Stackhouse’s 10 Weekend Thoughts

2 – AMERICAN TAKE – Timing is everything, including the five minutes I was in my truck over lunch hour on Wednesday. I had my radio on Mad Dog Sirius XM with Katie Nolan and she brought up the Grey Cup and that the start time is 6pm but she isn’t sure if that’s Eastern or local time. She struggled to pronounce ‘Alouettes’ and then mockingly suggested Americans should be eagerly tuning in to the game. I believe her exact words were, “I’m sure we will all be making sure we catch the Canadian Super Bowl, right? Right? Right?”  This is how our brand of pro football is viewed and the typical Canadian response to that would be to get all snobby and brag how dumb they are for not appreciating our superior product and that Josh Allen would be a third stringer for the Ottawa RedBlacks. I got news for you: I can confirm Americans don’t know much about Canadian anything let alone football, but as it turns out … they don’t need to. Also, they are much more aware of Canada’s eroding freedoms than we are. And, that’s more important than understanding whether or not Montreal and Winnipeg are close to each other or what two Canadian teams are vying for 3-down, 110-yard supremacy.

3 – U-SPORTS FOOTBALL – The Vanier Cup semi-finals were held on Saturday and the Saskatchewan Huskies did their part to get to the big game by winning the Mitchell Bowl 22-11 over Queen’s.  They’ll play Montreal next week in Regina.  Every week I seem to have more evidence to show just how much we hate Canadian university sports and this week is no different.  The Huskies game was broadcast on the CBC Gem app, which almost nobody in this country has on their mobile device or streaming service.  Fortunately, I had it from a few years ago when the CEBL was on Gem; but I couldn’t get the clunky app to work as I had log-in issues and ended up missing a portion of the first quarter.  I also wouldn’t have known where to find the game at all had it not been for a very astute university sports fan that I know in Saskatoon.  I couldn’t tell you what was on the CBC main network Saturday afternoon that prevented the U-Sports football games from being on the main channel, but I’m kicking myself for not checking as I’m sure it was something ridiculous we could all have a good laugh over.  Tax dollars hard at work I suppose.  Now imagine the NCAA semi-finals being broadcast.  I bet there’s no searching to discover where to watch.

4 – HUSKIES QB AMUNDRUD – I don’t know the young man, but I was thinking a lot about Anton Amundrud as I watched the Huskies’ game on Saturday.  The star quarterback hasn’t played since early October because of personal issues that were revealed this week to be the diagnosis of lymphoma. His family has requested privacy and while it’s hard for the team to put emotions aside and play a football game, it’s also crushing, I am sure, for Amundrud to watch from afar not being able to contribute the way he has been accustomed to doing.  Yes, there are bigger battles than football but a lot of people don’t understand that sports is life for many athletes and when you don’t have it, it further tests one’s mental strength when facing a challenge such as this.  Like I said, I don’t know Anton but I’m rooting for him big time and will think of him often and will be searching online for any updates. 

5 – UFC SATURDAY – UFC322 had a welterweight theme to it with Islam Makhachev capping the night with a unanimous decision over Jack Della Maddalena in the main event. Makhachev had JDM on the ground for 20 minutes out of the 25 minute fight.  Several Dagestani fighters are dominating the UFC right now through their ground game and while it’s boring to watch, the reality is that nobody has an answer to defend it and because of that, I don’t see it changing anytime soon.  Makhachev aside, there are half a dozen fighters in the 170 pound weight class who are all worthy of number one contender status.  Based on what went down last night, Michael Morales may be the best of them all but Ian Machado Garry fights next week.  Shavkat Rakhmonov defeated Machado Garry at UFC310 but has no fight on the horizon.

