Stackhouse’s 10 Weekend Thoughts

2 – NEGATIVE CFL TAKEAWAYS – The Toronto Argos offered a free food promotion for their home opener this week but the comments on social media seem to indicate it went less than well. It’s being suggested the number of places where you could access this free food were severely limited, which created huge lineups and when you got to the front of the line you received a small bag of popcorn and not a smorgasbord of options, which would indicate the ‘free food’ promotion was misleading. It’s also being reported on social media that at Mosaic Stadium Friday night, the PA announcer downplayed the need to remove headwear for the fans during the national anthem. A couple of others chimed in and said it’s worse than that in Ottawa where they, basically, tell you to stand if you want and if you don’t want that would be fine. I’m all done fighting over this stuff but that doesn’t mean I don’t get to be offended. Yes, it’s a free country but it shouldn’t be one that is void of structure and reverence for how it was built. I just think what goes on here now is terribly disrespectful for those who fought for it and I just wonder what’s left at this point.  

3 – NHL RULE & EXPANSION – Because it’s for your safety, the NHL has mandated neck guards for all players who make their league debut in 2026-27. Players already in the league have the ability to choose whether or not they wish to wear one. I’m going to guess studies have shown veterans are safe with no neck guards but rookies are not.  Remember, regulatory bodies are looking out for your best interests more than you are.  Be thankful. Meanwhile, outspoken agent Allan Walsh claims to have inside knowledge about future expansion to Houston and Atlanta. I don’t know about you, but I feel it’s been long past time the league took a chance on Atlanta.  For those of you who still feel this is about ‘hockey markets’, I can’t help you.

4 – NLL UPDATE – The National Lacrosse League has postponed the start of free agency from August 1 to September 1 to give the league more time to get clarification on two franchises that are in a state of flux.  The Philadelphia Wings are without owners and the Ottawa Black Bears have, essentially, had their ownership thrown out of the league because of unpaid league dues (I wrote last week on what a terrible sports city Ottawa is and you can add this to the list of reasons why). The league also has to be keeping an eye on Georgia, where attendance is down to around 3000 a game despite a very competitive club year after year. Meanwhile, there’s evidence to suggest Winnipeg could work but they are in a similar situation as Philadelphia in that there may not be an owner willing to make the purchase. The same holds true in Edmonton, which is how Saskatoon got the Rush. I also wonder about Columbus and Hartford in the US? The NLL seems to find owners in markets where the sport isn’t popular and then in cities where it could be supported well, there are no ownership prospects.

5 – MAMBA SEASON OVER – The Saskatoon Mamba set a franchise record for wins in a season (13) but are out of the playoffs after a 99-88 loss to the shortstaffed Winnipeg Sea Bears who played without CEBL leading scorer Teddy Allen (injury after being beaten up by Palomino security staff), as well as Emmanuel Akot (pro contract in another league), and Jeremiah Tilmon (same reason as Akot). For the first time since I started following the CEBL in 2021, I’m excited about the Mamba/Rattlers headed into next season. The new management delivered on assembling a competitive team and kept them together for the entire season. I must’ve watched 3-4 games where the Mamba trailed going into Target Time but somehow pulled out the win. By the way, Target Time is the best thing to happen to basketball and the NBA would be a lot better off if they adopted it. It would stop the endless fouls we see in the final minute of games that wreck the overall experience.

6 – PROSPECT CRAZINESS – The Boston Red Sox gave up on young SS Marcelo Mayer this week as they dealt him to San Francisco for reliever Erik Miller. Mayer has been highly touted for five years and the Red Sox refused to include him in numerous other deals that would have landed them a superstar. It should be Exhibit A for future trades that when someone offers you an established player for a lotto ticket (which is what these prospects are), you should make the trade 10/10 times. For every Mark Langston rental for prospect Randy Johnson trade or Larry Anderson for prospect Jeff Bagwell trade, I will show you 100 Chris Sale for prospect Michael Kopech/Yoan Moncada type of trades. You can always replenish the prospect pool but established players who can front your lineup do not grow on trees.  

