Evander Kane can’t get over Winnipeg and Winnipeg can’t get over Evander Kane

Evander Kane is the gift that just keeps giving…and giving…and giving.

By now, I’m guessing you’ve heard that old friend Evander can’t play hockey these days due to a wonky left knee, an owie that will keep him on the shelf for four to six weeks and provide the Buffalo Sabres forward with plenty of time for his new hobby of renting private jets and/or helicoptors for weekend getaways.

I understand Las Vegas is lovely at this time of year, so perhaps we can expect an Instagram or two featuring the self-proclaimed Natural flaunting stacks and stacks of American greenbacks in Sin City.

Evander Kane

Then again, perhaps Kane will discover more constructive ways to spend his free time. You know, something like flapping his gums like two flags in a stiff breeze. He already has a healthy head start in that area, what with word of his recent chin-wag with The Hockey News arriving on Monday.

Depending on one’s perspective, of course, any time Kane opens his pie hole it is a wonderful thing (for news scavengers on a slow day) or a cringe-worthy bit of business (for those who view him as an uppity, my-stuff-don’t-stink-but-this-city-does, underachieving prima donna). Either way, a tempest is certain to ensue and, sure enough, what he told THN vis-a-vis his troubled and turbulent times as the most-maligned—and surely the most-polarizing—player to ever pull the blue-and-white linen of the Winnipeg Jets over his head has put his name back at the top of the page for all the wrong reasons.

What he served up was part pity party, part confession and part accusation (he played the race card, don’t you know).

“I asked for a trade every off-season in Winnipeg,” confessed Kane, who was with the Atlanta Thrashers’ caravan that rolled into River City and morphed into Jets 2.0 in 2011. It took him slightly less than four National Hockey League seasons of sometimes oddball antics, bad press, bad attitude and sub-standard productivity to wear out his welcome, at which time he was shuffled off to Buffalo in a package that included Zach Bogosian going to the Sabres and Drew Stafford, Tyler Myers and add-ons coming back to the Jets.

“There are lots of guys I could point to that everybody knows publicly who have done a lot worse or been accused of doing a lot worse things than I have,” Kane continued. “But they don’t look like me. They don’t look like me. Jealousy is a disease. It really is.”

He added that he “didn’t feel as though (the Jets) had my back at all.”

This, no doubt, will lead to open hostility when Kane and the Sabres surface at the Little Hockey House on the Prairie for a Jan. 10 gig with the Jets. His reception would have been bad enough based on the residue left behind from his tempestuous tour of duty in Pegtown, but surely the volume will be amped up and there shall be heightened creativity and increased venom in the cat-calling of his accusors.

So here’s what I’m wondering: Why do so many people give a damn what Evander Kane thinks about the Jets and Winnipeg?

I know I don’t. Sure, I write about Kane, because he’s fun fodder and I get a kick out of him. I used to enjoy it when he’d yank the media’s chain, often playing cat to their mouse. But get my knickers in a knot over his parting shots at Winnipeg? Puh-leeze. So what if he asked for a new area code every summer and lied about it? He wasn’t the first, nor will he be the last, athlete who’s wanted out of Winnipeg and told fibs. The Jets didn’t have his back? Oh, boo freaking hoo.

As for his playing the race card (again), only those of a similar skin hue can say for certain if they’ve experienced discrimination or other forms of ill-treatment based solely on pigmentation. But if you believe racism doesn’t exist in good, ol’ Hometown, you might want to speak with one of your Native neighbors about that.

Look, Kane and Winnipeg didn’t work. He wanted the fast lane and he got caught in a collector lane. You like your athletes humble and respectful, he’s loud, vain and swashbuckling. Bad marriages happen. The thing is, he hasn’t gotten over you and you haven’t gotten over him. Come on, admit it.

Should make for an interesting night on Jan. 10. Keep it clean and classy, Winnipeg.

Patti Dawn Swansson has been writing about Winnipeg sports for more than 40 years, longer than any living being. Do not, however, assume that to mean she harbors a wealth of sports knowledge or that she’s a jock journalist of award-winning loft. It simply means she is old and comfortable at a keyboard (although arthritic fingers sometimes make typing a bit of a chore) and she apparently doesn’t know when to quit. Or she can’t quit.
She is most proud of her Q Award, presented to her in 2012 for her scribblings about the LGBT community in Victoria, B.C., and her induction into the Manitoba Sportswriters & Sportscasters Association Media Roll of Honour.

