Stackhouse’s 10 Weekend Thoughts

1 – ROURKE HIRED IN MARKETING DEPT – Nathan Rourke is back in the CFL with the BC Lions after a poor showing of 3-for-13 in his lone preseason appearance with the Atlanta Falcons last week.  Rourke is set to make gobs of money (by CFL standards) and the Lions also plan to keep ‘starter’ Vernon Adams to serve as Rourke’s back up despite it causing issues with the salary cap.  Well, it actually doesn’t cause issues because we’ve learned this week about a mysterious and suspect ‘marketing budget’ that has no cap and you are allowed to pay players through that and circumvent the cap.  How do you spell bush?  I guess it’s not considered marketing if a CFL team wants to oust its coaching staff and hire externally and then promote those coaches to attract more fans (as the Riders were handcuffed after Chris Jones was fired and Craig Dickenson had to work under the nonsensical salary ceiling for coaches).  So we have a player salary cap that isn’t really a cap.  We also have a coach/GM salary cap that is confusing to the point that I’m not sure that’s being monitored the way it should be.  Can someone breakdown how much room Edmonton had after getting rid of Chris Jones and the steps they needed to go through in order to fire him and replace him and still meet the criteria of the rule?  We have attendance numbers that aren’t true reflections of the fans going to games.  We have a replay command centre that can step in anytime it wants to alter games.  Are you wondering what’s going on?  I’m not.  To me, it’s quite clear what’s going on here.  I won’t spell it out because those of you who are intelligent know what it is and those of you who aren’t will just accuse me of wearing a tinfoil hat.

2 – RIDERS LOSE – Since the CFL Command Centre has no credibility, it’s impossible to give them the benefit of the doubt on Friday’s controversial call of Davis Alexander staying inbounds on his late fourth quarter go ahead touchdown run.  I watched it in real time speed and I felt he stayed in bounds.  There are various still images floating around the internet that would seem to indicate he pivoted and stepped out but TSN isn’t showing going to show up the Command Centre.  You know they’ve been read the riot act on that.  Nevertheless, if the Riders don’t give up a missed field goal touchdown or if even two of those four missed field goals are converted we aren’t even talking about Alexander’s touchdown.

3 – ALEXANDER STARS – Lost in all of this is that a CFL star has been born in Davis Alexander, the Montreal rookie QB who graduated from Portland State with a degree in Social Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship.  I have no idea what that is, perhaps it qualifies him to run Pearson International, but for now he’s the new starter on the defending Grey Cup champions while Cody Fajardo, the Grey Cup MVP from 2023, appears to have lost his job after missing the last five weeks with an injury.  It should be noted, Fajardo was on his way to a potential MOP Award at the time of the injury so Alexander taking the job is no small feat.

4 – KELLY/EDMONTON NOTES – Meanwhile, Chad Kelly met with CFL powers that be and it doesn’t sound like he’s going to be reinstated despite sitting out the 9 games he has been suspended for.  In any other league, you would serve your time and come back to play but not in the CFL.  You do your 9 games and then the league tosses it around some more before making a final decision.  What a joke.  Meanwhile, Edmonton has finally been sold and while it was rumoured that perhaps the team would go back to its former nickname you knew there is no snowball’s chance at the equator that the league would ever allow for that.  You can see how they micromanage who plays, what penalties are called, who gets to coach, who gets media credentials, what the attendance will be, who wins games, etc.  that there is just no way they’d ever green light a new owner to go back to the old name.  They’d rather fold the franchise first.   The rate this league is going, that may very well happen because people get tired of this after a while.  The league is lucky Kelly plays for Toronto and not somewhere that fans happen to care.

5 – LEAFS CAPTAIN – The Toronto Maple Leafs promised a shake up following their latest early playoff exit in the Spring.  This week, they revealed what their interpretation of a shake-up is by stripping John Tavares of his captaincy and making it a three day news story that Auston Matthews will take over.  I have to admit that I followed this one all week because, even in times of society being bubble wrapped, this very delicate matter had me chuckling several times as I read and listened to the various media takes.  I saw a couple of reports how Tavares was notified during his exit meeting that this may end up happening and then they spent the summer nurturing this potential announcement to ensure he didn’t totally melt down.  Matthews, on the other hand, I guess needs a C on his jersey to play better himself and also get more out of Mitch Marner in the playoffs.  

