Scruffy’s This N That

1 – SHIV GETS HIS DUE: What many had been waiting for was finally announced by the Riders this week as Roy Shivers will go into the Plaza of Honour. I am guessing neither John Gormley, Carm Carteri nor myself will be asked to induct him. If you don’t know what that’s all about, go back and look for Costa Maragos’ interview with Roy when he was let go. It’s on YouTube.

Say what you will about Shivers, but Roy brought this team back to credibility after many dark years.  Would he have seen his team win a Grey Cup had it not been for Paul McCallum missing that field goal in BC?  We won’t know the answer to that, but Roy and for the most part, Danny Barrett, built the blocks for what we saw in 2007. 

Darian Durant deserves to be in the Plaza as well and the fact his relationship with the Riders has been repaired is big, but I would have suggested that maybe the team wait one more year to see if they can smooth the waters with Weston Dressler. I hope Craig Reynolds and whoever are doing what they can to repair that relationship that has been damaged. It would have been great to see those two go in together.

2 – LOOKING BACK: The Corey Mace era in Saskatchewan got started with a “W”. It was an ugly season-opener, and it looked like the green-and-white were going to drop one at Commonwealth, but Edmonton gave the game away in the final 15 minutes thanks to a couple of turnovers and what was a horrendous field goal attempt by Boris Bede. Did he blame that on the chipped footballs? Is it just me or did kickers in the league come off as a little too whiny with that situation after the usually reliable Sergio Castillo had a tough night in Winnipeg. Play the game boys!

There was a good and bad in this game. The good was obviously Shawn Bane Junior who had a great day registering three touchdowns. Micah Johnson was his usual beast self in the middle and Mario Alford had several big returns including one that he took back to the house only to have called back by penalty meaning each team had one of those.

As for the bad, well Logan Ferland can’t punch a guy. I am a huge Logan Ferland fan, but that was a dumb mistake, and he probably knew it the moment he did it. Some said the punch wasn’t ejection worthy. This just in—-if you punch someone, you are done. It’s as simple as that. If this was a message by the league to its players, then follow through with it moving forward as the precedent has been set.

I’m not sure if this was bad or disappointing, but I was expecting more from A.J Ouellette in his Riders debut.  He was held in check by an Elks defence that would have to be considered average at best. That fumble at the end had the potential to be disastrous but it wasn’t.

So now it’s off to Hamilton for a Sunday game against a Hamilton team that was beaten by Calgary. The Ti-Cats receivers certainly didn’t help Bo Levi Mitchell as there were several dropped balls including two by Tim White that should have been touchdowns. This won’t resonate well with Rider Nation, but I have both Hamilton and Saskatchewan being 1-1 when we go to work Monday morning.

3 – 0-2?: I don’t think you need to push the panic button yet, but Rider Nation certainly is enjoying the fact that the Bombers are 0-2. The question I have is does Winnipeg know the regular season has started. They looked flat in their season opener against Montreal and while Oliveira and Lawler were missing in the Week 2 loss to Ottawa, they did not look sharp in the first half. Mike O’Shea is too good of a head coach to let this continue, but this is not the start many envisioned.

4 – DISAPPOINTED IN OIL COUNTRY: Barring something you don’t see very often, the Florida Panthers are going to win their first ever Stanley Cup. I said in last week’s column that if the Edmonton Oilers could get three goals or more on Sergei Bobrovsky in each game they would be in good shape and if Bobrovsky doesn’t allow that, hand him the Conn Smythe. That is exactly what has happened. One could argue that Edmonton should have won Game 1 and you could debate Game 3, but the bottom line is that the Panthers have just suffocated the potent Edmonton offence in this series and when the Oilers have had a chance Bobrovsky has shut it down.

I thought after getting past the defensive juggernaut that was the Dallas Stars that Edmonton could get past Florida, but nope! They have neutralized the Oilers big 5 and even if Edmonton wins Game 4 tonight, I will be shocked to see the series go back to Rogers Place.

The debate will start in Edmonton as to what is next. As is the case every season moves need to be made. One of those moves has to be to try and find a taker for Darnell Nurse. Edmonton may have to take a bad contract back to accomplish that but he has been more disastrous than usual in these playoffs. He simply has to go and yeah, I realize that will be easier said than done.

5 – THE FRIEDMAN THEORY: Hockey Night in Canada’s Elliotte Friedman and others have said for the past few years that the NHL’s playoff teams are for the most part decided by American Thanksgiving with a wide majority of teams in playoff spots at that date getting into the playoffs.