Big Buff’s big beef…Jets Nation loves its team…Joey Bats’ big ears and other stuff

I cannot survive in a 140-character world, so here are more tweets that grew up to be too big for Twitter…

Big Buff is no fan of three-on-three shinny.

Well, now, wasn’t that a fine bit of bluster that Dustin Byfuglien delivered on Saturday.

If you missed it, Big Buff has a big beef with National Hockey League gimmickry, specifically three-on-three overtime. It might be the one thing the Winnipeg Jets jumbo-bodied defenceman likes less than doing interviews.

“It’s terrible,” he harrumphed in the aftermath of some Tampa Bay Lightning OT tic-tac-toe that dealt the Jets a 4-3 loss at the Little Hockey House on the Prairie. “It ain’t hockey. It’s stupid.”

Geez, Buff, tell us what you really think.

It strikes me as rather odd that Byfuglien would pooh-pooh a bit of pond hockey, because he’s the ultimate freelancer. I mean, if not for the boards surrounding the freeze, we’d probably never see the guy again. He takes more detours than a lost dog. But he’d rather play five-on-five, or four-on-four, to break a stalemate.

I have a better idea: If it’s deadlocked at the end of regulation time, let’s give each outfit a point, turn out the lights and send everyone home. You know, just like they used to do.

By the end of this NHL crusade, Dustin Byfuglien will be 31. There’ll be 30 candles on Andrew Ladd’s birthday cake in December. Both, therefore, are diminishing assets and, in captain Ladd’s case, the decline from front-line forward status might be rapid. Although still useful workers, it would be folly for Grand Master Kevin Cheveldayoff to offer either man a contract greater than five years in length. It would be equally follysome to allow them to arrive at unrestricted free agency. It seems to me that it has become a matter of when, not if, one or both are moved. I wouldn’t expect anything to happen prior to U.S. Thanksgiving, but between then and the trade deadline all bets are off.

Jets Nation loves its Jets.

The Winnipeg Jets are No. 69—with a bullet! ESPN the Magazine recently released the findings from its annual fan-fueled poll which ranks 122 franchises in the four major professional sports leagues in North America, and the Jets jumped 28 spots in overall fan affection/satisfaction, going from No. 97 a year ago to 69^th. They’re ranked 20^th in the NHL pecking order, fourth among the seven Canadian franchises. What you like most about your Jets is team ownership, head coach Paul Maurice and the Little Hockey House on the Prairie. What you dislike most is ticket prices and bang for your buck.

Am I being old fashioned if I expect a game story to include the five Ws—who, what, when, where and why? I ask that because apparently facts have become an option for today’s sports scribes. I read a Ken Wiebe gamer in the Winnipeg Sun, for example, and it did not include the final score of the joust between the Winnipeg Jets and Tampa Bay Lightning. Nor did it mention what sport he was writing about. Over at the Winnipeg Free Press, meanwhile, my main man Ed Tait wrote a gamer on the Winnipeg Blue Bombers-Ottawa RedBlacks grass-grabber and, like Wiebe, he failed to tell us what sport he was writing about. Tell me I’m picking nits, but it seems to me that those are rather significant details that ought not be ignored. Yo! Boys! It’s the National Hockey League and the Canadian Football League. Get it in your copy! (Aside to editors at the Sun and Freep: Get a CP Style Guide and get with the program.)

Well, this is guaranteed to take the starch out of Don Cherry’s collars—for the first time in 98 years, less than 50 per cent of NHL players are good Canadian boys. Of the 680 lads on rosters during the first couple weeks of this season, 49.7 per cent were from Planet Puck. The other 50.3 per cent come from countries that wear face shields.

This is apropos of absolutely nothing, but my what big ears you have, Jose Bautista. Seriously. That’s some kind of wing span on Joey Bats. I never realized it until I watched an interview with the Toronto Blue Jays right fielder following their ouster from the Major League Baseball playoffs. I later learned that, as a child in his Santo Domingo neighborhood, his chums called him El Raton—The Rat—because he was straw-thin and had those big ears. Jose is in Don Mossi’s league. The former big league pitcher had a set of all-world ears. Probably the best ever.

