Stackhouse’s 10 Weekend Things

1 – RIDERS/CALGARY – The Saskatchewan Roughriders are 8-and-0 against CFL teams not named the Calgary Stampeders. The Stamps defeated the Riders for the second time this season with a convincing 32-15 win on Saturday in what was, easily, the worst game of the season played by the Riders.  I know there will be a segment of the fan base out there who believe Calgary is now the best team in the league and the Riders are just not a good match for them.  To that I would say fear not.  No single team is going to run through the entire schedule and not have a bad game.  It just so happens the Riders have now lost two to the same team.  They should still be considered overwhelming favorites to be in the Grey Cup game.

2 – RIDER CHANCES – The one caveat to the Riders being in the Grey Cup game would be the health of Trevor Harris.  Harris was slammed to the ground in the fourth quarter and did return for a series before giving way to Jake Maier to finish the game.  To the untrained eye, it would appear as though Harris may have gotten his bell rung but he said afterwards he was dealing with leg cramps.  So, it’s just a coincidence that he got piledrived into the turf and then had a flare up of leg cramps.  Harris and the Riders have no reason to lie.  Besides, he went back into the game so the health ‘experts’ also didn’t see anything major with that hit either.  Relax.  Saskatchewan’s hopes do rise and fall on the health of Harris and with back to back games coming up against Winnipeg and then a game against a Montreal team that should have Davis Alexander back by then, this is the hardest part of the schedule.

3 – LAUTHER: The first pass interference challenge came 1:01 into the game on a deep toss by Harris and while I felt there wasn’t enough to warrant a call, the fact of the matter is that there was some brushing up on the arm of the receiver by the corner and the challenge by Calgary was unsuccessful.  It could have set the stage for an early Rider lead but Brett Lauther missed another field goal.  Lauther has been inconsistent now for well over two years and I think yesterday was finally the last straw.  I’ll be surprised if he’s still kicking for Saskatchewan come Labour Day.  Having said that, Lauther is only 34 and could easily resurface and be a good kicker for a number of years but it’s safe to say it would be doing everyone a favor at this point to just move on.

4 – A GREAT GAME – Earlier in the day, Toronto got a 430-yard passing game from Nick Arbuckle in beating the BC Lions 52-34.  The CFL on TSN halftime panel went to great lengths to explain to the audience what a tremendous game this was, as if they have been told by television producers to pump up the content so that viewers will be convinced to tune in to each and every game seeing as how great the games are.  Many years ago I was asked to be part of a curling television broadcast team and the producers told me to make sure I never insult the curling fan because they are a knowledgeable bunch and I would look silly going over aspects of the match that are already widely known to who’s watching.  That would be my advice here too.  Football fans may not be as smart as curling fans but they know a good game when they see one and don’t need to be coerced into believing it.  Furthermore, one of the men on the panel (I don’t even know who they are save for Milt Stegall) told me it was such a great game in a tone that made me think he didn’t even believe the game was good.

5 – TSN PACKAGE – More on Luke Willson in the next point but much has been made about the failures of the suits running the league due to Willson’s highly publicized social media comments.  Because Willson works for TSN, the flagship broadcaster has largely escaped criticism by him but they should shoulder a large part of the blame here too.  Yesterday’s Saskatchewan/Calgary game was the biggest game of the season to date and with no disrespect intended, we get a D level play by play team to call it.  The color analyst is pretty good but he doesn’t have chemistry with the play by play caller, who is an excellent sideline reporter but way out of his element when placed in the play by play chair.  TSN needs to do a lot better here.  In my point above, I talk about the panel ‘selling’ the Toronto-BC game as great.  Well a big part of the play by play is sounding like you are excited to be there and that very important aspect was missing from this game.  For a national network they sure don’t try very hard to have top notch talent broadcasting the games.  Turn on an NFL game on either CBS or Fox on a Sunday and it doesn’t matter who the play by play team is, they are fantastic.  Why can’t TSN have two or three excellent play by play teams? I feel like this isn’t a hard ask.

