Seattle

Let’s talk about sports in 2020: Megan Rapinoe for VP…Bemidji Buff…Coach PoMo’s dog days…Winnipeg Blue Bombers QB situation is a zoo…curling and diaper duty…and other things in the crystal ball…

No looking back. Only looking ahead.

And who better to do that than Madame Redneck, my bony recluse friend who lives above the timber line with 12 cats on Vancouver Island and grants me an audience once a year, as long as I supply the Kokanee?

She’s a crazy, old girl—I suppose in polite company we’d call her eccentric—but she possesses the best psychic powers this side of Nostradamus. She’s my personal Nostra Damn-Miss.

I spent an afternoon with her on the weekend, and here’s what she saw in her crystal ball for 2020…

The Yankee Doodle Damsels win soccer gold at the Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo and, once again, loud mouth lesbian Megan Rapinoe is the star of the show and the most popular athlete in the U.S. Seeing this as an opportunity to boost his sagging approval rating, Donald Trump ditches VP Mike Pence and asks Rapinoe to join him as his running mate on the GOP ticket in the presidential campaign.

“It’s only right that I have a gay running mate, because nobody’s been a better friend to the gay community than me…nobody,” Trump says. “Megan knows it. All the gays know it. You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve done for the gays. Even the gays don’t believe it. Just ask them. They’ll tell you I’ve done things like they’ve never seen. I’ve done so many things for the gays that I actually wish I was gay, just so I could take advantage of all the things I’ve done for the gays. I’ve told Melania that. She thinks I’d make a great gay. I’d be a gay like you’ve never seen. I was at the Stonewall Riots, by the way. I threw the first brick. I freed the gays the same way Lincoln freed the slaves. There wouldn’t have been a gay pride movement if I hadn’t tossed that first brick at the cops. Me and Harvey Milk, we’re the most influential people in gay history. The gays know that.”

Asked if she would accept Trump’s overture, Rapinoe says: “Sure, as soon as he paints the White House pink.”

Dustin Byfuglien continues his rehab in an ice fishing hut at Lockport, but the Winnipeg Jets reluctant blueliner decides to retire from the National Hockey League and buys a fishing lodge near Bemidji, Minn.

“There’s been a lot of talk about ruffled feathers,” general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff tells news snoops, “but, again, I can assure you that Buff’s feathers were never ruffled. Frankly, my feathers are a bit ruffled because you people keep asking me about ruffled feathers. Again, we would have preferred that Buff rejoin us for our drive to the playoffs. Again, we like Buff. Unfortunately, he likes fishing and hunting more than he likes us. But, again, that doesn’t mean his feathers are ruffled. We wish Buff all the best and, again, this had nothing to do with ruffled feathers.”

When contacted by reporters at his Lockport Buff Hut, Byfuglien says he has nothing to say.

Chevy and Puck Pontiff Mark Chipman re-sign Paul Maurice, thus snuffing out speculation that Coach Potty Mouth plans to join the expansion Seattle To Be Named Laters.

“Again, Paul was never going anywhere,” Chevy says. “It’s my understanding that he’s building a big-ass house somewhere in the city. That would be a crazy commute to Seattle. Again, I don’t know how these rumors start. Again, just because Paul is friends with Ron Francis doesn’t mean he was leaving. Again, Paul has many friends in hockey. I like to think I’m one of them. Again, if we all worked for our friends, there would only be one team in the NHL. Again, you guys slay me with your rumors.”

Asked about re-upping with the Jets, Maurice says: “I look forward to making as many people as possible cry in that effing dressing room.”

Three days after the announcement of Maurice’s new contract, the Jets are forced to fire him.

“We thought we had done our due diligence during the vetting process,” Chevy explains, “but we later discovered that Paul kicked a teammate’s dog when he was playing PeeWee hockey as a 10-year-old. Again, with the league’s new policy on squeaky-clean conduct by coaches, we had no choice but to let him go. I realize it happened 42 years ago, but, again, kicking a dog is kicking a dog is kicking a dog, and it doesn’t matter that poor Spot has been dead for a quarter century. Again, we endorse the league’s witch hunt of coaches guilty of wrong-doing, no matter how far back we have to look.”

Asked where he would find a replacement for Maurice, Chevy mutters: “Maybe it will have to be an altar boy to be named later, because, again, all the known saints are dead.”

Ron MacLean is removed as host of Hockey Night in Canada and replaced by David Amber.

