THROWIN’ ELBOWS WITH BRENDAN MCGUIRE
1. WHY WE NEED THE CFL: This hasn’t been entirely clear to me for a few years. We’re oversaturated with entertainment on TV and internet, especially in the arena of professional and college sport. However, the NHL, NFL, MLB and NBA don’t give us hillbillies a place to congregate. Those leagues don’t give us a chance to see our heroes in person, get to know them at all or have any meaningful connection, whatsoever. The Canadian Football League gives us all of that. Down-to-earth, middle-class athletes playing for us! And it’s our only connection to prime time on TSN. The Riders put us on the map in ways nothing else ever could. All the money in the world wouldn’t replace that. If there’s anything 2020 has taught me, it’s to not take the small stuff for granted. And that especially includes the Riders.
2. JIM HOPSON COMMENTS: Glad to hear the Hall of Fame Rider President weigh in recently about the CFL’s 2.0 strategy of partnering with other football federations around the globe. He thinks Commissioner Randy Ambrosie needs to focus on growing the game here at home. And he’s right. Any energy being wasted on this initiative, especially in light of recent world circumstances, needs to be focused on converting new Canadians already in Canada to try our game. I don’t want to hear another word from the league office about CFL 2.0 until they show us all their initiative for exposing our great game to Chinese and Indo-Canadians already living in this country. A study was once conducted to find root causes for the failure of the NBA franchise in Vancouver. The biggest blame: the failure to engage the Asian population on the west coast. Yao Ming eventually changed all of that, but for the Vancouver Grizzlies, it was too late. The CFL and in particular, the BC Lions, should learn from that and not make the same mistake.
3. LONIE GLIEBERMAN COMMENTS: Lonie says the CFL would risk becoming irrelevant if the league changed to American rules. And he’s right. Lonie was and is one of this country’s most iconic football villains, especially in Ottawa. But to his credit, he still follows the league and interacts with fans in a way very few team presidents ever would. Being more like the NFL would make our game more like the XFL. And I just know we don’t want THAT!
4. BILL MANNING COMMENTS: The president of the Toronto Argonauts says the league needs more uniformity amongst its ownership group. Now whether that’s another sign that MLSE might be in the line to try and buy the league outright or if it’s just a call for revenue-sharing, he does make some sense. All other North American major professional leagues had serious financial problems until they agreed on a serious revenue-sharing program. So why would the CFL be any different? It’s a hard sell out west because enough of our money already rolls down east. The Saskatchewan Roughriders, and the other 7 teams not playing out of Montreal, each spent a reported $850,000 to cushion the blow of the Montreal Alouettes operating loss from 2019. You can just imagine how big that number would be if they had to absorb losses from the BC Lions, Toronto Argonauts and Calgary Stampeders, too. Like in real life, the real solution lies somewhere in the middle. We don’t quite support a survival-of-the-fittest society, some of us anyway, and we definitely don’t want communism, either. The same is true for the CFL. Something like a 30% gate-share could go into a pot to be divided up equally among the 9 teams. And there should be a minimum standard to be met for teams receiving money, too. No ridiculous salaries for coaches or players and a minimum of 12,000 tickets sold per game. The mere thought of sending money to MLSE from Regina makes me want to gag but we also have to remember that no Toronto Argonauts would mean no Saskatchewan Roughriders, either.
5. CANADIAN QUARTERBACKS: Had a bit of back-and-forth with TSN’s Dave Naylor over Twitter on this one. He says mandating a Canadian quarterback as 3rd-stringer would be met with resistance from the coaches who say they’re having a tough enough time developing good quarterbacks without any such restrictions. My response: Stop listening to coaches. They’re the ones being overpaid right now, which is sinking our league faster than anything. They’re not the ones who have to have to sell this game. We don’t need more Canadian lineman in the CFL. We need more Canadian quarterbacks. The status quo is a joke.
6. JOE MURPHY IN REGINA: Nearly fell out of my chair to see CTV’s Claire Hanna interviewing 1990 Edmonton Oiler Stanley Cup hero Joe Murphy just a 5-minute walk from my house. Apparently, Joe is living homeless in Regina these days. If I see him around, I’ll buy him some food, just like Claire did, but I’m also going to pepper him with questions about being traded with Petr Klima and his role on the kid-line with Martin Gelinas and Adam Graves. It was the first spring I actively followed the NHL and they were the X-factor in the cup Edmonton won without Gretzky. Would digging up those memories inspire Joe to fight again for a better life? Maybe. Maybe not. But it couldn’t hurt.
7. RANDY AMBROSIE COMMENTS: The Commish caught my ear on a recent podcast in a discussion about the CFL import ratio. John Shannon complained “Those darn American coaches who come up here have no patience to teach our kids the way.” John is right, as evidenced by the disastrous short-lived tenure of both Mike Gibson and Gary Etcheverry at coaching Canadian college ball. But Ambrosie pointed out his old teammate, Rod Connop (former Roughrider Rory Connop’s dad) probably wouldn’t have made it into the CFL without the Canadian quota but ended up in the Canadian Football Hall of Fame. “It takes a little longer but boy is the outcome worth it!” Ambrosie said about developing Canadian players. And he’s right. Dave Sapunjis was another undersized player who made the CFL because of the quota and eventually became one of the best ever receivers, Canadian or American, to play this game. Too bad Ambrosie and the board of governors don’t seem to be getting the memo on quarterbacks. At least, not yet.
8. CODY FAJARDO COMMENTS: Give him credit for not opting out of his deal to try the NFL but let’s remember, it’s not like he was going to get a fair shot from the NFL anyways. Just one look at this year’s Hard Knocks: Los Angeles will show you that training camp is unrecognizable and the coaches themselves openly admit feeling sorry for the players who won’t get a fair evaluation this year. Cody looks like a rockstar to Rider fans for staying but it’s not like there was much of anything there for him, anyways.
9. NIK LEWIS COMMENTS: Nik insists it is the Commissioner’s job to put a product on the field. Apparently, Nik hasn’t noticed there’s a world-wide health disaster going on right now. Expecting Randy Ambrosie to put a CFL season on the field, given the circumstances, would be the equivalent to expecting Nik Lewis to put up a 1,000-yard season as a CFL receiver after tearing his achilles tendon in training camp. Nik was a great receiver but I’m pretty confident he would’ve struck out on that one just as badly as Randy Ambrosie has struck out in trying to give us a season in 2020.
10. IDIOT BROADCASTER COMMENTS: Thom Brennaman and Mike Milbury were both kept off their respective broadcasts after saying something politically incorrect last week. Brennaman said something homophobic. Milbury said something sexist. Anyone who’s been a broadcaster has said something over a microphone they wished they hadn’t. Should it be a death sentence? No. But at the same time, both of these guys caught a lot of breaks just to be in that position to be begin with. If a little bad luck means these 2 guys have to either retire or find a real job like the rest of us, I’m okay with that, too. If they truly are quality broadcasters, they will find their way back. Otherwise, the world keeps turning.
(Follow Brendan on Twitter at @brendanhowardmc)
