STACKHOUSE’S 10 WEEKEND THOUGHTS

1 – XFL/CFL – This talk of a ‘partnership’ with the XFL isn’t sitting well with me. I never thought I’d be the one to defend the Canadian game because I prefer the NFL but I don’t want minor league football here. Make no mistake, any partnership will be a takeover and the CFL will simply become XFL North, but I don’t have any reason to believe the XFL will live a long and prosperous life any more than the CFL does as of today. I’ve always thought Canadian football fans are the luckiest in the world because we get to watch the NFL like everyone else but we also understand and appreciate the uniqueness that is the CFL as well. Why would the CFL want to hitch its wagon to this league? Give the XFL 3-4 years of promise and stability and maybe we have the basis of a discussion, but we all know if the XFL lasts that long, they’d want nothing to do with the CFL provided this league is also up and running as it would normally. The CFL has been around in its current form since 1958. So for all the talk about how badly the league is run, it’s managed to survive for nearly 65 years while the XFL had one completed season twenty years ago. Thanks but no thanks. Until I see something I haven’t yet seen from the XFL, the CFL will die faster partnering than it will trying to figure their own mess out.   

2 – ALTERNATE SOLUTIONS – Having said that, it’s no secret this league is in serious trouble. So if I’m going to poo-poo an XFL partnership I think it only makes sense to put forth an alternative. This is where you can all call me crazy, but here’s what I’d do: I’d expand to 14 teams, play a 12 game season, and build a business model geared to make money with attendance of 15,000-20,000 fans per game. Basically downsize the league but break it into two pieces. I’d have seven teams in the west (Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon, Calgary, Edmonton, Kelowna, and Vancouver) and seven in the east (Hamilton, Toronto, London, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City, and Halifax). Focusing on the west, one glaring issue is that Kelowna and Saskatoon don’t have suitable football stadiums. Saskatchewan can support two pro teams when you look at the Roughriders averaging around 30,000 fans per game. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think having two teams in this province could easily draw 20,000 each. Especially when you consider there will only be six home games as opposed to nine. If you schedule it properly, some fans will go to both teams’ games.  

3 – FURTHER LOGISTICS – Games would be played strictly west against west and east against east until Grey Cup. This saves money on travel for the six road dates and you also make three less trips a year.  Granted, you also lose three home gates. The top three teams get a first round bye with 4th playing 5th in the first round. The winner of that game plays 1st in the conference semi-finals and 2nd plays 3rd. The regular season would begin on Canada Day and Grey Cup takes place around Halloween before the bitter cold weather sets in. There would also be no games at all on Sundays once the NFL season starts and the season is over before most people start to pay more attention to the NHL.

4 – LESS PAY, MORE JOBS – One thing that doesn’t sit well with me about my own proposal is that quarterbacks would have to take a pay cut for sure. However, more of them would have jobs and if the league is successful it wouldn’t be long before their salaries start to creep back up. Requirements for Canadians should be maintained although maybe not as many. That’s definitely something to look at as I’m not sure we have enough in this country that can play at an elite CFL level, especially the skilled positions, and I don’t want to sacrifice the calibre of play.

5 – GOVERNMENT FAULT – I take no satisfaction at all in being right during the pandemic, but I told readers of this website almost a year ago that this league is in serious trouble even missing one year, let alone two and I also said bank on missing, at least, two years. Most of you scoffed and called me a lunatic. Well here we are. Remember, the virus isn’t to blame. It’s the government (both provincial and federal, Saskatchewan included). We saw football get played south of the border last Fall without issue and some of the cities did it with between 15-and-20 thousand fans for each home game. There was no reason why this couldn’t have happened in Canada too but governments destroyed the sport. Baseball is going to open up in a couple weeks with a decent amount of fans in the seats. It wouldn’t be at all reckless for the government to okay the CFL for 2021 today and give fans something to look forward to. Holding it back now is straight up discrimination to athletes (and its fans) and what’s most sad for me is that outside of Saskatchewan, the reaction nationwide is best summed up in one word – apathy. It’s also how this entire country is governed on every single issue. If Montreal and Toronto raise hell about there being no CFL, you will have CFL. Until then, don’t count on it. I hope I’m wrong.

