Let’s talk about turning out the lights, the party’s over for Hockey Canada…a pit bull at TSN…Shania’s dog sled…jock TV’s ‘experts’ and ‘insiders’ have their say on the best of the best in the NHL and Ponytail Puck…female footballers at Wembley…the $2-million baseball…witchy woman Gisele?…and other things on my mind…

Top o’ the morning to you, Andrea Skinner.

Such a shame you had to be the first Hockey Canada domino to fall (okay, the second if we want to include Michael Brind’Amour excusing himself as board chair in early August). But, geez, after coughing up that great gob of twaddle during your fireside chat with the gang from Parliament Hill last week, it couldn’t have ended any other way but you stepping down as interim board chair.

You scored an own goal, Andrea. One of the worst in hockey history.

It’s one thing to drink the Kool-Aid, but your defence of Scott Smith was astonishing, and I don’t mean that in a positive way. I mean it was astonishing the way Joey Chestnut can eat 70 hot dogs in 10 minutes is astonishing. I swear, at times you sounded like a MAGA-hatted kook at a Trump rally.

Andrea Skinner

I mean, you actually told the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage that every frozen pond in the Great White North is apt to go dark should CEO Smith and his cabal of minions exit—stage disgraced—and leave Hockey Canada in the hands of people who believe sex assault is a crime, not an inconvenience best kept on the QT while dispensing boatloads of Canadian coin to victims. And you said it with a straight face.

This was your exact quote, Andrea: “I think that there is a significant risk to the organization if all of the board resigns and all of senior leadership is no longer there. I think that will be very impactful in a negative way to our boys and girls who are playing hockey. Will the lights stay on in the rink? I don’t know. We can’t predict that, and to me that’s not a risk worth taking.”

To repeat: You, the interim board chair of Hockey Canada, said there’s a very real danger that the ouster of Smith and Co. would lead kiddies across our Frozen Tundra to pack up their hockey sticks and pucks, tuck them away in a closet and pursue the pleasures and rewards of—oh I don’t know—twiddlywinks perhaps? Oh, the humanity. What will we do with all the idle Zambonis?

Nothing was lost in translation, Andrea. Maintenance crews are still scraping jaws off floors.

Sad thing is, Andrea, you didn’t stop there. When asked to grade Smith’s work, you dispensed more flapdoodle, professing to be a “hard marker” yet scrawling an ‘A’ on his report card. Well, if you mean to say his mandate was to keep sexual assault and victim payouts hush-hush for decades, then, ya, he warrants an ‘A’. (If only I had such “hard” teachers. Mine insisted on giving me ‘C’s and ‘D’s’ instead of the ‘A’s you pass out like Halloween candy, so I grew up to become a lowly jock journo instead of someone real important. You know, like a hockey executive who pays off victims of sexual assault.)

Anyway, your support of Smith and cohorts was so unyielding, so cult-like that the leader of all the land, PM Trudeau II, said it “boggles the mind,” and I thought only Pierre Poilievre could do that to Trudeau the Younger. The PM later suggested Hockey Canada has “completely lost the confidence of Canadians,” but not you, Andrea. You told the politicos that those among the rabble demanding to see executive heads roll are “extremists.”

So that’s what we’re calling hockey parents these days, Andrea? Extremists? Interesting.

Scott Smith

Maybe Tim Hortons is extremist, too, because it bailed as a major sponsor of the HC men’s program. Ditto Scotiabank and Telus and Janes Family Foods and Canadian Tire and Esso and Sobey’s and The Keg and Skip the Dishes and Nike. Oh, yes, financial partners skedaddled faster than scalded dogs. They made the Jamaican 4×100 relay team look like slowpokes. And HC can’t expect any more slush fund coin from Hockey Quebec or Hockey Nova Scotia or Hockey New Brunswick. By the time the dust settles, Andrea, your pal Scott Smith won’t be able to afford a double-double at Tims.

But, hey, you stood by your man, telling us that, in a land of 38 million frost-bitten citizens, he’s the sole soul wise enough, intelligent enough and bold enough to purge the toxins from Hockey Canada’s misogynist, cover-up culture. (Good grief, woman. Even Jesus had a Judas.)

So let’s be clear, Andrea: A secret stash of coin to gag victims of sex assault (we’re told the tab is $10 million-plus since 1989) is not a good idea, and I don’t care if you want to call it the National Equity Fund, the Participants Legacy Trust Fund or the Coo Roo Coo Coo Coo Coo Coo Coo Fund. It’s terribly wrong, and it “boggles the mind” that it’s a hill the remaining band of mooks at Hockey Canada has chosen for their last stand.

Maybe the ol’ boys at HC set you up to take the fall, Andrea. It’s been known to happen to women in a man’s world. But I believe other dominoes shall fall. You can’t be the sole scapegoat in this sordid, rotten affair.

I figured Skinner would be as smooth as a baby’s tush on the witness stand. After all, she’s a lawyer and legal beagles are supposed to be smart, clever and cagey. But then I remembered Rudy Giuliani is also a lawyer.

