Winnipeg Jets Hall of Fame

Let’s talk about sayonara, Sara…a salute to Scotty…greatest Oilers vs. Jets…failing the sniff test…gay golden girls and role models on the ice and hardwood…a clown act on court…balls and strikes and robots…park it, Cam…goodbye Queen Liz…and other things on my mind

Top o’ the morning to you, Sara Orlesky.

Gonna miss watching you do your thing on Rouge Football sidelines. Truly enjoyed your yadda, yadda, yadda during Canadian Football League broadcasts on TSN. Very professional, with a nice blend of knowledge, insight, good-hearted banter, and girl-next-door charm. That’s role model material for little and big girls everywhere.

And, hey, I don’t suppose there are many better ways of going out than working the Banjo Bowl in front of a packed ballyard of Melon Heads and blue-and-gold beer-snakers in Good Ol’ Hometown. Hope you didn’t let them drag you up to the Rum Hut while you were still on the clock yesterday.

Best of luck at your new gig with the Winnipeg Jets. I’m not sure the local shinny side deserves you, Sara, but hopefully you can help Captain Cranky Pants find a personality.

Speaking of guys who wear/wore the ‘C’ with the Jets, so sad to learn of the passing of the uncranky captain Scott Campbell. Scotty lost his battle with cancer (screw cancer!) at age 65, and let it be known that he was one of the truly good guys. Or, as legendary squawk box Friar Nicolson would say about salt-of-the-earthers like Scotty, he was “good people.” Always obliging, always a good sound bite, always quick with a smile and a giggle, forever genuine, Scotty took whatever life threw at him and kept swinging for the fences.

Always loved this story about Scotty: Drill sergeant Tom McVie became bench puppeteer of the Jets in the back half of the World Hockey Association’s final fling, and he made a habit of working the lads like rented mules. During one punishing session, Scotty, who had a broken jaw, could take no more and began upchucking. Unmoved, McVie snarled, “Get sick on your own time!”

Nice tribute piece on Scotty by Mike Sawatzky in the Drab Slab, with commentary from former teammates Terry Ruskowski, Morris Lukowich, and Jimmy Mann. Alas, Scotty’s death didn’t warrant a mention on the sports pages of the Winnipeg Sun, because the suits at Postmedia in the Republic of Tranna decided the rabble in Good Ol’ Hometown would rather read a full page on a golfer from The ROT than a guy who wore Jets linen in both the WHA and National Hockey League. It’s ultra disappointing that the local tabloid continues to be the Torontopeg Sun.

I note the Edmonton Oilers have established a franchise Hall of Fame and will induct this Class of 2022 at a gala in early November: Wayne Gretzky, Grant Fuhr, Al Hamilton, Jarri Kurri, Mark Messier, Paul Coffey, Kevin Lowe, Glen Sather, Glenn Anderson and broadcaster Rod Phillips. Hmmm. Powerful lineup. But let’s compare that group to the Jets Hall of Fame—Teemu Selanne, Teppo Numminen, Thomas Steen, Randy Carlyle, Ab McDonald, Lars-Erik Sjoberg, Dale Hawerchuk, Anders Hedberg, Ulf Nilsson, Bobby Hull—and let’s imagine they played a game of pond hockey. Conclusion: The Jets wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in Fiji for one basic reason—no goalie.

Come to think of it, who would be the Jets all-time best masked man? Old friend Joe Daley, that’s who.

This is how brilliant B.C. Leos QB Nathan Rourke was prior to an owie aborting his 2022 Rouge Football crusade: In nine games, he flung the football for 3,281 yards; it took Macleod Bethel-Thompson of the Toronto Argos 12 games to pass Rourke, and Winnipeg Blue Bombers QB Zach Collaros is still trying to track him down after 13 skirmishes.

I always thought Dave was the wingnut of the CFL’s coaching Dickenson brothers, but it turns out it’s Craig, sideline steward of the Saskatchewan Roughriders and official apologist for the dumbest players in the three-downs game. They were ticketed for another 13 felonies and 141 yards in yesterday’s 54-20 paddywhacking by the Bombers. They should be clad in orange jump suits, not green-and-white football togs.

In terms of nose-holding optics, I can think of few things more odious than Hockey Canada CEO Scott Smith doling out gold medals to members of our national shinny side at the world championship in Denmark. The sight of Smith smiling like Lewis Carroll’s Cheshire Cat as the Canadian women skated forward to receive their just rewards last Sunday at the KVIK Hockey Arena in Herning was rotten eggs kind of foul. It’s like getting your law diploma from Rudy Giuliani.

Tessa Bonhomme, Jayna Hefford and Sami Jo Small did a lot of yakkety, yak, yakking on TSN during the Ponytail Puck tournament in Denmark, but I wish they had told us why Melodie Daoust was MIA. Melodie has been a Team Canada mainstay for years, and if they explained her absence I missed it.

The TSN talking heads, which included Kenzie Lalonde on play-by-play and Cheryl Pounder flapping her gums faster than a scofflaw fleeing a crime scene, kept insisting that U.S.A. vs. Canada in women’s shinny is the “best rivalry in sports.” Hmmm. I think the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees and their faithful might have something to say about that. And, hey, the E-Town Oilers and Calgary Flames don’t exactly play “friendlies.” Nor do Man U and Liverpool.

Nobody asked me, but I like Kenzie Lalonde’s play-by-play. Bigger and better gigs await that young lady.

Julie Chu, Caroline Ouellette and the kiddies, Liv and Tessa.

Did you know or do you care that the woman whose two goals staked Canada to its 2-1, gold-medal win over the Yankee Doodle Damsels, Brianne Jenner, is a lesbian? Ditto one of the True North coaches, Caroline Ouellette. True story. Both are gay, both are married, and both are moms. Brianne and bride Hayleigh Cudmore have a daughter, June, while Caroline and bride Julie Chu are moms to Liv and Tessa. Chances are you don’t care about this sort of thing, but I believe we should all care about inclusivity, especially in sports, which if often slow on the uptake. LGBT(etc.) youth need role models like Brianne and Caroline. It matters.

On that note, it’s adios to Sue Bird, among the finest female athletes of any sport, any era. Sue, who’ll have 42 candles on her birthday cake next month, played the final game of her WNBA career with Seattle Storm last week, and she leaves the hardwood with more decorations than a Christmas tree: 4 WNBA titles, 5 Oly gold, 2 NCAA crowns, 4 FIBA World Cup titles, 5 EuroLeague championships. And did I mention she’s lesbian and her main squeeze is yappy Yankee Doodle soccer star Megan Rapinoe? Can you say “role models,” kids?

