Trevor Harris

Let’s talk about Kyle Walters’ handiwork and future…dreaming of Regina?…maybe the Hollywood Hunk can buy the Larks…bullying Christine Sinclair…Tiger, tampons and TSN…and other things on my mind…

Top o’ the morning to you, Kyle Walters…

Well, that wasn’t too painful, was it?

Oh, sure, you watched some good people—Greg Ellingson, Rasheed Bailey, Dakota Prukop, Michael Couture, Casey Sayles—walk away in the initial thrust of Canadian Football League free agency, but I doubt you were inclined to take a leap off the Richardson Building because of it.

More to the point, Kyle, the bulk of your heavy lifting had already been done, so I’m guessing you’re satisfied with your handiwork in the grand scheme of things. You might even be feeling a bit smug, although I hope not because fat and sassy is never a good look on a general manager, especially one whose team was found wanting in its final assignment last November.

No doubt that loss still rankles, Kyle. I mean, your Winnipeg Blue Bombers had no business bowing to the Toronto Argos in the Grey Cup game, and I like to think a toe-stub like that tends to keep a GM’s head out of the clouds.

The thing is, while eight other Rouge Football GMs were in full-on Repatch, Repair and Reload Mode, you spent Valentine’s Day welcoming an old friend, Kenny Lawler, back to play catch with Zach Collaros, then you called it a day. No muss, no fuss and, as you informed news snoops, Winnipeg FC is still in “that winning mode.”

I’d certainly suggest your Bombers are the morning-line favorite, Kyle.

What’s not to like? The best QB in the three-downs game, Collaros, will be flinging the football to Lawler, Nic Demski, Dalton Shoen, Drew Wolitarsky and, surprisingly, Rasheed Bailey, who left coin on the table elsewhere to give it another whirl in blue and gold.

Look around you, Kyle. See anything on the western hemisphere of the CFL to match that bunch of pass-catchers? Zach will need five footballs to keep all those hands happy.

On the D-side of the pig’s hide, it’s business as usual, with the Twin Js—Jefferson and Jeffcoat—Adam Bighill, Jake Thomas, Winston Rose, and accomplices still in harness, and I doubt they’ve mellowed any. If anything, they’re apt to be playing with extra snarl, knowing they allowed a Grey Grail three-peat to get away in November.

That’s not to say your work is done, Kyle. There’s still the matter of place-kicking.

I think everyone from Hizzoner Gillingham to your paper boy knows you can’t go into the 2023 crusade relying on Marc Liegghio’s right leg. He kicks like Rob Gronkowski, and if you fixed an eyeball on Gronk’s gimmicky field goal attempt during last weekend’s Super Bowl hijinks you’ll know what I’m saying.

I don’t have to remind you that the Argos beat your Bombers by one point in the Grey Cup game, Kyle, which means the difference was one botched Liegghio convert. I could also point out that his potential winning FG vs. the Boatmen never got past the line of scrimmage. Yup, blocked. Oh, and need I remind you that he flubbed two point-after tries in the West Division final?

But, as I said, you know all about that stuff, Kyle, and I’m not here to rip open old wounds. I mean, reciting Liegghio’s failings would be too much like yanking the wings off a house fly. You know, easy pluckings.

Suffice to say, you know what you have to do.

In the meantime, Kyle, it’s about you. You’ve been at this GM gig for 10 years, and you transformed Team Rag Tag into Team EOL (Envy of League). You’ve earned two Grey Cup rings and missed out on a third when Liegghio stubbed his toe. And yet there are no just rewards. You’re working without a net, which is to say no contract extension, and you can shrug your shoulders and play the role of the good soldier by telling news snoops “it is what it is,” but that doesn’t make it right.

I assume CEO Wade Miller is set for life if he has no inclination to take on a different challenge, and he and the Board have taken care of head coach Mike O’Shea. So what do the deep thinkers have against you? Do you attend formal functions in bare feet? Do you not bathe? Bad breath? Hey, maybe you make arm pit farts in mixed company.

Whatever the case, Kyle, it’s wrong. You’ve done boffo work, including this year by keeping most of the key components in place, and I don’t want to hear about a salary cap on football operations.

Do they expect us to believe there isn’t enough coin for the GM? That you’ve priced yourself out of the market? Pish posh.

Winnipeg FC has become the flagship franchise in Rouge Football in large part due to your handiwork, Kyle. You’ve delivered the goods and now it’s time for them to do the same thing.

Until then, enjoy what’s left of your down time and, for gawd’s sake, get a kicker.

Some interesting troop movement during the first week of trading places in the CFL, notably just to the west of Good Ol’ Hometown, where QB Trevor Harris and pass-catcher Jake Wieneke arrived on the Flattest of Lands. I’m not convinced that makes the Saskatchewan Roughriders a better team, though. I mean, if they can lose in Montreal they can lose in Regina. But at least Gang Green got rid of a headache, Duke Williams.

Harris says his move to The Flattest of Lands is “a dream come true.” Come on, man. Who you trying to hoodwink? No one dreams of going to Regina. No one goes there unless they’ve lost a bet. Even Al Capone had the good sense to hide out in Moose Jaw.

Add the name Rob Vanstone to the growing list of longtime jock journos who’ve left the sinking ship Postmedia. Rob’s done at the Regina Leader-Post, and I’ll miss reading his stuff. But he hasn’t gone far. He’s now senior journalist and historian with the Saskatchewan Roughriders.

Montreal Larks are orphans again, which means teams that can’t afford a hit to the bottom line will take another hit to the bottom line. Unless, of course, commissioner Randy Ambrosie and the Lords of Rouge Football can find a new sugar daddy/mama lickety-split. Last time the Larks were dropped off in a basket at the league door, it cost the community-operated outfits in Winnipeg, Edmonton and on the Flattest of Lands a pretty penny to keep them in food, clothing, shelter and capable QBs. I can’t imagine anyone is interested in a redo. Get your butt in gear, Commish Randy.

Hey, if Hollywood hunk Ryan Reynolds strikes out in his bid to become a minority owner of the Ottawa Senators, maybe he can pick up the tab for the Larks.

I don’t know about you, but I find it kind of weird watching Jennifer Jones curl without Dawn McEwen and Kaitlyn Lawes. It was strange enough when Jill Officer went MIA, but now it’s like the Golden Girls sans Sofia, Blanche and Dorothy. Hey, Jennifer has four fab, young playmates—Karlee Burgess, Mackenzie Zacharias, Emily Zacharias, Lauren Lenintine—but it’s going to take some getting used to as the Scotties Tournament of Hearts unfolds this week in Kamloops.

A few weeks back, Drab Slab sports editor Jason Bell was bragging on his paper’s curling coverage, writing, “I venture to say no media outlet in Canada makes it a priority to cover local curling like we do. We might just be the ONLY media outlet other than the wire service and national broadcaster scheduled to cover the bulk of the upcoming national Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Kamloops, B.C., next month.” Really? Well, the Scotties slid from the hacks on Friday, and there was no story on it in the Freep. Today, all I could find was wire copy from Canadian Press, the same story that’s in the Winnipeg Sun. So enough with this “our stuff don’t stink” BS.

Just wondering: Is it my imagination, or is every national sports organization on Our Frozen Tundra corrupt? It sure as hell seems that way.

The way Soccer Canada has treated our national women’s side falls in the extreme range of disgraceful. I mean, bullying Christine Sinclair? Who does that? Next I suppose they’ll steal lunch money from panhandlers. Whatever our guys were given to prep for the men’s World Cup, that’s what the women deserve during its run-up to their World Cup later this year. It’s rather basic.

Oh, boy, the deep-thinkers at the Winnipeg Free Press have weighed in on the great Canadian futbol fight, and it’s a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black.

“This dispute is not just about resources. It’s also about respect,” one of the geniuses writes. “Women’s sport has chronically been devalued and dismissed, and often ignored entirely. It would be a shame for the beautiful game to continue to be marred by such ugly gender inequalities.”

Excuse me? Say again? Ugly gender inequalities?

It is to laugh.

The editorialists at the Drab Slab might want to fix an eyeball on their own sports pages, where male/female coverage is equal like a bologna sandwich is a steak and lobster dinner.

On average last year, the Freep ran 358 articles per month exclusive to male sports, compared to 55 for females. Yup, 358-55. To date this month, it’s 221 male, 47 female. In today’s paper, there are two articles on local college men’s hoops on the sports front. Local women’s college hoops is a brief, buried in the back of the section.

Freep editorialists are correct in saying female sports “has chronically been devalued and dismissed, and often ignored entirely.” So do something about it or zip it.

Former National Hockey League bench puppeteer Marc Crawford is on the outs with the Swiss National League. His crime: Spewing anti-gay bile. Crawford now coaches ZSC Lions, and he had a major meltdown in the waning seconds of a game last week. Seems he didn’t approve the work of Finnish official Mikko Kaukokari, so he shouted something about the ref performing oral sex. It’s not the first time the bolts in Crawford’s neck have come undone, and I can only imagine what horrid things he says when the cameras and mics aren’t near him.

I fell asleep at halftime of last Sunday’s Super Bowl skirmish, so I missed the Rihanna gig. But I understand she did some crotch-grabbing. Makes me wonder how Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Miss Peggy Lee sang all those great songs without groping their nether regions.

Based on late night/early morning SportsCentre on TSN, the top story in the wide, wide world of sports on Saturday was…wait for it…the NBA slam dunk contest. Good grief.

I watched SportsCentre in the small hours of Saturday morning, and there was a five-minute segment on the Genesis Invitational golf tournament near the top of the show. Every breath of it was devoted to Tiger Woods. There was zero mention of Max Homa, who’d taken 11 fewer swings than Woods and whose name was atop the leaderboard. Matter of fact, all 59 golfers in front of Woods were ignored. Every ooh and ahh from the natterbugs was reserved for Woods. Same thing this morning. It was three minutes of Woods, and zero mention of leader Jon Rahm, who’s a mere 12 shots ahead. Sigh. I truly thought Woods would be a sidebar on the PGA Tour this year, not the lede. Silly me.

