Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

Let’s talk about Pebble People getting a raw deal…McDavid, Draisaitl and who are those other guys?…dirty rotten scoundrels…no room in Cooperstown for cheats and Schilling…the Babe, booze and babes…Ponytail Puck…and other things on my mind

Another Sunday smorgas-bored…and in honor of Groundhog Day, I’ll pop my head out of the ground on Tuesday and let you know if there’ll be six more weeks of bad blogging…

Kerri Einarson, Val Sweeting, Briane Meilleur, Shannon Birchard (clockwise from top left) from Gimli are the defending Scotties Tournament of Hearts champions.

So let me see if I’ve got this straight:

National Hockey League players traipse willy-nilly across the COVID-infected tundra, and they’re granted a quarantine exemption from Manitoba’s top docs and politicos. Meanwhile, our curlers plan to shelter themselves in a Calgary bubble for the Scotties Tournament of Hearts, the Brier and the mixed nationals, yet they’re told they must go into isolation for the full 14 days once they return home from two weeks of hijinks in February/March. No quarantine exemption for you!

This is fair how?

Oh, wait. Silly me. I forgot that the millionaire hockey players provide an “essential” service (as if the Ottawa Senators are “essential” to anyone), while bunking down in five-star hotels and being whisked about in charter or private aircraft. The curlers? Apparently, hurrying hard is not an “essential” service. Pebble People are just everyday working stiffs blessed with good draw weight, so it doesn’t matter that they might have to carpool their way to and from Calgary. Or that they might be out of pocket if away from the salt mines for an additional 14 days. It only matters that the millionaire hockey players are happy.

That is so wrong.

Hey, I’ve never thought of hockey players as coddled and pampered. They have a special skill that means they take in rarified oxygen, but the same has to be said of our curlers, who are among the best on the planet. And Pebble People are the salt of the earth.

If hockey players deserve a quarantine concession, the curlers do too.

Quick thought on the Winnipeg Jets: Evander Kane has an oversized personality. Gone. Patrik Laine has an oversized personality. Gone. Dustin Byfuglien has an oversized personality. Gone. What are we to make of that?

We need to discuss the Edmonton Oilers, because they annoy me. The Oilers are Jesse James, Billy the Kid and 18 guys with water pistols. Seriously, they have more no-names than the Witness Protection Program. I watch the Oilers play and, 60 minutes later, it’s like Butch and Sundance: “Who are those guys?” They’re as memorable as the second man to leave a footprint on the moon. You know, Ol’ What’shisname.

That bothers me.

It shouldn’t, of course, because the Oilers became the Evil Empire in Good Ol’ Hometown during the 1980s, when they made paddywhacking the Jets a spring ritual during their Stanley Cup binge. It’s been a pox on the E-Town house ever since. But I can’t help it. I want Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl to succeed. So sue me.

I just don’t think the Oilers should stink. Just like the Montreal Canadiens, Los Angeles Lakers, Boston Celtics, New York Yankees and Green Bay Packers should never stink. It’s okay to root, root, root against any or all of those storied franchises, but you shouldn’t want them to stink.

Oh, I know, many among the rabble in Good Ol’ Hometown can’t get past that 1980s thing, and they’re probably still sticking pins in their old Slats Sather, Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier voodoo dolls.

Well, hocus-pocus rituals aren’t necessary these days. The Oilers stink on their own merit.

Yes, I realize they managed to muster up a victory on Saturday night, nudging the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-3 in OT, but they’re 4-6 and that’s no way to behave when your lineup features McDavid and Draisaitl.

Fashion note: Those reverse retro unis that the Oilers wore on Saturday night looked like poorly designed Orange Crush bottles, and the Leafs’ threads were absolutely ghastly. Seriously. Dark blue numbers on dark blue sweaters? The ghost of Humpty Harold Ballard lives on.

The Tkachuk boys, Brady, top, and Matthew.

Random observations two weeks into the 2021 NHL crusade: There’s a very good reason why so many players in the Hoser Division are at or near the top of the NHL scoring table: Nobody plays defence. There are no big, ugly, nasty teams that lean on you, just a bunch of fly boys. That works now, but not so much once they’re down to the final four in Beard Season and the Canadian survivor is required to deal with big bodies that try to slow them down…You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t join the chorus and rave about the entertainment level of COVID hockey. Much of the activity I’ve seen has been, to borrow a Danny Gallivanism, “as shabby as an old hobo’s coat.”…The Tkachuk brothers are soooo smarmy. Both Matthew and Brady are more irritating than a bad case of fanny fungus. They’re the dirty, rotten scoundrels who like to sit at the back of the class and fire spitballs at the nerds. They probably stole enough lunch money to prop up a third-world country. But, yes, I’d take either one of them on my team…The Ottawa Senators are an embarrassment best kept off prime time TV…It’s obvious the Hoser Division playoff positions will come down to this: The two teams that piddle away the most points v. the Senators will be on the outside looking in. That means the next week is pivotal to the Oilers’ post-season aspirations. They’ll be fed a steady diet of the Sens, meeting them four times…Yes, I still think a Hoser Division is a boffo idea, but I’m not sold on the baseball-style schedule. I understand the reasoning behind it, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it…Hands up anyone who knows what teams are leading the other three divisions. Actually, hands up anyone who can name the other three divisions…I was wrong about the Montreal Canadiens. They look legit. I was wrong about the Senators. I thought youthful enthusiasm would serve them well. I was right about the Calgary Flames. Their win over the Habs on Saturday notwithstanding, the Flames are a false bill of goods, and will continue to be as long as they have Milan Lucic dragging his knuckles up and down the freeze…Shouldn’t Sportsnet lift their regional blackouts and give us the full menu each night in this special season? If it’s all the same to them, I’d much rather watch the Jets-Habs than Canucks-Senators.

Part of Curt Schilling’s Nazi memorabilia.

The National Baseball Hall of Fame will go 0-for-2021, with no players receiving the required 75 per cent of the vote for enshrinement to Cooperstown, and that means “integrity, sportsmanship, character” won out over stats. Noted steroids cheats Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens struck out in this year’s balloting, as did Curt Schilling, who collects Nazi SS memorabilia and isn’t fond of anyone unless they wear a MAGA hat and attend Toby Keith concerts. It’s the ninth time Schilling has been snubbed by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, and now he wants his name erased from the ballot. “I’ll defer to the veterans committee and men whose opinions actually matter and who are in a position to actually judge a player,” he wrote in a self-indulgent, 1,200-word whinge on Facebook. He also labeled Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy a “morally decrepit” man, and accused scribes of lining up to “destroy my character.” I don’t know about that. Seems to me Schilling has assassinated his own character on social media, with transphobic tweets, a posting that suggested lynching journalists is “so much awesome,” calling Baltimore Orioles outfielder Adam Jones a liar for accusing fans at Fenway Park in Boston of dropping N-bombs in his direction, and giving thumbs up to the recent riot at the U.S. Capitol. Bottom line on Schilling’s NBHOF candidacy: “I don’t think I’m a hall of famer,” he said. Fine. Case closed.

Most peculiar take on the latest NBHOF voting was delivered by TSN analyst Steve Phillips. The former Major League Baseball exec drew a parallel between segregation and ‘roid cheaters Bonds and Clemens sticking needles in their butts. “There’s been performance enhancement in every era of baseball,” Phillips said. “Babe Ruth didn’t play against some of the best Negro League players of the time, players went to war, players stayed home, the mound was lowered, the DH was entered, ballparks have changed. So it’s been in every era.” Hmmm. I thought the Babe hit all those home runs (714) because he was a rare breed, but now I find out it was only because he never saw the spin on a Satchel Paige slider. Who knew? Actually, I have a different theory, and it has nothing to do with Jim Crow-era baseball or the boys of summer marching off to kick Hitler’s ass. To wit: Had the Babe laid off the booze, the babes and the speakeasies, and had he not missed playing time due to STDs, he would have swatted 914 dingers.

In his first natter with news snoops after signing with Toronto, slugger George Springer compared the Blue Jays to his Houston Astros outfit that cheated its way to a World Series title. “This (Jays) lineup reminds me a lot of them,” he said. Great. Vlad the Gifted gets a trash can. Bo Bichette gets a trash can. Cavan Biggio gets a trash can. Everybody gets a trash can. Bang the can slowly, boys.

Nice to see Sportsnet and, on a more subdued level, TSN have discovered the National Women’s Hockey League. Until last week, any talk of Ponytail Puck at Sportsnet was reserved for the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association, and it was mostly pathetic pandering from Tara Slone and Ron MacLean. Now Sportsnet Central is delivering nightly updates/highlights on the Isobel Cup season/tournament in Lake Placid, and there are numerous articles on the website. It’s fabulous.

An outfit from the Republic of Tranna is in Lake Placid. It’s called the Six. It has a 3-1-1 record, and stands atop the NWHL tables. Someone might want to clue in the geniuses at the Toronto Sun. I look daily but, unless I missed it, the tabloid has given its home team less ink than Bernie Sanders’ mittens. TorSun trumpets itself as the top sports sheet in the nation, but I call BS on that if they can’t squeeze in a few paragraphs about Ponytail Puck.

It’s puzzling that the aforementioned PWHPA has gone radio silent on its website since Dec. 21. Not a peep. The propaganda peddlers have stopped telling us that they “deserve” a living wage, that they “deserve” an affiliation with the NHL, that they “deserve” our undivided attention, and there have been no photo-ops with Billie Jean King. The Dream Gappers have $1 million of funding from Secret, and they’ve said they’ll stage a series of barnstorming showcase tournaments, but they still aren’t telling us where or when they’ll drop the puck. Silence is a peculiar way to sell your product.

