Those are the guarantees in life folks. Fajardo used a sprinkle of Jesus, and the help of video review, to lead Edmonton to a big home victory over Toronto before barely any fans at Commonwealth Stadium. That’ll change. … And the Montreal Alouettes are now down to QB4 and lost 36-18 at BC Saturday night to cap the week. Both teams emerged at 5-5. … I enjoyed watching all the games.

5 – LUKE WILLSON: The good news is when Luke Willson comes on the screen on TSN’s Friday Night Football, I perk up and turn up the sound. His analysis and commentary are elite. The bad news is, I’m not sure how much longer he’ll be on there. In a since-deleted Tweet, Luke took a run at the CFL Board of Governors this weekend for their shady, small-minded, nonsensical backroom dealings and accused them of having a rat or two on the TSN staff. My first thought on this was, “Welcome to the party Luke, you’re a little late”. And secondly, I keep wondering what his end game is. But the establishment always wins, whether it’s in the right or not. Always has, always will. How much longer does this go on for?

6 – RELOCATION: When the news broke on Friday that FIFA is forcing the Toronto Argonauts and BC Lions to relocate a combined five of their home games in 2026, I likely misjudged and minimized the fallout. Argo fans, and some staff, have been the most vocal against this and for good reason; the Lions haven’t announced which games are to be moved yet. These season ticket holders are wild and my first notion was, “get over it”. But upon review, they have a right to be upset. However the fact remains teams – especially those corporately-owned like the ones at MLSE – run their teams on a balance sheet and if moving these games to Regina, Winnipeg and Hamilton are going to make them more money, then we shouldn’t be surprised by this decision. Don’t think they’re stupid, nor that they overlooked the possibility of playing these games in the Maritimes or somewhere else around Southern Ontario. It’s about dollars and cents, and now the fans have to decide if they want to keep supporting it or not. There are fans in San Diego, Oakland and St. Louis who stopped following the NFL after the Chargers, Raiders and Rams moved. The teams never looked back.

7 – NFL: Speaking of, we’re in Week 2 of the NFL preseason and while there have been no heroic exploits like Cam Little’s 70-yard field goal in Jacksonville last weekend or Shedeur Sanders’ two touchdown debut for Cleveland, there was still plenty to dissect this weekend. … London, ON’s Taylor Elgersma led all Packers QBs (7/11, 109 yards) in Green Bay’s 23-19 win over the Colts. He’s the first QB from a Canadian university to appear in an NFL preseason game since 1982. … The Miami Dolphins won an exhibition clash 24-17 over the Detroit Lions and that’ll keep the blood thirsty fanbase satisfied for a few days. USA Today has the Dolphins picked for last place in the AFC East with 5 wins. … The Dallas Cowboys are 0-2. I know it doesn’t matter, but tell their fans that. … Join us at PumpJacks Cathedral in Regina for our NFL Kickoff Party on Thursday, September 4 as the Cowboys visit the Eagles! I’ll be hosting the event and we are proud to welcome PumpJacks to the RP Show as sponsors.

8 – FORE!: Here’s the list of alumni confirmed from the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Saskatchewan Roughriders for our third annual Labour Day Golf Classic at Aspen Links – Brett MacNeil, Rod Hill, Frank Robinson, Brendan Rodgers, Jermese Jones, Gavin Walls, Dan Clark, Andrew Greene, Scott Schultz, Wes Cates, Neil Hughes, Evan Johnson, Rob Bresciani and Steve Mazurak (so far). I’ll be hosting the event, plus the Friday night Draft where you can select your favourite Alumni to golf with! The event is presented by Supreme Group of Companies. For details please contact info@aspenlinks.ca.

9 – HOCKEY: It was a turn & burn to Calgary this past week to host Theoren Fleury’s Breaking Free Foundation Golf Classic at Golf Fanatics. We raised money for the foundation which provides free counseling to trauma & abuse survivors and the highlight is always the Hot Stove. This year I was joined on the mic by Tim Hunter, Colin Patterson and Theo himself but Hunter absolutely stole the show with his fight stories. Although my favourite came from Theo: “It was a Saturday night in the 1980s … Flames at Oilers on Hockey Night In Canada. Huntsy says to me ‘You can do whatever you want out there Theo! I got your back’. I said, ‘Serious?’ 385 penalty minutes later….!” …. My 2025-26 NHL Pacific Division prediction: Vegas, Edmonton, LA, Calgary, Anaheim, Seattle, San Jose, Vancouver.

10 – RANDOM THOUGHTS: There’s one in every crowd. … The Dateline podcast is excellent for long drives. … “Your mind is the most valuable real estate you’ll ever invest in.” – Denzel Washington. … Ignorance is bliss. … Two thumbs from the MMG for movies Happy Gilmore 2 and The Naked Gun. I enjoyed side-splitting laughter from both flicks. … People need to see it for themselves before believing it. … A retired Michigan autoworker looked at a Facebook message after midnight from a stranger: Did you lose your wallet years ago? “If so,” a Minnesota man wrote, “it was in the engine bay of a car.” Richard Guilford couldn’t believe what he was reading on his phone — a decade-old mystery was remarkably solved. Guilford’s tri-fold leather wallet — stuffed with $15, a driver’s license, work ID, gift cards worth $275 and lottery tickets — had turned up under the hood of a car in a repair shop in Lake Crystal, Minnesota. The wallet was discovered in June by mechanic Chad Volk, sandwiched between the transmission and the air filter box of a 2015 Ford Edge with 151,000 miles on it. “It restores your faith in humanity that people will say, ‘Hey, you lost this, I found this, I’m going to get it back to you,’” Guilford said Thursday. … AND HOW WAS YOUR WEEK??

Y’er welcome,