Let’s talk about the bearded ladies of Winnipeg…cheering in the press box and on the anchor desk…Box Car Willie on Sportsnet…trading Auston Matthews…Tiger’s still a saint on CBS/ESPN…garbage in the outfield…and other things on my mind

Another Sunday smorgas-bored…and a heaping, helping of media stuff right off the hop, because someone should keep their tootsies to the toaster oven…

Mad Mike McIntyre of the Drab Slab has done the math, and he tells us that the Winnipeg Jets have more wins and points than all Western Conference outfits since the puck was dropped to start the 2017-18 National Hockey League season.

“Remind me why we seemingly can’t go a week or two around here without hearing calls from some quarters to fire the coach, axe the general manager, bench this lousy player and trade that bum,” he writes.

Geez, I don’t know Mad Mike, ya think it might have something to do with the Jets’ first-round ouster in 2019 and their failure to qualify for the Stanley Cup tournament last summer? I mean, you can lead the first 199 laps at the Indy 500, but the driver leading lap 200 gets the checkered flag, the bottle of milk and a kiss from a pretty girl.

Truly bizarre headline on that Mad Mike column: “Ladies and gentlemen…Start your playoff beards.” Seriously? Bearded ladies? Little wonder Good Ol’ Hometown is at the top of most no-trade lists for young NHL players.

Ken Reid

Did anchor Ken Reid actually say he and his fellow talking heads at Sportsnet don’t cheer for any specific team? Yup, sure did. That is to laugh. The company that signs his paycheque, Rogers Communications, owns the Toronto Blue Jays and, in partnership with Bell Canada, holds a 75 per cent stake in Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, which bankrolls the Maple Leafs, Raptors, Toronto FC and Argos. So, make no mistake, the squawk boxes on both Sportsnet Central and TSN ‘s signature SportsCentre are full of sis-boom-bah and rah, rah, rah for Team(s) Tranna. I mean, they couldn’t contain their glee during the Tranna Jurassics run to the NBA title a couple of years back, and they positively choked on their pom-poms when their hoops heroes were ushered from the playoffs last year. A funereal, long-faced Lindsay Hamilton began SportsCentre by saying, “This one stings,” and, over at Sports Central, reporter Michael Grange blew his cover when he said, “As Raptors fans, we…” That’s right, he confessed to being one of the fawning flock. That’s never a good look.

Box Car Elliotte

Can someone, anyone, at Sportsnet explain why they continue to permit Elliotte Friedman to appear on camera looking like the back end of a nasty all-nighter? His Box Car Willie shtick is disgraceful and, again, it’s a blatant double standard because none of the female talking heads would be allowed on air looking like a bridge troll.

Damien Cox continues to astound and amaze on Twitter. Last Thursday, the Toronto Star columnist took a moment to give himself an enthusiastic on the back by tweeting, “From the beginning said Matthews would be the best player the Leafs ever drafted.” That doesn’t exactly make him Nostradamus, and it’s positively belly-laughingly hilarious when you consider this tweet he sent out in November 2018: “John Tavares is playing so well it makes you think; why not sign (Mitch) Marner and (William) Nylander and trade Matthews for a whole pile of goodies? Not saying they would, but it’s not such a crazy idea anymore.” There are no words.

Cox didn’t stop there. In his latest alphabet phart in the Star, he wrote this: “More than 95 per cent of senior positions in the NHL remain reserved for white men. In sports, only golf is more dominated by white culture than hockey.” Apparently he’s never seen a NASCAR race.

So tell us, Phil Mushnick, what say you about the talking heads on CBS/ESPN for their continued hero worship of Tiger Woods, absent from The Masters golf tournament after driving into a ditch and almost killing himself in February? “Even those who wouldn’t recognize a con if it were sold with multiple, fill-in-the-blanks certificates of authenticity, now know that this 25-year anointment of Tiger Woods as a saint on earth was a media con,” the New York Post columnist writes. “Again, it wasn’t enough that he was the world’s best golfer, he additionally had to be the best son, best husband, best father and finest human being. But if that had been you instead of Woods, the one who, unimpeded at almost double the speed limit, rolled his SUV off the road, you’d have been charged with a pile of negligent driving charges—even while hospitalized and before your blood results returned. For him to still be sainted on the national telecast of a major as a gift from above was designed to be swallowed by the tiny fraction of fools still available to be fooled. That’s supposed to be all of us. Again. And it’s nauseating. Again.” Harsh. But I don’t disagree.