Did Woods really hand Justin Thomas a tampon after outdriving him on the ninth hole in the opening round of the Genesis Invitational? Yup, sure did. And the two pro golfers giggled like a couple of frat boys on a panty raid.

Others were less amused.

Sarah Stirk of Sky Sports described the prank as “crass” and “extremely disappointing.” She added: “It was seemingly done in jest. To me it was laddy, blokey behaviour, passing him the tampon effectively saying: ‘I’ve outdriven you, you’re driving the ball like a woman’.

“(That is) effectively the inference of the incident that happened and that to me says females, women, are inferior to men. Women should not be portrayed as being inferior to men in any walk of life and certainly on a sporting landscape.”

Here’s Christine Brennan of USA Today: “He employed basic misogyny to insult his good friend Thomas, a knee-slapper of a dig against female athletes: You hit the ball like a girl!”

Tiger told news snoops that the prank was nothing more than “fun and games. It was just friends having fun. We play pranks on one another all the time.”

My question: Did Woods go to the corner store and buy a box of tampons, or did he steal it from his 15-year-old daughter Sam’s stash?

And, finally…

Let’s talk about the Rouge Football playoffs and the MOP…the Blue-and-Gold’s best in show head count…creepy things in sports that creep me out…Hot Dog! Phil’s the NHL Iron Man…a rinky dink rink…jersey fling in the Republic of Tranna?…and other things on my mind…

Forget about the CFL gas bags on TSN. For the best take on all things Rouge Football, lend an ear to my two favorite gridiron girls, Lady Portage and Dame Main, both unabashed admirers of large lads in blue-and-gold. Take it away, ladies…

Lady Portage: “Well, girlfriend, another Canadian Football League regular season has arrived at the finish line and we move on to the playoffs to see if our Winnipeg Blue Bombers can threepeat.”

Dame Main: “Oh, wouldn’t that be special?”

Lady Portage: “You know it. Not even the Bombers of the glory days brought the Grey Cup home three years in a row. The Bombers of Kenny Ploen and Leo Lewis and Herbie Gray won the thing four times in five years back in the 1950s/60s, but not three straight.”

Dame Main: “If they pull it off, wouldn’t that make these the glory days?”

Lady Portage: “I suppose it would, for a younger generation. But it’s going to be a tall task.”

Dame Main: “You aren’t sold on the Big Blue?”

Lady Portage: “I am. They’ve got the best quarterback in the league, Zach Collaros, and that rookie receiver, Dalton Schoen, has made people sit up and take notice. Richie Hall’s D-dozen is as stout and as stingy as ever, and I imagine guys like Biggie Bighill and the J Men—Jefferson and Jeffcoat—are plenty geeked up about another championship ring. But I think the Calgary Stampeders will be a tough out. They’ve got a defence to match Winnipeg’s, and their running back, Ka’Deem Carey, is a beast. If the weather’s foul on Nov. 13, he could be the difference-maker. I like him more than our guy, Brady Oliveira.

Dame Main: “So you’re saying the Stampeders will take out the B.C. Lions in the semifinal next weekend?”

Lady Portage: “The Leos are done like burnt toast. Hey, I’m sold on Lions QB Nathan Rourke—fan-tabulous!—but I’m not sold on him as a QB who’s played part of one game since August.”

Dame Main: “He didn’t look like he was wearing a coat of rust against the Bombers on Friday night.”

Lady Portage: “No, but he didn’t look other-worldly, either. Not like before he suffered the foot owie that put him on the shelf for two months. If I can use just one word to describe his play, it would be ‘meh’. I fear he’s in for an afternoon of hurt courtesy the Stamps D-men. Total misery.”

Dame Main: “What do you think would have happened if Rourke hadn’t been injured? Think we’d be talking about Zach Collaros as Most Outstanding Player?”

Lady Portage: “What if Willie Jefferson had alligator arms instead of a wing span that stretches from Winnipeg to Kenora? I’m not into what-ifs, girlfriend. Rourke got hurt and played in 10 games. Zach didn’t get hurt and led the league in TD tosses and wins.”

Dame Main: “Ya, but the guy in Toronto, Mcleod Bethel-Thompson, had more passing yards and completions than Collaros. Maybe he’s the MOP.”

Lady Portage: “And maybe somebody spiked your tea. You and I will land a gig singing backup vocals for Lady Gaga before McBeth gets the nod as East Division MOP. The guy looks all-world for 30 minutes, then he looks like a kid trying to tie his laces with one hand. Sorry, but Eugene Lewis or Tim White deserves the East nomination. But, hey, the girls and boys on the beat are smitten with QBs, so…”

Dame Main: “I sure hope Zach wins. He seems like a wonderful young man, with an adorable family. And it’s so nice that he’s staying around for a few more years.”

Lady Portage: “As sure as O-linemen like second helpings of mashed potatos and anything that moos, Zach repeats as MOP, then it’s just a question of whether or not the Bombers threepeat. All they need is two more Ws—one vs. Calgary on our Frozen Tundra on Nov. 13, then vs. the Toronto Argos on the Flattest of Lands, Nov. 20.

Dame Main: “So that’s your call? Bombers-Boatmen? Who wins the Grey Grail?”

Lady Portage: “The good guys, of course. Best QB always wins, and that’s our boy Zach. He’ll be flinging TD passes while Bethel-Thompson is trying to figure out how to tie his boot laces with one hand.”

Dame Main: “Guess that’s a wrap for us, girlfriend. We’ll have to do this again Grey Cup week. Ya think the Calgary mob will bring a horse to Regina and clomp him into a hotel?”

Lady Portage: “For sure. And if the nag takes a dump in the hotel lobby, Rob Vanstone and the boys at the Regina Leader-Post can write it up as an editorial comment on the Saskatchewan Roughriders season.”

So, Milt Stegall tells us the Bombers have enjoyed “sellouts through the season.” I demand a recount. I mean, it’s nice that Milt wants to tout Winnipeg FC as the showcase franchise in Rouge Football, but he doesn’t need to fudge facts for the CFL on TSN panel. Here’s the reality: The folks in Good Ol’ Hometown packed the Football Field In Fort Garry twice this crusade, both times in September and both times with a Pil-swilling mob from the Flattest of Lands in town for a visit. But Milt’s correct about the Blue-and-Gold being a model operation, on and off the gridiron. Head counts this year:

26,002 (Ottawa)
23,600 (Hamilton)
29,746 (Calgary)
31,053 (Montreal)
30,062 (Calgary)
33,234 (Saskatchewan)
33,234 (Saskatchewan)
27,159 (Edmonton)
23,685 (B.C.)
Total: 28,641 average (best in show and up from 25,947 in 2021).

Dave Naylor asked this question of the TSN panel on Friday: “When’s the last time Zach Collaros stunk the joint out?” Answer: July 22, vs. Edmonton Elks when he was 7/16, 188 yards, 2 TD, 2 picks. But, hey, the Bombers still won, 24-10.

Collaros and Nathan Rourke aside, I can’t remember a more iffy crop of QBs in Rouge Football than what we’ve seen in the past two crusades. Bo Levi Mitchell and Cody Fajardo have become spare parts, Mcleod Bethel-Thompson is as uneven as the back roads in Alabama, we’re still trying to get a reading on Dane Evans, Jeremiah Masoli and Trevor Harris, and Tayler Cornelius might be the next Mike Reilly in Edmonton or the next Great White Nope.

Bytown RedBlacks QB Caleb Evans rushed for a QB record 16 TDs this season. Total yards traveled on those 16 TD rushes: 16.

It’s oft said that the CFL season doesn’t truly begin until the Labor Day weekend, so here’s how the nine teams stacked up in crunch time:

It’s Halloween eve and it’s scary out there, kids. Here are five things/people in sports that really, really creep me out:
1. Ron MacLean’s puns and librarian-like references to ridiculously obscure footnotes about historical events/people. The puns are mostly lame and the detours into the unknown are as baffling as they are painful. Just tell the guy to put on a cardigan, call his Hockey Night in Canada gig Mr. MacLean’s Neighborhood and be done with it. He’s become creepy, kids.
2. Conor McGregor. He’s rude, vulgar, obnoxious, a bully, objectionable on every level, and probably thinks mashed potatoes is finger food. Every time I see him on my flatscreen, I feel the need to hose down. He’s creepy, kids.
3. Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers. I don’t know which of the two aging, slower-than-Sunday NFL quarterbacks creeps me out more. My problem with Brady is simple: His ego is the size of Texas, thus his plan apparently is to force himself upon us until he’s older than every tortoise on the Galapagos Islands. (Fittingly, Brady and the turtles move at the same pace.) Rodgers, meanwhile, has a matching ego and seems to fancy himself as a svengali, determined to bend and shape the Green Bay Packers into his image with his every thought. Or maybe it’s his idea of a Zen thing, where he props himself up as the Dalai QB. I’m uncertain. And when they lose? Never his fault. But it’s creepy, kids.
4. Ever since Phil Mickelson teed it up on the Saudis’ LIV Golf Series, he always looks like he needs a bath. That’s creepy, kids.
5. The fawning by news snoops over Tiger Woods and Serena Williams, two more ego-fueled jocks who refuse to take the off-ramp. Woods has three tournament titles since 2013, his most recent in 2019, then he drove his SUV into a ravine. Williams has won one event since becoming a mom five years ago. Yet both are gabbed and written about like they’ve ended the scourge of global homelessness. Can Woods and Williams still win? I suppose, if all the planets align favorably, but they’re both deep on the downside of the slope and I wonder what part of over-the-hill do the talking heads and scribes not understand? They’re creepy, kids.

Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that Brady looks like he’s on a hunger strike? I realize he’s flying solo these days and probably can’t be bothered cooking for himself, but has he not heard of Skip the Dishes?