“First they got Don Cherry, now they got me,” says MacLean. “Grapes lost his job because of poppies, and I lose my job because I’m a white guy. Go figure. I mean, what’s the NHL about if it isn’t about old white guys running everything? I might be the first white guy in hockey to lose his job because of his skin color. Don’t get me wrong, David is a talented young guy, but let’s face it, he’s got my job because I’m white and he isn’t. I just recently noticed that he wasn’t an old white guy. Oh, well, at least I’ve still got Hometown Hockey with Tara Slone. Funny thing is, I didn’t even notice she was a woman until last year. I guess there’s been a lot of stuff I didn’t notice.”

QB Zach Collaros takes his Grey Cup ring and runs to the Republic of Tranna, where he becomes the starter with the Boatmen.

“I loved playing for coach O’Shea and coach LaPolice, and I loved playing with all the guys, and I loved being a Blue Bomber and winning the Grey Cup,” he says. “But it’s Winnipeg. Not a lot going on there. I mean, how many times can you go to the zoo?”

QB Matt Nichols decides to forego free agency and signs a fresh three-year deal with the Bombers.

“Like, as if I really had a choice,” he says. “Take a look around the league. There aren’t any openings for a starter. Except maybe Ottawa. If it’s between Ottawa and Winnipeg, I’ll take Winnipeg every time. I mean, I just can’t get enough of that zoo, man.”

QB Chris Streveler sobers up in time to strut his stuff for a handful of National Football League outfits, but he returns to Canada and signs with the Ottawa RedBlacks, now coached by Paul LaPolice.

“I enjoyed working out for those NFL teams,” he says, “but it’s too much of a zoo down there.”

Canadian Football League commissioner Randy Ambrosie amps up his CFL 2.0 initiative by announcing working agreements with organizations in Fiji, Papua New Guinea and the Falkland Islands.

“One day you’ll be seeing Fijians, New Guineans and Falklanders on CFL rosters,” he boasts.

Asked how that will increase interest and attendance in the league’s weakest markets, Toronto and Vancouver, Commish Randy replies: “We have teams in those cities? Who knew?”

CFL on TSN talking head Glen Suitor turns in his microphone and becomes tour bus driver and resident groupie for singer and heatthrob Keith Urban.

Chris Cuthbert, Keith Urban and groupie Glen Suitor.

“After meeting Keith at the Grey Cup and sucking up to him the way I did on national TV, I couldn’t turn down this opportunity,” Suitor says. “How many guys can say they get to drive Keith Urban’s bus and lick his boots every day? Just me. He might even give me a bit part in his next music video. Eat your heart out, Nicole Kidman.”

Puck Pontiff Mark Chipman expands his True North Sports & Entertainment empire when granted a National Women’s Hockey League expansion franchise, called the Jettes.

“This is something I should have done a long time ago,” Chipman says. “I like women. I married one. And I have three daughters. All of them play or played hockey. I’d love it if one day one of them, or one of my granddaughters, could play for the Jettes. Based on the NWHL pay scale, it’d be cheaper than giving them an allowance.”

New moms Rachel Homan and Joanne Courtney win the Scotties Tournament of Hearts and, along with Lisa Weagle and Emma Miskew, become the first women to earn a purse equal to the Brier champions.

“It’s the 20th century,” says Homan. “About time. But we’ve already won this thing three times. You don’t suppose they could make the pay retroactive, do you? Diapers cost more than I thought.”

The boys on the hockey beat at the Drab Slab overhear a neighbor talking to a butcher who talked to a school teacher who talked to a cab driver who talked to a bartender who talked to a nurse who overheard Rink Rat Scheifele’s hair stylist mention a travel agent, so they scribble an article saying the Jets centre has demanded a trade.

“Now we know for certain whose feathers are ruffled,” they write. “If you can’t believe a hair stylist, who can you believe?”

I retire from scribbling the River City Renegade blog, but I return for more.

“What can I say?” I say. “As long as those mooks at the Drab Slab keep writing their fiction, I’m going to keep cranking out my BS.”

Let’s talk about Auston Matthews’ moonwalk…sports scribes losing the plot…Cammi Granato’s new job…Puck Finn Unplugged no more…welcome back Connor…the Tranna Maple Leafs’ bonus babies…the Winnipeg Blue Bombers air defence…Keith Urban, JLo and Shakira…and other things on my mind

Another Sunday smorgas-bored…and autumn leaves are falling and so are the Winnipeg Blue Bombers…

It’s no surprise, really, that the flowers of jock journalism in this country have basically ignored Fayola Dozithee in L’Affaire Matthews.

They are, after all, men.

And because they’re men, they can’t relate to the sudden surge of fear a woman feels when riding in an elevator late at night and two men with booze on their breath and lust in their loins walk in. You…are…trapped. There is no escape. Anxiety swallows you.

