Stackhouse’s 10 Weekend Thoughts
1 – RIDERS RECAP – Friday night’s 31-24 loss at the BC Lions is, potentially, a big one depending on how the remaining four games unfold. A friend of mine who pays a lot closer attention to these types of things than I do, has pointed out the Riders don’t have tiebreaker advantage against any of the teams they are in tight races with and there is a chance that, with a loss next week against Calgary, the Riders may actually find themselves needing help just to make the playoffs. I don’t believe the situation is that dire. While I admit to being surprised the Riders lost this game, the Grey Cup isn’t awarded in September and my guess is everything is going to be just fine.
2 – TV CONTRACT DISPARITY – How much bigger is the CFL than the UFL? Despite nothing ever being formally released, it’s generally accepted the CFL gets $84-million dollars per season from its tv deal while the UFL gets $20-million. Of course, that CFL figure is in Canadian money, so that reduces the figure by about half but that’s still the league is viewed as being double that of the UFL.
3 – NO FUN LEAGUE – There have been some weird fines from the NFL in reaction to touchdown celebrations. San Francisco FB Kyle Juscyzyk was hit with a penalty after imitating chugging a beer following a score. The nerve. Meanwhile, NCAA edge rusher Colin Simmons got a 15-yard penalty that was announced as, “Unsportsmanlike conduct on the defense for simulating using the restroom.” I’m sure viewers were traumatized. It does bring back the memory of former Rider Nate Davis pretending to urinate on a Blue Bomber player during the playoffs about 20-years ago. I guess I’m just showing my immaturity by admitting I found it hilarious in real time and still do today.
4 – NO FUN LEAGUE, HOLD MY BEER – The National Hockey League is clamping down on players who fashion their jerseys a la the Wayne Gretzky tuck. Philadelphia Flyers Trevor Zegras received a 2-minute minor for delay of game earlier this week and his teammates responded by taking part in warmup the next night with every single player tucking in their jersey. A true show of support would have been everyone doing it in a game. Does the referee put every single skater in the penalty box? It may sound like a weird hill to die on for the players but is the league run that efficiently that THIS is the rule they need to more strongly enforce?
5 – NO HELLE MOVEMENT – The Winnipeg Jets and Connor Hellebuyck appear as though both sides are comfortable starting the season with Hellebuyck on the sidelines forfeiting his salary and the Jets making do without any return on a potential trade that may help them get out of the gate better than what is expected. I’m going to suggest a darkhorse team to watch here is the Anaheim Ducks. The Ducks are ready to contend, they are forking out big money to their young stars and have a collection of players further down the depth chart that would play higher up in Winnipeg’s line up and I’m thinking, primarily of defenseman Pavel Mintyukov and goaltender Lukas Dostal. The other team to watch that may not be on the radar of many is Utah as they, too, are looking to contend and have suspect netminding but dealing Hellebuyck within the division, probably, would be a last resort unless Kevin Cheveldayoff feels as though he’s hitting a home run on the return.
6 – GUERRERO UNFAZED – $500-million man Vladimir Guerrero caused some ripples this week when he said that he really wasn’t all the bothered by his disastrous season because he didn’t feel as though the Blue Jays are paying him to produce in the present but rather for what he has done in the past. Of course this is nonsense or else players would be signed to contracts after they retire. Nevertheless, the Blue Jays have a problem here. Guerrero makes a lot of money for a long time and he’s made himself untradeable unless he erupts the next time we have a baseball season or unless the Jays find a rival General Manager who thinks voting for Trudeau three times was a great idea.
7 – RUSH PLAYER MOVES – Most astute NLL fans knew something was about to give with the Saskatchewan Rush when they signed Reilly O’Connor and traded for Connor Kearnan, two players who factor prominently in generating offense. The Rush already had Ryan Keenan, Zach Manns, and Robert Church under contract so it came as little surprise when it was announced Austin Shanks was signing with Las Vegas. Shanks will be missed but he was part of the overall power outage the team suffered producing goals down the stretch so it’s nice to see Derek Keenan isn’t running back the same group and has decided to inject new life into the attack.
8 – UFC FIGHTER STRETCHERED OUT – UFCVegas had a potentially tragic ending last night in the main event as the bantamweight fight was called off in the fifth round when Raoni Barcelos went down awkwardly upon getting tripped up against the octagon cage by Raul Rosas Jr and was knocked out cold and, quickly, stretchered out of the Apex. There didn’t seem to be a knockout type of blow delivered by Rosas and Barcelos was also winning the fight on all three judges’ score cards after four rounds. Paramedics were, clearly, checking Barcelos for a pulse and there was concern that he had suffered a mid-fight stroke but reputable UFC sources were reporting late Saturday night that Barcelos was awake and moving his fingers and toes in hospital so, hopefully, a major tragic incident has been avoided.
9 – STEVESON/SHARAF – The fight world was buzzing all week over the biggest upset in UFC history from last Saturday when Sean Sharaf knocked out Gabe Steveson in 12-seconds of their heavyweight bout as part of UFC331. Sharaf was 0-and-2 as a UFC fighter prior to the contest while Steveson was 4-and-0 and being hailed as the next big thing in the heavyweight division having been a former Olympic gold medallist and being trained by Jon Jones. I thought one analyst put it well by saying the UFC really screwed up booking this fight, which was designed to be a walk in the park for Steveson. It was never taken into account how desperate Sharaf was to do well. Apparently Sharaf had been living homeless and was $500-thousand in debt and, therefore had nothing to lose. There is a life lesson here for all of us which is to say anything is possible when pushed into a corner with, seemingly, no way out. So if you are one of those people who recognize our social institutions and systems are FUBAR’d and are directly affected by it, we can fix it. We just need to hit rock bottom first and, unfortunately, as a society we still have a ways to go on that.
10 – SJHL HALL OF FAME – I was fortunate enough to be included in the SJHL Hall of Fame weekend in Flin Flon and witnessed, once again, what has to be unrivalled support for Junior A hockey. There were 500 people in attendance for the alumni game and the local community hall was packed for the banquet. Amongst the inductees was the 1993 SJHL Championship team and I could have sat there all night listening to stories told by Chris Hatch and Norm Johnston. I don’t think they were exaggerating when they said seven bus loads of fans made the trek to Melville for the game seven clincher. If there is a more passionate small town hockey community than Flin Flon, please let me know as I’d love to visit.
(Mike Stackhouse is a freelance writer/broadcaster. Follow him on Twitter/X at @Stack1975)