Rick Westhead

What’s a Hockey Canada executive’s worst nightmare? Seeing the name Rick Westhead pop up on their caller ID. The TSN snoop-and-scoop journo is a pit bull on a pork chop, and right now he’s on a feeding frenzy. I imagine he makes them as jumpy as a barefoot frog in a hot frying pan.

Question: How many Hockey Canada executives did it take to change the burnt-out light bulb? Answer: They couldn’t do it. They saw Westhead’s car in the parking lot and ran for cover.

Here’s a question that keeps gnawing at me: If Hockey Canada execs are to be tarred and feathered for covering up sex crimes and a hush fund, why is Kevin Cheveldayoff still GM of the Winnipeg Jets? Chevy was a member of the Chicago Silent 7 that kept the Kyle Beach assault on the QT for a decade, and I still don’t buy NHL commish Gary Bettman’s baloney that Chevy was a mere go-fer fetching coffee and donuts. He was a Blackhawks assistant GM.

Just wondering: What would a classy guy like the great Jean Beliveau think about the Montreal Canadiens signing a sex offender, Logan Mailloux? Not only that, the Habs did it the same week Hockey Canada makes like Humpty Dumpty and takes a great fall for sex scandals. Ugh.

Shania Twain

Oh dear. I believe Glen Suitor’s man crush on Keith Urban is no more. The TSN natterbug is now swooning over Shania Twain, or at least he was during Saturday night’s Winnipeg Blue Bombers-Edmonton Elks skirmish in Good Ol’ Hometown. The boys in the truck showed flashback video of Shania arriving on a dog sled for her halftime gig at the 2017 Grey Cup game in snowy Ottawa, and Suits gushed “she’s the GOAT.” Hmmm. Apparently he hasn’t heard of Patsy or Dolly or Loretta or Reba or Emmylou or Alison.

Okay, the Winnipeg Jets will drop the puck on another National Hockey League crusade on Friday vs. captain Jacob Trouba and his Broadway Blueshirts, and here’s what the tea leaves tell me about the Western Conference:
1. Colorado
2. Edmonton
3. Winnipeg
4. Minnesota
5. Calgary
6. Nashville
7. St. Louis
8. Los Angeles
9. Anaheim
10. Vegas
11. Vancouver
12. Seattle
13. San Jose
14. Dallas
15. Chicago
16. Arizona
Yes, I tout the Jets to grab a seat on the Stanley Cup merry-go-round next spring. Keep this in mind, though: I spent about as much time mulling this over as I spend in church, but feel free to discuss among yourselves.

Our two national jock networks, TSN and Sportsnet, gathered a collection of “experts” and “insiders” to determine the elite of the elite in the National Hockey League, and here’s how it shakes down:

Craig Button walks among the TSN “experts,” and he believes Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby still belong in the top five. Get a grip, Craig. Both Sid the Kid and Ovie remain on the upper crust, but top-fivers? Sure, and SNL is still must-see TV.

Marie-Philip Poulin

TSN also gave a nod to Ponytail Puck, with its panel of “experts” determining the top 25 players on the distaff side of rink. Naturally, our golden girl Marie-Philip Poulin tops the list, but here’s the unfortunate part of the breakdown: Just six of the chosen 25 are from outside North America. Disparity has long been the bugaboo in women’s hockey, and the gap doesn’t appear to be narrowing. (The men’s top 25 is basically a 50/50 split.) Here’s the crème de la crème of the women:

1. Marie-Philip Poulin, Canada
2. Sarah Fillier, Canada
3. Ann-Renée Desbiens, Canada
4. Brianne Jenner, Canada
5. Megan Keller, U.S.
6. Brianna Decker, U.S.
7. Mélodie Daoust, Canada
8. Taylor Heise, U.S.
9. Jocelyne Larocque, Canada
10. Jenni Hiirikoski, Finland

This from Rory Smith of the New York Times: “It is the United States and England, after all, who have ‘stretched clear’ of the pack, as Megan Rapinoe put it, and who stand as the two undisputed powerhouses of women’s soccer.” Excuse me? England last tasted defeat in April 2021. Vs. Canada. Prior to Friday night’s friendly at Wembley Stadium in London, the Yankee Doodle Damsels’ last lost in August 2021. Vs. Canada. And, if I’m not mistaken, our Canadian women are the reigning Olympic champions. Hmmm.

Attention those who insist that female sports doesn’t sell: The U.S.-England futbol friendly on Friday attracted an audience of 76,893 to Wembley. The match sold out in less than 24 hours, two months before the first touch of a ball.

So, Aaron Judge finished the Major League Baseball season with 62 dingers, topping Roger Maris’ previous record by one, and the guy who caught HR ball No. 62, Cory Youmans, has been offered $2 million for the thing. Imagine that. A cool $2M for two small strips of cowhide and some fancy stitching. Meanwhile, the poor sap who actually hand sewed the ball in Costa Rica probably works for 10 cents a day.

Quote of the week was delivered by legendary jock voice Al Michaels, who, during the second half of the dreadful Indianapolis Colts-Denver Broncos skirmish on Thursday Night Football, cracked wise: “It’s first-and-goal, words I thought I would never speak tonight.” The Colts won, 12-9 in OT. Everyone watching had fallen into a football-induced coma by halftime.

