About jock journos still giving Floyd Mayweather Jr. a pass…Winnipeg Jets missing the playoffs…Connor McDavid is No. 1…an unsafe city…and other things that are too dumb for words

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

Floyd Mayweather Jr. in handcuffs is what the sports media should be talking about.

The circus has rolled into Las Vegas and no one is talking or writing about the elephant in the room.

They talk and write about Conor McGregor’s weight, the betting line, the unvarnished vulgarity of a recent travelling trash-talk tour, the price of ringside seats at T-Mobile Arena, pay-per-view audience numbers, McGregor’s Irish charm and blarney, the size of the boxers’ gloves, the age of the fighters, Justin Bieber unfriending Floyd Mayweather Jr., the heat in Glitter Gulch, racism, McGregor’s wardrobe, a fixed fight, and the improbability of a mixed martial arts champion battering the best boxer of a generation.

But nobody is talking or writing about Mayweather beating up women. It’s as if the undefeated champion has never hit a woman or never spent any time behind bars for hitting women.

The unbeaten boxing champion is a serial woman abuser and the sports media is giving him a pass in advance of Saturday’s scheduled 12-round dust-up with MMA champion McGregor, who is so inexperienced as a pure fist-fighter that he can’t even be classified as a novice boxer.

I scanned a dozen articles Wednesday morning on the Mayweather-McGregor tiff and discovered exactly two one-sentence references to Floyd Jr.’s ugly predilection for punching out women, including the mother of his children. Neither of those sentences appeared in a column by Steve Simmons of Postmedia. He went all the way to Vegas to write about himself instead of the fighters. I watched Stephen Brunt, among our country’s finest sports scribes, wag his chin for 10 minutes on Sportsnet and not one second was devoted to Mayweather’s history of domestic violence.

So here’s the question I’m struggling with: Why were jock journalists so hot and bothered and eager to place a focus on domestic violence in February 2014, when Ray Rice KO’d his then-finance on an elevator, yet now it’s a non-issue?

Perhaps, like Mayweather himself, they’re “waiting to see the photos.” Perhaps that’s what it takes to stir them. Video or photographic evidence. It isn’t enough that there have been 21 arrests of National Football League players on domestic violence/battery charges since the Rice incident, which cost the former Baltimore Ravens running back his career. It isn’t enough that Dallas Cowboys RB Ezekiel Elliott has been told to go away for six games due to multiple instances of domestic violence. It isn’t enough that Willie Reed of the Los Angeles Clippers spent time in a Miami jail last weekend on charges of roughing up his wife. It isn’t enough that Mayweather Jr. is a convicted woman-beater.

They need pictures. Otherwise, they’ll continue to glorify Floyd Jr. and promote his farce of a fight.

Sigh.

Paul Maurice

This just in: The Hockey News is first out of the chute with a prediction that there won’t be any meaningful matches played at the Little Hockey House on the Prairie next spring. Here’s what Sam McCaig has to say about the Winnipeg Jets’ prospects for their 2017-18 National Hockey League crusade: “The Jets have a premier first line, a solid second line, and some upside on the bottom two units. The defense corps features a sturdy top-six, led by Dustin Byfuglien and Jacob Trouba. The problem areas are in goal, where incoming Steve Mason has been tasked with mentoring up-and-down goalie-of-the-future Connor Hellebuyck, and the team’s inability—to this point—to become a sum of its parts. It also doesn’t help matters that Winnipeg plays in the West, where there appears to be 11 bona fide playoff teams vying for eight spots.” Odd that he had nothing to say about the head coach, Paul Maurice, who’s probably the reason the local outfit has yet to “become a sum of its parts.” (McCaig, by the way, also has the Tranna Maple Leafs, L.A. Kings and San Jose Sharks among the 15 outfits that will fail to qualify for the Stanley Cup tournament.)

