Winnipeg Jets: Someone has some explaining to do

What is it that I don’t understand about last place? About a bottom-feeder? About doing the Auston Matthews jig?

I mean, when last seen, the Winnipeg Jets were rolling in the deep, wearing 50 shades of gawd awful in pursuit of a repeat of their one and only, albeit brief, entry into the Stanley Cup tournament last spring. They’re feeding from the bottom of the National Hockey League’s most treacherous waters, the Central Division, and only the unexpected free fall of the Disney Ducks and the usual buffoonery from the Edmonton McDavids has prevented the Jets from claiming sole squatter’s rights to the Western Conference cellar.

But, hey, everything is cool. That sub-.500 record? Not an accurate measurement of their true mettle. Just ask them.

Paul Maurice

“I think we’re in a lot better shape than the standings look,” insists Paul Maurice, the head coach and president of the Anthony Peluso fan club. “I like the way our game is being played. We’ve been in some games and have had some tough defeats lately, but we’ve played right and played hard.”

What say you, Bryan Little?

“I feel like we are better than a .500 team and you haven’t seen the best of us yet,” says the veteran centre. “I think we have a better team in this room than our record shows.”

Earth to Jets! Earth to Jets! Put away the rose-tinted glasses. You are what your record says you are, a last-place club with apparent designs on first call in next June’s NHL entry draft, whereupon the name Auston Matthews shall be shouted out and one lucky outfit lands a potential game-changer.

Trouble is, that fortunate outfit is supposed to be named something other than Jets.

I think.

I mean, I don’t believe there was intent to tank from the get-go of the 2015-16 crusade, but now that we’ve arrived at the Christmas break and the Jets are a mere two points clear of last place in the Western Conference and eight removed from the playoff line, what’s the plan? Unload Dustin Byfuglien and Andrew Ladd for youth and make an unveiled bid to better the chances of winning the draft lottery? Hope kids like Nikolaj Ehlers, Andrew Copp, Adam Lowry, Connor Hellebuyk, Mark Scheifele and Jacob Trouba grow up fast? Like, real fast?  ‘Fess up to the fawning faithful, advising them to prepare for the pain and frustration that accompanies the flaws and foibles of freshly scrubbed greenhorns?

The Jets won’t say, of course, because they don’t have to say anything. Their Little Hockey House on the Prairie is sold out every game and their merchandise shops are doing boffo business, so, at best, they’ll continue to drone on about their draft-and-develop strategy and hope that their prospects are superior to the other guys’.

Someone, however, should be answering for what has transpired this season. For example:

• Chris Thorburn has more goals than Mathieu Perreault. How is it that a player with fourth-line skill has lit the lamp more often than a second-line forward who enjoys time on the powerplay? Explain, please.
• Is this what the Jets expected of rookie Ehlers? One goal in 25 games? No doubt the Dane has NHL speed and skills, but does he have an NHL game? Explain, please.
• The Jets summoned Joel Armia from the farm in November, then sat him in the press box for three weeks before reassigning him back to the Manitoba Moose of the American Hockey League. What was up with that? Someone—anyone—explain, please.
• Much was made of the Jets moving the Moose from Newfy Land to across the hall at the Little Hockey House on the Prairie, because it made for swifter and more economic movement of players from the farm to the big club. But what is the point of having the Moose so close at hand if Grand Master Kevin Cheveldayoff is going to stock his AHL roster with players who, when called up to the Jets, can fill a uniform but not a void? Explain, please.
• Anthony Peluso. Explain, please, Paul Maurice.
• We all know that Alexander Burmistrov is no Michael Frolik, but he isn’t even a reasonable facsimile of the departed all-purpose forward. Actually, the second coming of Burmistrov has been a failed experiment. Explain, please, GM Chevy.
• Jacob Trouba once was thought to be “all that” on defence. Now we’re wondering what “all that” is. Explain, please.
• Captain Andrew Ladd and Dustin Byfuglien remain unsigned, untraded and headed for unrestricted free agency. Explain, please.
• The Jets have long been goalie blind. That is, they’ve been convinced that Ondrej Pavelec was a legitimate No. 1 NHL goaltender, even though the rest of the hockey world knew otherwise. Since Pavelec went on the shelf with an owie last month, neither Michael Hutchinson nor Connor Hellebuyck has done much to convince me they’ve got what it takes to be numero uno. Explain, please.
• Five years in, we’re still wondering why the Jets are so thin in the bottom six up front. Explain, please.
• Last season, the Jets were fast, hard on the puck and heavy on their foes. This year I see Mark Scheifele make a one-handed wave of his stick while the smurf-like Johnny Gaudreau out-hustles and out-finesses him to a puck that finds its way to the back of the Jets goal. Explain, please.
• The Jets are bankrolled, in part, by the wealthiest man in Canada, David Thomson, but they spend like Scrooge, with the lowest payroll in the NHL. Explain, please.