7 – BRADFORD/GREENE – Groupthink is real, more evidence of that in my next three points, and Major League Baseball has been infected with it for the last couple of decades. This is especially true when it comes to pitchers. Earlier this week, Texas Ranger Cody Bradford returned from a nearly two year injury layoff to toss 4 ⅓ scoreless innings but was removed because he had thrown 14 more pitches than the most he had thrown during any of his minor league rehab starts. Frightening deep waters. I’ve written endlessly about how there is no evidence to suggest the number of pitches thrown is related to arm injuries but that doesn’t prevent every single team from operating the same way. Pay a starter $30-million but then get him out of the game as soon as you can and turn it over to a journeyman or a fringe pitcher to decide the outcome. Madness.  Earlier this week, Cincinnati’s Hunter Greene went down with an elbow injury. He has made 5 starts this year and has thrown only 134 innings the last two years and never more than 150. The max pitch count for him this year was 94.  So how and why did he get hurt?

8 – REOPENING THE WOUNDS – Anthony Fauci pleading the Fifth has ripped the scab off the covid wounds from people everywhere and while I stayed away from it last week, I am not going to do that this week because the temperature has been turned up by people who should have just ignored what Aaron Rodgers said (or didn’t say) on ESPN and what Evander Kane posted on X. From a sports perspective, I remember when North Dakota was playing junior hockey to sold out arenas while governments here wouldn’t allow the SJHL or WHL to even get 12 players on the ice. We claimed it was because North Dakota was ignoring science. In retrospect, forget about ‘science’ because the guy who says he IS science was revealed to be a complete and total liar. Disaster didn’t strike North Dakota.  No hockey players or fans died that we know of (and trust me, we’d know) from attending or playing. Up here, we had health officials deciding that because a referee can’t wear a full shield as it would prevent him from blowing the whistle we simply cannot play. For me, all I ever wanted was a half-assed apology because it was never ever about ‘killing people’ like I was accused of. It was about finding balance so that humans can be humans the way humans are meant to be. I think back now on the posts on social media from the police officer’s wife who offered to kidnap children to have them vaccinated against their parents’ wishes and yet somehow I am the bad guy in all of this….

9 – EVANDER KANE COVID VAX POST – There’s only one group of people that are disagreeing with him and that group, typically, is some form of what we shall call ‘media’ and I’ve openly asked several of them to explain to me how a covid-vaccinated person is at risk of a major negative health outcome if they come in contact with a covid unvaccinated person and not a single one has provided an explanation aside from name calling.  Furthermore, whether you agree with covid vaccine effectiveness or not, Evander Kane-level athletes are at a less than 1% risk of a major negative health outcome from covid regardless of vaccine status.  I’d say 0% but Freddie Freeman claims he almost died from his covid infection because he had a fever…but it’s Kane who’s the stupid one.  Kane and Rodgers’ comments have, once again, brought out all the despicable, hateful, miserableness in the same people that spewed it five years ago. You are not the brave souls who would have stood up against oppression and the Germans in World War II, even though you puff out your chest and think you are. In those times, you’d have been the first to stab your fellow neighbor in the back and I’m grateful I know who you are.

10 – WE CAN’T ADMIT WHEN WE ARE WRONG – What it comes down to is people like Rodgers, Novak Djokovic, and Kyrie Irving were right. The rest of us were wrong and there’s a large chunk of the ‘rest of us’ who don’t know how to react in any way other than to lash out and just be mad and that’s why you see the social media posts against Kane. Instead of being humble about it, these awful people double down and further reveal their lack of humanity. On a personal level, I really am on no side here. I wish the high profile people who stood up against the vaccines would have stood up against the other mandates and we never ever would have reached a point of forced covid vaccination.  It was never okay to send people to government sanctioned quarantine camps.  It was never okay to shut down schools over 2-3 minor cases, it was never okay to cancel funerals, ban you from having company in your own house, restrict travel to another province, prevent youth from participating in sports, punch someone in the face or throw them to the ground and arrest them for not wearing a mask or skating on an outdoor hockey rink, and it certainly was not okay to make businesses shut their doors and prevent people from earning a living. Any one of those invasions of our liberties should have been the line in the sand but instead it wasn’t until you couldn’t drink beer without permission or take a flight without your paperwork that people finally said enough is enough.  

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