MIKE STACKHOUSE’S 10 THOUGHTS

1- RAINED OUT – It’s too bad Montreal wasn’t leading the game on Friday night that the CFL called off and awarded to the Riders.  There would be a much louder outcry as to what a miscarriage of justice this was. Unbelievable really. This league never ceases to amaze me at the ways they try to redefine ‘bush’.  I’ve attended games that have had a much longer delay than what we saw Friday night.  

2 – TSN CALLS THE SHOTS – I’m speculating, but I don’t think I’m wrong when I suggest TSN was the driving force behind canceling this game.  The last thing they want is to split their audience between two games, even though with 48 different channels that all air the same thing most of the time, it would have been easy to accommodate.  This is just further fuel to the fire for me when it comes to attending games. If I paid hard earned money (oddly not already stolen by Justin Trudeau or the SaskParty) for a ticket to that game last night, I would want both my cash and my time back.  Neither of which I’d get. So, it’s easier to sit in the backyard, have a beer, watch on tv, find something to do during the over abundance of commercials, and then when the game is called off because it’s time to watch Edmonton and Ottawa, I don’t feel cheated out of anything.

3 – LEAGUE SCHEDULE/REPLAY – Is it true some CFL fans are upset with how the league is scheduling games?  I love it. One game Thursday, two on Friday as a back to back is excellent. Keep the games away from Sunday.  Playing on holiday Mondays is great too. Also, kudos to the league with how they handle replay. What used to be a disaster is now done better than any other professional sports league.

4 – BLACK EYE FOR PLAY BY PLAY – I’m sure Rod Black is a very nice man.  In fact, I’ve seen him host some sporting events where I’ve felt he’s done an excellent job.  But he is not a play by play guy. To send him up to the press box each and every week is a real disservice to CFL fans. It shows the network’s indifference towards a product they should be pushing, and it’s not fair to Black either.  It’s just not his area of expertise. I’ve called play by play for curling a few times in my career and it’s beyond laughable. I would do a better job hosting Big Brother and I don’t even really know what that is. Yet, if it was my source of income, I’d call Brier after Brier if my boss asked me to. Black belongs on a desk with a panel. I get that Gord Miller is, predominantly, hockey so they don’t want to use him as the number two for CFL games, but there has to be someone out there who is the heir apparent to Chris Cuthbert. It’s not Rod Smith either. Maybe TSN should develop a reality show where they search for the next CFL lead play by play announcer.

5 – CODY DANGERFIELD – Twitter was scattered with comments about Fajardo Friday night and that he and the rest of the offense will have to step it up in order to defeat ‘the better teams’.  We are STILL on this ‘better teams’ thing. One of the ‘better teams’ Fajardo and the offense may, supposedly, have trouble with is Winnipeg. The same Winnipeg team that lost to Toronto. How about just give Fajardo credit? He was 15-of-21 and ran for another 48 yards in a game where he was not needed to be the star. I thought he was fine and have zero complaints. You’d think a fan base that loved the likes of Sunseri, Bridge, Butler, Tate, etc would be thrilled to finally have a real back up that has emerged to be a top flight starter.  Look at this way – if Fajardo was barely passable to beat all these bad teams don’t you think one of these ‘bad teams’ would defeat the Riders much the same way they did Winnipeg?

6 – MORE FAJARDO – He’s given away tickets on Twitter, stopped by Queen City Ex for a corn dog after his game ending winning drive last week, and now he’s saying he will not change his number to the more preferred 17 over 7 because he doesn’t want to force fans who have already bought his jersey to have to buy another one.  The guy gets it. For me, there hasn’t been a more likeable player on this team since Weston Dressler and/or Corey Holmes. Just one year ago I said there wasn’t a single guy that fans would want to run out and buy jerseys for that they could identify with. Safe to say that’s no longer the case. I hope he’s here a long time and has a great career. 

7 – ADVANCED METRICS – You are seeing teams in all sports employing analytics on a heavier basis than ever before.  Some of the figures can be valuable, but the biggest disciples of it are so out of touch with real life that when their calculators let them down they can’t comprehend what went wrong.  Take the Boston Red Sox, for example. A number of weeks ago they acquired Andrew Cashner from Baltimore. Cashner had some decent numbers as far as what the team was looking for, however his disastrous seven starts so far have been very predictable for me.  Cashner went public a number of months ago saying he would possibly retire if he was traded again. This should have been a warning flag that he’s just not up to competing at a high level in the midst of a pennant race with a new team. Yet, the Red Sox got him anyway because the numbers indicated he’d be an alright addition.  Fail. And, a fail that was easy to project for old school baseball fans.

8 – ADDITION BY SUBTRACTION – A happy team will always play better than an unhappy team.  You can take a really good player out of a line up and replace him with, basically, a minor leaguer and you will get more from everyone else if that really good player was a drag on chemistry.  My most recent example of that doesn’t involve a good team, but it’s applicable here. The Yorkton Cardinals were 2-and-30 but when rookie head coach Robbie Dombrowski made the decision to remove an influential negative attitude from the roster, the Cards went on to play three of their best games of the season immediately and then won four of their next twelve (not a world beating record, but a marked improvement from 2-and-30).  As it turns out, the Cards had three other guys that should have been sent home early but it was too late in the season to make those kinds of sweeping changes.

9 – GARTH BROOKS  – Was Garth Brooks really that late starting on Friday night considering the opening act was axed?  I’m not a country music guy so I’m one of three people in Canada who’s never seen him perform, but by all accounts he never disappoints.  The good news is that none of his equipment was damaged so the capacity crowd got to see him. This was not the case for Tim McGraw at Craven.  Equipment damage during thunderstorms is, apparently, common as I’ve noticed this being a reason for canceled performances in the past for musical acts.  I’m such a country music moron that I once spent almost half an hour with Michelle Wright just shooting the breeze and didn’t have any idea who she was. While not a fan of Charlie Major’s music, that guy sure knew (likely still does know) how to throw a bus party.

10 – SYRIA – A Canadian tourist is grateful to be back in Canada after being detained in Syria for 8 months.  Yes, I said tourist. Earth is a big place and the guy decided he’d like to see the sites of Syria as opposed to anywhere else on the planet.  Canadians have been warned since 2011 not to go there for reasons as obvious as the nose on your face. I know it’s supposed to be a sports column so I’m going to go with he was a big soccer fan and there was a match over there he was just dying (I maybe mean that literally) to see.  Why are we responsible for someone else’s stupidity?

(Mike Stackhouse is a freelance writer/broadcaster)