Let’s talk about the Buffalo Boys and the Brier…the Jets, the Oilers and Coach PoMo’s excuses…the NHL’s feel-good stories…Sid the Kid’s goal…Commish Randy’s road trip…Tony Romo’s gum flapping…power women in hockey…and other things on my mind

Another Sunday smorgas-bored…and nobody dropped me on my head last week, so some of this might make sense…

Mike McEwen

I trust Mike McEwen and Jason Gunnlaugson realize what’s at stake at the Brier this week in Kingston. If not, someone needs to clue them in immediately that nothing less than the top step on the podium is acceptable.

I know, I know. That’s expecting a lot. But such is the Burden of the Buffalo. Especially on pebbled ice.

In case you hadn’t noticed, Manitoba curlers are on the mother of all rolls this season, winning three world titles and the Scotties Tournament of Hearts, and I’m assuming Messrs. McEwen and Gunnlaugson would rather not let the side down.

Colin Kurz certainly didn’t. He skipped his team to the world Mixed crown in Aberdeen, Scotland, last October. Next up were Mackenzie Zacharias and Jacques Gauthier, who double dipped at the world Juniors in Krasnoyarsk, Russia. Then along came Kerri Einarson and her gal pals out of Gimli to claim the national women’s championship in Moose Jaw.

So, over to you, Mike and Jason. Show us what you’ve got, boys.

Jeff Stoughton

Hard to believe, but our Buffalo Boys are 1-for-the-21st century at the Brier, with only Jeff Stoughton managing to get the job done in 2011. It pains me to say that Alberta outfits have had their way at the men’s championship, taking the Tankard home to Wild Rose Country 11 times since 2000, and I’m not sure I’d want to bet against either Brendan Bottcher or Kevin Koe claiming a 12th title next weekend. If they do, His Royal Smugness Terry Jones of Postmedia E-Town will be positively insufferable, and that’s one column I won’t want to read.

Interesting chin wag between Jay Onrait, Dan O’Toole and Ontario skip John Epping last week on TSN. According to O’Toole, curling is “uniquely Canadian.” Ya, tell that to the Scots, Danny boy. They only invented the bloody game and brought it to our shores.

Yes, now that you mention it, that was a spirited skirmish the Winnipeg Jets and Edmonton Oilers delivered on Saturday night, and it left me wanting more of the same. It’s quite possible that these two outfits will meet in the initial jousting of the Stanley Cup tournament and, as I was saying last weekend, I’d like Winnipeg HC’s chances against the McDavids in a seven-game series.

Coach PoMo

Only one thing I didn’t like about the Jets 3-2 loss in E-Town—Paul Maurice’s post-match spewings. “I think it’s nine (games) in 16 (days) for us and a couple of time zone changes,” Coach PoMo told news snoops. Oh, boo flipping hoo. Everybody’s tired, everybody’s limping this deep into the National Hockey League season, so it’s no time for lame excuses about scheduling and travel.

Coach PoMo must be the envy of head coaches everywhere. He’s in danger of failing to qualify for Beard Season for the fourth time in seven crusades, yet he has a new, three-year, $9-million contract tucked in his hip pocket. You know, right beside the horse shoe, the four-leaf clover, the rabbit’s foot, the smoke and the mirrors.

Bobby Ryan

So who had the better feel-good story, Bobby Ryan or David Ayres? It has to be Ryan. Ya, sure, Ayres climbing down from a Zamboni to play goal for the Carolina Hurricanes and beat the Maple Leafs was boffo, but I saw it more as Sideshow Bob stuff. You know, something good for a few yuks at Tranna’s expense and, lord knows, a lot of us like to laugh at the Leafs. Ryan, on the other hand, had a hat trick in his return to Ottawa after three months on the shelf to put his life back in order, and I say a guy triumphing in his battle with the bottle trumps quirky every time. It had me reaching for the Kleenex.