I don’t know about you, but after watching and listening to mainstream jock journalists lather Serena Williams with the highest hosannas at the U.S. Open, I’m now convinced she’s the only female athlete in history to continue competing after giving birth, she’s the planet’s foremost fashion designer, she’s the first person to ever slice a loaf of bread, and now that she has some spare time on her hands she’ll probably swan off to Moscow for a tete-a-tete with Vlad the Bad Putin and bully him and his KGB butt out of Ukraine. As if.

Chrissie Evert told her ESPN audience that “no man” could do what Williams has done at age 40. Oh, for gawd’s sake. I mean, what did Williams do? She won two matches, bringing her W/L tally on the year to 3/4. That’s it. Full stop. By comparison, a year ago at age 39 years, 11 months (let’s round it off at 40), Roger Federer won four matches to reach the quarterfinals at Wimbledon. So stick a sock in it, Chrissie.

Why is it that whenever someone suggests Queen Hissy Fit is sub-saintly they’re immediately branded a racist or a misogynist? Before S. Williams came along, my least-favorite tennis players were John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors and Ilie Nastase, all male, all white and all off-the-chart boors. That didn’t make me anti-white or anti-male. It made me anti-jerk. So it isn’t always about race and gender. It’s okay to not worship at the S. Williams shrine simply because you think she’s a self-absorbed jerk.

Another question: Why is Nick Kyrgios so popular among the tennis mob? Ya, I know. The guy has immense skill. So do circus clowns. And the Kyrgios shtick is the same sort of carnival sideshow. I swear, Nick the Carny doesn’t sign autographs for kids after his matches. He makes them balloon animals instead. All that’s missing are the big, floppy shoes, clothes that look like something Don Cherry would wear, and a big, round, red nose that goes honk-honk.

After being vanquished in a quarterfinal match vs. Iga Swiatek at the U.S. Open, American Jessica Pegula was observed sipping on a tall can of Heineken during her post-match natter with news snoops. “I’m trying to pee for doping,” she told them. The marketing geniuses at the brew giant promptly launched an ad campaign, resurrecting an old Heineken tagline but changing it from “It’s All About the Beer” to “It’s All About the Pee Bottle.”

On the subject of brewskies, wasn’t that golfer John Daly tossing out the ceremonial first pitch for the St. Louis Cardinals-Washington Nationals rounders game last Wednesday at Busch Stadium? Sure was. Long John looked like Santa on vacation, and he threw a stee-rike! Apparently he then retired a six-pack of Budweiser before the home half of the first inning.

Two animal rights activists interrupted the L.A. Rams-Buffalo Bills NFL lid-lifter on Thursday night at SoFi Stadium in Tinsel Town. Apparently their squawk had something to do with abuse of hogs, but after a brief interruption those two little piggies went wee, wee, wee all the way to the hoosegow.

I don’t care what anyone thinks or says. If Aaron Judge swats 62 home runs to surpass the 61 dingers Roger Maris clouted in 1961, he’ll hold the Major League Baseball single-season mark for most round-trippers. What about Barry Bonds, you say? Sorry, it doesn’t count if you had to stick a needle in your butt cheeks to do it.

How do I know Judge isn’t also on the juice? Because, unlike Bonds, his head hasn’t grown to the size of a prize-winning pumpkin at the county fair.

The lords of Major League Baseball will put in a hurry-up-and-throw-the-damn ball pitch clock and outlaw infield shifts next season. Big changes. If they keep this up, baseball will start to look like baseball again.

There was also talk of replacing the home plate umpire with a robot to call balls and strikes, but the notion was nixed when seven-times ejected New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone protested, saying, “Oh no you don’t. If I’m going to toss a temper tantrum and kick dirt on anyone, it’ll be Angel Hernandez, not that cute, little R2-D2.”

The PGA Tour-LIV Golf Series war continues, and the latest casualty is Cameron Smith’s parking space outside the clubhouse at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. As Players Championship titleholder, mullet-boy Smith had earned the right to park his ride in the prime location, but then he had the bad manners to accept $145 million in Saudi blood money and become persona non grata in the Sawgrass parking lot. I’d feel really bad for the guy, except I can never find a decent parking spot when I go to the mall, and I don’t have $145 million to buy my own mall.

This from Cathal Kelly of the Globe and Mail: “Few professional athletes are likeable any more.” I wonder if that’s true, or has Kelly become jaded? I mean, I had natters with hundreds (thousands?) of play-for-pay jocks during my 30 years in the rag trade, and there might have been five whom I found to be flat-out unlikable. The jock-news snoop dynamic has changed since my exit, stage west, 23 years ago, but has it soured that much?

Steve Simmons of Postmedia Tranna tells long-time shinny scribe Ken Campbell that he was “too young” to understand the Us-vs.-Them political backdrop of the 1972 Summit Series between Canada and the Soviet Union. Campbell was eight years old at the time. Well, let me say this about that: When I was a sprig growing up in Good Ol’ Hometown in the 1950s and ’60s, the Cold War and the accompanying air raid drills scared the hell out of me. Whenever I heard those sirens wail, I’d either duck for cover or look to the sky for nuclear bombs, because I understood that Nikita Khrushchev was one push of a button away from blowing us all the hell up. Even at a tender age, I understood that Dwight Eisenhower/JFK were the good guys and Khrushchev was the bad guy. Us vs. Them. And, believe me, no one ever mistook me for a political science savant. All of us kids understood. But, sure, tell us more about what we were “too young” to know back in the day, Grandpa Simmons.

And, finally, I’ll leave you with this because it seems like the right thing to do…

Let’s talk about the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and their QBs…no love for Matt Nichols but hosannas for Zach Collaros…the Davis Sanchez blah, blah, blah…outdoor shinny…ruffled feathers around the NHL…Wheels spinning his wheels…domestic violence…Billie Jean and the boycotters…and other things on my mind

Another Sunday smorgas-bored…and I’m feeling kind of cranky this morning…

As news snoops and the rabble crank up the QB controversy machine louder than a 1960s Who concert, it’s worth noting something Mike O’Shea muttered not so long ago.

“Dance with the one you brung,” he said.

