STACKHOUSE’S 10 THOUGHTS

1 – SPRING TRAINING FANS – Rogers isn’t broadcasting any Blue Jays preseason games even though Buck Martinez and Ben Wagner (two of their announcers) are in Florida watching the team. Rogers picked up the YES feed on Sunday, which obviously tilts everything towards the Yankees perspective.  What stood out to me were two things: fans were allowed and the capacity for all ballparks in Florida during Spring Training is 20-25%. The second thing was a fourth inning interview with Yanks Manager Aaron Boone where he commented on a feeling of excitement despite having a lot of cumbersome protocols that need to be followed. He said he is getting the sense from authorities there is a light at the end of the tunnel and the situation is only going to keep improving from this day forward. That’s a message that isn’t being delivered in Canada. In fact, political and health ‘experts’ are selling the exact opposite just to ensure your depression doesn’t lift.

2 – CAPACITIES – With sports happening in the US in front of various percentages of capacity fans there is no reason whatsoever for governments in this country to continue with this charade of insisting the mere act of sports playing is too dangerous. I’m looking at outdoor leagues in Western Canada (WCBL, PFC, CFL) and the pressure needs to really be exerted today so that we aren’t still negotiating mere days away from regularly scheduled season openers. An announcement from the CFL on a start date with concrete details with regards to player protocols and allowable fans should have been made yesterday. The PFC, for me, is an easy rubber stamp. Those teams don’t play in front of large crowds anyway so to limit them to 10% capacity while playing in CFL stadiums is a no brainer and probably actually allows some of them to make more money than they ordinarily would otherwise. The WCBL is a little more challenging depending on the ballpark but if Spring Training can do it, so can the Canadian prairies in June and July. And, these announcements should be made NOW so that we all have something to look forward to (on the condition that the virus situation doesn’t worsen). 

3 – MOSAIC CAPACITY IDEA – If you allowed the Roughriders to play in front of 15% capacity that would equate to roughly 5000 fans. That’s not enough to prevent the team from bleeding money but I think it does allow you to play a season. If you charge double the normal amount for a ticket, that gets you to about 10,000 fans in actual revenue. That may not fly in all centres, but in Saskatchewan I don’t think you’d have much trouble. There are paths that can be pursued to salvage this, but the government has to be convinced to allow games to be played and I think their position only becomes weaker on that with each passing day. The time to get this done is now. Not June.

4 – VACCINATION PLAN – I’m hearing reports that no Canadian province will remove a single restriction until 70-90% of its population is vaccinated. Let’s circle back to last March when we were told that upwards of 30-40% of us were going to get the virus and the goal was to ensure we had enough hospital capacity to treat those that would require it. That’s the true reasoning of flattening the curve. You spread out the infections so that there is always treatment available for those that need it as opposed to flooding ERs beyond capacity in a short period of time. Wouldn’t it make more sense to open up society once those who are at most risk are vaccinated? If you have healthy people under age 70 infecting one another and almost nobody requires a hospital stay or even a doctor’s appointment, then what’s the problem? This is why, even with the snail’s pace Canada is going with regards to vaccines, I feel like normality could be restored by May but I’m also a realist. It won’t be. The data has been ignored on this from day one and worst case scenarios and doom and gloom projections are how we have made all decisions. For the record, approximately 2.5% of Saskatchewan people have had the virus. We have a long way to go to reach 30%.

5 – AJHL TESTING – The Alberta Junior Hockey League has announced they’ve completed the first round of testing of its 367 players and staff with 0 positive virus cases as a result. The testing is privately-funded and was administered after a 7-day quarantine. Everyone will have to undergo the same test one more time before practice is okayed. I will give the provincial government credit here. They are making it as hard as possible for the AJHL to play without cancelling them. Personally, I’ve always been at a loss as to why we are hell bent on chasing asymptomatic cases. Yes, I know they may infect 10 other people who also will show no symptoms or very mild ones that never require medical care, blah, blah, blah. Alberta is also the province that released it’s ICU data late last week and they actually had fewer people admitted for ICU in 2020 than they did in 2019. Yet, we are continuing with this …. Why? Someone in Alberta should ask Jason Kenney.  One final related thought – Have any of you ever entered a nursing home and, knowingly, infected your grandmother with a virus? I’m assuming no. Almost every virus known to human kind is spread through symptoms that most of us wouldn’t give two extra seconds to think about but until 2020 we didn’t destroy society about it.