Sad to report that Pebbles, the world’s oldest dog, has died. A four-pound toy fox terrier, she was 22 years, 7 months old. That’s about 175 in Tom Brady years.

Gisele Bundchen

Speaking of Brady, the end is nigh for the Tampa Bay Bucs QB, and it has nothing to do with the number of candles on his birthday cake. It’s because his bride, Gisele Bundchen, is a witch. An unhappy witch. So say the Witches of TikTok. Apparently only Gisele’s power of hocus-pocus has kept Brady on the playing field this long, but now that their marriage is headed for splitsville her spells have lost their magic and Tom boy is on his own. His career is doomed, and not even a potion with a heaping of deflated footballs, a spoonful of Boston chowder, and a pinch of Gronk can save him.

The latest edition of Game On magazine is fresh off the presses and, as usual, it’s boffo. There’s 164 pages of news and chatter, including a piece from Scott Taylor on my former teammate and West Kildonan North Stars alumni, Gordie Tumilson, the Goalie Whisperer. It’s all fabulous stuff.

It’s Thanksgiving weekend on our soon-to-be Frozen Tundra, and turkey time is all about family, friends, food and blessings. So let the record show that I’m thankful for sports scribes, because I’m still a newspaper junkie and I love reading sports pages from across our vast land. Special nod to the three-man team at the Winnipeg Sun—Paul Friesen, Teddy Wyman and Scott Billeck, who continue to fight the good fight, even as the suits at Postmedia in the Republic of Tranna tie one hand behind their backs.

Give a thought to Jason Bell, head of the toy department at the Drab Slab. He informed subscribers to his twice-a-week newsletter that he’s been diagnosed with Parkinson’s. Stay strong, Jason.

And, finally, this week’s vanity license plate:

Let’s talk about Chevy’s fishing…wedding bells and mountains…the Babe, Roger and here comes da Judge…David Letterman’s ‘tub of goo’…good reads in the Drab Slab…Joe Pop…Jumbo Joe’s beard…and other things on my mind…

Chevy

Top o’ the morning to you, Kevin Cheveldayoff. Have a nice summer? Hope the fish were biting more than the black flies out there at your Lake of the Woods hideaway.

I know you fish, Chevy, but you sure don’t do much of it on land. I mean, the lads have hit the ice for another crusade—your 12th general managing the Winnipeg Jets—and your group looks strikingly similar to the Sad Sack side that stumbled and (mostly) grumbled its way through the 2021-22 National Hockey League frolic.

I don’t need to remind you that those Jets missed the boat (pun intended), and you shored up your non-playoff roster by landing a goaltender nobody wanted and an aging forward nobody wanted. Oh joy. What were you using for bait that so many others passed on? The iffy wifi or even worse weather?

I suppose it’s only fair that I point out you did manage to land yourself one big, off-ice catch, Chevy. That would be Rick Bowness, a wrinkled, good-guy coach who might have been No. 2, 3, 4 or 5 on your wish list of head knocks not named Barry Trotz. Bones’ mission is simple: Turn leftovers into a scrumptious, full-course meal that includes dessert with a cherry on top, which is to say a seat on the Stanley Cup merry-go-round and a deep run next spring.

Bones aside, Chevy, call it a Summer of Nothing, and it wasn’t your first. Is it your last, though?

Some of us think your seat should be hotter than a ticket to an Adele gig in Vegas, but the guy whose opinion matters most, Puck Pontiff Mark Chipman, has your back, and the three-year contract extension he handed you for never failing to fail is the evidence.

Justified or not, Chevy, it’s bonus time for you to finish what you and the Puck Pontiff started in 2011. Otherwise, the Gone Fishin’ sign needs to go up permanently.

Rink Rat Scheifele had a natter with Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek on their 32 Thoughts podcast the other day, and the Jets centre insists there’s a “tight knit” team sitting in the changing room. Ya, we saw that at the end of last season when they all got together, linked arms and held a group gripe about too many guys more interested in padding their stats than playing the right way. Oh, but wait. Apparently, a culture shift is afoot. We’re told a bunch of the boys gathered to witness Josh Morrissey take a bride during the summer, and the lads shall assemble in the Rocky Mountains next month for a 1960s-style love-in, where it’s assumed Rick Bowness will read bedtime stories and tuck them in each night. Hmmm. Wedding bells? A mountain retreat? Are they building a hockey team or making one of those hokey Hallmark movies?

Sydney Daniels

I suppose some will view the addition of Sydney Daniels to the Jets’ stable of bird dogs as a “woke” hire or “virtue signaling,” but I’ll take their word that she’s got the chops to handle the college scouting portfolio. Sydney’s from the Flattest of Lands, which is a good place to start any hockey resumé, and she’s familiar with the U.S. college scene, having played and coached at Harvard. She’s also Indigenous, which makes her a double-barreled role model for girls and women. Good for Sydney and good for Winnipeg HC.

This from hockey scribe Kevin McGran in his 13 Musings column for the Toronto Star: “The Winnipeg Jets are going to be a train wreck, right?” Ouch. And Michael Traikos of Postmedia Toronto describes Winnipeg HC as “a rudderless ship.” Ouch again. Actually, I’m not surprised that they would take a dim view of the Jets. I’m only surprised that shinny scribes in the Republic of Tranna acknowledge there are NHL teams out here in the colonies.