David Ayres

Don’t get me wrong. I think the Ayres story is terrific, and there’s a very real human element to it. He has one of his mom’s kidneys, you see, and his new-born celebrity allows Ayres to raise awareness and funds for a disease that, according to the National Kidney Foundation, causes more deaths in the U.S. than breast or prostate cancer. One in 10 Canadians has kidney disease, and I happen to be among them. I’m at Stage 4, and there’s no cure for the silent killer. Not surprisingly, though, the kidney angle is too often an afterthought in the telling of the Ayres tale, because who thinks about their kidneys until they go on the fritz?

Just wondering: Would there have been as big a fuss over Ayres had he made his cameo appearance in San Jose against the New Jersey Devils instead of in the Republic of Tranna vs. the Leafs on Hockey Night In Canada? Somehow I doubt it.

Celebration time for Sid the Kid.

Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet did the natter thing with Sidney Crosby, tripping back to Sid the Kid’s golden goal at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver. “Everybody remembers where they were,” Friedman said of the moment when Crosby whipped the puck past American goalie Ryan Miller to win the tournament for the good guys. Well, I consider myself among the “everybody,” but I don’t have a clue where I was, who I was with, or what I was doing on Feb. 28, 2010. I remember where I was when Paul Henderson scored in 1972. And when Marie-Philip Poulin scored in 2014. But Sid’s goal escapes me. Does that make me unCanadian?

It seems to me that “tweener” goals in the NHL have become as commonplace as missing teeth. Those between-the-leg goals have gone from highlight reel to ho-hum.

Commish Randy

Canadian Football League commish Randy Ambrosie is on a to-and-fro across the country, hobnobbing with the rabble and nattering about a new playoff format proposed by Wade Miller, CEO of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. Apparently the rank-and-file are fully on board with the notion of the top two outfits, West and East, earning first-round byes, and the next four clubs qualifying for the Grey Cup tournament regardless of locale. That, of course, could mean five West Division teams in the post-season. Hey, works for me. As for the idea of having the club with the best regular-season record choose its playoff foe, fuhgeddaboudit. It’s a very loud no-go. No surprise, really. Everyone would want to play the Cleveland Browns.

Tony Romo

Wow, CBS will be paying Tony Romo $17 million to flap his gums during National Football League games next season. Hmmm, I wonder how much it would take for Fox to get Terry Bradshaw to stop talking.

Loved this Twitter exchange between Danny Austin of Postmedia Calgary and Terry Jones of Postmedia Edmonton:
Austin: “Removing all politics from this statement, it is so embarrassing that in Calgary, Canada’s fourth biggest city, the LRT only comes every 15 minutes on weekends.”
Jones: “Yeah, but a chuckwagon comes by every 10 minutes.”
That’s cheeky, also very funny.

Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that news snoops in the Republic of Tranna no longer tell us that Kawhi Leonard is God’s gift to the hardwood? Why do you suppose that is? Oh, that’s right, Kawhi is a traitor and doesn’t play in The ROT anymore.

Dani Rylan

And, finally, in the good reads department, Emily Sadler of Sportsnet has a piece on the 25 most powerful women in hockey, and I know what some of you are thinking: You didn’t know there were 25 women in hockey, right? Well don’t be cheeky. Emily has Kendall Coyne Schofield ranked No. 1, followed by Kim Davis of the NHL office and National Women’s Hockey League commish Dani Rylan. It’s worth checking out.

Let’s talk about the rise, fall and rise of Ponytail Puck…the NHL or bust for women…get a grip, Mitch…puffball from Tim & Sid…the return of Peter Puck…good reads…Coach PoMo’s grip…and other things on my mind

Another Sunday smorgas-bored…and the NHL all-star game was rubbish and some of you might think the following is too…

People are gushing about Ponytail Puck again.

Oh, yes, they are. Just like last year at this time, when Kendall Coyne-Schofield made her wowza dash around the freeze during National Hockey League all-star hijinks in San Jose.

Kendall Coyne-Schofield

Once she had completed her lap in the lickety-split time of 14.346 seconds and eyeballs were popped back into sockets, the hosannas rained down from the highest perches and from every corner of Planet Puckhead.