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.

 

Goal or coal: Sports Santa has stocking stuffers for jocks and Jills

Okay, Sports Santa, time to do your thing. You know the drill. Make your list, check it twice, tell us who’s been nice, naughty and flat-out nasty this year.

What will it be, goodies or a lump of coal or two in those Christmas stockings?

COAL: Kyle Walters, because he lied. The man who generally mismanages the Winnipeg Blue Bombers insisted that the signing of University of Manitoba Bisons grad Jordan Yantz to a tryout contract was not—repeat, NOT— a publicity stunt.

“He’s a legitimate quarterback prospect,” Walters told news scavengers. “Jordan is going to come in and compete for a spot on our roster at quarterback. We feel he has shown all the tools needed to play this position at the professional level, and we look forward to watching him compete in camp. This isn’t a charity case.”

Liar, liar. His pants were a three-alarm fire.

Yantz had about as much chance of earning employment with the Canadian Football League club as Walters has of being appointed GM of the Dallas Cowboys. He was given less than a handful of reps at practice and, although dressing for one preseason exercise, head coach Mike O’Shea refused to send him into the fray to take a snap.

COAL: That’ll be three lumps of the black stuff for O’Shea. Actually, make it an entire coal bin. First for gagging his assistant coaches, who are not allowed to speak to news scavengers; second for refusing to deliver an honest evaluation of his players and/or their performance without first having an opportunity to “watch the film;” and third for his role in the Jordan Yantz sham.

Jennifer Jones, Kaitlyn Lawes, Jill Officer and Dawn McEwen.

GOAL: Jennifer Jones, Kaitlyn Lawes, Jill Officer and Dawn McEwen, champions of all the land’s lady curlers. The Buffalo Girls won the Scotties Tournament of Hearts, no small feat, and how they were overlooked as a team-of-the-year finalist in balloting by the Manitoba Sportswriters & Sportscasters Association is a mystery. Apparently, their continued success in Canadian and Olympic curling has become ho-hum. Shame, that.

GOAL: The Montreal Alouettes, for having the junk to sign Michael Sam, who became the first openly gay man to perform in the CFL.

COAL: Michael Sam. What a wasted opportunity. Rather than make a strong statement for LGBT athletes, he bugged out on the Alouettes not once, but twice. He played one game at rush end, recorded zero sacks and zero tackles, was made to look the fool on one play, then skipped town and, once back in the U.S., he prattled on about the CFL being beneath his talent level.

COAL: Steve Simmons, scant days after the debut of Sam, an openly gay man playing for the Alouettes, the Toronto Sun scribe, whose work oft appears in the Winnipeg Sun, wrote: “In reality, pro football still awaits its first openly gay player.” Apparently, Little Stevie Blunder is much like that tree falling in the forest…it doesn’t happen unless he’s there to see and hear it.

GOAL: Kevin Cheveldayoff, the Winnipeg Jets general manager who proved he actually has a pulse by arranging for Evander Kane’s ticket out of River City. Unloading the underachieving, injury-prone problem child was a master stroke, especially given that Kane was done for the season. We don’t see a whole lot of big trades in the National Hockey League, and many of us didn’t think Chevy had it in him. We were wrong. Unfortunately, he went back into hibernation and hasn’t been seen nor heard from since. Sort of like that tree falling in the forest.

COAL: Cheveldayoff for allowing the very useful Michael Frolik to skate off to Calgary. For zip. Nada. If he does the same with Andrew Ladd and Dustin Byfuglien, say goodnight, Chevy.

COAL: To every professional athlete who hit a woman this year.

