STACKHOUSE’S 10 WEEKEND THOUGHTS!

1 – RUSH CHOKE – In spectacular fashion, the Saskatchewan Rush blew a 10-3 late third quarter lead and fell 13-12 in overtime at San Diego Friday night.  As I write this, I am not even sure where to begin.  Alex Buque was sensational, blocking 27-of-31 through three quarters but he got pulled twice in the fourth and allowed five goals on six shots but he wasn’t the only player to blame.  San Diego seemed to have the ball the entire fourth quarter and the Rush took four penalties in a row to further aid the Seals.  Saskatchewan also saw captain Ryan Dilks and stud defender Kyle Rubisch go down with injuries in the fourth while the Seals, who have (arguably) the best five offensive starters in the league, found their stride and it ended up being a perfect storm for the Rush to completely collapse.

2 – RUSH POSITIVES – The good news is that I view San Diego as, perhaps, the top team in the West.  The fact the Rush hung with them and should have beaten them bodes well for the season.  Another bit of good news is the depth in scoring.  Eight different players found the back of the net and Mark Matthews wasn’t one of them.  Robert Church had four and led all Rush players with six points.  Austin Madronic got his first NLL goal, as did Winnipegger Jerrett Smith.  Dan Lintner, Marshall Powless, Dilks, Ryan Keenan, Matt Beers, and Mike Messenger rounded out the scoring.  Messenger, unfortunately, turned the ball over twice late in the game and while neither instance led to a Seals goal, it did stifle the offense from getting the winning goal.

3 – RUSH UPCOMING – The Rush will have three weeks to dwell on this as they don’t play again until New Year’s Eve against Panther City, who defeated expansion Las Vegas 13-11 in the season opener for both teams on Friday.  The Rush defeat was the first loss in six games for new coach Jimmy Quinlan.  Panther City is based in Fort Worth, Texas and former four-year Rush veteran Matt Hossack, who was picked in the expansion draft, currently plays for the Texans.

4 – QUARTERBACKS – I’ve long suspected that a big reason why quarterbacks never reach their true potential when graduating from college to the pro ranks is because of bad coaching and that thought process was further enhanced after watching Baker Mayfield lead the Rams to a win over the Raiders on Thursday night.  Mayfield flew into Los Angeles Tuesday night and didn’t even practice with the team before taking the field and going 22-for-35 and marching the offense on a 98-yard drive at the end of the game to win.  Mayfield is a former number one overall pick who is, largely, considered a bust.  But, he had bad coaches in Cleveland and an even worse one in Carolina.  Now he’s got Sean McVay, who’s regarded as one of the best.  Let’s see how Mayfield does with practice.  

5 – OTHER QUARTERBACKS – Mayfield’s heroics on Thursday are of the storybook variety, but if you look at some of the other quarterbacks in the NFL you can directly attribute their success or lack of it to the coaching.  Justin Fields looked like a disaster until the Bears decided to change their entire offense to suit him rather than force Fields to run what the coach wanted.  Full credit to the coaching staff to recognize what Fields can do and take advantage of it.  Trevor Lawrence has been better than he was under nutcase Urban Meyer.  Tua Tagovailoa has been great for new Miami coach Mike McDaniel.  Denver has the worst coach in the league and Russell Wilson now looks like one of the worst QBs in the league.  I bet he’d be better if the coach was.  How good would Justin Herbert be if there was some competency at head coach for the Chargers?  Derek Carr has regressed under a lesser coach than what he had last year with the Raiders.  How about the change in Daniel Jones now that Brian Daboll has taken over the Giants? More than ever I’m convinced it’s not the quarterback.  It’s the coach or the offense the coach wants to run. 

6 – GOALIE GEAR – I remember when Patrick Roy was in the prime of his career, many detractors pointed to the fact he had on a lot of equipment and was able to fill more of the net than other typical goalies of the era.  I saw a photo of Roy in an Avs jersey playing the position this week and it was striking to me just how little he was wearing compared to goalies of today.  I know the NHL has taken a few steps towards throttling how out of control netminders have gotten with equipment, but there is really no need for them to wear what they do.  It can be more sleek and still be just as effective as far as ‘protection’ is concerned.

