Stackhouse’s 10 Weekend Thoughts

2 – OTHER FIGHTS – The fight of the night was the flyweight title match that saw Joshua Van defend against Tatsuro Taira.  Van was faster and had more zip to his punches, but Taira was the superior grappler.  Taira also exhibited an incredible chin as he took a beating in rounds two and three but warded off the loss and even took Van down in each of those rounds.  It was probably a 2-2 match going into the fifth round when Van hit Taira with a couple of body shots before moving in for head strikes and the TKO.  Earlier in the card, Sean Brady won a lopsided unanimous decision over Joaquin Buckley to earn the most impressive win of the night.  Brady was so impressive that it makes me wonder how good is Michael Morales, who obliterated Brady late last year.  Morales would appear to be the odd man out at the top of the welterweight class, however, as Islam Makhachev is due to fight Ian Machado Garry and the winner of that will, likely, face Carlos Prates next.

3 – UFC BETS – If you are someone who bets on sports, especially the UFC, I’d be very careful about how much money you are laying down.  The Brady-Buckley fight smells bad when you take into account how dominant Brady was and the fact that Brady was the favorite to win this match all along but something happened late this week where a lot of money was placed on Buckley to the point where Brady became the underdog.  Judging by how lopsided this fight was, Brady should never ever have been the longer odds to win.  Brady, following his win, admitted to getting a call from the UFC questioning how healthy he was going into last night as the speculation was that information was leaked that he was dealing with an injury that was severe enough to sway those betting that Buckley was likely to win.  Usually when the bets are this suspicious, a fight would be cancelled.  This one wasn’t.

4 – WORK HARDER – The OHL fined the Barrie Colts $15,000 for unprofessional conduct following their bizarre press conference following a game seven Eastern Conference win in which the coach and the team captain answered every question with ‘nobody cares, work harder’.  The childish behaviour was due to the league rejecting Barrie Coach Dylan Smoskowitz’s request to bring the entire team into the media room for the press conference.  Smoskowitz, the following day, expressed remorse for making the decision that he did that also saw captain Kashawn Aitcheson look equally as bad.  It was a bizarre way to behave when all Smokowitz needed to do was give credit where he felt credit was due to all the players working as a collective unit and then he could have, simply, declined to answer any further questions out of respect for the group that was not permitted to be in the room to space constraints.  It’s not the first time the Colts have made national headlines for stupid conduct.  Back in 2000, now New Jersey coach Sheldon Keefe (who was Barrie’s captain) refused to shake hands with the OHL Commissioner after winning the league title.  Keefe is reported to have told David Branch, “This must burn your ass.”  But as we know, characters can be rehabilitated.  Keefe has gone on to coach Toronto and now the Devils.

5 – LEAFS HIRING CHOICES – The hiring of John Chayka as General Manager continues a line of strange hires by the Toronto Maple Leafs that goes back to before naming Keefe, who was involved in a weird cult like situation that reached a boiling point when Mike (Jefferson) Danton is alleged to have tried to murder leader/agent David Frost, their head coach.  Nobody talks about it but Mike Babcock was named coach despite a track record of mental cruelty that had to have been absolutely known by President Brendan Shanahan, who wore a letter for Babcock in Detroit when fellow players Mike Modano, Johan Franzen, and Mike Commodore were, supposedly, abused.  Chayka quit working for the Coyotes amid reports he was shopping himself around despite having three years left on his deal and then the league suspended him for conduct detrimental.  He’s been out of the NHL since 2021 and it didn’t sound like he was on anyone’s radar to be hired and if you believe Steve Simmons, his reputation around the league with other GMs is about as bad as you can get but the Leafs know better than anyone else and so they are giving the keys to him in hopes he can end their Stanley Cup drought through advanced knowledge with AI and multiple computer screens.

6 – BONNER HITS ON YOUNG WOMAN – People think the WHL has come down too hard on the Vancouver Giants by fining them $5000 for a comment made by Head Scout Terry Bonner, an 85-year-old who has worked in a scouting capacity for the team since 2002.  Bonner was being interviewed on video after his team’s draft selection and before he answered the female host’s question, he remarked, ‘thank you very much you good looking girl’ and then he laughs at his own joke before going into the answer.  The fine isn’t heavy handed at all.  The comment is way out of bounds, especially when you consider the age gap.  It came off as cringeworthy and creepy.  And, before you say he’s just an 85-year-old man who doesn’t know better, he is also an 85-year-old man who’s with it enough to lead an entire major junior hockey team’s scouting department.  I could also excuse the comment if Bonner was elite at his position, but the Giants (aside from making one league final appearance) have won only one playoff round since 2011.  That’s fifteen years, one playoff round win and one league final appearance.  Not many scouts are keeping their job with that kind of an abysmal record.  Somehow Bonner does year after year after year and if he’s willing to say that for everyone to see, what else is he saying when there is no camera?  It’s also a really bad look when hockey organizers are trying to show outsiders they are wrong about stigmas attached to those within the game.