Based on those half dozen words, we should expect to see Chris Streveler behind centre when the Winnipeg Blue Bombers assemble for the next step in their crusade to exorcise 29 years worth of evil spirits, except we long ago learned that Coach Grunge is all over the map when it comes to the most important position on any football field.

I mean, first he said there was no need for a QB who’d been there, done that.

“That’s not gonna happen,” the Bombers sideline steward told Knuckles Irving on the CJOB Coach’s Show just as the first frost began to settle on the pumpkin. “I like our guys. Very confident in our guys. Dance with the one you brung.”

Those guys that he “brung” were Streveler, still operating with training wheels, and Sean McGuire, who’s greener than Kermit the Frog.

Why was there no urgency to recruit a quarterback with age in his eyes and a track record in the Canadian Football League?

“Even if you trade for a veteran presence, unless he knows your guys, it’s really hard for even a veteran guy to come in late in a season and lead,” O’Shea reasoned. “I really just don’t think those scenarios work or can be applied to football this late in the season. Especially (a quarterback).”

But wait. Along comes Zach Collaros and O’Shea gives the other side of his mouth a workout.

“We said right from the get-go about bringing in a veteran guy,” he maintains, even though he’d actually said the exact opposite. “Now we got a seasoned veteran who comes in and, you know, will have a role and it’ll definitely be a good guy to have in the building. Knowing Zach, he’s a smart guy, a competitive guy, he’s going to pick things up very quickly.”

Collaros, indeed, proved to be a quick study.

The oft-wounded QB delivered the Bombers’ 11th win of this crusade on Friday night at Football Follies Field in Fort Garry, and he had few missteps in an optimism-inducing 29-28 decision over the Calgary Stampeders. More to the point, he looked like a guy who’s been there all along, not an 11th-hour Hail Mary recruit, and Collaros was positively Flutie-esque on one dazzler that came right out of the Barnum & Bailey playbook.

Naturally, that begged this question: Who’s O’Shea’s man on Nov. 10, when Winnipeg FC enters the annual Grey Cup playoff frolic—the veteran he said he didn’t want but then said he really did want, or the neophyte who “brung” him?

“Those questions will be answered,” Coach Grunge said. “We’ll see how everybody is after this one. We got lots of time.”

Well, what did you expect? A definitive answer? As if.

The thing is, I don’t believe O’Shea was being wishy-washy. He probably doesn’t know.

Collaros certainly has given him pause for ponder. Consider a fourth-quarter touchdown toss to Darvin Adams, for example. The ball was scrimmaged at the Calgary eight-yard stripe, but a fierce pass rush forced Collaros to flee like a man escaping a burning building. He eventually launched the ball from the 24 and it landed in Adams’ arms 17 yards deep in the end zone. So the play traveled 16 yards south, about 10 yards east/west, then 41 yards north. That’s 67 yards for, officially, an eight-yard TD toss.

It’s a play that Streveler can’t make. Except perhaps with a video game console in his hands.

So O’Shea must weigh that against what Streveler has brought, and can bring, to the table.

My guess? Well, it seems to me that O’Shea values loyalty to his players above all, sometimes to the point of being mule stubborn, and that tells me Streveler will be behind centre when sudden-death football commences next month, even though he was hobbling like a peg-legged pirate with a sawed-off peg when last seen in combat gear.

Would that be the right call? Ask me on Nov. 10.

In the meantime, amp up the dialogue and let the debate rage.

Streveler or Collaros, I stand by what I wrote in early October: The West Division of the CFL remains a crap shoot, and I don’t care how it plays out on the final weekend of scheduled skirmishing. The Bombers won the season series v. Calgary, with two different QBs (Collaros and Matt Nichols), and they gave the Saskatchewan Flatlanders a thorough paddywhacking with Streveler at the wheel. So playing on the final Sunday in November is doable.

I find it interesting that the rabble often rails against QB incumbent Matt Nichols for his pedestrian passing numbers (always less than 300 yards/game) even in victory, but the hosannas are raining down on Collaros, who was 22/28, 221 yards. Those are Nichols numbers, yet Collaros is the toast of the town. Peculiar thing that.

Apparently it isn’t just moi who thinks Davis Sanchez is nothing but a well-dressed gasbag hemorrhaging from the mouth on TSN. In his always-interesting spin on Rouge Football for The Athletic, Kirk Penton delivered this quote from a CFL exec/coach: “We were talking about Davis Sanchez at halftime. TSN has blown his ego up to Sean Avery-sized. Remember that shit? On Saturday night (Sanchez) second guesses NFL coaches. During CFL games, he thinks he’s smarter and better than anyone on the field or on our sidelines—one of those cool know-it-alls that I would love to coach against. When I came home from the office last night, my wife had the election shit on. I’m surprised Sanchez wasn’t on that panel telling the Tories what they did wrong, too.”

On the subject of TSN gab guys, if someone lopped off Matthew Scianitti’s right hand, would he be able to talk? Seriously. Scianitti’s right paw is the most distracting thing on TV since Emma Peel put on her black leather catsuit. And if you’re too young to remember Emma Peel, let’s just say the catching and slaying of bad guys never looked so good.

I don’t know about you, but I’d like these National Hockey League outdoor gimmicks a whole lot more if they were moved inside. The Winnipeg Jets and Calgary Flames joust Saturday night at Mosaic Stadium on the Flattest of Lands did nothing for me, except make me squint at my flatscreen more than normal. Go ahead and call me old school if you like, but I just don’t think 43 km/h winds, -10C temps and snow should be a factor in an NHL game. But, hey, the Jets won, 2-1 in OT, and everyone had a good time. So I guess it’s all good.

What do I think of the Jets’ latest recruit, Luca Sbisa? I think he needs one more vowel.

Apparently, Ruffled Feathers Syndrome is contagious and it’s been flowing through the NHL during the first month of the season like barley at a beerfest. Consider: Jason Zucker called out his Minnesota teammates and head coach Bruce Boudreau, and the Wild held a players-only meeting. In the Republic of Tranna, the Maple Leafs had a “family discussion,” followed by head coach Mike Babcock calling out his players following a loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets. Then Auston Matthews called out everyone, including himself, after a beating in Boston. Not to be outdone, Logan Couture called out two of his “selfish” San Jose Sharks teammates after a loss to the Buffalo Sabres. And Brendan Perlini wants out of Chicago. Like we’ve been saying since last spring, this stuff happens with every team at some point during the course of a marathon season, although not necessarily for public consumption. And it doesn’t mean those changing rooms are “rotten to the core” or “fractured.” I trust the boys on the beat at the Drab Slab are paying attention.