They can’t relate to the discomfort and uncertainty of walking past a work crew on a city street and listening to lewd, crude comments about body parts and “wanting a piece of that ass,” all to the accompaniment of frat boy laughter. It feels like 1,000 spiders and worms are crawling over you.

They can’t relate to the sound of quickening footsteps on pavement or the sight of darting shadows while walking to a parked car after the last cocktail has been poured. Even once inside your vehicle, there is a slight paralysis of the heart and shortness of breath. You nervously glance into the rear-view mirror, holding your breath, during your entire drive home.

They can’t relate to being followed home by two shadowy dudes in a pickup truck after leaving work at 3:30 in the morning, and I doubt they’ve ever felt the need to carry pepper spray to ward off predators.

So why would they care about Fayola Dozithee?

It’s much more convenient to write and talk about the Toronto Maple Leafs captaincy, and whether or not someone should stitch the letter ‘C’ on Auston Matthews’ blue-and-white uniform top.

That, of course, has been the central narrative since we learned that Matthews was (allegedly) caught, on camera, with his pants down in the small hours of a May morning in Scottsdale, Ariz., after a bout of frat boy frolic and beer swilling that (allegedly) included the intimidation and mooning of Dozithee, a security guard.

Observing her alone in a parked car at 2 a.m., Auston and pals (allegedly) took to the notion of attempting to pile into the back seat of the vehicle. Hey, boys, wouldn’t it be some kind of fun to scare the bejeebers out of a lone woman at 2 o’clock in the morning? You know, just for some late-night giggles?

They were “drunk out of their frickin’ minds,” Dozithee told the cop who took her statement on the incident, adding that she asked them to “leave me the hell alone and they still thought it was funny.”

Ya, it’s a real knee-slapper.

Let me tell you something: There sure as hell is nothing funny about a police report that includes the terms “sex crime” and “public sexual indecency.”

Matthews wasn’t charged with either, but he is facing a disorderly conduct-disruptive behavior rap and, late next month, a judge will hear all about how the Maple Leafs golden boy (allegedly) dropped his trousers, bent over, and grabbed his butt cheeks just to let Dozithee know exactly what he thought of her roadside manner. After his moonwalk, he toddled off, presumably to sleep it off, with his trousers bunched about his ankles.

It’s been stressed that Matthews never dropped his drawers to show Dozithee the surface of his full moon. Well, how gallant of him. (Somehow I doubt that morsel of discretion will earn him brownie points with the good judge.)

In the meantime, the male jock journos pound away at Matthews, tsk-tsking him for his loutishness, his immaturity, his entitlement and his stupidity, and they make sport of the notion that he now has the most talked-about butt this side of Kim Kardashian’s oversized caboose (cue the butt jokes, Captain Underpants). But they make no more than token acknowledgement that, hey, the target of his hoorawing was a very vulnerable woman.

“More than anything,” writes Steve Simmons of Postmedia Tranna, “the real crime here is both stupidity and entitlement.”

Like hell it is.

Being a doofus isn’t a crime. Neither is the advantage of talent and wealth.

The crime is intimidating and frightening a woman. It’s trying to force your way into her locked car at any hour of the day, let alone at 2 o’clock in the morning. It’s ignoring her pleas to desist and depart. It’s a misogynistic and sexist culture so ingrained that you believe you can use a woman as a late-night play thing and still get to be captain of the hockey team.

If the jock journos really want to know what this is about, they should go home and ask their mothers or wives or daughters or sisters how they’d feel if it happened to them.

Then they might begin to grasp what the “real crime” is.

The pundits have devoted many words to Matthews’ age, as if to excuse his “prank” as the product of youth. You know, boys will be boys and all that rot. “It’s the kind of dumb, entitled, thoughtless thing that young men are prone to do,” wrote Bruce Arthur of the Toronto Star. Cathal Kelly of the Globe and Mail provided this echo: “We all do stupid things. We are all especially likely to do stupid things when it is late, when we are drunk and when we are 22.” South of the Great Divide, Kevin Allen of USA Today made it a menage-a-parrots, writing, “His alleged behavior reads like a testimony to his immaturity.” Nice try fellas, but this kind of behavior isn’t age specific. Police rap sheets are full of names of men who have choked on their wild oats by assaulting, harassing and intimidating women, and a large percentage of them are older than 22. It’s a cultural shame, not the province of college-age scamps, so stop using a birth certificate as an excuse.