7 – MAMBA TAKE SHAPE – I should know better than to prematurely buy-in on Saskatchewan’s CEBL team but the Saskatoon Mamba may be on to something after announcing the signing of standout guard Tavian Dunn-Martin, who led Montreal last year with nearly 19-ppg and over 6-apg.  He should be an explosive weapon out of the backcourt and his addition means the Mamba go into the season with four experienced CEBL scorers as Jamir Chaplin, Devonte Bandoo, and Jaylin Williams are the others.  I don’t recall the Rattlers ever starting a year with this kind of certainty.  The Mamba open the year with a 10:30am home game on Thursday and I hope they are promoting this in Saskatoon otherwise they are going to have school kids and nobody else show up.

8 – MICHKOV ON THE WAY OUT – The Carolina Hurricanes completed a four game sweep of the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday night and the Flyers sat former first round pick Matvei Michkov for the second time this postseason in the final game despite their roster being void of any real offensive threat.  Now Michkov only registered 1-assist in 8-playoff games so you could make the case if it’s offense you need, he’s probably not your guy.  But, Michkov was heralded in the 2023 draft year as being near Connor Bedard’s equal.  His rookie season in 2025 showed glimpses as he scored 26-goals and 63-points but his sophomore year under Rick Tocchet did not go well.  His offense regressed and he was made an example of by Tocchet to get the rest of the roster to play the Tocchet way.  I’m not criticizing it but I am wondering if the Flyers wouldn’t be open to dealing Michkov to another team and if that other team would be the Winnipeg Jets and if the bait would be the 8th overall pick.  The Jets need an injection of a player who can bust a game open and if they let Michkov be Michkov, he’s as good a bet as anyone to be a top flight scorer and highly likely to be better than anyone they can draft at 8.

9 – LEAFS DRAFT – The coverage of Toronto getting the top pick is nauseating.  Leaf haters are suggesting the lottery is rigged and maybe it is but I don’t care.  The top two choices for the Leafs are forwards and so they are likely to end up in the same situation as they were before Mitch Marner left.  They will be top heavy with scoring forwards and void of an impact defenseman or a number one goalie.  It would make more sense to me for them to trade down and get the best defenseman available or possibly adding an established one through the trade.  The Rangers can’t be content with their roster and there have been rumblings Adam Fox would welcome a new start.  Mind you, I haven’t run this possibility through AI so perhaps it’s a dumb suggestion.

10 – SPARE ME THE SAFETY NONSENSE – Back in 2020-2021 when I, passionately, advocated against widespread business closures and the shutting down of society that prevented our youth from participating in sports or even going to school, I was attacked by all three mainstream television ‘news’ outlets and received numerous threats to my email and cell phone, a couple of which threatened to kill me.  This week, we had a theatre group that receives millions of dollars in government funding try and sneak an R-rated drag show performance past our youth in an indoctrination attempt and, barely, a peep aside from Just Bins (which has become the ONLY source for true news in this province).  The fact that the three ‘mainstream’ outlets tried to ignore this story should tell you they are not at all impartial.  But the other lesson here is you should never ever believe government officials whenever they tell you they are changing laws or advocating for ‘your safety’.  In fact, it’s highly likely the opposite is true.  I talk to sports coaches regularly who say, ‘you have to coach and communicate with the young athletes who suffered during Covid a lot differently than those who came before them’.  While floated attempts to ban social media amongst youth may sound like a good idea, look further into it and you will see other examples where youth are not protected at all such as this drag queen theatre performance (which maybe doesn’t get publicized if youth have no social media access), the possibility of youth serving alcohol at licensed restaurants, as well as the absolute crushing they suffered during Covid when any person who was using their brain could see the measures were especially damning to this age group.  So you will have to forgive me for being suspicious when it comes to governments passing laws ‘for your safety’.

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