Another reason to like Connor McDavid: He’s honest. THN rates McMoneybags as the No. 1 player in the NHL, but the Edmonton Oilers centre is having none of that. “I don’t agree with it,” says McDavid, who’s probably better than anyone not named Sidney Crosby. “Everyone knows who the best player in the league is and it’s not me.”

THN’s top-50 player list is a head-scratcher, to be certain. I mean, Sergei Bobrovsky is No. 6? Steven Stamkos is No. 46? Auston Matthews is already a better player than Victor Hedman? And if Kevin Shattenkirk is a better defenceman than Roman Josi, then Don Cherry is a card-carrying commie. That’s just stupid. Only two Jets cracked the THN select 50: Rink Rat Scheifele at No. 15 and Patrik Laine at No. 24. I’m not convinced that’s accurate, especially the Laine ranking, but it’s no dumber than listing Matthews at No. 8.

I note that a Mainstreet/Postmedia poll lists Winnipeg as the most unsafe city in Canada. There’s no truth to the rumor that the poll was taken immediately after Travis Bond, Jermarcus Hardrick and the rest of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ O-line attempted to leap into the stands at Formerly Football Follies Field in Fort Garry.

Andrew Harris

A week ago, Donnovan Bennett of Sportsnet declared Bombers kicker Justin Medlock to be the most outstanding player in the Canadian Football League (yes, a kicker). This week, Bennett asks this of running back Andrew Harris: “Is he the best player in the CFL?” A strong case can be made for Harris, but the answer is “no.” It’s Mike Reilly. Same as last week.

Let’s see if I’ve got this straight: The Bombers whup the Eskimos in their sole head-to-head skirmish, yet Bennett has the latter ahead of the former in his weekly CFL power rankings. Hands up if that makes sense to anyone other than Donnovan Bennett. I didn’t think so.

Looks like UFC fighter Jon Jones has failed yet another drug test. Plenty of athletes get caught using illegal drugs once. But twice? C’mon, man. Guess that’s why it’s called a dope test.

Tonya Harding

Speaking of dummies, here are my top five athletes who were just too dumb for words…
1. Ben Johnson. Too easily duped by dishonest people. A total patsy.
2. Tonya Harding. Seriously, a fancy skater hiring a hit man?
3. Pete Rose. Betting on baseball games when you’re a manager?
4. Ryan Locte. Really? Fibbing about being robbed at gunpoint during the 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil?
5. Jose Canseco. Has the former big league ballplayer ever said anything that wasn’t too dumb for words?

Patti Dawn Swansson has been scribbling mostly about Winnipeg sports for 47 years, which means she’s old and probably should think about getting a life.

About the Winnipeg Blue Bombers having ‘jump’…a theme song for bellies and butts…Grapes hitting a sour note in Chitown…mix-and-match curling…and an ‘ace’ reporter

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

The Green Bay Packers have their Lambeau Leap after touchdowns and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers have their…well, I’m not quite sure what to call their post-TD ritual.

It certainly isn’t a leap, a hop, a jump or a skip.

I mean, watching Travis Bond or Jermarcus Hardrick try to launch themselves into the stands at Formerly Football Follies Field in Fort Garry is like watching an Orca try to climb a tree. An ATM machine has a better vertical. Calling what the Bombers’ O-linemen do a leap is like calling a manhole cover a frisbee.

If anything, it’s a splat. Those guys are all belly and butt. It’s 300-plus pounds of mom’s home cooking colliding with rubber padding and concrete.

And those fans who attempt to lift the large lads in pads off the ground and haul them into the pews? Good luck with that. You’ll see Hillary Clinton in the White House before you ever see daylight between the soles of Bond’s shoes and terra firma.

But the O-linemen TD hijinks is a hoot. It’s really big kids having little kids’ fun. It’s good energy. Even if they don’t have jump.

