NEW YEAR'S THROWIN' ELBOWS WITH BRENDAN MCGUIRE
1. CHRIS JONES NFL SPECULATION: The idea has always intrigued me and NFL insider Jason La Canfora’s Tweet on Monday of, “At least two NFL teams have done extensive research on the highly successful coach” carries at least some credibility.
I would love to see Bo Levi Mitchell and Coach Jones unite with my Denver Broncos and I wouldn’t be shocked to see those two joined in the NFL by ex-Rider field boss Corey Chamblin one day.
The NFL could do, and has done, a lot worse than Chris Jones for a head coach. If the chance presents itself, the Roughriders would be wrong to stand in his way.
2. CFLPA’S BIGGEST PRIORITY SHOULD BE: Executive Director Brian Ramsay can learn a lot from baseball union legends Marvin Miller and Donald Fehr through what they accomplished in labour disputes for their members.
He can also learn from what they completely screwed up.
Miller and Fehr vigorously fought against drug-testing, failing to recognize the long-term consequences for their people in having to choose between doping or falling behind.
Money matters and it always will. But ensuring players medical bills are covered for all football-related injuries for at least 5 to 10 years after their careers are over would be a far more important step than any increase to the salary cap.
The players union should be more focused on better pensions and health benefits than fatter wages.
3. JOHN MURPHY’S ROUGHRIDER LEGACY WILL BE: Never could find us a quarterback.
4. PAUL JONES’ ROUGHRIDER LEGACY WILL NEED TO BE: Had better find us a quarterback.
5. KENT AUSTIN: Apparently, he’s taking a job as ‘Co-offensive coordinator’—what the heck does that even mean?— at lowly Liberty University under head coach Hugh Freeze. Hugh happens to be a vocally religious born-again Christian who was fired from his last job for using his work phone to call escort services.
Always a Rockstar to me from what he did with the ’07 Riders, sadly it appears Kent really has hit rock-bottom?
7. NHL IN REGINA: The spectacle of an outdoor NHL game lost its luster for me, and I’m sure plenty of you, long ago. But an outdoor game HERE in REGINA would captivate me and I’m sure plenty of you, also.
The first ever regular season game played in the Queen City would even be worth the ridiculous ticket prices Gary Bettman throws at us to sit in the cold at Mosaic Stadium. If the report of the game being Winnipeg vs Calgary is true, that tells me the NHL is worried it might not sell all of the tickets unless they can get Jets and Flames fans to drive in.
Either way, it’s another big event and a win-win for all of us.
8. HUMBOLDT COACH QUITTING: From afar it sounded like everything was going as well as it could be. I’m really not plugged into the SJHL like I once was but can tell you that coaching any SJHL team, especially under those circumstances, is almost always a thankless job.
SJHL coaches work in the trenches more than just about any other league for little fanfare and even less pay.
It’s a much tougher job than most people realize and it sounds like Nathan Oystrick found that out real fast.
Hopefully he, and the Broncos, bounce right back up and are better for what they’ve all learned.
9. MAKING HOCKEY GREAT AGAIN: Took me months to do it, but I finally finished Ken Dryden’s book Game Change over the weekend and he has two really good ideas. A) No more of this “finishing your checks” garbage after the puck is gone and B) No more head contact, accidental or otherwise. The Don Cherry traditionalists are blind on this and should be ignored.
10. ON THE AIR THIS WEEK: Riding out to Speedy Creek on Saturday with my good pal, Darren Dupont, for some great story-telling and the Regina Pats-Swift Current Broncos game on Access Communications channel 7. You can watch it all at 7pm on Saturday night.