Dinosaur and great defender of hockey culture Don Cherry also played the youth card, telling Joe Warmington of the Toronto Sun that Matthews is “just a kid,” as if that makes it acceptable to disrespect, frighten and intimidate a woman doing her job. The Lord of Loud took it further, saying he’s “flabbergasted” that Dozithee had the bad manners to call the cops on Matthews and his accomplices. That’s typical of someone who has never been a woman sitting alone in a car at 2 o’clock in the a.m. Typical and pathetic.

How ironic that we learn about Matthews and his moonwalk the same week the Seattle expansion team struck a blow for inclusiveness by hiring Cammi Granato as a bird dog. Cammi, who’ll work in the pro department for the unnamed outfit (bet on Kraken), becomes the first female scout in National Hockey League history, so the culture is shifting. It’s just that it’s at a glacial pace. The NHL still has a long way to go in playing catch-up to the National Basketball Association, which now features 11 female assistant coaches, Teresa Weatherspoon of the New Orleans Pelicans being the latest to join that rank and file.

I can’t say for certain because neither the Winnipeg Jets or Mike Liut asked me to proofread the contract Patrik Laine put his signature on the other day, but I’m pretty sure if we were to read the fine print we’d find this clause: “For gawd’s sake, shut the hell up!” Laine’s loose lips caused a bit of a stink a little more than a week ago, you’ll recall, when he muttered something about being saddled with a bunch of beer-leaguers as linemates. Little surprise, therefore, that Puck Finn’s initial sound bites after agreeing to a two-year, $13.5 million deal were rather muted. “What I can say is that this was a relief,” he told a Finnish news scavenger. “They already said that I cannot say more. They want me to speak on Monday (in Winnipeg).” Of course they do. That way the Jets can have a PR flack lurking nearby to monitor the filter between his grey matter and his mouth. They prefer a scripted Puck Finn to Puck Finn Unplugged.

Well, Puck Pontiff Mark Chipman, GM Kevin Cheveldayoff and their bean counters got the job done, reeling in both Laine and Kyle Connor, although it took a bridge deal for Puck Finn to keep them under the salary cap. That isn’t the Jets normal way of doing business with their core players, you realize. The MO is to sweet talk the workers into accepting long-term, team-favorable contracts (see Scheifele, Mark; Ehlers, Twig, etc.), but, with the salary cap squeezing them tighter than a tourniquet, that wasn’t possible for both of their restricted free agents. Still, they managed to show their two prodigal 30-goal men the way home, and it’s game on, pending Dustin Byfuglien’s status. Winnipeg HC is a bubble playoff team with Big Buff, not so much without him.

I really didn’t think Connor or Laine would settle for less than the $7.15 AAV Arizona Coyotes have agreed to pay 14-goal scorer Clayton Keller, so in that sense both of the Jets wingers are bargains at $7,142,867 (Connor) and $6.75 (Puck Finn). I also didn’t imagine either guy would step in front of Rink Rat Scheifele at the pay window. Go figure.

So what month do you think Puck Finn will score 18 of his 30-plus goals this crusade? I’m thinking December.

There’s the Tranna Maple Leafs way of doing business and there’s the Jets way of doing business. When it comes to signing bonuses, Leafs GM Kyle Dubas tosses money around like rice at a wedding. It’s more like manhole covers for the Puck Pontiff and Chevy. Consider the salary bonuses for this season (from CapFriendly):

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I believe I’m done talking about millionaires’ pay envelopes.

I have something to say about that Winnipeg Blue Bombers-Hamilton Tabbies skirmish on Friday night at Football Follies Field in Fort Garry: On second thought, forget about it. Doesn’t Hamilton 33, Winnipeg 13 say it all?

On third thought, let me say this about that: If the Winnipeg FC air defence gets any worse, CEO Wade Miller will have to climb down from his ivory tower and place D-coordinator Richie Hall in a witness protection program. If he hasn’t already. In the past five quarters of football, the Bombers D has looked about as Grey Cup ready as Gwyneth Paltrow looks fat. I mean, Tabbies runny-nose quarterback Dane Evans has shown he knows his way around the pocket, but he isn’t my idea of Bernie Faloney, Joe Zuger or Danny Mac, so the Bombers D has no business allowing him to behave like those Ticat legends.

So, the Canadian Football League gets g’day guy Keith Urban for a halftime act at the Grey Cup game in Calgary, and the National Football League recruits JLo and Shakira for the Super Bowl in Miami Gardens. Based on hair, they win.

I don’t know about you, but I have no problem with Randy Ambrosie ignoring all our fine Canadian talent and importing an Aussie to lip sync his way through the halftime gig. I just assume it’s part of Commish Randy’s global outreach program, something he likes to call CFL 2.0. Come to think of it, 2.0 is the number of Keith Urban songs I can name.

