Let’s talk about a ruckus on press row…flush that scrum lurker…Burkie’s still blunt but making no sense…and other things on my mind

A long weekend, Monday morning short version of the smorgas-bored…and I wonder how many people will spend the day on the couch watching hockey…

Auston Matthews pulled his pants down to his ankles and mooned a female security guard at 2 o’clock in the morning.

Now he’s delivering lectures on ethics.

I agree, that takes balls.

I mean, what’s next? Tiger Woods touring the countryside to preach fidelity? Adam Sandler telling Martin Scorsese how to make a good movie? One of the Kardashians explaining what it’s like to have a real job?

Morgan Rielly and Auston Matthews

Here’s the thing, though: I don’t blame Matthews for going off on Steve Simmons of Postmedia Tranna, scant moments after the initial volley in an argument between the Toronto Maple Leafs and Columbus Blue Jackets. That, after all, would be the same Simmons who, in mid-June, outed the Leafs centre as a COVID-19 victim and, to this day, cannot grasp the concept of personal health information remaining private unless the afflicted choose to release the details.

So there was Matthews on Sunday night, sitting alongside teammate Morgan Rielly in one of those awkward Zoom chin-wags with news snoops, their side having just been stifled, 2-0, by the Blue Jackets in the opening go-round of the National Hockey League’s quirky playoffs before the playoffs.

Simmons identified himself, then asked Matthews for his thoughts on the suffocating defensive tendencies of his foes.

Steve Simmons

“Well, first of all, it’s unfortunate that I’m getting a question from you at this point, Steve,” the Leafs wonder boy began in a tone about as warm as a Winnipeg winter. “I just wanted to say I didn’t really appreciate the article you wrote about me a couple months ago. I thought it was a bit unethical to be honest.”

There you have it. Mr. Drop My Drawers goes Miss Manners.

Naturally, it didn’t end there. Twitter does not allow for the natural death of hissing contests. It inflames them. Thus the rabble threw down, mostly on Simmons, although some thought that perhaps Matthews might have had other things on his mind, like the 0-1 hole les Leafs have dug themselves in the best-of-five skirmish v. the Ohioans.

Oddly enough, Simmons seized the moment to drag James Mirtle into the fray.

James Mirtle

“This would never happen to James Mirtle,” he tweeted about The Athletic editor-in-chief. “He never asks a question. Never. But he uses everybody else’s quotes. He was asked the other day on radio who the best player at Leaf camp was. He answered without hesitating. Never mind that he hadn’t been at Leaf camp once.”

Scott Wheeler of The Athletic would not have his boss be bullied.

“The Leafs’ best player spoke candidly in a scrum,” he roared back at Simmons. “James transcribed it. It was already widely reported, clipped, and shared before and after James did. For you to respond like this and make it personal is unprofessional, Steve.”

Others weighed in.

Simmons’ buddy at Postmedia Tranna, Steve Buffery, described the original COVID-19 story as “good reporting.”

Not true says Greg Wyshynski of ESPN.

“There was no justification for its publication,” he tweeted. “It was trivia. Nothing about how it affected travel, his status with the Leafs, his ability to attend training camp, long-term health effects. That’s on top of the debate about the ethics of reporting a positive test in a pandemic.”

Bruce Arthur

Meanwhile another of Simmons’ buddies and a TSN colleague, Bruce Arthur of the Toronto Star, had a go at Matthews, tweeting, “I would’ve liked him to explain why he thought it was unethical.”

Arthur is an intelligent guy and a terrific scribe, so playing the D’Oh Boy doesn’t suit him. He knows exactly why Matthews was offended.

Then there was Rosie DiManno of the Star, chiming in with this: “There are scrum lurkers who never ask questions. Even worse, they immediately tweet the answers.”

Oh, the horror. The nerve of those scrum lurkers. They’re the worst. Why, they have no business using the same cookie-cutter, “move-our-feet” quotes as everyone else if they aren’t prepared to wade in and ask the same dumb, cookie-cutter questions as everyone else.

I’m not sure how this will play out, but jock journos eating their own is as rare as spectators at these pre-playoff playoffs, so I’m loving it.

Frank Orr, right, with Don Cherry.

The mention of scrum lurkers brings to mind a playoff game back in the day. The precise details are lost on me, but a gaggle of us news snoops had gathered in the washroom area of a team man chamber, interrogating some poor sap about the night’s events. Included in our group was a tall, awkward and loud guy from New York City, Norm MacLean, who always toted a tape recorder the size of a Volkswagen Beetle. Some found him somewhat scattered and annoying, because he had a habit of wedging himself into the front of the pack, also asking questions longer than a Sunday sermon. Not this night, though. No one was budging. So Norm skirted the scrum and stepped inside one of the stalls, standing on the toilet and draping his right arm and tape recorder microphone over the wall, directly behind the player’s head. Noting Norm’s iffy perch atop the toilet, Frank Orr of the Toronto Star announced, “If anyone hears a splash, flush!”

Brian Burke

When Brian Burke hired on as one of Sportsnet’s talking heads, I thought he was terrific. He was blunt, insightful and colorful. And now? Not so much. Oh, he’s still blunt, but that’s only good if it makes sense. Here’s Burkie’s take on Winnipeg Jets head coach Paul Maurice calling Matthew Tkachuk of the Calgary Flames a dirty, rotten rat: “I think he crossed the line here. He’s questioning the character of a character player. Matthew Tkachuk is not a dirty player. He crosses the line and thank gawd we still have players that cross the line in our league. This is an unfortunate result but it wasn’t a dirty play and it’s really crossed the line for me.” So, in sum, it’s boffo stuff when Tkachuk crosses the line but distasteful if Maurice crosses the line. Okay, got it.