Things you don’t expect to read or hear in the same sentence: Donald Trump and humility. Andrea Bocelli and sour notes. Phil Kessel and NHL Iron Man. But a tip of the bonnet to Kessel, who hasn’t skipped a day of work since 2009, or 991 games ago. Not too shabby for a guy reportedly on a tube steak-a-day diet.

Hey, fans have stopped flinging $250 jerseys on the ice in Vancouver, which can only mean the Canucks are no longer playing like a bunch of ankle-benders. Most likely next stop for the Jersey Fling: The Republic of Tranna. The Toronto Maple Elites, after all, are second-last in the Atlantic Division and run the risk of going 0-for-California tonight vs. the Disney Ducks in Anaheim. Another L makes them a sub.-500 outfit, and that simply won’t do in a town where they’re accustomed to winning the Stanley Cup every October. Ladies and gentlemen, start your jerseys.

Nothing but positive dispatches from Mullett Arena, jazzy new playpen of the Arizona Coyotes in Tempe. It’s the size of a college dorm, which is fitting since it also houses college hockey, and we’re told those 5,026 fans crammed into the joint can really raise a ruckus. Well, so do kids in an elementary school playground, but that doesn’t make it college. A rinky dink rink is rinky dink rink is rinky dink rink.

Where did TSN dig up this Frankie Corrado dude? What are the bona fides that compelled TSN to prop him up as a hockey analyst? Well, Google tells me he spent time with 10 teams in 11 seasons of pro hockey, some of it in the NHL (76 games), some of it in Sweden and Russia, and that’s fine. But this is part of a recent Q&A Frankie did with Ben Kuzma of Postmedia Vancouver:
Kuzma: “Why are the Canucks struggling?”
Frankie: “I think that team is in trouble.”
Wow. Move aside, Sherlock Holmes. There’s a new super sleuth in town. And, yes, that’s sarcasm. I mean, the Canucks were the only NHL outfit without a W. What was Frankie’s first clue? If that’s the type of penetrating analysis he’ll bring to TSN, I’ll switch channels and listen to Ron MacLean’s puns.

In a dog-bites-man story, this headline from The Athletic: “PWHPA still working toward a new women’s pro hockey league.” In other news, WWII is over, JFK is dead, Cassius Clay changed his name to Muhammad Ali, and The Beatles broke up. I mean, we’ve been hearing about a league for the Ponytail Puck renegades for nigh on four years. When will they tell us something we don’t know?

How ironic that the first World Series since 1950 with zero U.S.-born Black players on either roster might be won by a Black manager, Dusty Baker of the Houston Astros. I’ve liked Dusty ever since my one and only visit to Dodger Stadium in the 1980s. Every inning when he trotted out to his post in left field, he’d stop and natter with us fans in the bleachers. Nice man.

I want to go on record as saying I like Camila Cabello and Gwen Stefani on The Voice. John Legend is agreeable and Blake Shelton is Terry Bradshaw with a good head of hair, but not necessarily a better singing voice. Hee haw.

Here’s all you need to know about the Saudi/Greg Norman LIV Golf Series: PGA Tour defector Pat Perez was handed a four-year, $10 million deal, just to show up. “Look, I know I can’t beat those kids anymore. This was a great opportunity for me. I have nothing against the PGA Tour; they did a lot for me, but I had to earn everything I got out there.” What a concept. Earning your wages. Meantime, Peter Uihlein collected $11.3 million in seven LIV events, compared to $4 million in 126 PGA tournaments. But, remember, it isn’t about the money.

And, finally…

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…

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?

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).

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.

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 the NFL Hole of Fame Game…a fist-fighting farce…a snake-oil salesman…welcome to Alberta…Tebow of the North…QBs by the numbers…and Coach Grunge hits the century mark

Another Sunday smorgas-bored…and now they know how many holes it takes to fix an NFL field…

Did it really happen? Were the Green Bay Packers and Oakland Raiders really in Good Ol’ Hometown for a National Football League dress rehearsal last Thursday?

Well, yes, they were.

We know this for certain because there were sightings and photographic evidence to confirm the existence and presence of Aaron Rodgers, who apparently was separated from Borat at birth and looked positively hoser-ish in his Canadian Tuxedo.

Coo-roo-coo-coo-coo-coo-coo-coo! Good day, eh.

Mind you, I thought Rodgers was a bit too much of a denim dude. The jeans and jacket were fine, and the bolo tie was a boffo accessory, but he should have gone with a lumberjack shirt to complete the ensemble. Take it from a fashionista, overdoing denim is never a good look. On the red carpet or strolling through Osborne Village.

Anyway, a garment glitch aside, Rodgers was meant to be the star attraction in an exhibition of faux football between two storied four-down franchises at Football Follies Field in Fort Garry, but I’m sure you know by now that the Pro Bowl quarterback was one of 33 Packers no-shows. That’s right, 33 scratches. Sounds like a bad case of hemorrhoids.

Perhaps that’s fitting, though, since River City has become the butt of jokes.

To wit: How could the NFL tell it was in Winnipeg? They found potholes.

In re-configuring a Canadian Football League playground (110 yards with 20-yard end zones) to meet NFL dimensions (100 yards with 10-yard end zones), removal of CFL goal posts was required and, apparently, no one with the NFL thought to toss a few shovelfuls of good, rich prairie dirt into the holes left behind. Instead, they plopped something that looked like a swath of Austin Powers’ discarded shag carpeting on top and expected the boys to “Play on!” The Packers would have none of that. “No way, baby,” they squawked. Thus the pothole patches were ruled hazardous to the wellness of millionaire footballers and shrinkage ensued. Rather than frolic on their regulation-size grid, the large lads had to make do on an 80-yard pitch with makeshift end zones.

I’m not sure if the shrinkage was a salute to our metric system or the U.S.-Canada currency exchange rate, but it made for the kind of farce you’d find on Fawlty Towers.

Difference is, Fawlty Towers is funny, this wasn’t.

But, hey, it will forever be known as the NFL Hole of Fame game, and I suppose that’s something to shout about. Or not.

Watching the events unfold on TSN, it reminded me of another time and another place and another show fraught with farce. It was the night of Dec. 11, 1981, and Muhammad Ali was to meet Trevor Berbick in the main event of a calamitous fight card on a parched patch of earth in Nassau, The Bahamas. Before the first punch was thrown, someone discovered there was no official timer, no ringside bell to signal the start and end of each round, and only two pairs of boxing mitts. For the entire card. Promoters dispatched a man to Miami with instructions to return with fresh gloves for the Ali-Berbick bout, a stopwatch was located, and a TV crew loaned organizers a cow bell. In-ring hostilities began more than two hours late and, eventually, Berbick earned a unanimous decision for thoroughly boxing Ali’s ears over 10 rounds. Ali never fought again and, even though the card commenced on Dec. 11, none of us filed our final copy until Dec. 12. One wise acre on press row awarded the event the No Bell Prize for boxing. We laughed and agreed.

The villain in the Gaffe-O-Rama that was the NFL experience in River City appears to be John Graham, mouthpiece for On Ice Entertainment. He didn’t have a clue about his market, hence the $75-$340 (plus taxes/fees) sticker prices and the insulting PR prattle that implied Pegtowners are backwater bumpkins who don’t know moonshine from a Slurpee. “It’s a premier event,” Graham gushed the day before they discovered the potholes. “In musical terms, it’s like the Rolling Stones or U2 type of thing.” Ya, for sure, John. Take away Mick, Keith, Bono and The Edge and it was just like that.

They tell us that 21,992 bought the snake oil that Graham was selling, but I believe that like I believe the cow really did jump over the moon. Based on what I saw on TSN, Football Follies Field was a glass half empty. Naturally, Graham pointed an accusing finger at news snoops, because that’s what some PR flacks tend to do when their face hits the floor. He whinged to Paul Friesen of the Winnipeg Sun about “very biased articles” and “things that aren’t accurate,” then attempted to have Freezer banned from the press perch. What a tool.

My favorite headline on the NFL Hole of Fame Game was delivered by the Washington Post: “Canadians are very politely not buying tickets to the Packers-Raiders game in Winnipeg.”

Much was made of Raiders punter A.J. Cole wearing a t-shirt with the words “Winnipeg, Alberta” pasted across the front. Alberta only wishes it was so.

Cole was thoughtful enough to offer a mea culpa for his geographical goof-up, so I say we cut the guy some slack. Come to think of it, Cole has a degree in Industrial Engineering from North Carolina State. What, no one thought to ask him to come up with a better solution to the goal post/pothole problem than an 80-yard football field?

By the way, those “Winnipeg, Alberta” t-shirts and hoodies are available from TeeChip on the Internet. They come in sizes S-XXXXXXL and nine colors. I’m not saying I endorse them, but they might make a good gag gift for family and friends unfortunate enough to live in Wild Rose Country.

When the Packers-Raiders skirmish was announced, Winnipeg Blue Bombers CEO Wade Miller described it as a “once in a lifetime experience.” After Thursday, I’d say that sounds about right.

Moving on to football with a rouge, if you’ve ever wondered what Tim Tebow might have looked like in the CFL, Chris Streveler provided a hint on Friday night in E-Town.

Pretty he ain’t, not at all like Trevor Harris, his counterpart with the Eskimos who usually looks like the ‘after’ part of a Tide commercial. You know, all spiffy, fresh and clean. Streveler, on the other hand, is kind of like Mike O’Shea, his head coach with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. Grungy. With a game to match his scruffy chin whiskers.

Going by the QB numbers on Friday, Streveler had no business beating the Eskimos 34-28 in a West Division top-dog throw-down at Commonwealth Stadium. Harris flung the football for 430 yards and a touchdown, Streveler 89 on just seven completions and zero scores. But they don’t give the guy operating a wrecking ball marks for artistic impression, and that’s the way it is with some quarterbacks.

Guys like Harris are a candy store. Streveler is a hardware store, full of nuts and bolts and wrenches and all manner of heavy-metal gadgets. He’s Tebow of the North. Tebow with a toque. It’s all about the legs and smash-mouth with the neophyte QB, subbing for wounded starter Matt Nichols.

