Stackhouse’s 10 Weekend Thoughts

2 – HAMILTON KICKED OFF THE YEAR – Thursday night’s CFL season opener was an excellent game with excellent quarterback play from both Bo Levi Mitchell and Davis Alexander.  Announced attendance was just over 18,000 which was the worst for a season opener in Hamilton since 2003.  Yet, the league’s commissioner has brokered a $500-million broadcast deal?  I’m just asking the question and wondering why we have to rely on ‘sources’ and ‘rumours’ on the actual value of this deal.  A couple of people on social media commented the crowd was closer to 14,000 but the CFL counts ‘tickets distributed’ in the final number, which is a weird way to count people but whatever.  It’s a pro league though.  Am I wrong to be suspicious of the value of the broadcast deal when the tv ratings are, basically, a secret and the in-game attendance is down and there was no official celebration of such a mega-deal with TSN/DAZN/YouTube?

3 – OTTAWA – The Ottawa crowd was announced as just over 15,000 but a lot of observers on social media remarked that there were maybe 5,000 in actual bums in the seats.  It was an embarrassing display of support, especially for a home opener.  The excuse was a rain storm that dumped just over 20mm of precipitation in the area of the city where the football game was played.  My research indicates TD Place holds about 24,000 people and the typical expected no-show in a situation like that is around 20% so if there were truly 15,000 people there then that’s probably not bad.  TSN did a great job making sure the cameras stayed off the crowd so all I have to go on are photos from social media and I’m going to say no chance of there being 15,000 there.  Plus, this is a home opener.  This isn’t some random game in July.

4 – NHL MORE STREAMING – Last Sunday, NHL reporter Dave Pagnotta put out a blurb on  X claiming the NHL is about to further expand broadcast rights to Crave on Mondays, bumping Amazon Prime to Wednesdays.  Sportsnet will add Thursday and continue with Saturday’s Hockey Night In Canada.  Proving it’s not just an anti-CFL sentiment, the general feedback that I’ve seen on social media about adding another streaming service to the NHL viewing mix has been widely negative.  People have had enough and they aren’t going to spend any more money to watch.  There is a breaking point but what I’m curious is to see is how fast the sponsors and rights holders catch on to the fact a lot of fans have either turned to piracy or tuned out altogether.

5 – CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS SCAMMED – I’ve always felt that if you subscribe to all the Sportsnet and TSN channels as part of your regular cable package, you should be able to also see the ‘local’ broadcasts of the NHL teams, which is to say if you have every single Sportsnet and TSN channel offered, you should see all Canadian teams’ games.  But in typical Canadian ‘screw you’ fashion, you still pay extra for the additional channels but they black out the best content.  They still put enough on there to bait you into getting the channels but they sure aren’t going to give the fans what they deserve.  

6 – FANS FIGHT BACK – It’s long past time for fans to answer back and say ‘NO’.  Personally, I drew my own line in the sand about five years ago on what I’m willing to pay for, what I’m not willing to pay for, what I’m willing to consume outside of actual game play and what I’m not.  While I recognize Ron MacLean doesn’t care if I watch his pre/intermission/post game commentary, it goes both ways.  He doesn’t care if I watch, I don’t care if he’s on or not.  The biggest statement you can make as a fan is to NOT watch when you are upset about something.  An even bigger statement is keeping your money and not giving it to organizations that don’t appreciate you as a customer.  I believe that is, probably, going to happen with the CFL this season as fans anticipate the highly unpopular rule changes to make the game more attractive to the American audience.  When I have watched the NHL finals, I am shocked to hear Ray Ferraro on ABC.  Why would he give up the Canadian job for an American one?  Huh.

7 – NEED TO BE ON STREAMING SERVICES – I totally understand the argument that the CFL needs to ‘get with the times’ the same way the NHL, MLB, NFL, and NBA all require you to pay a bit extra to watch their games/content.  Here’s the other side of that argument – the CEBL is on CBC Gem for free.  Why?  Because more people will watch it for free than they will if they have to pay and the CEBL needs to attract more fans and also keep the ones they have engaged.  Once there is a demand for it, the CEBL would be crazy not to move to a pay to watch model.  I believe the CFL (Saskatchewan and Winnipeg markets notwithstanding) is in the same boat as the CEBL and this what just about every single CFL media person is failing to see and it’s why I pointed out in last week’s column the diminished attendance and diminished eyeballs watching TV.  It’s not like people decided not to go to the games because TV is another option.  What’s happened is people aren’t going to games AND they aren’t watching on TV.  Yet, the CFL media are perplexed as to why a pay to watch streaming model on an obscure platform is being poopooed by some.  The CFL and its teams need to be bending over backwards for the fans, not alienating them … but what do I know….

8 – ACCESSIBLE GAMES – Here’s another thing and I may be wrong on this, but I saw the advertisement for the CFL season opener on social media and it was listed as being on TSN 1, 4, and 5.  TSN 2 is the main national feed so it wasn’t readily available to people who only subscribe to the one national network channel.  I believe this was the case for me last year when I was at a hotel in Toronto and the hotel only offered TSN 2 and therefore I couldn’t watch the Riders at Argos game.  I got the Plays of the Year instead.  TSN 3 is for Manitoba/Saskatchewan people so if you only have the local feed on the prairies, you also don’t get to watch the game.  This doesn’t scream ‘CFL is a priority for TSN’ to me.

9 – STANLEY CUP – The Vegas Golden Knights lost an interference challenge late in the third period of game 2 against Carolina and the Hurricanes would go on to score a powerplay goal and then win the contest in overtime to tie up the series.  The next day (Friday), I saw countless analogies on the challenge and the ruling and I keep coming back to one thing – if you can’t tell for sure at high speed with one glance then you go with the call on the ice.  Having said all that, I feel it was a good goal however the NHL has been quite consistent on ruling that if you poke your stick under the goalie when he has the puck covered (and in this case you can’t tell if he did or not at normal speed), the ruling is no goal based on interference. What doesn’t make any sense at all is if there is no goal based on interference, how come they never assess an actual penalty?  Saturday night’s game three was a wild affair and while I have no dog in this fight, if you like hockey and don’t mind watching it in June, this is an incredible series.

10 – CEBL MAMBA – The Saskatoon Mamba won both home games last weekend to improve to 2-and-4 but they were back to their usual ways last night as they fell behind 23-3 out of the gate to Vancouver and ended up losing 105-85 to the first place Bandits.  The good news is that the Mamba are in a division where Calgary and Edmonton are also struggling.  The Stingers are 2-and-4 (also only drew 800 for their most recent home game) while the Surge are 0-and-6.  Saskatoon plays at Calgary this week before returning for their first game at Merlis Belsher on Monday, June 15.  Dominating big man Jaden Bediako didn’t play last night (Mamba are 2-and-0 when he plays) for reasons unknown.  His presence is crucial for them to have even a sniff at winning a game.

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