Stackhouse’s 10 Weekend Things

2 – ELGERSMA DEBUT – The player I was most interested in seeing how he would do was Canadian QB and probable Winnipeg back-up Taylor Elgersma, who after flirting with NFL opportunities, was making his CFL debut and he put up pedestrian numbers (6-of-13, 78-yards, 2-interceptions, 4-carries, 18-yards).  Whispers around Winnipeg is that it would be a serious drop off from Zac Collaros to Elgersma yet Elgersma comes with a lot of fanfare and he’s the type of player the CFL should want in the league. Yet, if a player has NFL practice roster chances he’s going to fully exhaust all of them first because the salaries are such a wide disparity you’d be a fool not to.  The only way to combat that is for the CFL to pay their players better but I don’t think they are able and why would you empty the vault for Elgersma when it appears as though he may not even be as ready as a guy like Schager would appear to be for the Riders?

3 – SCHEDULE BUNGLE – Much has been made about the CFL and the Riders’ bungling of the early season schedule that sees Saskatchewan finish their preseason yesterday and now they won’t play again until their regular season home opener, which closes out Week 2 on Saturday night June 13th against the BC Lions.  The marquee game to kick off the year is Thursday, June 4th Montreal at Hamilton at 5:30pm (Sask time).  By the time the Riders take the field for game one, the Ticats, Alouettes, and Bombers will all have played two games.  Forget the CFL, there is no point in asking someone in that office what their thinking is on this because it seems like they get nothing right ever.  But what are the Riders thinking?  I get that the fans are fickle and they won’t show up unless it’s perfect weather on the perfect day at the perfect time but this is just stupid to wait that long to play regular season game one.  To me, a credible league should insist on its champion kicking off the season.  I get that Montreal is the ideal opponent but if you want to go after the tv market, it should be against Toronto and you should advertise the hell out of it.  But again nothing about this league surprises me.  When the Riders and Stamps played this past Monday I didn’t even know until the last minute that we had reached the point in training camp where games were starting.

4 – GOLDEN KNIGHTS UBER FOCUSED – Vegas Golden Knights GM Kelly McCrimmon issued a statement Monday night concerning their lack of cooperation with media following the game six series win over Anaheim by accepting responsibility for what happened and then promised to never let it happen again, however in the next breath stated he wouldn’t be speaking on this issue again.  Isn’t that, basically, the same as shunning the media?  McCrimmon also gave the excuse of being too busy with the playoffs as a reason for forbidding teams to talk to Bruce Cassidy, who isn’t good enough to coach the Knights anymore but may be too good to coach someone else as he remains under contract for another year.  If that isn’t supreme arrogant thinking I don’t know what is.  What’s always been a laughable free pass in the NHL world is that teams and players can’t walk and chew gum at the same time so leave them alone while they ‘focus’ on this one thing and then when there is nothing to focus on anymore, we will take your request under advisement.  In the Knights’ case they don’t want anything from the outside to distract them from winning the Cup, but then they go and create their own distractions by being jerks after winning game six against Ducks and refusing to let Cassidy interview with these lower life (at least to Vegas) teams.  Make it make sense.  I can just see the media conference at the end of the year when they don’t win, “We lost to the Avalanche (or whoever) because I returned Stan Bowman’s email request to let him talk to Bruce Cassidy.”

5 – RUTHLESS VEGAS – On one hand I admire how the Knights do business.  There is no sentimental value or feelings involved when they decide how to go about building their team.  They are the only team in the league that has figured out how overrated draft picks are.  They also don’t care what anyone else thinks about whether or not they are stretching the rules when it comes to utilizing LTIR (which the league has since closed that loophole) to their advantage in the playoffs or public perception when it comes to adding someone like Carter Hart.  I do think they have it easier than many other centres as far as attracting players but they shouldn’t have to apologize for that.  Leaf fans should, rightfully, wonder how many Cups they’d have won by now if they had hired McCrimmon to be their GM back in 2015 and then left him alone to do as he pleased.