What the Bombers O-linemen need is an official TD celebration song. All those in favor of Jumpin’ Jack Flash by the Rolling Stones say “aye.” All those opposed, come up with a better jump song than these five and we’ll discuss it…
1. Jumpin’ Jack Flash—Rolling Stones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQSGw0hMd_I
2. Jump—Van Halen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EqWN4fT79s
3. Jump They Say—David Bowie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avJt0SQec0I
4. Devil’s Jump—John Lee Hooker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_d07EWNoAs
5. Leap of Faith—Bruce Springsteen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouWEZPkbznQ

The Big Splat Attack has become a fun part of the fabric of a crusade that likely has exceeded the expectations of most, if not all, in Bombers Nation. I certainly didn’t see 6-2 coming. Or a sniff of first place in the dog-eat-dog world that is the West Division of the Canadian Football League. Call me crazy (I’ve been called worse), but after the Bombers dismantled the Edmonton Eskimos, 33-26, I see just one outfit better than the Blue and Gold at this moment in history—the Calgary Stampeders. And the Albertans surely looked vulnerable during their 21-17 conquest of the B.C. Lions on Friday night, an intense skirmish that was more yawn-inducing than awe-inspiring.

Bombers head coach Mike O’Shea, who can safely get through another week without anyone with a poison pen writing about his short pants and smirk, wins this week’s prize for low-key after he described his club’s victory over the previously unbeaten Eskimos as “pretty pleasing all around.” Ya think? That’s the biggest understatement since Custer looked at the Indians and said, “Gee, there sure are a lot of them.”

Nice head count for the Eskimos’ visit to Formerly Football Follies Field in Fort Garry—a season-high 30,554. Guess we have to blame the empty 2,680 seats on O’Shea. If only the guy didn’t wear short pants and a smirk.

Sportsnet continues to treat the CFL as the red-headed, freckle-faced stepchild. They devoted two tiny lines on the front page of their website to the Bombers-Eskimos, while the main story was about the Toronto Blue Jays winning to remain on the “fringe” of the Major League Baseball playoff chase. There was also a riveting piece on “breaking down the best of NBA’s new Nike jerseys.” Stop the presses! Meanwhile, on the TSN website, Bombers-Esks was the main story and there were also three video features from the game. That’s how it should be done.

The difference between the Hamilton Tiger-Cats with and without Jeff Reinebold as defensive co-ordinator? A rouge. With Reinebold pulling the strings for the defensive dozen, the Tabbies were 0-6 and surrendered 39 points per game. Without him, they’re 0-2 while allowing 38 points per. But, hey, the guy had to go and head coach Kent Austin had to stay, right?

Grapes should feel the wrath of Cubs fans.

Two things we learned about Don Cherry this weekend: 1) He’s a horrible singer; 2) he’s a horrible house guest. If you missed it, the Chicago Cubs invited Cherry to warble Take Me Out to the Ball Game during the seventh-inning stretch of a Blue Jays-Cubbies game at Wrigley Field. Blowhard Grapes can be forgiven for being off-key with his singing, but changing the lyrics from “root, root, root for the Cubbies” to “root, root, root for the best team” is beyond lame. That’s like messing with the National Anthem, man. A pox on his suits and ban him from any karaoke night at any pub near you.

Dumb headline of the week comes from the Toronto Star: “Shapovalov down to earth with expectations sky high.” Exactly what are the Star’s “sky high” expectations for Canadian tennis teen Denis Shapovalov? Do they, or anyone, expect him to go to the U.S. Open and go on the kind of run he had at the Rogers Cup in Montreal? He’ll be doing great if he qualifies and wins a match or two.

World champ Rachel Homan.

Only in curling do we find the elite of the sport competing on equal footing, regardless of gender, which is why I’m really looking forward to the Everest Curling Challenge, Aug. 25-27 in Fredericton. Skips Rachel Homan, Kevin Koe, Brad Gushue, Jennifer Jones, Chelsea Carey, John Epping, Brad Jacobs and Victoria Moiseeva will be drafting two-men, two-women teams in quest of a $200,000 winner’s payout. Ah, but there’s a hitch: The skips cannot choose players from their regular outfits. Winnipeg’s Jones, for example, is obliged to draft someone other than Kaitlyn Lawes, Jill Officer and Dawn McEwen. Should be fun and you’ll have to excuse me if I root, root, root for one of the lady skips to win.