This also from McGran: “Gotta believe the Leafs will go slowly before putting a sponsor’s logo on the front of their game sweater.” D’oh! He wrote that Tuesday. Scant seconds later, the Toronto Maple Leafs introduced their 2022-23 jerseys with—you guessed it—an advertising patch (Farmers of Ontario “Milk”) on the right chest.

No surprise that Patrik Laine and Johnny Gaudreau will be together on the left and right flanks once the puck is dropped on Columbus Blue Jackets dress rehearsals. Evidently the lineup for auditions to play centre with Puck Finn and Johnny Hockey is longer than the queue for Queen Liz’s funeral.

Always worth noting that Laine is all-in with the Blue Jackets, having signed for the next four seasons, and that’s something Puck Finn refused to do with the Jets. So it’s fair to wonder what Columbus, Ohio, (of all places) has that Good Ol’ Hometown is missing. Oh, well, his loss I guess. I mean, he’ll miss all that warm-and-fuzzy bonding next month in the Rockies.

When I was a sprig, Babe Ruth was more myth than man, someone who seemingly had sprung from the pages of a dime novel.

Elders would regale us with tales taller than a New York skyscraper about the Babe, claiming one swing of the Bambino’s bat would send a baseball hurtling from the Bronx to Baton Rouge. The Babe was Bunyanesque. His 60-home run season in 1927? Also mythical. I mean, who did that? Not Willie Mays or Mickey Mantle or Henry Aaron or Ted Williams. Only the Babe. The Sultan of Swat.

Then Roger Maris came along and we saw it actually happen.

I was 10 when Maris whacked a Tracy Stallard pitch into the right field porch at Yankee Stadium, then made his 61st home run trot of the 1961 Major League Baseball season. No, I didn’t see it live on TV. We were limited to televised games on Saturday afternoons back then, and Roger passed the Babe on a Sunday. But I read all about it in the next morning’s Winnipeg Tribune, so it had to be true.

And now we have another damn Yankee, Aaron Judge, doing Ruthian and Marisian-type things. He has 60 dingers, and there’s counting yet to be done.

Will kids 60 years from now listen to grandpa spin yarns about a larger-than-life, mythical man who didn’t have a catchy nickname? Somehow I doubt it. Aaron Judge is too real to be a myth. He doesn’t stick needles in his butt. He doesn’t call his shots. He doesn’t booze it up and consort with fancy females on the road. He isn’t into dramatic, diva-like bat flips. He just plays baseball. Hey, maybe that’s become the myth…a guy who just plays baseball.

What’s the going rate for a souvenir baseball? Well Sal Durante, a Brooklyn truck driver, caught Maris’ 61st HR ball and eventually peddled it for $5,000 to restaurant owner Sam Gordon, who promptly handed it to Maris. Durante gifted half his poke to his parents, then spent the remainder on furnishing a house with soon-to-be bride Rosemarie. They said their I do’s three weeks after Sal snatched the Maris HR ball, and they honeymooned in San Francisco, Las Vegas, Reno, Palm Springs and Sacramento, all on Gordon’s dime. Durante, now hospitalized with dementia at age 80, also received a Zippo cigarette lighter with a Yankees logo on the front and Roger’s name on the back from the Yankees slugger. The guy who hauls in Judge’s 62nd HR ball (assuming he hits it) could easily afford a three-bedroom home a block away from Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, and have enough coin left over for yearly around-the-world honeymoons and a solid gold Zippo.

The cost of making a baseball is about $7, but you can buy one designed to exact MLB specifications on Amazon for $33.16 (goop and nasty toxins that Yankees pitcher Gerrit Cole applies not included).

Alejandro Kirk

Okay, Alejandro Kirk doesn’t have the body perfect (nor did the Babe, for that matter). He’s squat, with an ample girth. Stand him next to Aaron Judge and you’re looking at an igloo beside the Empire State Building. But is the sight of the rotund Toronto Blue Jays catcher rumbling around the base paths “embarrassing for the sport” of baseball? TSN radio guy Matthew Ross thought so, and said so, on Twitter, prompting keyboard warriors to pounce with loud squawks and accusations of body shaming. No surprise that Ross delivered a mea culpa, saying in part, “defaming people for the way they look is not where my heart or intent was in this moment—or ever!” Sigh. Why do these guys always use the “that’s not who I am” copout? As the Wise Woman of the Village once said: “No matter who and what we claim to be, what we say and do is who and what we are.” So just own it, for gawd’s sake, then vow to do and be better.

The Kirk clatter brought to mind the time late-night gab guy David Letterman went off on Atlanta Braves relief pitcher Terry Forster. Among others things, Letterman called Forster “the fattest man in all of professional sports. The guy is a balloon. He must weigh 300 pounds. He is a looaad.” Just so his national TV audience didn’t miss his meaning, Letterman closed his body-shaming bit by labeling Forster “a fat tub of goo.” That’s the way it was in 1985. People yukked it up over stuff that brings out the tar and feathers today.