Bryson DeChambeau

I kept waiting for one of the CBS gab guys, or Dottie Pepper, to call out Bryson DeChambeau on Saturday, not for his wonky game but for his arrogance. You might recall that golf’s incredible bulk basically pooh-poohed Augusta National as nothing more than a pitch-and-putt course prior to the 2020 Masters last November, boasting, “I’m looking at it as par-67 for me.” So, here’s his scorecard at the par-72 course since then: 70, 74, 69, 73, 76, 67, 75. He goes into today’s final round sitting 38th among the 54 guys who teed it up on the weekend. Yet there wasn’t so much as a peep about DeChambeau’s disrespect for one of the most challenging and treasured golf courses on the planet, because that’s not how it’s done during coverage of The Masters. You don’t dare ruffle the azaleas or disturb the piped-in bird chirping and the soothing piano music. So they gave him a pass. Sigh. If only Johnny Miller was still sitting behind a mic.

Best line I read or heard about The Masters was delivered by longtime, now-retired sports scribe Cam Cole. After noted cheater Patrick Reed had swatted a ball into the azaleas, Cam tweeted: “Breaking: Patrick Reed has hit into the flowers behind 13 green. Rules officials are racing to the spot.” That’s funny.

Todd Kabel

Talk about a day late and a dollar short. It took the Drab Slab two weeks to acknowledge the death of Todd Kabel, a kid from McCreary who got his break riding the ponies at Assiniboia Downs for five seasons then made it big at Woodbine in the Republic of Tranna. Todd’s death on March 27 had been reported hither and yon, but somehow escaped the notice of the Winnipeg Free Press sports desk. Not good. That’s a major whiff. George Williams has a real nice piece on the seven-time Sovereign Award-winning jockey that you might want to check out in the Saturday’s edition, not that it excuses the negligence.

I’d say the Winnipeg Sun missed the boat on Kabel, too, except the suits at Postmedia in The ROT don’t allow Paul Friesen, Ted Wyman and Scott Billeck to fill their two or three pages with anything other than the Jets, Blue Bombers and curling.

One more note on the Drab Slab: They often run a full-page, poster pic on the Sunday sports front, and that seems like a colossal waste of space to me. Why not a quality feature or something light and bright? Plopping a large pic in that premium space shows zero initiative or imagination. It’s just lazy.

The Beatles and Yoko

Three months in, I still really don’t know what to make of this NHL season, except to submit that it’s kind of like the breakup of the Beatles. Instead of one genius rock band, we were left with three solid solo artists and Ringo Starr. That’s what the NHL is today, a quartet of separate house leagues, although I haven’t decided which of the four is Ringo. I am, mind you, leaning toward the Central Division because, once you get past Tampa, Carolina and Florida, you’re left with nothing but a band of bland clubs and a guy named Torts who, come to think of it, is a lot like Yoko Ono. You know, a dark, foreboding presence determined to ruin a good thing (for evidence see: Laine, Patrik).

Torts

If nothing else, this NHL crusade is a study in the distortion of facts. Media pundits insist on taking numbers and pro-rating them over an 82-game crusade, as if delivering a weighty message, but in truth it’s delusional, like imagining Patrik Laine and John Tortorella sitting by the campfire and singing Kumbaya. Consider the Jets. They’d be on pace for a 106-point season, which would be their second best since the Atlanta caravan rolled into River City in 2011, but it’s false currency. We wouldn’t be looking at similar numbers if they were required to play the Vegas Golden Knights and Colorado Avalanche 9/10 times each instead of the Ottawa Senators and Vancouver Canucks. But, hey, I’m not here to piddle on your Corn Flakes. Enjoy it, Jets fans. Much like the Edsel, this kind of season won’t happen again.

All power to the Edmonton Oilers for getting the brooms out and sweeping the Senators, 9-nada, on the season, but, I’m sorry, that should never happen in any big-league sport.

Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl ate the Senators’ lunch to the tune of 21 points each in those nine games, so if they got to play Ottawa 82 times they’d finish with 191 points. That would still leave them 24 shy of Wayne Gretzky’s best year.

Hey, check out the Los Angeles Dodgers 2020 World Series championship rings. They’re as big as a Volkswagen Beetle. I swear, they won’t be able to take those things to a jeweler for cleaning. They’ll need a car wash. But they’re 11-karat, 232-diamond, 53-sapphire beauties. Much nicer than the Houston Astros 2017 WS rings, which featured diamonds set into a replica trash can lid.