Chris Thorburn

GOAL: Chris Thorburn, the much-maligned man who continues to do everything asked of him by the Jets and is now the franchise leader in games played. Too often he is a fourth-liner dressed up as a third-line forward (with gusts up to the first line when head coach Paul Maurice loses his mind) and his very existence on the roster speaks to a disturbing lack of depth, but I admire his stick-to-itness.

GOAL: Bryan Little of the Jets for his understated excellence. No, he wouldn’t be the No. 1 centre on every NHL outfit, but he can play on my team anytime.

COAL: Gary (La La) Lawless, late of the Winnipeg Free Press and now a talking head with TSN. Give him the entire coal bin. While still the loudest voice at the Freep, he sucked up to Blue Bombers management by repeatedly telling readers that it takes more than 1 1/2 or two years to rebuild a broken-down CFL franchise. Hello? Can you say Edmonton Eskimos and Ottawa RedBlacks, Gary? La La also asked the dumbest question of the year, when he wondered aloud if Bombers head coach Mike O’Shea was going to “give up,” even though his club was a mere two points removed from a playoff spot with six games yet to be played.

GOAL: Jonathan Toews, a Winnipeg product and class act who captained the Chicago Blackhawks to another Stanley Cup championship.

COAL: Wade Miller, CEO of the Blue Bombers. Because he’s Wade Miller, CEO of the Blue Bombers.

GOAL: Mo Glimcher, grand poobah of the Manitoba High Schools Athletic Association. Mo, one of the truly good guys, will be sacking his bats after 40 years with the MHSAA, giving giving the executive director plenty of spare time to attend Bandy tournaments across the globe.

GOAL: Dan Halldorson passed away in November and the Brandon/Shilo golfer was remembered for his vital role in keeping the pro tour in Canada alive and well.

GOAL: Take a bow Joe Pascucci of Global and Knuckles Irving of CJOB. Joe was inducted into the media wing of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, while Knuckles was awarded the CFL’s Hugh Campbell Distinguished Leadership Award.

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

COAL: Dustin Byfuglien dissed the NHL’s 3-on-3 overtime format, saying, “It ain’t hockey. It’s stupid.” Yo! Buff! If you weren’t huffing and puffing so badly after three periods, you’d probably enjoy a little pond hockey.

COAL: The Reporters with Dave Hodge on TSN moved from Sunday mornings to Monday afternoon. I can do Sunday mornings, but I don’t do Monday afternoons. Move it back.

GOAL: Old friend Teemu Selanne had his Disney Ducks jersey No. 8 raised to the rafters at the Honda Center in Anaheim early in the year and, during a lengthy speech, the Finnish Flash actually thanked the small people—the cleaning lady and the Zamboni driver. Class act to the end.

COAL: Paul Maurice, head coach of the Jets. See Peluso, Anthony. That’s why.

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.

Dinner with the Stapletons…the Gospel According to Grapes…and Toronto’s bootlicking media

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

It was early in the final World Hockey Association season and there was concern that the Indianapolis Racers might not make it to U.S. Thanksgiving, which was only four days away when they arrived in Winnipeg for a joust with the Jets.

Already, team bankroll Nelson Skalbania had begun to liquidate, selling his scrawny rookie, Wayne Gretzky, and a couple of tag-alongs to old pal Peter Pocklington and the Edmonton Oilers in a cash grab designed to keep the Racers operational. Even at that, the life expectancy of the Indy outfit was measured in weeks, if not days. Players, coaches, managers and support staff soon would be out of work.

Yet if the weight of pending unemployment preyed on the mind of Racers head coach Pat Stapleton, it didn’t show.

“Whitey’s invited us to Thanksgiving dinner with his family when we’re in Indianapolis later this week,” Jets play-by-play voice Friar Nicolson advised me scant seconds after Winnipeg had beaten the Racers. “The guy’s about to lose his job, and he’s invited three media guys to his home for Thanksgiving dinner with his family. Whitey’s good people.”

Sure enough, when the Jets were in Indy the next Thursday, Nicolson, Reyn Davis of the Winnipeg Free Press and myself broke bread with the Stapletons. It was delightful.

So when I hear that news scavengers today must beg, borrow and steal access to athletes, coaches and management, I simply cannot relate. Whereas we sometimes were welcomed into their homes and had their home phone numbers, scribes and talking heads today are supposed to be grateful and grovel when granted a five-minute audience with a team’s hand-picked jock du jour. The Canadian Football League locker room, we’re told by Paul Friesen of the Winnipeg Sun and others, has become the Cold War Kremlin revisited.