6 – FLYERS NOTHING TO SHOW – There is increasing criticism amongst observers in Philadelphia who are blaming Commissioner Gary Bettman for the Flyers losing Carter Hart without compensation.  It’s revisionist history.  Hart was given a leave and then non-tendered, which made him an unrestricted free agent.  That’s not Bettman’s fault.  The Flyers bowed to the mob and succumbed to public pressure.  That’s why they got nothing for Hart.  Professional sports teams should have their own code of conduct clauses in contracts and if they believe in them as being integral for playing they shouldn’t wait for the public to pass judgement before making decisions.  That way, if the public overreacts (which is almost always the case) they can continue to respond, with confidence, they are doing the right thing and can tune out the noise.  Subsequently, if a code of conduct is not important, why even pay attention to the outside noise?

7 – GRADE EIGHT BULLY – Remember Mitchell Miller? He was the grade school bully who NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman deemed to be such a bad character that he may never ever be eligible to play in the NHL.  Miller, who is probably a legit top pairing calibre defenseman, leads the KHL in playoff scoring with 7-goals and 16-assists in 20-games.  Miller’s skeletons in the closet became public and so when Boston tried to bring him in back in 2022 there was immense screaming.  You can bet there are way worse human beings currently on NHL rosters but as long as their dastardly deeds don’t become public, they should have nothing to worry about.  Teams don’t really have ethics, they have public images and perceptions they like to maintain.

8 – WINLESS MAMBA – The Saskatoon Mamba are a joke.  They are off to an 0-and-4 start and don’t look like they are even close to picking up a win.  I commented on social media that I’d peg the over/under on wins this year at 5 (24 game season).  A couple of people responded and said they’d take the under.  Not good.  It could be a very long summer unless they figure out how to rebound, prevent turnovers, and play a little defense.  This new ownership group has, somehow, erased the Rattlers with a new look and a new everything and made it worse.  Well done.  It’s possible the best chance the Mamba have of winning will come against the Calgary Surge, who are owned by the same outfit that bought the Rattlers/Mamba.  Am I asking for too much for this team to just not be the worst in the league?  Miss the playoffs but make it interesting.  That’s where I’m at for expectations.

9 – DUNDON OWNERSHIP – Any person who pays close attention to the NHL knows the league is poorly covered from a sports journalism point of view but the fact that nobody has bothered to connect the dots on how Tom Dundon runs the Portland Trail Blazers compared to how he runs the Carolina Hurricanes is a dereliction of duty as far as I’m concerned.  Dundon has been widely criticized for being cheap and cost cutting with the Trail Blazers.  He gassed 70 employees, removed fan giveaways from games, restricted coaching budgets, leaves traveling staff at home, and there has been an issue on checkout times at hotels.  Meanwhile, you won’t find nearly the same criticism from hockey media although he isn’t necessarily beloved.  You’d have to search for it, but the reason why John Forslund left his play by play job with Carolina to take the same position with Seattle was because Dundon wanted him to become an independent contractor whose wage depended on attendance.  Most of Dundon’s detractors in hockey focus on his micro-management in hockey operations but I suspect it goes way beyond that if he’s this bad as an NBA owner.  

10 – BUSCH DIES – Top NASCAR driver Kyle Busch has passed away at the age of 41 after he was hospitalized with a ‘severe illness’ stemming from a sinus cold/pneumonia.  Busch was overheard on the team radio earlier this month talking with the team doctor and then addressed his cold on video, publicly, by saying that he was ‘….still not great, the cough was pretty substantial last week.’  According to a 911 call obtained by USA Today, Busch was found coughing up blood upon being tended to by emergency responders.  In the call, Bush was ‘coughing up blood, short of breath, very hot’.  The next day he was dead.  If you have read my column with frequency over the last few years, you know I feel people are dying younger than ever before and while I could be wrong, it’s amazing to me how defensive others get when I even bring up the notion despite plenty of evidence that we should, at least, be looking into it.  I don’t know why this makes me the bad guy to some of you but then again, the world does seem completely upside down.

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