What’s the difference between Urban and all those foreigners that Commish Randy ordered every CFL team to sign under his 2.0 initiative? Urban’s the only one who’ll actually get to play this year.

I think Mr. Nicole Kidman is a talented guy. Plucks a mean banjo (but, no, he doesn’t wear a watermelon on his head) and I’m obliged to like him because there’s a little lady named Ashley in Keremeos, B.C., who’ll never talk to me again if I toss shade at her boy Keith. So get after it, Aussie boy.

In case you missed it, FIFA’s top female footballer of the year is a lesbian, Megan Rapinoe, and so is the top female coach, Jill Ellis, both of the World Cup champion U.S. National side. Their sexual preference shouldn’t matter, but as long as homophobia exists, it does matter. And Megan targeted that very topic, also racism, in a terrific acceptance speech.

And, finally, a tip of the bonnet to one of my longtime favorite reads, Kirk Penton, this year’s inductee to the Manitoba Sports Media Roll of Honour. Kirk, who earned his chops at the Brandon Sun and as the Bombers beat writer at the Winnipeg Sun, is now cranking out the good stuff on the CFL for The Athletic, and I’d say the Roll of Honour voters made a boffo choice.

About Jumbo Thornton’s chin whiskers…an expansion team in Seattle…and they’re buzzing about the Winnipeg Jets

Midweek musings on the edge of a fresh National Hockey League season…

Jumbo Joe Thornton and the here and after.

There was good news and bad news at the NHL’s roster cut-down deadline this week. The bad news is that Joe Thornton’s chin whiskers became a casualty. That’s right, the San Jose Sharks forward had his mountain-man beard hacked off. The good news is that they discovered Jimmy Hoffa, Amelia Earhart’s airplane and a golf ball that Tiger Woods lost at last summer’s U.S. Open under all that scruff.

Looks like Seattle will be awarded an expansion franchise for the 2020 NHL season. Reaction to the news in Ottawa was swift: “Can we get one, too?”

You know that tired lament about how no one notices the goings-on in Good Ol’ Hometown? About how anyone who works and plays in River City flies under the radar? About how life sucks because everyone in the eastern time zone is tucked snugly into bed by the time they drop the puck out in the colonies?

Well, you wanted recognition for the Winnipeg Jets? You’ve got it.

Les Jets de Winnipeg have been in more headlines this week than anyone not being considered for a seat on the United States Supreme Court. They’re getting buzz from one of our two national newspapers, the Globe and Mail. They’re getting buzz from Yahoo! Sports. The “insiders” at Sportsnet are buzzing about our local hockey heroes. ESPN is boffo on les Jets. NBC/NBCSN will feature les Jets five times on Wednesday nights. Online and sports books in Las Vegas are bullish on Winnipeg HC.

Cripes, man, there’s even Jets buzz on TSN, where they could be found on the main page of the website on Tuesday morning. In three different headlines.

When I saw that, I immediately called up the Weather Channel.

“Is it true?” I asked a young woman who answered the phone.

“Is what true?” she replied.

“Has Hell frozen over?”

“By Hell, do you mean Ottawa and the Senators?”

“No. I mean Hell as in Hell. You know…Satan, hissing, misery, suffering, eternal inferno. That wretched place.”

“Sounds like Ottawa and the Senators to me. But if you mean the biblical Hell, the usual warm front persists and remains parked over most of it. Why do you ask?”

“Because TSN has three mentions about the Winnipeg Jets on the main page of the website and there’s nada—bupkus!—about TSN’s favorite lousy quarterback, Johnny Manziel. They can’t possibly start a day without slobbering over Johnny Rotten, so I figure it can only be one of two things: 1) I overslept and it’s late November; 2) hell has frozen over.”

“No,” she assured me, “you didn’t sleep in and snowballs still don’t have a hope in Hell. Trust me, you and everyone else will know when Hell has frozen over.”

“How so?”

“There’ll be a Stanley Cup parade on Yonge Street in Toronto.”

According to the pundits hither and yon, Winnipeg HC, while not everyone’s flavor of the month, figures to be a very prominent player in its eighth crusade since the Atlanta caravan rolled into River City in 2011.

Les Jets, who commence their 2018-19 journey vs. the Blues in St. Louis on Thursday night, are listed at No. 2 on the TSN power rankings, behind the Tampa Bay Lightning. (Those ratings, by the way, are determined by five talking heads—Ray Ferraro, O’Dog Jeff O’Neill, Craig Button, Jamie McLennan and Darren Dreger.) For its part, Yahoo! Sports ranks Winnipeg HC fifth, behind Tampa Bay, Nashville Predators, San Jose and the defending Stanley Cup champion Washington Capitals.