Bravo to Ken Wiebe of the Winnipeg Sun, who scored two aces in one round of golf at Glendale last week. I do that all the time. In mini-golf and my dreams.

Patti Dawn Swansson has been scribbling mostly about Winnipeg sports for 47 years, which means she’s old and probably should think about getting a life.

About death by wedgie in the CFL…the Rodney Dangerfield Blue Bombers…diversity on the gridiron…nonsense on Sportsnet…boffo stuff from Ed Tait…dump the ump…hockey pride at Pride…and hot dogs for Phil Kessel

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

Randy Ambrosie wants to talk. That’s a good thing. I think.

Specifically, the Canadian Football League commissioner would welcome a fireside chat about division alignment and playoff structure, both of which are becoming hot-button issues due to a West-East competitive imbalance that borders on the sadistic.

“I’m happy to have that conversation with everyone and I think we should have it,” the commish told Ted Wyman of the Winnipeg Sun.

For those of you keeping score at home, West has met East 20 times during the current crusade. The tally is 17-2-1 in favor of the five outfits left of the Manitoba-Ontario boundary. One game finished 60-1.

That is not a typo. Do not adjust your monitors. It really was 60-1.

Seriously. This is death by wedgie.

Actually, West Division clubs aren’t simply giving their nerdy eastern foes a basic wedgie. They’re the high school senior pulling the freshman’s underpants up to his ears, sticking his head in a toilet bowl, flushing, then stuffing him into a locker. Oh, but first he steals his lunch money.

And yet, under the current structure, two of the eastern rag dolls will qualify for the playoffs in November. And be rewarded with home dates. Nice gig if you can get it.

Little wonder that Ambrosie says he’s “willing to have the conversation for sure.”

Wyman and others suggest the CFL scrap its antiquated West-East divisional arrangement. Lump all nine teams together, with the top six advancing to the Grey Cup tournament. Radical, yes. After all, geographic rivalry has been the heartbeat of the CFL since its inception, and getting some people to abandon tradition is like trying to pry Donald Trump’s thumbs off his Twitter account. You’ll need the jaws of life, baby.

I don’t think you have to sacrifice tradition, though. Just tweak the schedule. Reduce it to 16 games (18 is two too many) and either eliminate, or reduce by half, interlocking play. You know, just like in the good, ol’ days when West and East were separate entities. In other words, go back to the future.

Works for me. So, gentlemen, start your chins wagging.

I wondered when one of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers would play the Rodney Dangerfield no-respect card, and running back Andrew Harris delivered not long after he and his blue-and-gold clad pals had paddywhacked the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, 39-12, on Saturday at Timbits Field in Hamilton. “I always think someone is out there slouching us and not giving us any respect.” Here’s the deal, Andrew: Beat someone other than one of the lame and halting outfits from the east and more people will climb on board.

Chad Owens and CFL commish Randy Ambrosie

The CFL broke out its Diversity is Strength T-shirts last weekend, and it occurs to me that it’s more than just a fresh marketing slogan. Among other things, the CFL has included a female general manager, Jo-Anne Polak with the Ottawa Rough Riders; another female, Catherine Raiche, is an assistant GM with the Montreal Alouettes; the Larks once had an openly gay man, Michael Sam, in their lineup; Ambrosie’s predecessor in the commish’s office, Jeffrey Orridge, is African-American; and a black man, Bernie Custis, was playing quarterback for Hamilton as far back as 1951. That’s diversity.

