STACKHOUSE'S SOAPBOX
1 – Special thanks to a guy named ‘Dick’ for reading my column a couple of weeks ago. Dick felt compelled to shoot me off a snail mail letter calling me a maroon and criticizing me as someone who is involved in business leadership in Yorkton I shouldn’t be blasting Regina for my experience at the Impark parking lots near Broad and Rose. Well, it’s like this Dick–as a business leader, I understand the importance of worry free parking downtown and I know how annoying it is when you come out from a business and supporting the city, only to be greeted by a ticket when you have no intent at all of being tricky or taking advantage of any favorable situation. Dick also said my beef is with Impark and not the City of Regina. He’s correct on that, but where’s a guy to park if he wants to boycott Impark? It’s fairly limited and it’s not like bad service at a restaurant, where you can just go to a different place for supper. I think it would be good for Regina city officials to know the parking mafia is more than happy to put the screws to its visitors and it’s not a big deal for the Vancouver based Impark should I have a bad taste in my mouth about downtown Regina. Not the first or last time British Columbia won’t care one bit about Saskatchewan, but that’s another topic for another day.
2 – One of the great things about the internet is that Dick can be tough sending me a letter with no return address and no last name. I put my real name behind an issue that I may be right or wrong about. That’s the beauty of opinion columns. I don’t have to be right. Couldn’t he, at least, have called himself Richard?
3 – Maybe Impark can use some of the hard earned fine money they collect to make their automated stations in the parking lots transmit payments and disperse the parking passes a little quicker so that I can get on my way to the Rider game and not stand there holding up the rest of the line.
4 -There is no guarantee I will spend three of my ten points on you if you send me hate snail mail in the future, so don’t get any wise ideas. But, this was a bit of a slow week. Before you get upset at my smugness, adjust your dry humour detector.
5 – Someone asked me why can’t the NLL schedule more than one game a week (I know they do have the odd 2 game weekend) since the NHL regularly has 3-4 games a week for its teams. Well, it’s quite simple. Put on a pair of skates and rip around the ice once. Then go into a gym and travel the same distance in running shoes. I’m not even going to debate the physical beatings these guys take. NLL players also have other jobs during the week, but the discussion was based on the premise of ‘what if they didn’t’.
6 – I’m always interested by where the moral line is with sports teams and their fans. The Chicago Cubs have banned a guy for life after he made the ‘ok’ sign in the background of a television reporter last week. Apparently, the ‘ok’ hand gesture is a signal of white supremacy. It’s getting hard for me to keep up with what’s racist these days. But, full marks to the Cubs for being holy. I wonder if they forgot about Addison Russell’s domestic violence situation or perhaps that’s a much more forgivable offense seeing as how Russell can help them win while the fan can’t. The ‘ok’ hand gesture = zero tolerance. Beating up your spouse? Tolerance level to be determined.
7 – The Toronto Raptors won a thriller Sunday night to advance to the Eastern Conference finals. The fourth quarter was as entertaining as you can get. The damper came after the game when reporters starting interviewing players. I don’t know how some of these coaches and athletes find the patience to address some of the stupid questions that come out of the mouths of these people. The IQ of sports media people continues to get lower with each passing year. If there is one thing I can thank Kelly McCrimmon for, it’s that he was very challenging when it came to being interviewed. He didn’t want his time being wasted answering dumb questions. It sharpened me up a lot and made me value the privilege I had that fans don’t get.
8 – Get some avid hockey fans in a room debating who the best play by play announcers are and Mike Emrick and Chris Cuthbert are usually the top two names. Jim Hughson and Gord Miller will get mentions too just based on the top assignments each of them receive. Personally, I prefer Hughson a lot more than Miller. After those main four, there aren’t any personalities that jump off the page. For me, I like John Kelly (St. Louis) and I’ve come to enjoy the call of John Bartlett (Sportsnet) as well. Dennis Beyak (Jets) does a nice job too. For most of them, the homer aspect comes off too fake. Boston’s Jack Edwards does give me a good laugh, I have to admit.
9 – The best color man in ANY sport is Dennis Eckersley and it’s not even close. I miss Harry Neale and I’m also in the camp that thinks Tony Romo is sensational. Dave Van Horne is my favorite baseball play by play man, but he does Marlins games and not even Van Horne can make those watchable. For football, I like Joe Buck….and Rod Pedersen.
10 – The Winnipeg Blue Bombers have built an impressive team around quarterback Matt Nicholls. His opportunity to win a Grey Cup will never be as great as it is this year. One has to wonder if Nicholls should win a title, does that mean Chris Streveler becomes expendable and would he be a good QB for the future for a team like the Roughriders? Or, is it possible the Bombers give Nicholls the Kerry Joseph treatment after winning?
(Mike Stackhouse is a freelance writer/broadcaster. Follow him on Twitter at @Stack1975)