The Rock is part of a group that’s purchased the XFL. Apparently their next buy will be deck seats on the Titanic.

I’ve been watching Happy Days lately, and I find myself wondering why it was such a popular show. It isn’t particularly funny, and what’s with the Fonz? He’s a high school dropout in his late 20s who has nothing better to do than hang out with teenage girls and boys.

And, finally, as a folo to Sunday’s post on sports coverage in the two Winnipeg dailies, here’s the tally for the Drab Slab this long weekend, excluding professional teams: Saturday, 1 local article (Assiniboia Downs), Sunday 0, Monday 0. That’s correct. Just one read on local sports other than the Jets or Blue Bombers. In 17 pages. At the Sun, the total was zero in two days and 11 pages. I realize we’re in the grip of a pandemic, but you’ll never convince me there’s nothing to write about other than the Jets, Bombers and Goldeyes.

Randy Carlyle: Standing tall during the worst of times

Here’s all you need to know about Randy Carlyle: Less than 48 hours after being relieved of his duties as head coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs and his brother-in-law passing away from ALS, he welcomed an uninvited sports scribe into his home.

A good man was down. Deeply, heartbreakingly down. Forget the hockey element. Other National Hockey League jobs, after all, are sure to come Kitty Carlyle’s way. His wife’s brother, John, on the other hand…he had just died, damnit! He won’t be coming back.

So there was Carlyle, opening the door of his Etobicoke home to discover Steve Buffery of the Toronto Sun standing on the stoop, notebook in hand in the hope that the oft-curmudgeonly coach would share some bons mots about the dire dealings of death, dismissal and disappointment.

Some might think it callous of Buffery to have imposed himself on Carlyle at such a time. Give the man some space. Let him grieve. Let him filter and flush. Surely the story can wait.

Who could possibly condemn Carlyle had he torn a page from the Phil Kessel book of media relations and barked “Get away from me!” at Buffery?

That isn’t how Randy rolls, though.

As much as the former Winnipeg Jets defenceman and Manitoba Moose coach/GM can come across as Crusty the Carlyle—and seemingly, at times, take delight in that masquerade—the much-maligned man is, as the late and legendary Jets’ play-by-play voice Friar Nicolson was wont to say, “good people. Kitty’s good people.”

So, he didn’t deliver a brush-off. He took Buffery in. The two men sat at a kitchen table and engaged in a 25-minute chin-wag, in which Carlyle spilled. About his brother-in-law’s death. About his firing. About failing to restore any level of lustre to the Maple Leafs brand. About resisting any urge to diss the Toronto players who betrayed him with half-baked efforts and the pungent odour of entitlement.

This was Randy Carlyle unplugged. Honest. Poignant. Sincere. Humorous (when asked about his relationship with the Toronto media, he jokingly said, “I didn’t kick you out of my house.”).

He easily could have done that very thing. The fact he didn’t speaks to not only Carlyle’s character and his professionalism, but also to a respect factor between sportsman and scribe, something that is too often absent.

There is no shortage of examples underscoring the adversarial hue of the jock-journalist relationship, the latest offering being the nasty, distasteful to-and-fro served up by Dave Feschuk of the Toronto Star and the aforementioned Kessel earlier this week. If you missed it, Feschuk approached the Leafs’ embattled forward with this question scant seconds after Carlyle had been defrocked:

“There’s a suggestion that you’re a difficult guy to coach. Is there anything to that?”

It was leading, accusatory, inflammatory and designed to incite. There was no good way for Kessel to answer, other than to provide a non-answer. Which he didn’t, because he isn’t media savvy. He doesn’t have the acumen to recognize the hook inside the worm. So he takes the bait. Every time. He adopted a defensive posture, resorted to name-calling, then Feschuk played the part of the stooge by chasing Kessel about the room. It was slapstick. Awkward, unfortunate slapstick.

Many in the mainstream sports media have applauded Feschuk for asking the “tough” question, because that’s what they do. They circle the wagons. But Feschuk’s “tough” question was based on a “suggestion” from an unidentified source. He went on to say, “It’s not me saying this stuff.” So, who has suggested Kessel is uncoachable? When did they make this suggestion? Does Kessel not have the right to know the identity of his accusor(s) before the question is posed.

Feschuk might as well have told Kessel there’s a “suggestion” he’s gay. Anything to that?

What has ensued is a witchhunt of epic proportions, with members of the MSM in the Republic of Tranna tripping over one another in an unmasked quest to have Kessel ridden out of town.

This is why I found the Carlyle-Buffery scenario so refreshing. As much as it was a sportsman-reporter exchange, it was more an interaction between two people. Imagine that, a jock and a journalsist seeing each other as people.

What a concept.

Patti Dawn Swansson has been writing about Winnipeg sports for more than 40 years, longer than any living being. Do not, however, assume that to mean she harbors a wealth of sports knowledge or that she’s a jock journalist of award-winning loft. It simply means she is old and comfortable at a keyboard (although arthritic fingers sometimes make typing a bit of a chore) and she apparently doesn’t know when to quit. Or she can’t quit.
She is most proud of her Q Award, presented to her in 2012 for her scribblings about the LGBT community in Victoria, B.C., and her induction into the Manitoba Sportswriters & Sportscasters Association Media Roll of Honour.