Speaking of product, the Argos need all the help they can get to make the rabble in the Republic of Tranna sit up, take notice and find their way to BMO Field, so what do they do? That’s right, they sign a repeat offender of the National Football League drug policy. Martavis Bryant was first banished for four games in 2015, then sent to his room for the entire 2016 crusade, then punted indefinitely in 2018. The Canadian Football League needs guys like Bryant the way Bill Gates needs my spare change.

It was a double whammy of bad tidings for Rouge Football last week. Aside from the Bryant hiring, Scott Milanovich took his three Grey Cup rings and walked away from the E-Town E-Somethings before ever stepping onto the sideline at Commonwealth Stadium, and can anyone really blame him? Coaches gotta coach, and since we don’t know if there’ll be three-downs football this year, Milanovich opted for the sure thing as quarterbacks guru with the Indianapolis Colts. I just wonder if this means the second coming of Chris Jones to the E-Somethings.

Pam Shriver, left, and Martina Navratilova.

So, TSN ran a feature discussing the greatest athlete of all time in North American “team sports.” Names tossed about were Tom Brady, LeBron James, Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky. SportsCentre co-anchor Kayla Grey immediately added this to the debate: “Ask Serena Williams about all that,” she said smugly. Just wondering: What part of “team sports” does Grey not understand? Last time I looked, Williams is a tennis player. Her specialty is singles play. If, however, we were to consider her form chart in doubles, which certainly is a team sport, Williams isn’t the GOAT in the women’s game. It’s Martina Navratilova, who once partnered with Pam Shriver to win 109 consecutive matches and went more than two years without a loss. Check it out:

Grand Slam Doubles Titles
Navratilova 41 Williams 16

Doubles Match Victories
Navratilova 747 Williams 190

Doubles Titles
Navratilova 187 Williams 25

There are at least 37 women and 55 men with more doubles titles than Williams, including our guy Daniel Nestor with 95. Do the math. Williams’ 25 doesn’t spell G-O-A-T in “team sports” to me.

Really, it’s time for Serena-ites like Grey to cease with the GOAT narrative. She isn’t the greatest tennis player of all time (hello Roger Federer, Rafa Nadal, Novak Djokovic—take your pick), ergo she cannot possibly be the finest athlete in history. So do us all a favor and clam up.

The January numbers are in for coverage of female athletes in the two local rags (30 publishing days):

Sports front
Winnipeg Free Press-4.
Winnipeg Sun-1.

Total number of articles
Winnipeg Free Press-29 (plus 12 briefs).
Winnipeg Sun-3 (plus 4 briefs).

Number of days with female-centric copy
Winnipeg Free Press-21 of 30.
Winnipeg Sun-6 of 30.

And, finally, I think it’s great that so many people are willing to share their mental health challenges on Bell’s Let’s Talk day, but it would be even better if we did it more than once a year. I’ve always thought of mental health as an every-day thing.

Let’s talk about Howie Meeker and raccoon droppings for $2,000, Alex…fake news and Leavenworth…Vlad the Gifted and Ball Park Franks…Sid and Connor say it’s okay to be gay…and other things on my mind

A Monday morning smorgas-bored…and I never realized how little I knew until Alex Trebek showed up on TV…

In honor of Canadian TV icon Alex Trebek, who left us at age 80 on Sunday, let’s play Jeopardy!

CLUE: Golly gee and Jiminy Crickets, this man was a National Hockey League rookie-of-the-year who scored five goals in one game, a four-times Stanley Cup champion, an all-star, a Member of Parliament, and a broadcasting icon on Hockey Night in Canada.

ANSWER: Who is Howie Meeker?

CLUE: Howie died at the age of 97 on Sunday, meaning this man is now the oldest living Toronto Maple Leaf.

ANSWER: Who is Joe Thornton?

I remember sitting in the media room of the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver one night many winters ago, gnoshing on a plate of free food while having a pre-game natter with either Friar Nicolson or Sod Keilback.

Actually, it might have been both of the Winnipeg Jets radio guys. No matter.

At some point, Meeker joined us at our table and the chin-wag focused on Dale Hawerchuk, the captain and centrepiece of a decent Jets outfit. I suggested that Ducky had been off his game a bit, but Howie would have none of it.

“Ah, you don’t know a hockey puck from a pinch of coon shit,” he informed me.

I’m not sure why, but hearing Howie Meeker pooh-pooh my hockey know-how somehow made me feel good. I mean, the Squeaker was already a legend of the Hockey Night in Canada blurt box by then, so it was an absolute honor to have him break bread with a stray scribe from the flatlands and, at the same time, confirm that my grasp of the game was no better than a pinch of raccoon droppings. Never before had someone so famous told me I was full of crap.

I thought perhaps Howie was going to pull out his telestrator and draw some squiggly lines to emphasize his point, or maybe even whack me upside the head with the thing.

But no. Howie wasn’t being mean. He was being Howie. Blunt.

That was my only inter-action with Meeker, so I never got to know him in any depth. But, like so many others, I knew him from his HNIC gig, where he’d break down a play and instruct one of the boys in the truck to “Stop it right there!” or to “Back it up!” or, when a defenceman was beaten badly, he’d show the replay and, in a scolding tone, squawk, “What’s he doing down on his knees looking for nickels?”

Howie wasn’t into tap dancing, and his tell-it-like-it-isms surely livened up HNIC intermissions. He gave the show juice and made it fun.

My mom, mind you, thought Howie to be quite the noisy and annoying know-it-all, and I’m sure she would have been horrified by his table manners. But I got a kick out of the guy, coon droppings and all.

Speaking of former HNIC squawkers, Dave Hodge made me giggle with this tweet after jock legends Bobby Orr, Jack Nicklaus and Brett Favre had raised their voices in support of Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential election: “Thanks to Orr, Nicklaus and Favre, Donald Trump says the only channel that doesn’t broadcast fake news is ESPN.”

Damien Cox of the Toronto Star describes Trump as a “distinctly unpopular politician.” Ya, he’s so unpopular that only 70,903,094 Americans voted for him. That’s more than Barack Obama tallied in 2008 and ’12. It beats Hilary Clinton’s total in 2016. It’s more than double what JFK received in 1960. We should all be so “distinctly unpopular.”

The Washington Nationals want president-elect Joe Biden to toss the ceremonial first pitch at their Major League Baseball home opener in 2021. To which former broadcaster Peter Young tweets: “Trump counters with claim he’ll throw out the first pitch at Leavenworth.” That made me laugh.

Just wondering: Does Trump’s election loss mean Mexico doesn’t have to pay for his invisible wall?

Speaking of money, I read something the other day about Microsoft dude Bill Gates saying his three children would inherit only $10 million each from his $100 billion-plus fortune, because giving them “massive amounts of money is not a favor to them.” Excuse me? Ten million bucks isn’t a massive amount of money? C’mon, man, that’s like saying Babe Ruth was a singles hitter.

In the past MLB season, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. couldn’t hit his own weight. Literally. He arrived at Summer Camp a whopping 282 pounds, was promptly shifted from third to first base, and hit .262. But word out of Toronto Blue Jays Nation is that Vlad the Gifted is no longer Vlad the Bloated. That’s right, Vladdy’s lost 32 pounds of blubber and now tips the Toledo at 250, give or take a side order of Nathan’s Ball Park Franks. He also wants his old job back with the Tranna Nine, at third base. That would be quite a trip: From the hot dog stand to the hot corner.

I’m not convinced that the outing of player agent Bayne Pettinger moves the needle toward acceptance of an openly gay performer in the National Hockey League, but the enthusiastic support from Sidney Crosby and Connor McDavid might carry some sway with a young, closeted gay kid who’s thinking of quitting the game. Both Crosby and McDavid are fully behind Pettinger, a former Hockey Canada operations manager now with CAA Hockey, and if the game’s greatest players say it’s okay to be gay, then it’s okay.

If the day dawns when an NHL player chooses to come out, he’d be wise to follow the Pettinger blueprint: Find a trusted news snoop to tell the story, which Pettinger did in Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic, and do it during down time, which is to say the off-season. That way, the fuss and muss and circus is dispensed with long before training exercises commence, and he can simply get on with getting on.

Like most newspaper sports editors, Steve Lyons of the Drab Slab is expected to find room in his section for female sports. “It’s not always easy,” he wrote on Nov. 5. “The reality is there are less women participating in sports and there are less women’s pro leagues. That adds up—or I guess doesn’t add up to an equal number of stories to be written and published. We can’t control how many wire stories we get each day on women’s sports, so our solution to moving the needle in this area has always been to focus on being as equitable as possible on local sports. While I did once win a national award for a series on gender equity in sports, I’m a guy—and slow sometimes—so, I admit to needing to be poked and kept aware on this subject.” Toward that end, Lyons is bringing Andrea Katz on board, and she’ll be writing about the distaff side of the playground “once or twice a month.” That’s a good thing.

Rafael Nadal didn’t triumph at the Paris Masters tennis tournament, but much was made of the fact Rafa joined the 1,000-win club and trails only Jimmy Connors (1,274), Roger Federer (1,242) and Ivan Lendl (1068) in career singles victories during the Open Era. Not true. Rafa and everyone else is still chasing the great Martina Navratilova and her 1,442 singles match victories. And before they catch Martina, they have to catch Chrissie Evert (1,309 Ws). Just saying.