I note that Mad Mike McIntyre has joined the Drab Slab chorus in demanding an end to the Dustin Byfuglien will-he-or-won’t-he saga. He tells us that Big Buff is holding the Winnipeg Jets “hostage” while contemplating a life-altering decision to retire or return to the blueline, and “that can’t continue.” Winnipeg HC, he insists, must force Buff’s hand because “enough is enough.” That, of course, is pure rubbish. Unless Mad Mike plans on consulting with Big Buff and/or the Jets the next time there’s a major decision to be made at the McIntyre household, he should keep his life advice to himself.

Mad Mike also believes Jets general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff was spot on when he rewarded captain Blake Wheeler with a five-year contract extension. “Both the term and annual average value made sense,” he writes. Au contraire. The term is stupid. I mean, five years? For a 33-year-old with heavy, heavy mileage on him? Does Mad Mike actually believe Wheeler will be putting up 91 points two years from now when he’s collecting $10 million? Or four years from now when his sticker price is $8.25 million? Wheeler will barely be mobile at the back end of that deal. As it is, Wheeler has been spinning his wheels this crusade, with just half a dozen points in a dozen assignments, so he’ll need 85 points in 70 games to match his total from last year. Not going to happen. And it’ll only get worse as both he and his contract age.

Here’s how screwed up the Houston Astros are: Brandon Taubman, the guy who said something incredibly improper in reference to a pitcher suspended for roughing up a woman, gets fired, but Roberto Osuna, the guy who actually roughed up the woman, still has a job in the Astros bullpen and will be a hero in Houston if he helps them win the World Series. Go figure.

Okay, you’ll have to help me out here. Houston assistant GM Taubman chose to taunt three female news snoops re domestic abuse, even as one of the women wore a purple bracelet to draw attention to the scourge that is domestic violence. It was an unprovoked, disgusting and insensitive shoutout (“Thank God we got Osuna! I’m so fucking glad we got Osuna!”) he repeated six times and, although the Astros dawdled with a series of half-truths, denials and flat-out lies, Taubman has been defrocked. But you tell me which was worse, Taubman’s rant or Auston Matthews and his boozed-up buddies taunting, harassing, intimidating and mooning a lone woman on a Scottsdale, Ariz., street at 2 o’clock in the morning?

Interesting how mainstream media reacted to the Taubman incident compared to Matthews and pals. Basically, they’ve made Taubman out to be responsible for the assassination of JFK and 9/11, while Matthews is nothing worse than a college-age scamp getting in some late-night yuks. And, whereas jock journos hither and yon were fast and furious in rallying around the targets of Taubman’s bile (notably Sports Illustrated scribe Stephanie Apstein), not a thought was given to Fayola Dozithee, the victim of the Matthews so-called prank. That’s as tone deaf as the Astros.

While we’re on the domestic violence file, you know the induction of Thomas Steen into the Winnipeg Jets Hall of Fame will raise eyebrows and draw criticism because he was charged with abuse and uttering threats against a woman in a 2014 dispute. But, remember, the hockey club long ago established its position on these matters when it held its nose and looked the other way to include Bobby Hull among the original inductees. Although never charged with domestic violence, the Golden Jet’s ex-wife, Joanne, was granted a divorce on grounds of physical and mental cruelty, and the horror stories are well documented. Charges against Steen, meanwhile, were stayed, although he did spend a night in jail for breaching a no-contact order. Go ahead and kick up a fuss if you like, but it won’t change anything. The squeaky-clean Jets don’t consider it a stain.

As for the induction of Randy Carlyle to the Jets Hall, 100 per cent approved. The sole blot on Kitty’s file was a pee test that proved faulty at the world hockey championships. Kitty could have failed a drug test only if the squints were looking for residue from a glazed donut.

Add the name David Singh of Sportsnet to the list of scribes who perform a soft-shoe routine around boycotting female hockey players. Singh did the Q&A thing with Jayna Hefford of the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association recently, but did he ask her why the boycotters refuse to engage in meaningful dialogue with commish Dani Rylan of the National Women’s Hockey League? No. Instead, he lobbed these probing questions: “You met Billie Jean King at the recent Dream Gap Tour event in Chicago. What was that like for you?” And: “What did the two of you talk about?” Atta boy, David. That’s getting to the heart of the matter. It’s evident that the women’s boycott has become more about photo-ops with Billie Jean King than it is improving their lot in life, and guys like Singh are swilling the Kool-Aid instead of calling them out.

And, finally, having been born and raised in Winnipeg, I’d like to go on record as saying I’m proud of Brian Pallister for being the only Prairie premier who didn’t have a hissy fit because of federal election results.

About $6 million worth of beans and wieners for the Winnipeg Jets…blame Ray Charles for Jimmy Mann…the Shoe fits…hockey teams and their value…hot-buttered takes from The ROT…the missing Munster son…and other things on my mind

Monday morning coming down in 3, 2, 1…and don’t think for a minute that I’ve given much thought to any of this…

It was mid-June 1979 and John Bowie Ferguson had just examined the list of players available to him in the National Hockey League expansion draft.

He winced. Then scowled.

Fergy rose to his feet and trudged across the main room of his 13th-floor suite in the fabulous Queen Elizabeth Hotel. He stopped in front of a large window, stared at the splendor that is Montreal, and noted that Mary Queen of the World Cathedral was directly across the street.

“Well,” I said, “I guess you have two choices, Fergy: You can go across the street and do some serious praying, or you can jump.”

The Winnipeg Jets general manager did neither. He just grunted.

Head coach Tom McVie, sitting in a nearby chair, smiled and cracked wise: “You know,” he said, “there’s enough talent available for us to win the Allan Cup. It might be seven games, but if we get home ice in the seventh game, we could win.”

He was joking, but not far from accurate.

I don’t know what $650 million will buy the Seattle Whatsits two years hence when the new kids on the block piece together their expansion roster of rejects, but I do know what $6 million bought Fergy and the Jets in mid-June 1979—sweet petite.

The NHL’s existing 17 outfits, be advised, did not lean toward benevolence when they grudgingly agreed to accept les Jets, the Edmonton Oilers, Quebec Nordiques and Hartford Whalers into their shinny cartel. The plan was to first plunder the rosters of the World Hockey Association survivors—Winnipeg HC suffered the worst body count—then allow them to go on a dumpster dive for dregs.

