STACKHOUSE’S 10 MONDAY THOUGHTS

RYAN OUT – The Saskatchewan Roughriders have opted not to bring back 40-year-old punter Jon Ryan for next season even though he, clearly, is still good enough to get the job done.  Ryan says the mandate from the CFL to have a quota of Global players is, ultimately, what cost him his spot.  He’s, probably, not wrong on that.  The CFL has suffered from a talent drain for many years and fans are starting to notice the product on the field isn’t what it used to be.  I get the notion of a Canadian roster requirement as it is, after all, the Canadian Football League.  I know some would like to see it wide open regardless of nationality and that’s an argument for another day but when you have requirements for rosters that go beyond ‘best players available regardless of ability’ you open yourself up for mediocrity and that’s what has happened here.  The funny thing about Ryan is that no matter where he is from, he is still good enough to play.  The fact that he’s local and is willing to accept less than his market value should have made this a no brainer for all involved.

FLORES – I really don’t know what to make of this Brian Flores situation.  There are so many layers here which include racism and also integrity of the game and maybe both of those issues go together.  I think Flores is a very good coach and is the type of person who should be in high demand from NFL teams in search of one.  His claim that the owner of the Dolphins offered him kickbacks to lose on purpose is troubling to say the least.  The fact that nobody has hired him tells me that there simply are too many teams who aren’t interested in winning and while they may be racist, it’s a blessing in disguise for Flores that he’s not hired because he wouldn’t get the support needed from up above to put a winning product on the field anyway.  I’ve always maintained that if you want to win, you will put the best people in place regardless of skin color or any other artificial barrier that has nothing to do with performance.  Look at the teams accused of racism.  Look at their recent track record of winning.  This should be an easy pass for Flores and it would actually be poetic justice if Bill Belichik hired him as a coordinator and then put Flores in a position to replace him when it’s time to retire in a few years.  Racism is something I’ve never understood.  I can’t imagine not liking someone just by looking at them.  

MORE FLORES – It’s going to be hard for Flores to prove racism in his lawsuit as teams are making their minimum requirement.  This is why I’ve always had trouble with the Rooney Rule from day one.  If the Giants have made up their mind that Brian Daboll is their guy, it’s a real disservice to people like Flores or Eric Bienemy or Byron Leftwich to even give them interviews.  They’ve got no shot.  They are being interviewed because they ‘have to be’ but they aren’t being taken seriously.  I think Leftwich would have been hired by Jacksonville but he was uncomfortable working with the General Manager.  Change is inevitable.  More black head coaches will emerge.  It wasn’t so long ago there were no black quarterbacks in the NFL and that has changed a great deal over the last 10-15 years.  Racist or not, it’s tough to keep Dak Prescott, Lamar Jackson, Kyler Murray, etc off the field if you want to win.  We aren’t there yet with coaching but I believe we will get there.  Sadly, you can’t change a racist as much as we may want to try.

COACHING PATTERNS – All it may take is for one team to hire a black coach and win a Super Bowl and then the rest of them will do it.  It’s a copycat league and it seems all of the teams looking for new coaches want to find the next Sean McVey, which is to say they want some young, inexperienced, analytic driven brainiac and not really a football savvy person.  This is why Bill Belichik continues to be successful.  Belichik analyzes each game as it happens rather than consulting with a computer and working out probabilities based on general situations.  McVey has been part of some gutsy trades but as far as his on-field work is concerned, you could make the argument the Rams are in the Super Bowl in spite of their coach and his questionable decisions.

BETTMAN FIRES SHOT – During NHL All-Star Weekend, Gary Bettman held a press conference and was asked about the NHL Draft, in June, and whether the league was considering moving it from its scheduled location, Montreal.  Bettman admitted a decision will need to be made in the very near future and he didn’t hide his frustration at dealing with the Canadian government, which is acting very differently from American ones and making it challenging (to say the least) for the league to do business in this country.  Bettman also said Canadian teams are starting to inquire about moving to the United States where fans can attend and my guess is that if this nonsense continues too much longer you will see some relocations (likely temporary, but perhaps permanent).  The situation with Calgary’s new arena is tenuous and it shouldn’t take a genius to see that if there is an easy-out from Canada that looks economically better in the United States, the NHL is going to be very supportive of a transfer.  

