Stackhouse’s 10 Weekend Thoughts

1 – RIDERS OUTLOOK – The Saskatchewan Roughriders open the regular season Thursday night, at home, against Ottawa after going 0-and-2 in the preseason.  I put zero stock in preseason games and I have the Riders at 13 wins and a Grey Cup appearance for 2025.  They look to be solid at just about every position while other teams, especially ones in their division, have serious question marks.  Edmonton is likely to be better but asking them to compete for a Grey Cup is a bit much.  Winnipeg should still be formidable but I believe they’ve peaked.  Calgary and BC are wildcards depending on what happens at quarterback.  The Lions feel as though Vernon Adams is not the guy, so Calgary is turning it over to him after having no other options at quarterback.  The Lions are paying Nathan Rourke a lot of money but his salary is the only thing that would make you think he’s a superstar as his play tailed off last season considerably from where he was at when he attracted NFL interest.  

2 – EAST DIVISION – For a change, I think the strength of the league may be in the East Division.  Toronto should be strong again depending on Chad Kelly’s health status.  The team I’m most intersted to see is Ottawa.  I’m a believer in Dru Brown as he goes into his second full season as a starter and I think he could take the next step.  I realize it’s maybe not the prediction most are making but I’m going with a Saskatchewan-Ottawa Grey Cup game and the Riders to win it all this November.

3 – RIDERS PLAYED DESPITE SMOKE – The Riders played Friday night despite smokey air quality in southern Saskatchewan.  The game was delayed until 8pm to allow for the wind to shift and the situation definitely improved from where it was at two hours prior and the game went off without a hitch.  Good thing too because the Riders and Winnipeg were unlikely to reschedule a preseason game and it could have cost the organization some money had they been forced to issue refunds.  The announced attendance was just over 26-thousand but the CFL and the Riders seem to struggle when it comes to reporting how many people actually go to the games so the credibility of such a statistic should be challenged.  I don’t understand what makes it so hard to just say how many people were scanned in to watch the game.  Never mind the number of tickets sold or handed out or how many season ticket people, potentially, could have been there.  The scanned number at the gate is what should be official attendance.

4 – CFL MICKEY MOUSE STATS – It may be time to punt on the CFL stats program. It hasn’t worked for three years.  You’d think, by now, we’d be able to get accurate totals for the skill positions but somehow Riders RB Mario Anderson ran 7 times for 21 yards, which by CFL math comes out to an average per carry yard of negative 9.9.  When I went to school, 21 yards with 7 carries would be plus 3.  Just make it make sense.  At one point on Friday, it had Anderson down for negative 70 yards as a total.  If you are a professional football league, you have to have a professional stats program.  I get that they are wanting to take advantage of technology to introduce some new data but it’s been three years and the basics can’t really be trusted.

5 – CUP FINAL – For the second straight season, it’s the Edmonton Oilers and Florida Panthers in the Stanley Cup final.  This time, I’m taking the Oilers to win it.  I’ve said since day one they have a dominant roster that is head and shoulders better than any other team in the league.  The weak link is their goaltending but Stuart Skinner has turned his playoff around and goes into the series against the Panthers looking every bit like a number one goalie.  As long as he keeps the goals against to three or less, the Oilers will win.  

6 – DALLAS STARS – The Dallas Stars gave up the first goal in 15 of 18 playoff games.  I stated at the beginning of the playoffs that they were a poor bet to move on beyond the first round because they were abysmal against other top teams but somehow they managed to defeat Colorado despite trailing in most of the games of the series and then they defeated a Winnipeg team that never did resemble the regular season dominance they exuded.  When they met up with the Oilers we got to see the real Stars and they were, basically, no-shows.  It’s a great roster that most teams are envious of but now that their season is over they need to re-evaluate who should stay and who should go.  The chemistry, clearly, isn’t right and I’m not so sure the coach is the right coach either.  Remember, Vegas fired Pete DeBoer after missing the playoffs for the first and only time in 2022 and then won a Cup the very next season.  

7 – NHL SEASON DRAGS ON – I’m probably in the minority on this but the NHL season is way too long.  When the Calgary Flames defeated the Montreal Canadiens in game six of the Stanley Cup finals in 1989, it was May 25th.  Thirty-six years later and there has been no change to the postseason as it’s still 16 teams and the amount of games played is also much the same (82 now instead of 80) and yet game one of the finals won’t begin until June 4th.  I’m sure fans of the Oilers and Panthers don’t care when this series gets played our how late in the year it goes, but I’m out.  If the series goes the full seven games like it did last year, we are looking at June 20th to crown a champion and then one week later it’s the draft and less than a week after that we have the opening day of free agency.  I’m sure the NHL wants to stay in the news cycle and not have a break but, for me, it’s too long and I lose interest in the draft and free agency because of it but I’m sure I’m in the minority.  

8 – RATTLERS FINALLY WIN – The Saskatchewan Rattlers picked up their first win of the season by outlasting the defending champion Niagara River Lions 89-87 on Friday night, overcoming a 10-point deficit after the first quarter.  The Rattlers tried hard to lose in Elam Ending time as they missed 4 free throws but the River Lions kept giving the Rattlers opportunities to put the game away and eventually Jordan Bowden did exactly that.  Grant Anticevitch led the Rattlers with 25-points and 9-rebounds.  Cody John contributed 16 as Saskatchewan moves to 1-and-4 overall.  They will finish a three game road trip in Calgary before coming home to face the power house Vancouver Bandits next Sunday.

9 – RATTLERS DEPTH – Bowden was signed earlier this week and it’s a significant move by Barry Rawlyk as it gives the Rattlers much needed depth and while the record doesn’t look good and I admit to being pessimistic about the season as a whole, the reality is that the Rattlers lost one game by two points and one game by three and a third game by seven so they’ve been in every one other than the season opener. The roster now resembles the 2022 one in that they have five solid starters (Jaden Bediako, Cody John, Jamir Chaplin, Nate Pierre-Louis, and Grant Anticevitch) with Bowden and Isaac Simon in the wings.  Bowden had a 34-point game last year as a member of the Montreal Alliance and is capable of putting up 20 a night.  The offense is capable of 90 a game but they need to clean up the turnovers.

10 – FOREST FIRES – I don’t think I’m speaking out of turn to say all of us are thinking of the folks displaced by the scary forest fire situations in northern Saskatchewan and northern Alberta.  For me, the situation in Flin Flon really hits home as I have numerous friends in that area and I visit often.  As of Sunday morning, it sounds like all structures in Flin Flon have been protected but the same can’t be said for lake properties, especially around Bakers Narrows.  From a sports perspective, I can’t imagine Flin Flon without the Whitney Forum.  If there is one building that symbolizes a city in western Canada, that may be the single most significant one anywhere.  The weather forecast for today calls for very windy conditions and a 30% chance of thunderstorms, which isn’t ideal at all.  There really is no timeline for residents to know when they can return home and that has to be a very unsettling feeling, to say the least.

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