Naturally, the guy on the street doesn’t give a damn about media moaning. They’re viewed as overpaid, pampered prima donnas. But the CFL ought to give a damn.

Much as those of us who covered the WHA cared about its well-being and the people involved, the boys and girls on the football beat are CFL fans. There exists a special bond that is rare between jock and journalist. For the CFL to allow coaches, managers and spin-doctors to disturb that alliance is not only counter-productive, it’s just plain dumb.

Well, thank you Donald S. Cherry for solving a mystery that has caused considerable head-scratching among scholars, theologians and historians for centuries. That’s right, they can stop quibbling about Jesus’s actual birth date. The debate is over. Whereas most experts pooh-pooh the notion that Christ was born on Dec. 25 and, instead, submit more likely and logical times such as autumn or spring, Grapes sat in his pulpit during the Curmudgeon’s Corner segment of Hockey Night in Canada on Saturday and said, “Remember, it’s merry Christmas. December 25^th, Jesus was born, all right?” So there. The scholars, theologians and historians now can move on to more pressing matters, like how many donkeys were at the barn birth (probably the same number as on Curmudgeon’s Corner—one).

Bootlickers. He called them bootlickers. Actually, when Paul Wiecek called out the “always hysterical” sports media from the Republic of Tranna he used the word “sychophants,” but a bootlicker is a bootlicker is a bootlicker by any name. Wiecek branded the Toronto sports media “a notorious bunch of sycophants who have for years drank the Blue Jays Kool-Aid every spring training.” As much as I applaud Wiecek for having the junk to call out other news scavengers, it seems to me that the bootlickingest media can be found in River City, notably at his own newspaper, the Winnipeg Free Press, which is in bed with the Winnipeg Jets. I don’t include Wiecek among the True North toadies at the Freep. I quite like his work. But others haven’t stopped polishing Mark Chipman’s or Kevin Cheveldayoff’s apple since the National Hockey League franchise arrived in River City in 2011. Apparently, certain Freep scribes, past and present, have failed to notice that Chipman-Cheveldayoff operate the club on the chintz and the Jets never fail to fail.

From the department of dumb headlines, this from the Sportsnet website after Toronto Maple Leafs’ much-maligned goaltender, Jonathan Bernier, put up a zero against the Los Angeles Kings: “The shutout heard around the world.” Oh, please, Toronto. Get over yourself.

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.

 

Sports scribes are every bit as disloyal as football coaches

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

It’s Thursday morning…do you know where your football coach is?

I mean, it’s difficult keeping track of the Canadian Football League sidelines stewards these days, what with Chris Jones going here, Jason Maas going there, John Hufnagel moving upstairs, Wally Buono moving downstairs, Paul LaPolice returning to the scene of the crime, Noel Thorpe neither here nor there, and Mike O’Shea still watching film.

I swear, you’ll see less traffic flow at the Syrian border.

In the case of Jones, he didn’t fly solo in his first-to-worst defection from the Grey Cup champion Edmonton Eskimos to the Sad Sack Saskatchewan Roughriders. Apparently, his traveling party included eight assistant coaches, seven slick free agents, six large O-lineman, five cleaning ladies…and a punter in a pear tree. We haven’t seen this large an exodus since Moses did his thing at the Red Sea. Or at least since the Berlin Wall came a tumblin’ down.

Little wonder that CFL commissioner Jeffrey Orridge has built his own metaphorical Berlin Wall. Stop. Do not pass go. Do not collect another team’s playbook. There shall be no more coach’s crossings until such time as the commish de-dizzies his head. So there.

All of which moved Ed Tait to ask this in the Winnipeg Free Press: “What about loyalty, or the disappearance of it, when it comes to coaches packing up their playbooks to move on to a league rival?”

Loyalty? Loyalty? A jock journalist talking loyalty? It is to laugh.