6 – CFL OR XFL RULES – My guess is that if a ‘partnership’ is struck, the Canadian rules go bye-bye. The XFL wants the player talent and the fact that a handful of CFL teams are fairly well established with regards to fan base gives the league a bit of credibility (or so they will think). I don’t see how all 9 survive in this ‘partnership’ and the chances of there ever being an Atlantic team goes to zero, but in reality I suppose is that it’s already zero now that the Maritimes seem perfectly happy choking themselves off from the rest of the country but that’s a topic for another day. You have a better chance selling Canada on NFL-style rules than you ever would selling Americans on CFL rules. You can dislike that statement, but it’s true. If this ‘partnership’ is focused on TV contracts, the Saskatchewan Roughriders become very vulnerable to being a casualty. If it’s a gate driven league, then the XFL doesn’t need Ottawa, Montreal, Hamilton, or Vancouver where the support is lukewarm. I’d put Toronto in that group too but they are the exception rather than the rule. You can’t have a league with teams in Canada and NOT have a team in Toronto. It’s just the way it is.  Also, in this set-up, I think you need 30,000 fans MINIMUM to survive. Which, Toronto doesn’t get, but…it’s Toronto.

7 – SAD – As I’ve said many times I love both NFL and CFL. I do believe the NFL is far superior but that doesn’t mean I think the CFL is a Mickey Mouse League. If there is a merger of sorts, you would see changes with minor football, high school, junior, and university categories as well and there would be no reason to ever reinstate the things that make Canadian football truly Canadian. I love to poke fun at the rouge, the 110 yard field, the positions of the goalposts, etc. just to needle my fellow Saskatchewan football fans but for the entire Canadian football system to evaporate (in its current form) all because we have cowardly and misinformed governments would be a national tragedy.  

8 – BASEBALL RULES EXPERIMENT – Major League Baseball is implementing a number of changes to each level of its minor leagues this season and the most controversial one will be in AA where teams are going to be required to have four players in the infield at all times and potentially two on each side of second base.  This would eliminate ‘the shift’, which has done great damage to the game over the years even though ‘the shift’ itself isn’t necessarily to blame. If you had batters willing to be less stubborn and use the entire field and sacrifice a bit of power in exchange for getting on base, managers would just quit using it without needing a rule. 

9 – OTHER RULES – The other rules are pointless with Single A putting a limit on the number of pick off attempts and AAA making the bases bigger (15” sq to 18” sq).  I’m okay with the change on infield defense. I wish they’d do something to encourage leaving starting pitchers in games longer. One such consideration, which I would have liked to see, is that you start the game with a designated hitter however you lose it once the starting pitcher is taken out. As long as rosters aren’t expanded, that would get rid of the silly ‘opener’ that has become more prevalent in recent years and I think managers would be inclined to try and squeeze an extra inning out of the starter depending on situations. I also have to admit I liked the extra inning ‘runner on second’ rule that was experimented with last year.

10 – BEDARD DEBUT – Connor Bedard looks like the real deal one game into his WHL career, scoring twice against Prince Albert on Friday night. I know everyone is happy to have the league back and the players on the ice and that’s better than not playing, but as you see fans starting to be admitted back into many arenas in the United States, I still can’t help but be reminded how weak leadership has been in every single province in this country. Connor’s friends and family should have been able to witness his memorable game in person. You can agree or disagree with how certain states have done things, but by and large their decisions were clear and they stuck to them. Whether that’s California or South Dakota. Their leaders took a path and stayed on it. Up here, we are all over the map trying to please everyone and pleasing nearly no one while doing so. Saskatchewan and Alberta have been especially disappointing because if there are two places where I figured things would be firm and concise, it would be on the prairies. Instead, we ended up bowing to the politically correct while also trying to keep ‘the base’ happy and all that did was create a massive confusing mess with mistrust from everybody. Here’s a tip to right wing governments – being politically correct and trying to appease your base will never ever ever be accepted by either side. The fact that governments in these two provinces didn’t know that and still don’t know that shows how out of touch with ALL of us they really are. If I wanted a left wing government, I’d vote for one and may actually do that next time. It’s better than thinking you voted for a right wing one but got a left wing one anyway.  

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