Some interesting names were there for the choosing. Like Bobby Orr. Except the great No. 4 was crippled and retired. The Big M, Frank Mahovlich, was available, except he was 41 and, like Orr, finished. Fergy could have had former Jets head coach Larry Hillman, except Morley was 42 and hadn’t played in three years. Yvan Cournoyer? The Roadrunner was out of gas. I seem to recall there also being a dead guy on the list.

It was so bad that Fergy didn’t even bother to call out names on his final shout on draft day.

“Okay,” he muttered in a tone that suggested both protest and resignation, like a kid being force-fed one more mouthful of Brussels sprouts before dessert, “Winnipeg Jets take the last two players.”

Gene Carr and Hilliard Graves thus were added to a collection of misfits, mostly guys with marginal or diminished skills. Also some undesirable contracts. In sum, Fergy plucked 17 players that day: Peter Marsh, Lindsay Middlebrook, Bobby Hull, Al Cameron, Dave Hoyda, Jim Roberts, Lorne Stamler, Mark Heaslip, Pierre Hamel, Gord McTavish, Gord Smith, Clark Hamilton, Jim Cunningham, Dennis Abgrall, Bill Riley, Carr and Graves.

Still, combined with holdovers from the Jets 1979 WHA championship roster, that bunch easily could have won senior hockey’s Allan Cup, but they failed to qualify for the Stanley Cup playoffs. They won 20 of 80 games, and just nine in their sophomore season.

We know the NHL has no plan to be similarly punitive with Seattle, because a $650 million sticker price demands that they get some sizzle with their steak. For the Jets, though, it was $6 million worth of beans and wieners.

The plundering of rosters and a player pool of ragged retreads weren’t the only indiginities inflicted upon the Jets and their WHA brethren. In a penalizing departure from established practice, the NHL ruled that the four expansion teams would choose last, rather than first, in the amateur draft. By the time Fergy used the No. 19 shout-out to pluck Jimmy Mann (talk about cruel and unusual punishment), guys like Ray Bourque, Rob Ramage, Mike Gartner, Craig Hartsburg, Paul Reinhart and Mike Foligno had already been snatched up. Ahead of the draft, Fergy had said, “Let’s face it, Ray Charles could pick the first-round drafts. We all know who they’re going to be.” So let’s all blame Ray Charles for Jimmy Mann.

Being bad had its benefits for Fergy and les Jets. Their names were Dave Babych and Dale Hawerchuk, plucked in the 1980 and ’81 entry drafts, respectively. With Babs and Ducky on board, les Jets soared from a nine-wins, 32-points season to 33 Ws and 80 points.

Nice to see Lars-Erik Sjoberg and Ab McDonald get the nod as the next inductees to the Winnipeg Jets Hall of Fame. Sadly, both have left us, but I’m sure there’ll be a celebratory mood when some of the old boys gather to salute the two former captains on Feb. 26 at the Little Hockey House On The Prairie.

According to Forbes magazine, the Winnipeg HC franchise is now valued at $415 million, 27th among NHL clubs. Considering that Puck Pontiff Mark Chipman and co-bankroll David Thomson paid $170 million for their play thing, that’s a handsome hike. Mind you, it’s expected they’ll also be required to fork over $170M to Patrik Laine by the time he’s finished.

If you missed it, here’s how Forbes lists the value of each Canadian franchise: Tranna Maple Leafs $1.35 billion, Montreal Canadiens $1.3B, Vancouver Canucks $735 million, Edmonton Oilers $540M, Calgary Flames $450M, Ottawa Senators $435M, Winnipeg HC $415M. And, yes, now that you mention it, I don’t see how in the name of Cyclone Taylor the Jets can be worth less than the dysfunctional Senators. That’s like saying a pack of smokes is a better buy than gym membership.

This from Bruce Arthur of the Toronto Star: “Not to overreact, but Auston Matthews is probably the best goal-scorer in the world. This isn’t a hot take; it’s maybe a take that you left in the microwave for like 15 seconds, long enough to soften butter but not melt it.” Sorry, Bruce, but that’s a totally hot-buttered Tranna take.

Interesting to see loose cannon head coach John Tortorella adorned in a hoodie rather than a suit and tie behind the Columbus Blue Jackets bench last week. Apparently he was fit to be tied after the game, though.

When did women’s curling become more interesting and more entertaining that the men’s side? And does the curling season really begin before Vic, Cheryl and Russ are in the booth? No knock against Sportsnet’s coverage of Grand Slam events, but it just sounds right when Vic Rauter, Cheryl Bernard and Russ Howard are making the calls on TSN.

Is it just me, or does anyone else find TSN’s UFC gab guy Robin Black kind of creepy? I think he might be related to the Munsters. Maybe a distant cousin to Herman or Lily. Or separated from Eddie Munster at birth. Black might know his stuff (although anyone who picked Conor McGregor to whup Floyd Mayweather is suspect), but do we really need to see him rolling around inside the octagon? I know I don’t.

Interesting that Winnipeg Blue Bombers offensive coordinator Paul LaPolice took his name from the Tranna Argonauts head-coaching hunt. Not surprising, though. I mean, working in The Republic of Tranna is the Canadian Football League equivalent of a witness protection program. The 50/50 draw is larger at a backyard barbeque in Fort Garry than at BMO Field in The ROT. I could see Coach LaPo defecting to B.C., but Tranna? Only on a dare.

And, finally, forestry and lands people have discovered a hole the size of a CFL field in a remote B.C. park. It’s believed to be the biggest opening in North America now that Ondrej Pavelec has taken his five-hole back to the Czech Republic.

About the Winnipeg Jets and those pesky sun delays…the Puck Pontiff got the name right…good and bad at the Freep…go Cubbies go…and the Bombers are back in town

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

Now that the big top has been torn down and cleanup on the sideshows is complete, we can return to regularly scheduled cynicism, skepticism, criticism, optimism and all the other “isms” that make scribbling about sports such a guilty pleasure.

I use the word “guilty” because there are times when I feel pangs of discomfort after skewering someone, but it’s usually a fleeting moment of emotion. I immediately remind myself that if anyone takes my barbs and bites seriously then they really need to get out of the house more often.