Streveler crash-banged his way to one Tebowesque TD and set up another with a 30-yard Tebowesque boogie, and small DBs and safeties across the CFL landscape better get used to the idea of being the bug rather than the windshield for the next month-plus while Nichols is in the repair shop.

You know what the narrative would be today had it been Nichols tossing the rock for just 89 yards, don’t you? That’s right, even in victory, the rabble would be breaking out the pitch forks and putting a match to torches.

That old bromide “statistics are for losers” certainly applies to the quarterbacks in the two Winnipeg-E-Town skirmishes this season. Here are the numbers:
Trevor Harris 61/94 775 yds.
Nichols/Streveler 20/38 289 yds.

Sean Whyte of the Eskimos hoofed 14 field goals v. Winnipeg FC, so why would I still rather have Justin Medlock doing my three-point kicking in a big game?

A quick thought on Willie Jefferson, the holy terror who most often lines up at defensive end for the Bombers: Exactly what part of Jefferson did the Saskatchewan Roughriders not like? Seriously. Gang Green let this guy get away? I’m pretty sure when Trevor Harris brushed his hair after Friday’s game, Jefferson fell out.

I don’t know about you, but I’m thinking Glen Suitor would be a much better broadcaster if he actually knew what was in the CFL rule book. Just saying.

Speaking of Suitor and the squawk boxes on TSN, here are a couple of juicy snippets from Kirk Penton’s latest offering of sound bites from CFL GMs, coaches and suits in The Athletic:

* “They were down 10-0 in the first quarter, and Suitor said the Lions are improved. I’ve gained 20 pounds since training camp. Too many desserts and too many late-night chips. But if Suitor says the Lions are improved, guess I can tell my wife that the fatter me is improved too.”

* “We (coaches) respect Matt Nichols more than you media guys do. When the Bombers lose the next three without him, you’ll see why coaches are smarter than newspaper guys and talking heads.”

And, finally, never thought I would mention Mike O’Shea, Bud Grant and Cal Murphy in the same sentence, but Coach Grunge has joined the Bombers coaching legends in a very exclusive club—the only Winnipeg FC sideline stewards to work 100 regular-season games. O’Shea hit the century mark on Friday night in the E-Town rain, and I thought someone would have made a big deal out of the milestone. Trouble is, a lot of folks still aren’t sold on Coach Grunge, and they won’t be until he brings the Grey Cup back to Good Ol’ Hometown, like Bud (four times) and Cal (once) did. Still, 100 games is a noteworthy achievement, and there’s a boatload of us who didn’t think O’Shea would last this long.

Let’s talk about Kyle Walters jerking his knee…the Chris Streveler show…no one shedding tears for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers…QB carnage survivors…Andrew Harris’ place in the pecking order…the Walby burger…the word on Puck Finn from Finland…Johnny Rotton peddling insurance…and other things on my mind

Another Sunday smorgas-bored…and I really wish that young woman on TSN Sportscentre would stop yelling at us…

The notion that Matt Nichols and his wonky throwing wing might be in the repair shop until there’s frost on the pumpkin isn’t what scares me.

Kevin Glenn scares me.

Brandon Bridge scares me.

Drew Willy (definitely) scares me.

And Kyle Walters scares me, because he might be enough of a nitwit to recruit one of the above to play quarterback, just as the Winnipeg Blue Bombers are set to embark on the nitty-gritty segment of a promising Canadian Football League crusade that now is in peril.

Actually, check that: Walters is daft enough.

The Winnipeg FC general manager jerked his knee and attempted to pry the 40-year-old Glenn off his comfy sofa in Detroit this weekend, but the former Bomber/Ticat/Eskimo/Rider/Stampeder/Lion/Lark/Argo/RedBlack had the good sense to decline the come-hither overture, and I believe the blue-and-gold rabble can be thankful for that.

I mean, Glenn manufactured an admirable career at mostly being second best, but a journey in the way-back machine isn’t what the Bombers need going forward.

Chris Streveler is, of course, the logical choice to sub for Nichols, laid low late in a 32-16 victory over the B.C. Leos on Thursday night at Football Follies Field in Fort Garry. Streveler has been a useful second-in-command for the past year and a half, although I must confess that even the high-octane sophomore scares me. To a point. He’s done some good things. He’s done some not so good things. But, sure, give him the ball and let’s all cross our fingers, our toes and any other crossable body parts while we ride out the storm.

How long will that be? We await word on Nichols’ wounded wing from Winnipeg FC medics, but anytime your starting QB walks off the field and he’s unable to lift his hand high enough to scratch behind his ear we’re probably talking long term before he’s flinging footballs again.

Which means Walters likely has developed blisters on his dialing thumb in the past few days, because we have to assume he has numbers other than Glenn’s on his contact list.

But I see this as a Streveler-or-bust situation, which means you can put Nichols’ owie in the ‘be careful what you wish for’ file.

I think most of us will agree that losing Nichols is a significant setback for Winnipeg FC.

I say “most of us” because I acknowledge there exists a constituency that has never been sold on the most-maligned 7-2 quarterback in the history of our quirky, three-down game.

The anti-Matt sector of the rabble is considerable and often loud. They figure Nichols for a false bill of goods, and they’re wholly convinced that a championship drought that began in another century cannot end with No. 15 behind centre.

While others certainly have absorbed their portion of tsk-tsking for almost 29 years of the Bombers never failing to fail, blame often comes down to the quarterback, and Nichols has the lash marks to prove it. He’s been damned if he did, damned if he didn’t in a ‘what have you done for us lately?’ world, and if there was a sudden outbreak of rump rot in River City, I’m sure he’d take the rap for that too.

It matters not to the naysayers that recent history confirms Nichols, not Streveler, to be Winnipeg FC’s best bet for a W. They want their young stud behind centre, damnit, and they’ve been panting in anticipation of this moment, almost to the point of hyperventilating.

The question is: Will Streveler take their breath away with his play?

I’ve liked Streveler ever since he subbed for Nichols during the first three skirmishes of the 2018 crusade, and I believe he can keep the boat afloat. But it’s worth noting that Winnipeg FC is 1-3 with him behind centre in the past season and a half. Nichols is 17-8 in the same time frame. Just saying.

Here’s something we know for certain: No one in the Alberta Foothills or on the Flattest of Lands is spilling crocodile tears because the Bombers have hit a bump in the road. The Calgary Stampeders and Saskatchewan Roughriders have learned to live without their starting QBs for most of the season, so they’ll see the Nichols departure as a leveling of the playing field. Ditto the folks in the Hammer, where the TabbyCats lost Jeremiah Masoli for the duration. Can’t say I disagree with them.

You’ll have to excuse Trevor Harris and Mike Reilly if they’ve begun to glance nervously over their shoulders like two guys who just pulled a dine-and-dash. They’re the only original starting QBs yet to miss a beat in 2019, you see. No surprise with Harris, because the large lads on the E-Town Eskimos O-line don’t let angry defenders get close enough to their QB to know if he had garlic bread with lunch. But it’s incredible that Reilly is still standing. He’s been hit more often than Ringo Starr’s drum kit.

Big tip of the bonnet to Andrew Harris, a local guy who’s now covered more real estate than any CFL player carrying a Canadian passport. The Bombers tailback will, of course, add to his 13,377 yards running/pass catching total before he’s done lugging the football, and we might be talking all-time best homebrew if not for guys named Russ Jackson, Gerry James and Chris Walby. But wherever Harris falls on the final pecking order, he’s already had a hall of fame career.

Does Glen Suitor take us for a bunch of rubes who just woke up from a month-long nap? Seriously. The TSN natterbug became Nichols’ unofficial apologist during Thursday’s telecast, excusing Matt Meh’s inclination to dump off the football to Harris rather than feed his downfield guys in Winnipeg FC’s two most recent matches prior to the Leos visit. Nichols “doesn’t check down,” Suitor told us. I assume he said it with a straight face, but it might have registered a new high on the ignorant scale, which is really saying something when you consider the amount of tripe that has escaped his gob during the past two dozen years. Every QB from Pop Warner to pro checks down, and Suitor knows it. Really, really dumb. Him not us.

It’s about the Walby Burger, the 5½-pound Gastronomical Goliath selling at Football Follies Field: I’m not sure which would be harder to stomach, the six meat patties, six chicken strips, six hot dogs, six hunks of bacon, cheese, French fries, pickles, lettuce, onions, tomatoes and special secret sauce stuffed between two buns the size of circus tent, or the $45 price tag. Mind you, it supposedly feeds a family of four, so when you look at it that way it’s only $11.25 per heart attack.

Old friend Troy Westwood did a bit of myth-busting about Chris Walby, the inspiration behind the Gastronomical Goliath. “All this noise about the Walby Burger. Truth is, Walby doesn’t eat a whole bunch,” the former Bombers kicker and current TSN 1290 gab guy tweets. Ya, sure. What’s ol’ Lefty going to tell us next? That Trump doesn’t fib much. Sorry, Lefty, but you don’t grow to Walby’s proportions without strapping the feed bag on your head and refusing to come up for air until the last pork chop is gone. Bluto doesn’t just dine at all-you-can-eat buffets. He puts them out of business.

Some harsh stuff in Kirk Penton’s latest edition of natter from CFL coaches, managers and execs in The Athletic, with one taking aim at former QB and now TSN talking head Smilin’ Hank Burris. “I coached Henry Burris. Saw him choke in a bunch of big games. But they give him a microphone, and he has all the answers now. Calling out Paul LaPolice the week his mom died was classless. Henry should come by our place and let me put some old film on. Remind him how many times he fucked up and cost us games. Him. Henry. Not the offensive co-ordinator.” Ouch.

