DuPont’s 10 Things
Welcome back to the midweek break – let’s get right to it:
1. HOCKEY TALK – We’ll get to the college football playoff in a bit, but I wanna start with hockey because that’s what I’ve been watching this week in the absence of football. My attention on Tuesday night was the Leafs and New Jersey Devils. It was Sheldon Keefe against his former team and the TSN panel was asking who was more deserving of the Jack Adams award between Keefe And Leafs coach Craig Berube. It’s far too early to know, but it’s still a fun conversation to have. The Leafs will need to go on a big run in the second half and cement themselves as a top team in the league to have their coach in that conversation. Meanwhile Keefe has the Devils in a playoff spot after they missed last year. New Jersey heavily outshot Toronto, but the leafs found a way to stay in the game long enough for Matthews to end it in overtime. Fun game.
2. BUBBLE TEAMS – The Calgary Flames held on and beat Nashville 4-3 last night. Can you believe Nashville has only seven wins? We talked about playoff teams on the RP show this week and whether a team outside the playoffs at this point could get in or do we already have our eight teams in each conference? In the West it feels like Calgary or Nashville would be my only two teams with a real shot but after watching part of that game Tuesday night it’s hard to think Nashville will be able to turn this season around. It’s sad, and I hope they do, but something‘s gotta change. Meanwhile, Calgary is a team that I could just see willing and fighting their way into the playoffs. But, when I look at the teams in spots currently, it’s hard to imagine any of them dropping out.
3. BIG APPLE – The big story in the National Hockey League has been the New York Rangers and their treatment of Jacob Trouba. Look, the Rangers didn’t do anything that broke any rules. My understanding is that Trouba had a limited no trade clause, but not a no movement clause which means while he can’t get traded to certain teams, he could still get moved or, for example, put on waivers. But no matter which way you look at this I just don’t think it’s a good look for the organization and I don’t know what they’re going to do to fix it. The issue is what this tells other players. Trouba was their captain, his family is in New York, and he negotiated a no trade clause in good faith. When asked to exercise it, he wanted to stay. That’s why you negotiate the no trade clause. Not everybody earns the right to add this in their contract. But what the Rangers are telling the rest of the hockey world is that while they may negotiate certain clauses into contracts, when they need to make a move you can forget about what they said during negotiations. They’re gonna move you one way or another and get what they want. Forget about the player. That’s not a good look and I imagine players will think twice before signing with the Rangers in the future.
4. BRACKET MANIA – OK to the college football playoff. I couldn’t be more excited for the next month or so of football. There are so many great angles and we will try and get to as many of many of them as we can. The first is that 12 teams is going to be incredibly exciting. Forget which teams made the bracket and what teams didn’t; we’re all going to enjoy it in the end. The best part? The first round of the CFP will be played on campuses in front of home crowds. That is going to be wild.
5. CANADA – The second part of all of this that should be extra exciting for those reading this column is the Canadian interest in the final 12. Kurtis Rourke and Indiana are in the playoff and have earned the 10 seed. They will visit Notre Dame in the opening round. Rourke, who was a Big Ten second team All-Star, and should be a slam dunk to win the Cornish trophy as top Canadian in the NCAA, leads the Hoosiers into the playoff with many thinking they could win and play Georgia in the quarterfinals. Meanwhile, Vancouver’s Ty Benefield and the Boise State Broncos earned a first round bye after winning the mountain West championship. They are the number three seed and will play the winner of SMU/Penn State.
6. BRACKET BUGS – Ultimately, the CFP is going to be tweaked moving forward. The committee ranked the top 25 teams and the format sorted out the bracket automatically. It obviously has flaws. Look at Arizona State. They’re the number four seed with a bye and play the winner of Clemson and Texas. Clearly Texas has a pretty soft path to the final four on paper. Look at Penn State in the number six seed. The Lions play SMU and then Boise State for a chance to go to the final four. On paper, that’s another pretty easy bracket. Meanwhile, the number one team in the nation in Oregon has to play the winner of Tennessee/Ohio State. That is without a doubt a gauntlet of three teams where only one will reach the final four. The last group of three is George awaiting the winner of Indiana and Notre Dame. That system will be fixed moving forward.
7. WHO SHOULD IT BE? – The last piece that I want to talk about in regards to the CFP is about who is in the bracket. There are a lot of fans saying that the top 12 teams in the country are not represented in the bracket. And, while they may be right, I don’t think that’s the point of this. Is Alabama better than SMU? Boise State? Arizona State? Indiana? Maybe, but putting them in over one of the teams mentioned doesn’t make sense to me. You could put 12 teams from the SEC in the bracket but then that’s just the SEC and we already did that during conference play. They crowned a champion. Putting too many teams from one conference into the bracket, defeats the purpose of a conference champion. Representation from multiple conferences gives you an accurate representation of college football across the country. If anything, I think the CFP should cap the number of teams that each conference can send to the playoff. Nothing crazy, but maybe four teams for a conference max. The idea isn’t to give teams a second chance it’s to crown the team that’s played the best this year. A true national champion all of the best trophies in sports doesn’t always go to the best teams they go to the teams that play the best when it matters. That may sound like the same thing, but I feel there’s a difference.
8. BLOWOUTS – What about blowouts? Who cares! I don’t think blowouts in the CFP are a bad thing. If Penn State blows out SMU it will show a reflection of the two conferences and show the nation that this year the Big Ten is better than the Mountain West conference. That’s OK. At the end of the day, the final four teams in the CFP will all have earned it. If a team that some feel shouldn’t even be in the playoff goes on to win it they will have beat some pretty good teams to do it. So, no matter how you feel about the playoff structure and format, I really hope you can sit back and enjoy what is sure to be some great football
9. CURLING – Things are really heating up on the curling scene and in one month I’ll be flying back to Saskatchewan and getting set to call play-by-play of the men’s and women’s provincial championships, the qualifiers for the Scotties and the Brier. The provincials will be held in Kindersley and I couldn’t be more excited to get back to the rectangle and call curling. Curling has quickly become one of my favourite sports to call play-by-play because it’s so different than anything I usually get to do and the people I get to work with are so much fun to be around. This weekend is a big event on the Sask curling tour, which could determine some of the final spots and qualifiers for provincial play downs. We will be able to post some of the teams, if not all, that will play for a spot in the national championship in the coming weeks.
10. CHANGES – Meanwhile, after dropping BJ Neufeld, Matt Dunstone‘s rink picked up EJ Harndon to complete their team as they make a run towards the Brier. Between that and Brad Gushue picking up Brennan Bottcher, this has been a wild year already for in season moves and the intrigue heading towards the Brier is at an all-time high. I can’t wait to get into the new year and really start to dial-in on curling!
We ran out of space so no randoms this week but we’ve got some fun things planned heading towards the holidays, including a year in review coming as well as some fun junior hockey talk. World junior camp opened this week and I’ll be heading to Ottawa to take some of the tournament Which I’m really excited for.
Have a great rest of the week and the weekend!
They seeding is done the way it is to maintain Conference championship game relevance. Without having the bye to the quarterfinals on the line the Conference championships are basically meaningless.
First off – nobody is going to not sign with the NY Rangers due to the so called treatment of Jacob Trouba. GM Chris Drury and myself could give 2 $$#$ over his family or wife being in school. He was a cancer in Winnipeg and only matastized in New York. Not one teamate was blocking the door to keep him with the team. He got shipped cross country into the backwaters of the NHL and he can rot there. Second off – The CFP is made for TV. SMU…yeah in 1982 that’d be something. Just like TCU and Cincinnati… Read more »
To call Trouba a cancer is putting it too lightly.