Anyway, the Heritage Classic has come and gone and I wish I had been there in good, ol’ Hometown for the five days of fun and frolic, but I vowed that I would only attend if Bobby Hull joined the hijinks. No Golden Jet, no golden-age girl. So I stayed home in Victoria where, unlike Winnipeg, no one has ever been heard to say, “there’s too much sun.”

Who’d have thought hockey and sunscreen went together? But I suppose sunshine was the great irony of the Heritage Classic. When the National Hockey League agreed to bring one of its outdoor gimmick games to River City, worst-case weather scenarios would have included frigid temperatures, white stuff falling, rainfall or roof-raising winds. But too much of ol’ Sol? That’s like Chris Walby saying there’s too much food and beer in the world.

I didn’t like it when Puck Pontiff Mark Chipman and his megabucks co-bankroll, David Thomson, named their NHL franchise Jets in 2011. I leaned toward a new beginning rather than a link to the past, both gloried (World Hockey Association) and inglorious (NHL 1.0). My preference was to call the club Falcons. Don’t ask me why. I just liked the name. If not Jets, though, the Heritage Classic and all its trappings couldn’t have happened. There would have been no gathering of the throw-back clan at The Pint, no Anders and Ulf induction to the Winnipeg Jets Hall of Fame, and no Geritol Generation Game featuring Team Ducky and the Edmonton Gretzkys. I mean, how do you sell nostalgia in the form of a Falcons-Oilers game? So I’m okay with Jets now. The Puck Pontiff and his billionaire buddy made the right call.

For those of us who were on the outside looking in Sunday when the Jets and Oilers faced off in the Heritage Classic, Melissa Martin offers a fabulous insider’s take of the goings-on. Her article in the Winnipeg Free Press describes many of the nuances of the day and puts you right among the rabble in and around the Facility Formerly Known As Football Follies Field in Fort Garry. Someone might want to send a copy to Bobby Hull. Not that he’d care, but just because.

Not so terrific was Paul Wiecek’s most recent broadside of Jacob Trouba on the Freep sports pages. It’s starting to sound personal, which is never a good thing for a sports columnist. Following the Jets’ season-opening victory, Wiecek used just under 1,000 words to tell us what a dolt Trouba is for sitting at home in Michigan rather than join his Jets mates in their 2016-17 NHL crusade. The young defenceman is not just a loser, he is “the biggest loser.” His reasons for refusing to sign with the Jets are “hard to believe.” He mentions Trouba’s “petulance.” His trade demand is “reckless.” Yet he also writes this: “(Josh) Morrissey wants to play and do wherever he is asked. Trouba doesn’t. I’m OK with that.” If Wiecek is “OK” with it, why belabor the point with insults and an attack that’s based on the result of one game? It might not be personal, but it sure reads that way to me.

I wasn’t born when the Chicago Cubs were last in the World Series (1945) and I wasn’t born when the Cleveland Indians last won it (1948), but unless you are a lifelong Cleveland fan how can anyone not root, root, root for the Cubbies in the Major League Baseball championship series? I’ve long had a soft spot for the Cubbies because of Wrigley Field and its ivy-covered outfield fence, daytime baseball, Ernie Banks and Harry Caray, but a Cubs win would also let poor Steve Bartman off the hook. A Cleveland win wouldn’t disappoint me, though. I have a special fondness for that franchise, as well, because it was the first American League outfit to field a black ballplayer, Larry Doby. Both he and Satchel Paige, the legendary pitcher from the Negro League, became the first black players to win the World Series with the ’48 Indians.

Say, whatever happened to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers? Oh, that’s right. They were kicked out of their home so the Jets and Oilers—old and new—could play a little pond hockey. The Bombers are back in business this weekend, though, with the Ottawa RedBlacks in town for a Canadian Football League skirmish of no small measure. Second place is there for the Bombers’ taking. It’s an afternoon kickoff—let’s just hope it isn’t too sunny. I hate those pesky sun delays.

Patti Dawn Swansson has been writing about Winnipeg sports for 46 years, longer than any living being. Do not, however, assume that to mean she harbors a wealth of sports knowledge or that she’s a jock journalist of award-winning loft. It simply means she is old and comfortable at a keyboard (although arthritic fingers sometimes make typing a bit of a chore) and she apparently doesn’t know when to quit. Or she can’t quit.
She is most proud of her Q Award, presented in 2012 for her scribblings about the LGBT community in Victoria, B.C., and her induction into the Manitoba Sportswriters & Sportscasters Association Media Roll of Honour in 2015.

About Bobby Hull pooping on his own party…fallen heroes…the CFL not on TSN…and Rod Black losing the plot

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

True North Sports & Entertainment put itself in a non-winable position with Bobby Hull.

Once the decision had been made to create a Winnipeg Jets Hall of Fame and salute players as far back as the World Hockey Association, TNSE had no choice but to include the legendary left winger and every piece of soiled laundry and excess baggage that he drags along with him.

That, in turn, meant howls of protest would arise, because not everyone can separate the fabulous hockey player from the flawed man who sometimes roughed up women.

So Hull will poop on his own party.

Nobody in officialdom is saying exactly why Hull has advised True North that there shall be no need to set a place for him at the table when the National Hockey League club honours the Golden Jet and his two Hot Line accomplices from the WHA—Anders Hedberg and Ulf Nilsson—as the initial inductees to the team Hall of Fame on Oct. 19. We’re told it’s for “personal reasons.”

At first blush, I thought perhaps Hull was ill. There is, after all, considerable age around his eyes and he’s done some hard living and hard drinking in his 77-plus years. If it’s a health issue preventing Hull from traveling to River City, I suppose his desire might be to keep it on the QT, but we wouldn’t need to know the gory details. The Secret Society that is TNSE need only tell us that he’s not in fine fettle and leave it at that. So strike illness off the list of possibilities for Hull pulling the chute on an appearance.

What then?

Domestic violence. That has to be the elephant in the room.

I doubt Hull wishes to arrive in River City and open a newspaper, or tune in to talk radio, and read/hear another story about splitting his second ex-wife Joanne’s head open with the stiletto heel of one of her shoes. Or threatening to hurl her off a balcony. Or threatening her with a shotgun. Or the family’s former nanny telling tales about him ripping a telephone off the wall with one hand while yanking on Joanne’s hair with the other. He doesn’t need to hear another recital of some off-handed remarks he might or might not have made to a Moscow newspaper about Adolph Hitler’s swell ideas.

