JIM LANG ON SPORTS!

BY: JIM LANG
For rodpedersen.com

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers took a major step towards rebuilding their team into a winner again with the decision to hire Mike O’Shea to be their new Head Coach.

O’Shea spent the last four seasons as the Argos Special Teams Coordinator and is a great hire by Bombers management.

I covered O’Shea for the bulk of his career in Toronto and he ranks near the top of my list for the most intense and dedicated players in the CFL. I never met another player who despised losing as much as O’Shea. Physical mistakes he would tolerate. What he will never tolerate is careless mental mistakes and bad attitudes.

O’Shea gave his all to the Argos and the CFL while he was a player. I have no doubt he will do the same as the Head Coach of the Bombers. O’Shea understands the nuances of the Canadian game as well as anyone in the league. He will also bring a sense of purpose and discipline to the Bombers that win or lose; at least the team will have an identity.

That is the good news for the Bombers. The bad news is that they are back in the West and don’t have a bona fide star at quarterback.

Until O’Shea can find a stud quarterback there is bound to be some growing pains in his first season as a Head Coach.

But when you add someone like an O’Shea to the likes of Kyle Walters and Danny McManus and all of a sudden the Bombers have the kind of people in place you can win with.

Rider Pride

Now I have seen many cool stories surrounding the Riders win over the Ticats in the Grey Cup and the wild celebration that followed. But I never thought I would see a story about a fan giving a lift to the game’s Most Outstanding Player, running back Korey Sheets. I follow Sheets on Twitter and I saw that he wrote something about being in Saskatoon and needing a lift to Regina. I didn’t think much of it because I assumed he was just being funny. Turns out he did need a lift and wouldn’t you know it, Maclean Nelson drove all the way from Moose Jaw to give him a ride.

http://www.thestarphoenix.com/sports/Saskatoon+gives+Kory+Sheets+ride+Regina/9239057/story.html

I can only imagine that Nelson and Sheets are BFF’s now and text each other all the time.

NFL

The Seahawks sent a strong message around the NFL with their dismantling of the Saints in the Monday night game. The win all but assures that the road to the Super Bowl in the NFC will go through CenturyLink Field in Seattle. That is a scary proposition for any team that has to make the trip to the Pacific Northwest in January.

Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson (How did he last until the third round of the draft!) is 13-0 at home with 26 touchdowns and six interceptions. On the road Wilson is 8-6 with 19 touchdowns and 10 interceptions.

A lot will be decided in the NFC as week 14 comes to an end. The Seahawks are in San Francisco to take on the 49ers and the Carolina Panthers (winners of eight straight.) are in New Orleans to face the Saints in an NFC South showdown.

Because of the Saints loss in the Monday night game they are now tied with the Panthers for first in the South. A win by Carolina and the Saints will be staring at the possibility of being a Wild Card team and going on the road in the playoffs. And the Saints have never won a road playoff game in
the history their franchise.

World Juniors

A week from now Canada’s finest junior hockey players will assemble in Toronto for the World Juniors selection camp that ruins from the 12th to the 15th.

Saskatchewan is well represented at the selection camp with three players taking part. Weyburn’s Derrick Pouliot, Melville’s Damon Severson and Saskatoon’s Taylor Leier are all going to be in Toronto next week.

I live just north of Toronto in a community called Newmarket and everyone here is excited about the home-town protégé, 16 year old Connor McDavid. The Erie Otters star isn’t draft eligible until 2015 but he is already in his second year in the OHL and he’s in the top 10 in scoring, averaging 1.7 points per game. In our community and hockey associations across the country there are more and more “underage” kids who are big enough and talented enough to play major junior hockey.

It seems like every year in the OHL they make an exception in the draft so an underage kid can be selected because he is just too good to play AAA anymore. Barrie Colts defenceman and Team Canada invitee Aaron Ekblad is a prime example. Ekblad is listed at 6’ 4”; he was 6’ 3” when he started playing for Barrie as a 15 year old. With kids growing bigger and stronger at a younger age there are going to be a lot more of them who are granted “exceptional status”.

There were a few players that didn’t get invited that surprised a lot of people, including myself. Soo Greyhounds defenceman Darnell Nurse is having a monster year in the OHL yet didn’t make the cut. The six foot four inch Nurse is a point-a-game D man with the Greyhounds and it is odd not to see the Oilers draft pick on the list. Then again Max Domi and Connor Brown didn’t get invited either.

That is the dilemma that faces Hockey Canada every year; they simply have too many good players to choice from.

NHL

The Maple Leafs got a taste of what life is like playing teams from the Western Conference on Tuesday night when they were beat 4-2 by the Sharks. After falling behind 2-0 the Leafs made a game of it but in the end the Sharks superior talent was just too much for Toronto to overcome.

Over the course of the next two weeks the Leafs will face teams like the Kings, Bruins, Blues, Blackhawks and Penguins. Needless to say all that positive energy the Leafs were feeding off of when they went 10-4 in October is long gone.

The Leafs have been crippled by injuries to key players and they are not receiving amazing goaltending every night. There was no way the Leafs goaltending duo of Bernier and Reimer would have been able to keep up the pace they set in October and now the challenge for Randy Carlyle is to find a way to win some games while they wait for their walking wounded get healthy.