STACKHOUSE’S 10 THOUGHTS

1 – BERNIE LYNCH – The latest story this week from CBC indicates parents and billets in Edson, Alberta tried to do something about the alleged abusive behaviour of Bernie Lynch but got stonewalled.  This is one problem (of many) when it comes to playing unsanctioned hockey.  The Western States Hockey League that Edson was playing in isn’t answerable to Hockey Canada and so there isn’t much anyone with any amount of power within the game can do aside from blackball Lynch but I’d cut a wide swath on this if I was in charge of a Hockey Canada investigation.  I’d dig back through the years and anyone that is discovered to have enabled this behaviour would also be on the receiving end of lifetime bans.  If the allegations that are coming to light are true, we are looking at another Graham James or worse.  The mere thought of that gives me the creeps of which I can’t even begin to explain.

2 – VETTING COACHES – It’s amazing to me how junior hockey organizations will hire coaches and fail to do proper background checks.  I understand these teams are run by volunteer boards, but especially since the days of Graham James, I would think the process to hire would be extremely thorough.  If there is nobody on the Board with proper connections to dig into a potential head coach and get some background then you need to find someone outside the Board who is.  For me, if you are a coach and you have had a player go with you for an overnight personal trip somewhere, you are automatically dropped from the candidate list.  There was a situation not that long ago where a junior hockey team hired a coach who I was aware of almost from the day he was hired that he did not belong around players aged 16-20.  By and large because of my longtime involvement with the SJHL, I have not served on any junior boards.  I did a term at the AAA Midget level and very proud to have been a small part of hiring Jeff Odgers to coach the Maulers.  

3 – UNREST ON TEAM – Something else I’ve never understood about teams when it comes to coaches.  Even if a coach is totally innocent of wrongdoing, if you have 15 players who have mentally checked out and despise him, don’t you have to make a change anyway?  There is an old saying that you can’t fire an entire team of players so you fire the coach.  This is what I don’t understand about the Edson situation.  It was obvious Lynch wasn’t adored at all.  So even if there is nothing inappropriate about his behaviour, there is still tons of smoke here that an organization would be wise to just wash their hands of him and move on even if they didn’t want to launch a major investigation for improper behaviour. 

4 – NEEPAWA HAZING – I had a blog ten years ago and wrote several times about some odd things that were going on in Neepawa.  I was threatened on the phone one afternoon by their Director Of Player Personnel and it was about a year after that word came out on hazing, which was in the news if you want to Google search it (I’m not bringing up names from the past).  Point being, based on the tidbits of information that were leaking out to me 300km away from the players, parents, and billets…I found it to be of no surprise whatsoever when even more things started to come to light in the mainstream.  The time to have done something as far as making a change at Coach/GM/Director Of Player Personnel was very obvious well in advance and there has to be some bearing of responsibility on those who could have made the change but didn’t.  You can’t hide behind the fact you didn’t know.  Yet, after incidents of this magnitude are brought to light at least one of those people in a position of power at the time got hired by another organization after Neepawa made the change and I believe he is employed to this day in hockey.

5 – NEEPAWA NOW IN GOOD HANDS – The current Coach/General Manager in Neepawa is Ken Pearson.  I can’t think of a better person to be in charge.  Ken is born and raised in the community.  He played with the team in the early 90s and was an assistant coach in the later part of the decade under Don MacGillivray and led the team to a league final appearance against St. James in 1996.  He parlayed that into future head coaching roles where he ran very competent programs in Winkler, Brooks, Winnipeg South, North Battleford, back to Winkler a second time (which actually is further proof he’s a quality human being as well as a quality coach), and now he’s back in Neepawa where it all began.  Neepawa is a small market by Junior A standards so there are challenges there when it comes to competing to be sure.  Ken is well respected in the Junior A coaching fraternity and has a strong grasp on the mindset of our youth.  One thing he said to me about a year ago that has stuck with me is how he has noticed a difference in young hockey players today from yesteryear in so much that they ask a lot of ‘why’ questions but once you explain the ‘why’, these young men are extremely eager to follow directions in a perfect way.  He says being questioned is a good thing.  It shows the players are not only thinking about the upside to executing, but also genuinely care.

