Stackhouse’s 10 Weekend Thoughts

1 – ROUGHRIDERS PRESEASON – The Saskatchewan Roughriders won their preseason opener against Winnipeg on Monday. I’m sorry (or not sorry) to report I paid no attention to this meaningless game.  Preseason football is painful to watch at the best of times so I skipped this one.  Getting the final score was harder than you may think as the online stats aspect of the CFL website was behaving much the same way as it did for 95% of last season (which is to say it didn’t work).  I know it’s only the stats, but it’s tough to acknowledge a league in 2024 as serious when they can’t run up to the minute accurate scores and individual player stats.  Being preseason is no excuse after last year’s debacle.

2 – RATTLERS OPENER – The Saskatchewan Rattlers pulled off an upset on opening night, defeating the league favored Winnipeg Sea Bears 94-86 despite 40-points from CEBL MVP Teddy Allen.  The Rattlers won this game despite leaving about 20 points on the table through missed easy lay-ups (no exaggeration).  It was a balanced attack with Elijah Harkless and Grant Basile both achieving a double double.  Harkless had 19-points, 16-rebounds, and 6-assists.  He, easily, could have had 25-points or more and I foresee some triple doubles in his future.   Basile (pronounced Ba-zilly), for a big man, has a nice touch although he missed two free throws at the end of the game that would have ended the proceedings.  Basile had 16-points and 14-rebounds.  This is my fourth season of being an astute follower and I don’t recall this kind of rebounding on any of the three previous teams.  It was nice to know someone was going up to get loose balls.  It’s only one game, but I’m optimistic about the season for the Rattlers and the CEBL continues to be Canada’s best bang for your sports entertainment dollar and, in my opinion, it’s not even close.  I don’t consider myself a huge basketball fan, in general, but watching the CEBL live is a can’t miss for me.  The Rattlers are home again tonight (Saturday) and I wasn’t planning on making the trek, but I think it’s going to be hard not to go.

3 – WINNIPEG TAKE – The Sea Bears, if they are going to live up to their top billing status, are going to need to find a consistent scoring threat other than Allen.  I think they’d like it to be Jarred Ogungbemi-Jackson (12 points in the opener).  Darius Days emerged as the second most productive Sea Bear with 16.  Canadian university standout Mason Bourcier is likely to be heard from as the season moves along.  He’s an excellent distributor and gives Winnipeg an edge on the Canadian content side of things.  Bourcier and current Rattler Maurice Calloo (22-points in the opener) both played for Calgary last year and the Surge lost by 18 in their first game against Edmonton.  It will be interesting to see if they’ve replaced players like Calloo and Bourcier in an effective manner.

4 – DADS INVOLVED – Carolina Hurricanes forward Martin Necas, through his father, is requesting a trade.  Necas is 25.  He’s not a boy.  Toronto Maple Leafs forward Mitch Marner is 27.  His dad, Paul, has also been very active in a way not unlike you’d maybe expect a player’s agent to be.  We used to see overzealous parents involved when a child was bantam age as that was, often, recognized as the springboard to being drafted into the major junior ranks, which sets you up for a potential professional career.  As time has gone on, parents have continued to stay heavily involved through the midget ranks and into junior as well and, finally, with this generation we now have men (who are only identified as being men because they are of legal age) in the National Hockey League who are letting their parents speak to the media and air out various grievances.  It’s a horrible look but expect more of it.  

5 – MORE ON PARENTS – I can remember a couple of years ago, in my volunteer role as President of the Sask East Hockey League (senior hockey), I spent hours on end talking to the mother of a 26-year-old man arguing over a suspension.  I remember thinking how insane it was that I wasn’t actually dealing with the player himself.  Yet, I have to say there is a fine line when it comes to this stuff.  If you don’t know how to advocate, you get left behind and the screws will be put to you in a hard way unless you are a superstar.  I look at my own son’s junior football career.  I tried to stay 100% out of it as I never wanted him to be rewarded or punished because of who his dad may be.  After watching unfold what unfolded in his final season last year, I will forever live with doubt on whether or not I should have, at least, made some concerns known.  Nevertheless, when someone brags about being a mean coach and that he is okay taking that to his grave, I’m not sure that’s the best choice to lead young men.  