Patti Dawn Swansson has been writing about Winnipeg sports for more than 40 years, longer than any living being. Do not, however, assume that to mean she harbors a wealth of sports knowledge or that she’s a jock journalist of award-winning loft. It simply means she is old and comfortable at a keyboard (although arthritic fingers sometimes make typing a bit of a chore) and she apparently doesn’t know when to quit. Or she can’t quit.
She is most proud of her Q Award, presented to her in 2012 for her scribblings about the LGBT community in Victoria, B.C., and her induction into the Manitoba Sportswriters & Sportscasters Association Media Roll of Honour.

Winnipeg Jets: It’s the Tao of Freddy that makes Paul Maurice do the things he does

I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.

I mean, Paul Maurice is telling us that Nick Petan cannot play against a big, strong, heavy team like the St. Louis Blues because the game might be too big, strong and heavy for him.

Seriously. When asked to explain the rationale behind making slick Nic a healthy scratch for Sunday’s matinee at the Little Hockey House on the Prairie, that’s exactly what the Winnipeg Jets head coach advised news scavengers scant seconds after his troupe, which included a pair of knuckle-draggers dragging down the fourth line, were found wanting in a 4-2 loss.

“Figured it’d be a style of game like this,” was coach PoMo’s abrupt reply.

He then pursed his lips, jutted out his jaw and scanned the room with cold, blue eyes, very much playing the tough-guy role and daring anyone to pursue this line of questioning.

No one did. There was a lengthy, pregnant pause…then a query about lessons learned.

The Petan predicament, however, must be pursued.

There are, to be certain, much larger lads plying their trade in the National Hockey League. Many of them work for the aforementioned big, strong and heavy Blues, who enjoy leaning on little people. Petan is little by today’s shinny standards, standing just 5-feet-9 and tipping the scales at 179 pounds after a big meal. He is not a physical force on the frozen ponds of the NHL. Unlike the man who skated in his stead as a fourth-line forward on Sunday, Anthony Peluso, he uses his hands for things other than bouncing them off the skulls of foes.

In short, Petan is a skill player. He is everything that Peluso is not.

Yet, Maurice opted for the latter over the former on Sunday afternoon. There was Peluso, mainly leashed to the end of the pine, his skates touching the ice for all of four minutes and 59 seconds. He contributed zero shots, zero points, took the obligatory roughing penalty, and only once did he summon his brawn to bump into someone wearing St. Louis linen. In other words, he did nothing in what amounted to hockey’s version of a street fight. Supposedly his kind of game. Supposedly the kind of game that Petan cannot play.

But wait. Aren’t most outfits in the Central Division configured similar to the Blues? Big, strong and heavy? Nasty? In your face? Push always comes to shove?

“We’re going to get that in our division from every team all year,” defenceman Jacob Trouba confirmed post-match.

So where does Petan fit in? Will coach PoMo lean toward sacrificing skill and inserting sturdier sinew into his lineup whenever he sees the whites of a Central Division foe’s eyes? If so, can he be successful with a starting 12 up front that includes both of his guard dogs, Peluso and Chris Thorburn?

To me, this is not a Ginger-or-Mary Ann debate. One guy, Petan, can play hockey. The other guy, Peluso, cannot. Unless this is 1975 and the Philadelphia Flyers are running amok on a scorched-earth crusade, there is absolutely no circumstance under which Anthony Peluso gives the Jets a better chance to win a hockey game. None. Only a closet Freddy Shero would believe othewise.

Truth be known, I’ve long suspected Maurice of being an adherent of the Tao of Freddy, an outdated coaching philosophy that values brash, abrasive bullies as much as, if not more than, a collection of fancy-Dans who give thought to a soft, saucer pass rather than a slew-foot. It’s a notion I have tried mightily to reject, even in the perpetual presence of the aforementioned Thorburn, but there is no logical explanation for a ruffian like Peluso to play ahead of Petan other than the Tao of Freddy is at work.

Sigh.

Patti Dawn Swansson has been writing about Winnipeg sports for more than 40 years, longer than any living being. Do not, however, assume that to mean she harbors a wealth of sports knowledge or that she’s a jock journalist of award-winning loft. It simply means she is old and comfortable at a keyboard (although arthritic fingers sometimes make typing a bit of a chore) and she apparently doesn’t know when to quit. Or she can’t quit.
She is most proud of her Q Award, presented to her in 2012 for her scribblings about the LGBT community in Victoria, B.C., and her induction into the Manitoba Sportswriters & Sportscasters Association Media Roll of Honour.

