STACKHOUSE’S 10 THOUGHTS

1 – NHL RETURN TO PLAY – It sounds like the NHL owners are having second thoughts on imposing further financial restrictions on the players and that has paved the way for a January 13th start date. I’m a little surprised they reversed course so quickly but I’m very happy to be wrong and look forward to watching NHL hockey in the near future. Aside from what Winnipeg has done, I’ve missed most of the offseason moves and paid minimal attention to the draft, so I’ve got some excellent Christmas season reading to get caught up on. 

2 – CANADIAN DIVISION – It appears as though a Canadian Division is going to happen and there are some in the Toronto media who think this should become a permanent thing. This is why some people like me have no use for all things Toronto. There is no concept of anything outside Canada’s largest city. The media person who suggested this has no idea how big Canada really is. You wouldn’t put Boston and Los Angeles in the same division so why is it okay to have Ottawa and Vancouver in the same one? Thankfully the only exposure I get to Toronto media now is through the occasional Tweet and not through half hour or longer talk shows. It would be unbearable.

3 – HAZING – Disgusting details emerged this week on some of the hazing/abuse that has taken place in junior hockey over the last 50 years. I’m not going to go over the specifics. If you are that sick, you can Google them if you want but my feelings about it are this: I don’t believe this stuff happens anymore, as a rule. Did it? I think it would be tough to conjure up stories as graphic as what we are hearing if they weren’t. However, I think hockey has done a really good job in recent years of putting a stop to it and perhaps done better than any other sport. I should say these stories aren’t isolated to hockey. It’s not perfect and it will take time to get to a point where this never ever happens at all but I fear bringing all of this to light now gives people the wrong impression about how things are done in 2020. One of the reasons why it is hard to stop the cycle and why some of these stories are as horrible as they are is because you often see kids who are bullied emerge as even worse offenders when it’s ‘their turn’ to torment rookies. The mindset is that ‘this rookie is going to get it worse than I did’. I know a lot of junior coaches across western Canada and I can tell you NONE of them would tolerate this today. The other thing people should be prepared to learn at some point: some of these terrible stories happened in women’s sports as well. I can recall one that was relayed to me by a former player about 15 years ago that caused her to quit. I was floored. 

4 – BULLYING – I can tell you from first hand experience (although not through sports) the impact of being bullied. When I was very young, prior to my mid-teen years, I was often a target. By the time I was 15, I was a terrible person towards certain people and I can tell you I treated them far worse than I was treated when I was the one on the receiving end. Even within our friend circle, there was a guy who we all liked but who we also all bullied. Looking back, it’s actually mind blowing as much as it is shameful to even admit. How do you treat someone you like this way let alone someone you don’t even know?  

5 – NBA LOAD MANAGEMENT – The NBA is instituting a rule that prohibits teams from resting players in ‘high profile’ games. In addition, the league is taking measures to ensure multiple players aren’t rested in the same game and also making it a mandate to not rest healthy players while on the road. I applaud these rules. Sports need to be treated more like entertainment and I’ve always said that if you go to a concert but your favorite band decided to use a fill-in singer for the show, you’d feel jipped and would want a refund.  That’s, essentially, what happens any time Kawhi Leonard gets a day off.

6 – RULES COMMITTEE – Any sports league that investigates potential rule changes to their game in order to maintain fan interest should use a committee that is completely independent of competition. Which is to say coaches and managers shouldn’t be involved at all. The goal for coaches and managers is to win, it’s not to entertain. Hockey, in particular, seems to periodically fall into ‘dead puck’ eras and I feel like we are on the brink of one again. A sure fire way to avoid that is to award additional standings points for goals scored.

7 – BASEBALL CHANGE – The big thing I’d like to see instituted with baseball is a maximum limit of 11 pitchers per roster. You can use them however you want but 11 is the max. I think that would get us back to the point of stretching starters out to 7 innings. I think it would also force coaches to teach pitchers to pitch and not just throw hard. Greg Maddux was the best at changing speeds and location and also pitching to contact to keep his pitch count low. I know the defensive shift is a contentious issue, but I have no problem with it. If batters learned to spray the ball all over the field and were willing to sacrifice power in order to generate more traffic on the basepaths, the shift would cancel itself in short order.

8 – DOMBROWSKI PHILLIES – The Philadelphia Phillies have hired Dave Dombrowski to be their President. The last we saw of Dombrowski, he was pushed out of the Boston Red Sox organization one year after building a World Series champion. The knock on Dombrowski is that he raids his own farm system through trades but if you look at all the deals he made while he was in charge with Boston, the only young player of note that he gave up was Yoan Moncada in a deal with the White Sox for Chris Sale. But that can be easily defended when you consider the Red Sox were also bringing along Rafael Devers to play third base.  I’ve talked lots about things wrong with baseball but when you have a proven winner as an Executive like Dombrowski who is vilified for building a champion, you know there are major issues with the sport. My knock on Dombrowski was the size of the contracts he doled out to his veterans. In fact, you could make the case Dombrowski knew exactly which prospects to blow out the door and which ones to keep. Andrew Benintendi, Christian Vazquez, Mookie Betts, Jackie Bradley, Xander Bogaerts, and Devers were all system players and key to winning the title.  

9 – LOU MARSH VOTING – Regina Leader-Post sports writer Rob Vanstone is taking a bit of criticism for being a voter who didn’t help break the tie in the Lou Marsh Trophy voting as he felt Jamal Murray of the Denver Nuggets deserved the nod and Rob makes an extremely credible case for him. Instead, Murray only got one vote; Rob’s. The rest of the votes were split between Alphonso Davies and Laurent Duvernay-Tardif.  Christine Sinclair and Kadeisha Buchanan also received one vote while Davies and Duvernay-Tardif got 18.  Kudos to Rob for sticking to the parameters of which the Lou Marsh Trophy is awarded. It goes to Canada’s top athlete (professional or amateur). With all due respect, Duvernay-Tardif’s efforts were not in the field of athletics but this is the national media we are talking about and ‘looking good and virtuous’ trumps everything else.

10 – COMPARISON TO FOX – Terry Fox won the Lou Marsh in 1980, probably because of his social contribution as well, but he also ran a marathon a day and over 5000 kilometres during his 143 day trek. The fact that Fox did his Marathon Of Hope by utilizing sports is why he won the award.  With all due respect to Duvernay-Tardif, what he’s doing is incredibly admirable, selfless, and heroic. He deserves an award. But not this one. What I would suggest is creating a new award and name it after Duvernay-Tardif which goes to any Canadian deemed to have made the biggest contribution to society through personal sacrifice. Maybe this award already exists but I couldn’t really find one that suits what Duvernay-Tardif is doing and best acknowledges as such.

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