In a far, faraway land, Patrik Laine spoke and the earth moved in Good Ol’ Hometown. “You never know where you’re going to play next year so I’m just prepared for anything,” Puck Finn told Sportsnet’s Chris Johnston, who tracked down the Winnipeg Jets winger in Lahti, Finland. Does “anything” include re-upping with les Jets? “Well, I’ve got nothing bad to say about Winnipeg, you know?” Puck Finn answered. “It’s been good so far, but you never know.” If I hadn’t seen Laine’s lips move, I’d have sworn it was Evander Kane talking.

Exactly what are we to make of Puck Finn’s remarks? Does he want out of Pegtown? Was it his way of getting his agent, Mike Liut, and Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff in the same room to nail down a new contract? Or was the restricted free agent merely yanking Johnston’s chain? I really don’t think there’s anything to see here. If Puck Finn is still home in Finland when the lads assemble for training exercises next month, then we’ll talk.

I don’t get it. Why is Kyle Connor competing in the Players Cup a front-page sports story? That’s what hockey players do during the summer. They golf. Poorly. Connor’s gimmicky presence in the field at Southwood wasn’t newsworthy, and he proved it by taking 94 swings his first day and another 90 before leaving the southside course to the real golfers.

I’m uncertain what kind of cred Corey Pronman of The Athletic has, but he ranks the Jets farm system at No. 27 among the 31 National Hockey League teams, better than only Pittsburgh, Boston, Washington and Calgary. The good news, I suppose, is that’s one spot better than in 2018.

Hey, look who’s a pitchman for Direct Auto Insurance. Why, it’s TSN’s favorite lousy former quarterback Johnny Manziel and equally disgraced former fancy skater Tonya Harding. I assume they both work in the Train Wreck division.

Speaking of train wrecks, maybe Johnny Rotten and Terrible Tonya can help ESPN baseball analyst and former Major League Baseball drug cheat Alex Rodriguez, a recent victim of auto theft in San Francisco. The bad guys broke into A-Rod’s parked rental and made off with a reported $500,000 in plunder, which apparently included items of a personal, sentimental nature. So far cops haven’t recovered any of the drug cheat’s belongings, but they say it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Diva receiver Antonio Brown had a hissy fit and stayed away from Oakland Raiders training camp because the NFL wouldn’t allow him to wear his old helmet, which does not meet current safety standards. Similarly, the NHL has informed Boston Bruins ancient defenceman Zdeno Chara that he no longer can wear his old Eatons catalogs for shin pads.

And, finally, the Winnipeg Sun will be bringing Scott Billeck on board next month to write the good stuff about the Jets and Bombers. I’m told there were more than 30 applicants for the position, four of them women, and it’s nice to see some young people still believe scribbling sports for a newspaper remains a worthy pursuit.

Let’s talk about the CFL’s QB carnage…“remarkably ugly” football…Argos no laughing matter…Popp’s big hairy deal…news snoops in a snit…Miss Manners’ son Stevie…old broadcasters and friends…and green leaves and jujubes at Carnarvon Park…

Another Sunday smorgas-bored…and if I want to eat plants I’ll have a salad, not a plant masquerading as a hamburger…

If that was a Grey Cup preview Friday night at Timbits Field in the Hammer, I might opt for a Steve McQueen or Duke Wayne marathon on the final Sunday in November.

Shabby? Like an old hobo’s hair.

Alas, that’s what we get when there’s a neophyte quarterback on one side and a veteran quarterback playing like the neophyte’s understudy on the other.

The Hamilton Tabbies certainly were the superior outfit in the short time Jeremiah Masoli was behind centre during their 23-15 W, but a wonky left knee forced the all-star QB to excuse himself and the Tiger-Cats spent the remainder of the evening in safety-first mode, with tenderfoot Dane Evans barking signals into one of TSN’s live mics. He was meh at best.

If only the game itself had reached that level.

This was (supposedly) the Canadian Football League marquee match, with a pair of first-place outfits grabbing artificial grass and growling. The visiting Winnipeg Blue Bombers arrived in the Hammer sans an L on their registry. A perfect 5-nada. The Tabbies had just one hiccup in five assignments. So, ya, it walked and talked like a Grey Cup dress rehearsal.

Then they kicked off and the large lads forgot how to play.

Correction: Matt Nichols forgot how to play.

I keep hearing that football is the ultimate team game, but the Bombers’ first stumble of this crusade is mostly down to QB Nichols, who kept throwing passes he had no business throwing, and three of them landed in the eager and welcoming arms of guys dressed in black and gold.

Had a quarterback more accomplished than Dane Evans been available to make Winnipeg FC pay for Nichols’ (also the kick returners) sins, we might be talking about a rout of biblical levels.

Sadly, Evans’ presence and Masoli’s absence is part of the CFL’s increasingly bleak big-picture story.

Forget that Masoli has the worst QB body since Danny McManus. (Seriously. He looks like Fred Flintstone in shoulder pads.) He gets the job done. He’s elite. But he’s the sixth starter to go down for the count this summer, joining Bo Levi Mitchell, Zach Collaros, Antonio Pipken, Dominique Davis and James Franklin in the repair shop. And it’s only due to extreme good fortune that someone hasn’t put a toe tag on Mike Reilly’s season.

Commissioner Randy Ambrosie spent much of the past winter and spring blah, blah, blahing about a new vision that he likes to call CFL 2.0. What I didn’t know is that CFL 2.0 meant every team would be starting its QB 2.0 before Labour Day.

I mean, by the time the playoffs commence, the body count will be so high that we might be watching Andrew Sheer and Justin Trudeau fling the football in the West Division final instead of Nichols and Trevor Harris.

Can anything be done to halt the QB carnage?

Well, quarterbacks are now treated like pricey porcelain figurines, with better protection than Queen Liz. Hostile defenders breath on them at their own peril, and Commish Randy underscored the CFL’s keep-QBs-vertical agenda by ordering Simoni Lawrence to take a two-game respite for the unlawful hit that sent Collaros to a dark room.

Unfortunately, threats of vacations without pay couldn’t have prevented the Masoli owie. It was the result of a freakish play, whereby his left knee caved in during his attempt to escape large, angry men with a different agenda.

So on came neophyte Evans and, with the inept Nichols far off his game, it made for rather dreary theatre with four picks, seven turnovers and not a single play from scrimmage exceeding 27 yards.

I hate to say this because the CFL is my favorite pro sports league, but it’s becoming almost unwatchable.

It doesn’t help, of course, that TSN insists on trying to doll up its broadcasts with that annoying split screen, the voices of natterbugs in the booth competing with live-mic’d players/officials, and cameras that appear to be located in a distant area code. Live mics are boffo for curling and golf, and even baseball, but not so much during a football telecast.

Here’s truth in broadcasting: During the first half of the Calgary Stampeders-Bytown RougeNoir frolic on Thursday night, TSN natterbug Duane Forde described it as “remarkably ugly.” That is remarkably honest. Also remarkably refreshing.

Neither of the two skirmishes on the Thursday menu will be included in CFL promo material. On the entertainment scale, they were somewhere between an Adam Sandler movie and the ear-blitzing screeching of a Yoko Ono concert. I mean, three teams—Tranna Argonauts, Calgary and Bytown—had a combined total of one touchdown. In 148 plays from scrimmage. The Argos couldn’t even scrounge up a measly rouge vs. the Eskimos in E-Town. You know how difficult it is to get blanked in the CFL? O.J. Simpson will have an easier time getting through the Pearly Gates. But the bottomless Boatmen managed it. Uh-glee. I suffered through both jousts and, yes, I’d like to have those six hours of my life back, if you don’t mind.

Many of us who dwell in the colonies aren’t opposed to crude jokes and rude laughter when outfits from the Republic of Tranna perform face plants, but there’s nothing funny about the oarless Scullers being oh-fer-2019. The Argos are the boil on the CFL’s butt. On and off the field. Their freshly completed (mis)adventure on the Prairies was a ghastly bit of business, and you know losing three games and being outscored 100-37 won’t win them new admirers. Mind you, they’re still mourning the loss of Kawhi Leonard in The ROT, so it’s unlikely that anyone there noticed. That, too, is sad.

In the department of ‘what have you done for us lately,’ I present Jim Popp, GM of the Boatmen. Once considered a gridiron guru in three-down circles, it’s become apparent that Popp has a fabulous head of hair and not much else. He failed to find a replacement for Anthony Calvillo in Montreal (the Larks have been paying for it ever since) and he hasn’t found a replacement for Ricky Ray in The ROT. No QB, no hope, no job for Popp if he doesn’t do something about it.

Prior to the Bombers’ departure to our eastern precincts last week, it was noted that neither Beastmo Bighill or Chris Matthews was made available for chin-wags post-practice on Monday. Not surprisingly, there was harrumphing among news snoops. “This is the CFL,” Steve Simmons of Postmedia Tranna squawked on Twitter. “Every player should be available to media every day. Doing the opposite is small-time, small-town backwards thinking.” Hmmm. You mean like Kawhi Leonard and the Tranna Jurassics? He spoke less often than a street mime during his one-and-done pit stop in The ROT, yet somehow those pesky jock journos managed to get the job done without Kawhi’s daily pearls of wisdom. Is every player on every team in the National Hockey League available every day? Nope. Problem is, some news snoops have a misguided sense of entitlement and still believe athletes/coaches are at their every beck and call. Doesn’t work that way, kids. Not anymore. So boo freaking hoo. Find someone else to talk to.

The outrageously arrogant Simmons didn’t limit his pompous tsk-tsking to the CFL last week. No sir. He slid into full Grandpa Simpson, fist-shaking mode after Kawhi Leonard was introduced as a member of the L.A. Clippers. “Four people Kawhi had to thank and didn’t,” he tweeted from the fetal position. “1) Masai (Ujiri) 2) Larry Tanenbaum 3) Alex (load management) McKechnie 4) Nick Nurse. He did thank restaurants for giving him free food, though.” Why, shame on Kawhi. I mean, such nerve. How dare he wag his tongue without first conferring with Miss Manners’ son Stevie. I hope all the nominees for Emmy Awards in September realize they must clear their acceptance/thank you speeches through Stevie before approaching the microphone.