Some good copy in the Drab Slab lately, starting with Jeff Hamilton’s deep dive into the matter of disgraced high school football coach Kelsey McKay. It isn’t the first time Jeff has gone into the dirty areas of sports, and he always delivers the goods. Meantime, Mike Sawatzky has a nice piece on the 1962 U of M Bisons football team, which had old friends George Depres and Jeep Woolley on the coaching staff. Jeff and Mike are the best weapons in the Freep’s toy department.

On the subject of the write stuff, you might want to check out Eddie Tait’s piece on Joe Poplawski over at the Winnipeg Blue Bombers website. Joe Pop is this year’s inductee to the Winnipeg FC Ring of Honour, and young Eddie has the background poop on a guy recognized hither and yon as one of the finest people in sports. Any sport. Any era.

Danny Maciocia

Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that Montreal Larks head coach Danny Maciocia always looks as confused as a guy who’s forgotten where he parked the car?

The Larks got the better of the Hamilton Tabbies on Friday night, 23-16, and Montreal QB Trevor Harris mentioned Jesus three times during a brief post-victory natter with John Lu on TSN. Hmmm. I realize Larks legendary QB and current O-Coordinator Anthony Calvillo is revered in Montreal, but when did they start calling him Jesus?

So, who becomes the fall guy in Bytown, where the 3-10 RedBlacks looked shockingly inept in a 45-15 paddywhacking from the Toronto Argos last night? Well, it’ll be Paul LaPolice, of course. It isn’t Coach LaPo’s fault that he lost his starting QB, Jeremiah Masoli, to a dirty bit of business by the felonious Flatlander Garrett Marino, but consecutive three-win crusades doesn’t cut it. This is his second head-coaching gig in Rouge Football, and at 22-49 I believe there’s a warm seat waiting for Coach LaPo beside Kate Beirness on the TSN panel.

Nice to see Darren Dutchyshen back on SportsCentre with Jennifer Hedger while he fights the good fight against cancer. Dutchy has been a mainstay at TSN since 1995, which seems so darn long ago, .

Apparently ’tis the season to retire. Zdeno Chara, P.K. Subban and Keith Yandle all said toodle-oo on the same day last week, and one of them is destined for the Hockey Hall of Fame, another probably has a future in the gab game if he chooses, while Yandle packs it in as the NHL’s iron man, having clocked in for work in 989 consecutive games from March 26, 2009, to March 29 this year. Meanwhile, no word on Jumbo Joe Thornton’s NHL future until scientists complete carbon dating analysis of his beard.

I don’t like the term “GOAT.” It’s overused to the point of being nails-on-a-chalkboard icky, and when an unGOAT like Blake Shelton tries to use an actual goat as a prop on The Voice, you know it’s also become cheesy and Oklahoma cornball. I think “GOAT” should be banned as it relates to sports, and I certainly won’t use it, except to tell you I won’t use it. I mean, Secretariat was the greatest race horse I’ve ever seen, but do we really want to call Secretariat a GOAT? Not gonna happen.

So, does Becky Hammon’s success leading the Las Vegas Aces to the WNBA title move the needle closer to her becoming the first female head coach in the NBA, or is she now pigeon holed into women’s hoops?

The WNBA final, by the way, featured two openly gay head coaches—Hammon, who’s married to Brenda Milano and the mother of two young kids, and Curt Miller of the Connecticut Sun. More role models for LGBT(etc.) youth.

Dumb Headline of the Week, from the Sportsnet website: “Exciting developments from PWHPA won’t include new league in January.” Good grief. There can be just one “exciting” development with the Dream Gappers—a league. Everything else is last week’s baked goods. I mean, there’s nothing fresh and “exciting” about playing glorified scrimmages for a fourth successive winter. Jayna Hefford and her Dream Gappers can dress up their “friendlies” six ways to Sunday, but Team Harvey’s vs. Team Sonnet will never get the pulse racing. The PWHPA needs to be something more than photo ops with Billie Jean King and hit-and-miss weekend scrimmages if they expect the masses to take Ponytail Puck seriously.

And, finally, this week’s vanity license plate:

Let’s talk about sayonara, Sara…a salute to Scotty…greatest Oilers vs. Jets…failing the sniff test…gay golden girls and role models on the ice and hardwood…a clown act on court…balls and strikes and robots…park it, Cam…goodbye Queen Liz…and other things on my mind

Sara Orlesky

Top o’ the morning to you, Sara Orlesky.

Gonna miss watching you do your thing on Rouge Football sidelines. Truly enjoyed your yadda, yadda, yadda during Canadian Football League broadcasts on TSN. Very professional, with a nice blend of knowledge, insight, good-hearted banter, and girl-next-door charm. That’s role model material for little and big girls everywhere.

And, hey, I don’t suppose there are many better ways of going out than working the Banjo Bowl in front of a packed ballyard of Melon Heads and blue-and-gold beer-snakers in Good Ol’ Hometown. Hope you didn’t let them drag you up to the Rum Hut while you were still on the clock yesterday.

Best of luck at your new gig with the Winnipeg Jets. I’m not sure the local shinny side deserves you, Sara, but hopefully you can help Captain Cranky Pants find a personality.