True North wouldn’t have any appetite for any of that either.

Benny Hatskin and Bobby Hull on a happy day in Winnipeg. — Jets original owner Benny Hatskin and Bobby Hull the day the legendary left winger signed his WHA contract at Portage and Main.

The inaugural Hall of Fame function, which is part of the Heritage Classic festivities next month, is meant to be a celebration of hockey and the glory days, when the Jets were rulers of all they surveyed in the WHA. And many will tell you that that’s all it ought to be about. I mean, the Chicago Blackhawks made it all about hockey when they erected a statue of Hull outside the United Center and put him on the payroll as an ambassador. Domestic violence be damned. So why shouldn’t TNSE act in kind, right?

If only it were that simple.

It could be that the fine folks in Winnipeg are a bit more sensitive to the notion of men whacking women than those in the Windy City. I don’t know. I’ve never lived in Chicago. Just visited while on assignment. I do know this, though: There is no wrong time for a conversation about the scourge of domestic violence.

If Hull is a no-show, are his non-hockey trespasses less likely to hijack the headlines next month? Perhaps. Then again, his absence might bring spousal abuse into greater focus.

This is a fine mess TNSE has gotten itself into and the owners are named Chipman and Thomson, not Solomon, so this baby is being cut in half.

It’s a most unfortunate circumstance, and the great irony is that the man who crusaded so vigorously against violence in hockey couldn’t keep his hands to himself away from the rink. More’s the pity, Bobby Hull.

I recall making my way down to the Jets changing room after a game one night at the old barn on Maroons Road when a young fellow stopped me to say how much he admired Bobby Hull. More than anything, he wanted to meet his hockey hero. “Kid,” I told him, “sometimes our heroes aren’t who we think they are.” I left it at that. I heard from that “kid” last year. He advised me that he went home and asked his dad what I might have meant. What ensued was a father-son, fireside chat about domestic violence and he said it had a “positive impact” on his life. Like I said, there’s never a wrong time for that discussion, even if it brings one of our heroes down from the pedestal.

In a perfect world, Hull would show up for his party and address the elephant in the room by telling younger people “don’t make the same mistakes that I made,” then get on with swapping lies and tall tales with the boys.

If Mark Chipman hadn’t caved in to the demands of the rabble and named his NHL franchise something other than Jets in 2011, would we even be having this conversation about Hull? Not likely. Had Chipman called the current outfit Falcons or Monarchs or Polar Bears, there’d be no compulsion to link to the past. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

Okay, enough of B. Hull. I’d like to know the name of the genius who decided to show beach volleyball and fast car racing on the main TSN channel Saturday afternoon instead of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers-Toronto Argonauts skirmish. Seriously. Some of us live in poverty and can’t afford to subscribe to all five of TSN’s channels. It’s sad when you live in Canada but have to turn to an American streaming website to watch a Canadian Football League game. Put the CFL on the main channel, for gawd’s sake.

At times during the Bombers-Argos joust, I wondered if TSN play-by-play voice Rod Black was watching with his eyes shut. Like after Quincy McDuffie of the Bombers returned a kickoff 98 yards for a touchdown. Old friend Blackie prattled on about a “punt return.” He really lost the plot later when suggesting that the Bombers inserting of Matt Nichols at quarterback was “a stroke of genius.” Oh, pu-leeze. It was nothing of the sort. It was an act of desperation to save the season and head coach Mike O’Shea’s job. Those geniuses knew Nichols was the best bet at QB coming out of training camp, but it took them four losses in five games to correct their blunder.

The Winnipeg Free Press has dispatched columnist Paul Wiecek to the Republic of Tranna for the cash grab known as the World Cup of Hockey, and I’ve been enjoying his stuff. I particularly got a kick out of his take on the media: “The tournament will be played at the Air Canada Centre and all the teams are staying at a nearby hotel within walking distance. It quickly becomes apparent from a walk through the hotel bar that the biggest egos at this event won’t be the players but rather the insufferable national media that covers hockey in this country. There is an unavoidable reflected glory that comes with covering hockey in a rabid country like Canada—and way too many media people who think that means it’s about them.” That won’t win Wiecek many friends on press row, but he’s spot-on.

About cheering for Matt Nichols…bloggers vs. mainstream media…cops putting the cuffs on Kane…a cheeseless Cheesehead…and other stuff on my mind

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

I don’t mind admitting that I’m root, root, rooting for Matt Nichols to get the job done this week when the Winnipeg Blue Bombers haul their sorry butts into Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton.

Hey, I’m not in mainstream jock journalism anymore, so I’m allowed to wave pom-poms and type at the same time now.

Actually, true confession: I always did cheer for certain athletes. Just like every sports scribe then and now. Oh, they’d have us believe that they’re flatliners when it comes to partisanship, but that’s a load of hooey for two reasons: 1) The beat is more enjoyable to work when writing dispatches about a winning outfit, because the to-and-fro with jocks tends to be less adversarial; 2) writers develop a fondness for some players—especially the “good quotes”—so they wish for them to succeed.

They’re just supposed to keep it on the QT and not allow it to leak into their copy, that’s all.

Here in the blogosphere, on the other hand, we’re not bound by that unwritten code. We can lash them or we can laud them based on our biases.

I’m partial to the Bombers. My personal history with them dates back to the beginning of the glory years in the late 1950s; ergo, my preference is that they once again become something other than the free space on the Canadian Football League bingo card. Is Nichols the quarterback to take them where they haven’t been since 1990? One can hope, so one can cheer for him.

Interesting to note the difference between how bloggers and mainstream media tackled the announcement that Bobby Hull would be among the first three inductees to the Winnipeg Jets Hall of Fame. Bloggers Mitch Kasprick at Winnipeg Hockey Talk and Cara at Arctic Ice Hockey addressed the matter of Hull’s history of domestic violence head on, whereas mainstream jock journalists didn’t touch it. Cara’s piece spurred a healthy debate among AIH readers and contributors, which makes me wonder what opinionists at the Winnipeg Sun and Winnipeg Free Press were afraid of.

Also interesting are the literary gymnastics that Paul Wiecek has performed on the sports pages of the Freep during the past few months. I hope he didn’t hurt himself. I mean, in mid-April, he was advocating contract extensions for the losing tandem of Bombers general manager Kyle Walters and head coach Mike O’Shea. Earlier this month, he advised us that O’Shea was not to be faulted for the local football heroes stumbling out of the gate. And now? It’s all Mikey’s mess. Apparently CEO Wade Miller has held up his end. Ditto Walters. So Mikey has to wear that 1-4 record. I make no secret that I’m a Wiecek fan, but I’m concerned when he goes all Gary Lawless on us.

