Stackhouse’s 10 Weekend Thoughts

2 – CFL COMMISH – I read Rod’s commentary earlier this week where he said he sat around with some friends and none of them could name the new CFL Commissioner.  Some leaders like to lead without being the focal point, publicly, so I’m going to give Stewart Johnston the benefit of the doubt.  Having said that, Johnston has to remember this is Canada.  We don’t like leaders who lead by enabling people to do their jobs.  We want to be told what to do (more on that in point 10), how to do it, and need some sort of a lecture that things are okay even if we, deep down, know that they aren’t.  

3 – U-SPORTS FOOTBALL – For all the complaining about the CFL and its profile within the sporting world in this country, you could multiply that criticism by 100 when analyzing U-Sports.  Here we are one week away from the first preseason games in football and the most recent story on the website is from late June to announce a sponsor for the 2025 Vanier Cup.  By the way, do you know where the Vanier Cup is being held this year?  Regina!  I had no clue, but that could be a combination of my being ignorant of what’s reported on local mainstream media channels in addition to the poor self-promotion of U-Sports as a whole.  I feel like we should be getting daily updates on what’s happening with Taylor Elgersma at Green Bay camp as well as preseason previews for each team but instead we go into the season and most sports fans don’t have a clue when the actual year begins, let alone who the top teams are expected to be or who are the top athletes expected to star and who could be future CFLers to keep an eye on.  Getting young people engaged in the CFL should start with getting them engaged in what’s happening at the Canadian collegiate levels so that the athletes are already household names when they turn pro.

4 – RATTLERS END OF SEASON – The Saskatchewan Rattlers play their final game of the season on Sunday afternoon when they host the Brampton Honey Badgers (did you see the people bathing in the water at a beach in Brampton this weekend?).  It’ll be a match up of the two worst teams in the league and I hope it’s not the last game the Rattlers play as a franchise.  The reality is that the team hasn’t been good in any one season aside from the CEBL’s inaugural campaign back in 2019 and there is no indication of local ownership taking over the team.  Despite the poor records over the last several years, I have made it a point to go and attend 3-4 games a year since 2021 and I am a believer in the potential of the league and even the Rattlers but they need an injection of local ownership dollars and I’d love to see the support if they were near the top of the standings and were able to host a championship weekend.  Saskatoon strikes me as a basketball city but year after year of losing is going to sap enthusiasm of even the most ardent of fans.

5 – LONDON FIVE – Despite verdicts of not guilty, the National Hockey League seems to be in no hurry to reinstate the players charged with sexual assault from an incident that occured in 2018 while the five were members of Canada’s World Junior Team.  My opinions on this are well documented if you are a frequent reader of my columns but I have to say it’s a bad look for a league that always talks about waiting to let the legal system run its course and decide the fate of players who run into hot water.  Well now that the ordeal is over, why can’t these players get reinstated having been, legally, exonerated? Once again we have the sport of hockey, in particular the NHL, catering to a portion of the general public that will never be a paying customer.  It would seem the NHL is setting a precedent that it doesn’t want any part of a player who may have engaged in sexual conduct that strays outside the norm, whatever the norm may be.  I would suggest that even though we don’t necessarily know who they are, there are a lot more who are on rosters but shouldn’t be if that’s going to be the standard going forward.

6 – FLUFFY A CONTENDER – UFC Fight Nights are not usually anything to get excited about, but the card last night revealed a potential star in the making as Anthony “Fluffy” Hernandez battered Roman Dolidze for nearly four rounds before choking him out.  Hernandez has won eight straight fights dating back to February 2021 and, surely, will move up the middleweight rankings come Monday afternoon.  A title fight is definitely on the horizon but he may need to beat one more contender before that happens.  I could see Reinier de Ridder being a possibility.  He’s coming off a split decision win over Robert Whittaker in late July.  

7 – MIDDLEWEIGHT DIVISION – Dricus Du Plessis is atop the middleweight division and he will face Khamzat Chimaev next Saturday in UFC 319 in what is, probably, the most anticipated UFC bout of the year thus far.  Du Plessis has beaten Sean Strickland twice and Israel Adesanya once in his last three fights dating back to January of 2024.  Chimaev has been climbing the rankings steady but has only fought twice in the last two years, once was an impressive decision over Kamaru Usman and the other was a first round choke over Whittaker.  The early money is on Chimaev (-200) to win.

8 – PRO WRESTLING MORTALITY – After Hulk Hogan passed away late last month, I found myself going back into the Wrestlemania archives and realized that most of the professional wrestlers who were involved in the main event of the first ten Wrestlemanias are all now dead.  Hogan, Paul Orndorff, Roddy Piper, Muhammad Ali, King Kong Bundy, Andre The Giant, Randy Savage, The Ultimate Warrior, Sid Justice, Yokozuna, and Bam Bam Bigelow have all passed away.  Only Mr. T, Ted DiBiase, Sgt. Slaughter, and Bret Hart remain from the top match from Wrestlemanias 1-11 (1995).  Professional wrestling may always be known as a sport where life longevity will fall well below that of the common man but I can’t help but feel old myself when I see just how many of the wrestlers I used to watch as a youngster are no longer with us and somehow Ric Flair has survived it all.

9 – SHEDEUR DEBUT – The most talked about 5th round NFL draft pick in history made his preseason debut earlier this week and posted solid numbers in going 14-for-23, 138 yards, 2 touchdowns and 5-carries for 19-yards along the ground (three quarters of work) in a win over Carolina Panthers back-ups and third stringers.  For some reason, Sanders is a media darling of sorts and the reviews have been, over the top, gushing and some are calling for him to get the nod as the starter, which would not be all that far fetched to see at some point given the sad state of Cleveland’s quarterback room but let’s get a grip.  Sanders was a fifth rounder for a reason and he’s nowhere near ready to be a starting NFL QB.

10 – THIS IS THE WOODS – This last point doesn’t have a lot of sports in it, but hiking is a sport so I’m going to go into this a little bit.  Nova Scotia and New Brunswick governments (one Liberal, one Conservative) have brought down the authoritarian rule of law once again by banning all human activities such as hiking, fishing, and camping in what they deem to be ‘wooded’ areas.  The rationale is, once again, surprise surprise for your safety in light of the large threat of forest fires due to dry weather.  The New Brunswick ban extends to Crown land only while Nova Scotia’s covers everything.  The penalty is a $25,000 fine (cell phone use while driving is $500 if you want to compare safety measures). Nevermind the fact there are other ways to deal with this situation, such as increased presence with Conservation Officers or even through hiring temporary members to monitor careless behaviour.  While I see this as, once again, government overreach into the lives of Canadian citizens, I also have to recognize what I’m seeing online and that’s the widespread support of the people who live there.  They want these measures and they want the government to keep them safe.  I wonder if these same people ever wonder why liquor stores aren’t closed in an effort to curb drunk driving or why we continue to allow Jews to be attacked randomly (such was the case in Montreal this weekend).  Governments are so concerned about our well being, yet take 40% of our income to make it nearly impossible for a lot of us to live comfortably.  Our healthcare system is a mess, the education system is a disaster, the economy is basically paralyzed, and all of our cities are riddled with homelessness and drug abuse.  Yet, they’ve got the fire situation under control by banning you from going hiking or fishing and the only other thing that seems to be running smoothly is MAID.  And, some of you still think I am the bad guy through all of this.

(Mike Stackhouse is a freelance writer/broadcaster)