STACKHOUSE’S 10 WEEKEND THOUGHTS
1 – SJHL TOP PLAYERS – One full week into the SJHL season and there are some major junior names near the top of the stat pages. Melville’s Reece Newkirk, Jaydon Dureau, Landon Kosior, and Bryan Thomson are carrying the club to a quick 3-and-1 start to the year. Estevan’s Cole Fonstad and Melfort’s Ethan Regnier are also off to solid starts but when you look at the players of the week, three of the four are ones who chose the Junior ‘A’ path as Humboldt’s Logan Kurki was the top forward, Bronco Doug Scott was top defenseman, Melfort rookie Joel Favreau was top goalie, and Melville’s Chase Bertholet was the top rookie. The 16-year-old Bertholet is expected to head to major junior once camps open in December.
2 – SENIOR HOCKEY – If you want to watch some sneaky good hockey you may want to try the senior ranks where you will find a number of university or minor pro players sprinkled on a number of rosters. My understanding is U of S Huskies bench boss Dave Adolph made it his personal mission to find homes for his players and even tried to ensure linemates and defense pairings ended up on the same teams. Attendance is capped at 150, but in some of these small Saskatchewan communities that’s a number that is very doable as far as operating is concerned.
3 – NHL LABOUR – You have to give the NHL owners a lot of credit here. They fear mongered the players into a new CBA during the down time of the pandemic and now it’s time to try and get 2021 off the ground and they’ve got the players in a pretty good spot as far as public opinion is concerned. Just four months after putting ink to paper, the owners want to alter some terms as far as the amount of deferred compensation. It’s brilliant because there are millions of regular people out of work so millionaire NHL players won’t find sympathy in many corners but it’s worth noting NHL owners are notorious for their dishonesty and they’ve got the best commissioner in professional sports. Look no further than how Gary Bettman has taken the players to the cleaners in every single CBA since he took over the job back in 1993.
4 – ECHL OPT OUTS – Eight of the twenty-six teams in the East Coast Hockey League have opted out for the 2021 season citing economic and financial ruin from Covid 19. Oh well. I know most of us don’t care as long as we get virus cases to zero but I’m curious to see how many of these minor pro sports leagues survive as they don’t have the corporate or television sponsorship backing.
5 – CFL SCHEDULE – The Canadian Football League released its 2021 regular season schedule this week. If vaccinations are done quickly this may actually become a realistic target to put on the calendar for people to look forward to. But you have to wonder if healthy people aren’t in the immediate queue to get the vaccine because too many unhealthy ones are further ahead in line if the season can be played. Fans won’t be allowed into stadiums without their tattoo or digital proof of vaccination documentation and if we are still injecting new DNA into people come November that will be too late for the CFL. I, personally, have no issue getting the vaccine. I’m a very healthy person in my mid-40s so I’ll be closer to the back of the bus than the front for my shot and there will be lots of evidence by then as far as shorter term effects go. If the vaccine ends up being like long haul covid or lethal, well then I guess Amazon and Walmart get to start the world over with a whole new group of people as the only ones left will be Justin Trudeau, Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris, Patty Hajdu, Theresa Tam, and Freddie Freeman; along with those who run these big, massive ‘essential’ shopping outlets.
6 – OVERHEARD – During the fourth quarter of Sunday Night Football’s New England/Baltimore game, Cris Collinsworth was asked by play-by-play man Al Michaels if he thought whether or not we’d eventually see ball placement be decided by technology. Collinsworth gave an honest and refreshing answer. “I hope not. We have enough electronics in our lives.”
7 – BASEBALL ELECTRONICS – Theo Epstein has stepped down from his Executive position with the Chicago Cubs amidst rumours he wants to get into an ownership role. Epstein had some interesting exit comments about the state of the game and I couldn’t agree with him more. “Executives like me, who have spent a lot of time using analytics and other measures to try and optimize individual and team performance, having unwittingly had a negative impact on the game.” Epstein called the modern style of baseball play to be a ‘threat’. The thing most analytical types fail to comprehend when it comes to analytics is that the theory of these advanced metrics is fine provided you are dealing with average player versus average player but that’s seldom the case. When you have a Cy Young type of arm such as Blake Snell cruising through five innings, you let him face a batting order three times.
8 – FURTHER ANALYTICS – This shouldn’t be rocket science. I look back even to the National League Championship Series when Atlanta pitcher AJ Minter was sailing through three innings, allowing just one hit and had seven strikeouts. The analytics say it’s not going to last, but maybe the human eyeball can see the Dodger hitters are confused and not catching on to a pitcher they aren’t familiar with and despite it being Minter’s first big league starting appearance, why not let him go until he gets into trouble? That game alone should have been an damning indictment on analytics as the Dodgers scored runs against each of the next four pitchers Atlanta used that game. I feel that particular game cost them the series.
9 – THE SHIFT – Batters who don’t like playing against the shift have a very simple option. Stick your bat out and poke the ball to the opposite field for a free single or double. Analytics tells you this is not a good play for whatever reason but I’ve watched baseball my whole life and there is nothing negative about having traffic on the base paths. A return to smart base running, stealing, moving runners along, etc. would be healthy for the game. Watching a home run or a strikeout and being lulled to sleep from pitching change after pitching change isn’t good and if I wasn’t a lifelong fan of the sport I’d have zero interest in giving it a shot. Compare that to lacrosse, which I am not a lifelong fan of but decided to try it out as a fan when Saskatchewan got a pro team and there’s no going back.
10 -WCBL 2021 – I think the Western Canadian Baseball League returns in 2021 but it’s a pivotal year as it will be as challenging as ever for the Weyburns and Swift Currents of the world to compete with big places like Edmonton, Okotoks (which is really Calgary), Medicine Hat, Lethbridge, and Sylvan Lake (which is really Red Deer). With Yorkton and Melville gone, there are fewer ‘community’ run teams in the league and, inevitably, those who have private backing will always be stronger financially and they should also always be better competitively but that’s why they actually play games.
(Mike Stackhouse is a freelance writer/broadcaster. Follow him on Twitter at @Stack1975)