Taking a look at the standings on that date finds this: In the East, the top three in the Atlantic were Boston, Florida and Tampa with the top three Metropolitan Division teams being the Rangers, Washington and Carolina with Toronto and Detroit holding down wild-card spots.

In the West, the top three in the Central were Dallas, Colorado and Winnipeg with the Knights, Canucks and Kings holding down the Pacific spots with the wild-card teams being St. Louis and Seattle.

Take a look at that and you see 13 of the 16 teams used a good 20 game stretch to start the season to make the playoffs. Detroit, St. Louis and Seattle gave way to the Islanders, Kings and Edmonton. Yes, a good start likely means you are in the Stanley Cup chase.

6 – VOICE OF THE FLAMES:  Let the speculation begin. The Chicago Blackhawks have hired Calgary Flames TV p x p guy Rick Ball meaning Sportsnet and the Flames need a new guy. Calgary could go back to the past and perhaps ask my good friend Peter Loubardias if he is interested. If he is, make the hire. 

If he is not, the Flames shouldn’t look far as there are many guys in the WHL who are ready to move up to the next level. From Jon Keen to Regan Bartel to Brad Curle to another one of my good friends, Gino DePaoli, there are a few for Calgary to pick and choose from.  They could even move current radio guy Derek Wills to the TV job and put one of the aforementioned on the radio.

Meanwhile, the Edmonton Oilers announced a 13-year deal with Sportsnet.  I don’t know if it is part of the deal, but it is time for Jack Michaels to be the team’s full-time announcer and that includes playoff games. Jack’s contract has him being the radio p x p guy for 630 CHED when Oilers games are on Hockey Night in Canada.  This angers many Oilers fans come playoff time as they want to see Jack and Louie DeBrusk calling games when other teams get their regular broadcasters. It’s time to see that change until the final four when HNIC brings out the big guns.  Some in Oilersland are complaining they don’t get Jack and Louie for the Cup final. Sorry folks, that job belongs to Chris Cuthbert and Craig Simpson for as long as they want it.

Oh yeah, I didn’t mention one name on here. There’s a reason for that!

7 – QUESTION FOR THE NHL: The Utah Whatevers have everything but a name. What’s that? They are going to be known as the Utah Hockey Club this year. SIGHHHHH!!!

The Arizona Coyotes are officially no more, but they aren’t dead as we know. Commissioner Gary Bettman has said if Alex Meruelos, the owner of the Coyotes, can get a land-deal and an arena that they will return to the league. If that is the case and we are still at 32 teams, does the league plan on having an uneven number of teams or will they expand to a place like Quebec City, Kansas City or Houston.  If the league can go back to Winnipeg, it can go back to Quebec City right?  In my mind, the NHL will have to expand by at least two if Arizona does return. However what I think, what you think and what Gary Bettman is thinking are three different things.

8 – THE NEW TIGER: Golf fan or not, everyone knows what Tiger Woods did for the sport. Every Sunday when he was in the hunt, you watched, and you waited for brilliance or you waited for him to screw up. The latter didn’t happen very often. To me, golf is a much more competitive sport today as there are so many good players and anyone can win —- unless Scottie Scheffler is in the field.

Scheffler held off Collin Morikawa last weekend to win the Memorial. It is the 5^th tournament he has won this year as you can add this one to the Masters, the Arnold Palmer Invitational, the RBC Heritage and the Players Championship. He has won five of his last eight tournaments and finished 2^nd in two others, and one only wonders if he would have won the PGA Championship had it not been for that incident with a Louisville police officer that saw needlessly end up in jail for a few hours.   He isn’t in the top 10 going into the weekend at the US Open, but all in the golf world are watching him.

Scheffler may not have the pizzazz that Tiger brought because he is someone that doesn’t show a lot of emotion on the course, but the soon to be 28-year-old might arguably be better than the man that made golf a must-watch sport for many.  The results certainly make a solid case for that argument.

While Tiger was dominant for a decade, Scheffler is still a long way away from putting up the numbers Tiger did, but there is no sign of a slowdown.  The games each play are different, but the results are the same and for golfers on the PGA Tour that are competing in an event with Scheffler that spells nothing but bad news because if you are in the hunt, you had best play perfect golf or watch Scottie win another one—much like Tiger back in the day.

That’s all I got. Have a great weekend!