About the Bombers’ binge…Huf huffing and puffing…a menage-a-goaltender…spoiled brats…and media groupies obsessed with a Raptors groupie

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

Many people were surprised to learn that Winnipeg has been ranked among the top seven most intelligent communities in the world. We’re not talking about one of the brightest burgs just in Manitoba, Canada or North America, understand. This is the whole world. The. Entire. Planet.

Ya, well, if there are so many Einsteins in Pegtown, why can’t one of them show the Winnipeg Blue Bombers how to win the Grey Cup?

John Hufnagel

I’m not sure what caused more raised eyebrows last week, the Bombers signing seven players scant seconds after the opening bell rang for the Canadian Football League’s annual livestock auction of untethered talent, or John Hufnagel’s reaction to the Big Blue’s free-agent binge. “I’d say that’s a little surprising,” the Calgary Stampeders grand poobah huffed and puffed. “How many years are they going to do it? You answer me that. They didn’t sign any of their guys, and they sign other people’s guys. I prefer to sign my own guys. That’s just me.” One day later, “just me” signed two “other people’s guys,” Bakari Grant and Taylor Reed of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, then added a third, James Green, late of the Ottawa RedBlacks. Pot, meet kettle.

You’ll have to excuse me if I hesitate to join the hallelujah chorus in touting the Bombers as new, improved and bound for glory. No doubt general manager Kyle Walters has added some top-end talent in running back Andrew Harris, size-smurf receivers Weston Dressler and Ryan Smith, and place-kicker Justin Medlock, but it’s still about the offensive line, the starting quarterback, Drew Willy, and, perhaps most important, the sideline maestro and film fanatic, head coach Mike O’Shea. Does Walters’ handiwork make O’Shea any smarter today than he was at the close of business in 2015? I think the GM said it best when asked how much better a product he’ll field in the ’16 CFL crusade: “Well, we’ll see.” So color me curious but not convinced.

Connor Hellebuyck

Speaking of curious, I viewed the three’s-a-crowd demotion of Connor Hellebuyck to the farm as a bit of a head-scratcher. Not surprising, though, because the Winnipeg Jets have long been goaltender blind. Hellebuyck did enough good things during his time in the blue paint to convince me that he’s a National Hockey League-calibre goaltender and might be the Jets’ starter-in-waiting, so Michael Hutchinson should have been the fall guy and dispatched to the American Hockey League Manitoba Moose once Ondrej Pavelec returned from sick bay. Yes, I realize Hutchinson would have been exposed to the waiver wire were he the odd man out in the Jets’ menage-a-goaltender, but so what. I doubt another outfit would have claimed him. If so, no loss. I just cannot see where he fits into the club’s future.

There can be just one reason for the Winnipeg Free Press to have recruited Scott Campbell to pen a weekly column on the Winnipeg Jets: To provide a (former) player’s insight. His latest offering? Zero insight. I mean, telling us that Michael Hutchinson is having “a disappointing season” is lame. And implying that Andrew Copp has struggled as an NHL rookie because he’s been flanked by “a variety of nondescript players” is a copout (pun intended). From everything I’ve seen, Copp himself is a nondescript player. Gotta do better than that, Scott.

So let me see if I’ve got this straight: Cam Newton, the losing quarterback in the National Football League championship joust, walks out during a post-game chin-wag with news scavengers and he’s Darth QB. The Carolina Panthers’ main man is roasted and toasted as a sore loser, a spoiled brat and cited as an example of everything that is wrong with today’s pro jocks. Yet, two days later, Chicago Blackhawks head coach Joel Quenneville waves his arms in frustration and stomps out of a gab-session with the media and there isn’t a peep of protest. What am I missing here? Why is it unacceptable for an NFL quarterback to behave like a brat, but it’s permissble for an NHL coach?

Raptors groupie Drake

I’m sorry, but I just don’t get this groupie-like love affair between scribes in the Republic of Tranna and the rapper Drake. I mean, I’ve read more headlines about Drake in the past few days than Stephen Curry, who, give or take a Lebron James, is the best basketball player on the planet. The National Basketball Association all-star weekend in Toronto has become a testimonial to Drake. There are feature pieces on him in both the Globe and Mail and National Post sports sections. And the headlines: Drake receives coaching tips from Michael Jordan; Drake starstruck by Michael Jordan; How Drake became the king of Toronto; Celebrate Valentine’s Day the Drake way; Drake gets key to the city; Drake to introduce all-stars.There were two pics of Drake on the front page of Toronto Sun website and three more on the sports front. And for what? Because he’s a Toronto Raptors groupie. And the media are groupies of the groupie.

Patti Dawn Swansson has been writing about Winnipeg sports for 45 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 in 2015.