And, finally, another example of the shameful Torontofication of the Winnipeg Sun could be found on the sports front Nov. 3. It was a piece on Jeffrey Knox Jr., and don’t feel bad if you’re not familiar with the name. A vagabond football player last seen in frolic with the Ottawa RedBlacks, Knox Jr. signed to join the Toronto Argos for a 2020 Canadian Football League crusade that never happened, and now he’s facing an attempted homicide rap, among other things, in the U.S. He never played in Winnipeg for the Blue Bombers. Yet one of the geniuses on the Postmedia sports desk decided that his tale of woe was what sports fans in Good Ol’ Hometown wanted to read first and foremost on Nov. 3, rather than Ted Wyman’s real-news piece on local sports facilities and rec leagues going dark for two weeks due to COVID-19. They tucked Ted’s article on Page 4. Sigh.

Let’s talk about Buck-a-Year Sammy and One Buck Ballpark…Up Schitt’s Creek without a Bucky…0-for-life Lefty…Bones and grass…the well-rounded Blue Jays…hockey scribes have spoken…Canada on the world stage…and other things on my mind

Another Sunday morning smorgas-bored..and I love autumn, especially when there are no leaves for me to rake…

Sam Katz is no longer in politics, but he’s still playing politics.

Oh, yes, the former mayor of Good Ol’ Hometown has grown weary of waiting for city council to give the okie-dokie on a new lease for his Winnipeg Goldeyes’ downtown digs so, while the civil servants at 510 Main St. dither, Sammy thought it would be a swell idea to cast his gaze upon the landscape and find someone willing to play ball with him. By his rules, of course.

Lo and behold, he found an empty ballyard in Ottawa, also politicos anxious to take down the for-rent sign. What a happy coincidence.

Thus, Sammy signed a 10-year lease at Ottawa Baseball Stadium, where he’ll field a starting nine in the Frontier League, and he’ll happily pay $473,000 in arrears plus $125,000 in annual rent, which is exactly $124,999 more than he shells out each year to have his Goldeyes frolic in Winnipeg’s lovely One Buck Ballpark near The Forks.

And that’s the rub.

Buck-a-Year Sammy’s sweetheart deal expires on July 27, 2023, and the Scrooges on Main Street have had the bad manners to request more than $15 from the Goldeyes owner on a new 15-year lease. They expect him to pony up $75,000 in each of the first five years, then $85,000 per in the middle five, and $95,000 per on the back end.

The nerve. Have they forgotten all that Buck-a-Year Sammy has done for Good Ol’ Hometown?

If so, he isn’t shy about reminding them of his magnificence.

“It’s not the fact that what they’re looking for is outrageous,” he told Global News in July. “It’s just hard to swallow the fact that you spend $13 million to build this (ballpark) for the city and they give you absolutely zero credit or acknowledgement for it.”

If you listen closely, you can hear the sound of the world’s smallest violin playing in the background.

But, hey, if it’s only a pat on the back that Sammy’s looking for to get a deal done and soothe his bruised ego, that should be an easy fix. How about an annual Saint Sammy Day parade and picnic at Assiniboine Park? Maybe replace the Golden Boy atop the Legislative building with a statue of Sammy (clothing not optional). Name a street after him, or at the very least a cul-de-sac.

Don’t be fooled, though. Sammy isn’t looking for a pat on the back any more than Donald Trump is looking for another scandal.

He’s a businessman angling for the best possible deal to improve his bottom line, and no one can blame him for that, but his method is as greasy as a pan fry. Sammy’s believable like the back of a garbage truck is an all-you-can-eat buffet. He swears on a stack of Street & Smith’s Baseball Yearbooks that his intention was/is to keep the Goldeyes in Good Ol’ Hometown “forever and ever,” yet earlier this year he made it very clear that he might be inclined to haul ass out of town. He cautions that without a ballpark lease there can be no renewed tie-in with the American Association of Independent Professional Baseball.

“If we don’t have an affiliation agreement, we don’t play—there’s no Goldeyes, there’s no baseball in Winnipeg,” he said.

And he must have that agreement pronto. Like next month. Talk about a squeeze play.

Sammy insists that he doesn’t “threaten, never threaten” people, but that sure sounds like a threat to me and, not surprisingly, he’s already set up the gang on Main Street as the bad guys if he feels obliged to bug out.

“Ultimately, that will be in the hands of Winnipeg city council,” he told Ted Wyman of the Winnipeg Sun.

He repeated that mantra two more times in the natter with Wyman and once to Taylor Allen of the Drab Slab, adding this: “In Winnipeg, we pay property taxes and business taxes. In Ottawa, there’s no property taxes, no business taxes. In Winnipeg, we pay all the utilities. In Ottawa, they pay all the utilities. In Winnipeg, we take care of the field maintenance. In Ottawa, they take care of the field maintenance. And we don’t have to put up $13 million to build a park like we did here in Winnipeg. So, you can compare apples with apples.”

Yup, sure can, and some apples are just plain rotten.

Look, Sammy hasn’t come up with a unique strategy here. Sports entrepreneurs have been putting the squeeze on government since mortar was lathered onto stone to build the Coliseum in Rome.

It just sounds greasier when Sammy says it.

Connor Hellebuyck has been anointed top goaltender in the National Hockey League, but two boys on the beat believe he was stiffed. Murat Ates of The Athletic and Scott Billeck of the Winnipeg Sun are convinced Bucky was worthy of a second laurel—the Hart Memorial Trophy, as most valuable player. They might have a valid argument. I mean, let’s face it, where would the Winnipeg Jets have been without him? Up Schitt’s Creek. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

Loved seeing the Canadian cast and creators of Schitt’s Creek win all those Emmy Awards last Sunday. Seven in total. Now if we could only crack that Stanley Cup code.

Enjoyed Emmy host Jimmy Kimmel’s jab at us and our Stanley Cup drought that dates back to 1993. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough of this Canadian stuff,” the honorary mayor of Dildo, NL, said. “Canadians have won all the Emmys tonight. Canada has, like, 200 people in it. As of tonight, one out of every four living Canadians has an Emmy Award. Schitt’s Creek won seven of them…oh, they fell just short—this is a killer—if they’d won one more Emmy, they would have been able to trade them in for this…a Stanley Cup. But they didn’t, so we’re gonna keep it here for another 27 years.” Good burn. There’s just one thing Jimmy ought to know, though. That Stanley Cup propped up beside him? It’s like a lot of female orgasms—fake.

I keep hearing hockey people say the Stanley Cup is the hardest trophy in sports to win. They might want to ask Phil Mickelson about that. He’s 0-for-life at the U.S. Open. How long has Lefty been banging his head against the wall at the Open? Well, Tiger Woods was a scrawny high school freshman when he first teed it up. Papa George Bush was president of the U.S. Lefty has whiffed 29 times in total, and it should be obvious that it’s never going to happen. But he’s in good company. Hall of fame golfers Sam Snead, Greg Norman, Nick Faldo and Seve Ballesteros never hoisted the U.S. Open Trophy, either.

Hoops legend Michael Jordan, owner of the always awful Charlotte Hornets of the NBA, has gone into the fast car business as part-owner of a NASCAR team. How fitting. Now he can spin his wheels in two sports.

Speaking of NASCAR, Hendrick Motorsports was fined $100,000 recently for spending too much time in a wind tunnel. Curt Menefee can relate. He has to sit beside Terry Bradshaw for five hours every weekend on Fox NFL Sunday.

Here’s yet another example of our upside-down, inside-out 2020: The Oakland/Los Angeles/Oakland/Las Vegas Raiders are 2-0.

What did Chris Streveler say when he heard that Finnish squints had discovered a cure for the hangover? “I’ll drink to that!”

Good guy Dallas Stars head coach Rick Bowness says life inside the NHL’s Edmonton playoff bubble has been a mental challenge, mainly because players and coaches are confined to quarters. “Man, I haven’t walked on grass in over eight weeks,” he mused last week. Hmmm. Just a thought, but maybe Bones should try smoking some grass to chill out between games. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

I don’t know about you, but I find the Tranna Blue Jays a rather intriguing ball club. The Tranna Nine certainly won’t win the World Series this autumn, but I wouldn’t be anxious to bet against them two years from now.

It’s about Tranna Nine newbe catcher Alejandro Kirk: He’s the classic big league talent, beer league body. The guy’s listed at 265 pounds, but someone forgot to give him a pair of legs. They shortchanged him on the arms, too. An alligator has a longer reach. Two hundred and 65 pounds isn’t supposed to work on a 5-feet-8 frame. It’s like trying to stuff Dustin Byfuglien into your kid’s backpack. So what’s he doing on a Major League Baseball roster? Well, apparently he can hit. And they say he’s adequate behind the plate. But what about the body? Ya, the Blue Jays are concerned, because that’s a load of heft to be hauling around on a fire-hydrant frame, but it’s likely the reason so many are root, root, rooting for the kid. He’s one of those against-all-odds stories that gives us the warm and fuzzies.

Between Alejandro and Vlad the Gifted Guerrero, the Blue Jays certainly have given new meaning to the term “a well-rounded team.”

Blake Wheeler thinks everyone in Manitoba should be mandated to wear a mask during the COVID-19 pandemic. Fair opinion. But here’s another opinion that I think is fair: Winnipeg Jets head coach Paul Maurice should be mandated to drop Wheeler to the second line if the captain’s on-ice bromance with Rink Rat Scheifele means losing Patrik Laine.

