STACKHOUSE’S 10 THOUGHTS

1 – MEDIA BAILOUT: The $600-million bailout offered by the federal government to qualified media organizations should affect sports departments as well. Newspapers have gutted their sports sections while television stations have also abandoned sports and left it to TSN and Sportsnet to provide the coverage, which means most of what isn’t NHL, MLB, NBA, NFL goes under-covered. TSN does a good job with the CFL because it’s a rights holder, but Sportsnet’s coverage is a joke. I’m not sure, but I think TSN bars local cameras from covering games and doing feature pieces on a local level with local footage so aside from videos from practice and national file footage, you get nothing unique from the local sources.

2 – LOCAL COVERAGE: There is a reason why blogs like Rod’s are successful. They fill a void left by mainstream sports media that has been bought off by companies who own the teams they cover. In some cases, an owner will control both the team and the media entity and then the media branch is used as a PR arm for the sports team. Just look at the, drastically, different perspectives of coverage you get on the Saskatchewan Roughriders from the two main radio stations that cover the team. I’d submit neither does it fairly. One does what they need to in order to keep the team happy while the other just acts as a contrarian.

3 – MORE: I know the common rule of thought is that it’s too expensive to have a Saskatchewan Sports Network, but I really wonder if that’s the case. It’s never been cheaper to produce quality videos, there is a surplus of entertaining writers, and plenty of announcer type people who can do a professional level job. You have outfits like Sasktel and Access Communications who are obligated to produce local content for their licenses and I just wonder if there isn’t a formula there for a collaborative tv/web/radio presence that offers CFL, university, junior hockey and football, high school, WCBL, NLL, CEBL, etc coverage. I think there are businesses with deep enough pockets to fund it. Does the public want it? It’s something that, to me, is worth pursuing.

4 – NO PANIC YET: I don’t watch preseason anything, but football (NFL and CFL) would be the last on my list so I give zero weight to the disastrous Roughriders score from the other night and offer no opinion on any of the stats or play from any of the players.

5 – THE ‘YOUNG’ BLUE JAYS: Sports teams do a great job tricking their fans. Marcus Stroman is 28. At what point will the Blue Jays be ready to contend? How old will he be? If your argument is that it won’t be for another 4-5 years, I’m wondering why waste the ‘cheap’ years of Vladimir Guerrero, Cavan Biggio, Bo Bichette, etc. If those guys are ready for big pay days by the time you are ‘ready’ to contend, then what’s the point? I think you should strike the free agent market now, hang on to Stroman, and aim to be better as soon as possible. The Boston Red Sox are a .500 team and the Blue Jays aren’t even trying to be better.

6 – FURTHERMORE: Here’s my all-time favorite example of a trade designed to build for the future that was a fraud: The Phillies dealt Cole Hamels to Texas in 2015 because he was 31 and the Phillies were light years away from being a contender. The Phillies got a haul for Hamels that included Jorge Alfaro, Nick Williams, Matt Harrison, Alec Asher, Jared Eickhoff, and Jake Thompson. In 2018, the Phillies were a contender, but faded down the stretch. They needed starting pitching, and could have had Hamels. But, he was pitching to the tune of a 2.36-ERA for the Cubs. None of the players the Phillies got were impact players. Alfaro was the best, but even he was traded this winter because they traded for JT Realmuto as an upgrade. They should have kept Hamels the entire time and been much better off and, perhaps, found themselves contending even sooner than 2018.

7 – PFC: June 1st is the official signing day for junior football teams and it was nice to see a number of players I’ve become accustomed to watching in high school over the years end up being able to continue their careers. I have my own vested interested in junior football now, but I also noticed Indian Head products Justin Reiger and Matthew Schill landing with the Regina Thunder. Reiger, a running back, was the MVP of the 9-Man Senior Bowl game last weekend. Schill may have a future at DL or LB. The Indian Head program is a good one. If you are interested, a lot of these teams are releasing names of their newcomers on social media.

8 – CHALLENGE CUP: Some of these players and more will be in Melville come July 6th for the Challenge Cup, which is a Manitoba vs Saskatchewan All-Star Game. Junior football teams will, officially, get going in late July and the first games will be played in late August. The season wraps up at the end of October with playoffs to follow.

9 – LEAFS NATION: It looks like Patrick Marleau will be traded to Phoenix or a California team in an effort to make room for the Mitch Marner contract. I’ve been saying, for over a year, that the Leafs would find a way to make Marleau go away in time for a Marner extension. I just figured he’d ‘retire’ the same way Marian Hossa did, which is to say he became allergic to his equipment. Instead, Leaf fans are saying he’s ‘taking one for the team’ by waiving his no trade clause to go back to the west coast. For me, I wonder how badly a player wants to win when he hasn’t won a cup and leaves a contending team to ride off into the sunset (literally) with a club that has no shot whatsoever. I’m sure Patrick is a nice man and he’s a good Saskatchewan born player. But, to me, he falls into the same category as Shane Doan, which is to say he’s a really good player but being comfortable is more important than winning.

10 – J-E-T-S: I don’t know why any team would be in a hurry to do a favour to the Maple Leafs.  Everyone knows they are in a bind and taking on Marleau helps them out a great deal. Does Kevin Cheveldayoff have the same friends as Kyle Dubas? It would be nice if someone wanted Bryan Little, Mathieu Perreault, or Dmitri Kulikov so that Kyle Connor and Patrik Laine could be fit under the cap a lot easier.

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