Stackhouse’s 10 Weekend Thoughts
1 – MOSAIC STADIUM – The City of Regina announced this week they will, permanently, convert Mosaic Stadium into the new required field dimensions that are coming in effective 2027, which renders the facility useless for other possible football tenants like the Regina Rams, Regina Thunder, amateur football showcases like all-star games, and high school football championship games. It was a puzzling move when you consider the CFL Commissioner stated previously that the league (or the Riders) would be responsible for the costs involved in altering field configurations in multi-use facilities. The City of Regina, simply, took that expense out of the hands of the league and/or the Riders by gifting them the sole sports use of the stadium and, forever, telling every other football organization they are welcome to use Leibel Field or go to another city. I see a lot of posts from people who are upset with the politicians but I have a newsflash for you – voting for different people isn’t going to enact any change. These figures all lie to get themselves into power and then govern the exact same way as the previous people.
2 – MORE ON THE CHANGES – The changes, ever since they were announced in September 2025, have been met with a lot of negativity from long time CFL fans and none of the Canadian football amateur organizations seem to want to adopt the changes either so you are going to have football played under Canadian rules, CFL rules, and then if you watch the NFL, there will be a third set of rules just to watch one sport. One could argue the CFL simply does not have the influence to make this a success but the backroom chatter is that in order for the league to get a ‘rumoured’ lucrative tv/streaming contract from TSN, DAZN, and YouTube, they needed to move their rules more in line with what suits and influential people in Toronto want and that is more alike American football all the while trying to maintain some sort of a Canadian identity.
3 – REVENUE STREAMS – I’ve never been more convinced of how unimportant fan attendance is as far as determining the overall success of teams and leagues in professional sports. The CFL (as well as other pro loops) have found ways to tap into alternate revenue streams (gambling, broadcast rights, increased corporate sponsorships to name a few) so even if you see more empty seats at games next year because the rule changes are, generally, unappealing to the casual fan that is not going to be an indicator of overall league success/failure. Teams and leagues can afford to treat you poorly and they know more than enough of you are still going to give them your hard-earned money. When people stop betting, when gambling companies stop sponsoring, when the corporate community decides it’s not worth it, when businesses stop purchasing commercials during the live broadcasts, and when broadcast companies quit giving leagues rights fees then, and only then, will you see trouble on the horizon and there is no sign of any of those things slowing down. People who continue to agonize over diminished attendance and fear their team is in trouble need not do that anymore. I think the Argos are the team that draws the fewest fans and, assuming the ‘rumours’ have some truth to them, they are the team that has forked over more money than anyone else to pay their quarterback, who may not even be in the top three in a nine team league. Let that sink in.
4 – RIDERS FUTURE QB – As 41-year-old Trevor Harris contemplates his CFL future, there are musings about what the Riders will do in the event he retires. There is no quarterback on the roster ready to assume the number one job and with Chad Kelly re-upping with Toronto, the options to pluck someone from another CFL team would appear to be narrow although Cody Fajardo’s name has come up. Fajardo is slated to be a free agent after the Grey Cup game but I can’t see him entertaining a reunion with the Riders. The organization and fans, basically, chased him out of here and while he didn’t handle the situation well himself, that’s just not a marriage that I see working even with hindsight being your friend. With Kelly supposedly set to make $1.1-million; Fajardo’s starting point has to be $1.5-million. Would the Riders pay that? The Kelly contract alone should entice Harris to give it one more year. Surely, what he’s done is worth $900-thousand.
5 – PUTTING THE TRASH IN TALK – It’ll be Montreal and Edmonton in the Grey Cup after the Als staved off a scare from the Blue Bombers in a really close game where the story ended up being the completely classless display of ‘trash talking’ from Winnipeg DL David Reese, who spent part of the game taunting Davis Alexander about his father, who passed away from cancer in 2024. I get that there are scumbags in every city but Winnipeg has been in the news for all the wrong reasons lately with the harassment and threats made against Connor Hellebuyck that caused him to ask out of town and now this from Reese. I don’t know much about Reese at all and I don’t care to learn any more. There is a precedent for, basically, blackballing Reese out of the CFL but then I catch myself and remember life isn’t about consistency. What was an offense that can get you exiled a few years ago may not be as bad today depending on who did it.