According to NHL insider Darren Dreger, putting Laine on the TSN trade bait board “isn’t just eye candy,” and he informs us that general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff has been fielding phone calls about the Jets right winger. Well, duh. Any hint that Puck Finn might be available in barter should activate a GM’s spidey sense. It’s all about the return, though. It’s always about the return. So let’s not get our knickers in a knot over a Laine adios until we know who and what is coming the other way to compensate for the loss of his 30-plus goals.

Strange commentary on Chevy from Ken Wiebe of Sportsnet: “During nine-plus years as the GM, Cheveldayoff hasn’t been backed into a corner by a player, even when that individual has asked for a trade—sometimes multiple times.” Say what? That’s total bunk. We know of two players who requested relocation—Evander Kane and Jacob Trouba. Chevy dithered, but eventually caved each time, first because Kane decided to act like an intolerable dink and, second, Trouba was headed for free agency and the Jets would have received squat in return. What part of those scenarios does Ken not understand?

Selected news snoops are tasked with the duty of choosing the winners of various NHL year-end trinkets—Hart, Norris, Lady Byng, Calder, Selke and Masterton trophies—plus the all-star and all-rookie teams. This year, ballots were sent to 174 members of the Professional Hockey Writers Association, and that included four of the boys on the beat in Good Ol’ Hometown. Here’s how Ates, Billeck, Mad Mike McIntyre (Drab Slab) and Wiebe voted:
Hart Trophy: Ates, Hellebuyck; Billeck Hellebuyck; Mad Mike, Nathan MacKinnon; Ken Wiebe, MacKinnon.
Norris Trophy: Ates, Roman Josi; Billeck, Josi; Mad Mike, John Carlson; Wiebe, Josi.
Calder Trophy: Ates, Adam Fox; Billeck, Cale Makar; Mad Mike, Cale Makar; Wiebe, Quinn Hughes.
Selke Trophy: Ates, Ryan O’Reilly; Billeck, Phillip Danault; Mad Mike, Patrice Bergeron, Wiebe, Sean Couturier.
Lady Byng Trophy: Ates, Jaccob Slavin; Billeck, Nathan MacKinnon; Mad Mike, MacKinnon; Wiebe, Jaccob Slavin.
Masterton Trophy: Ates, Oskar Lindblom; Billeck, Bobby Ryan; Mad Mike, Connor McDavid; Wiebe, Ryan.

Had to laugh (rudely) at a Damien Cox tweet after the PHWA had exposed its final ballots for scrutiny last week. “Any possible reason why the HHOF can’t be this transparent?” he asked in an unveiled cheap shot at the Hockey Hall of Fame selection committee. Hypocrisy, thy name is Damien Cox. It just so happens that the Toronto Star columnist is executive director of the mystery group that chooses the Lou Marsh Trophy winner as our country’s top jock each year. He does not reveal the names of the voters, he does not reveal the names of all the nominees, he does not reveal the voting totals. That’s as transparent as a jar of peanut butter. Area 51 is less secretive. But, sure, go ahead and call out the HHOF. Talk about pots and kettles.

While lauding our current crop of athletes on the world stage, Steve Simmons of Postmedia Tranna made this statement: “Once upon a time in Canadian sport, there was Ferguson Jenkins and just about no one else on the highest pedestal of sport that wasn’t hockey.” That’s both wrong and ignorant. Fergie pitched from 1965-83. His peak years were 1967-74, when he had seven 20-win seasons, and he was still winning a lot of ball games at the back end of the 1970s (18 in ’78). Meanwhile, there was a steady stream of our “no one else” athletes reaching the “highest pedestal” in their sports at the same time:

Canada won five world curling championships, including two by our guys from the Granite—Dugie, Bryan Wood, Jim Pettapiece and the Arrow, Rod Hunter—and one by the Big O, Orest Meleschuk.
Sandra Post won the LPGA championship.
George Knudson

George Knudson won five PGA Tour events and a World Cup title with Al Balding.
Karen Magnussen won a world figure skating championship and a silver medal at the 1972 Olympic Games.
Nancy Greene was the 1968 Olympic champion in giant slalom and world champion in 1967. She won seven of 16 World Cup races in ’67 and became the first non-European to win the WC. She had 16 WC victories total.
Kathy Kreiner won ski gold at the 1976 Olympics.
George Chuvalo was ranked No. 4 among the world’s heavyweight fist fighters in 1968, No. 7 in 1970.
Elaine Tanner won three swimming medals at the 1968 Olympics.
Roy Gerela

Roy Gerela was a Pro Bowl kicker in the NFL and a three-time Super Bowl champion.
Bruce Robertson was the world 100-metre butterfly champion and a two-time medalist at 1972 Olympics.
Jim Elder, Jim Day and Tom Gayford won 1968 gold medal in equestrian team jumping.
Gilles Villeneuve claimed his first F1 victory in 1978.
Susan Nattrass won five world trap shooting championships during the 1970s.

Etcetera, etcetera and blah, blah, blah.

Like I said, to suggest it was Fergie Jenkins and “just about no one else” is wrong and ignorant.

And, finally, Paul Friesen of the Winnipeg Sun reports that Winnipeg Blue Bombers bird dogs are wandering hither and yon to unearth talent on their own dime. That’s just wrong, but it speaks to how bleak the times have become in the Canadian Football League.

Let’s talk about whistleblowers and the NHL…talking heads…with this ring, P.K. does wed…the Chris Streveler pub crawl…beer league hockey meets Ponytail Puck…the Tranna Maple Beliebers…D’oh boys…and other year-end award winners

Back by unpopular demand, one final Sunday smorgas-bored for 2019…and if you haven’t had your fill of turkey, here’s another one for you…

It’s time for the inaugural RCR Year End Awards, which are not to be confused with the Oscars, the Grammys, the Emmys, or the Tonys. Nor should they be mistaken for something significant. They are nothing more than the simple musings of a little, old lady who has too much time on her hands.

The Turkey Shoot Shield: To Akim Aliu and other National Hockey League whistleblowers.

A day of reckoning has arrived for NHL coaches, and there appears to be no statute of limitations on racist/sexist/homophobic language or bullying behavior, leaving us to wonder how deep a dive into the tombs they’ll take in a quest to root out the ghosts of wrong-doings past.

Bill Peters lost his job as head coach of the Calgary Flames for racist comments he made 10 years ago in another league, and for something he did a few years ago in the NHL.

Mike Babcock might never pull puppet strings from behind a players’ bench again because he did something stupid to Mitch Marner a couple of years ago.

Marc Crawford remains on forced leave from the Chicago Blackhawks today because he might have gotten physical with players in Los Angeles more than a decade ago.

We don’t know what Jim Montgomery said or did, or when he said or did it, but he’s no longer coaching in Dallas because of it. The Stars have only told us that Monty was dismissed for “unprofessional conduct,” a blanket statement that could cover everything from aiding and abetting Lee Harvey Oswald to piddling on the Grassy Knoll while intoxicated.

Whatever the case, the year closes with NHL coaches dropping out of sight faster than stoolies in a mobster movie, and by the time the turkey shoot is over no one but Sunday preachers and choirboys will qualify to fill vacancies behind the bench.

The thing is, I’m not sure Christ and his disciples could pass the sniff test today, because they were known to spend time with tax collectors and women of sketchy character..

The That’s Telling It Like It Is Trophy: To Scott Campbell, one-time Winnipeg Jets D-man and all-round good guy. Scotty took note of news snoops pumping Paul Maurice’s tires as the NHL’s top bench boss, and offered this tweet: “Thinking seriously about a Jets blog about Maurice, listening to some fans and national MSM that he’s a top candidate for coach of the year. Just because they have a job talking doesn’t make them right.” For evidence, see: Poulin, Dave.

The With This Ring I Thee Promise To Wed Wreath: To Lindsey Vonn, who no longer slides down icy mountainsides for a living. The former champion ski racer did a very 21st century thing by proposing to her main squeeze, hockey guy P.K. Subban. No word on whether Lindsey got down on bended knee, but P.K. said “yes.” Ya, that’s a real shocker. P.K. Subban taking a plunge.

The 99 More Bottles Of Beer On The Wall Plaque: To Chris Streveler. The Winnipeg Blue Bombers backup quarterback might become the first player in history to go directly from a pub crawl to four-down football. It’s been reported that Streveler has some workouts lined up with National Football League outfits, but they might want to have him take a breathalyzer test before he takes his first snap. Does he even know the Grey Cup parade has ended? Has he put his clothes back on?

The Pour Me Another One Medallion: Again, to Streveler. He’s been named the South Dakota Sports Celebrity of the Year, as if he needed another reason to celebrate. At this rate, he’ll show up at his NFL workouts with a blood-alcohol reading higher than Tom Brady’s career passing yards total.

The Hissy Fit Diploma: To members of the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association, who believe glorified scrimmages and mean-mouthing the National Women’s Hockey League is the best route to creating a one-size-fits-all operation for Ponytail Puck. The PWHPA prattles on about not having a league in which to play, even as the U.S.-based NWHL is comfortably into a fifth season that mainstream media chooses to ignore, and that makes zero sense. But, hey, a year ago at this time there were two non-sustainable women’s semi-pro leagues. Now there’s only one for the media to ignore. Maybe that’s the PWHPA’s idea of progress.