Toronto doesn’t stink when the Blue Jays are beating Uncle Sam at his own game

I’m a Prairie girl, born and raised, and I don’t hate Toronto.

There. I said it. I don’t hate Toronto.

I know, that’s positively blasphemous. I mean, it’s the sworn duty of every plow jockey’s daughter and/or son to look upon the Republic of Tranna with absolute disdain and associate the big city on the shores of Lake Ontario with all that is pungent. Indeed, we are taught this while barely off our mother’s breast. Mom, upon wiping our butt after the little jar of Gerber’s prune goop had kicked in and soiled our diaper, would recoil and gasp, “Oh, my, this smells just like Toronto.”

So, just like Prairie people long have known that New York is big but Saskatchewan has a burg that is Biggar, we’ve always known that Toronto stinks.

What I’ve never been able to figure out is this: Why is Toronto the subject of such scorn from the rest of Canada?

Oh, I know. It’s big. So what? Something or someone always has to be the biggest. Why not Toronto? Then there’s that whole Centre of the Universe thing, whereby those of us who reside in the colonies are made to feel inferior. Sorry, but that’s not of Toronto’s doing. That’s of our doing. It’s not like Toronto is going, “Na, na, na, na, na…I’m big and you’re not.” It is my experience, having worked and lived there on three different occasions and having visited numerous times, that very few Torontonians actually think that way. Apparently, the fact that we think they think that way is enough for us to dislike and distrust them.

If anything, we should be grateful to Toronto for providing us with wonderful sources of humor. The Maple Leafs. Rob Ford. Calling in the army to shovel snow. It’s all guffaw-worthy. And who doesn’t like a good giggle? So what’s not to like, right?

And now Toronto has been kind enough to share with us its Blue Jays.

The Great White North is in a state of baseball enthrall, and we seem to have decided that Muddy York doesn’t stink as much as our mothers led us to believe. We are root, root, rooting for the Toronto Nine in the Major League Baseball playoff tournament. We do so because they have become the home side and, for this, we need not place a clothes pin on the end of our nose.

What is it about this swaggering, bat-flipping Blue Jays outfit that makes you forget that you don’t like Toronto?

Well, for one thing, they aren’t the Maple Leafs. They aren’t the Toronto Argonauts, either. The Argos, of course, are the one sporting operative in the Big Smoke that has actually experienced success this century, most recently in 2012 when the Boatmen won the Grey Cup. Thing is, we only greet their achievements with mild annoyance because nobody in Toronto cares about the Argos, so why should we?

Apparently, Toronto also houses a National Basketball Association team, as well as an entry in Major League Soccer. But it’s like, who knew? There have been laughable efforts by marketing misfits and some dude named Drake to create a national identity for the Raptors. As if. That might have worked had they signed Steve Nash back in the day, but, as it is, their fandom is mostly parochial. The rest of the country doesn’t seem hip to the hoopsters.

The Blue Jays, though…they’re a different head of lettuce and I believe I know why they make those among us who hate Toronto forget why they hate Toronto: Since we can’t win the Stanley Cup any more, we’ll happily settle for the consolation prize—the World Series Trophy.

Nothing could possibly climb up American noses more than a Canadian-based outfit besting Uncle Sam at his national pastime, especially if the Toronto Nine were to vanquish, say, those loveable losers from Wrigley Field in the Fall Classic. Everybody loves the Chicago Cubs, right? How can you not embrace a club that has stepped aside to allow other teams to win every World Series title since 1908 (hey, anybody can have a bad century)? Thus, beating the Cubbies in the rounders final would be akin to piddling on the White House lawn while the Obama kids are in frolic.

This is why us hosers have hopped on the Blue Jays bandwagon, like so many circus clowns cramming into a Volkswagen Beetle. The Americans think they’re so smug hijacking our hockey? We’ll take their baseball hostage. And if it’s a Toronto team doing our dirty work, we’re all on point.

Once the dirty deed is done, of course, you can resume regularly scheduled dislike for all things T.O.