6 – PURPOSE OF CAPTAIN – The whole point of a captain on a hockey team has been lost.  To me, a captain used to mean leader.  It could mean that you are a great player but it often never was a deciding factor.  When the Islanders were winning Cups in the 80s, Denis Potvin wore the C.  Not Mike Bossy.  Serge Savard was Montreal’s captain at the end of their dynasty in the late 70s.  Not Guy Lafleur.  Oldtimers Lanny McDonald and Jim Peplinski captained the Flames team that won in 1989.  Guy Carbonneau wore the C for the Habs in 1993, the last time a Canadian team won the Cup.  Now, it seems to be a total affront to your leading scorer if someone else is deemed more worthy of being a captain.  For all the criticism I hand out to Winnipeg, this is one area where they have it right.  Adam Lowry is the best man for that job despite being a third liner (like Carbonneau was).  

7 – CANADIAN TEAM CAPTAINS – I haven’t verified this, but there is a meme on social media going around that points out 4 of the 7 Canadian NHL teams have American born players as captains.  My assumption as to why is that top end Canadian born players don’t want to play in Canada and that’s the reason for that.  Ask just about any Canadian person who has the financial flexibility that has spent any amount of time outside of Canada and they will tell you, if given the opportunity, they’d live somewhere else.  The only people who don’t seem to see what’s going on are those who never leave.  A friend of mine took his family to New York (which is a very liberal place) to watch the series between the Yankees and Blue Jays a couple of weeks ago and their teenaged son was heckled by fans, who called him a communist for wearing his Jays jersey.  The stadium also chanted ‘USA USA’ during the Canadian national anthem.  But, yes, I am wearing a tinfoil hat.

8 – DURAN SUSPENDED – Boston Red Sox outfielder Jarren Duran has been suspended for two games after he responded to a fan heckling him by uttering a so-called homophobic slur.  There’s no word on whether or not the fan the comment was directed towards is being banned from the ballpark or not.  I can pretty much assure you whatever the fan said to Duran was more personal and more hurtful but that doesn’t seem to matter.  I’ve also never understood the outrage over certain slang and derogatory names being used when two people are arguing, especially if it’s not personal.  To me, I find it far more offensive when the insults hit close to home.  A couple of years ago, Matthew Tkachuk chirped Evander Kane over his bankruptcy.  This, to me, has a much greater impact on the ‘victim’ of the insult yet nobody even batted an eye at this one.  In fact, I remember seeing a lot of jokes about it afterward.  The incident between Duran and the fan is, also, going to escalate further confrontations between athletes and fans because fans who do this type of thing are fully aware that there are serious consequences should you be so gross enough to get the player to respond back.

9 – STARTING PITCHERS – For years, I’ve complained about the short stints of starting pitchers in Major League Baseball.  Apparently I’m not alone and now there is serious discussion around how to get teams to stick with their starter deeper into games.  One thought is a mandatory 6-inning requirement, which you may find surprising, I cannot support.  I’m thinking more along the lines of teams losing their designated hitter once the starter comes out as well as putting a cap on the number of pitchers a team can have on the roster.  Nobody talks about it, but it’s easy to find many games where a highly paid starting pitcher leaves for no reason after five innings in a close, low scoring game in favor of some guy just up from the minors to blow it.

10 – SPORTS DEATHS – Longtime Canadian football coach Dan Dorazio passed away on Thursday at the age of 71 after a battle with pancreatic cancer.  Dorazio had a stint with the Roughriders in 2015.  He, most recently, had been hired by the UBC Thunderbirds and was in the midst of preparing for the upcoming season.  Dorazio, Dave Ritchie, and Mike Roach have all passed away and all were members of the 2007 BC Lions coaching staff that went 14-3-and-1 (they lost to the Riders in the West Division final).  Most people haven’t heard of Dmitri Filimonov, but I remember him playing for the PEI Senators (AHL) in the early 1990s and he did play 30 NHL games for Ottawa in 1994.  He passed away earlier this month at the age of 52.  No cause was listed other than his passing was sudden. 

(Mike Stackhouse is a freelance writer/broadcaster)