THROWIN’ ELBOWS WITH BRENDAN MCGUIRE

1. RIDERS PLAYING FAJARDO WAS A MISTAKE: I hate to say, “I told you so!” but I told you so. Cody took at least 4 more hits in Friday night’s loss to BC that he didn’t need to take and the Riders still lost. Plus we still haven’t seen what Jake Dolegala can do with Duke Williams in his holster and we still have no idea what Mason Fine can do at all. I realize the Riders are facing pressure to win now and getting Fine or Dolegala properly prepared on the short week was going to be impossible. Starting Fajardo was one of some very bad options. But it wasn’t the only option and really didn’t help the Roughriders in any way, shape or form.  

2. FAJARDO HAVING BABY IN REGINA: 3 Down Nation did a nice piece about this back in training camp and Michael Ball alluded to it on the radio broadcast Friday night, too. I love these stories. Football, and sport in general, is all about connecting people with other people. These Americans have decided they want their kid to be a Canadian. One of us! That’s pretty cool.

3. COOL HAND LUC: Rider Radio colour man extraordinaire Luc Mullinder wasn’t happy with the nonchalance of coach Dickenson or Justin McInnis in their postgame interviews. It’s hard to blame any of them for feeling tired and ready for a break late on a Friday night after an 8-game stretch with no bye week and right now, not much happiness either with a 3-game losing skid. But we have to appreciate what Luc is saying in that somewhere along the way there needs to be some kind of hate-on for losing. A Kent Austin-esque hatred of losing. Will be curious to see if that creeps in if the losing continues after the bye week.

4. JAMAL MORROW RADIO INTRO: Caught his introduction over the radio on my way to the park Friday night and he says something like, and I’m paraphrasing here: “Jamal Morrow from the same Washington State University as George Reed.” Jamal probably never heard of George before coming to Regina but still appreciates who he is and that’s pretty cool, too.

5. THIS WEEK IN REGINA RED SOX BASEBALL: Dylan Edmands socked a solo bomb and the Sox rallied from down 7-2 to come back and chew through the Weyburn Beavers en route to a 9-7 come-from-behind win at Currie Field Monday night to take the first of a 3-game series with the Beavers that’ll continue Tuesday in Regina and then Wednesday on the road in Weyburn. All this on the heels of a scintillating walk-off victory over Fort McMurray a day earlier. In this the final week of the regular season, the Red Sox remain tied with the Moose Jaw Miller Express for first place in the east division with only 4 games left to play and their head-to-head record is dead-even at 5 wins apiece. The Sox play Weyburn twice, a gigantic one in Moose Jaw Thursday and then finish up at home against the Swift Current 57s on Friday night. The Millers have their own home-and-home with Swift before playing the Sox and then wrapping up on the road in Medicine Hat. Schedule says the Sox should get there but funny things happen this time of the summer. Stay tuned.  

6. LAPO FIRST WIN NO FLUKE: Caleb Evans is the real deal in my not-so-humble opinion and the Redblacks really ought to just let him have the torch and run with it. He’s athletic, makes good decisions and his head coach, Paul LaPolice, believes in him too. Why on earth would Ottawa want to delay this kid’s development to roll with Nick Arbuckle, who’s five years older and couldn’t even get the QB-starved Elks excited about him? Evans is exciting to watch and the Ottawa fan base will put up with another rebuilding season as long as they’re entertained and see progress.  

7. MY GAMBLING ADVENTURE: I get questions all the time about point spreads and over-unders, etc. especially for CFL games. I don’t wager on the fun these days. I poured $200 into a gambling site about 3 years ago now and had some great fun with it riding the tremendous ups and downs including a parlay from a Bills-Chiefs playoff game back in January when cashing out with 13 seconds left before the Chiefs beat the Bills saved me about $511 in winnings. Instead of cashing out like I probably should have after that game, I continued to make large bets with strong odds and even built my fortune up to more than $900. “I’ll stop at $1,000” I confidently told myself. Then I got to $980-something and blew it all on a basketball game between Argentina and some other country I don’t remember. I could be glass-half-full and choose to view it as $200 for lots of great entertainment or I could be glass-half-empty and blame myself for flushing some great bets and some winnings down the toilet. In either case, I would be right. My point being: Like a lot of other things in life, this sports gambling thing is okay in moderation. I probably will get back on the horse eventually but not until after I kick myself for a while. And that’s okay too.  

8. SHAWN MENDES: I remember showing up to the Queen City Ex a few years ago and being dragged into this concert where all these adolescent girls were chanting “We want Shawn! We Want Shawn!”. Then I spotted some middle-aged dad looking depressed out of his mind to be stuck at a Shawn Mendes concert, kind of like how I was feeling. The kid was maybe 17 at the time and proceeded to come out and put on a terrific show! I remember thinking ‘How on earth does this kid deal with the pressure of all this?’. Well apparently, the pressure has been getting to Shawn and he has now cancelled the rest of his world tour for a mental health break. This is great news. How many other performers don’t cancel the show when they’re struggling and don’t take care of themselves? I like the kid and hope he does not fall into that trap.

9. PICK FROM THE DOC COLLECTION: Just saw The Most Hated Man on the Internet on Netflix. Very interesting to learn about this revenge-porn hacker in California and his website and cult following that appeared to think the law never applied to them because they were on the internet. Come to think of it, it kind of reminded me of a former U.S. president some of us might remember.

10. IN-THE-HUDDLE THIS WEEK: Over the moon to interview a superstar running back from my youth this week. Robert Mimbs, who only Doug Flutie could prevent from winning two CFL Most Outstanding Player awards, will join the program to tell us how his post-playing days in Regina are treating him and what he thinks about the Riders today. We’re on Tuesday nights at 7pm on the Access cable channel or the Access Now app.

(Follow Brendan on Twitter at @brendanhowardmc)