THROWIN’ ELBOWS WITH BRENDAN MCGUIRE

1. CFL BAILOUT REACTION LACKING SPECIFICS: I’m hearing a lot of passionate comments both for and against the CFL’s request for up to $150 million from our friends in Ottawa. The biggest issue I have with the reaction is just how uninformed most of the talking heads really are. Like how many of you even know the specifics of the request and what are you basing your opinion on? Did you know the league is asking for a total of $30 million to sustain itself through the pandemic in the hopes it doesn’t last beyond 2020? Many of these teams, like the Riders, have big payments due to their municipal governments, backed by our provincial governments, for new stadium payments. Shortchanging them, shortchanges all of us. I’m not saying Justin should just fork it over. In fact, the CFL has lacked any meaningful revenue-sharing structure, which is partly to blame for the poor business model, risking its own future. Teams like Saskatchewan, Edmonton and Winnipeg should remember that while they make most of the money, it’s Toronto, Montreal and BC who attract the big TV contracts and corporate sponsorship that makes this league possible in the first place. Without the big three, there is no CFL and there is no Riders.  

2. KEVIN WAUGH’S COMMENTS: The Saskatoon Conservative MP/former CTV sportscaster caught some attention for trashing CFL Commissioner Randy Ambrosie’s apparent lack of preparedness in answering questions from lawmakers, including Waugh, about his financial request for the league. I credit Kevin for not giving the Commish a free pass, even though it would probably be more popular for him at home to do so. Although I might be a bit biased given the fact Kevin was so helpful and co-operative in helping me tell the story on Bill Hunter’s 1983 pursuit of the St. Louis Blues for Saskatoon. It was easily the greatest project I ever worked in my broadcasting adventures.

3. TAYLOR FIELD SHOULD NOT BE LOW INCOME HOUSING: We need housing for everybody but not all in one area. North central Regina is a ghetto and adding more low-income housing in that neighborhood will only make that area worse and will not provide the people moving into them with a safe place to live. Low income housing units need to be spread out with little bits all over the city. Pushing for businesses and luxury condos should be the goal of how to develop that property. Otherwise, it can just sit empty for the next generation if it has to.

4. DID YOU KNOW?: It’s common knowledge in the baseball universe that 2020 Hall of Fame inductee-elect Larry Walker was first signed by the Montreal Expos in the summer of 1984 at an international tournament in Kindersley, Saskatchewan. What I didn’t know before the weekend was that future Major League Baseball stars Juan Guzman, Jack McDowell, Gregg Olsen and Albert Belle also played in Kindersley that July. The history of baseball in our own backyard is astonishing even to us who live here. It’s like we have this amazing legacy for ball and don’t even give ourselves credit for it.

5. WRAY MORRISON: In working from home and listening to 980 CJME last week, my wife and I noticed the long-time Sports Director and former TSN Saskatchewan bureau chief quietly disappeared from the airwaves. Wray and CJME/CKOM “parted ways in February”, I was told. It happens. Wray actually hired me to work at CJME in the spring of 2006 when I was stranded out living and working in Windsor, Ontario and homesick as ever. He brought me home when I really needed it. Wray was always very down to earth and quick to remind me to have fun with this sports thing and not take it, or ourselves, too seriously. 23-year-old Brendan didn’t understand so well. 37-year-old Brendan totally gets it.

6. NFL INVESTIGATES 13-YEAR-OLD JOE BURROW COMMENTS: Instead of the NFL making a fuss over homophobic remarks their 2020 first-round draft pick might have made a decade ago when he was in grade 7, they really ought to focus more on their 2015 first-round draft pick, Jameis Winston, and his startling pattern of sexual assault allegations since he was in college and in the pros as a grown-man. It’s almost as if the NFL is trying so hard to market itself properly that its decision-makers are too stupid to exercise any common sense.  

7. DEVIN HEROUX: Speaking of Kevin Waugh, I’ll never forget the day he and I nearly froze in the Griffiths Stadium press box at the 2006 Vanier Cup in Saskatoon. It remains a highlight for me to see 14,000 people sit out in the -35 windchill to witness their beloved U of S Huskies lose to the Laval Rouge Et Or. A young Devin Heroux was working for the University at the time and hussling to get supplies (blankets maybe?) to keep us all warm. Today, Devin has carved out a career for himself as one helluva reporter for the CBC. Just the other day, he interviewed former Argos owner David Cynamon about the CFL’s COVID-19 predicament. Cynamon says it’s tough for the Argos to survive but I don’t think their current owner, Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, is going to get any sympathy from Joe Public on this one.

8. WAITING TO CANCEL EVENTS: Why would the Western Canada Baseball League or organizers of Agribition even wait? I think it’s pretty obvious that 2020 is a write-off and the sooner we all accept that, the sooner we can all get on with life.

9. COPING MECHANISM FOR NO BASEBALL: I’m lucky that I just moved into a house with a yard for the first time since leaving the farm I grew up on some 19 years ago. Running my lawnmower and doing yard work has become a welcome distraction from having no baseball to watch or broadcast this summer. For me it’s been yardwork that’s therapeutic. For you, it might be something else. Find one thing and latch onto it if you can.

10. BOOK OF THE WEEK: Do a book swap! Another one of my old bosses, (why don’t I ever get to be someone’s boss?) Dwayne Kocoy gave me the idea by offering up his sports book collection for anyone who wants to trade one. Why not? There are far worse things we could do to pass the time during this dark period in our lives today.  

(Follow Brendan on Twitter at @brendanhowardmc)