Bravo Kendall!

It didn’t matter that she was slower than all but one participant in the fastest-skater competition. After all, they were guys—the NHL’s elite—and Kendall’s a she. Thus, jaws dropped and people who, until that moment, truly believed girls and women only wear white skates with picks on the blades gave ponder to the notion that Ponytail Puck might be something worth checking out.

And so it was on Friday night at the Enterprise Center in St. Loo. This was the 2020 NHL all-star festival. A showcase event. Packed barn. Party atmosphere. And the women had the spotlight all to themselves for 20 minutes, playing a bit of loosey-goosey but quite earnest 3-on-3 pond hockey.

It didn’t really matter that 10 Canadians beat 10 Americans 2-1. It only mattered that there was a there there.

Cassie Campbell-Pascall

“I think the women’s game knocked down a door,” gushed Cassie Campbell-Pascall, the former Olympian who called the exercise in concert with play-by-play man Jim Hughson. As the game expired, she talked about “the magnitude of what has happened. It’s a big moment, it really is. That’s an understatement.”

“Cassie,” Hughson responded, “all I can say after watching that is ‘find these players a place to play.’”

And that’s the rub, isn’t it?

The Coyne-Schofield dash a year ago is considered a signature moment for Ponytail Puck. Indeed, just last week, this was the headline on an Emily Sadler article for the Sportsnet website: “How Kendall Coyne-Schofield’s clutch All-Star performance changed the game.”

But did it really?

Post-Kendall, the distaff side of the game gained all the momentum of a stalled Zamboni being pushed up the side of a mountain. First, the Canadian Women’s Hockey League folded, then between 150 and 200 of the planet’s premier performers snubbed their noses at the National Women’s Hockey League, refusing to play for pauper’s pay. So they gathered under the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association banner and created the barnstorming, hit-and-miss Dream Gap Tour, which has been met with a meh by the masses and mainstream media.

Basically, they’ve reduced themselves to a novelty act, much like the Harlem Globetrotters, but without the wizardry, the cornball antics and the packed houses.

And, yes, Friday’s 3-on-3 exhibition was a novelty within a novelty, because the NHL all-star festival is nine parts gimmickry and one part substance. I mean, if the NHL cancelled its annual glitz fest, I’m not sure anyone over the age of 13 would produce anything that resembles a pout.

But this edition was significant and special because of the women.

Question is: Will they seize the moment and take advantage of renewed interest, or will they squander it like summer wages? You know, the way they did last year.

“I think they sent a message that if you haven’t watched women’s hockey you better start,” Campbell-Pascall said in her wrap on Sportsnet.

Well, Cassie might want to have a quiet word with her sisters about that.

I mean, really, what can the Dream Gappers do to build on the St. Loo experience? They have a product to sell but nowhere to sell it. And that’s of their own doing. They quit the NWHL. Thus, they won’t make themselves available to the masses again until the final day of February, when they stage more of their glorified scrimmages in Philadelphia. After that, who knows? The events calendar on the PWHPA website is blank.

Talk about a buzz kill. And they have no one to blame but themselves.

It’s quite evident that the PWHPA has a one-prong strategy: Wait for NHL owners to step up and claim them in hockey’s version of an adopt-a-pet program, because that’s what they “deserve.” But hoping/expecting multi-millionaires and billionaires to gamble on an enterprise guaranteed to lose large boatloads of money is a questionable gambit at best and a fool’s bet at worst. NHL bankrolls don’t have to be told the CWHL was buried in a money crunch, or that only one NWHL outfit, the Minnesota Whitecaps, has shown a profit. I’m sure they’ve also heard National Basketball Association commissioner Adam Silver talk about dropping an average of $10 million per year on the WNBA side of the business. Thus the reluctance/refusal of NHL owners to skate down that rabbit hole. Plus, commish Gary Bettman has repeatedly stressed that there’d be no NHL women’s league unless he had an open landscape. So the next step is obvious: The PWHPA and the NWHL need to engage in meaningful dialogue and find a common road to travel, not separate paths. What part of that do the Dream Gappers not understand?