6 – RUSSIA – I stayed away from this last week but I can’t resist this week. Canada banning Russian junior hockey players from entering our country (most are already here playing major junior with club teams) to compete at the World Juniors in Edmonton is peak level Canadian virtue signaling. It’s also peak level double standard and hypocrisy so for those who try to point out the inconsistency when it comes to allowing the pros to play or for those who simply ask questions as to what good this does on the global scale, quit wasting your time and energy. The answer is that it does nothing but there are a lot of people who sleep better knowing innocent civilians still get bombed and killed but at least Russian flags and stickers aren’t visible for two weeks in Edmonton. If we REALLY wanted to enact some change, we would tell the Ovechkins, the Kaprizovs, and the Kucherovs of the world that they are not welcome in Canada and any Russian earning a living here can kick rocks. Because guess what? Multi-millionaires have influence. If Sergei Bobrovsky and Ivan Demidov were sent packing back to Russia (along with some others), my guess is that the war would end quite suddenly but the Bobroskys, Demidovs, Marchenkos, etc make these Canadian teams too much money and fans don’t want to lose them because their teams would lose games. Instead, we can act tough by banning flags and stickers. There, see. We’ve done ‘our part’.
7 – MORE RUSSIA – A friend of mine who is an avid tennis follower has pointed out that when the Russians are involved in tennis matches on tv, the broadcast channels make sure to not show the Russian flag or really acknowledge where the Russian tennis players are from. This accomplishes what actually? Furthermore, is Russia the only country committing egregious sins? Oh right, I just got caught in that trap of expecting consistency and assuming double standard and hypocrisy aren’t how society is run. You can call it out, but don’t expect to be acknowledged. I miss the early 80s when playing against the evil Soviets brought out tremendous patriotism amongst sports fans, but it also stayed separate from politics. It’s never coming, but I long for the day when people can set aside their differences and realize that the passion and enthusiasm people have for their favorite politician (Trump, Carney, Zelensky, Putin) would never ever be reciprocated if the shoe was on the other foot. And, hard to comprehend, I know, but I think it’s long past time we figure out that there are no good guys amongst them either. I, personally, have no use for any of those four.
8 – CANADA HOCKEY HIRING – First of all, I didn’t even know The Hockey News was still a thing. Second of all, I have to tip my hat to the pot stirring pathetic writer, who I have never heard of, who criticized Canada’s national team advisory group for its lack of having a DEI hire. I can’t blame the guy for suggesting as that would be a very Canadian thing to do and I also have to give him credit because without this silly criticism, I still would not know The Hockey News is still in publication. So, bravo.
9 – NFL RICE FINANCES – Kansas City Chiefs WR Rashee Rice is in the final year of his rookie contract that pays him over $1.5-million per season however he has filed for bankruptcy in an attempt to avoid paying multiple parties who are suing him because he’s just not a very good human being. Rice is facing several lawsuits stemming from a high speed multicar crash in Dallas in 2024 as well as one from an ex-girlfriend who is claiming to be the victim of repeated assaults from 2023-2025. For the most part, Rice’s character has not been put under the media microscope. But, by all means let’s get outraged against Harrison Butker’s anti-left wing speech to a Catholic liberal arts college.
10 – RUSH SEASON STARTING – The Saskatchewan Rush fell 10-8 to the Toronto Rock last night in the first exhibition game of the year. They’ll play the Calgary Roughnecks next Saturday in Moose Jaw before starting their regular season on Friday, November 27th at Oshawa. That game will be on TSN but if you are hoping to catch the Rush on tv all season long, your best bet is to fork over more money to yet another streaming service (Flo Sports). I’ve written about this before and stand by my opinion that it’s worth more to the NLL to be on a platform that is widely subscribed to already for other reasons as opposed to one where people have to, purposely, seek it out and pay just to watch the Rush when there is no other content of interest for the fan. Flo Sports does work for me because of the SJHL and some other niche sports that I follow, but I recognize I’m in the minority on that.
(Mike Stackhouse is a freelance writer/broadcaster. Follow him on X/Twitter at @Stack1975)