Patti Dawn Swansson has been writing about Winnipeg sports for more than 40 years, longer than any living being. Do not, however, assume that to mean she harbors a wealth of sports knowledge or that she’s a jock journalist of award-winning loft. It simply means she is old and comfortable at a keyboard (although arthritic fingers sometimes make typing a bit of a chore) and she apparently doesn’t know when to quit. Or she can’t quit.
She is most proud of her Q Award, presented to her in 2012 for her scribblings about the LGBT community in Victoria, B.C., and her induction into the Manitoba Sportswriters & Sportscasters Association Media Roll of Honour.

There’s something special about these Bombers…McDavid was McOrdinary…a tweet from a twit…and other things

I cannot survive in a 140-character world, so here are more tweets that grew up to be too big for Twitter…

Mike O’Shea

Gadzooks! Bombers win! With some dashing and daring!

It’s a good thing head coach Mike O’Shea didn’t listen to me and fire special teams coach Mike O’Shea last month after the Winnipegs soiled the sheets in Montreal, because he didn’t just dial up one fake punt in the Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ 29-26 defeat of the B.C. Lions on Saturday night in Vancouver. He did it twice. Just to confirm the first one wasn’t an accident, I suppose.

Winnipeg’s special teamsters also blocked a punt, which resulted in an Ian Wild touchdown. And they blocked an extra point attempt. And they forced a fumble.

Then there was Sergio Castillo, whose right leg replaced that of defrocked place-kicker Lirim Hajrulla-oops. All Castillo did was hoof two PATs and five field goals in five attempts, the last of which sealed the deal and was his first game-deciding three-pointer since high school.

Special teams always has been O’Shea’s specialty. It’s finally paid off for the Bombers.

If I’m Wally Buono, general manager of the B.C. Lions, I’m having a fireside chat with Andrew Harris. Not due to anything Harris has or hasn’t done on the field, understand. It’s about the B.C. running back running off at the mouth. Although still drawing a paycheque from the Leos, Harris is already openly discussing a new area code once his current contract expires at the conclusion of this Canadian Football League season. And, given that his daughter, Hazel, and other family reside in his hometown Winnipeg, Harris makes no secret that area code 204 would be favorable. I admire his frankness. It’s refreshing. But if I’m Buono, I don’t want to be signing cheques for an employee who’s already talking like the door has already hit him in the butt.

Chris Thorburn

A Friday morning headline should have read: Blind Squirrel Finds Acorn. The squirrel in this instance would be Chris Thorburn, who actually scored a goal the other night when the Winnipeg Jets beat the Bruins, 3-1, in Beantown. Well, he sort of scored. Upon further review, which is to say evidence provided by super slow-mo replay, David Krejci of the Bruins, not the much-maligned Thorbs, flipped the puck past Boston goaler Tuukka Rask. Doesn’t matter. A goal is a goal is a goal. Atta boy, Thorbs.

In his National Hockey League baptism against the St. Louis Blues, Connor McDavid was McOrdinary, yet there were four pics of the Edmonton Oilers rookie on the Sportsnet website front page the following morning, while this was a headline on the TSN website: McDavid shows flashes of brilliance in debut. How many pics will we see and what will the headlines say when he actually does something other than skate fast? Make no mistake, McDavid is going to be a dynamic player, but I believe we need to turn down the volume on the McHype and McRhetoric. Just let the kid play.

So, now that TSN talking head Aaron Ward is spending the weekend behind bars on domestic misdemenour charges, will the media eat their own, meaning will they skewer the former NHL defenceman the way they did Ray Rice, Slava Voynov, Greg Hardy and other sports figures who’ve roughed up women? Just asking.

Pariah Pete Rose

Baseball pariah Pete Rose thinks Josh Donaldson is a wuss. A real wimp. The way Pariah Pete sees it, the Toronto Blue Jays third sacker displayed extremely bad manners when he let a silly little thing like a rattled brain remove him from Game 1 of the Jays American League Division Series vs. the Texas Rangers. “I just don’t understand,” Rose harrumphed in his miscast role as analyst on Fox Sports. “I got a little light-headed how many times in my career? I still went out there and played.” What’s the problem, Pete? Lose your over/under wager with Donaldson out? Take a nap, man.