The aforementioned Hughson shouts about finding the Dream Gappers “a place to play,” but he (and many others) ignores the reality that the NWHL would be a seven-team league today, with franchises in Montreal and the Republic of Tranna, if not for their boycott.

The award for the dumbest comment on the women’s 3-on-3 game goes to Mitch Marner of the Tranna Maple Leafs. “I think a lot of those players can play in (the NHL),” he said, apparently with a straight face.

The Dream Gappers certainly have friends in the media, but it doesn’t really help the cause when people like Tara Slone, Ron MacLean and Tim & Sid do nothing but wave pom-poms and toss out puffball questions and hosannas. For example, Tim & Sid invited Campbell-Pascall for a natter last week, and she had this to say: “I believe we have at least 10 NHL franchises that want a team. I truly believe behind the scenes the NHL is ready for it. It’s well overdue in my opinion. I really hope that this is sort of the step to what we will see in the WNHL and I believe that it’s more imminent than it’s ever been before.” That went unchallenged. They should have asked her this: If there are 10 teams that “want” to bankroll a women’s club, why haven’t they done it? Are any of the 10 outfits in Canada? Where are the others located? Why are you waiting on the NHL instead of working with the NWHL to form a super league? Exactly what do you consider a “livable” wage? How can you convince the rabble to buy Ponytail Puck in enough numbers that a WNHL is viable and the players earn the $50,000 to $100,000 wages that Pascall-Campbell likes to talk about? I mean, you can’t make adults eat their Brussels sprouts and you can’t make them watch professional women’s hockey. But the jock journos refuse to ask pointed/fair questions because it’s considered bad manners and a betrayal of the cause. And that’s lame.

SRO in Minny.

The finish of the Minnesota Whitecaps-Boston Pride skirmish on Saturday produced a classic call from the broadcasting tandem of Kelly Schultz and Alexis (Oh My God, I’m Sweating!) Pearson, not to mention some colorful commentary on Twitter. The Whitecaps won 4-3 with a final-minute goal, ending the Pride’s undefeated season (19-1), and the game was an SRO sellout at Tria Rink in St. Paul. It’ll be the same today when the teams do it all over again. It’s also noteworthy that the Pride sold out their two most recent matches at Warrior Ice Arena in Beantown, so the NWHL is getting along just fine without the Dream Gappers.

Had to laugh at this take on Ponytail Puck from Steve Simmons of Postmedia Tranna: “Here’s what I’d like to see. A six-team WNHL. Use the Original Six cities—or pick whichever six you want—and begin the process of building a steady, stable, sound, professional hockey league for women. But an NHL-backed league would have a shot. It’s still a gamble. It’s not a hugely expensive gamble. But it’s worth pushing for and pursuing. In a one-step-at-a-time kind of way.” That from a guy who has called Olympic women’s shinny a “charade” and advocated for it to be removed from the Winter Games. With allies like Simmons and Tie Domi, Ponytail Puck doesn’t have a prayer.

Of course the NHL 3-on-3 games were rubbish. What did you expect? Major League Baseball is the only big-time sport that puts on a watchable all-star game.

Peter Puck

Also rubbish was that snake-like, Magic Marker puck tracker thingy used during some of the 3-on-3 activity. If it’s all the same to Gary Bettman and the geniuses in Gotham, I prefer my hockey without squiggly, black lines on the freeze, thank you. What’s next, the return of Peter Puck to tell us why the ice in the goal crease is blue?

Brett Hull made a cameo appearance during the all-star skills competition, and what a coincidence: The Golden Brett scored 741 goals in the NHL and he weighs 741 pounds today.

Murat Ates

Department of good reads: 1) Murat Ates’ look at the Winnipeg Jets for The Athletic; 2) Mad Mike McIntyre’s essay on the Jets’ moms in the Drab Slab. Murat’s piece on a Jets players’ poll is a totally fun read, the kind of thing I’d like to see in the two River City dailies. It’s a good reason to subscribe to The Athletic, and that’s not a paid advertisement. It’s the truth.

