STACKHOUSE’S 10 THOUGHTS

1 – RIDERS ESCAPE EMBARRASSMENT – In a game that saw five rouges, the Saskatchewan Roughriders eked out a 12-11 win over Edmonton in a game the Riders, frankly, could not have tried harder to lose against a team that is one of the worst in recent CFL memory. Let’s also come to terms with the fact the Riders lose that game if it’s against any other team, but this is the Bad News Edmonton CFL Bears we are talking about. The positive to take from this is QB Trevor Harris reminded me of Darian Durant in that he had a frustrating game from a performance perspective, but with the game on the line late in the fourth quarter, he was magnificent in orchestrating a touchdown to get the Riders to within 11-9 and then converted on the two point attempt to tie it before the colossal blunder on the return that led to Brett Lauther’s single.

2 – BAD COACHING – For his part, Edmonton returner CJ Sims, who’s in his first CFL season and may have been unfamiliar with the intricacy of the rules, accepted responsibility for letting Lauther’s kickoff get behind him and then jogging nonchalantly after it in the end zone but this is 100% on coaching and if it isn’t, what in the world do you need coaches for then? As a coach, don’t you re-iterate to your returner and the return team that you can’t give up a point at this juncture? It seems to me this should be as automatic a statement as ‘hey don’t leave your base on a fly ball since there is only 1 out’. Of course everyone knows the rule, but you further drive it home just in case. At 0-5, I’m left to wonder what is it about Chris Jones that allows him to hang on to his job. Typically, his won-loss record allows his superiors to turn a blind eye to everything else but now the won-loss record shouldn’t be ignored either.

3 – EDMONTON CONTINUES STREAK? – Next up for Edmonton to attempt to win their first of the season is next week against Hamilton. I’m thinking many feel as though the losing streak will end this upcoming week. Here’s to hoping it doesn’t and then the following three weeks are lined up with games against Winnipeg, BC, and Winnipeg again so they could very easily be 0-9 if they can somehow lose to a similarly inept CFL club.   

4 – MASOLI GOES DOWN  – Jeremiah Masoli is hurt again, going down in his first game back with a non-contact leg injury. As expected, social justice warriors took to Twitter to blame Garrett Marino for Masoli getting hurt yet again. I haven’t gone back to look at the Marino hit but a couple people have mentioned to me that this isn’t even the same leg that Marino injured on Masoli last year. Even if it was and Masoli rehabbed it to a point where he could play but was very susceptible to getting hurt again, then I’d ask who was the medical expert that allowed him to get back on the field? He’s injury prone. He’s the CFL version of Mike Trout/Byron Buxton. It’s unfortunate. But that is just the way it is.

5 – BUSH LEAGUE HITS – Since people are so eager to bring up Marino’s bush league hit on Masoli, now seems to be the appropriate time to point out the two handed shove by Chris Edwards (Hamilton) on Montreal’s Austin Mack a couple of weeks ago when Edwards appeared to be approaching Mack to shake hands. Mack wasn’t seriously hurt, but he could have been and it is a black eye for a league that, apparently, prides itself on peak level sportsmanship. Then you have the low hit delivered by Edmonton’s Jake Ceresna on Ottawa QB Tyrie Adams last week, which didn’t result in any suspension, simply a fine. Adams suffered an ACL injury and will miss the year, but I guess nobody is in the mood to demand a pound of flesh like they were a year ago at this time so the antics of Ceresna and Edwards have, basically, already been forgotten about.

6 – OTTAWA NEEDS QB HELP – The way TSN has gone on and on about Masoli, you’d think this was Doug Flutie going down and that he won’t be able to carry on with anything ever again. I get it. It’s low hanging fruit for the media and it’s hard not to be sympathetic, but there are a lot of players who have their careers felled by injury. That’s just part of the risk of being a professional athlete. The bigger focus should be on what does Ottawa do now for a quarterback with Masoli being out due to this non-contact injury that is Marino’s fault from last year and Adams being out due to a dirty hit two weeks ago that nobody really cares to talk about. Saskatchewan has four QBs on the roster and the consensus is that all of them are capable of playing at the CFL level. Maybe we see a trade in the coming days.

