STACKHOUSE’S 10 THOUGHTS

1 – RUSH NEW COACH – The Saskatchewan Rush have made a change at head coach, relieving Jeff McComb of his duties. General Manager Derek Keenan goes back behind the bench and will work with Jimmy Quinlan for the rest of the season with the intent being Quinlan becomes the head coach for next year.  If the decision was already made to not bring McComb back next season, this is a good move so they can see how the players respond over the last four games. It’s certainly too late to get into the playoffs for this year.  It’s hard to assess the Rush season. On one hand, they’ve outshot the opposition in 12 of 14 games yet only have 4 wins to show for it because they haven’t been able to get good goaltending and adequate scoring to click on the same night. With any good luck at all, this should be a 7-7 team. Is that on the coach? I would say no, but they’ve also been badly outscored in the fourth quarter of many games and that does reflect coaching to some degree. Their last game, an 8-6 loss to Calgary, also revealed a group that came unglued as they sent a steady stream of players to the penalty box and it greatly affected their ability to come from behind in a must-win game. I’ve often said that in hockey your players will take on the persona of the man behind the bench. Lacrosse is probably similar and there was a clear lack of focus last week.

2 – FLYERS SIT KEITH YANDLE – There’s no denying Yandle doesn’t deserve to be in a line-up every single night as he’s an abysmal -39 and has just 15-points, but the Flyers, as a team, are equally abysmal. The classy thing to do would be to let Yandle play out the season to keep his iron man streak intact, or at least let him play 11 more to get to 1000. It’s called respect for a veteran who, even if he isn’t as good as he used to be, shows up to play each and every night. Instead, they healthy scratched him on Saturday to take a look at college grad Ronnie Attard (who was -4 as Yandle’s replacement in a game they lost by 3). I mean this evaluation simply couldn’t wait? The Flyers should be addressing other more serious issues-namely how they’ve somehow ruined the careers of Ivan Provorov and Carter Hart and how they’ve managed to overpay players like James VanRiemsdyk and Kevin Hayes. They also are paying Ryan Ellis a gross amount of money for all of 4 games this season. Throw in the fact they drafted Nolan Patrick in a year when Miro Heiskanen, Cale Makar, and Elias Pettersson were the next three players selected and I would say making a daily line-up decision on Yandle should be far down their list of priorities to address. What a mess and what a classless organization. Also, how many coaches has this team gone through in the last four or five seasons? At least three.  

3 – JETS COMPARISONS – So if the Winnipeg Jets are so full of talent, explain how teams like the Los Angeles Kings have a much better record? Name three players on the Kings other than Kopitar, Doughty, and Quick. Not to mention those three players are in the twilight of their careers and aren’t exactly as good as they used to be. Then there is St. Louis, which isn’t even getting quality netminding from Jordan Binnington anymore. Who’s their leading scorer? Unless you follow it super closely, I bet you don’t know. Who would you rather have, Mark Scheifele or Matt Duchene? Before you answer, go look at the numbers and the record of the Nashville Predators. If the Jets are so rich in talent, then they’ve got immense issues outside of the players. As I’ve said for at least two years now the Jets are overrated as far as their players are concerned and their ownership/management isn’t the least bit interested in winning judging by the moves or lack thereof.  My guess is they’ll be even further away from a playoff spot this time next year than what they are now.

4 – INJURY REPORTING – The NHL does a better job than any other professional sport when it comes to keeping injuries a secret. Colorado forward Nazem Kadri will miss ‘some time’ but will be ‘back for the playoffs’. The exact nature of the injury was also not announced. I guess when you have a strong allegiance of fans you don’t need to keep them interested.  I thought this would be where sports media comes in. They do some investigative work and reveal what the injury is and what the prognosis will be, but I guess not. I’ve heard the argument that it’s important to keep injuries a secret because if other teams knew the part of the body that was ailing the player, they’d inflict further damage on said body part. This may have been true 25 years ago but it’s certainly not the case today. The other laughable reason for keeping injuries a secret is because you can catch your opponent by surprise when the hurt player returns. But, don’t kid yourself.  Everyone in the hockey world knows exactly what the injury is with Kadri and everyone has a fairly good idea when he will return.  This is just a dumb game to keep it out of the public eye that serves no real useful purpose.

5 – ZEGRAS/TERRY – Trevor Zegras scored another showboat style goal this past week as Anaheim ran up the score on Phoenix and there were other things that happened in this game that got under the skin of the Coyotes but the focus seems to be on Zegras and Troy Terry ‘skilling it up’. The Coyotes eventually responded with fisticuffs and this has drawn incredible ire from highly offended hockey media. How barbaric for the Coyotes to take exception to being embarrassed. We’ve heard a lot from people over the last two years that your ‘choices come with consequences’ and this can apply to someone who opts to score a goal or play in a way that further humiliates a team already losing badly. Any competitive athlete with pride is going to respond, usually through frustration. But, maybe we need to get rid of this in hockey too. That’s certainly the message from the media and maybe they’ll be successful in totally turning over the fan base. Some will tell you this would be a good thing. I’ve got diminishing attendance numbers across all levels of the game that prove otherwise.

