Stackhouse’s 10 Weekend Thoughts

2 – LOSING EQUALS WINNING – I’ve seen numerous comments from people who have said they don’t care if the Riders lose money if they win Grey Cups but you should care.  If the recipe for winning equals profit loss there is no incentive for those up top to assemble a team geared to win.  The goal becomes ‘be competitive’ and if you happen to win by accident, then I guess so be it as long as it doesn’t run organizations out of business.  I’m also not sure what kind of a business model is built around ‘not’ winning.  How much more money would the Riders have lost if the Grey Cup was further away, say in Montreal as opposed to being in Winnipeg?  I’m probably going to be called a cheapskate for this, but I would have put a cap on costs associated with the rings and celebrations so that a profit could have been shown but that’s just me.

3 – MERCH SALES – Once again, merchandise sales for the Riders played a big role in driving revenues.  In 2024, the team sold $6.5-million in logo’d gear and that figure represented the highest total since 2018 and was also a massive jump from 2023 by, approximately, $2.4-million.  In 2025, Rider merch took yet another monumental leap in hauling in $9.1-million, which is a second straight year over year increase of $2.5-million.  That means the team is doing $5-million more in merch than just two seasons ago.   The province is, literally, going insane over jerseys, hoodies, hats, etc.  Based on those figures, all of us probably own something new from the merch store in the last two years.  In addition, if the Riders are still responsible for 70% of overall league merch sold, CFL fan gear, in general, is also on a sharp rise.

4 – CFL NOT FOR SECOND CHANCES – The CFL has decided Brendan Sorsby will not be eligible to play in the league due to his sports gambling addiction.  Gone are the days of the CFL taking chances on high profile athletes whose talent should mean an NFL career but baggage means otherwise.  I think of Lawrence Phillips and Ricky Williams as examples that come immediately to mind.  I also think of current Argo QB Chad Kelly, who the league tried to get rid of after he violated a gender based violence policy in 2024.  I think of Jeremiah Masoli, a convicted burglar, who was not only allowed to play but made out to be a saint by many in the media.  I think of Shawn Lemon, who was found to be wagering on CFL games but was re-instated to play.  The bottom line is the CFL has become a league of perceived high moral integrity and so players looking for a second chance or redemption need not apply.  Of course, the key word there is ‘perceived’. 

5 – AMERICAN EXODUS – Brady Tkachuk’s trade from Ottawa to Florida so he can have his brother hold his hand from October until whenever the Panther season ends has generated many passionate opinions from fans and pundits throughout the hockey world. The media is starting to acknowledge more and more American players want nothing to do with making Canada their working winter season home but they seem hesitant to dive into the why.  Most fans believe it’s because Ottawa is wickedly cold as compared to, say, Detroit.  Or Boston.  Or Minnesota.  I will say it’s because of increasing fan hostility from Canadians to the star American players and also taxes.  You can disagree with me if you wish, but the weather was never a problem until very recently and I have decades of examples to prove as such.  There is one other really big reason why players don’t want to play in Canada – there isn’t a single Canadian team that is any good.  None of them, and I’ll include Montreal here, are even close to winning a Cup.  So the fans don’t like you and are rude, the taxes are high, the cities are overrun with crime and are becoming increasingly dangerous, and throw in you have no chance to win and why are we shocked at some of them forcing their way out?

6 – SMALL LIST OF ATTRACTIVE CITIES – Not all American cities are immune from the social issues Canadian ones face.  Jason Robertson won’t even play in Seattle for $15-million a season.  Artemi Panarin said no to Seattle for $14-million a season. Players with no movement clauses, by and large, list locales in Florida as well as Vegas, Carolina, and Dallas at the top of their wish lists when they agree to, conditionally, waive these clauses.  Yes, those places have good weather but they are also places where the players get to keep more of their own money.  Additionally, in the case of the Golden Knights, you can be assured you will be going to a team that is willing to pull out all the stops in order to win.  Fans seem to think the playing field is tilted and are focused on wanting rules that make the attractive markets less attractive rather than demanding some of these places that have become dumps over the years get better.

7 – NO-MOVE CLAUSES – There has been chatter this week about the NHL needing to ban or alter the no-move clauses.  I saw a figure on social media this week that claims the NHL has 10x as many players with no-move clauses in their contracts than any other professional sport.  I would not have guessed it to be that drastic a difference.  Nobody is forcing the GMs to hand these out like candy so I see no need to make a change to the CBA.  Having said that, it should work both ways.  If the player has a no-move clause but decides he’d like to move, then he can’t be submitting lists with 3-4 teams.  It should be a removal of the clause entirely and all teams can be considered an option.  In the case of Tkachuk (or anyone else, such as Dylan Larkin), if I was the General Manager I would be informing the agent that if I will do my best to send the player where he wants to go but if you don’t open it up to 29 other teams, you can bank on the player sitting for the duration of his contract.  Brady Tkachuk isn’t going to sit for two years.  Dylan Larkin isn’t going to sit for five years.  They’d cave as soon as they see the GM isn’t bluffing.  What Ottawa got in the form of lotto tickets from Florida isn’t worth giving Tkachuk what he wanted.

8 – BABCOCK – I wasn’t surprised, but I watched in awe this week at the Mike Babcock press conference as the media, while proclaiming Babcock has a long history of being disrespectful to others, grilled the new Oilers coach in a way that was disrespectful (to put it as politely as I can).  Talk about calling the kettle black.  The more I review the Babcock saga the more I think he, perhaps, has never done anything wrong and is a victim of a pile-on by the social/mainstream media mob.  Babcock offered no apologies this week and, instead, talked about telling people the truth and showing them love and how that can be a difficult conversation.  I’ll be in the minority on this one, but I never considered the Mitch Marner ‘hard worker list’ to be abuse.  It’s an excellent exercise that can be done to determine whether Marner knows what hard work looks like and also, at the same time, can be used by the coach to get others at the bottom of the list to work harder when he shows them it’s not just the coach who thinks they are dogging it.  The problem is that this should have stayed within the confines of the dressing room but didn’t. 

9 – MAMBA UPDATE – The Saskatoon Mamba have a big game today in Edmonton after putting out a disappointing effort, at home, against the Stingers on Wednesday.  The Mamba are 6-and-2 after opening the season 0-and-4.  They still have no concept of how to play defence but they’ve made marked improvements on the boards, thanks to Jaden Bediako’s league leading rebounds-per-game totals.  A win on Sunday could go a long way towards creating breathing room in the race for third in the West and also could position them to eye a higher standing as Winnipeg would only be one game ahead of them for second.  This may be the deepest into the season the Rattlers/Mamba have gone without having a key player take off for another league (greener pastures).  If they can continue to keep this group together and play a bit better defence, they can contend with the top teams.

10 – MORE CEBL – Fortunes change quickly in the CEBL.  Vancouver, a powerhouse for much of the first half, has released stud guard Jaelan House without explanation although House had some issues on the court in two separate games prior to his release.  To help make up for the loss, 2025 league MVP Mitch Creek was added to the roster but, apparently, he’s also going to be absent for a prolonged period.  Coach Kyle Julius is serving a three game suspension for an altercation with a fan in Winnipeg.  Incidentally, House was also involved in that situation that got Julius suspended.  Julius has a history of mixing it up with the fans.  When he was coaching a pro team in London, Ontario back in 2018 he got into it with an opposing team’s minority owner sitting at courtside.

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