It’s agreed. Officiating in Game 2 of the Rangers-Jays joust was atrocious. Home plate umpire Vic Carapazza, for example, had a strike zone that was, at times, larger than Pete Rose’s ego, and, at other times, smaller than Pete Rose’s credibility. But Carapazza and the other boys in blue didn’t silence Blue Jays’ bats. Texas pitching did that. Blaming the umps for a loss in a baseball game is a copout 99 times out of 100.

Anyone for some genuine sour Grapes? Well, look no further than Donald S. Cherry’s bully pulpit on Hockey Night In Canada. There’s no surprise, of course, that the conspiracy theorists are in full-throated voice these days, what with the Blue Jays trailing the Rangers 0-2 in their best-of-five engagement. But I didn’t expect to see and hear Cherry use his Curmudgeon’s Corner platform to suggest there’s a sinister figure lurking behind the grassy knoll. “We’re getting stiffed,” the Lord of Loud laments. “You know why we’re getting stiffed? Because they do not want a Canadian team in the final.” I, for one, refuse to believe that. At least until I see them fly the Canadian flag upside down.

Twit of the week is Steve Simmons, Toronto Sun columnist who tweeted: “Under the department of dumb: Booing PK Subban. Great player. Local guy. Charitable. You should all applaud.” Hoo boy. Tsk-tsking Maple Leafs loyalists for giving P.K. Subban the Bronx cheer when he and the hated Montreal Canadiens were in the Republic of Tranna last week is some special kind of stupid. Even dumber is Little Stevie Blunder telling Leafs Nation to shower Subban with hossanas. For sure, Stevie. That’s what they should do. And while they’re at it, they can also root, root, root for an autumn snow storm and the second coming of Rob Ford. I’m not certain if Simmons writes this sort of stuff to get a rise out of the rabble of if he truly believes it, but for his twit tweet he earns a stay in the Bow Wow Bungalow.

Patti Dawn Swansson has been writing about Winnipeg sports for more than 40 years, longer than any living being. Do not, however, assume that to mean she harbors a wealth of sports knowledge or that she’s a jock journalist of award-winning loft. It simply means she is old and comfortable at a keyboard (although arthritic fingers sometimes make typing a bit of a chore) and she apparently doesn’t know when to quit. Or she can’t quit.
She is most proud of her Q Award, presented to her in 2012 for her scribblings about the LGBT community in Victoria, B.C., and her induction into the Manitoba Sportswriters & Sportscasters Association Media Roll of Honour.

Winnipeg Jets: Don’t listen to the experts, lend an ear to the Two Hens in the Hockey House

Okay, we’ve heard from all the “so-called” experts, many of whom have sifted through the tea leaves and now are forecasting a rather splotchy future for the Winnipeg Jets.

“No playoffs for you!” they yelp.

Well, stop it right there. Most of your “so-called” experts have no more “so-called” expertise than most lumps sitting on a bar stool. Oh, sure, having a byline or holding a microphone under an athlete’s chin is cool, but all it really tells us is that they get paid for their prognostications, however hallucinatory those prophecies might be. False prophets, that’s what they are.

For the real poop on the Jets as they set out on a fresh National Hockey League crusade Thursday night against the not so big, bad Bruins in Beantown, I sought my favorite go-to girls—The What If Lady and The Answer Lady, fondly known as the Two Hens in the Hockey House.

They’ve got the gossip, they’re glib and they deliver the goods. So take it away, ladies…

What If Lady: What if the Jets’ prized freshman Nik Ehlers wins the Calder Trophy as the NHL’s top rookie this season? Does that make general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff a genius?

Answer Lady: Actually, our Danish Delight prefers to be called Nikolaj, not Nik. So let’s nip Nik in the bud and make it Nikolaj. Can Nikolaj win the Calder Trophy? Sure. If Connor McDavid breaks a leg or retires. So Chevy still won’t be a genius.

What If Lady: Are you surprised that the Jets are letting Andrew Copp wear No. 9?

Answer Lady: I’m absolutely shocked! I mean, I thought Dustin Byfuglien threw that sweater in the ice tub with the rest of Evander Kane’s clothing.

What If Lady: Did Copp call Bobby Hull and ask his permission to wear No. 9 like Kane did a few years back?