7 – REBUILDS ARE A FRAUD – When an NHL executive like Brendan Shanahan or Daniel Briere preaches patience for a rebuild, that should be a signal to fans that there really isn’t a desire to win.  Preaching patience is merely a sneaky way of buying job security because it keeps everyone off their back for 5-6 years while they play the long game when they don’t have to. The Vegas Golden Knights won a Stanley Cup six years into their existence but they didn’t do it by building through the draft and they actually didn’t do it from their expansion draft picks either. Jonathan Marchessault and William Karlsson did come from the Expansion Draft and both had prominent roles but everyone else of note was acquired via trade. In fact, the only player who played a playoff game for the Knights that was drafted by the Knights was defenseman Nicolas Hague. To my knowledge, only three other players played games during the season that were Knights draft picks (Pavel Dorofeyev, Paul Cotter and Kaeden Korczak).  Moral of the story – demand more from your team. It doesn’t take a long time to build.  You can make yourself relevant in one year if you truly want to and have a good manager.

8 – DEBRINCAT TRADED – A week ago, the Ottawa Senators said they would not trade Alex DeBrincat for pennies on the dollar but on Sunday, they sent him to Detroit for Dominik Kubalik, Donovan Sebrango, and two draft picks. I guess that’s nickels on the dollar. Kubalik did score 30 as a rookie with Chicago in 2020, but he’s been very inconsistent ever since and is signed for a modest $2.5-million for this upcoming season but hard to believe the Sens were after him as a ‘must get’ for DeBrincat and at some point shouldnt the future arrive rather than just continuing to accumulate draft picks? Meanwhile, DeBrincat signed a 4-year contract with the Wings for nearly $1-million per year less than what Pierre-Luc Dubois signed for in Los Angeles so this has to be a win for the Wings.  

9 – JUSTIN WRIGHT-FOREMAN – The Saskatchewan Rattlers are a bad basketball team. It’s an absolute sin to not have a consistent secondary scoring option to Justin Wright-Foreman, who is sometimes triple teamed when he has the ball. On Wednesday night against Ottawa, I watched JWF go 1-for-11 from the field for 2 points in the first half and to the credit of Jermel Kennedy, he picked up the slack on this night and had a season best 26-points by the end of the evening. Wright-Foreman, because of the added pressure of the defense, delved out 10-assists but he should have had 20 if his teammates could sink a shot. When we reached Elam Time, the Rattlers trailed 80-70 and actually fought their way back to be up 88-87 before the BlackJacks were able to capitalize on a steal from Wright-Foreman and go in uncontested for the winning basket. I guess what I want to say is that despite the Rattlers’ poor record, Justin Wright-Foreman is worth the price of admission. He’s the best player the CEBL has ever seen and maybe will ever see. He’s truly special and if he was taller than 6’2”, he’d be in the NBA for sure. I just wish the Rattlers surrounded him with a bit more talent. There are a few home games left for you to check him out if you haven’t already.  

10 – ROGERS NHL – There’s chatter that Rogers Sportsnet may make staffing cuts/changes to its hockey broadcasts for this Fall. Those closer to the situation suggest it comes down to the obscene amount of money Rogers delved out to get the NHL TV broadcast rights back in 2013 ($5.2-billion over 12 years) and the fact that it’s back loaded and the network isn’t exactly seeing an acceptable ROI. The product is already, basically, unwatchable and any critical comment that you may get is well filtered or neutered before it ever hits the airwaves so there really is no reason to watch anything other than the game itself. But, then again we are talking about a network that couldn’t afford to send its Leafs play by play radio team on the road and is considering simulcasting the opposing team’s broadcast for the upcoming year. I mean if you are a cell phone company trying to broadcast television but can’t afford to broadcast television, just get out of it already.

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