For those of you who keep squawking about Paul Maurice needing a makeover, I remind you of something the Jets head knock said about his coaching style last June: “I’m not going to change the grip. We hit the ball down the fairway an awful lot. We had one go in the water on us in the playoffs, but I’m not sure that I’m changing my clubs or my grip yet.” So don’t say you weren’t warned.

Hey, lookee here. The Winnipeg Ice sit atop the East Division tables in The Dub, and I’d like to think that the rabble have noticed the new kid on the block. It’s just too bad they don’t have a bigger barn to play in. I mean, it’s a shame they can only squeeze 1,600 into Wayne Fleming Arena when there are more than 3,000 watching the Wheat Kings a hoot and a holler down the road in Brandon.

Why are so many people shocked when Serena Williams loses a tennis match? Nobody is afraid of her anymore, except perhaps line judges and umpires who’d rather not have a fuzzy ball shoved down their throats.

Zach Collaros

That’s quite the pickle the Winnipeg Blue Bombers are in. It’s reported that the Canadian Football League club wants to make Zach Collaros their main man behind centre, which would leave Matt Nichols out in the cold and his nose out of joint. For the record, I think they’d be doing the dirty to Nichols if they punt him, but it’s just another example of how cruel pro sports, especially football, can be.

And, finally, Sweet Home Alabama! Neil Young really is a Southern Man now. The Kelvin High dropout officially became a citizen of the United States the other day, just in time to vote Donald Trump out of the White House. I don’t know about you, but I won’t hold that against him.

Cale Makar isn’t a “damned fool”…Steve Simmons is

Editor’s Note: I vowed I wasn’t going to write this blog anymore. I was fini. I mean, it’s not like my voice is essential, or that I expect my views to sway opinion. The sports universe can, and will, unfold as it should with or without my two cents worth. But geez Louise, the media mooks have gotten to me. I can no longer ignore them. So I’m back. Sort of. Kind of. This might be a one-off. But I doubt it.

***

Quiz me this, kids: If a sports writer doesn’t appear to enjoy sports or many of the athletes who play kids’ games, should he be writing about sports and the athletes who play kids’ games?

I agree. He shouldn’t be.

Steve Simmons: Damned fool is in the doghouse again.

So why hasn’t anyone at Postmedia told Steve Simmons it’s time to sack his bats and go quietly into the night? Maybe find a hobby that doesn’t involve character crucifixion. I mean, the Tranna-based opinionist has fallen into a mosh pit of insulting, callous, demeaning, shameful, dismissive, bitter, unnecessary name-calling commentary. He doesn’t offer opinion so much as he delivers nasty. He isn’t a writer. He’s a hit man.

His latest victims are a fledgling, 19-year-old college kid and a group of amateur athletes who hold down daytime jobs and actually lose money in pursuit of sporting achievement and glory.

The college kid is Cale Makar, who, for reasons yet to be disclosed, reportedly declined an invitation to join the Canadian men’s hockey outfit for a few weeks of frolic at next month’s Winter Olympic Games in PyeongChang, South Korea. For this, Simmons, without knowledge of the wherefore and why of Makar’s decision, calls the teenager “a damned fool.” It doesn’t matter if the young defenceman’s determination was based on counsel from his parents, his college leaders or his agent. Apparently a Postmedia columnist knows best. So the kid’s a “damned fool.”

Imagine that. Steve Simmons: Life coach. Who knew? And how utterly objectionable.

But there’s more.

Not satisfied with discrediting a teenager, the Postmedia mouthpiece has also put mixed doubles curling in his crosshairs. Admittedly a quirky event, it debuts as an Olympic discipline in PyeongChang, much to Simmons’ huffy disapproval.

“It’s a recreational pursuit,” he harrumphs from his soapbox of sourpuss stirrings.

“The winner of the men’s and women’s downhill at PyeongChang will get the same gold medal as the winners in mixed doubles curling. Doesn’t sit well with me,” he adds.