Answer Lady: That would be like George Strombouloupouloupoulous calling Ron MacLean to ask permission to use really bad puns. Or like P.J. Stock calling Don Cherry for permission to turn his granny’s drapes into a sports jacket. No one requires B. Hull’s permission to do anything.

What If Lady: That’s disrespectful. What if Hull hadn’t signed with the World Hockey Association in 1972?

Answer Lady: There’d be no Jets 2.0. But that’s down to Ben Hatskin more than Hull. Benny is the father of pro hockey in River City as we know it. There should be a statue of him inside or outside the Little Hockey House on the Prairie.

What If Lady: I see where the New Jersey Devils are erecting a statue to honor Martin Brodeur. What if the Jets erected a statue of a player? Who would it be?

Answer Lady: They had a statue years ago. His name was Sergei Bautin. When last seen, he was part of the rubble after the wrecking ball whacked the old Winnipeg Arena.

What If Lady: Getting back to Evander Kane, what if he scores 50 goals for the Sabres this season? Does that mean Jets general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff made a bad trade when he shuffled our resident bad boy off to Buffalo?

Answer Lady: Bartenders and servers at pubs and restaurants in Winnipeg won’t think so.

What If Lady: Don’t you think Kane got a bit of a bum rap in Winnipeg with all that dine-and-dash stuff? There was never any proof that he weaseled out on his tabs, was there?

Answer Lady: Nope. He got the bum’s rush for a bum rap.

What If Lady: Speaking of paying or not paying, both Andrew Ladd and Dustin Byfuglien become unrestricted free agents at the end of this season. What if the Jets can’t afford to keep both of them?

Answer Lady: They’ll unload big Buff because he’ll fetch far more in return. Chevy won’t let happen to Byfuglien what he let happen to Michael Frolik, which is to say let him skate away for zip.

What If Lady: The Jets will definitely miss Frolik because he was a Jack of all trades kind of guy. Do you think Alexander Burmistrov can fill that Swiss army knife role?

Answer Lady: Ah, yes, the prodigal son. Born-again Burmi. It’s almost like he’s a rookie again. After two years in Mother Russia, it’s uncertain what he’ll deliver. Hopefully, it won’t be a bad attitude. I always liked the guy. If the bolts in his neck are screwed on tight, I see him as a Fro Lite.

What If Lady: Speaking of light, I note that Mark Scheifele has put on 15 pounds of muscle. Does this mean he’ll no longer fall down as often as Bambi?

Answer Lady: Once a Bambi always a Bambi. But I have an inkling that this will be a true breakout season for Scheifele. Dancing Gabe will be doing the Scheifele Shuffle in the aisles. It’ll be all the rage at Whiskey Dix.

What If Lady: What are you saying? That the Jets are a bunch of post-game party boys?

Answer Lady: Hey, they’re young. They’re wealthy. As far as I know, they all like young women and young women like young, wealthy hockey players. If the skate fits…

What If Lady: I can’t imagine any of them being as bad as Keith Tkachuk or that Kane kid in Chicago, but what if the team veterans can’t keep the youngsters on the straight and narrow?

Answer Lady: I think we all know what happens when one of the Jets’ young stallions strays from the herd. That’s right, his track suit ends up in the ice tub. I really don’t see it as an issue or a concern.

What If Lady: What are your concerns heading into this season?

Answer Lady: Two words: Chris Thorburn. Two more words: Anthony Peluso.

What If Lady: Seems to me a couple of spare parts should be of little concern, so why them?

Answer Lady: Goons in hockey have rapidly gone the way of the bare-faced goaltender, yet here we have the Jets with not one but two low-talent, back-alley thugs on the roster. They bring nothing but bruised bare knuckles to the table.

What If Lady: But what if there’s nobody to ride shotgun for smaller, skilled guys like Ehlers and Nic Petan?

Answer Lady: You don’t need that kind of guard dog today. What’s Peluso going to do if someone runs one of the Smurfs? Throw his box of popcorn at the ruffian from his perch in the press box?

What If Lady: You mention Ehlers and Petan. Are those two, along with guys like Scheifele, Jacob Trouba, Adam Lowry and Copp, proof positive that Cheveldayoff’s draft-and-develop blueprint is a stroke of genius?