6 – JUNIOR HOCKEY SUSPENSION – The OHL has suspended Luke Dragusica indefinitely after he slashed Brady Blaseg across the face during a game on Friday night.  Not much has been made about what transpired before the slash, but Blaseg hit Dragusica from behind and the latter went flying head first into the boards and could, easily, have suffered a serious injury himself and I’m guessing that’s why he lost his marbles as soon as he jumped back to his feet.  It won’t happen, but I’d suspend both players for a very long time.

7 – EDMONTON NHL – For the Oilers to run back this same goaltending year after year after year is unacceptable. For their fans and media to continually blame all the skaters for not helping out the goalie is next level hilarious. The coverage of the team is maddening. Evan Bouchard is not the problem and having great players like Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl ‘dragging’ the team to the Stanley Cup finals is a complete misrepresentation of how success works in hockey. How come Cale Makar and Nathan MacKinnon aren’t ‘dragging’ the Colorado Avalanche to the top of the NHL standings?  The Oilers are league finalists two years running. To listen to the criticism you’d think they don’t even make the playoffs. Fix the goaltending. I don’t get why they’ve been so shy to even make a change.  If you look at the offseason, Daniel Vladar signed a cheap contract with the Flyers. He’d be an upgrade for the Oilers.  There are other names out there who changed teams and would have been worth a dart for Edmonton. Brandon Bussi, Arturs Silovs (will grant you the Canucks probably aren’t trading within the division), John Gibson, and Alex Lyon all changed jerseys this summer and while none of them are all-star level netminders, the Oilers don’t need that.  They just need a goalie to not lose. I haven’t even mentioned Tristan Jarry, who the Penguins would have given away for nothing at the trade deadline last year.  Connor Ingram is five games into his stint with AHL Bakersfield and he’s not playing great, but I’d bring him up anyway and hope for the best.  It can’t be worse. Furthermore, Stuart Skinner deserves a new start somewhere else.

8 – MNF – The betting numbers on the Monday Night Football game between the Eagles and Packers indicated quite a bit of money was wagered on the Eagles to win, which means Vegas loses its shirt unless Green Bay wins.  A person who knows more about betting than I do, told me to watch for some tom foolery towards the end of the game if it’s close. Sure enough, the Eagles made some decisions late that allowed the Packers to have an opportunity to win. Is Nick Sirianni a moron or does he have another reason to coach poorly with 25 seconds left?  I’m sorry, but you no longer can give the benefit of the doubt to these guys. Sirianni has won a Super Bowl. Taking a fourth down gamble, ahead by three, with under half a minute to go in the game and near midfield isn’t something you decide to do because you just don’t know better or because of analytics.

9 – COACHING STYLES – The Canadian Junior Football League has named Prince George’s Jamie Boreham the Coach of the Year. It just goes to show how different things are in football compared to hockey. If you ever watched a Kodiaks practice and compared it to what goes on in hockey, there’s a chance he’d be put on administrative leave for mistreatment. I’m not advocating for one sport’s style over another, I’m simply pointing out the differences.  Some would say hockey has gone soft while others would say junior hockey is light years ahead of junior football when it comes to ensuring players are treated with better respect.  

10 – BIG SECRET – The NHL has a well-earned reputation of trying to hide bad publicity and that effort filters down throughout hockey to the junior ranks and while it’s commendable to minimize the negative PR, there does come a time where I think it serves everyone well to just come out and say whatever it is that needs to be said. In the case of Swift Current Broncos, now former, coach Dean Desilva there are so many rumours going around as to what led to his mutual parting of the ways that it is just a bad look on everyone. I’ve heard everything from ‘he spoke mean to a player’ to ‘he cross checked a player on Live Barn’ to ‘one of the European players didn’t like him so he collected videos of mean behaviour to use against Desilva’. This also isn’t the first time a Swift Current WHL coach has been suspended for questionable personal conduct.  So, what’s going on in the Broncos organization that they are attracting coaches who don’t know how to behave themselves? I think it would be best to just get it out there and put an end to the rumours that are, frankly, damaging more people than if the truth was simply known.

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