Others on the hoops beat in The ROT resisted any urge to play the jilted lover role, offering less of an emotional take on Leonard’s first utterings as a Clipper:
Bruce Arthur, Toronto Star: “(Kawhi) did it right.”
Leo Rautins, TSN: “(Kawhi was) very thoughtful in his words.”
Tim Micallef, Sportsnet: “I don’t care about any of that stuff. I really don’t. I understand the fans do. I really don’t care about it.”

So nice to see Brian Williams on TSN’s coverage of the Prince of Wales Stakes last Tuesday. Brian is a lovely man and an exceptional broadcaster. Not many talkers on TV are more polished and, hey, he’s one of us. Which is to say, he drew his first breath in Good Ol’ Hometown.

I hear they had a big adios bash last week for three Globe and Mail sports scribes, including Dave Shoalts. I worked with Shoaltsy in Calgary and I can report that he’s one of the truly good guys in a business full of good guys. He’s also a funny man. Enjoy the rocking chair, Shoaltsy.

A big hi-de-ho to old friend Peter Young. Pete’s ticker gave him a spot of grief not so long ago, but I see the old broadcaster is back on social media and taking aim at Bob Cameron.

And, finally, ever since I heard that 12-year-old Michelle Liu had qualified to play with the grown-ups at the CP Women’s Open golf tournament next month in Aurora, Ont., I’ve been trying to remember what I was doing in the summer of 1963, when I was her age. I believe I was building sand castles at Willows Beach in Oak Bay (Victoria). No. Wait. Now I remember. They wouldn’t allow me to play with the 14-year-olds in a baseball tourney at Carnarvon Park (arrived too late for registration), so I sold programs instead and made $5 one day and $3 the next. That bought a kid a lot of green leaves and jujubes back in the day.

About a Bronze Bambi…the Grand Canyon of slumps…a curmudgeon-in-waiting on HNIC…look ma, no hands for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers…a flake in Lotus Land…a panic signing in Bytown…take the money and shut up…Scrooge McGolfer…pomposity in print…and a Grammy for the misfits

Another Sunday smorgas-bored…and apparently there have been sightings of Donald S. Cherry in my neck of the woods…

When I heard that Paul Maurice had been talking about statues the other day, I assumed it was a reference to Patrik Laine and his stone hands.

Silly me.

Turns out Maurice meant a pigeon perch outside the Little Hockey House On The Prairie, in the likeness of Rink Rat Scheifele.

“I have a higher opinion of Mark Scheifele than he has,” Coach Potty Mouth told news snoops who had assembled to collect bon mots from their daily to-and-fro with the Winnipeg Jets bench puppeteer. “I think he has the (potential) to be a one-team player that wins Cups and is the captain of it at some point and gets a bronze statue in front of the building kind of guy. I do. I do. In order to do that, you got to play 20 years, you got to win Stanley Cups, eventually you have to captain the team…there’s some (Steve) Yzerman there.”

My goodness. That’s a tall can of whoop-de-do.

I mean, I like Scheifele. Been a big fan ever since he arrived in River City as a scrawny kid with Bambi legs. But a statue? Coach Potty Mouth might want to do a nip and tuck on the hosannas.

Seriously. Ben Hatskin, the man who started the pro hockey business in Good Ol’ Hometown, doesn’t have a statue—bronze, chiseled in stone, or built of popsicle sticks. Nor do B. Hull, Ulf, Anders, the Shoe, Ducky or Teemu.

Pegtown really isn’t a bronze statue kind of burg as it relates to saluting our sporting giants.

Oh, sure, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers have genuflected in the direction of Bud Grant and Cal Murphy with pigeon perches over at Football Follies Field In Fort Garry, and I’d like to think that one day legendary quarterback and salt-of-the-earth citizen Ken Ploen will join the former Grey Cup champion coaches. Maybe Chris Walby, too.

For the most part, though, River City is more into murals, buildings, parks and streets.

Billy Mosienko has a mural. Joe Daley has a mural. Jennifer Jones and her curling gal pals—Jill Officer, Kaitlyn Lawes, Dawn McEwen—have a mural. We have Terry Sawchuk Arena and Mosienko Arena. We have Clara Hughes Park and Jill Officer Park. We have Ken Ploen Way, Milt Stegall Drive, Cindy Klassen Way and Team Jones Way.

But we have just two statues, neither of which honors an athlete.

I’ve long held that Hatskin, more than anyone, deserves a pigeon perch, and it shouldn’t be necessary for me to go into the blah, blah, blah and yadda, yadda, yadda of his bona fides. Suffice to say, Coach Potty Mouth wouldn’t be in River City to talk about Rink Rat Scheifele and bronze statues if not for Benny and his Jets in 1972.

What would it take to get Benny in bronze outside the Little Hockey House On The Prairie? A willingness on the part of some movers and shakers (hello, Mark Chipman) and money.

Do that first, then we can discuss taking a couple hundred pounds of clay and molding it into a likeness of Scheifele 20 years from now.

What would we call a statue of Scheifele? The Bronze Bambi, of course. (If you saw the Rink Rat in his first few years, you’ll understand.)

Another game, another donut for Laine, and this is what the always-blunt Brian Burke had to say about Puck Finn on Hockey Night in Canada: “This is not a slump now. This is a horrible Grand Canyon of failure.” Ouch.

Speaking of Burke, it should be obvious to one and all that the former NHL executive and GM is HNIC’s curmudgeon-in-waiting. Once Donald S. Cherry’s gasbag hits empty, Burkie will slide into the main pulpit and receive seven minutes of spew time instead of his current 4 1/2. An ugly wardrobe will be optional.

Well, it’s six days since the Canadian Football League livestock auction began and what does Kyle Walters have to show for it? Look, ma, no hands! Talk all you like about Willie Jefferson, but the Winnipeg Blue Bombers general manager has yet to convince someone with a pair of sure hands to come to River City and play catch with quarterback Matt Nichols. Let’s not sugar coat this. It’s a massive fail. There’s no other way to look at it. Sure, Walters has ample time to find someone willing to play in Pegtown, but the best of the free agent batch are otherwise occupied and it’s now a matter of his bird dogs poking their beaks under rocks hither and yon. I’d like to say I’ve got confidence in Walters and his scouts to flesh out a high-end pass-catcher, but I don’t.

Deluxe receiver Derel Walker would have looked boffo in blue-and-gold, but he chose double blue and the Republic of Tranna over River City. Go figure. What does The ROT have that Good Ol’ Hometown doesn’t? Oh, that’s right, 15,000 empty seats.

If Walker catches 100 footballs in 2019 but no one is at BMO Field in The ROT to see it, does it really happen?

Another receiver who won’t be doing his thing in Pegtown is Duron Carter, now the problem child of the B.C. Lions. “I am looking forward to making a fresh start on the West Coast,” he told news snoops. By my count, Carter has had six “fresh” starts in seven years: Two in Montreal and one each in Indianapolis, Saskatchewan, the Republic of Tranna and now Lotus Land. His ass-clown act lasts about as long as food on Chris Walby’s dinner plate. Carter’s hands are never the problem, of course. It’s his yap. Can’t see that changing, even if Lotus Land is the natural habitat of more flakes per capita than anywhere else in the country.

Got a kick out of Marcel Desjardins’ comment when his quarterback, Trevor Harris, bolted the Bytown RedBlacks and skedaddled to Saudi Alberta and the Edmonton Eskimos. “When we signed Dominique (Davis) to his contract, which was the end of January, we had a pretty good sense as to how things were going to play out with Trevor,” the RedBlacks GM said. “And we were more than comfortable allowing him the chance to compete to be our starting quarterback.” Ya, Desjardins was so comfortable with Davis that he went out and recruited Jonathon Jennings in a panic signing the next day.

So, blackballed QB Colin Kaepernick has settled his collusion claim against the National Football League, which means the NFL’s dirty laundry will remain tucked away in a closet. Meanwhile, it’s reported that Kaepernick will receive $60 million, or more, in compensation. Imagine that. Paying someone $60 million to shut the hell up and go away. You think that would work with Don Cherry?

Okay, it’s agreed. Matt Kuchar is Scrooge McGolfer for initially chintzing out on an appropriate payment to his caddie, David Ortiz, after winning the Mayakoba Golf Classic and $1.3 million in November.

Ortiz expected a payout of $50,000, with which he planned to purchase a laundromat in Mexico. Instead, Kuchar rewarded his bag mule with a paltry $5,000.

Talk about taking a guy to the cleaners.

Kuchar, who had always come across as a goody two-shoes kind of guy, has been flogged fore and aft by news snoops and the rabble on social media, and it doesn’t seem to matter that he eventually made things right by Ortiz, forking over the $50,000. His payment and mea culpa were a day late and a dollar short. But here’s what I find myself wondering: Who are news snoops to tell Matt Kuchar how to spend his money?

“An under-reported aspect of the professional athletic life is the extreme cheapness of many competitors,” Cathal Kelly informs us in the Globe and Mail. “After all, it’s not really any of our business.”

Yet he made it his business with a 900-words essay.

For the record, it’s my experience that news snoops are some of the chintziest creatures roaming terra firma, even when on an expense account. They are kings of the freebe. So their sanctimonious scribblings are nothing more than a pot meeting a kettle.

On the subject of sanctimony, this from pompous Steve Simmons of Postmedia Tranna: “Is it possible to have an awards show of any kind these days without the winners turning into political moralists? I liked the world better when actors won awards and were wise enough to know that without scripts they had nothing important to say.” Hmmm. I liked the world better when sports scribes were wise enough to know that they have nothing important to say.

And, finally, it’s about singer and lesbian of note Brandi Carlile at the Grammy Awards: She had something important to say and sing about and, as one of the “misfits” she referenced, I was deeply moved. It was gobsmackingly brilliant. Beautiful. Just beautiful.

