STACKHOUSE’S 10 THOUGHTS

1 – LEAH HEXTALL PLAY BY PLAY – Make no mistake about it, Sportsnet’s all-female broadcasting crew on Sunday for International Women’s Day was a publicity stunt and nothing else.  For this reason, I was skeptical about listening to a female do play by play and I am even partial to Leah to some degree. She may not remember, but I used to ‘cover’ her as a high school badminton player during my media days in Brandon.  She was an excellent athlete and a fun interview. What she’s done with her broadcasting career is very admirable but I didn’t want to listen to her do play by play. I think it’s because of the high pitch voice. This isn’t a woman thing for me. For example, I can’t stand the Philadelphia Flyers play by play guy (Tim Saunders, only reason I know this is I googled it just now) and they are my second favorite team. Every time the Flyers score he changes the octave of his voice and it’s like fingers on a chalkboard. Terrible. I listen to the other team’s feed when I’m driving and the Flyers game is on. Having said all that, Sportsnet showed the highlights of the Flames game that Leah was at the controls for and I didn’t mind it at all. She’s better than some men who have regular NHL gigs, no question. What occurred to me on the third Flames goal was that maybe she doesn’t need to say ‘he scores’. How she called that goal (go YouTube it if you want) was perfect and there was no high pitch to the voice. It was very good. Again, subjective topic to be sure but I was, pleasantly, surprised and I think she will have a regular NHL play by play job at some point.

2 – MORE EQUALITY – For those trumpeting equality, I wonder if I will be alive to see the day when sports teams will be required to roster a certain number of non-white males on their clubs. It will happen, even though many of you reading this will scoff at how ridiculous the idea will be. But, every other job in society is done this way. It’s called Employment Equity and even though you may say that you just can’t do that to sports because ‘the best’ should always make the team, the reality is that ‘the best’ should be hired for all positions not just sports and that’s not how things go.  The NFL already has the Rooney Rule for coaches, which is abused by teams in that they only have to interview a minority candidate and not necessarily hire.

3 – MEN AND WOMEN ON SAME TEAM – We may see that at some point too. There are a couple of ways you can do it.  You could have a three period game where the men play two and the women play one and then the next night, the women play two and the men play one.  Or, you could have a rule that says you must have a woman on the ice at all times. Criticize the idea if you want and I’m not saying whether I’m in favor of it or not, I’m just pointing out that we live in a world where ‘equal’ trumps everything else no matter how ridiculous you may think the idea is.

4 – BOSTON PLAYER DECISIONS – I just want to make sure I understand the Boston Red Sox.  They acquired a right fielder from the Dodgers (Alex Verdugo) who has a broken back. He has not played since mid-August and he will start this season on the disabled list.  In that same trade, they rejected accepting pitcher Brusdar Graterol because they felt there were some sort of signs in his medical that indicates he could possibly get injured but that if he remained a reliever then he’d be fine.  The Red Sox didn’t want a reliever, but amazing they can predict future injury. Nevertheless, somehow they’ve been unable to figure out what’s wrong with $30m a year man Chris Sale and it appears as though he will miss two months and perhaps longer if they can’t get to the bottom of his elbow trouble.  Oh, and the Red Sox who are allergic to the potential of a maybe injury to a young pitcher, went out and signed Collin McHugh last week to help their pitching staff. McHugh will also start the season on the injured list. He is rehabbing an arm injury the Red Sox knew about but don’t seem to be concerned to the extent they were on Graterol, who’s perfectly healthy as of today and has worked three scoreless innings for the Dodgers during spring training.

5 – WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER TANK – As everyone was crowning the New York Yankees AL East Division champs for 2020, the Red Sox went out and sewered their team so they have no chance of making the playoffs.  Toronto has stayed the course, for the most part, although I would have liked them to have added another veteran bat like Marcell Ozuna to protect the young guys. Tampa is ‘all in’ with their moves and they have been my pick all along no matter what people say about the Yankees.  But, here we are in mid-March and the Yankees have James Paxton injured, Luis Severino injured, Domingo German suspended, Aaron Hicks injured, Aaron Judge injured, and Giancarlo Stanton injured. Their starting outfield is Clint Frazier, Mike Tauchman, and Brett Gardner. If the Jays had ponied up and paid for one more starter and a big bat in their outfield and if the Red Sox had not mailed it in then it would be highly likely this would have been a hotly contested 4 team race all season long with the Yankees playing catch-up in July.

6 – CORONA VIRUS – Just a hunch, but I wonder if there is a possibility March Madness doesn’t happen this year.  It’s slated to begin March 16th and go until the first few days of April. You also have the NBA playoffs, the NHL playoffs, and the World Hockey Championships on the immediate horizon.  Some or all of these events are going to be cancelled. I am also starting to see bets being made about whether or not March Madness will go ahead, be cancelled, or be played in empty arenas.  As far as the NHL playoffs go, I’m sure if they cancelled as soon as Toronto isn’t involved, nobody would bat an eye. Also, I’m not calling in COVID-19 or whatever the politically correct term is.  It’s Corona Virus. If you are confusing it with beer, I can’t help you.

7 – MEDIA IN DRESSING ROOMS – For protective measures involving the Corona Virus, various leagues are taking steps to ban media from being in dressing rooms and locker rooms of professional athletes.  I said this back when it was an issue for women to be in the dressing room: there is no need for a man or woman or a gender neutral media member to go into a team’s dressing room. There should be a separate area for interviews and if you are really good at your job, you will have outside access to athletes, agents, coaches, managers, etc and you can do a much better job conducting one-on-one’s in that fashion.  The best sports journalism stories I got from my Wheat King days were secured when the players were nowhere near the Keystone Centre.

8 – SJHL PLAYOFFS OPENING WEEKEND – My takeaways:  Yorkton is on goaltender number 3 this year and I’d be stunned if any team could use their third goalie and achieve a decent amount of success, especially one who has missed most of the year because of a broken ankle, but Matthew Pesenti is battling and he has his team in the series as it shifts north.  La Ronge is fast, tough, chippy, and a serious threat to win the league. Battlefords and Flin Flon look to be on the fast track to the semi-finals. Melfort isn’t far behind them as long as they don’t get stymied again by Keenan Rancier, Estevan’s goalie. There has been a part of me that has thought it’ll be a Melfort-Battlefords repeat league final all season and I only wavered on that when the Mustangs went into the tank in late January for about 7-8 games, otherwise I’ve been bullish on them all year despite other teams being a more obvious pick.

9 – COLTS COACHING CHANGE – Former Roughrider receiver Tim Kearse is out as head coach of the CJFL’s Calgary Colts.  I met Tim last May and can’t say enough about his professionalism. I hope he lands on his feet and does great things.  Dennis Holowaychuk, who was the offensive co-ordinator last year, takes over. Holowaychuk has also worked with the Calgary Dinos. 

10 – CONFUSING – Imagine what others would think if you went to a Saskatchewan Roughriders game and cheered for the Riders but wore a Winnipeg Blue Bombers jersey.  The emotions for those watching would be much the same if you saw someone wearing UNIFOR clothing and conducting their shopping at a Coop convenience store, which seems to be the case if you believe the social media picture being shared.

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