So I have just one question after seeing that photo of Buffalo cops slapping the bracelets on old friend Evander Kane and charging him with several counts of wrong-doing that involved the physical mistreatment of women: Has Sabres Tim Murray called his counterpart with the Winnipeg Jets, Kevin Cheveldayoff, and asked, “Any possibility of a do-over on that trade, ol’ pal, ol’ buddy?” I feel bad for Murray. I mean, how’s he going to off-load Kane to another National Hockey League outfit now?

Can this be true? Aaron Rodgers, the quarterback of the Green Bay Packers, has cut cheese from his diet? The main Cheeshead going cheese free? In Wisconsin? What’s next? Winnipeggers stop eating Sals nips and shopping wholesale?

Okay, if you hadn’t heard of Rosie MacLennon prior to last week, you’re forgiven. Not forgiven, however, is Steve Simmons of Postmedia for his catty and crass comments of Rosie’s selection to carry the Canadian flag at the opening of next month’s Olympic Games in Rio. In the world according to Little Stevie Blunder, a trampolinist has no business leading our athletes into the five-ring circus. He submits that her sport is “more backyard than Olympian.” If I’m reading him right, he’s telling us that if kids can do it in the backyard, then it doesn’t belong in the Olympics. Good thing Walter Gretzky didn’t know about that when he built that backyard hockey rink for his boy Wayne.

Patti Dawn Swansson has been writing about Winnipeg sports for 45 years, longer than any living being. Do not, however, assume that to mean she harbors a wealth of sports knowledge or that she’s a jock journalist of award-winning loft. It simply means she is old and comfortable at a keyboard (although arthritic fingers sometimes make typing a bit of a chore) and she apparently doesn’t know when to quit. Or she can’t quit.
She is most proud of her Q Award, presented in 2012 for her scribblings about the LGBT community in Victoria, B.C., and her induction into the Manitoba Sportswriters & Sportscasters Association Media Roll of Honour in 2015.

About the Winnipeg Jets Hall of Fame…The Shoe fits…and spousal abuse

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

Benny Hatskin got it all started at Portage and Main in June 1972.

Quiz me this, kids: What does Mark Chipman have against Ben Hatskin?

I mean, okay, the notion of bridging the Winnipeg Jets’ present to the past in the form of a Hall of Fame is an admirable enterprise. And few of a certain vintage will quibble with the inaugural inductees—Anders Hedberg, Ulf Nilsson and Bobby Hull. The Hot Line, after all, delivered two World Hockey Association titles to River City and, if we are to believe Glen Sather, it served as a blueprint for the run-and-gun Edmonton Oilers who made a mockery of the National Hockey League during the mid-1980s.

But Benny is ground zero. He is the father of professional hockey in Winnipeg as we know it. There would not be an NHL franchise in River City today if not for Hatskin, whose dreaming and scheming lured Hull away from the Chicago Blackhawks in 1972.

“I don’t think the NHL would have ever been in Winnipeg without the vision that Ben Hatskin and others had to bring the WHA to Winnipeg in ’72,” is how Chipman put it to Ted Wyman of the Winnipeg Sun in 2012. “The credit for the name that we still use today begins and ends there. And signing Hull completely legitimized the league and gave Winnipeg a chance to be the gold standard team within the league.”

Yup.

Why, then, is His Holy Hockeyness not saluting Hatskin?

According to the club website, “the new Winnipeg Jets Hall of Fame is being created to honour the impact and accomplishments of the team’s hockey legends and celebrate the rich history of professional hockey in Winnipeg.”

If it’s meant to be a players-only club, fine. Then say so. Otherwise, in any celebration of “the rich history of professional hockey in Winnipeg,” you must start with Ben Hatskin.

Chipman knows this. He has acknowledged this. So, why the reluctance, or flat-out refusal, to deliver Benny his due, other than spew a few kind words on the occasion of the original Jets’ 40^th anniversary? Does Chipman harbor an anti-Ben bias? Is ego at play here? That is, does the grand poobah of True North Sports & Entertainment fear that a tangible tribute to Hatskin will shake some of the glitter from his own hockey halo?

Chipman, more so than his deep-pocketed co-bankroll, David Thomson, has heard the hosannas ring out loud and long, from far and wide, for his role in the resurrection of NHL shinny in River City. The bravo chorus has been deserved.

But this isn’t a chicken or egg thing. We know who and what came first. Ben Hatskin and the World Hockey Association. Then Bobby Hull. The rest is, as they say, history.

Do the right thing, Mark Chipman.

shoe — The Shoe led the lads on three victory laps as captain of the Winnipeg Jets in the World Hockey Association.

It’s a slight and a horrible omission that the late Lars-Erik Sjoberg isn’t going into the Hall of Fame in lockstep with Hedberg, Hull and Nilsson. The three Hot Liners gathered most of the glory in the WHA days due to their offensive exploits, but the man who made it all happen, and made it look so easy, from the back end was The Shoe. They didn’t stitch the ‘C’ on the Little General’s sweater by accident. Sjoberg also one-upped the three members of the fabled Hot Line—he won the Avco World Trophy three times compared to their two. He didn’t bail on the Jets, either. While Hedberg and Nilsson swanned off to Gotham and the Rangers, and Hull refused to play for John Ferguson, Sjoberg captained the Jets to their final WHA title and in their inaugural NHL season before retiring. The Shoe is a fit for the Hall.

In the case of Bobby Hull being inducted into the Hall of Fame, the Jets are following the lead of the Chicago Blackhawks by separating the hockey player from the guy away from the rink. There can be no quarrel over Hull’s worthiness as a shinny star and his contribution to the WHA. He’s an icon. Like all of us, though, Hull is a flawed human being. Among his flaws is the most distasteful bit of business that is the physical abuse of women. It was among the reasons a judge granted one of his ex-wives, Joanne, a divorce. But a known history of spousal abuse didn’t prevent the Blackhawks from a) erecting a statue of Hull outside the United Center, and b) hiring him as an official ambassador of the NHL club. Now the Jets are looking past Hull’s trespasses. My guess is that most in Jets Nation will do the same. I can’t. I don’t think men who beat women should be deified.

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