7 – PLAYER EQUIPMENT – I’m not just picking on goalies.  I watched the game where Tage Thompson scored five goals the other night and his hockey stick isn’t a hockey stick.  It’s a sling shot.  I recognize as times evolve and technology improves, the sticks used in 1980 aren’t going to be the same as the sticks used in 2022 but it’s getting beyond ridiculous.  Give Mike Bossy a 2022 stick and give Tage Thompson a 1982 stick.  Let’s see who’s better.  Yes, pro athletes are in much better physical shape today than they have ever been, but without the technology the players of today couldn’t carry the jock straps of those from yesteryear and that includes the goalies.  Sure, Grant Fuhr had a GAA of 4.00 but put Andrei Vasilevskiy in Fuhr’s equipment and let’s see what his GAA is.  Give Alex Ovechkin Wayne Gretzky’s stick.  In a way, it’s not fair to even compare because the style of play is so different but I’ll always side with those who do more with less.

8 – BROADCAST PRESENTATION – The Buffalo-Columbus game where Thompson scored his five goals was on TNT.  I’ve mentioned numerous times that I watch very little (almost none) television beyond the actual game play but I did find myself engaged with the TNT panel during the pre, intermission, and post game segments.  Henrik Lundqvist is very eloquent and easy to listen to.  I could say the same for Anson Carter and Rick Tocchet, who are also on the panel.  It was well done.  It wasn’t delivered in the depressed, monotone fashion you get from the Sportsnet panel.  The game and the teams were analyzed and it was upbeat with no woke garbage aiding in filling the airtime.  The play by play of Brendan Burke wasn’t as good as some of the top announcers  of 10-20 years ago, but it’s still better than anything the Canadian networks are putting out (Chris Cuthbert aside).

9 – RED SOX PRIORITIES – The Boston Red Sox decided $25-million a year for 11-years was too much to shell out for long-time shortstop Xander Bogaerts, but the same dollar figure for 5-years was no problem for an outfielder coming from Japan who has never seen a Major League pitch.  It’s been a tough offseason for the BoSox, who were outbid ($40-million, 3-years) by Tampa for Zach Eflin.  As it sits right now in the AL East, the Red Sox are clearly the worst team and maybe they need to reset their payroll but I’m always amazed that when teams do this, they never pass along any of the savings to fans in the form of cheaper tickets, discounts on merchandise, parking, etc.  It all goes into the owner’s pocket and fans don’t mind at all as they cheer for a ‘brighter future’ that almost always never materializes.  Yes, the Red Sox have done this before where they stripped down and were awful and then rebounded to win a World Series but for every Red Sox story, there are a dozen others that fail in an epic way.

10 – GRANT WAHL – Soccer journalist Grant Wahl has died while covering the World Cup in Qatar.  Wahl, just a few weeks ago, tweeted that he had been detained for 25 minutes for wearing a t-shirt that supported gay rights.  Wahl said authorities demanded he remove his shirt, but Wahl stood his ground and refused.  Say what you want about Qatar, but officials there put everyone on notice they would not be putting up with protests and to leave your personal beliefs at home. Of course, the entire process by which Qatar got the World Cup is as corrupt as you can get and even after the whole thing was revealed to be as such, nobody did anything about it.  Now we have a dead journalist (not to mention the hundreds who died building everything for this event) and the investigation is likely to be nowhere near authentic.  You’ve got anti-vax advocates latching on to this as a vax death, you’ve got the anti-Muslim crowd accusing murder with no evidence to back it up, and it’s entirely possible the 49-year-old simply suffered a perfectly normal sudden death that is unexplained.  Here’s what we do know – nobody wants to talk about vaccine side effects, he did protest when he really should have just stayed home if he felt that strongly on the issue he was protesting, and he appears to be a very healthy man so a sudden death would be a massive mystery.  The way the world works now, we will never actually know his true cause of death.  Broom meet rug.

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