About Kyle Walters dropping the ball and picking it up by adding Willie J…is the Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ dink-and-dunk offence the problem?…the Argos asleep at the wheel…time for a change in the playoff format?…and the housing prices in Lotus Land

Wednesday morning coming down in 3, 2, 1…and will the last player to leave the East Division of the CFL please turn out the lights…

There are two ways of looking at Kyle Walters’ handiwork on the first day of the Canadian Football League livestock auction.

1) D’oh!

2) D-fence!

It seems to me that the Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ most pressing need going into free agency was a pair of hands capable of latching onto quarterback Matt Nichols’ offerings more than five yards down the field. A lickety-split, big-play, go-up-and-get-it guy who wins the majority of those one-on-one, game-changing battles with cornerbacks and DBs should have been at the top of the Winnipeg FC general manager’s shopping list.

You know, someone like Derel Walker would look good in Blue and Gold. Or DaVaris Daniels. Or Naaman Roosevelt.

I’d even be willing to put Duron Carter in that group, if only he’d cross his heart and swear to god and Bud Grant that he’d park the attitude. As it is, bringing the man-child wideout aboard would be like signing Dennis the Menace or Bart Simpson, so the B.C. Lions are welcome to him. (I’ll list the over/under on Carter wearing out his welcome on the Left Flank at 10 games.)

At any rate, we’re told that Walters pitched woo, also serious coin, at some of the three-down game’s prime pass-catchers on a frenzied Day 1 of the annual cattle call, but they played Lucy van Pelt to his Charlie Brown. Whoomph! Swing and a miss. Thus, he’s still looking for that special pair of paws.

That’s significant because, on paper, the Bombers offence is noticeably weaker than the group of 12 that failed to find the end zone in the West Division final last November.

Gone are O-linemen Matthias Goossen, who’d rather chase bad guys in B.C. (he’s going to be a cop), and Sukh Chungh, who’d rather be Mike Reilly’s bodyguard in B.C. than keep Nichols vertical in Good Ol’ Hometown.

Given that Nichols is as mobile as a La-Z-Boy rocker, that’s a huge hit.

There are, however, glad tidings. Very glad tidings. That is, Walters has convinced Willie Jefferson to do his QB pillaging at Football Follies Field in Fort Garry, so Winnipeg FC might only require placekicker Justin Medlock’s left leg to get the job done offensively in 2019.

I mean, who’s going to score on the Bombers? D-coordinator Richie Hall can simply dial up 1-800-GET-SACK and if Jefferson isn’t in the QB’s kitchen, Jackson Jeffcoat will be. Should the J-Boys falter, Beastmo Bighill will be right behind to tidy things up. Just call them the Monsters of Mayhem. It’ll remind the rabble of the Bombers jail-break defence of James (Wild) West, Tyrone Jones and Greg Battle.

So, ya, Walters coughed up a football-size hairball in his receiver search on Tuesday, and he has to do better. Good paws are still out there.

For now, though, Jefferson is a boffo consolation prize.

Here’s the question I found myself asking once the dust had settled on Day 1 of CFL free agency: Why is it that the available pass-catchers passed on Good Ol’ Hometown? We know Greg Ellingson abandoned Bytown for Edmonton because he wants to keep playing catch with QB Trevor Harris, but what scared the rest of them off? Like, is DeVier Posey serious? He’d rather run routes and dive for Johnny Manziel’s flutter balls in Montreal? So perhaps the hangup is O-coordinator Paul LaPolice’s dink-and-dunk scheming. The Bombers go deep about as often as Chris Walby passes on second helpings, and that can’t be appealing to the pass-catching divas. Then, again, maybe it comes down to the QB. Given a choice, do you want Bo Levi Mitchell, Mike Reilly, Harris or Nichols hurling the rock your way? I know who I wouldn’t choose.

Yoo hoo! Tranna Argonauts! Anybody home? Or did Jim Popp sleep in late? Seriously. All the plums had been plucked by the time the Tranna Argonauts GM joined the fun on Tuesday, and that’s a head-scratcher. No franchise needed a jaw-dropping, headline-churning addition more than the Boatmen, yet it was all fizzle and no sizzle. Chris Rainey, Mercer Timmis and Kevin Fogg aren’t going to put people in the pews at BMO Field in the Republic of Tranna, leaving us to wonder how low the head count will go in 2019. Do I hear an average audience of 10,000? Less?

Never mind attendance in The ROT. What will happen in Bytown now that the RedBlacks have lost starting QB Harris, one of their top two receivers, their starting running back, and one of their starting O-linemen? I fear the worst.

Assuming the league and workers come together on a fresh Collective Bargaining Agreement and there will, in fact, be a 2019 CFL season, it might become a total embarrassment. I say that because, based on Tuesday’s troop movement, the West-East imbalance of power has never been greater. You can’t compete without quality quarterbacking, and the Hamilton Tiger-Cats (Jeremiah Masoli) are the only outfit that has it east of the Manitoba-Ontario border. I can see the Tabbies finishing first in the East Division with a sub-.500 record, while the bottom feeder in the West Division is plus-.500. That would make a mockery of the Grey Cup runoff. I’ve never been an advocate of a one-division, top-six playoff format, but this could be the time to do it.

And, finally, the B.C. Lions will be paying two players—Reilly and Chungh—a combined $1 million per annum. In Lotus Land, that ought to be enough for them to afford a room at the local Sally Ann’s.

About the ‘what ifs’ of a CFL quarterback carousel…East, West or North, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers still lose…Roberta Flack and the Bombers…and 68 candles

And now for something different, a Tuesday morning smorgas-bored…

Let’s begin with a series of what ifs. Such as…

Mike Reilly

What if Bo Levi Mitchell takes his football and skedaddles south?

If that’s the case, a quarterback crisis will have officially arrived in the Canadian Football League. Maybe it already has.

At the close of business on Sunday, there were four elite QBs in the three-down game—Mitchell, Mike Reilly, Jeremiah Masoli and Trevor Harris. Matt Nichols would fit in as a Tier 2 guy who appears to be growing old in a hurry. After that, it’s a wasteland (ignore what the Cult Of Johnny at TSN would have you believe about their favorite lousy quarterback). There’s no one you would call a true No. 1 in Montreal, the Republic of Tranna, Saskatchewan and B.C. Add Calgary to the list if Bo Levi bolts.

Ricky Ray: Mugged again.

What if there’s a fierce bidding war for Reilly?

If Reilly puts himself on the market, I can see the B.C. Lions making a pitch for their one-time backup. Hard to imagine Chris Jones not preferring Reilly behind centre in Saskatchewan, rather than the brittle Zach Collaros or the erratic Brandon Bridge. Assuming Ricky Ray isn’t interested in any more muggings, he’ll wave the white flag and surrender to Father Time, creating an opportunity with the Argonauts. But, really, why would Reilly want to perform in front of 9,000 people at BMO Field? (I’d suggest the arrival of Reilly would provide much-needed oomph to the box office in Tranna, but selling three-down football to folks in The ROT is like trying to sell six-inch stilettos to an elephant.)

Anthony Calvillo

What if the Montreal Alouettes dump Johnny Manziel?

I believe the Alouettes are sold on Johnny Rotten, so good luck with that. An audience of 17,000 soon will be 12,000 or fewer. Call the undertaker. If they were to pursue and land Reilly, he would provide les Larks with their best quarterbacking since Anthony Calvillo and would also make them immediately competitive in a weak East Division, thus wooing customers back to Percival Molson Stadium.

Matt Nichols, still No. 1.

What if the Winnipeg Blue Bombers were to go after Reilly?

I think Mike O’Shea would lose his mind. He and Matt Nichols are attached at the hip. It would take the jaws of life to pry them apart. But if GM Kyle Walters has the opportunity to upgrade from a Tier 2 QB to an elite QB, he has to consider it.

What if Reilly found a home in Calgary?

Now there’s a radical thought. Imagine the main man from the main enemy camp joining the Stampeders. They wouldn’t miss a beat. Probably repeat as Grey Cup champions.

Trevor Harris

What if Reilly stays in Edmonton with the Eskimos?

It’s my guess that’s how it’ll shake down. But if I’m John Hufnagel in Calgary and I lose Mitchell to the National Football League, I’m making a serious pitch for Reilly. I’m just spitballing here, but do you really expect Hufnagel to go into a CFL season without a QB? Next year we could have Reilly in Calgary, Harris in Bytown, Masoli in the Hammer, Nichols in River City and five QB-challenged outfits. And another Calgary-Bytown Grey Cup game. Yawn.

Okay, it’s agreed: The path to a Grey Cup championship is less of a challenge for East Division outfits, because a .500 or sub-.500 record usually earns you a home playoff date. Sometimes it gets you first place and a bye. So perhaps it’s unfair to compare the Bombers’ failures to the Bytown RedBlacks’ successes in the past five years (one Grey Cup title, three appearances).

However…let’s not lose sight of the fact Winnipeg FC spent 21 seasons in the East. The Bombers brought the Grey Cup home twice in the first four of those 21 years. After that, nada.

Now, I don’t often get into number crunching, because I find it boring and it’s too easy to pick and choose figures to create false narratives. But here are some simple numbers that support the notion that it doesn’t matter where the Bombers hang their helmets—they’ve lost West, East and North since winning the Cup in 1990.

If all those Sad Sack numbers aren’t enough to put a Big Blue loyalist off her or his breakfast, consider this: Roberta Flack had the top Billboard song of 1972 with the hauntingly beautiful The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, and that’s the last time the Bombers ever saw first place in the West Division. That’s correct. Do not adjust your computer screen. It’s been 46 years. Ouch. Don Jonas was the Winnipeg FC quarterback back then. Trigger Spavital the head coach. Steve Juba was mayor of Good Ol’ Hometown and Ed Schreyer the premier of Manitoba. It would be another eight years before the Winnipeg Tribune shut down. Paul Henderson scored a big goal in Russia less than two months earlier, and the Winnipeg Jets were just one month into their inaugural World Hockey Association crusade. So, yes, it’s been a while.