Speaking of guys who wear/wore the ‘C’ with the Jets, so sad to learn of the passing of the uncranky captain Scott Campbell. Scotty lost his battle with cancer (screw cancer!) at age 65, and let it be known that he was one of the truly good guys. Or, as legendary squawk box Friar Nicolson would say about salt-of-the-earthers like Scotty, he was “good people.” Always obliging, always a good sound bite, always quick with a smile and a giggle, forever genuine, Scotty took whatever life threw at him and kept swinging for the fences.

Scott Campbell

Always loved this story about Scotty: Drill sergeant Tom McVie became bench puppeteer of the Jets in the back half of the World Hockey Association’s final fling, and he made a habit of working the lads like rented mules. During one punishing session, Scotty, who had a broken jaw, could take no more and began upchucking. Unmoved, McVie snarled, “Get sick on your own time!”

Nice tribute piece on Scotty by Mike Sawatzky in the Drab Slab, with commentary from former teammates Terry Ruskowski, Morris Lukowich, and Jimmy Mann. Alas, Scotty’s death didn’t warrant a mention on the sports pages of the Winnipeg Sun, because the suits at Postmedia in the Republic of Tranna decided the rabble in Good Ol’ Hometown would rather read a full page on a golfer from The ROT than a guy who wore Jets linen in both the WHA and National Hockey League. It’s ultra disappointing that the local tabloid continues to be the Torontopeg Sun.

I note the Edmonton Oilers have established a franchise Hall of Fame and will induct this Class of 2022 at a gala in early November: Wayne Gretzky, Grant Fuhr, Al Hamilton, Jarri Kurri, Mark Messier, Paul Coffey, Kevin Lowe, Glen Sather, Glenn Anderson and broadcaster Rod Phillips. Hmmm. Powerful lineup. But let’s compare that group to the Jets Hall of Fame—Teemu Selanne, Teppo Numminen, Thomas Steen, Randy Carlyle, Ab McDonald, Lars-Erik Sjoberg, Dale Hawerchuk, Anders Hedberg, Ulf Nilsson, Bobby Hull—and let’s imagine they played a game of pond hockey. Conclusion: The Jets wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in Fiji for one basic reason—no goalie.

Come to think of it, who would be the Jets all-time best masked man? Old friend Joe Daley, that’s who.

This is how brilliant B.C. Leos QB Nathan Rourke was prior to an owie aborting his 2022 Rouge Football crusade: In nine games, he flung the football for 3,281 yards; it took Macleod Bethel-Thompson of the Toronto Argos 12 games to pass Rourke, and Winnipeg Blue Bombers QB Zach Collaros is still trying to track him down after 13 skirmishes.

I always thought Dave was the wingnut of the CFL’s coaching Dickenson brothers, but it turns out it’s Craig, sideline steward of the Saskatchewan Roughriders and official apologist for the dumbest players in the three-downs game. They were ticketed for another 13 felonies and 141 yards in yesterday’s 54-20 paddywhacking by the Bombers. They should be clad in orange jump suits, not green-and-white football togs.

Scott Smith

In terms of nose-holding optics, I can think of few things more odious than Hockey Canada CEO Scott Smith doling out gold medals to members of our national shinny side at the world championship in Denmark. The sight of Smith smiling like Lewis Carroll’s Cheshire Cat as the Canadian women skated forward to receive their just rewards last Sunday at the KVIK Hockey Arena in Herning was rotten eggs kind of foul. It’s like getting your law diploma from Rudy Giuliani.

Tessa Bonhomme, Jayna Hefford and Sami Jo Small did a lot of yakkety, yak, yakking on TSN during the Ponytail Puck tournament in Denmark, but I wish they had told us why Melodie Daoust was MIA. Melodie has been a Team Canada mainstay for years, and if they explained her absence I missed it.

The TSN talking heads, which included Kenzie Lalonde on play-by-play and Cheryl Pounder flapping her gums faster than a scofflaw fleeing a crime scene, kept insisting that U.S.A. vs. Canada in women’s shinny is the “best rivalry in sports.” Hmmm. I think the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees and their faithful might have something to say about that. And, hey, the E-Town Oilers and Calgary Flames don’t exactly play “friendlies.” Nor do Man U and Liverpool.

Nobody asked me, but I like Kenzie Lalonde’s play-by-play. Bigger and better gigs await that young lady.

Julie Chu, Caroline Ouellette and the kiddies, Liv and Tessa.

Did you know or do you care that the woman whose two goals staked Canada to its 2-1, gold-medal win over the Yankee Doodle Damsels, Brianne Jenner, is a lesbian? Ditto one of the True North coaches, Caroline Ouellette. True story. Both are gay, both are married, and both are moms. Brianne and bride Hayleigh Cudmore have a daughter, June, while Caroline and bride Julie Chu are moms to Liv and Tessa. Chances are you don’t care about this sort of thing, but I believe we should all care about inclusivity, especially in sports, which if often slow on the uptake. LGBT(etc.) youth need role models like Brianne and Caroline. It matters.