Look across the sportswriting landscape in the True North and it’s littered with defectors. Examples:

Ed Tait: Winnipeg Sun-Saskatoon StarPhoenix-Winnipeg Sun-Winnipeg Free Press.
Paul Friesen: CJOB-Winnipeg Sun.
Gary Lawless: Thunder Bay Chronicle Journal-Winnipeg Free Press-TSN.
Cam Cole: Edmonton Journal-National Post-Vancouver Sun.
Ed Willes: Medicine Hat News-Regina Leader-Post-Winnipeg Sun-freelance-Vancouver Province.
Terry Jones: Edmonton Journal-Edmonton Sun.
George Johnson: Winnipeg Tribune-Edmonton Sun-Calgary Sun-Calgary Herald.
Steve Simmons: Calgary Herald-Calgary Sun-Calgary Herald-Toronto Sun.
Bruce Arthur: National Post-Toronto Star.
Cathal Kelly: Toronto Star-Globe and Mail.

Most of them are, or have been, sleeping with the enemy, but there’s no wrong-doing there. Not unless you have some moral hangups about negotiating with the opposition while still drawing pay from your current employer. Sportswriters trade places like kids trade bubble gum cards and, basically, it’s just a bunch of guys looking out for No. 1.

You know, just like Chris Jones and Jason Maas and Noel Thorpe and others are looking out for No. 1.

Grand Master Kevin Cheveldayoff

What part of the Winnipeg Jets’ draft-and-develop strategy do I not understand? Oh, that’s right, it’s this part: Grand Master Kevin Cheveldayoff brings Joel Armia up to the NHL club and plops him in the press box, there to munch on popcorn for three weeks. This is a most curious method of developing young talent. I cannot see how this was a benefit to the player. Or the club, for that matter. Unless, of course, Armia was there solely to file a report on whether the pressbox popcorn has too much salt and not enough butter.

So, what are we to make of the reported contract asks of Dustin Byfuglien, Andrew Ladd and Jacob Trouba? I believe I can sum it up with these five words: Not a hope in hell. I mean, giving Byfuglien a lifetime contract? Essentially, that’s what his reps are asking of the Jets, because he’ll be 31 at the end of this NHL crusade, making him 39 at the tail end of an eight-year deal. His usefullness will have been exhausted long before then. I imagine there might be an NHL outfit willing to sign him for eight seasons, but it won’t be the Jets. At least it better not be.

These salary demands, exposed by Tim Campbell of the Winnipeg Free Press, place Grand Master Chevy in a bit of a pickle. The Jets general manager cannot allow Ladd and Byfuglien to skate away in free agency next summer, as he did in receiving bupkus for Michael Frolik, but dealing them might be more difficult now that the sticker price and term are public knowledge. I mean, would you be anxious to exchange assets for a defenceman who’ll likely balloon to 300 pounds by the third year an eight-year deal?

What’s the over/under on Bruce Boudreau remaining behind the Disney Ducks’ bench? I say Boxing Day, because the current four-game junket to the East Coast surely will determine the fate of the head coach of an Anaheim team pegged as a Stanley Cup favorite before skirmishing commenced this season. If the Ducks are still bottom feeders in the NHL Western Conference by the time Santa has unloaded his loot, say goodbye to Brucie and, perhaps, hello to old friend Randy Carlyle.

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.

 

Sports Illustrated editors are horses’ asses for naming Serena Williams Sportsperson of the Year

Okay, who’s the horse’s ass? Or horses’ asses?

I mean, the deep thinkers at Sports Illustrated have anointed Serena Williams as their Sportsperson of the Year for 2015, and I want names. I want rank. I want serial numbers. I want to feret out the scoundrels who delivered this decree, a decision that has spurred debate to a gallop and sired a level of rancor not seen since…well, not since the needle on Donald Trump’s hate-seeking compass moved his attention and direction from Mexicans to Muslims.

It’s positively scandalous, this coronation of Williams, who, as one side of the argument hastens to emphasize, did not win the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness or the Belmont Stakes this year. That, of course, was the province of American Pharoah, who spent the past spring, summer and autumn showing all other race horses his ass, becoming the first thoroughbred in 37 years to lickety-split his way to victory in all three Triple Crown romps and first ever to add the Breeder’s Cup Classic to that collection.

Surely, that trumps anything Williams accomplished on the tennis court.

And, no, it matters not to the pro-equine lot that Williams uses a knife and fork while dining and Pharoah eats from a bucket in a barn. American Pharoah is a person if SI says he is a person, and the mag said as much by including him in a poll asking readers their choice for Sportsperson of the Year. Apparently, his two extra legs did not disqualify him from being short-listed. Table manners and leg count be damned.