BASEBALL SALARIES – As Major League Baseball continues to make itself less relevant as a big player amongst the top sports in North America, it’s worth noting this tidbit from Cubs podcaster Evan Altman, who points out MLB player salaries are down 6.4% from 2017 and the median salary is down 30% from 2015.  I would never have guessed such a thing and the ticket prices for fans certainly don’t reflect it.  I’ll almost always side with the players in these disputes.  Nobody is holding a gun to the head of owners to pay players they don’t want to pay and yet they complain that it’s not their fault when salaries escalate.

FLIN FLON BOMBERS – I watched more SJHL last week than I have all season as I was asked to help CFAR (Flin Flon) broadcast Bomber games during their recent four game road trip, which saw them go 2-1-and-1 against Yorkton, Notre Dame, Estevan, and Weyburn.  Here’s my takeaway on the Bombers:  very good team with excellent defense, good scoring depth, very good number one goalie, extremely composed.  Much has been made about their scoring by committee but I came away from the week believing Jaeden Mercier is a top three player in the league and he’d be right there for the scoring lead had he not missed considerable time due to injury and I hope NCAA teams are paying attention.  As good as the Bombers are this year, they are going to be even better next year with the amount of returnees up front.  

ESTEVAN BRUINS – The Bruins are Centennial Cup hosts and it was only one game but my impression of them is that they have 12 forwards who could all play on any team’s number one line.  Their defense is underrated and better than detractors think.  Their netminder (Boston Bilous) is a stud.  The only weakness I saw was discipline.  They took too many penalties for my liking and some of them were because they couldn’t keep their emotions in check.  They have the SJHL’s top penalty kill so they can get away with it but that will only take you so far once you get into a playoff series and are playing a team almost as good on a nightly basis.  The other takeaway from Estevan, which isn’t a new discovery:  Tower Cafe makes a killer meat pizza.  They also get full marks for how they conducted themselves asking for the vax pass.  There is a right way and a wrong way to do that.  The Tower, so far, has been the best out of any place I’ve been to.  Yes, they did ask for it and followed the rules but were humble and I didn’t feel ‘dirty’ like I have in other establishments.  

ECONOMICS – This pandemic has shown me that sports fans struggle to understand the impact of economics on how teams operate as well as how much impact they have on how their various communities prosper.  This isn’t the NHL, it’s just the SJHL, but let me go over the money spent just by having Flin Flon play a four game road trip last week.  They spent one night in Yorkton, three in Regina, and one in Estevan.  They had to eat in each of these communities and the bus needed fuel.  In each centre the Bombers played, families of the players were in attendance and they had to buy gas, food, and maybe some other things as well.  This is how we keep life going and all of us need the flow of money in order to survive.  The Bombers also can’t spend that money if they don’t have fans in the seats, fans buying merchandise, sponsors ponying up advertisements, and volunteers running fundraisers.  I’m just giving an SJHL example.  In the NHL, CFL, or NLL the impact those teams have on their respective cities is huge and to watch them potentially, leave because of government ideology is peak level madness.  We have to stop all this for our own good, even if you don’t care one bit about sports. 

OLYMPICS – I’m in the camp of people not watching the Olympics.  I don’t even really know why, to be honest.  I could lie and say it’s because of China and while that plays a part, I think I’ve just lost an overall rooting interest.  I do prefer the summer games over the winter ones anyway and perhaps it’s because the national sports channels have completely turned me off from watching but I don’t have any excitement or anticipation of seeing the next Clara Hughes, Brian Orser, Elvis Stojko, Jon Montgomery, Liz Manley, or Edi Podivinsky.  I just don’t have a way of getting to ‘know’ the young elite athletes of today.  My fault.  Entirely.  I’ve never been a figure skating fan but I always knew that if it wasn’t Orser, it was Kurt Browning and if it wasn’t Browning it was Stojko and if it wasn’t Stojko it was Patrick Chan.  And, yet I still watched it.  I couldn’t even begin to tell you who our top hopeful is for these Olympics.  Nevertheless, I wish them all well and maybe somebody will capture my attention.

(Mike Stackhouse is a freelance writer/broadcaster. Follow him on Twitter at @Stack1975)