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6 – TOM WILSON – I hate defending Tom Wilson because it’s Tom Wilson, but count me in as one of the few people who think he should not have been suspended for his hit on Brandon Carlo last weekend.  Forget slow motion.  Life doesn’t work like that.  Watch the hit again at full speed and if you think he had enough time to process the thoughts people assume he had when he followed through on his hit then you need a promotion from wherever it is you are working.  I saw a guy looking to follow through on a physical play along the boards and I saw Carlo move his head a bit (possibly in anticipation at the last possible split second) and next thing you know Wilson gets them there.  If we want to remove rough play from hockey, then fine.  Suspend him.  30 games.  But, what about Jason Dickinson’s hit on Roman Josi the other night?  Some of you, I bet, haven’t even seen it or are aware of it.  0 games for that one.

7 – XFL/CFL PARTNERSHIP – Word got out publicly on Wednesday concerning a potential partnership down the road between the CFL and XFL.  For me, it’s way too early in the game to try and analyze whether this is a good or a bad thing for the CFL.  Their focus right now needs to be on playing in 2021.  If they can pull that off successfully, then let’s chat about post-pandemic things that may help improve the league.

8 – LEADING THE PATH – Last year when everything shut down, it was NASCAR and Major League Soccer that led the way back for sports and both entities had eyeballs on them from the entire sports world because there was nothing else to do.  I can only speak for myself, but I never ended up getting into MLS. NASCAR, however, has been on my tv every Sunday since the NFL season ended.  They’ve won me over as a fan and that wouldn’t have happened if they stayed shut down.  While it’s not on nearly the same scale, the CFL has an opportunity to be the first major crowd based industry (if I can call it that) in Canada to restart and I believe people everywhere are chomping at the bit to be more social.  Heck, I’d even go watch a country music concert at this point myself and people who know me know I’d rather listen to fingernails on a chalkboard than country music.  This may not mean a lot in places like Saskatchewan, Winnipeg, and Edmonton.  But, in places like Vancouver and Toronto, the CFL can make some major headway if they do this right.  They can show those cities that this isn’t second rate sports entertainment.  They also should have a very captive audience in those markets.  So, it’s imperative they are ready to go and it’s crucial they get a commitment from governments now.  They can’t be doing a race against the clock to fit in a season while negotiating with governments who specialize in delay tactics, thus forcing you to cancel yourself.

9 – CANADIAN OPEN – One of many concerns that I have is how willing are organizers to push for their events.  The Canadian Open is already canceled despite it not being scheduled until later in June.  It’s possible in order for that event to take place organizers would need to have firm commitments from governments (namely an easing on quarantine for border crossers) today and they can’t wait and thus not getting those guarantees from our rulers is what caused this to be canceled so early in the calendar.  There may also be financial reasons for not having this event and I wonder what the long term future would be if that’s the case.  Nevertheless, it is concerning to see people who are in charge of things tapping out on their events (sports and non-sports) already despite things looking increasingly positive.  I can say that if I was in charge of a government and I saw how quick people are to give up, I would see no reason to restore normality.  Those who have promoted lockdowns would end up staying relatively quiet and the ones who are struggling and battling just end up waving the white flag and figure out how to live their life in a ‘new normal’ way resigned to the fact that maybe Canada just doesn’t do concerts, sports, festivals, banquets, etc. anymore.

10 – REOPEN PUSH – We have a pretty good idea that nearly none of the Premiers are big fans of Justin Trudeau.  We also know that as long as we are restricted in our movements that plays into the hands of Trudeau as far as an election goes and there are a number of reasons why that’s the case but one of those reasons is that if we are not free to move around in great numbers you know that mail-in ballots or voting by telephone is going to become the way we do a June election.  Trudeau stands to win that method of an election quite handily and I don’t need to tell you how or why I know this.  My guess is the Premiers know this too and in-person voting is the only chance they have for getting change at the federal level.  Based on that, I wonder if they aren’t looking to potentially move towards a more rapid reopen plan over the next 6-8 weeks.  It is something to watch and you can bet that once the first province removes the bulk of its restrictions, the rest of them are going to do the same but nobody likes to go first.

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