Over at Sportsnet, meanwhile, 16 “insiders” are gaga for les Jets.
* 9 pick them to win Stanley Cup;
* 10 pick them to win Western Division;
* 11 pick them as the Canadian outfit with highest points total;
* 1 (Kristina Rutherford) picks Blake Wheeler to win Hart Trophy as the NHL’s most valuable player;
* 5 pick Connor Hellebuyck to win the Vezina Trophy as the league’s top goaltender.

At The Athletic, 47 scribes/editors weighed in on the upcoming season and les Jets are the second favorite to cop the Cup; Puck Finn is the overwhelming pick to win the Rocket Richard Trophy; Connor Hellebuyck is the second choice for the Vezina; and even the head coach, Paul Maurice, is feeling the love as co-favorite to be named coach of the year (with Peter DeBoer of San Jose).

Not since the World Hockey Association have we witnessed such pre-season hype for Winnipeg HC. Those WHA outfits delivered the goods. We’ll know about these Jets in about nine months.

Interesting take on les Jets from Dave Shoalts of the Globe and Mail:

“Everybody has fallen in love with the Toronto Maple Leafs as the team to break Canada’s 25-year Stanley Cup drought. But it might just be the Winnipeg Jets who accomplish that. The Maple Leafs may be the darlings of the oddsmakers, but the Jets are big, fast, skilled and better than the team that went to last spring’s Western Conference final.

“With that experience under their belts, the Jets are now poised to take the next step. Their top line of centre Mark Scheifele and wingers Blake Wheeler and Kyle Connor is one of the best in the league. Goaltender Connor Hellebuyck played his way into the top tier of goaltenders with his work in the playoffs. At 25 years of age he, like his teammates, is only getting better.”

A couple things to peel away here:

I’m not convinced this Jets outfit is “better than the team” that lost to the Vegas Golden Knights in the Western Conference final. The departure of Paul Stastny tells me it isn’t. Unless Bryan Little has a bounce-back season or Jack Roslovic is a revelation, Winnipeg HC is weaker at centre ice.

Hellebuyck, meantime, was terrific during a burdensome regular season and early in the playoffs. He did not, however, play admirably in the five-game ouster vs. Vegas. He was sketchy and Marc-André Fleury outperformed him by a wide margin, despite his repeated mantra that “luck” was Fleury’s greatest ally.

About a tone deaf NHL and Kid Rock…Birchard curling with royalty…the CFL QB carousel…Aaron Rodgers’ new main squeeze…the XFL part II…an unfunny Farrell…Freddy calling ’em out in Tranna…media coaching the Maple Leafs…a “brazenly” gay figure skater…so long Red…and a few other things on my mind

I cannot survive in a 140- or 280-character world, so here are more tweets that grew up to be too big for Twitter…

Kid Rock isn’t feeling the love.

Except, of course, from Jeremy Roenick, whose unfiltered voice and scatter-gun twaddle have increased in volume and mockability, if not temperament, since the end of his days as a National Hockey League worker who once informed disgruntled fans that they can “kiss my ass.”

“Kid Rock,” says Roenick, “is the most talented musician, I think ever, on the planet.”

He didn’t say which planet, but one could posit that, as a music critic, Roenick makes a swell hockey analyst, although the latter would be a matter of viewer appetite.

The point is, amidst the hurried and harsh pooh-poohing of the NHL for its hiring of rapper/rocker/rockabilly/country guy Kid Rock for the intermission gig at the Jan. 28 all-star frolic in Tampa, Roenick’s is the voice of a lone wolf howling amidst the din of dissent.

“I’m a huge Kid Rock fan. I love his music,” confessed the NBC gab guy. “It’s a great get.”

Perhaps not such a “great get” if it’s about more than the music, which, based on the intense social and mainstream media screeching that his appointment has inspired, it seems to be with Robert/Bob/Bobby Ritchie.

Here’s what I know about Kid Rock:

He’s filthy rich (about $80 million worth); he fancies himself as a beer-swilling, crap-kicking, womanizing American badass who’s been known to wrap himself in a Confederate flag; he likes to play with guns; he tosses out F-bombs like confetti at a wedding; he wears hats and sunglasses and is street chic scruffy; if there existed a period when he held relevance as a musician it surely ended about 10 years ago, basically the same time he and his ex-bride, Pamela Anderson, established some sort of record by exchanging wedding vows three times in one summer and filing for divorce 122 days later; he professes to have no problem with same-sex marriage but there’s a history of anti-gay/transgender diatribe that includes this nugget he once delivered to The New Yorker: “I don’t love anybody who acts like a fuckin’ faggot.” (The New York Times is “a little bit gay,” Twitter is “gay” and rap-rock is “pretty gay.”)