Donnovan Bennett of Sportsnet writes this: “The MOP at the halfway point of the season is a kicker.” Say again? A punter/place kicker, Justin Medlock of the Bombers, is the most oustanding player in the CFL? Spare us the nonsense, Donnovan. Everyone knows that kickers aren’t football players (sorry Bob Cameron and Troy Westwood). Once upon a time kickers were, indeed, football players (hello Kid Dynamite James, Choo Choo Shepard, Spaghetti Legs Parker, Jack Abendschan, Don Jonas, etc.), but now they boot the football and go for a Slurpee. Your MOP right now is Mike Reilly.

Terrific read from Ed Tait on Winnipeg O-lineman Jermarcus (Yoshi) Hardrick, who look a long, hard road to the CFL. Tait’s piece is the type of feature you seldom read in either of River City’s two dailies, due largely to space and access restrictions, and it’s a reminder of what the Winnipeg Free Press sports pages lost when he defected to bluebombers.com. Anyone at the Drab Slab who thinks Tait is a hack (hello, Paul Wiecek) has totally lost the plot.

Let’s see now, umpire Joe West provides a harmless, fun anecdote about Adrian Beltre and he’s suspended for three days. So what will Major League Baseball do with Detroit Tigers second sacker Ian Kinsler? He dumped all over ump Angel Hernandez, telling the Detroit Free Press, “He needs to find another job, he really does. He’s messing with baseball games, blatantly. I’m just saying it’s pretty obvious that he has to stop ruining baseball games. Candidly, leave the game. No one wants you behind the plate anymore.” I’m guessing MLB will be making an ATM withdrawal from Kinsler’s account, at the least.

Nice to see Erik Gudbranson, Troy Stecher and Jake Virtanen of the Canucks get into the spirit at Vancouver’s Pride parade and hijinks. It takes some special kind of gonads for macho hockey players to put on a rainbow-colored skirt and lei.

Bravo to Phil Kessel. The Pittsburgh Penguins forward has posted a pic of himself and the Stanley Cup stuffed with BBQ’d hot dogs, in what was a direct shot at Postmedia columnist Steve Simmons, who’d written a blistering piece about Kessel after he’d been dealt away by the Toronto Maple Leafs two years ago. Among other things, Simmons called Kessel “poison” and he claimed that the winger pigged out daily at a certain downtown hot dog stand in the Republic of Tranna (proven to be false). So what did Simmons think of the Kessel burn? “One, I thought ‘Phil’s pretty funny. Good for Phil for making a joke about it.’” he said on TSN 1050’s Breakfast Club. “Two, ‘This is your day with the Cup. This is your day…you’ve worked this hard, you get this thing, you’re having a party, why be so small to reference something that really isn’t important in your life?’” Yo! Steve! “Small” is writing about a guy’s rumored eating habits and getting the rumored facts wrong. What Kessel did to you, meanwhile, is a classic burn. Try lightening up.

Which brings me to today’s list: Biggest hot dogs in sports…

1. Muhammad Ali: The former heavyweight boxing champion was many things, but he most definitely was a hot dog (in a fun way).
2. Reggie Jackson: Mr. October was also Mr. Swagger.
3. Terrell Owens: Popcorn anyone?
4. Deion Sanders: He once said, “They don’t pay nobody to be humble.” He’s living proof.
5. Johnny Manziel: There isn’t enough mustard in the world to cover this do-nothing hot dog.

Further evidence of the Torontofication of the Winnipeg Sun sports section: In Steve Simmons’ past two odds-and-ends, three-dot columns that appear weekly, he devoted 21 items to sports franchises or figures in the Republic of Tranna. That’s compared to zero (0) Winnipeg references. To repeat: Toronto 21, Winnipeg 0. So, again, I ask why is a Toronto-centric column appearing weekly in a River City sheet? Aren’t any of the local writers capable of stringing together a series of wide-ranging quotes, notes and anecdotes that include opinion snippets about Winnipeg’s sports scene? I mean, if I can do it from Victoria, surely someone with their feet on the ground in good Ol’ Hometown can do it.

Patti Dawn Swansson has been scribbling mostly about Winnipeg sports for 47 years, which means she’s old and probably should think about getting a life.