On that note, it’s adios to Sue Bird, among the finest female athletes of any sport, any era. Sue, who’ll have 42 candles on her birthday cake next month, played the final game of her WNBA career with Seattle Storm last week, and she leaves the hardwood with more decorations than a Christmas tree: 4 WNBA titles, 5 Oly gold, 2 NCAA crowns, 4 FIBA World Cup titles, 5 EuroLeague championships. And did I mention she’s lesbian and her main squeeze is yappy Yankee Doodle soccer star Megan Rapinoe? Can you say “role models,” kids?

I don’t know about you, but after watching and listening to mainstream jock journalists lather Serena Williams with the highest hosannas at the U.S. Open, I’m now convinced she’s the only female athlete in history to continue competing after giving birth, she’s the planet’s foremost fashion designer, she’s the first person to ever slice a loaf of bread, and now that she has some spare time on her hands she’ll probably swan off to Moscow for a tete-a-tete with Vlad the Bad Putin and bully him and his KGB butt out of Ukraine. As if.

Chrissie and Serena

Chrissie Evert told her ESPN audience that “no man” could do what Williams has done at age 40. Oh, for gawd’s sake. I mean, what did Williams do? She won two matches, bringing her W/L tally on the year to 3/4. That’s it. Full stop. By comparison, a year ago at age 39 years, 11 months (let’s round it off at 40), Roger Federer won four matches to reach the quarterfinals at Wimbledon. So stick a sock in it, Chrissie.

Why is it that whenever someone suggests Queen Hissy Fit is sub-saintly they’re immediately branded a racist or a misogynist? Before S. Williams came along, my least-favorite tennis players were John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors and Ilie Nastase, all male, all white and all off-the-chart boors. That didn’t make me anti-white or anti-male. It made me anti-jerk. So it isn’t always about race and gender. It’s okay to not worship at the S. Williams shrine simply because you think she’s a self-absorbed jerk.

Another question: Why is Nick Kyrgios so popular among the tennis mob? Ya, I know. The guy has immense skill. So do circus clowns. And the Kyrgios shtick is the same sort of carnival sideshow. I swear, Nick the Carny doesn’t sign autographs for kids after his matches. He makes them balloon animals instead. All that’s missing are the big, floppy shoes, clothes that look like something Don Cherry would wear, and a big, round, red nose that goes honk-honk.

Jessica Pegula

After being vanquished in a quarterfinal match vs. Iga Swiatek at the U.S. Open, American Jessica Pegula was observed sipping on a tall can of Heineken during her post-match natter with news snoops. “I’m trying to pee for doping,” she told them. The marketing geniuses at the brew giant promptly launched an ad campaign, resurrecting an old Heineken tagline but changing it from “It’s All About the Beer” to “It’s All About the Pee Bottle.”

On the subject of brewskies, wasn’t that golfer John Daly tossing out the ceremonial first pitch for the St. Louis Cardinals-Washington Nationals rounders game last Wednesday at Busch Stadium? Sure was. Long John looked like Santa on vacation, and he threw a stee-rike! Apparently he then retired a six-pack of Budweiser before the home half of the first inning.

Two animal rights activists interrupted the L.A. Rams-Buffalo Bills NFL lid-lifter on Thursday night at SoFi Stadium in Tinsel Town. Apparently their squawk had something to do with abuse of hogs, but after a brief interruption those two little piggies went wee, wee, wee all the way to the hoosegow.

Roger Maris and Aaron Judge

I don’t care what anyone thinks or says. If Aaron Judge swats 62 home runs to surpass the 61 dingers Roger Maris clouted in 1961, he’ll hold the Major League Baseball single-season mark for most round-trippers. What about Barry Bonds, you say? Sorry, it doesn’t count if you had to stick a needle in your butt cheeks to do it.

How do I know Judge isn’t also on the juice? Because, unlike Bonds, his head hasn’t grown to the size of a prize-winning pumpkin at the county fair.

The lords of Major League Baseball will put in a hurry-up-and-throw-the-damn ball pitch clock and outlaw infield shifts next season. Big changes. If they keep this up, baseball will start to look like baseball again.

R2-D2

There was also talk of replacing the home plate umpire with a robot to call balls and strikes, but the notion was nixed when seven-times ejected New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone protested, saying, “Oh no you don’t. If I’m going to toss a temper tantrum and kick dirt on anyone, it’ll be Angel Hernandez, not that cute, little R2-D2.”

The PGA Tour-LIV Golf Series war continues, and the latest casualty is Cameron Smith’s parking space outside the clubhouse at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. As Players Championship titleholder, mullet-boy Smith had earned the right to park his ride in the prime location, but then he had the bad manners to accept $145 million in Saudi blood money and become persona non grata in the Sawgrass parking lot. I’d feel really bad for the guy, except I can never find a decent parking spot when I go to the mall, and I don’t have $145 million to buy my own mall.

This from Cathal Kelly of the Globe and Mail: “Few professional athletes are likeable any more.” I wonder if that’s true, or has Kelly become jaded? I mean, I had natters with hundreds (thousands?) of play-for-pay jocks during my 30 years in the rag trade, and there might have been five whom I found to be flat-out unlikable. The jock-news snoop dynamic has changed since my exit, stage west, 23 years ago, but has it soured that much?