Much of which flies in the face of the NHL’s alliance with the You Can Play Project and the league’s Declaration of Principles, baring them both as so much window dressing.

“Most of the time, our acts are passionate hockey fans,” says Steve Mayer, an NHL suit who must carry considerable corporate heft since he has an 11-word job title. “It’s all about the entertainment at the end of the day for us, and this selection was purely based on that, and the fact that Kid Rock is a hockey lover.”

That is, as many have submitted, so very tone deaf on the NHL’s part. But, hey, isn’t that what you have to be to enjoy Kid Rock’s music? Tone deaf?

Talk about winning the lottery. Shannon Birchard didn’t even have to buy a ticket and she hit the jackpot when Jennifer Jones and her Manitoba champions sent out an SOS asking the young curler to sub for third Kaitlyn Lawes at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts, which slides from the hack next weekend in Penticton. We’re talking curling royalty here. Jones, Jill Officer and Dawn McEwen are Canadian, world and Olympic champions. It’s like being asked to sing with Adele, Pink and Lady Gaga. Tough gig. Nerve-inducing gig. May Shannon’s butterflies flutter in perfect formation.

I note that the Canadian Football League quarterbacks carousel is in full spin. For those of you keeping score at home, James Franklin has gone from Edmonton to Toronto; Zach Collaros wore out his welcome in Hamilton and made tracks for Regina; Kevin Glenn loaded up the U-haul in Regina and pointed it in the direction of Edmonton, his ninth CFL outfit; Josh Freeman, who hasn’t taken a snap since January 2016, hauled his hide off the unemployment line and skedaddled to Montreal; Darian Durant replaced Freeman on the unemployment line, then found his way to Winnipeg; and, of course, Johnny Manziel will be heading to a courtroom or rehab facility to be named later.

Let’s face it, no Winnipeg Blue Bombers loyalist wants to see Durant behind centre, because that means starter Matt Nichols is in the repair shop. Alas, few QBs get through a complete season in one piece, thus Nichols will be felled by an owie and we’ll be seeing Durant. If he can actually throw a pass to his receivers without the football bouncing two or three times, it’ll be a useful signing. Just don’t count on it.

Danica Patrick: Always in someone’s face.

On the subject of quarterbacks, an interesting social note: Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers is no longer dating actor Olivia Munn. His main squeeze now is GoDaddy’s in-your-face girl Danica Patrick, NASCAR’s departing, hot-headed diva who never knew a fender-bender that she couldn’t blame on someone else. Patrick never came close to taking a checkered flag in NASCAR, but she got into more scrapes than any of her fenders. Heaven help Rodgers if he accidentally puts a ding in the family SUV.

So, there are whispers that grappling guru Vince McMahon is toying with the idea of an XFL redux. How much fun would that be? Not much, if it’s as woeful and as blatantly sexist as the original go-round. Among other things, XFL Uno featured:

All eight teams were co-owned by McMahon of World Wrestling Entertainment (nee Federation) fame and NBC.
They each dropped $35 million in the first and only season.
Former WWF fake fighter Jesse (The Body) Ventura was part of the broadcast crew. He also had a day job at the time—governor of Minnesota.
Play-by-play dude Matt Vasgersian was demoted from the main crew (after the first game) by McMahon for his reluctance to say something suggestive and sexist about cheerleaders’ outfits.
Another broadcast team consisted of WWF announcers Jim Ross and Jerry (The King) Lawler, who advised his partner during one game that “You’re here for the football, J.R., I’m here for the cheerleaders. Whoa! Check ’em out!”
McMahon once ordered a camerman to invade the Orlando Rage cheerleaders dressing room at halftime to “capture the essence of whatever it is they do” in there.
There was no coin toss to determine the opening kickoff. Instead, two players scrambled for the football.
Players received flat, per-game pay: Quarterbacks $5,000; running backs $4,500; kickers $3,500.
TV Guide listed the XFL as the third worst television show in history, behind only The Jerry Springer Show and My Mother the Car.

The unfunny Will Ferrell and the great Roger Federer.

