Stackhouse’s 10 Weekend Thoughts

2 – GREY CUP HALFTIME – The pressure was on for the Winnipeg Grey Cup Committee to announce an entertainment act for the big game as we are about four weeks out from the championship game and there had been no announcement. The suspense was put to rest with Machine Gun Kelly being confirmed for November 16th.  The drag on the confirmation was reminiscent of Saskatchewan’s late announcement of Tyler Hubbard, which didn’t come until early November in 2022, a mere three weeks before the scheduled Grey Cup game. Granted, the announcements are late, this is one area the CFL dominates the NFL on.  While we already know who is headlining the Super Bowl, the fact of the matter is that hardly anyone knows who this Bugs Bunny character even is aside from him being a fixture on Looney Tunes. I won’t proclaim to be a master of knowing what music best suits a football game but I am going to go out on a limb and suggest whoever it is should be someone most of the world would recognize regardless of whether or not you are a fan of the music.

3 – NCAA FOOTBALL – If you read last week’s column, you are probably aware I was in Minnesota this weekend to watch the Friday night NCAA nationally televised game between the Golden Gophers and Nebraska Cornhuskers. The Huskers came in ranked 25th in the nation and, promptly, laid an egg in going down 24-6 in a game that felt more like 44-6. There were rumours all week about Nebraska head coach Matt Ruhle bolting for Penn State at the end of the season and taking QB Dylan Raiola with him.  The team played like it was about to lose its coach and quarterback so perhaps where there is smoke there is fire. As an aside, I think a top 25 NCAA team beats a top CFL team more often than not if they were to ever play each other.

4 – AMERICAN SPORTS PRIDE – Some of you have been to NCAA and NFL games and some of you haven’t.  For those that haven’t, you really can’t be aware of how much more of a sports fan the typical American is over a Canadian until you go to a game down there.  The passion, enthusiasm, interest, and investment in their respective teams dwarf anything that we have in Canada.  We shouldn’t even begin to suggest we are more into any sport than what they are. And, it’s not just sports. In addition to there being 48,000 fans at the NCAA football game; there were 70,000 more at the Paul McCartney concert. The population of Minneapolis-St.Paul is just under a million.  Could Calgary pull out that kind of a turnout for two major events on the same night? Could Toronto for that matter? Does Saskatoon pull down 15,000 (⅓ of the size of Minneapolis/St.Paul) a game to watch the Huskies with tailgating five hours prior to game time? Minneapolis isn’t even regarded as being an NCAA Football major market.  

5 – TAILGATING – A month or so ago I wrote about how the Riders are working with the provincial government to allow for tailgating next season. After what I saw on the weekend, I am left scratching my head as to why the government needs to be involved at all. Is that just our culture now? Wait until our babysitter tells us what we can do and how we can do it? One person has suggested to me that you can’t trust the people of Regina to tailgate safely and that it would attract all sorts of riff raff and put further strain on policing the city during Rider game days. What a sad commentary on the state of affairs if that’s really the hold up. Are American cities really that much safer and are their citizens really that much more responsible than Canadians?  The other thing that, immediately, stuck out was how clean everything is. You don’t see cans or wrappers blowing down the street.

6 – BORDER CROSSING – I’m going to dispel a myth Canadians have about going to the United States.  Crossing the border into the US is as easy as it’s ever been. I’ve crossed three times in the ‘tariff era’ over the last six months and have been met with nothing but kindness and professionalism each time. On the other hand, coming back into Canada has been a real pain in the rear end all three times.  The ‘holier than thou’, ‘I hate my job’, ‘power trip’ attitude that I’ve been met with is tiring to say the least. I’ve never committed a crime and never been fingerprinted so there is no need to interrogate me as if you are looking for a murderer and I’m the prime suspect.  The poor excuse for an agent in Emerson on Saturday was, not only, rude but he also made sure to speak very low in a manner that was barely audible. There’s no welcome back home or anything like that. These people are truly miserable. Is that how they are trained to behave? Maybe he’s just jealous that he can’t go to an NCAA football game? Contrast that to the American officer who told us to enjoy the game and our stay.  

7 – OTHER GREAT THINGS THIS WEEKEND – Driving in North Dakota, the speed limit on the Interstate is 80mph, which translates to nearly 130km/h up here. I put my cruise on 88 mph and drove comfortably and even passed the odd police car without issue. Construction zones somehow managed to keep traffic flowing at 55 mph with no stop signs or flag people. Meanwhile, as soon as I crossed back into Canada a similar construction project resulted in 80 km/h speed limits with numerous warnings on how much more your fine will be if you get caught driving faster than that. When you enter cities like Fargo or pass even smaller centres like Fergus Falls at night, the communities light up in a way that screams of pride. There are massive American flags on either side of the Interstate just outside of Minneapolis and endless signs promoting sports teams as you enter and exit places like Grand Forks and Fargo. Did I mention the quality of the highways is such that you feel like you are floating? The level of politeness from folks in the service industry was over-the-top nice and everybody, including the Uber drivers spoke perfect English and were outgoing. This notion that we are better as Canadians and should never strive to be ‘more American’ couldn’t be any further from the truth. We should make being ‘more American’ our goal.  

8 – ANALYTICS HOCKEY – I saw a post on X Saturday night detailing how the Winnipeg Jets should have lost their game against Nashville based on ‘expected goals’ and ‘high danger chances’.  Can we just watch the games and enjoy them for what they are?  And for those of you who live and die in the analytic world, how can you score .37 of a goal?  If Connor Hellebuyck is playing well, you will know this just by trusting your eyeball. You shouldn’t need a bunch of abstract numbers to tell you as such.

9 – ALCS – Analytics may end up costing the Toronto Blue Jays their series with Seattle. Pulling their starters as early as they have is bad enough but now I’m left trying to figure out why making sure it’s a left hander pitching to Cal Raleigh as opposed to just using your best pitcher is somehow the right decision to make. The numbers will tell you what Raleigh does against righties and lefties but it doesn’t tell you who the righties and lefties are that he faces that help comprise the numbers that he has. If your left hander is struggling journeyman Brendon Little, maybe you should consider leaving in ace right handerr Kevin Gausman? Or maybe you should see if there is a different reliever, even if heaven forbid he’s a rightie, that stands a decent chance of getting Raleigh out. In 2015 when Kansas City was winning a World Series, it made sense to bail early on the starters because Luke Hochevar, Ryan Madson, Kelvin Herrera, and Wade Davis were as dominant a late inning combination as I’ve ever seen.  Cleveland, a couple years later, had a similar situation with Andrew Miller, Bryan Shaw, and Cody Allen. If you don’t have that, you should be leaning more on your starter. Especially if he’s doing well or his name is Kevin Gausman.

10 – UFC FIGHT NIGHT – Middleweight Brendan Allen wore down Reiner de Ridder to the point where RDR’s corner threw in the towel after the fourth round in the main event of UFC Fight Night last night.  Allen called out Khamzat Chimaev after the match, but he’s more likely to see Dricus du Plessis next as du Plessis needs to rebuild his status while Allen probably needs to win one more against a top five fighter in the division for Chimaev to look at him as worthy of a shot.  In the undercard, Mike Malott defeated Kevin Holland by unanimous decision 29-28 after Holland suffered two knees into the crown jewels that clearly slowed him down after winning the first round.

Bonus – The worst team in the NHL is the Calgary Flames and it’s not close.

(Mike Stackhouse is a freelance writer/broadcaster. Follow him on Twitter at @Stack1975)