6 – COACHING STYLE & IMPACT – I believe there is going to be a reckoning in junior football, not unlike what we’ve seen in hockey, because of some techniques in the coaching world that I would consider archaic.  There was never anything concerning enough for my son to complain and blow the lid off but it’s only a matter of time.  Having said that, I will forever be grateful to Tim Kearse who was Matthew’s first coach in Calgary and who was extremely fair in his communication and style.  TK allowed Matthew to grow as a player and a person in his rookie season and gave him plenty of opportunities to gain valuable experience that is hard to come by for most first year players out of high school.  I’ve also written in the past about Gavin Lake, Matthew’s coach in London in 2022, who is a model that all coaches should strive to emulate.

7 – BEDARD RELEGATED – At the World Hockey Championships, Connor Bedard was relegated to 13th forward status in Thursday’s quarterfinal game against Slovakia.  Bedard has seen a steady decline in ice time throughout the tournament and his production has, subsequently, dried up as well.  This is one of those puzzling decisions that hockey coaches tend to make whereby Canada needs a player like Bedard to produce in order to win but it’s challenging to do just that when your coach is slashing your ice time.  Imagine Shohei Ohtani being benched if he goes 3-for-30 during a seven day stretch.  It would never happen.  But, it’s quite routine for that to occur in hockey.

8 – ARNIEL/EHLERS – After pretending to conduct a thorough search, the Winnipeg Jets have decided on Scott Arniel to be their new head coach.  The Jets have known Arniel was going to be Rick Bowness’ successor ever since the day they hired Bowness as it was a stipulation for Arniel to be part of Bowness’ staff.  On an unrelated note, the Jets are exploring the possibility of trading forward Nikolaj Ehlers over the summer months.  It’s hard to argue with the trades GM Kevin Cheveldayoff makes most of the time so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt on this one should the Jets decide to move on from him.  Ehlers, for the most part, has not lived up to top line expectations but seems to be regarded as a budding star.  

9 – CAITLIN CLARK – I don’t understand the negative press surrounding Caitlin Clark.  She has, single handedly, increased the profile of women’s basketball (both at the college and professional levels) through her performances and yet every second story I read about her slams her for one reason or another.  It sparked a comment from Charles Barkley the other night accusing other women involved in the WNBA of being petty and insecure.  He suggested they should thank Clark for being the main reason why the league can now afford charter flights for teams.  On a personal level, I watched more of the women’s March Madness this year than I did of the men because I was captivated by what Clark was doing.

10 – DIVISION – Rod Pedersen wrote ‘cue Mike Stackhouse’ when writing about Brock Boeser’s blood clot last week.  I’m not going to dive too far into Boeser specifically, but he’s the second NHLer this season (Fredrik Andersen) to have suffered from this issue.  Do blood clots happen? Yes.  Have they happened to NHL players maybe more than other pro athletes over the last 15 years or so?  Yes.  Is two in the same season normal?  That’s up to you to decide.  Here’s what I will say on this topic of more people dead, more people sick with disease and sudden health complications, and more people suffering mentally and physically than ever before:  there is nothing I can write that will convince someone who doesn’t already think similarly to me to change their mind.  That ship has sailed.  People who think like me have pitted in. People who think opposite to me have pitted in.  Nobody is moving an inch on this.  To that, I simply wish everyone the best health and we will see which side has the most people standing at the end.  For me, it’s never been about vaccines.  It’s been about the immense collateral damage that shutting down life will bring to society.  There’s more division than ever before, more distrust than ever before, we have young people who are damaged from lost years of education, a cost of living that has skyrocketed at breakneck speed and has caused suffering for those who were just getting by as it was.  Some businesses have closed and never reopened.  People, in general, are more mean to each other than ever in my lifetime.  What I just outlined shouldn’t be up for debate and yet some of you will still insist on arguing and that draws me back to the crux of this – more division than ever before.  

(Mike Stackhouse is a freelance writer/broadcaster)