STACKHOUSE’S 10 THOUGHTS

1 – REF HOT MIC – The NHL has fired Tim Peel a month before his scheduled retirement after he was caught on a hot mic earlier this week commenting on a penalty he called against the Nashville Predators. No context can be provided because it was just a few seconds that was heard, but it appears Peel wanted to get an early game penalty called against the Preds and admitted the infraction was ‘weak’. Anyone who watches hockey with any regularity knows the formula when it comes to penalties. You call a few early on against both teams so that we can all see 2-3 powerplays from each side and then as the game goes along you don’t see much of anything called. Peel was caught vocalizing what we all know to be fact. For that, he’s fired. Just like society really.  

2 – GAME MANAGEMENT – One of my biggest beefs with the NHL over the years has been referees leaving the whistle in their pocket late in the third period of games and just allowing players to mug one another. Often the excuse is ‘let the players decide the game, not the referees’ but my counter to that is referees are actually deciding the game through inaction. What I want is consistency. Don’t call something chintzy three minutes into the first period and then ignore a slash on the wrist with four minutes to go in the third. Determine the standard early on, communicate with the players that no matter what penalties are going to be called and stick to it. Players are smart. They’ll catch on to what is allowed and what isn’t and they’ll play the game accordingly.

3 – PARITY – You have to wonder if there maybe isn’t as much parity in the NHL as we are led to believe.  Look at how many Overtime Loss and Shootout Loss points are handed out. Couple that with the fact that referees try to ‘even things out’ as far as powerplays are concerned most nights and you have to believe there is a greater discrepancy between the good teams and the bad teams than what it actually appears in the standings.

4 – SJHL OVERTIME STORY – I wish I could remember the name of the referee but I can’t for the life of me and it’s too bad because he deserves a ton of credit for this. The year was 2005 or somewhere close to that and the Yorkton Terriers were playing the Notre Dame Hounds in a playoff game. Goaltenders Kevin Dziaduck and Chance Gieni were putting on a clinic and the game was well into the night and I believe it ended up going three overtimes (possibly more). In typical fashion, no penalties were called but plenty of infractions were happening. Jay Boyd and I were doing live television play by play and we had a wireless mic on the referee and were privy to the communication on the ice. It was fantastic and it’s too bad the league put a stop to it a couple years later because it really provided tremendous insight to what was going on. Anyways, during a stoppage the referee skated over to Mike Vandenberghe (Hounds coach) and Ed Zawatsky (Terriers coach) and clearly communicated that he is noticing plenty of instances where he could call a penalty but has declined to do so because he wants the players to determine the outcome but it’s reached the point where too much of it is happening and the next time a player goes down because of clutching, grabbing, slashing, tripping, etc. there will be a penalty called. Within a minute, a Terrier took down a Hound and the arm went up. The fans booed wildly but had they known what was relayed to both benches just moments earlier they’d have better understood. I think a couple of penalties were called and, eventually, the Terriers won the game at even strength.

5 – SJHL SCRUMS – Another blast from the past story comes from about the same time frame and those of us who worked in the league’s main office would get together for a summer brainstorm session to help pave the way for the upcoming season. One issue we had was games dragging past ten o’clock and we determined that part of the reason for this was frequent scrums in front of the net. If we could clean that up perhaps we’d shave some time off the games. The solution was that as soon as the first scrum of the game developed, the referee would be instructed to penalize one player only so that a team is shorthanded. The theory was that doing this consistently would, eventually, stomp out frequent scrums. It worked to a tee and we shaved off over 10 minutes from the average game. The late Jason Mercer did it better than anyone. If the game started on time, you could be assured that you’d be leaving the rink by 9:40.

6 – SJHL SEASON OVER – Even though the high variant cases are in Regina, it’s apparently too dangerous for the SJHL to have a 6-7 team bubble in Weyburn. Despite the city of Regina being on virus fire and things are needing to be tightened up to save many of its citizens from dying, it’s perfectly fine for the Western Hockey League to continue its bubble within the city. If you can figure that out from a health perspective, let me know. As a reminder, Minot hosted 1365 fans as recently as March 20th for their Junior A team’s game.  There is a difference of 170 miles from Minot to Weyburn and a magic border where science changes. It must or how else can you explain normal life in Minot for Junior A hockey and in Saskatchewan we can’t even figure out a way to put participants on the ice.  

7 – BASEBALL INJURIES – Every year they seem to get worse and worse, especially the pitchers. Add Blue Jay hurler Rob Ray to the list after he bruised his elbow walking up a flight of stairs with his child. If you watch a game you will often hear the announcers talk about how careful teams are with their pitchers so that they don’t endanger their health; for example swinging the bat can be extremely risky. It’s insane. If you can’t swing a bat, you probably shouldn’t pitch either. 

8 – PITCHER SALARIES – Despite starting pitchers working less than ever before, salaries continue to be unaffected.  Brittle Lance McCullers just got $85-million over 5-years from the Houston Astros. He’s never thrown more than 128 innings in a season, he missed all of 2019 because he was hurt, and his ERA has hovered around 4 in each of the last two years that he has pitched. That seems like a ridiculous amount for 5 innings and between 2 and 3 runs allowed over those five innings per week. The Blue Jays admit they saw trouble with Kirby Yates’ arm during his physical, but gave him just over $5-million anyways and now he’s done for the year before it even starts due to needing Tommy John Surgery. Somewhere along the line it was decided the best way to pitch was to learn 2-3 different pitches and throw them as hard as you can. If you watch a McCullers curveball, it’s no wonder he gets injured a lot.  The human arm shouldn’t do that. If coaches taught fundamentals like change of speed and location I think they’d find pitchers would have a much longer shelf life and you could get more out of them per appearance.

9 – WORKLOADS – Which brings me to another ridiculous thing baseball does with pitchers. Teams will put starters on a game by game pitch count and a season innings cap. Yet, relievers are good to go almost nightly and it matters not about innings or appearances. At the end of the day, the starters that are babied and the relievers who are not still get hurt at much the same rate. 

10 – NUMBER CRUNCHING – I’ve been looking at things all wrong during this pandemic. I haven’t been able to figure out why Manitoba seems so content with their tight restrictions but it has been revealed to me through a 2017 study as to why things may be the way they are. Manitoba has nearly 25% of its workforce tied up to the civil service and 52% of its taxpayers receive government money in some form to help their family income. Nearly none of those people have been affected by lockdowns or restrictions. That’s a big number so while your dry cleaners, casinos, audio event companies, banquet halls, youth activity businesses, tourism, sports teams, etc are completely destroyed; the reality is that it simply is not a large number of people. In other sectors that are open, things aren’t all that bad. Yes, the hair salon may be financially broke because they can’t fully staff the place but customers don’t care as long as they can get their hair done. Selfish world.  Until we start having compassion for those who are, literally, wrecked (some beyond repair) this is never ending because even though I may be affected (I work for a business that needs mass gatherings in order to be successful and I have three kids) I am not someone who gets a penny of government handout money nor am I in the civil service. Game. Set.  Match. Me and people like me have lost. Give it up.

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