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6 – NORTH DAKOTA – I tweeted this on Sunday and it’s getting a lot of attention so I will repeat it here.  The last four days (Monday March 1st being most recent) in North Dakota has virus counts of the following:  45, 29, 69, 90. Active cases are down to less than 600 and the test positivity rate is coming back at just over 3%. There have been no mandated restrictions of note since January 18th (including no masks, they’ve even passed a rule banning places from making masks mandatory). “Yeah but how many people have died since last March?” More than Saskatchewan but not as many as you think because both places have had less than 1% of the population die. North Dakota is 0.19 and Saskatchewan 0.03. Here’s what I can tell you – there has been no resurgence in North Dakota. What reason is there to believe that Saskatchewan would explode with full ICUs in the event we just put an end to all of this restrictive foolishness? Yet, I’m not advocating for that.  As far as sports goes, I’m simply saying let the participants play in a normal fashion and allow partial crowds to watch them. Mandatory masks are fine. Isn’t that a fair compromise?  

7 – STALOCK – Goaltending is a very unpredictable position despite it also being the most important on a hockey team. I’ve often felt you shouldn’t be afraid to throw as many darts as you can until you find something that works and be grateful for however long it works knowing that your luck can run out at any time without warning. To that end, Edmonton snagging Alex Stalock on waivers is a smart move. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t. But at least it’s something to try when Mike Smith falls back to earth, which hopefully for the Oilers isn’t for another two weeks as Stalock will have to isolate to prove he’s not contagious.

8 – SCOTTIES 2021 – I won’t even pretend to talk intelligently about the strategy of curling, but I do enjoy attending events and I have come to find the games intriguing, if not exciting at times, over the last number of years. The ladies game really seems to have changed in the last 15 years or so. I can remember watching 0-0 or 1-1 games after five ends and it was like watching the grass grow. The level of play now is just so good and I think the rules have been changed a bit to put more stones in play and it’s really improved the casual viewer experience. I found myself in front of the tv watching the Scotties almost every night and I was legit into it. The expanded format with allowing more teams in is also a plus. While other sports refuse to adapt with the times, curling isn’t one of them. The sport is always evolving and I’m also sensing an increased interest in it from our youth. Curling clubs around the province are very engaging and extremely welcoming for newbies and the stars of the sport are tremendous ambassadors. The other thing about curling for me is that it is the one sport where I’m not sure gender matters but perhaps an expert could enlighten me and this is where I’m exposing my novice knowledge of the game. I feel like Jennifer Jones’ team could beat Brad Gushue’s team on any given day even though the style each team plays is considerably different.

9 – GRATITUDE – Collin Morikawa won his fourth PGA event over the weekend, joining Tiger Woods to have won a Major and a WGC title before age 25. Following the tournament, Morikawa gave one of the greatest acceptance speeches you will ever hear. “Tiger means everything to me. Yes he had the crash and thankfully he’s alright and hopefully he has a quick and great recovery. But I think sometimes we don’t get to say ‘thank you’ enough. I want to say ‘thank you’ to Tiger. Sometimes you lose people too early. Kobe (Bryant). I lost my grandpa about a month ago and you don’t get to say ‘thank you’ enough. So, Thank-you guys.”

10 – STAMPEDE MEMORY – “Shut up Dumbo. Are you a baboon or are you a parrot?” Great choice for Jungle Jim Davies, who was on the receiving end of that Makhan Singh insult during an interview I watched earlier this week. Makhan, through these YouTube videos that I hope are stored on the internet forever, has provided me with countless laughs over the last month as I’ve delved into the Stampede archives. I forgot how Ed Whelan used to instruct the cameras to shut off during an extra violent beatdown. That happened as I watched Steve DiSalvo and Jason The Terrible team up against Makhan and Gary Albright. I also watched an old video where Makhan threw away his Cousin Mike overalls during an Atlantic Grand Prix Wrestling match. “Give these to a potato farmer, I don’t need them anymore.” Classic. He was the best.  

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