6 – WILLSON TIME OVER – For all intents and purposes, Willson’s time as an edgy critic of Canadian football is over.  I don’t know if he was planted by TSN in the first place to drum up interest or whether he was acting entirely on his own or not but I said from the get go he would only be as effective as TSN would allow and as soon as he spoke the truth about the Board of Governors, he was muzzled.  If he truly feels this strongly about the state of the sport in Canada, he should quit TSN immediately and go off on his own.  Shannon Sharpe, for example, is thriving in the podcast world and I can’t see him ever going back to working for a mainstream network.  Willson would be met with similar success, especially when you consider there is nobody with any credibility doing what he could do.  There’s also so much wrong with the non-player aspects of sport in Canada that he’d have content forever.  Willson has a unique gift in being able to articulate the rights and wrongs of Canadian football (and probably other sports) in a way that is cutting edge but also still professional.  He’s well connected, so getting guests wouldn’t be an issue either.  He also has a way of engaging and bringing out the true personalities of some of the CFL’s most ardent fans and some of you are not nice people at all.  And, you wonder why more people aren’t attending games and wanting to sit beside you…I don’t see this type of venom amongst diehard fans in other leagues.

7 – ELGERSMA, SANDERS – The NFL preseason is drawing to a close and Canadian QB Taylor Elgersma finished off his attempt to make the Green Bay Packers by going 6-of-8 for 33-yards and a three yard touchdown pass.  His main competition, Sean Clifford, was 6-of-9 for 19-yards.  For me, Clifford is more of a known commodity but he also has a much lower ceiling and for that reason I would give the job to Elgersma.  Meanwhile, Shedeur Sanders came back down to Earth after his solid week one effort.  Shedeur was shaky and a bit worse than his 3-for-6, 14-yards stat line shows.  Sanders was even taken out of the game with two minutes left in the fourth, giving veteran Tyler Huntley a shot at leading the team to a game ending comeback.  At best, Sanders will be the third stringer to start the year for the Browns, who are expected to go with Joe Flacco as the starter and Dillon Gabriel as his backup.

8 – MCDAVID, KAPRIZOV – NHL training camps are just around the corner and I’ll be watching two teams in particular as far as getting star players signed.  Edmonton has Connor McDavid on his final season and I’m not sure it’s as much of a slam dunk as a lot of other people do as far as him returning.  The Oilers have squandered their best shots at winning a Cup and McDavid may decide the window has closed on him in Edmonton as far as winning goes.  There’s also the issue of Edmonton being in Canada that I won’t get into here.  You either get it or you don’t and no amount of me writing is going to change anyone’s mind but typically most professional athletes prefer free countries.  Meanwhile the Minnesota Wild have a similar situation with Kiril Kaprizov.  The only difference with the Wild is that they have some young players emerging and it could be argued their best years are in front of them.  Having said that, the Wild have won just two playoff rounds since 2004 and none since 2016.

9 – BLOOD CLOT – Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Zack Wheeler is done for the season and maybe longer after he underwent two surgeries this week to address a blood clot in his throwing shoulder.  I know, I know.  You are expecting me to go off about Covid, but blood clots in pitching shoulders are truly quite normal.  If a pitcher isn’t sidelined long term with Tommy John Surgery, he is usually stopped in his tracks with Thoracic Outlet Syndrome, which is quite a bit more serious than Tommy John.  While Merrill Kelly is one example of a pitcher who had this and has since returned to pitch at a high level, there are a lot who don’t.  Matt Harvey, Phil Hughes, Stephen Strasburg, Jeremy Bonderman, Chris Archer, and Shaun Marcum are a few.  The surgery involves removing the clot and a second procedure whereby a rib is removed to decompress.  It’s not pretty.  I also will never understand baseball evaluators and their desire to chase velocity over a pitcher’s long term career.

10 – JACKSON LOSES IT – There’s a video circulating online this morning that shows the son of former UFC fighter Rampage Jackson getting into a wrestling ring to interfere in a match and he, subsequently, goes completely bananas as he body slams a wrestler to the mat and then proceeds to punch him unconscious, delivering many blows to the wrestler after he is out cold.  Earlier in the day, scripted or not is not known, the wrestler smashed a full beer can upside the head of Raja Jackson and payback was threatened.  For his part, Rampage has issued a statement saying the wrestler ‘Syko Stu’ is going to make a full recovery and that Rampage thought the entire thing was staged and part of the show and maybe some of it was, but the punches in the face long after Stu was unconscious certainly were not.

(Mike Stackhouse is a freelance writer/broadcaster)