And, finally, allow me close on a personal note this morning. I begin my 69th year on the third rock from the sun today. Never thought I’d see 68 candles on my birthday cake, but here I am. Still. Please don’t send cards, flowers or money. Save them for the funeral.

About Bo’s next move…why not the Winnipeg Blue Bombers?…MVP by default…Milt Stegall’s bowel movements…PM Trudeau The 1st getting his kicks…the CFL’s Mexican cruise…empty words from the commish on domestic violence…and other Grey Cup things on my mind

Monday morning coming down in 3, 2, 1…and, no, I didn’t do the couch potato thing all day Sunday because TSN’s pre-joust blah, blah, blah is too much for moi…

It’s all about Bo.

If Bo Levi Mitchell chooses to exit the Canadian Football League stage south, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers become a better team. Perhaps even a championship outfit.

If, however, Mitchell keeps his horse hitched in Calgary, we can expect same old, same old.

Yes, I realize the Stampeders are Grey Cup champions this morning largely due to the stingiest defensive dozen in the land, but this is a quarterback league. Mitchell is either QB No. 1 or 1A, give or take a Mike Reilly. He’s to the Stampeders what Sam Malone was to Cheers. What Simon was to Garfunkel. Remove him and you’re left with meh.

And meh would work for the Bombers, not to mention every other outfit in the western precinct of the CFL.

Naturally, Winnipeg FC general manager Kyle Walters will do some tinkering of his own between now and the opening kickoff next summer, but the most significant impact on the Bombers’ future fortunes hinges on what Mitchell does if a National Football League outfit comes pitching woo.

Consider the landscape should he try his luck in Trumpville: An elite QB in Edmonton, a Tier 2 QB in Winnipeg, no QB in Calgary, no QB in B.C., no QB in Saskatchewan.

I can feel the earth shifting under my feet, and it isn’t because I live in a high-risk earthquake zone.

Mitchell’s iffy status is the main storyline now that we’ve tucked another CFL season into the archives. The rabble in Calgary will be understandably antsy, but there are folks in four other western outposts who would be delighted to see him pack his bags.

The Canadian Mafia: Mike O’Shea, Kyle Walters, Wade Miller.

So, if you’re a Blue Bombers loyalist, go ahead and ask “Why not us?” I mean, the Bytown RedBlacks came into existence five years ago, same as The Canadian Mafia that oversees all things Blue and Gold. Yet the RedBlacks have been to the Grey Cup game three times, winning once. The Bombers have done diddly. Meanwhile, in those same five years, the Stampeders have been to the large game four times, winning twice. The Bombers still have squat. The main difference? Behind centre. The RedBlacks had an elite QB in 2016, when Smilin’ Hank Burris led them to their CFL title, and Trevor Harris emerged as a top-drawer QB this season. And, of course, the Stampeders have Bo Levi. So talk all you like about coaching and management, but it still comes down to the quarterback.

I think Mitchell was anointed most valuable player in the Grey Cup game by default. He did nothing extraordinary in the Stampeders’ 27-16 victory over the RedBlacks on Sunday at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton, but that was in keeping with the 106th edition of our national football championship. It was an unremarkable, drama-free skirmish that featured just one pulse-racing moment—a 97-yard TD sprint by Terry Williams of the Stampeders. It didn’t help, of course, that the large lads were playing on an ice-skating rink.

Snippets from the 106th GC game: Well, Team Blah Blah Blah on TSN got off to a crappy start, thanks to Milt Stegall. After Matt Dunigan mentioned how much he enjoyed sampling the liquid refreshments available during the week in E-Town, Stegall thought it would be a swell idea to share his experiences with pre-game bowel movements (defecate is the word he used) back in the day…Shortly thereafter, Hank Burris made a bizarre analogy about getting a kiss from a girl on a first date, and Dunigan insisted that he got a lot more than that. I think Stegall had another bowel movement on the spot…I assume TSN will bring back Davis Sanchez as one of the gab guys next season. Hopefully someone will have removed the bag of marbles from his mouth by then…My goodness. Micah Johnson of the Stampeders is a scary physical specimen. Sara Orlesky looks like tiny figurine beside him…Nice to see Brian Williams join the gab-a-thon. He’s a very good broadcaster and a very nice man…When the politicos came onto the field for the coin toss, I couldn’t help but wonder whatever became of the ceremonial kickoff. As I recall, Prime Minister Trudeau The 1st was quite adept at kicking a football…It figures. The first dude to make an impact play is Jonathan Rose, the one guy who ought not be on the field. The RedBlacks defender gooned a game official in the East Division final and his appeal of a one-game suspension should have been heard long before kickoff time on Sunday. It’s an obscenity that he was available to pick off a Bo Levi Mitchell pass…Okay, who stole Trevor Harris and what did you do with him? Did he get stuck in an elevator back at the hotel?…I kept waiting for John Hufnagal’s yappy, little lap dog, Dave Dickenson, to start squawking, but Coach Chihuahua was on his best behaviour all day. Bummer. I was hoping for some comic relief…I know Bo Levi comes across as cocky, arrogant and uppity, but I like the Calgary QB…Milt Stegall started the day by talking about bowel movements. Maybe it’s fitting that this game was kind of crappy, too…That was quite the celebration in the Stampeders’ changing room. I swear, they were acting like a bunch of drunken curlers.

I’d wager that every male news snoop who lent an ear to Randy Ambrosie during Grey Cup week in E-Town knows a woman who has been abused—physically, emotionally, sexually.

Yet they ignored the hot air the CFL commish spewed about domestic violence.

“In every case when we’re in possession of information that makes it absolutely clear that something terrible has happened, that is absolutely in contravention of our philosophy and policy on violence against women, we’re compelled to act,” he said.

Such hypocritical tripe. Those words are as empty as a hobo’s bank account.

What, Johnny Manziel smacking his former girlfriend in the head wasn’t terrible enough? Tossing her about like a rag doll wasn’t terrible enough? Dragging her by the hair wasn’t terrible enough? Threatening to kill her wasn’t terrible enough?

Apparently not.

The man who had Colleen Crowley “scared for my life” was welcomed by Ambrosie’s CFL. Open arms. TSN’s blah-blah-blah boys created a Cult of Johnny that glorified him to the point of constant nausea.

Well, let’s for a moment forget that Manziel is a lousy quarterback on a lousy Montreal Alouettes outfit. Instead consider this possibility: This woman-beater could one day be the starting QB in the Grey Cup game. Is that the optic Ambrosie is looking for in his phony quest to “end violence against women?”

Better question: Would news snoops actually challenge him on his BS in that scenario? Probably not, because they’re 99 per cent men.

Crisis lines in Calgary and E-Town will be on overload in the wake of the Grey Cup game. We know this because a University of Calgary study advises us that reports of domestic violence in Cowtown hike 40 per cent when the Stampeders are in the large match. In the host city, meanwhile, Mary Jane James of the Sexual Assault Centre says there’s always an increase in sexual violence after a major sports event, “most particularly against women.” Maybe they can get Ambrosie to help out on the switchboard.

Hard for me to accept that the Winnipeg Sun didn’t have feet on the ground in E-Town. Time was when the tabloid would dispatch two scribes to Grey Cup city. This time around, the puppeteers at Postmedia told Paul Friesen and Ted Wyman to stay home, so it was left for Edmonton scribes to handle big individual award wins for Beastmo Bighill and Stanley Bryant of the Blue Bombers. That simply won’t do. If you have a team in the league, you must be at the most significant event. But, hey, this is just another example of Postmedia treating the Sun like the red-headed, freckle-face stepchild. They aren’t allowed to work the Brier, Scotties or world curling championships anymore, so why would Postmedia send them to the Grey Cup?

The Winnipeg Free Press, of course, did the right thing and dispatched young Jeff Hamilton to the Saudi Alberta capital, and he delivered with a boffo piece on Bighill, the Bombers linebacker named top defensive player in the land.

Would have been nice if the Freep also had a columnist on site, but it doesn’t appear that the Drab Slab is in any hurry to replace the now-retired Paul Wiecek. Must be a cost-cutting thing. But, hey, now that newspapers soon will be feeding at the public trough (expect Freep publisher Bob Cox to be at the front of the welfare queue), perhaps a fresh voice is on the way.

Really good piece from Steve Simmons of Postmedia Tranna about Grey Cup week. He delivers some wonderful anecdotes that speak to the CFL’s appeal and its every-man vibe. The yarn about Ricky Ray wearing a tux and riding a bus to the awards banquet is boffo.

Alas, Simmons had to go and spoil it by shouting and waving his fist at clouds the very next day. He wants hotel lobbies to be declared horse-free zones, and let’s have no more talk of sex.

“The horse in the lobby thing was terrific theatre and excitement when it began in 1948,” writes the Debbie Downer of the Postmedia chain. “It was kind of fun, occasionally, over the years. It represented the crazy, wild spirit of those who attended the event. Now it’s staged and boring and unnecessary. I watched on Friday as the horse was paraded by bagpipers and surrounded by cellphone photographers in the lobby of the Chateau Lacombe hotel in Edmonton. If a horse can look either confused or frightened, this one did. There was no joy in any of this. It was just theatre of the absurd. And we should stop doing this. It has no meaning or spontaneity anymore.

“The same thing has happened to the annual Jim Hunt Grey Cup question. It used to be funny when the late great Shaky Hunt would ask at the coach’s news conference about their policy regarding players having sex on the week of the game. It isn’t funny or unique anymore, especially to the coaches who know it’s coming and have a staged answer of sorts. Jim Hunt passed away 12 years ago. His question has lived on until now. It’s time to put the question to rest.”

If you’re interested in contacting Simmons, you can find him at grumpyoldcoot.com.

And, finally, I think it’s great that the CFL has established a foothold in the United Mexican States. Now if they can only do that in the Republic of Tranna.

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