The Trash Talking Trinket: To Hilary Knight. The American Olympian and outspoken PWHPA member labelled commish Dani Rylan’s NWHL “a glorified beer league.” And what, PWHPA scrimmages aren’t? Fact is, the PWHPA boycotters are delivering the very definition of beer-league shinny. You know, get a bunch of players together, toss the sticks into a pile, pick sides, have at it, and hope someone notices. So far, Billie Jean King and little girls have noticed, but not mainstream media or the masses.

Biebs and the boys: Auston Matthews, the Biebs, Mitch Marner, Tyson Barrie.

The Tranna Maple Beliebers Bauble: To pop guy Justin Bieber, who somehow convinced Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and Tyson Barrie of les Leafs to drive down to Stratford for a bit of Boxing Day shinny. The boys played 4-on-4 with the Biebs and some of his childhood chums, and here’s the shame of it: Their pickup game is attracting more internet attention than the PWHPA or NWHL. Even longtime CBC news anchor Peter Mansbridge scribbled an article on it. Ponytail Puck can only wish.

The Gay Pride Plaque: We end this year and decade with Sports Illustrated anointing Megan Rapinoe—an out, proud and loud lesbian—its Sportsperson of the Year, and Time magazine sharing a group hug with Rapinoe and the U.S. women’s national soccer side, naming the lesbian-laden Yankee Doodle Damsels its collective Athlete of the Year. That’s serious gay power.

The What Part Of Anti-Gay Speech Do They Not Understand Trophy: To organizers of the Australian Open, who plan to salute Margaret Court next month. Ol’ Maggie, be advised, is a noted gay-basher. She would prefer to live in the type of illusory world created by Hallmark Channel’s makers of saccharine-sopped movies, where there are no Megan Rapinoes or Sue Birds or Elena Delle Donnes celebrating things like birth, marriage, parenthood, family and Christmas. Gays do not exist in Hallmark’s hokey, happily-ever-after world. Ah, but tennis legend Maggie knows that’s pure Pollyanna. She acknowledges that she if forced to share oxygen with gays, and she likes it about as much as Donald Trump likes witch hunts and whistleblowers. So she scrunches up her prunish face and tells us that there are far too many lesbians on the women’s tennis tour, that they’re kin to Hitler and Satan, and that there’s a global-wide gay lobby similar to communism, whereby the LGBT(etc.) collective is trying to steal the minds of your children. And the Aussie Open plans to shower ol’ Maggie with hosannas next month? Sigh.

The Gender Bender Give Your Head A Shake Shield: To the tall foreheads in the ivory tower at World Athletics (nee International Association of Athletics Federations). They don’t think South African runner Caster Semenya walks, talks or looks femme enough to run against the other girls, at least not at 800 metres, so they argued (successfully) that Semenya is “biologically male,” even though their own decade-long poking and prodding of the Olympic champion’s body confirmed that she’s a she.

The Flip Flop And Don’t Tell A Lie Laurel: To Mad Mike McIntyre of the Drab Slab.

Here’s what Mad Mike wrote about the Winnipeg Jets on Dec. 17: “Not having another alpha male like (Dustin) Byfuglien around to compete with would make anyone breathe a little easier. And that’s a sentiment I’ve heard this year from several people around the team, and around the NHL. Byfuglien can be a polarizing individual, one who marches to his own beat and pretty much does whatever he feels like. On the ice, the Jets haven’t missed Byfuglien nearly as much as people thought. The absence of one former superstar on the back end may have been a surprising catalyst for some much-need change.”

And here’s what Mad Mike wrote on Dec. 26: “A healthy, well-rested and motivated Byfuglien could be a difference-maker, especially to a Winnipeg blue-line that has undergone no shortage of turnover. It could be the ultimate trade deadline acquisition—without having to give up any assets in the process.”

So, if you’re scoring at home, Big Buff was a disease on Dec. 17 but, nine days later, he became the cure for whatever might ail the Jets. Double sigh.

The D’oh! Boy Bauble: To Postmedia. This country’s rag trade goliath is, of course, best known for sucking up to Andrew Scheer, pinching pennies, destroying newspaper competition in the colonies, and kicking quality news snoops to the curb. But it achieved unparalleled levels of dopiness by anointing Vasek Pospisil top male jock in the True North. I’m sure young Vasek is a lovely lad. He smiles frequently. And he did boffo work for our side in Davis Cup competition. But he wasn’t our best dude tennis player (hello Felix Auger-Aliassime and Denis Shapovalov), let alone the top jock.

The They Made Me Do It Scroll: To Scott Stinson, the National Post columnist. He was obliged to scribble an essay explaining Postmedia’s choice of Pospisil. I’m guessing Scott did so while holding his nose as he typed, which is a boffo trick on its own.

The Old Man Shouts And Waves His Fist At Clouds Cup: To Steve Simmons of Postmedia Tranna. As usual, the year was a massive bitch-a-thon for Simmons. He bitched about Marcus Stroman not saying enough during spring training. He bitched about award winners making political statements. He bitched about Canadians not buying books written by his friends. He bitched about name-calling “idiots” on Twitter by calling them (you guessed it) “idiots.” He bitched about the subdued salute the Tranna Boatmen gave retired QB Ricky Ray. He bitched about Canadian Football League teams not making certain players available for chin-wags during the season. He bitched about Kawhi Leonard not saying thank you to enough people, or the right people. He bitched about Todd Bertuzzi being included in the Vancouver Canucks home-opener celebration. He bitched about Andrew Harris playing in the Grey Cup game. He bitched about Mitch Marner’s dad and agent. He bitched about Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo sitting Vlad the Gifted on Victoria Day. He bitched about TV talking heads growing mustaches for Movember. He bitched about scribes at The Athletic promoting their work, even as he promoted his own work and that of his Postmedia colleagues. Other than that, he was a happy camper.

And, finally, The Auld Lang Syne Trophy: To you. Happy new year to you all.

Let’s talk about Kevin Cheveldayoff and slow news days…Winnipeg Jets draft-develop-and-D’oh!…just say no to Voynov…Drake the Courtside Drip…Raiders pulling a Cher?…bucking the boycott…Vlad the Gifted gets a day of rest…and the Drab Slab ignores a 40th anniversary

Another Sunday smorgas-bored…and there’s only one NBA final (not finals) but I’ve got more than one item on my menu…

Top o’ the morning to you, Kevin Cheveldayoff.

Well, you sure fooled me, didn’t you? I thought you were doing the Rip Van Chevy thing (read: snoozing) when—poof—you convince Laurent Brossoit that being a millionaire caddie in Winnipeg beats being a backup keeper elsewhere in the National Hockey League.

The question now is this, Chevy: When do the other three, four, five shoes drop?

Soon I hope, because I’ve had it up to my eyeliner with the free-wheeling speculation swirling around Jacob Trouba. The boys on the beat (hello Ken Wiebe, Murat Ates) were tripping over their dangling participles and run-on sentences last week trying to determine your next gambit for the top-pair defender, and I really wish you’d give them something juicy to write about.

I mean, both Wiebe at the Winnipeg Sun and Ates at The Athletic delivered chapters 4,375 and 4,376 in the Trouba Saga, and you know what I call that, Chevy? I call it a slow news day. Sloth slow.

Same thing with Mad Mike McIntyre over at the Drab Slab. He’s become so bored with your thumb-twiddling that he decided the cluster climb and body count on Mount Everest (120 reached the peak on Thursday, 15 dead or missing this year) are more interesting than Mount NHL, which you’ve been trying to scale for eight years. So he went Sherpa-speak on us with a yarn about a local dude who lived to talk about surviving the ultimate uphill trudge.

Mad Mike did, mind you, scribble a token piece on your Jets last week, a yawn-inducing recitation of Paul Maurice’s head coaching resume, confirming that a) Coach Potty Mouth remains the seventh-winningest bench jockey in National Hockey League history, b) he is also the losingest bench jockey in NHL history, c) you won’t find his name etched on the Stanley Cup, and d) he’s 52 years old.

You and Stevie Y in Detroit exchanging bubble gum cards would be more interesting than that, Chevy.

I suppose we should be thankful, though. After all, Mad Mike finally managed to get through an entire week without another installment in his whodunit novel Scandal, Jets Wrote.

Hey, maybe that’s what you can do, Chevy. Tell us what Mad Mike hasn’t been able to dig up. Give us the skinny on what went down in the changing room of that team you generally manage. That ought to generate some juicy, 72-point headlines and spice up an off-season that began at least a month too soon. But no. Don Cherry will turn his back on Bobby Orr before Puck Pontiff Mark Chipman allows you to hang out Winnipeg HC’s dirty laundry in public. If, that is, there’s dirty laundry to hang out.

That’s right, Chevy, I still insist on concrete evidence before I’m convinced that your players’ lair was as “rotten to the core” as Mad Mike and some among the rabble speculate.

The point is, news snoops need you, Chevy. Like Connor McDavid needs an escape route. Only you can save them from themselves. They’ve flat-lined. They’re like a 1960s, grooved-out DJ still spinning Monkees and Herman’s Hermits tunes as if they’re relevant.

You need to toss the boys on the beat a bone, Chevy, and it wouldn’t take much to arrest their attention. Trust me, news snoops like nothing more than shiny objects right out of the box. So give them something new to gnaw on between now and the NHL’s annual garage sale of freshly scrubbed teenagers next month in Lotus Land.

You’d be doing them, and us, a real large if you could see your way to handing them something that goes ka-boom. Like an upgrade at centre ice or on the blueline.

Anyway, Chevy, it’s good to know you still have a pulse. But the Brossoit signing is mostly meh. It was barely enough to bring Mad Mike home from the Himalayas. And it doesn’t change anything with your Jets, who were found wanting this spring. Improvements are mandatory. Get on with it. The news cycle is depending on you, Chevy. A 72-point headline awaits.

