THROWIN’ ELBOWS WITH BRENDAN MCGUIRE

1. OPEN LETTER TO WILLIE JEFFERSON: We have the best stadium in the country. We’re hosting the Grey Cup this year and the defensive schemes are still pretty well all the same that you loved playing in under Chris Jones. And yet you’re going back to Winnipeg. Winnipeg?! What gives, man? Is it something we said? We appreciate you more than Winnipeg ever will. After you got snubbed for the Grey Cup MVP, that you clearly deserved, in favor of a cheater, I was just certain you’d be ready to high-tail it outta there. Come on young Willie! We could’ve worked this out.

2. ROUGHRIDERS SHOULD CONSIDER FRANKLIN: He’s proven to be an adequate backup in Jason Maas’s system before and it is clear this young man needs a change of scenery. It’s ironic that so many of us thought James Franklin was who the Riders needed not all that long ago, didn’t come here, turned into a disaster elsewhere while our beloved Roughriders lucked out with Fajardo, and yet Franklin still could end up here helping our Riders win a championship after all.

3. JON RYAN CONTRACT EXTENSION: Heard on the radio that he knew he was going to play in 2020 but hadn’t chosen where, as of about a week ago, just days before signing his extension for the upcoming season. Pllllease! Someone else was going to give him a better offer than Riders? I doubt it. And I do expect a better year for Jon as now he’s had time to adjust from the NFL rules back to the CFL rules of punting and no fair catches, etc.

4. DEMOTION FOR McADOO: Nice to see ex-Rider Offensive Coordinator Stephen McAdoo land on his feet in Toronto as the Argos new Offensive Line Coach. Good guy who I’m certain will do a great job there. But the fact that none of the other 8 teams had any interest in bringing Mac in to be their offensive play-caller is proof that no-one saw the Rider offensive game-plan last year and thought it looked like anything they wanted. Further proof that Craig Dickenson made the right call to dump McAdoo and bring in Jason Maas.

5. ALOUETTES CUT CHEERLEADERS: I don’t watch CFL for the cheerleaders (okay maybe I do a little) but are these new Montreal owners really going to be that chintzy? At least they saw the error in their ways and corrected an outlandish decision.

6. RUSH BEATING COLORADO: Kudos to Global Saskatoon for replaying the National Lacrosse League broadcast of Saturday’s 9-7 win over the Colorado Mammoth. Learning the storylines, such as the team meeting up in Toronto for 2 of the hardest practices since the Rush moved to Saskatoon, helped me understand and enjoy the game. I choose to believe local sports needs exactly THAT; a quality broadcast to teach the locals about the players and the team. The more we know we know about them, the more interesting they become. It was a great game to watch, although I do still find the music during the action very distracting and makes it hard to concentrate on the game itself.  

7. XFL DEBUT: Saw most of Sunday’s game on FOX where Marc Trestman’s Tampa Bay Vipers got waxed by the New York Guardians. The athletes are great, but that shouldn’t surprise anyone. What I did notice is how much like a professional football league this really looks. I like it. Especially some of the rules like 1, 2 and 3-point converts. But much of the same was true about the failed Alliance of American Football last year. You can tell that Vince McMahon has given XFL commissioner Oliver Luck full authority to do what he wants. Luck has said this version of the XFL will avoid gimmicks. The only problem is, the gimmicks were the one thing that gave the XFL a fighting chance the last time around. I hope this league catches on but I’m still skeptical it’ll last any longer than maybe a year or two.

8. TAMPA & MONTREAL SHARING THE RAYS: This will never work and all parties involved know it. The Rays, the prospective Montreal Expo ownership group and Major League Baseball are simply manufacturing evidence of trying to make it work in Tampa in preparation for a court-fight to break the team’s lease at Tropicana Field, where the Tampa Rays currently play. My point is, the Montreal Expos are coming back and there’s a good chance it will happen sooner than the 2028 season, which is right after the Rays lease expires. This is good news because residents of south Florida don’t really support their MLB franchises in the summer anyway and I’m pretty sure they didn’t care about the Expo fans losing their team in 2004. Plus, the Expos are long overdue to return as Canada needs an option other than just the Blue Jays.  

9. JAY BOYD RETIRES: Growing up pre-internet without cable, my field of dreams was largely cultivated by Yorkton television CKOS and CICC-TV. In fact, before I was old enough to drive, my grandma and I watched him anchor TV bingo and didn’t see too many sportscasts that weren’t anchored by Yorkton’s Jay Boyd. He’s just announced his retirement from broadcasting SJHL games on TV, capping a 40-year run. Dad and I could never figure out why Jay never gave up reporting for the SJ or senior hockey for something bigger. I think he just liked Saskatchewan. And when I moved to Ontario and got homesick, I remember thinking, ‘that Jay Boyd was onto something’.

10. FILM OF THE WEEK: ‘AMERICAN FACTORY’ won an Oscar Sunday night and rightfully so. Very timely for those of us paying attention to the labour war, and yes it’s become a war, happening at the Co-op Refinery in Regina.

(Follow Brendan on Twitter at @brendanhowardmc)