We ought not be surprised that Pharoah fell short of the wire in this sprint, though, because the SI salute has never been bestowed on any creature with a lip tattoo, although we still aren’t sure about Terry Bradshaw. And let’s face it, if Secretariat doesn’t qualify as Sportsperson of the Year (he lost to race car driver Jackie Stewart in 1973), neither does Pharoah.

Still, the giddyup community and the faithful who fawn over Pharoah went into a tizzy and the language became racist and rather unseemly, with gusts up to deplorable, on Twitter.

Well, truth is, the pony people were right about one thing: The tall foreheads at SI got it wrong. But they didn’t get it wrong because they chose Serena Williams over a race horse. They didn’t get it wrong because they featured Williams splay-legged and in black stilletos for a cover shot that the prudish might tsk-tsk as a tad tawdry (you’d never catch Pharoah in such a provocative pose). No, they got it wrong because they chose the wrong tennis player.

Serena Williams wasn’t the best tennis player on the planet this year, let alone the top sportsperson. That would be Novak Djokovic, the sometimes sombre Serb who likely would have gotten the nod had he been born in Bakersfield, Calif., rather than Belgrade, Yugoslavia.

Why Djokovic over Williams? Let me count the ways…

• Djokovic: Three Grand Slam titles, four finals. Williams: Three Grand Slam titles, one semifinal.
• Djokovic: Won 11 tournaments. Williams: Won five tournaments.
• Djokovic: 82-6 overall. Williams: 53-3 overall.

You want more? Well, Djokovic was beaten in his first tournament of the year, a tuneup for the Australian Open, then reached the final in his ensuing 15 events. In the open era of tennis, only Roger Federer (92-5 in 2006), John McEnroe (82-3 in 1984) and Jimmy Connors (93-4 in ’74) have carved out a better winning percentage than Djokovic. Finally, while Williams shut down her season after stumbling against a spare part named Roberta Vinci in the U.S. Open, Djokovic soldiered on, leaving the Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens, N.Y., to play another 20 matches, winning 19 and the Association of Tennis Professionals title.

But, like I said, Djokovic had the bad manners to be born in Belgrade, not Bakersfield or Bemidji, so he was snubbed.

And that’s why the editors at Sports Illustrated are horses’ asses.

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.

New look for Toron-D’oh! Maple Leafs…adios Mo Glimcher…the prodigal coach learned from Schultzie…and a worthy inductee for the MSSA Media Roll of Honour

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

Two possibilities for a new Toronto Maple Leafs logo.

So, what do you do when you last participated in a Stanley Cup parade about the same time the Beatles were putting the finishing touches to their landmark album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band?

You change your clothes.

That, at least, is the whisper from the Republic of Tranna, where the ghost of Humpty Harold Ballard continues to haunt the Maple Leafs, now oh-for-4 1/2 decades and in no danger of sprouting playoff beards at the conclusion of their current crusade. Dang it, though, if the Leafs are going to keep losing (they will), they’re going to look spiffy doing it. Next season, you see, the storied National Hockey League franchise shall celebrate its centennial by freshening up that drab, old, blue-and-white wardrobe that dates back to King Clancy.

Apparently, this won’t be a minor tweak. There’ll be a new uniform. Perhaps an added color. A redesigned, hip logo. Do I hear a name change to reflect their last Stanley Cup title in 1967?

Actually, all I hear is the sound of all those cash registers going ka-ching!

The Winnipeg Jets are closer to the bottom of the NHL’s Western Conference tables (three points) than they are to the playoff line (five points). I knew the local hockey heroes would be tooth-and-nail to qualify for the Stanley Cup tournament, but I must confess I didn’t see Auston Matthews in their future.

I note that Connor Hellebuyck is now flavor of the month in Jets Nation. You know, just like Michael Hutchinson was at this time last season. The thing is, backup goaltenders are very much like backup quarterbacks in football—they’re often the most popular player on the team. I’m not proposing that Hellebuyck is anything other than the real deal, understand. I’m just saying that the jury will be out on the rookie goalie until he’s gone through the NHL a time or two. Having said that, here’s a prediction: Once incumbent Ondrej Pavelec returns from licking his wounds, Hellebuyck will remain with the Jets and Hutchinson will be demoted to the Manitoba Moose of the American Hockey League.