If you’re keeping score at home, Chevy heads to Lotus Land for the NHL entry auction in Vancouver (June 21-22) with just three shout-outs—second, fourth and fifth rounders. So much for that draft-and-develop mantra, I guess. More like draft-develop-and D’oh!

Not to worry, though. The only outfits still standing in this spring’s Stanley Cup runoff, the Boston Bruins and St. Louis Blues, are convenient reminders that there’s more to piecing together a championship-calibre squad than a GM’s handiwork on the draft floor. Here’s how the two finalists were built:
Boston: 9 drafted, 10 free agents, 4 trades.
St. Louis: 12 drafted, 3 free agents, 8 trades.

Since you asked, no, I don’t want to see wife-beater Slava Voynov back in the NHL. The Los Angeles Kings have already issued a communiqué stating he’s persona non grata in Tinseltown, but it’s guaranteed he’ll find suitors before his suspension is lifted midway through the 2019-20 crusade. Are les Jets interested in the rancid Russian rearguard? Seems to me that would be a good question to ask Puck Pontiff Chipman, so why aren’t local news snoops asking?

Our little ray of sunshine at Postmedia Tranna, Steve Simmons, posits that any NHL club signing Voynov will “sully their ethics.” Interesting. I mean, when the Hamilton Tiger-Cats brought the woman-beating Johnny Manziel on board, Simmons didn’t view it as a sullying of ethics. More to the point, he was so excited he basically piddled himself in print, gushing: “Johnny Football is coming to Canada. And where do I sign up?” He suggested that the Tabbies signing a guy who thumped out—and threatened to kill—his girlfriend would make the Canadian Football League “maybe more fun, possibly more fan-appealing.”

I’m not a hoops freak, so I haven’t watched five seconds of the Tranna Raptors’ push to the National Basketball Association final. But it’s my understanding that Kawhi Leonard and Drake are the leading candidates for playoff MVP. What’s that you say? Drake doesn’t play for the Raptors? He must. I mean, c’mon man, every time I call up the Sportsnet website I’m looking at pics of Drake and reading headlines about him. When I turn on my flatscreen to catch the latest highlights, there’s Drake running around on court like the escapee from a village that just lost its idiot. I hear the Sportsnet anchors flapping their gums about him. Ditto Tim and Sid. Alas, the rapper dude is nothing more than a greasy groupie, or, as Rosie DiManno of the Toronto Star describes him, “a jacked-up fan,” “spectacularly un-cool” and “the barnacle of blingy acolytes.” Rosie also mentioned something about Drake the Courtside Drip’s “mortifying buffoonery,” and I’m totally onside with her when she writes it’s “time for a Dear Drake kiss-off.” Somehow I doubt the geniuses at Sportsnet will get the memo, though.

So, the Green Bay Packers and Oakland Raiders are good to go for a National Football League dress rehearsal at Football Follies Field in Fort Garry in August. Any chance the Raiders will pull a Cher? You know, a no-show? We can only hope.

I wasn’t surprised to hear Cher cancelled her concert in Good Ol’ Hometown last week. What surprised me is that she’s still on tour. And that people still pay money to stare at her glitzy costumes and whatever potted plant she’s wearing on her head. Sorry, Cher fans, but your girl lost me when Sonny lost her.

So how’s that boycott thing working for female shinny stars? Well, the signing season for Dani Rylan’s National Women’s Hockey League has been upon us since May 15, and the grand sum of six players have checked in to buck the boycott. They are:
Boston Pride— Tori Sullivan ($5,000), Kaleigh Fratkin ($11,000), Christina Putigna ($5,000).
Connecticut Whalers—Shannon Doyle (undisclosed).
Metropolitan Riveters—Madison Packer ($12,000).
Minnesota Whitecaps—Allie Thunstrom (undisclosed).
At this rate, there’ll be no need for team buses. Cooper Minis will do.

My oh my, so much hand-wringing and teeth-gnashing in the Republic of Tranna last week, all because Blue Jays skipper Charlie Montoyo told Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to sit a spell. That is, Charlie failed to pencil Vlad the Gifted into his starting lineup on Victoria Day. Horrors! Some samples of the hue and cry:

Rosie DiManno, Toronto Star: “There’s just no measuring the tonedeafness of this franchise in the Shapiro era.”
Terry Koshan, Postmedia Tranna: “Dumb and short-sighted.”
Steve Simmons, Postmedia Tranna: “Does Mark Shapiro go out of his way to be obtuse and distant from Toronto? Sitting Vladdy Guerrero on a holiday Monday is just one thing—stupid.”
Rob Longley, Postmedia Tranna: “Sitting red-hot Vlad Guerrero Jr. on a national holiday is a big middle finger to fans with tickets and those watching on TV.”
Scott Mitchell, TSN: “Another example of a tone-deaf group running this team as strictly a business and a kinesiology exercise, regularly forgetting fans and the entertainment aspect.”

I swear, there hasn’t been this much fuss over a day of rest since God slacked off on the original Sabbath.

My favorite comment was delivered by Steve Phillips of TSN: “This was an organizational failure. Bad input leads to bad output. Montoyo didn’t understand what Victoria Day means to Canadians.”

Yo! Steve! You know what Victoria Day means to most Canadians? It means a day off. Vlad the Gifted got one. So give it a rest (pun intended).

And, finally, hard to believe that the Drab Slab ignored the 40th anniversary of the last pro shinny championship in Good Ol’ Hometown. I realize they don’t have anyone on staff who was there to witness the Winnipeg Jets’ third and final World Hockey Association triumph, but there’s a reason we have archives. And what, no one at the Freep knows how to work a phone? I guess it was more convenient to fill an entire page with the nonsensical natterings of the resident pen pals, Steve Lyons and Paul Wiecek, whose Say What?! shtick reached its best-before date about two years ago. Shame, shame.

Let’s talk about the way it was on the beat 40 years ago…hello Bobby…playing favorites…championship droughts…TSN and Johnny Rotten…calling St. Patrick…scandal on the links…and other things on my mind

Monday morning coming down in 3, 2, 1…and we called Victoria Day “firecracker day” when I was a sprig growing up in Winnipeg…us kids actually got to play with firecrackers and none of my friends ever lost an eye…

On the matter of lighting a fuse, it’s about the Winnipeg Jets.

While recounting the events of les Jets’ oft-turbulent run to their final World Hockey Association title on this very day 40 years ago, it occurred to me how obliging and honest the players were with their thoughts back in the day.

Kim Clackson, for example, pulled no punches when asked about the head coach, Larry Hillman.

“I can’t play for that guy anymore,” Clacker growled. “I’m tired of all the bull.”

You wouldn’t hear a guy like, say, Dustin Byfuglien go off like that on the current puppet master behind les Jets’ bench, Paul Maurice. Big Buff talks less than an Amazon parrot. On those rare occasions when the Winnipeg HC defender actually grunts something that passes for a complete sentence, it’s usually as bland as dried toast.

From what I can gather, it’s much the same with many of Buff’s accomplices in les Jets’ changing room. Listening to them preach the party line is like a day at the laundromat—all wishy-washy.

They don’t talk. They recite. Play the right way, move our feet, play a 200-foot game, blah, blah, blah and yadda, yadda, yadda.

It’s all cookie-cutter quotes from young guys schooled in the art of moving their lips while saying squat, and I’ve often wondered why news snoops even bother collecting the artificial bon mots the players deliver pre- and post-game, not to mention during down time.

Mind you, the players are mostly muzzled by an organization that believes the daily weather forecast should be kept top secret, and they follow the lead of a general manager, Kevin Cheveldayoff, who’s a practitioner of bafflegab. Ask Chevy for the time of day and he’ll explain the Julian and Gregorian calendars to you, but you still won’t know if it’s half past noon or half past happy hour.

Be advised that news snoops don’t get lousy quotes because they ask lousy question, so let’s reject that notion. They get lousy quotes because they get lousy, limited and rush-rush access to guys who a) would rather be sitting in a dentist’s chair, and b) usually have a PR flack hovering nearby to censor or cut short any interview that travels to close to the truth.

We had no such restrictions.

Friar Nicolson and sidekick Sod Keilback.

First of all, we traveled with the team. That is correct. The WHA Jets didn’t fly charter. The players mingled with the rabble on commercial flights, with assistant coach Sudsy Sutherland distributing the boarding passes, and that meant they sometimes were required to sit beside one of us news snoops, meaning myself, Friar Nicolson or Reyn Davis. As I recall, the players regarded that as cruel and unusual treatment, and I often suspected Sudsy of using his boarding-pass powers as punishment.

But, ya, we were part of the traveling party, and practical joker Willy Lindstrom would prank us with his stink bombs and sneezing powder as often as he would a teammate.

We also rode the team bus to and from the airport, to and from the rink. I normally sat in either of the front two seats, right side, across the aisle from Hillman, his successor Tom McVie, John Ferguson and Sudsy. There was an unwritten code: What happens on the bus stays on the bus.

It sometimes became frosty, depending on what Reyn or I had written that day or what Friar had said on air the night before, and we would be blunt in our critiques of the team.

Some examples of my scribblings…

“Jets return from their week-long road trip this afternoon, and if they travel the same way they play hockey, they’ll all come home on different planes.”
“There are too many passengers on this team and the list gets longer every day. There are players more interested in getting an aisle seat on an airplane than digging a puck out of a corner.”
“Winnipeg management doesn’t like to hear references to Houston, but the players who came from the Aeros are the blood and guts of this team and the Winnipeg holdovers are living off them.”