Steve Simmons of Postmedia Tranna tells long-time shinny scribe Ken Campbell that he was “too young” to understand the Us-vs.-Them political backdrop of the 1972 Summit Series between Canada and the Soviet Union. Campbell was eight years old at the time. Well, let me say this about that: When I was a sprig growing up in Good Ol’ Hometown in the 1950s and ’60s, the Cold War and the accompanying air raid drills scared the hell out of me. Whenever I heard those sirens wail, I’d either duck for cover or look to the sky for nuclear bombs, because I understood that Nikita Khrushchev was one push of a button away from blowing us all the hell up. Even at a tender age, I understood that Dwight Eisenhower/JFK were the good guys and Khrushchev was the bad guy. Us vs. Them. And, believe me, no one ever mistook me for a political science savant. All of us kids understood. But, sure, tell us more about what we were “too young” to know back in the day, Grandpa Simmons.

And, finally, I’ll leave you with this because it seems like the right thing to do…

Andrew Harris: Another tainted hero or the victim of “some bad luck?”

Yes, of course, many of us want to believe Andrew Harris when he honest-to-gosh, cross-my-heart swears he didn’t swallow a dirty pill.

That’s because Harris is one of the good guys.

And, because he’s one of the good guys, he can’t possibly be dumb enough to stick a needle in his butt, coat himself with an iffy kind of cream, or pop a pill called Metandienone to make his 32-year-old body perform like a 22-year-old body.

It’s the other guys who do the cheating.

Andrew Harris

Except Harris, the Canadian Football League’s leading ground gobbler, has been found guilty of being stupid enough to do that very thing. Drug cheat. Guilty as charged. And sentenced.

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers tailback has been told to go away for two games and, no, I don’t wear tin foil on my head so any notion of some cockeyed conspiracy contrived on the Flattest of Lands is straight out of the Rod Serling playbook.

I mean, if you’re among the Tin Foilers who actually believe that the Harris suspension is the end result of a plot to give the Saskatchewan Roughriders a leg up on the Bombers, then I have some ocean-front property with a Rocky Mountain vista at The Forks that you might be interested in. And while we’re at it, how would you like to buy shares in the Redwood Bridge?

Naturally Winnipeg FC will miss Harris in the home-and-home, Labor Day week dosey doe with Gang Green beginning Sunday, but come on. The fix is in? Sure. Zapruder film at 11.

Look, this isn’t about two points or four points, or clinging to first place or falling out of first place in the West Division.

It’s about Andrew Harris, the person, the guy who now must convince people, including his daughter, that he isn’t a drug cheat. That he bought a supplement at a natural health store and somehow Metandienone found its way into the mix.

“I pride myself on being a great role model to my daughter, youth, my peers,” he told an assembly of very attentive news snoops on Monday morning.

“I would never intentionally cheat and I’m in a situation now where I’m being questioned and it hurts.”

Cue the eye-rolling, because that’s what they all say, right? A-Rod said it. Mark McGwire said it. Roger Clemens said it while “misremembering” all the needles he stuck in his caboose. Barry Bonds still says it, even though his head has shrunk from the size of a prize pumpkin at the country fair to something that more closely resembles a five-pin bowling ball. Ben Johnson…Lance Armstrong…Marion Jones…Manny Ramirez…Julius Peppers…nope, didn’t do it. Pete Rose…nope, never bet on his own baseball beam.

We didn’t believe any of them, so why should we believe Andrew Harris?

Because, like I said, he’s one of the good guys. A local kid who just 12 days ago stamped his place in Rouge Football folklore by becoming the career yardage leader among all homebrews who’ve ever taken a handoff or caught a pass in the CFL.

We don’t want his line in the record book for most real estate gained to read: Andrew Harris, 13,481* yards.

Roger Maris didn’t deserve an asterisk in 1961 just because he had the (apparent) bad manners to swat more dingers in a season than the Bambino, Babe Ruth, and Harris doesn’t deserve an asterisk in 2019 if there was something fishy with his supplement and it showed up when he peed in a bottle.

“All natural, got it from a natural health store, and here I am,” he quietly assured the gathering of those with quill and microphone.

Harris also called his misadventure “some bad luck” and had to collect himself when the matter of legacy and his record-breaking performance vs. the B.C. Lions was mentioned. Some of us wondered why he lost it emotionally on the sidelines that night, weeping as teammates stepped forward to embrace him.

Now we have our answer. Harris already knew about the two positive tests by then, and he knew his day of reckoning was nigh.

“It took away from something that was really great. It was very difficult and…” he said, then bowed his head and buried his face in his right hand.

A lot of people will think of it as an act, just as they did with A-Rod and that bunch of denying needle-pushers who refused to ‘fess up until there was no way of climbing out of the rabbit hole. They’ll note the uncommon things Harris is accomplishing when most running back’s bodies are falling apart like a witness during a Perry Mason cross-examination. They’ll view his records as ill-gotten plunder. Rancid fruit.

Well, I’ve never met Andrew Harris. Probably never will. But, damnit, I hope like hell someone wearing a lab coat made a mistake.

It doesn’t look that way, though. Such a shame.