Speaking of garbage, Anaheim fans tossed trash cans onto the field when the Astros were in town last week. We haven’t seen that much garbage in the outfield since the 1962 Mets.

By the way, if you’re looking for something special for that special Dodgers fan in your life, limited-edition replica World Series rings are available to the faithful. Cost: $35,000US. Let me just say this about that, though: If you have a spare $35K kicking around to spend on finger decoration, I have the number of a food bank that would love to hear from you.

Bo (Oops) Bichette

The Chicago Cubs plan to erect a statue of Baseball Hall of Fame hurler Ferguson Jenkins outside Wrigley Field, and the New York Mets will unveil a pigeon perch of pitching legend Tom Seaver outside Citi Field in July. Meanwhile, the Toronto Blue Jays are starting to wonder if they’d be better off with a statue at shortstop rather than Bo (Oops) Bichette.

Brendan Bottcher and his group from Wild Rose Country came up empty at the men’s world curling championship in Calgary. Someone please alert the six people outside the Prairie provinces who actually give a damn.

And, finally, I have never engaged in a chin-wag about “TV’s most-talked-about show,” mainly because I’ve never watched “TV’s most-talked-about show.” I have never overheard a conversation about “TV’s most-talked-about show.” What show am I not talking about? Well, if you don’t know, then perhaps it isn’t “TV’s most-talked-about show” after all.

Let’s talk about Winnipeg Jets young studs skipping town and training camp tardiness…fresh Chevy-speak and what it means…Tiz the Stud…a Twitter hissing contest…no radio/TV in the colonies…heavenly baseball…where’s the money?…and other things on my mind

The first Sunday morning smorgas-bored of 2021…and I can’t say how many more are to follow…

Puck Finn

Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed a trend with the Winnipeg Jets? Consider:

Evander Kane wanted out.

Jacob Trouba wanted out/tardy to training camp.

Josh Morrissey tardy to training camp.

Patrik Laine tardy to training camp.

Kyle Connor tardy to training camp.

Jack Roslovic wants out/tardy to training camp.

All young. All first-round draft picks.

Josh Morrissey

Of that bunch, only Morrissey and Connor are locked in longterm with the National Hockey League club. Kane and Trouba vamoosed. Laine’s agents believe it would be “mutually beneficial” for Puck Finn and the Jets to part company, and if they’re saying it we can assume Laine put the notion in their noggins. Roslovic, meanwhile, will likely sign, then bide his time playing third- or fourth-line minutes—or eating popcorn in the press box—for a very modest wage until his wish for a new postal code is granted.

Losing four young studs isn’t how draft-and-develop is supposed to work. But when—yes, I said when—Laine and Roslovic are gone, it will have become the Winnipeg way. That’s not a good look.

But, hey, Blake Wheeler will still be there to ride shotgun for Rink Rat Scheifele, and I sometimes think that’s all that matters to the Holy Trinity of Jets co-bankroll Puck Pontiff Mark Chipman, general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff and head coach Paul Maurice.

That’s not a good look, either.

Just a thought: Would the Holy Trinity ever part company with captain Wheeler the way the Boston Bruins discarded Zdeno Chara, the greybeard who wore the C for so many years? Not bloody likely. I say it’s even money that Wheeler is still captain of Winnipeg HC—and playing right wing on the first line if Maurice is still behind the bench—when he’s 43.

Kevin Cheveldayoff

Always get a giggle out of Chevy’s gum-flappers, and he was in peak form last week during 40-plus minutes of to-and-fro with news snoops. The thing is, Chevy-speak usually requires de-coding because, when asked the time of day, the GM is apt to tell you how to build a watch. But that’s why I’m here. To translate his natter.

On Laine’s status and trade rumors lingering into the season…

What Chevy said: “I think, again, everybody is a professional and certainly, you know, I was a professional trying to do my job this summer in looking at all the different options, you know, to improve our team, and I think, you know, we have done that. As far as, you know, with Patrik, you know, again, I assume he’s probably gonna have one of the best years of his career, you know, given the group of players that we have and the professionalism that is there and the maturity level that, you know, that all players gain, you know, year over year over year, I think just, you know, helps us move forward.”