So, Mo Glimcher is sacking his bats, is he? Well, good for him. I recall the day when Mo was a complete pain in the ass, begging us at the Winnipeg Tribune to open up some space for whatever rinky-dink sport he happened to be trumpeting at the time. He’d even try to bribe us with various goodies, like donuts. Silly boy. Like, what sports writer/editor is going to let donuts sway him or her? Try beer, Mo. Anyway, Mo is one of the truly good guys in Manitoba jockdom, and he’s earned his day of rest once he leaves his post as executive director of the Manitoba High Schools Athletic Association. Melissa Martin did a terrific piece on him in the Winnipeg Free Press.

Also worth a read is Paul Wiecek’s article about concussions and dementia among former members of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. The Freep sports scribe talked to, among others, Janet Ploen, wife of legendary quarterback Ken, about the ravages of time and the lingering effects of long-ago injuries. It’s compelling stuff and a topic that isn’t going to go away, what with greater awareness of concussions in the Canadian Football League and other major sports organizations.

Paul LaPolice

The prodigal coach has returned and, while head man Mike O’Shea didn’t prepare a fatted calf to celebrate the third coming of the Blue Bombers recycled offensive coordinator, he did one better—he allowed Paul LaPolice to speak. To news scavengers. Question is, was this a one-off? O’Shea, after all, likes to hear the sound of just two gums flapping and one tongue wagging. His. I suppose it doesn’t matter if he gags LaPolice, though. I mean, LaPo will have plenty of opportunity to speak his piece at the press conference when he’s introduced as O’Shea’s replacement as head coach.

Among other things, LaPolice advised news scavengers that, due in part to his analyst’s gig with TSN the past couple of years, he’s a better coach than the guy who was unceremoniously dismissed in his second go-round with the Bombers in 2012. Who knew hanging out with Schultzie could be so enlightening?

Bravo to my good friend Dave Komosky, who will be inducted into the Manitoba Sportwriters & Sportscasters Media Roll of Honour next month. This is a richly deserved and long, long overdue accolade. Davey Boy, as I affectionately call him, has been among Canada’s pre-emminent curling scribes since the early 1970s, when we both learned at the knee of Jack Matheson at the Winnipeg Tribune, and I can only wonder why it took members of the MSSA so long to acknowledge the former Winnipeg Sun and Canwest News Service sports editor’s contribution to jock journalism. Point is, they finally got it right.

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.

 

Yo! Grapes! Stars scrapping in the NHL is as old as the puck

Apparently, Donald S. Cherry has some long-term memory issues.

How else do we explain his most recent spewings on the Curmudgeon’s Corner segment of Hockey Night in Canada, whereby he advised the people of Planet Puckhead that superstars duking it out in the National Hockey League ought to be a no-no?

“The stars are fighting because they can’t be protected,” Grapes groaned while we watched clips of Claude Giroux, Jonathan Toews and other players of loft exchange bare knuckles with nettlesome foes. “They gotta drop their gloves and go. It’s absolutely ridiculous.”

Earth to Grapes! Earth to Grapes!

Stars scrapping is nothing new. Gordie Howe did it (just ask Lou Fontinato). Rocket Richard did it. Cherry’s beloved Bobby Orr did it. Mario Lemieux did it. Bobby Hull had his toupe ripped off in a fight. Phil Esposito fought. Even Mahatma Gretzky had a go, although he was so inept in his one-off dust-up with fellow pacifist Neal Broten that he made the wise decision to keep his gloves on for the remainder of his career.

Cherry’s was a lame lament and in conflict with history, yet not at all surprising given that he refuses to stray from his never-ceasing crusade to bring the goon back to hockey.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

Ed Tait’s “meh” rouses the rabble…Winnipeg’s downtown football stadium…Hamonic or harmonica…a homophobic heavyweight champ…and other things on my mind

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

Oh, woe is Ed Tait.

Poor guy had the bad manners to “meh” the 103^rd Grey Cup game and the many frills that provide the Grand National Drunk with its pulse, and that has roused the rabble. One reader demands to know who peed in Tait’s Corn Flakes. Another suggests he’s been too long in the company of Winnipeg Free Press colleague Paul Wiecek, whose scribblings are often measured by the masses as glass-half-empty musings. Yet another proposes the passing of a collection plate to finance a getaway to a Mexican resort for the two Freep sports scribes, who then could engage in some serious navel gazing and be fitted with a proper pair of rose-tinted glasses.

