THROWIN’ ELBOWS WITH BRENDAN MCGUIRE

1. BO DOESN’T KNOW BUSINESS: I don’t villainize Bo Levi Mitchell in the way most Roughrider fans seem to. Our league and our country are lucky to have him and his twitter trash-talk for Rider players (Duron Carter) and Rider fans is badly missed. After hearing him in a recent wide-ranging interview on a podcast with Bob McCown and John Shannon, my views on Bo have not changed. I am, however, a bit perplexed at his views on the CFL needing this XFL merger in order to survive. He thinks the league can manage just fine on smaller American fields so long as the rest of the rules don’t change. I appreciate Bo’s appreciation for our three downs and the rouge. But the part where he is wrong is in admitting that the XFL is somehow on an equal level as the Canadian Football League. He, and many others, are dead-wrong. The CFL is a century-old institution with just as much, if not more, credibility than the NFL. The XFL has been an embarrassment in each of its first two incarnations. The last time the Canadian Football League expanded to the U.S., it was so bush-league that some of this country’s biggest corporate sponsors stayed away.  Do not think that buying into Dwayne Johnson’s BS doesn’t have its risks.

2. AUGUST CFL START SHOULDN’T BE A PRIORITY: A labour day weekend start would still leave enough room for ten regular season games, two bye weeks and all three playoff weekends including the Grey Cup to be wrapped up by December 12^th which is already the tentative Grey Cup 2021 date anyways. Training Camp starting the first week of August would give everyone plenty of time to get these vaccinations closer to the finish line and a level of comfort that we can all get on with our lives. But pressuring and rushing the league into playing by early August is just plain silly. People, including those running the CFLPA these days, aren’t very rational about all of this.

3. VEGAS AND ALL THIS GAMBLING SHOULDN’T BE IGNORED: The NHL has gone in, the NFL has gone in and now there’s talk of the Oakland A’s along with Major League Baseball about to enter Sin City, guns a’blazing. Not so fast. There’s a reason pro sports leagues have avoided Nevada for generations. Gambling is still a big part of what goes on there and it’s hard to imagine game-fixing has all of a sudden magically disappeared. This, along with the single game sports betting legislation here in Canada, is something we all need to pay attention to. Don’t get me wrong, I want the CFL to make money off this gambling and in fact, it needs to make money off of this gambling. But I do feel like we are all becoming very complacent about it. There’s a reason gambling and pro sports need some distance. And I’m not sure we’re going to see that under the new world order.

4. DRAKE NOT A GOOD FIT FOR CFL: He gambles and gets into some really petty fights with casinos sometimes. Plus, the younger generation of players and fans won’t care about him, anyways. Drake is good in his current role as Raptors cheerleader. But nothing more.

5. JOHN CHICK DESERVES TO BE IN PLAZA: I don’t care about his life views any more than Big John cares about mine. And neither should the Plaza of Honour voters. End of story, period. Just like Curt Schilling. Ridiculous that his induction to Cooperstown has ever been in doubt. We all say and do stupid things sometimes. Sports is where we’re all supposed to get a bit of peace and separation from it all.

6. NHL DOESN’T NEED TO BRING BACK ‘THE CODE’: Seems like the NHL is half-pregnant these days. They’ll allow Nick Foligno to mug Corey Perry over an accident but offer no recourse for the Habs to take care of Foligno in response for mugging the under-sized and undeserving Corey Perry. That lack of leadership is what makes this league a joke these days, to be honest.

7. SENS OWNERSHIP: Eugene Melnyk is at it again, alienating fans, politicians, staffers and old business partners. He made a whole bunch of ridiculous suggestions on a recent podcast, including the ruling out of moving the Sens downtown despite calling for it on numerous occasions in the past and bringing up the idea of moving to Gatineau, Quebec. It’s all very entertaining and I suspect it will end with Eugene running out of cash and being forced to sell the Sens to an ownership group a little better connected to our nation’s capital. What’s interesting to me about all of this is how Senators Head Coach DJ Smith handles his eccentric owner. I had the good fortune of riding the bus with DJ when I broadcast and he co-coached the 2005-06 Windsor Spitfires of the OHL, who had their own unique and sometimes downright whacky owner, Steve Riolo. I remember other staffers complaining incessantly about the turmoil the organization seemed to always find itself in. DJ’s comment to me about it all, “He’s (Riolo) always been fine to me”. I suspect DJ is using that experience to take that same day-by-day one-on-one open-minded approach with Eugene Melnyk. Will be fascinating to see where it all goes.   

8. HOMERISM ON BLUE JAY BROADCASTS: I’ve never liked Buck Martinez’s “Come on ball! Get up! Get up!” call. I even caught him stealing an old White Sox broadcaster’s “Get down ball, thank you very much!” line recently. Buck and Pat Tabler are fine but it’s a nice reminder of why I appreciate Dan Shulman so much when he’s on the broadcast. A pro through and through, Dan makes the game interesting and entertaining while not compromising himself to appeal to Rogers, the Blue Jays or it’s fanbase. Just lays out the facts and lets the viewer decide. What a novel concept!

9. WINNIPEG WHITE NOISE IS SILLY BECAUSE: The Jets aren’t wearing white in those home games. I don’t like it. Could they not at least get permission from the league office to wear their whites at home? Very small but irritating pet peeve of mine.

10. NERDY YOUTUBE VIDEO OF THE WEEK: MLB: Mr Baseball Bob Uecker. The tale of baseball’s funniest character untangles why Johnny Carson had him on the The Tonight Show more than any other guest. A great reminder that sometimes it’s okay to not take ourselves or each other so seriously all the time.

(Follow Brendan on Twitter at @brendanhowardmc)