What Chevy really meant: “Sure other clubs called and asked if Patty’s available, but do the names Teemu Selanne and John Paddock mean anything to you? What do people remember John for? That’s right, for trading Teemu. You think I want them remembering me as the doofus who traded Patty for a couple of used jock straps? If he’s gonna score 50 goals, it’s gonna be here, not in Philly or Carolina.”

Sami Niku

On the Jets maligned blueline, which has added only Derek Forbort…

What Chevy said (take a deep breath, kids): “Well, you know, again, we’re excited, you know, the opportunity to have him. You know, he’s someone that when he was in L.A., he put up some top minutes before he had an injury, put up some, you know, really good years playing against some good players, playing, you know, some shutdown roles, you know, he relishes the penalty kill, which is, you know, something that we, you know, look at improving. Obviously we’re excited that Dylan DeMelo, you know, chose to stay with us, you know, from a free agent standpoint. I’m sure there was…I know there’d be lots of opportunity for him elsewhere, you know, judging by the phone calls I got after, you know, we got him signed, so, you know, again, excited about having that. Really excited about, you know, again, just the continuity of, you know, Josh taking another step and Neal Pionk taking another step. Tucker Poolman, you know, now got a year, you know, under his belt, Sami Niku, just, you know, really hope that he can, you know, just take, you know, use training camp as an opportunity to springboard because there’s so much I think more, you know, in his game that unfortunately through, you know, injuries and the like…I guess we just have to make sure he doesn’t drive to training camp so he doesn’t get in a car accident and, you know, to kick things off. And then, you know, we’ve got some young players that, you know, looking forward to seeing. Dylan Samberg has not had the benefit of coming to an NHL training camp yet, so we really have, you know, we’ve kind of been frothing at the mouth for a couple years to get him into the pro ranks and, you know, now the time is here. Ville Heinola has had the benefit of playing over in Finland, you know, so his game, you know, hopefully will be at a level that will, you know, turn heads here, you know, right away. Obviously he had a great training camp last year and, you know, we’re just looking for, you know, obviously for him to come in and have matured that much more, you know, over the course of time. And a player like Logan Stanley, who’s had the opportunity to play two years of pro, you’re looking for that development and you’re looking for those guys to take that next step. We think we’ve got great depth and we’ve got a couple of guys that we think there’s a lot of room to grow with.”

What Chevy really meant: “Fingers and toes crossed. It’s all on Connor Hellebuyck to, you know, give us Vezina Trophy goaltending again or, you know, we’re up Schitt’s Creek without a paddle.”

Why are news snoops referring to it as the 2020-21 NHL season when all games will be played in 2021?

Zdeno Chara

I agree, after his lengthy tenure with the Bruins, it’s going to be weird seeing Zdeno Chara in Washington Capitals garb this winter. It’ll be kind of like Pope Francis holding mass in Wrangler jeans, Tony Lama snake skin boots and a Stetson instead of his robe and pointy hat.

Is it too much for Sportsnet to tell Elliotte Friedman to drag a hair brush across his scalp? The man looks absolutely disgraceful and, again, there’s no chance a female broadcaster would be permitted to appear on camera looking like she spent the night sleeping in a back-alley dumpster.

Social note: Lindsey Vonn and P.K. Subban won’t be exchanging wedding vows after all. Engaged in 2019, the sports power couple called the whole thing off last week, and it’s hard to figure. After all, P.K. is one of the NHL’s most notorious divers. And now he’s not willing to take the plunge? Go figure.

Belmont Stakes winner Tiz the Law is now Tiz the Stud, and if you want the great bay stallion to service your mare the price tag is $40,000. Imagine that, $40,000 for sex. Tom Brady must feel ripped off. I mean, he screwed the New England Patriots and never got a dime for it.

Stevie Van Zandt

This is rich: In a Twitter hissing contest, Damien Cox of the Toronto Star scolded musician/actor Stevie Van Zandt, who had the (apparent) bad manners to trash talk news snoops for the lame questions they ask athletes. “Don’t criticize things you’ve never done,” the pompous Cox harrumphed. That just might be the dumbest tweet…by anyone… ever. It’s a hot, steamy pile of stupid. Unless, of course, I was sleeping during those years when Cox played in the NHL, MLB, NBA, NFL and MLS. Seriously. The guy’s made a career of crapping on athletes, coaches, managers, owners and officials. He’s a recreational golfer and wannabe tennis player who pooh-poohs pros of all stripes. He’s never spent five seconds in the White House, let alone presided over an entire nation, but he’s spent the past four years crucifying Donald Trump. But, hey, don’t you dare trash talk Cox or other news snoops unless you’ve held a notebook or microphone in a post-game scrum. As if. Like I said, a hot, steamy pile of stupid, and the Star continues to publish his alphabet farts.