Speaking of lame humor, actor Will Ferrell continues to be hopelessly unfunny. He hijacked a John McEnroe-Roger Federer courtside interview at the Australian Open tennis tournament last week, asking the following questions of the great Swiss champion:

“Would you describe your game as a silky gazelle?”
“Are you a witch or a vampire?”
“There’s a rumor in the men’s locker room that you love coming to play in Melbourne and your secret to fitness is that you only eat wombat meat. Is that true?”
“I know how much this crowd means to you, they’re an amazing crowd, but does it get annoying when they just scream ‘C’mon Roger’ over and over again?”

For his part, Federer played along and provided some witty answers, but it was embarrassing.

There was mixed reaction when Tranna Maple Leafs goaltender Frederik Andersen called out some of his mates last week, saying, “We’ve got to figure out who wants to commit to playing for the team.”

Among those tsk-tsking the under-siege goaltender was the O Dog, Jeff O’Neill of TSN.

“I wouldn’t be happy with it,” he said. “We all know who he’s talking about…he’s talking about Jake Gardiner, William Nylander or Mitch Marner because he screwed up two games in a row. So if you have a problem with one of those two (sic) guys, clear it, clear the air in the dressing room after the game instead of going to the media when nobody’s around. If you remember, when Frederik Andersen got here last year, he stunk the joint out in October. This year he was terrible in October and not one person, not Mike Babcock said, ‘You know, it’d be nice if our goaltender gave us a save once in a while.’ They always said the same thing. They protected him. They said, ‘Frederik Anderson is our guy, we believe in him.’ And now there’s a target.”

But wait. Here’s Don Cherry:

“He said what had to be said,” maintained Hockey Night in Canada’s resident blowhard. “If nobody else was saying it, he said it and I don’t blame him. I’ve been waiting for somebody to say something like that. Call them out, get the guys out there. I don’t blame Andersen at all.”

I’m on Cherry’s side of the discussion. This world needs more athletes delivering juicy lip service.

Does Leafs bench maestro Mike Babcock appreciate all the coaching help he’s been getting from media in the Republic of Tranna? I swear, reading and hearing all the coaching expertise in print and on air makes me wonder how Babs ever won the Stanley Cup, two Olympic gold medals, a world title, a world Junior title, a World Cup title and a college title without tapping into all that shinny brain power sitting in the press box at the Air Canada Centre.

Does anybody really believe the Ottawa Senators will move out Erik Karlsson? The Swede was the best hockey player in the world during last spring’s Stanley Cup tournament, but I wouldn’t rule out a trade, not with Scrooge McDuck (owner Eugene Melnyk) in charge of the purse strings. If Melnyk does deal Karlsson, he can fold the franchise and ship it to Quebec City.

Apparently, there are 13 possible names for a Seattle NHL franchise: Totems, Seals, Cougars, Evergreens, Emeralds, Rainiers, Kraken, Sea Lions, Sockeyes, Whales, Eagles, Firebirds and Renegades. (I Googled Kraken and discovered it’s a giant, multi-armed sea monster.) I like Sockeye, as in salmon, even though it isn’t among the registered trademark names.

Openly gay figure skater Adam Rippon is off to South Korea with the U.S. Olympic team next month, which inspired this headline on the Kaplan Herald website: “Adam Rippon is U.S.’s first brazenly homosexual man to qualify for Winter Olympics.” Hmmm. One of Canada’s pairs skater, Eric Radford, is openly gay and he’ll also be in PyeongChang. No word on whether he plans to be “brazenly” gay while there or just gay.

I’ve admired a number of scribes from what I like to call the golden group of Canadian sports writers, foremost among them being the great wordsmith Trent Frayne, with whom I had the privilege of working in 1980-81. Jim Coleman, Milt Dunnell, Dick Beddoes, Jack Matheson, Scott Young and John Robertson were other giants when the NHL was still a six-team outfit. As was Red Fisher, longtime detailer of all things les Canadiens for the Montreal Star and Gazette. Red was a bit quirky (he refused to interview rookies) and a grump, but no scribe did hockey so well for so long as Fisher, who began working the Habs beat in 1955 and didn’t leave the building until 2012. He died at age 91 on Friday and Michael Farber delivered a terrific tribute to him in the Gazette.

This week’s Stevie-ism from Steve Simmons of Postmedia Tranna: “Milos Raonic out in first round of Aussie Open. Lost in four sets to somebody named Lukas Lacko.” Sigh. Instead of looking up Lack’s form chart on the Association of Tennis Professionals website and advise readers that Raonic was beaten by a Slovak ranked 86th in the world, Simmons chooses to insult him. I swear, the more I read Grandpa Simmons the more I’m convinced that someone dropped him on his head when he was a kid.

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