6 – TERRY PHOTO – In that ‘line brawl’ between the Coyotes and Ducks, Terry got fed a few times and didn’t even take his gloves off.Photos of him after the game indicate he got popped pretty good and one of the Sportsnet commentators mentioned the Ducks’ players were ‘quite shaken up’ after this.  What a time to be alive. I guess if hockey wants none of this in the game (and there is reason to believe those in control want any and all forms of physical contact to just become extinct) they need to bring the hammer down on the Coyotes and suspend these players for 20 games.  I admit to watching an intermission on Saturday for the first time in about two years and I was, quickly, reminded why I stopped.  The level of outrage over this ‘scrum’ was laughable.  We will see what happens but my guess is punching Terry in the face while he refused to defend himself (not the smartest decision from Terry) will result in a smaller suspension than if Terry was called a hurtful name.

7 – SAVANNAH BANANAS – You may have seen some social media posts from the collegiate level baseball team, Savannah Bananas.  They’ve been getting some PR for rostering 75-year-old former Boston Red Sox/Montreal Expos pitcher Spaceman Bill Lee (he taught me my pick off move in youth baseball but that’s a story for another day), but there is a lot more to dissect here when it comes to this outfit.  It’s unclear to me if all teams in the league play by these rules or whether it’s just Savannah, but here they are (and I actually like most of these, it would make baseball a lot more fun):  Every inning counts (think of it as golf match play baseball style).  You outscore the team 4-2 in the first inning, the score is 1-0 at the end of the inning.  The team who wins the most innings wins the game.  Two hour time limit on all games, no stepping out of the batter’s box, no bunting, during an at-bat if there is a passed ball or wild pitch at any point then the batter can take off for first base, no walks (too long to get into, but you have to throw the ball around after ball four and it becomes a sprint), 1-on-1 showdown tiebreakers, no mound visits, and the best of all – if a fan catches a foul ball the batter is out. 

8 – KAEPERNICK – Now, Colin Kaepernick wants to play.  He’s 35 and hasn’t thrown a pass for six years in an NFL game but says he can still help a team win.  Kaepernick was in the bottom half of the league as a starter when he was released in 2016 and there is no reason to think a team would want a diminished version of what he was in 2022.  The smart thing for Kaepernick was always to play in the CFL and stay sharp but he was too good for that and now it’s way too late in his career for him to be relevant again as a player.  Maybe someone gives him a tryout but it’s nothing more than a publicity stunt.  It’s also worth noting he was never blackballed from the NFL.  There were contract offers on the table to him over the years, but none that suited his financial desires.

9 – WORLD JUNIOR BID – As much as I love junior hockey and would like to see the World Juniors back in Saskatchewan, I can’t support the cities of Regina and Saskatoon each using $350,000 of taxpayers’ money to bid on this event.  Remember, this $700,000 is simply to BID.  It doesn’t mean they are going to host.  We live in a time where taxes are at all-time highs, expenses for every day people are skyrocketing and municipal governments feel as though $700-thousand for a BID is wise?  I totally get that if they win and host the event the economic impact will be huge.  I guess maybe I should be focused on the cost of the bid.  There’s something wrong when you need $700-thousand in government money just to put in an application.  

10 – LIA THOMAS – I’m going to weigh in and my opinion may not be what you think.  This is a very hard issue.  Some would have you believe Lia changed genders simply to win swim meets.  That’s ridiculous.  On the other hand, it really isn’t fair to biological females to have to compete against Lia either.  Here’s what I do know as a father and coach of female athletes:  if a biological male transitioning to female wanted to play with and against other females I’d be alright with it most of the time.  The overwhelming majority of those transitioning just want to fit in and we should not deny them that right and it really makes no difference in a lot of cases as far as competitive advantage is concerned.  There are rare instances when you have a very gifted athlete such as Lia and I don’t know what the answer should be, but I do know that it’s sad for society when we can’t even have a discussion about this without being labeled some hateful name.  Before you say Lia has no advantage because he is now a she and all necessary requirements are passed, I would just remind you that at no time has a female that transitions to male ever come close to dominating elite sports so the fact remains that if you are born a boy, regardless of whatever it is that you do to become a girl, you still have an advantage when competing against other females.  So it’s not fair to the other females to have to compete against Lia but banning Lia isn’t fair to Lia.  There is no answer here.

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