You think any players wanted to sit beside me on the bus or flight home after reading that?

In general terms, however, it was an agreeable arrangement, in part because I like to think that Friar, Reyn and myself recognized we were in the players’ space, so we didn’t tell tales out of school.

In terms of dealing with the players post-game, post-practice, again, we had open access. I don’t recall any player hiding in the showers. And we weren’t required to go through a PR flack to get an audience. We just sat down beside them in the changing room.

By way of comparison, if you want any insight into today’s players you don’t go to the dressing room or grovel to a PR guy—you log in on Twitter, Instagram or another social media platform.

Pity that.

I still recall the first time I stepped inside les Jets’ lair. It was the season of 1977-78, and Lars-Erik Sjoberg and Bobby Hull, both with towels wrapped around their mid-sections, stood nearby. This was their conversation as they sized me up:

Sjoberg: “It looks like we’ve got a new reporter with the team.”

Hull: “Just another asshole to try and stir up shit.”

Nice to meet you, too, Bobby.

I’ve made this confession once or twice, but I’ll repeat it again: You aren’t supposed to cheer in the press box, but I was silently root, root, rooting for the 1978-79 Jets to win the final WHA title. They were a real good bunch of guys, and I was partial to the players who’d come over from Houston. If a news snoop tells you he/she doesn’t have favorites, trust me, he/she is lying.

Yes, it was 40 years ago this very day when les Jets won the Avco World Trophy to bring the curtain down on the WHA. And it’s been almost 30 years since the Winnipeg Blue Bombers brought the Grey Cup home. Thank goodness for our curlers, the Goldeyes, our university athletes and other amateurs who’ve delivered the goods.

Good grief. Did Matthew Scianitti and Marshall Ferguson of TSN actually spend a portion of their first chin-wag from the Hamilton Tiger-Cats training camp talking about Johnny Manziel? As sure as the great Ticat Garney Henley played two ways, they did. “How good does Jeremiah Masoli’s body language look now that we are a year removed, thankfully, from the Johnny Manziel saga?” Scianitti asked Ferguson. Sigh. Will the TSN talking heads ever get past Johnny Rotten? Apparently not.

If the Ottawa Senators can do something stupid, bet on them doing it. And hiring Patrick Roy as head coach would qualify as stupid.

I don’t know which I’ve seen more often, Kawhi Leonard’s buzzer beater in the NBA playoffs or Vlad the Gifted’s first two dingers with the Tranna Blue Jays. Either way, TSN and Sportsnet can stop showing those replays any time now.

Fashion note: Apparently Brooks Koepka isn’t going to let success go to his clothes. I mean, that NIKE cap that Koepka wore while successfully defending his PGA Championship on Sunday looks like something he picked up in a thrift shop. We’re talking butt ugly.

And, finally, this is what passes for scandal in golf these days: A chain-smoking John Daly rides a cart instead of walking, Brooks Koepka refuses to kiss his lingerie model girlfriend Jena Sims (twice), and Jordan Spieth zips his lips when the Associated Press comes calling for an interview. Whatever happened to the good old days when it wasn’t a scandal until it involved sex, drugs and a club-wielding bride (hello, Tiger Woods)?

Let’s talk about the Puck Pontiff not talking…the Winnipeg Jets rumor mill…“ruffled feathers” around the NHL…Vlad the Gifted arrives in The ROT…Harry Potter falling on his sword…those tree-hugging Leafs…and other things on my mind

Another Sunday smorgas-bored…and be advised that this essay is under video review for goaltender interference…

The players (some), the head coach and the general manager have had their say—and the pundits with keyboards and microphones have chewed on the morsels served up—but the voice that matters most has yet to be heard.

That, of course, would belong to Puck Pontiff Mark Chipman, co-bankroll of the Winnipeg Jets.

It’s a given that change is on its way this summer, and it won’t be as minimal in volume as last year when the GM, Kevin Cheveldayoff, lost Paul Stastny to the Vegas Golden Knights and Toby Enstrom to Sweden before going radio silent. Those two departures left Chevy with a group inferior to the outfit that barnstormed its way to the National Hockey League final four in spring 2018, but, given that eight months passed before he was of a mind to address his needs, it didn’t appear to bother him.

Well, today Chevy has ample bother.

Start with the free agents. He has more of them than Don Cherry has ugly suits. Can’t keep them all, unless Chevy’s bean counters are miracle-working mathematicians, and those he retains won’t come at bargain-bin pricing. Thirty-goal men Kyle Connor and Patrik Laine, along with top-pair defender Jacob Trouba, will line up like oinkers at a feed trough. Snort, snort snort…munch, munch, munch. There goes the salary cap.

Trouba’s iffy status, meanwhile, is a serious challenge. Assuming he refuses to sign long term, do you trade him or risk losing him for nada a year from now? And what do you accept in barter?

Then there are the “ruffled feathers” that head coach Paul Maurice (or someone higher up on the food chain) needs to “flatten out” before autumn. And what of the sourpuss team captain, Blake Wheeler, a belligerent man who emphasizes his shocking distaste for news snoops by telling them to eff off?

Add it all up and Chevy has a plateful of worry, not to mention the potential for an off-season of sweeping, dramatic change.

Before the GM can make a move, however, he requires the okie-dokie from Puck Pontiff Chipman.

Lest there be doubt, I remind you of a remark Chipman made during a Hockey Night In Canada tete-a-tete a few years back.

“Chevy and I talk pretty much daily,” he said. “Those are his calls to make, but it would depend on the extent of the term or the quantum of the contract you’re talking about (that) would, to a certain degree, determine the level of involvement that he would require me. The lengthier the deal or the more impactful the deal, the more I would be involved on a consultant basis.”

I’d say signing Puck Finn and Connor to lucrative contracts belongs in the “impactful” file. Ditto any trade involving Trouba. Thus, Chipman has the final say, and that means veto power.

I’m guessing the Puck Pontiff might also have some interesting things to say about “ruffled feathers” and Wheeler’s foul mouth, but none of the boys on the beat have sought his thoughts for the record, or he’s declined to go public. Either way, it’s his voice that matters most and it would be nice to hear it.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad Chipman doesn’t do the wingnut thing like that Humpty Harold Ballard wannabe in Ottawa, Eugene Melnyk. But there are times when the Howard Hughes recluse routine doesn’t play well. Like at the end of a season gone wrong. Seems to me that Chipman would want to get in front of the rumors and boorish behavior that are rubbing the squeaky clean off his franchise.

Speaking of gossip, another week and still no hard evidence of a fractured Jets changing room, just friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend rumor of a parking lot dustup between Puck Finn and Adam Lowry, and other alpha male skirmishes.

Don’t run off with the notion that les Jets are the sole NHL outfit wrestling with “ruffled feathers.” For evidence, see James Neal in Calgary. Also see Nazem Kadri, Mike Babcock, Kyle Dubas and Auston Matthews in the Republic of Tranna.

For the record, I don’t have a problem with Dustin Byfuglien and other Jets skipping out on the season-over chin-wag with news snoops. Big Buff, who only mutters something when the moon is full, seldom has anything interesting to offer, and the same can be said for goaler Connor Hellebuyck, who mostly talks about the opponent’s “luck.” Having said that, if Buff is going to wear an ‘A’ on his jersey, he ought to be available.

I don’t know about you, but I got real creepy vibes from the Rink Rat Scheifele-Wheeler segment of the farewell pressers. Not that Rink Rat was asked a lot of questions, but he was in another world, almost to the point of being the alpha dog’s lap dog. It was a bad optic and might have said more than any words that were spoken.

Of all the post-season blah, blah, blah that I’ve read or heard about Winnipeg HC, I found this tweet from former TV guy Joe Pascucci most interesting: “Another concern, of many, I have about the Jets and the changes sure to come this off season is that they’ll become a team that is 2 years away from being 2 years away.”

There was only one thing worse than the horrible cross-checking call on Cody Eakin in Game 7 of the San Jose Sharks-Vegas playoff series—the Golden Knights penalty killing. The Knights can squawk as loud and as long as they like about rot-your-socks reffing, but you can’t surrender four powerplay goals in four minutes.

This is rich. Anthony Stewart, one of the talking meatheads on Sportsnet’s Hockey Central At Noon, thinks Stanley Cup matches on the West Coast should wrap up no later than 9:30 p.m. ET. That way, fans in the Republic of Tranna wouldn’t have to go nighty-night before the finish. Sigh. That would require a 3:30 p.m. opening faceoff on the Left Flank, at which time most folks are still at work or in school. Only someone in The ROT would be obnoxious enough to suggest the rest of us alter our day to satisfy their needs.

So, how did the 22 Sportsnet experts score on their predictions for Round 1 of the Stanley Cup tournament? Can you say F for failure, kids? Here’s the final tally:

Apparently the Tranna Blue Jays have a new player. What was my first clue? The 11 stories/videos featuring Vladimir Guerrero Jr. on the Sportsnet website main page Saturday morning. I swear, the last time there was this much ballyhoo about a new kid, three wise dudes riding camels showed up bearing gifts. There was no gold, frankincense or myrrh for Vlad the Gifted at his Major League Baseball baptism on Friday night in the Republic of Tranna, but a fawning media showered him with slobber, hype and extreme overkill.

How could I tell the arrival of Vlad the Gifted was a really big deal for news snoops in The ROT? They actually stopped writing and talking about Drake for an entire day.

