STACKHOUSE’S 10 WEEKEND THOUGHTS
1 – COLLEGE FOOTBALL – The first game of the NCAA Football season was played on Saturday night with Central Arkansas defeating Austin Peay in front of 2000 fans. It’s a lower level contest as these schools aren’t powerhouses, but it’s a good first step towards restoring some normality. Spectators wore masks entering and walking around the stadium, but weren’t required to wear them while watching the game. There will be more games this weekend, some will have fans although no stadium is expected to exceed 25% capacity. Iowa State toyed with 40% but public backlash resulted in them closing the doors to all fans so they’ll play their first game on September 12th to an empty building.
2 – WJC POSSIBLE CANCEL – Rene Fasel, President of the International Ice Hockey Federation, has already conceded the World Junior Hockey Championship won’t have fans in attendance. The event isn’t scheduled to begin until Boxing Day but experts know the virus will still be a problem in late December. Remember when fans back in April all encouraged sports to just shut down for 2020 and come back in 2021? Well, the WJC goes into 2021 and it would appear it’s going to be an uphill battle – to put it mildly – for sports to resume in a normal way in 2021. Could sports just be over in North America? I think it’s something we need to come to grips with. Something else to watch is the Olympics. They were cancelled for 2020 and there’s no reason to think they’ll be held in 2021 either but CEO Toshiro Muro says a vaccine is not a requirement to host them and that the plan for now is to hold the Games with spectators on hand.
3 – STARS LOSE FANS – Dallas Stars CEO Brad Alberts admits his club has lost season ticket holders over the team’s support for Black Lives Matter. I have to say I was turned off as well. Not because of the desire for racial justice but because of the individual (Jacob Blake) these athletes all decided to support last week. I cancelled my SiriusXM membership last week because I can’t stomach the virtue signalling any longer. I’ve been watching all the sports as they have returned to play but making sure I mute or switch the channels during intermissions and I never ever watch the pregame and postgame chatter nor will I watch the highlight shows. On the weekend, I tried to get into the Raptors game as well as the Flyers-Islanders game on Saturday and I just couldn’t. I am not one of these people who are going on social media saying I’m done with professional sports but I have to tell you I didn’t like watching it this weekend and kept the tv off for the most part. Until athletes are ready to support all black lives and not just the black lives who fight with police and end up shot or killed, I can’t support their cause.
4 – NBA RATINGS – This is stunning to me, but television ratings are down 23% from last year and the playoffs have been the least watched in the last five years. With no fans in the building I would have figured the ratings would be the highest in five years, even if they weren’t up to the level the folks in the league front office were expecting. Could this be attributable to the social justice virtue signalling? Being a casual fan, I’ve had a difficult time identifying the players when they don’t have their names on their shoulders.
5 – GAME SEVENS – A good way to get me re-engaged with the NHL is to produce game seven playoff games and there ended up being three of them despite all three being in situations where one club enjoyed a 3-games-to-1 series lead. The only game I watched this week was the overtime thriller where Tampa eliminated Boston so I’ve probably missed some real good hockey as Colorado, Vancouver, and Philadelphia all climbed back into a one game sudden death contest to determine their series winners.
6 – GOALIES – It’s the most headbanging position in sports as far as I’m concerned. I think it’s silly to pay a large chunk of the salary cap for it but you also can’t afford to have bad goaltending. Who would have thought Michael Hutchinson would have more playoff wins (3) than Connor Hellebuyck (1) and Jordan Binnington (0) combined?
7 – MASKS – I saw Rod’s Rant on Thursday, as did thousands of others where he finally went off in a manner that I was hoping for him to do a few weeks ago. Nevertheless, he’s still in the small minority as far as people publicly calling this pandemic for what it is and that is nothing more than a politically correct virtue signal at this point. I’ve long said political correctness is a disease that’s infiltrated society to the point where it’s going to cause irreversible damage and we are finally here. Imagine the heads that would explode if Premier Scott Moe said, “Look we need to move on with life as 99.6% of the population really has nothing to worry about even if they test positive.” How heartless to the .4% he would be branded and he knows this, I believe. It’s the only way to explain the continued stupidity as far as these pandemic rules are concerned. I mean if you destroy thousands of other lives of people that don’t complain, it’s worth it. That’s the politically correct way. Rod’s point on why are the NHL players and managers wearing masks in their zoom interviews and press box camera shots if they can shake hands at the end of a series further drives this home. The reason is very simple – political correctness. Socially distancing in an empty press box can’t be all that hard. It’s all an effort to show the public they are being responsible and to influence Joe Blow to wear one even though there is no valid reason for it. And, it’s why I won’t wear a mask.
8 – SJHL ANNOUNCEMENT – Look for an official announcement on the SJHL season by midweek. My understanding is that a couple of meetings with health authorities have been cancelled but we are near the witching hour on a decision. To me, you have to allow the season to begin even if you put some pretty strict parameters in place for it. I’m hoping for close to 50% capacity and some form of a limited schedule. If you said you can only play one other team for the first month. Heck, I may actually come to like that. Ten games in a row between Yorkton and Melville? Sign me up. If they did this, my guess is that the other pairings would be Estevan-Weyburn, Nipawin-Melfort, Kindersley-Battlefords, Flin Flon-La Ronge, Humboldt-Notre Dame. If you did this for a month, I could accept it. Then go into another cohort for a month or something like that.
9 – PERSPECTIVE – Remember how crazy it was to suggest Major League Baseball could play without the bubble format? Well, they’ve conducted 103,668 tests since they started bringing players together and have a grand total of 85 positive cases. To my knowledge, only 1 has had a serious issue (Boston pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez was diagnosed with myocarditis, a heart condition that can be caused by ANY viral infection and isn’t Covid specific like CNN would like you to believe). For those wondering, that means 99.92% of all tests have come back negative. Stay safe! PS – Even Rodriguez is going to be okay, but he’s taking this season off out of an abundance of caution.
10 – THE EXPERTS – I’m often told that when I give my opinions I need to just shut up and listen to the experts. So then when I post opinions from experts, I’m told to shut up and listen only to certain experts. One of those experts I’m told that I need to listen to the most is Dr. Anthony Fauci, the leading infectious disease expert in the United States. On Friday, Fauci said we are in the midst of a pandemic era and that Covid is only the beginning. Buckle up folks. “Living in greater harmony with nature will require changes in human behaviour as well as other radical changes that may take decades to achieve: rebuilding the infrastructures of human existence, from cities to homes to workplaces to recreational and gatherings venues.” This would mean he sees things like Mosaic Stadium as a white elephant. I’ve been noticing for weeks that people of Fauci’s ilk are using this pandemic to further their green agenda. We can stop this nonsense anytime we want and go back to normal. Literally, anytime.We just have to want to bad enough.
(Mike Stackhouse is a freelance writer/broadcaster. Follow him on Twitter at @Stack1975)