Well, in the words of Colonel Sherman T. Potter, “Mule muffins!”

I didn’t attend the Peg pigskin party, so I can’t speak to the hijinks around and about good, ol’ Hometown during a Grey Cup week than concluded on Sunday, but I surely watched the Canadian Football League championship skirmish between the Edmonton Don’t Call Them Eskimos and the Ottawa RougeNoir. My take? I’m with Tait—meh.

Let’s face it, that was a rout dressed up as a burning barn. The final score was 26-20 Edmonton, but it was 26-7 Edmonton after the initial six minutes and nine seconds had ticked off the clock. The best Ottawa could do after putting the game’s first 13 points on the tote board was two field goals and a rouge. In 54 minutes of football. So one more time with feeling—meh. (You think if I say “meh” often enough someone will send me on a vacation to a Mexican resort?)

I cannot imagine what manner of madness existed in Paul Wiecek’s mind when, in referencing the 1991 and 2006 Grey Cup jousts in Winnipeg, he wrote, “both of those games were played at the downtown stadium.” The closest thing to a downtown football facility in River City was Osborne Stadium, home of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers from the mid-1930s to the early 1950s. It sat across the street from the Leg and lost an argument to a wrecking ball in ’56. Both the ’91 and ’06 CFL title games were, of course, played at Winnipeg Stadium, a more recent victim of the wrecking ball.

I find the banter about bringing Travis Hamonic to the Winnipeg Jets’ blueline somewhat amusing. I mean, I’d hazard a guess that 75 per cent of Jets Nation didn’t know Hamonic from a harmonica before his yearning for a trade was made public last month. To hear it now, though, it’s as if the New York Islanders’ defenceman invented the stretch pass. Should the Jets covet Hamonic? Absolutely. He’d enhance any National Hockey League outfit. But the Jets aren’t going to get him in barter for Dustin Byfuglien, whose game can shift from spectacular to slovenly in a heartbeat. Unless Isles’ general manager Garth Snow has suddenly morphed into Mike Milbury, Hamonic for Byfuglien will never happen.

Paul Maurice. Sigh. Search as I might to find a legitimate reason why Anthony Peluso is gainfully employed by an NHL outfit, I always arrive at one conclusion: Winnipeg Jets head coach PoMo refuses to budge from the horse-and-buggy notion that there must be a cement-head element in his lineup. So don’t blame Peluso for being a slug. Blame Maurice for keeping him around and, worse, inserting his bare knuckles into the lineup.

I note that Forbes magazine has devalued the Winnipeg Jets franchise from $358 million a year ago to $350M today. I’m not sure what accounts for the dip of $8M, but there’s no truth to the rumor that it has something to do with Evander Kane leaving unpaid parking tickets and unpaid bar tabs behind when he bolted for Buffalo and the Sabres.

Tyson Fury, left, took the heavyweight boxing title from Wladimir Klitschko.

Someone named Tyson Fury is now champion of most of fist fighting’s heavyweight alphabet. Does anyone care that there exists a new king of the boxing ring, or are followers of fistic mayhem still more concerned about Ronda Rousey’s fat lip and bruised ego?

Until he boxed defending champion Wladimir Klischko’s ears on Saturday night in Germany, winning the WBA, WBO, IBF and IBO heavyweight boxing titles by unanimous decision, little was known about Tyson Fury. We have since discovered that he’s a descendent of Irish gypsies, his dad, John, was a bare-knuckle boxer who just got out of jail for gouging a man’s eye out in a brawl at a car auction, and Tyson is 6-feet-9, 258 lb. of raging, Bible-thumping homophobic bleatings. Once fined for calling two foes “gay lovers,” in a recent interview with the Mail on Sunday in the U.K., Fury delivered rants about devil worship and days end, saying, “There are only three things that need to be accomplished before the devil comes home. One of them is homosexuality being legal in countries, one of them is abortion and the other is paedephilia.”

Although Tyson Fury holds four heavyweight title belts, it should be pointed out that he does not own the complete boxing alphabet. Deontay Wilder is the WBC champ. You have to go back to the last century to find the man who could call himself the undisputed heavyweight champion—Lennox Lewis.

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.