Answer Lady: Good grief. You sound like someone who writes for the official newspaper of the Winnipeg Jets. Look, it’s not like Chevy invented sliced bread or the curved blade. Sam Pollock did that. To date, though, it would seem that Chevy’s bird dogs have flushed out some dandy prospects. I can’t say that there’s a Jimmy Mann or Sergei Bautin in the bunch.

What If Lady: Last question…what if the Jets are out of the playoffs this season?

Answer Lady: Can you say Auston Matthews?

 

Patti Dawn Swansson has been writing about Winnipeg sports for more than 40 years, longer than any living being. Do not, however, assume that to mean she harbors a wealth of sports knowledge or that she’s a jock journalist of award-winning loft. It simply means she is old and comfortable at a keyboard (although arthritic fingers sometimes make typing a bit of a chore) and she apparently doesn’t know when to quit. Or she can’t quit.
She is most proud of her Q Award, presented to her in 2012 for her scribblings about the LGBT community in Victoria, B.C., and her induction into the Manitoba Sportswriters & Sportscasters Association Media Roll of Honour.

Winnipeg Blue Bombers: It must really suck to be Lirim Hajrull-oops

I cannot survive in a 140-character world, so here are more tweets that grew up to be too big for Twitter…

How bad a day did Lirim Hajrull-oops have on Saturday afternoon at Football Follies Field in Fort Garry? Well, after coughing up a hair ball on four field goal attempts and a convert in the Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ one-point loss to the Edmonton Eskimos, he was so angry when he got home that he wanted to kick a dog.

Naturally, he missed. Fido is just fine.

It’s no surprise, really, that Lirim Hajrull-oops’s teammates stood by their man and resisted the urge to hurl the much-maligned place-kicker under the team bus. They put on the proper public face. In private, though, we all know what they had to be thinking—he cost them two points in the West Division table and, possibly, admission to the Canadian Football League post-season party. It was the worst kicking performance since Jay Leno gave Conan O’Brien the boot, and he ought to be fired. That’s the reality.

I see where TSN has been doing the promo thing for a feature on the Toronto Blue Jays’ 1993 World Series championship, and Joe Carter, the batsman who struck the decisive blow in the home half of the ninth inning of Game 6, tells us that “everyone knows where they were” when he swatted his three-run homer, and the Jays’ success “changed how we view baseball.” I can assure Mr. Carter that I, for one, do not have a clue where I was or what I was doing when he clouted a Mitch Williams pitch over the fence in left field, nor did that development alter the way I watch rounders. I mean, get a grip, man. It was a baseball game, not the JFK assassination.

Exactly how many people does Raffi Torres have to send to the hospital before the National Hockey League does the right thing and tell him to go away and never come back? Suspended for a fifth time, his most recent trespass being a predatory-type assault on Jacob Silfverberg of the Disney Ducks, it truly is time to toss the book at the San Jose Sharks’ repeat felon.

So, three female reporters were denied access—temporarily—to the Jacksonville Jaguars’ changing room post-game in Indianapolis on Sunday afternoon. Not good. Blatant gender discrimination. Should never happen in 2015. A male usher made a serious faux pas. But wait. One of the women, Graham Watson, described the usher as an “old, out-of-touch geezer” and another, Joey Chandler, was only slightly more charitable, referring to him as an “old man.” Way to keep it classy, ladies. Makes it rather difficult to sympathize with you when you’re so insulting.

Okay, let’s put the corks back in the champagne bottles, boys. That is to say, there are far too many champagne celebrations in baseball for my liking. You win a division title, fine. Break out the bubbly. Ditto for an American League or National League pennant and World Series victory. But for earning a wild-card spot? Or a second wild-card spot? Again, get a grip, boys. You haven’t won a thing. What next? A champagne bath for finishing first in the Grapefruit or Cactus Leagues in spring?

 

Patti Dawn Swansson has been writing about Winnipeg sports for more than 40 years, longer than any living being. Do not, however, assume that to mean she harbors a wealth of sports knowledge or that she’s a jock journalist of award-winning loft. It simply means she is old and comfortable at a keyboard (although arthritic fingers sometimes make typing a bit of a chore) and she apparently doesn’t know when to quit. Or she can’t quit.
She is most proud of her Q Award, presented to her in 2012 for her scribblings about the LGBT community in Victoria, B.C., and her induction into the Manitoba Sportswriters & Sportscasters Association Media Roll of Honour.