THROWIN’ ELBOWS WITH BRENDAN MCGUIRE

1. ROUGHRIDERS GAVE A GOOD FIGHT: It was going to be tough sledding and the Riders made it a lot closer than most of us thought. Saskatchewan had/has a great defence and we saw it go toe-to-toe with the CFLs best defence on Sunday. They gave it a real good shot, just not quite good enough. That’s all you can ask for. There are losses to hang your head about and this isn’t one of them. It only hurts a little more because we hate Winnipeg, were used to beating up on them, and now we’ve lost out three years in a row to them. That leaves a mark. The anger from losing the 2019 west final was lessened by the year off from the pandemic. Somehow, I get the feeling this bunch will be a little angrier when training camp rolls around next spring.

2. FAJARDO THE CFL’s BEST OF A BAD BUNCH: This might sound a little silly coming off a game in which he lost after his defence gifted him no less than 6 turnovers. However, one of those turnovers put them in bad field position and another came too late in the half to put up any points. The Blue Bomber offence moved the football but also turned it over. The Rider offence faced a more dominant defence in stifling cold and didn’t turn the ball over but did struggle to finish drives. My wife asked me the other day ‘Is Fajardo a great quarterback or is he overrated?’ to which I responded, ‘He’s probably the best quarterback in the CFL but right now, but that isn’t saying much’. It’s a very low bar these days, but let’s remember, Rider fans weren’t any happier with Zach Collaros and he’s headed to the Grey Cup. Cody is the best of a bad bunch and right now, that’s a pretty good place to be. Especially knowing that offences are likely to get better going into next season. Rob Vanstone wrote in the Leader Post the Riders should build around Cody and he’s right.   

3. LOSING JEFFERSON STILL STINGS: Don’t know the particulars as to why Jeremy O’Day couldn’t make the numbers work to bring Willie Jefferson back in J-O’s first days on the job but the repercussions are still being felt. The Riders have a great defensive line but there’s something great about the motor and the spirit that Willie Jefferson brings to the game. In a down era of quarterbacks, you wouldn’t be wrong to call Willie J the best player in the CFL right now.

4. TICAT FANS ARE LOSERS: Not all of them. Just the handful who got drunk and spit on the Toronto Argonaut players after the eastern final. The Argos are getting bad PR for going into the stands and attacking them but we have to understand the context here. The players often go through the stands at BMO Field just to get to the locker rooms and these players are human beings who don’t deserve to be treated like that. Although at first, I found the raw footage thoroughly entertaining, I’m sad that people are still dumb enough to harass these athletes who are nice enough to put their lives on hold down in the U.S.A. to come to our country and entertain us with the greatest game on earth. Those drunk idiot Ticat fans should be punished to the full extent of the law.  

5. ARGO PRESIDENT ISN’T MUCH BETTER: I’m not one to scapegoat whomever made the mistake of sending Toronto quarterback McLeod Bethel-Thompson to the Raptor game to do that interview and neither was Argo GM Pinball Clemons who took the bullets, himself, over the breach of COVID protocols it created. Where was Argonaut president Bill Manning in all of this? Should he not have acknowledged that he’s a nobody in Toronto sports and taken the bullets himself so that Pinball wouldn’t have to and the face of the Argonauts could have been protected from this embarrassment? Just another example of an Argo president who sounded like someone who thought the Argos were lucky to have him when MLSE put him in charge after Toronto had already won the 2017 Grey Cup. What has Bill Manning accomplished after three seasons of running the Argos? Absolutely nothing. Watch the CBC Gem documentary on Raptor superfan Nav Bhatia and the cultural events he helped the team with which has helped diversify the demographic of Raptor fans and ask yourself why the Argos aren’t doing the same thing?

6. THIS WEEK I’M JEALOUS OF: Darrell Romuld, of CTV Morning Live, in Regina. Just love his entertaining early morning banter with the crew. The guy was at the western semi final until late at night before anchoring the morning news just a few hours later. How does he do it?! 

7. CFL TV VIEWERS GETTING OLDER: 3 Down Nation did a great piece on how the ratings from Sunday’s CFL division final playoff games are skewing heavily to the 55-and-older demographic. It’s a frightening thought and yet another reminder the league desperately needs to get younger, more female and more non-white. Multi-cultural halftime shows and nights with Chinese/Punjab lettering on the jerseys in some cities would be a great start. The NBA does this kind of stuff all the time. This isn’t rocket science, guys.   

8. VANIER CUP: Too bad for the Huskies to lose to Western but like the Riders, they put up one helluva fight. It’s reassuring to know one of the greatest programs in the country is back in the 306. I’m also glad the Saskatoon Hilltops didn’t win the national title in junior football because it would’ve been their 7^thstraight title and would’ve made it stale for every-one else. Congratulations to the Langley Rams for winning the Canadian Junior national championship proving there are other conferences in the west who can compete with Saskatchewan. Too bad eastern Canada is still littered with garbage programs as evidenced in the Rams 37-0 Canadian Bowl win over the London Beefeaters. Hopefully a day will come where that can change, too. 

9. CURLING DRAMA: I was thoroughly enjoying the soap opera that is the Brendan Bottcher curling team out of Alberta. The defending brier champs laid an egg at the Olympic Trials in Saskatoon last week before announcing on Twitter that third Darren Moulding would step aside for ‘personal reasons’ that cued Moulding’s angry response indicating the statement was false and that Bottcher cut him partly to keep Moulding from participating in the Lethbridge Brier coming up in March. Moulding used words like ‘savage’ to describe Bottcher and suggested the timing was to hurt Moulding as much as he could. Seeing Moulding practically in tears with none of his teammates coming to his defence nearly brought a tear to my eye. Cutting your third before he gets to try and defend a Brier title is gutless. I was cheering for Bottcher to finally win a Brier and now wish I hadn’t. Will be fascinating to see where this goes.  

10. ON THE AIR THIS WEEK:Hosting IN THE HUDDLE one more time Tuesday night with probably the funniest ex-Roughrider broadcaster out there, Mike Abou-Mechrek. We’re on Tuesday night at 7 and reruns throughout the week on Access Now TV or your Access Now app. Watch us!