Speaking of TorStar, it’s added former NHLer and current TSN gab guy Dave Poulin to its stable of sports scribes. That would be the same Dave Poulin who, in 2018, left Connor McDavid off his all-star ballot, even though the Edmonton Oilers captain was the NHL scoring champion and winner of the Ted Lindsay Award as the best player in the world. Note to self: Cancel Toronto Star subscription first thing on Monday.

Becky the bench boss.

It’s about Becky Hammon: Rock on, girl. Becky became the first female to coach a National Basketball Association team last week, taking the wheel of the San Antonio Spurs after bossman Gregg Popovich was told to leave the building in the second quarter of a skirmish v. the Los Angeles LeBrons. She joins a list of impressive “first” ladies in sports that includes Kim Ng, Katie Sowers, Kathryn Nesbitt, Callie Brownson and Alyssa Nakken, so don’t tell me that nothing good happened in 2020.

I don’t know about you, but I get a kick out of jock journos and others in the rag trade listing their top 10 or 20 articles/columns from 2020. Never mind that it’s a rather arrogant exercise in ego-stroking, it seems to me that it’s the readers who should decide something like that.

I can’t remember 10 of my posts from last year, let alone 20, and I doubt the five or six people who read this blog can either. So I’ll spare one and all my greatest hits.

Sean Fitz-Gerald of The Athletic lists his “top 10 Canadian sports media stories of 2020.” Nos. 9 and 10 are strictly about radio in the Republic of Tranna. Sigh. Only someone from The ROT would presume to believe those of us who live/work in the colonies actually give a damn. Oh, and apparently we haven’t been introduced to radio and TV, because not one of the “top 10” stories targets a Western Canada market. Or anywhere east of The ROT, for that matter. Double sigh.

There’s an old Righteous Brothers song with the lyrics “If there’s a rock and roll heaven, well you know they’ve got a hell of a band.” Well, we can say the same about baseball, because the Big Ballpark In The Sky gained a helluva team last year. Included among the legends leaving our mortal coil were Bob Gibson, Tom Seaver, Whitey Ford and Phil Niekro, and how would you like to go into a World Series with those four as your starting rotation? Backing them up would be an infield of Bob Watson at first, Joe Morgan at second, Tony Fernandez at shortstop and Dick Allen at third, with Al Kaline, Lou Brock and Claudell Washington patrolling the outfield. The only position the Grim Reaper didn’t tap on the shoulder was catcher.

Bo Levi Mitchell

Canadian Football League outfits are busy getting signatures on contracts for a 2021 season, and that’s good news. The not-so-good news is that nobody has explained how Rouge Football works without people in the pews. As you know, commish Randy Ambrosie went panhandling on Parliament Hill last year, hoping for a pogey cheque to cover the costs of an abbreviated season, but the CFL fell off the grid when Trudeau the Younger and the feds rejected the beg. So how can it be doable this year? Even with a COVID vaccine available, head counts will be limited. Every skirmish will look like a Toronto Argos home game. And what’s left of rainy day funds can’t possibly cover operating costs of a full season, especially for community-run franchises like our Winnipeg Blue Bombers. Some players across the dominion have rejigged their contracts, but where’s the revenue to pay Bo Levi Mitchell $541,000, Mike Reilly $525,000 and Cody Fajardo $405,000, to name just three high-salaried quarterbacks?

Count me as shocked when I called up the Winnipeg Sun this morning to see an article about girls high school volleyball on the sports front. The tabloid doesn’t do local, other than the pro teams and curling. It doesn’t do women’s sports. So it was a pleasant surprise. Having said that, the Drab Slab continues to wallop the Sun in female sports coverage. Here are the numbers for exclusively female content in the 30 publishing days of December:

Free Press
Sports front: 7
Articles/briefs: 32/11
Days with female sports coverage: 27 of 30.

Sun
Sports front: 1
Articles/briefs: 8/2 (plus one sentence on Sarah Fuller)
Days with female sports coverage: 10 of 30.

And finally, I keep reading and hearing people write and say if 2020 has taught us anything it’s to be kind to one another. Seriously? You needed a killer pandemic to learn that?