Stackhouse’s 10 Weekend Thoughts

2 – POLITICAL BACKDROP – While Americans really don’t care, Canadians are living and dying with their hatred of everything that is American through Olympic hockey.  Connor McDavid was asked about the political backdrop of the game and wasn’t taking the bait.  “This is a hockey game, I’m not getting into that.”  Meanwhile, Canadians renewed their newfound disdain for Wayne Gretzky during the semi-final, trying to determine through his non-verbal cues as to whether or not he could be secretly rooting against Canada.  While many of us brag about being the superior country, I will once again ask you to show me a list of American hockey players (or any athlete) who have decided to make Canada their retirement home.  Then do the same for Canadian pros who moved to the US.  Are the lists similar?  With all that is great about Canada today and all that is terrible with the US (check with mainstream media for talking points), how many of those Canadian athletes are moving home? 

3 – ELGERSMA DOESN’T WANT CFL – CFL fans are struggling to come to terms with Canadian quarterback Taylor Elgersma putting the league on the back burner while he pursues his NFL dream.  Elgersma signed a three-year deal with Green Bay last year after going undrafted and that would have paid him $989,000 had he managed to just stay on the roster (which he didn’t do).  Now, Elgersma is slated to help out at the NFL combine by throwing passes to draft prospects and then he’s expected to join the Birmingham Stallions of the UFL.  The payday with Birmingham is lower than the CFL if you are of the assumption Elgersma gets paid like a 5-year veteran who is one of the league’s best but he’s not.  So he’s probably making about even money in the UFL and he still has a path toward an NFL practice roster spot, which would dwarf any amount of money the CFL could offer him.  Is he chasing money?  Of course.  Don’t tell me you wouldn’t do the same thing.  Elgersma’s CFL rights belong to Winnipeg and they could use him with Zach Collaros on the downside of his career and Chris Streveler, seemingly, retired.

4 – BEARS RELOCATION – It’s hard to picture the Chicago Bears playing anywhere but Chicago but that possibility is very real after it was announced the team is exploring a relocation to Hammond, Indiana where they’d play in a brand new $5-billion domed facility.  The Bears are, currently, locked in a dispute with local politicians in Chicago over infrastructure funding and taxation.  They also had a proposal to go next to the current Soldier Field location but that was met with political and legal opposition.  The current lease expires in 2033 so it’s not like this is an urgent matter but it does bear watching.  My experience with politicians is that they are very good at screwing things up.

5 – NEW SUNDAY PROGRAMMING – ESPN has announced programming to replace Sunday Night Baseball and they’ve branded it Women Sports Sunday as they will dedicate the entire day to the WNBA, NWSL, women’s college basketball, softball, and any other primetime women’s sport that is happening on Sundays.  It remains to be seen if this is a ratings winner or if it will even eclipse whatever the ratings were for Major League Baseball.  I’m going to go out on a limb and say this will bomb in a spectacular way.  If this was a winning formula, surely it would have been attempted before now and several networks would copycat it.

6 – NBA TANKING – It will be interesting to see how the NBA tackles its latest ‘intentional tanking’ dilemma as the league recently fined Utah and Indiana for detrimental conduct to the league for sitting star players in games where they had the lead in the fourth quarter but wanted to ensure they actually would lose the game.  To me, there is only one solution and I’ve written about it before:  give the first pick to the top team that misses the playoffs.  In fact, this is how every league should do business.  Rewarding garbage franchises has never made sense to me and, in a lot of cases, a garbage franchise that ends up with a potential franchise player because they tanked for several years remains a garbage franchise and it’s not fair to the player entering the league to bear the burden of being responsible for turning a team around.  In the NHL right now, the top pick would be between Columbus and Washington but it would be a hotly contested race and there would be no chance of teams losing on purpose.  Last year, the top team to miss the playoffs was the Calgary Flames.  How good would they be with Matthew Schaefer be on their team today?  Teams that are poorly run and finish near the bottom of the standings don’t deserve ‘free’ franchise players.  Whatever the NBA decides to do, they better get it right.  I have zero interest in that league.  Players change teams way too much that I can’t follow it and because of the tanking, most games aren’t captivating until we get to the conference finals.

7 – HUSKIES PLAYOFFS – The Saskatchewan Huskies have advanced to the CanWest Hockey semi-finals after a two game sweep over the Alberta Golden Bears, capped with a 3-2 overtime victory on Saturday night.  Meanwhile, the Huskie women’s basketball team was upset 61-58 by Calgary, bringing to a screeching halt an end to their undefeated season and national championship reign.  Second ranked Regina also lost this weekend and so the conference final will feature the Lady Dinos against UBC next Saturday.  Shocking to say the least.

8 – UFC FIGHT NIGHT – Canadians, surely, weren’t happy last night at the sight of Sean Strickland knocking out Anthony ‘Fluffy’ Hernandez in the third round of the UFC Fight Night main event. The outspoken Strickland, who has made headlines in this country for criticizing our love for liberal control, appeared to be on his way down the rankings after losing two of his last three (both to Dricus Du Plessis) but last night’s victory puts him as next up for a title fight against the undefeated Khamzat Chimaev, and it may even come at the White House card scheduled for June 14th.  Personally, I have my doubts on this entire event even taking place as I put the odds of Donald Trump being out of office by then at 50-50.

9 – VELASQUEZ RELEASED – Video circulated on social media last weekend of former UFC fighter Cain Velasquez being reunited with his family after serving five years in jail for attempted murder in relation to an incident where Velasquez tried to kill a pedophile who sexually assaulted his son.  Velasquez ended up shooting the pedophile’s step father instead (by accident) and he suffered what are termed ‘non life threatening’ injuries.  I think most of us would applaud what Velasquez set out to do as it’s hard to put trust in the legal system on this.  We live in a time where powerful people are getting away with and normalizing sexual abuse of children.  

10 – EATING MAGNETS – Just when you thought we couldn’t live in any stranger a time comes word of a board game recall.  Klask4 is played with magnets and makers of the game note that if you decide to eat one of the magnets you will be fine.  But if you happen to ingest two of them, they will attract one another as it moves through your digestive system causing your intestines to twist and rip, which subsequently will result in your death.  Of course we need to be protected in a manner that allows us to eat TWO magnets from a board game so it’s prudent to recall the hundreds that consumers have purchased in the last few years.

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