STACKHOUSE’S 10 MONDAY THOUGHTS

1 – CFL PLAY – To expand on a suggestion I made in my last column about the CFL taking its business to the United States, I would say the time has come for the CFL to present its plan to whatever government authorities are needed to give the approval and demand a drop dead date for that approval. If that date comes and goes with no answer (which many tell me is what happens with governments as they ignore you and then force you to make your own self-destructive decisions) or isn’t approved, then I think the CFL needs to be ready for a Plan B. I feel that Plan B should be to play in the United States and start over. Crowds, no matter how small, would be a victory over what’s allowed to happen in Canada. 

2 – COOPERATIVE MODEL – It’s well beyond my grade level of pay on how you’d go about doing this and I know it maybe sounds a lot like typical revenue sharing, but why not allow the CFL players to ‘buy in’ to the league and as it becomes more profitable, so too will the players. I’m not talking NHL ‘Hockey Related Revenue’ where the owners slyly omit major money makers that prevent the players from taking advantage and the players aren’t consulted on the level that they should be. I’m talking about the full business plan with stakeholders in management, coaching, and players and everyone pulling in the same direction to achieve success. That wouldn’t stop at revenue. Allow the players to have a real say (not a token say) in rules, how rosters should be composed, everything associated with the business of the league.  

3 – DESIRE TO PLAY – As much as all of this is the fault of government through nonsensical orders that, until you show me hard evidence, appear to save no lives at all; the fact remains that in Canada there just isn’t passion for sports and we don’t want to play bad enough here. We don’t have an impactful family like Justin Fields’ in the United States that pushed to play. Even before the pandemic hit, many sports teams in this country are working their marketing departments to their absolute limit to try and find ways to put more bums in the seats. My guess is that when reality finally hits people between the eyes and they see that some of these sports teams and programs simply aren’t going to survive all of this, there will be a lot of bemoaning about the pandemic, but in a lot of cases we didn’t support it the way we should have in the first place. If you have a population of 15,000 people in your city; shouldn’t there be 1500-2000 in the local hockey rink to watch the junior hockey team every night?   

4 – SPOKESPEOPLE – Professional athletes have been used as pawns in this pandemic to promote ‘stay safe’ messaging, in particular by wearing a mask in places where it makes no sense whatsoever to wear one.  That’s fine. If you want to protect yourself from the empty press box that’s entirely your prerogative and if that influences someone at home to throw one on then so be it. But, I also think the time has come for these same athletes to talk about the safety measures and sacrifices they’ve made in order to proceed with their careers and perhaps that will influence others to do the same and give stumped Canadian health ‘experts’ ideas on how to allow for sports to resume. Everyone else has their life on hold, but professional sports is moving forward so let’s hear a bit about how these people have altered their routines in order to stay ‘safe’ as everyone likes to say but also are able to do what they are supposed to be doing. Don’t bark at me about ‘frequent testing’. There are other things these athletes are doing that allows them to navigate a Covid world successfully so let’s hear it.

5 – URBAN MEYER – I’m not a betting man really, but if there are odds out there with regards to new Jacksonville Jaguars coach Urban Meyer making it to Week 1 and actually coaching a game, I’m going to bet on the side he never reaches that point. Strength and Conditioning Coach Chris Doyle resigned over the weekend despite being vetted by Meyer. Apparently, Doyle (and I haven’t researched this deeply) has a history of racist comments, actions, and questionable techniques. Meyer has brought off-field issues to every team he’s coached in recent years and the Jags are obviously no different although what is different is the tolerance level from society with regards to such off-field issues, which is to say when it comes to certain people there is no tolerance.

6 – BLACK HISTORY MONTH – Rather than focus on what the media is promoting today, I’d much rather bring to light something that ended up on my Twitter feed this weekend that caused me to dig a little deeper and acknowledge in my own way the racism that went on and sadly does still exist today but in different forms. Buck O’Neil was a manager in the Negro Leagues and a video clip of Buck on the David Letterman Show had O’Neil detail a fascinating story with Jackie Robinson. I’m paraphrasing but basically the team wasn’t allowed to use the bathroom at the gas station where they filled up their bus because it was ‘For White Men Only’. Jackie didn’t care and got off the bus and headed for the restroom. When the owner tried to stop him, Jackie threatened to not put any gas in their 100 gallon tank. So the owner said, “Okay you boys can use the restroom but don’t stay too long.”  O’Neil said from that day forward they never went to a gas station or a restaurant where they weren’t allowed to enjoy the same amenities as white people. If you are a sports fan and haven’t taken the time to read up on some of the heroes of baseball from the Negro Leagues, do yourself a favor and start reading.

7 – 1982 WORLD SERIES – I watched a special on MLB Network over the weekend that featured the St. Louis Cardinals and, in particular, there was a piece on their 1982 World Series win over the Milwaukee Brewers. I was 7 years old and so it was the first World Series that I have committed to my memory. I’ve always been drawn to pitching and recall Joaquin Andujar winning three games but what I didn’t remember was the performance of rookie John Stuper, who threw a complete game in game six and you’d never see this today but Stuper outlasted numerous rain delays in a game that exceeded 5 hours in length and it was 13-1 too so there was really no reason to ‘abuse him’ as the analytical nerds like to say today. The 2011 World Series between the Cards and Texas may be one of the most exciting ever. If you are a Cardinals fan, which I’m not really, this documentary is a must-watch.

8 – CHILDHOOD SPORTS MEMORIES – Growing up in the Maritimes, most games on television didn’t even begin until 9 or 10 o’clock at night. Elementary school-aged boys should be in bed around that hour but I would often stay up and fall asleep on the couch watching so my best guess for not recalling the Stuper performance was because it likely wasn’t over until 3 in the morning. It would be 11 or 11:30 when my mom would yell out that it’s time to go to bed. Of course I was asleep and her yelling would wake me up and I’d just say ‘I am not sleeping.’ Back then when the games were over, so too was all programming and therefore the tv stations would just show and play an annoying bars and tone that could wake up the dead, but somehow I’d sleep through it.   

9 – DAYTONA 500 – As I’m writing this column, I have the Daytona 500 on and I think even though I’m in Saskatchewan this sporting event isn’t going to be over until 3 a.m. either (5 a.m. if I was still in New Brunswick). It’s been raining in that part of Florida for most of the day and rain in the forecast for Monday as well so they want to get the race in and doing it through the night seems to be the only option. Since it’s a Long Weekend, I’m quite okay with this one. It’s kinda neat actually to have something live run during such odd hours. Attendance, by the way, is 30-thousand.

10 – STAMPEDE UPDATES – Talking about Stampede Wrestling seems to be fairly popular so I’ll make more mention of it. I watched during the 1985-89 era and I was into it more than I was into the other more major promotions. Perhaps die hards are aware of where some of these performers are now but I never kept up to date and so I hit Google to find out the whereabouts of some of these athletes. Here’s three of them: I was saddened to learn Larry Cameron, who I think would have been a major superstar, passed away in 1993, suffering a heart attack in the middle of a match. Cameron, I believe, was the last North American champion before Stampede closed for business near the end of 1989. Biff Wellington died of a heart attack as well, in 2007.  He had been retired since 1996 but was still very young at just 42 years-old. Bulldog Bob Brown was born in Shoal Lake, Manitoba and performed for many years in the Maritimes (where I watched him in person a lot) as well as in Calgary. He was a tremendous heel wrestler and it’s a small world because I have been to Shoal Lake many, many times in my adult life, covering the Yellowhead Chiefs AAA Midgets. Bulldog Bob Brown died at age 59 of a heart attack in Kansas City in 1997.

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