STACKHOUSE’S 10 THOUGHTS

1 – DETERIORATING SPORTS PLAY BY PLAY – I don’t want to date myself but I’m wondering if I am just getting pickier with my play by play announcers as I get older.  It seems to be that we’ve only gone downhill in the NFL since Pat Summerall/John Madden and we’ve only gone downhill in the CFL since Chris Cuthbert/Don Wittman and we’ve only gone downhill in the NHL since Bob Cole/Dan Kelly and we’ve only gone downhill in MLB since Dave Van Horne/Joe Buck.  I look at the primetime voices now and I’m unexcited, at best.  I’m curious to know if you are an older person who has watched sports in an era that predated the veteran announcers listed above, did you feel that way about Summerall, Cole, Van Horne, etc when you compared them to your youth and growing up watching games on tv?

2 – FUTURE BROADCASTERS – The CFL and NHL, in particular, seem to be in a rather sorry state for play by play.  At least as far as the CFL is concerned, you knew when the old timers on CBC moved on, there was going to be Cuthbert.  But now that Cuthbert is gone, watching a game feels like amateur hour.  And, that’s not to disparage the people doing it now as I’m sure they are putting their heart and soul into it, but some announcers simply aren’t cut out for play by play and I’m willing to say there are no current CFL play by play people who have me wanting to listen to them.  The same is true in the NHL right now.  I realize Sportsnet is hung up on workplace diversity and equity, but watching an NHL game can be painful if the game itself isn’t top notch.  This may seem like a suck-up statement, but if I was looking for a football play by play voice in Canada, I’d hire Darren Dupont.  I’d hire Rod Pedersen, but a little bird told me he’s not interested in that life anymore.

3 – MISSING ANNOUNCERS – As far as MLB goes, Buck is my all-time favorite.  I enjoyed Dave Van Horne growing up watching the Expos and I’d imitate him in the backyard playing baseball by myself (didn’t we all do that?) but there is no matching the legendary game ending calls of Buck.  The World Series without him just isn’t as good.  Having said that, Dan Shulman is as good as it gets and he’s Canadian.  NFL announcers Joe Davis and Kevin Burkhardt give me a bit of hope as well but they are not in the class of Buck, Al Michaels, Summerall, etc.  

4 – BALL TWEETS – I like Michael Ball, the voice of the Riders.  I even like some of his tweets that traditional folks may deem to be unprofessional for someone who has the role he has.  For me, I find Ball witty and interesting.  I keep going back to see what he has to say and even if I don’t agree with him, I’m entertained.  Isn’t that what we all should want?  I’m going to disagree with him on Mason Nyhus as far as a potential CFL quarterback is concerned but I’d love nothing more than to be wrong.  I’m also going to disagree with him on Bo Levi Mitchell being a Rider.  I’m not sure I’d be as happy to be wrong on this one as, at the moment, the Riders haven’t shown me they even deserve BLM.

5 – BALL PLAY BY PLAY – While on the subject of Ball, nobody pays me to be a broadcast coach or consultant so my advice is always worth what you pay for…but the only complaint I have about him doing play by play is that I find the touchdown calls to be a bit too unnatural.  Other than that, he’s very easy to listen to.  Personally, I like it when the play by play guy gets excited by accident.  Having said that, he’s the voice.  I’m not.  I’ll just shut up.

6 – WINNIPEG JETS – I have to admit I was wrong on the Winnipeg Jets.  I felt their problems went far beyond coaching and, in fact, I thought Paul Maurice quitting was a sign that things were about to get way worse.  While the Jets did treat last year with no seriousness whatsoever by hiring one of the players’ dads to replace Maurice, this year has been a different story.  They’ve done next to nothing to improve the roster and, in fact, have not had Nikolaj Ehlers hardly at all (just two games) yet they are in the mix for first place in what really is the toughest division in the NHL.  Meanwhile, Maurice is at the helm of the Florida Panthers now and they are a middling club despite adding Matthew Tkachuk to a roster that appears fairly stacked and was at the top of the NHL just a season ago.

7 – RUSH NEW FACES – The Saskatchewan Rush have a tall order Saturday night when they open the NLL season, at home, against the Colorado Mammoth.  The Mammoth are defending league champions while the Rush are going through a bit of a rebuild.  They’ll debut a new goalie in Alex Buque, although he’s far from a rookie at 30 years of age.  He fills most of the net with his 332 lbs frame and could, quickly, become a fan favorite if he gets the job done.  There are also four rookies to watch and I don’t think the Rush have ever injected that much new blood into the roster since moving to Saskatoon.  For me, Transition Jake Boudreau is the player to watch the closest but Austin Madronic has an opportunity to become a key contributor on offense right away.  Ryan Barnable and Isaac Ngyou have also made the grade but will begin the year on the injured list.

8 – CEBL OFFSEASON – It’s the offseason in the Canadian Elite Basketball League, but the CEBL is in the news with an expansion announcement for Winnipeg, a franchise transfer for the defending champion Hamilton Honey Badgers, who will play out of Brampton next year, and the suspension of operations for the Newfoundland Growlers.  They’ve also announced an expansion team for Calgary, called the Surge.  As far as the Rattlers go, it’ll be interesting to see who they can bring back from last year’s pleasantly surprising team that finished 11-and-9 and had MVP finalist Tony Carr leading the way.  The last I heard of Carr was that he was playing pro in Denmark for a team that also had Deng Adel (Ottawa) on it.

9 – SJHL INFLUENZA – Rod Pedersen mused in his weekend column about the SJHL’s La Ronge Ice Wolves being allowed to cancel games last week because of an influenza outbreak.  He asked for some discussion as to if this is where we are at in society.  The answer, of course, is yes.  Many of you vilified me for balking at closing entire schools over a couple of covid cases, and now most of you are rolling your eyes over canceled hockey games because of influenza.  If you didn’t want to go down the slippery slope, you should have spoken up when North Dakota played in front of full buildings while Saskatchewan couldn’t even put 12 people together on the ice with no crowd at all.  We have people in this province making decisions who don’t understand why a referee can’t wear a full shield when officiating a game.  If you are one of those people, I’m not explaining it here.  But, yes.  This is where we are.  We cancel games over influenza.  Thank yourself for that.  You didn’t resist then, you have no credibility to voice opposition to it now. 

10 – U SPORTS – The subject of Canadian University Sports getting a national broadcasting deal comes up almost every year after the Vanier Cup.  Here’s the harsh reality – during the regular season, you couldn’t pay most people to attend games and that’s sad.  The quality of play, in not only football, in all of the sports enjoyed by these elite athletes is nothing short of excellent.  In fact, I lived in New Brunswick many years ago and watched Canadian college teams beat NCAA ones in hockey.  So, it’s very good entertainment.  Having said that, the people that run U Sports (what a terrible name)  don’t give two you-know-whats about increasing the profile and because of that, nobody is even aware of how good the sports are.  Therefore, nobody is going to sponsor it for a national tv audience.  If you can’t draw flies at the local level, you aren’t drawing them nationally on tv either.  This would be a problem for most sports leagues.  For U Sports…meh.

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