So who gets the first statue, Vlad the Gifted or Auston Matthews? Inquiring sculptors would like to start their chisels.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s approval rating is now lower than Donald Trump’s. Apparently Kyle Dubas will hold a press conference and take the blame for it.

Seriously, has a sports executive ever fallen on as many swords as Dubas did during his season-over gab session with news snoops? I think he took the rap for everything but the rising flood waters in Eastern Canada. Among other things, the Harry Potter lookalike GM of the Tranna Maple Leafs pled guilty to botching the prolonged Willy Boy Nylander contract negotiations, the Game 7 playoff ouster vs. the Boston Bruins, and les Leafs’ wretched penalty-killing units. It’s noteworthy that head coach Mike Babcock did not disagree with any of that.

Initially, I thought it was admirable of Dubas to repeatedly perform harakiri, but his buck-stops-here mantra rang as phony as a politician’s promise when he accepted blame for les Leafs’ penalty killing woes. You could see his nose growing as his lips moved, and I’m pretty certain that his pants were also on fire.

Loved Brian Burke’s take on the Dubas-Babcock tandem: “They’re both Greenpeace guys. They don’t like rough hockey, they don’t like tough hockey, they don’t like mean hockey, they want skating, skilled guys.” I don’t know about you, but I think it only fitting and proper that a team named Leafs should be run by tree huggers.

And, finally, when does Burke replace Don Cherry on Curmudgeon’s Corner on Hockey Night in Canada? We all know it’s going to happen, so get on with it.

About Johnny Four Picks and Vince Ferragamo…what they’re saying about Johnny…a good read in the Freep…Daren Millard pulls the pin on Sportsnet…the Drab Slab dumps Scotty…how did all that Tranna copy get in my Winnipeg Sun?…the Houston Astros ninth-inning tolerance on domestic violence…and other things on my mind

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

To say Johnny Manziel’s debut as a starting quarterback in three-down, 12-man football was a disaster is to say the Hindenburg had a bumpy landing.

Seriously. This was bad. Hermann Goering had a better day at Nurenburg.

As first impressions go, this was your daughter’s high school prom date showing up at the door with a six-pack and hitting on her mom.

Johnny Football came, he saw, he did not conquer. He became Johnny Four Picks. He spent much of the night in flight, frantically trying to escape the clutches of large, angry men. I swear, we haven’t seen a man run this much since Forrest Gump decided to skedaddle across America.

Those expecting, or hoping, to see the second coming of Joe Theismann or Doug Flutie instead saw ample evidence that Manziel might be Vince Ferragamo the Sequel.

Ferragamo, in his brief fling with the Montreal Alouettes in 1981, never could quite figure out the 12th man on defence in the Canadian Football League, that guy who kept popping up like an uninvited house guest. That 12th man pilfered 25 of Vince’s passes. Manziel might toss that many picks by Labor Day.

None of this is to suggest that Johnny Four Picks was solely responsible for the 50-11 paddywhacking the Als absorbed at the hands of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Friday night at Percival Molson Stadium in Montreal, but let’s not sugar-coat what went down in his CFL baptism: He was gawdawful. Here’s the bottom line for the National Football League washout and former Heisman Trophy winner with Texas A&M: 20 tosses, 11 completions, 104 yards, 0 touchdowns, four interceptions.

Manziel finished the game where he should have started it—on the sideline. He was as unpolished as an old hobo’s shoes.

Apparently, this all escaped the notice of one TSN gum-flapper. Davis Sanchez, who loses credibility each time he parts his lips to allow unfiltered thought to become words, actually gave Manziel a passing grade in three of four categories.

“We’ll have to equate it to an SAT without really studying,” Sanchez said before handing out a report card that included a B (composure), a C+ (creativity), a C- (arm strength/accuracy), and one F (decision-making).

That’s like giving Neymar a gold star for staying on his feet for more than five seconds. Don’t we all wish we had Sanchez to grade our exams in school?

Sanchez wasn’t the only talking head at TSN to fluff up Manziel’s face plant on Friday. Jock Climie and Glen Suitor both tried to apply lipstick to that pig.

Here’s Suitor: “We have to temper our analysis. There were flashes. We saw him escape, we saw him create, we saw him improvise.”

Here’s Climie: “Is there a positive in this? It looked to me like Manziel was just going out there and learning. It looked to me like he stopped keeping score, which is the right thing to do. It didn’t matter, one, two, three interceptions…he just kept slinging it, because he’s learning the game. If he can keep that mentality, I think this could be a growing process. I think he will learn more from doing what he’s doing here than he will learn from sitting on the bench. I’m just saying, there could be a positive to this, and we did see some positives. Some of his flashes of brilliance, some of his scrambling around, I thought was impressive.”

It was left for two former quarterbacks, Matt Dunigan and Henry Burris, to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the unvarnished truth.

“After four practices, this is what you expect,” Dunigan growled when it was all over. “It’s a process that’s painfully long and it takes a lot of effort, more than four practices. This was fully expected. I don’t think they got anywhere down the road by starting him tonight.”

“You can’t speed up that process,” Burris sang in concert. “That was a bad decision by (Montreal). Vernon Adams should have been the starting quarterback.”

Most shameful comment about Manziel was delivered by old friend Rod Black, who, in his post-match analysis, said, “He’s faced a lot of adversity, let’s face it, in his life.” Oh, FFS, Blackie. Most of Manziel’s wounds have been self-inflicted, the product of booze, drugs, barroom brawling and leading a frat boy lifestyle. You want to talk about adversity? Talk about Colleen Crawley. That’s the woman Manziel beat up and threatened to kill.

Terrific piece in the Winnipeg Free Press by Mike Sawatzky about the night the Winnipeg Blue Bombers blew the doors off the aforementioned Ferragamo and a talent-laded Alouettes outfit, 58-2, in 1981. It’s a lengthy read but worth the time, because Sawatzky talked to all the key players and they provide delicious anecdotal insight.

I note that former defensive tackle Bryant Turner signed a one-day contract so he could retire as a Blue Bomber. Hmmm. I can think of plenty of guys I wish had only signed with Winnipeg FC for one day then got lost, starting with Jeff Reinebold. Actually, Jeff was a fun guy. He just wasn’t cut out to be a head coach.

Not sure what to make of Daren Millard’s departure from Sportsnet after 20 years. I remember him as a freshly scrubbed kid broadcaster in Winnipeg, and I believe it was Joe Pascucci who had the smarts to bring him from Brandon to River City. Daren is one of the truly good guys, and there were days when his voice of reason was the only thing that made Hockey Central at Noon bearable. Having said that, there were times last winter when I didn’t think his heart was in it. Perhaps having Damien Cox as a guest once too often sours a guy.

Also leaving his gig is Scott Campbell, who, for the past couple of National Hockey League seasons, has been scribbling good stuff about the Jets for the Free Press. Apparently Scotty is the victim of budget cuts, or the Drab Slab plans to spend its freelance coin in other areas. Perhaps they’ll use it to cover local sports other than the pro outfits in town.

A week ago, I detailed how both the Freep and Winnipeg Sun had abandoned their own community, vis-a-vis local amateur athletes. Well, Exhibit A would be the July 31 edition of the Sun, which had 16 sports pages (including cover). Here’s the damning evidence of neglect:

* 5-page feature (including cover) on Tranna Blue Jays prospect Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who’s with the Triple A Buffalo Bisons.
* 1 page on the trade that sent Tranna Blue Jays relief pitcher Roberto Osuna to the Houston Astros.
* 1 page on pro golfer Brooke Henderson (with a small sidebar on Rink Rat Scheifele of the Winnipeg Jets joining the field for the Players Cup tournament, which tees off at Southwood later this month).
* 2-page feature on now-retired Jarome Iginla, the face of the Calgary Flames for so many years.
* 1 page on Johnny Manziel.
* 1 page on the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
* 1 page on the Tranna Argonauts.
* 1 page on the Ottawa RedBlacks.
* 2 pages of agate.
* 1 page on the Winnipeg Goldeyes.

Do the math and it adds up to seven of 16 pages devoted to athletes and outfits from the Republic of Tranna—in a Winnipeg newspaper!

Boffo stuff from John Lott of The Athletic Tranna on the Blue Jays unloading relief pitcher Roberto Osuna, who still faces a domestic violence charge: “Good riddance. Whatever their motives—and the tea leaves present murky messages—the Blue Jays did a good thing. Not because of the return they received in the trade, but because they rubbed out an unsightly stain on an organization looking for model citizens to lead their impending youth movement.”

The Houston Astros, who accepted Osuna in barter with the Blue Jays, claim to have a “zero tolerance” policy on domestic violence. As if. What the Astros have is “ninth-inning tolerance.” That is to say, as long as Osuna can get batters out in the ninth inning and help them win another World Series title, they don’t care if he hits women.

Jerry Jones, right, gabbing and yukking it up.

This is rich: Jerry Jones has threatened to fire any of his Dallas Cowboys who stay in the lockerroom or take a knee during the playing of the American national anthem prior to NFL games, yet he’s been observed talking and yukking it up, also wearing a Cowboys ball cap, while the Star Spangled Banner played at practice. Dallas sportscaster Dale Hansen called out the Cowboys owner for his hypocrisy.

And, finally, best quote of the week came from former Calgary Flames radio play-by-play guy Peter Maher, a very nice man who had this to say about now-retired forward Jarome Iginla’s 60-plus fights in the NHL: “I think he won them all. At least he did on the radio.”

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