 

Fishing with Big Buff…$8 million will buy a lot of Slurpees…Bombers put best foot forward…going ga-ga over Lady Gaga

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

Big Buff the fisher.

Ice fishing as a selling point. Who knew?

Not many National Hockey League free agents would think of a one-day, winter getaway to Matlock as a little slice of heaven, but spending a few hours in a small shack on a frozen Lake Winnipeg in sub-zero temperatures is Dustin Byfuglien’s idea of a swell time.

So he’s staying. In good, ol’ Hometown. For the next five winters. Thus, all those pike, perch and walleye are on notice: Big Buff is coming for you.

The Winnipeg Jets big blueliner didn’t cite ice fishing as one of the reasons he chose to forego untethered free agency and remain in River City, but it’s common knowledge that angling is among Byfuglien’s deepest passions, and the availability of dropping a line into a hole in the ice when the Jets aren’t busy losing hockey games surely played a part in his decision.

Will his signing help lure other free agents to Pegtown? Doubtful. But it does confirm a message the Jets began sending three years ago with the signings of Blake Wheeler, Bryan Little and Zach Bogosian—they are willing to spend the big bucks in order to keep their elite players in the fold. As much as bankrolls Mark Chipman and David Thomson operate on the cheap, they didn’t chintz out on Byfuglien. His sticker price of $7.6 million per annum is not pocket change.

I mean, 38 mill can buy a guy lot of live bait. Cripes, man, Buff can afford all of Lake Winnipeg now. And a few rivers to be named later.

Byfuglien will make more money ($8 million) next season than the entire Winnipeg Blue Bombers roster and the combined salaries of every member of the Manitoba Legislature. With a bit more than $2 million left over.

A Jumbo Jet Dog

Here’s what $8 million can buy Big Buff:

• 4,000,000 large Slurpees.
• 727,272 Mr. Big Nip Platters at The Sals.
• 727,272 10-piece orders of chicken wings at Hooters.
• 640,000 Jumbo Jet dogs with extra toppings at the Little Hockey House on the Prairie.
• 1,230,769 corned beef sandwiches at Oscar’s Deli.
• 533,333 visits to the Canadian Museum of Human Rights.
• 405,063 visits to the Assiniboine Park Zoo.
• 10,000 Nanook thermal two-man ice-fishing flip tents from The Fishin’ Hole.
• 347,826 Berkley Gulp Alive floating crawlers.
• Every shack on Wellington Crescent (except for that $11-million job).

Did I hear Grand Master Kevin Cheveldayoff correctly during his chin-wag with news scavengers after the Byfuglien signing became official? I swear the Jets general manager said his outfit’s current place in the Central Division pecking order is “a little bit of a blip.” Is that what we’re calling last place these days? A bit of a blip? Good grief, Chevy. Talk about losing the plot.

Now that the Jets’ Raging Dane, flyweight Nikolaj Ehlers, has added fighting to his repertoire, can we expect Anthony Peluso to start scoring goals? Naw. Life never works that way, does it.

Winnipeg Blue Bombers GM Kyle Walters vowed to put his best foot forward once the Canadian Football League’s annual free-agent livestock auction commenced, and he did exactly that in hiring Justin Medlock’s lower left limb. Medlock, late of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, is only the most accurate kicker of footballs in the annals of the three-down game, and he replaces Sergio Castillo, who believes his field goal attempts are pre-determined by God. I don’t know about you, but I’ll take a guaranteed three points over a prayer every time.

Okay, it’s agreed. Cam Newton is a sore loser. He’s got a chip on his shoulder the size of Manhattan Island. So what. Sure, it would have been wonderful had the Carolina Panthers quarterback been less pout and more polish during his meet-the-press gab session scant seconds after he and the Carolina Panthers had been beaten by the Denver Broncos in their Super Bowl 50 skirmish on Sunday, but, last time I looked, providing scintillating sound bites is not part of the gig for a National Football League QB. A guy like Peyton Manning can pull it off, win or lose. Ditto Tom Brady. Newton can’t, but it’s no biggie. It just means it’s unlikely he’ll be hosting Saturday Night Live any time soon.

How can you tell a friend of yours is gay? When he comes up to you the morning after Super Bowl 50 and insists on talking about Beyonce “walking it” during the halftime show and Lady Gaga’s rendering of the American national anthem rather than the Denver Broncos mauling of Newton. I must confess that I missed Beyonce, but I caught Lady Gaga’s act and was wowed by her outfit. Still can’t get over the sparkling red eye shadow (Note to self: Must, must, must get some of that stuff!), the blue polish on the nails, the blue shoe on his left foot and the red-and-white striped shoe on her right. Oh, ya, her singing was boffo, too. Love the Lady. My gay friend Markus prefers Beyonce.

Patti Dawn Swansson has been writing about Winnipeg sports for 45 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 in 2015.