Kaitlyn Lawes and John Morris: Steve Simmons doesn’t want them at the Olympics.

Well, excuse our Kaitlyn Lawes and John Morris all to hell. The nerve of those two Olympic champions, turning a “recreational pursuit” into an Olympic dream. And, hey, it’ll be such bad manners if they earn the top step on the podium in South Korea and accept gold medals. Can’t have that in the world according to Steve Simmons. Daredevils of the downhill ski slopes are gold-worthy. The curlers? They’re lesser-thans. Give ’em trinkets made of tin foil, right Stevie?

Simmons is such a prig. His commentary is mean in spirit and gratuitous in nature and has become chronic.

Canada wins gold in Olympic hockey: Steve Simmons says get rid of it.

Some examples…

• On Olympic champion Rosie MacLennan: “She competes in a rather marginal pursuit: Trampoline. When you think Canadian sport, winter or summer, trampoline seems more backyard and gimmicky than it does Olympian.”

• On Olympic women’s hockey: “There should be a cry to end this Olympic charade of imbalance.”

• On women’s sports: “I don’t believe there’s a demand from the public for women’s sports.”

• On mixed doubles tennis: “The event is junk.” (The week Canada’s Gabriela Dabrowski won the French Open title.)

• On 3-on-3 basketball becoming an Olympic sport: “Somebody out there in Olympic land—or many IOC members—have lost their minds.”

• On players replacing National Hockey League stars on men’s Olympic hockey teams: They’re “also rans.”

Marcus Stroman: Steve Simmons says he’s an annoying kid.

As for individuals, Kevin Durant is “gutless,” Venus Williams is “92 years old,” Marcus Stroman is an “annoying kid” who needs to “grow up,” Brooke Henderson also needs to “grow up,” John Farrell is a “traitor,” Phil Kessel is petty and “small,” Roger Goodell is a “flim-flam” man, Chad Ochocinco is a “big mouth,” etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

None of that is necessary, and the steady outpouring of gratuitous cheap shots should be an embarrassment to Simmons and Postmedia.

But no. He insists on wrapping himself in the robes of the villain scribe, assuming them to be garments of honor in a profession that supposedly values the tell-it-like-it-is posturing of the late Howard Cosell. Well, there’s nothing honorable about Simmons’ contrarian shtick. He doesn’t write with the skill, the cheek, the witty irreverence, the knowledge, or the delicate touch of those who came before him or many of his peers today. He comes at the reader with the sledgehammer of the unpolished practitioner, and it’s become tawdry, tiresome and tedious.

And nobody at Postmedia has noticed this? Damned fools.

 

About the Secretariat of clay court tennis…a delight named Jelena…time for Chevy to get to work…and angry, old Grandpa Simmons is shaking his fist at clouds again

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

Let’s make something perfectly clear: Stan Wawrinka is very, very good and what he does.

Unless your name is Roger Federer, Stan the Man is the best tennis talent ever produced in Switzerland. He is just one successful Wimbledon fortnight short of a career Grand Slam, having already claimed the singles titles at the Australian, French and U.S. Opens. He is ranked No. 3 among all racqueteers on the third rock from the sun.

Yet Rafael Nadal made No. 3 look like No. 303 in the men’s final at the French Open on Sunday in Paris.

It was like watching Secretariat win the Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths. Seriously, 6-2, 6-3, 6-1? In the championship match of a Grand Slam tournament? We haven’t seen a rout like that since Custer threw down on Crazy Horse at the Little Bighorn. Or at least since Rafa paddywhacked Federer 6-1, 6-3, 6-0 in the 2008 championship match at Roland Garros.

But that’s what Rafa Nadal does. Put him on a tennis court made of clay and you have Secretariat.

Rafa Nadal

The wedgie Rafa delivered to Wawrinka on Sunday reminded me of something Yogi Berra mused about Sandy Koufax, scant seconds after the legendary Los Angeles Dodgers lefthander had whiffed 15 New York Yankees in Game 1 of the 1963 World Series:

“I can see how he won 25 games,” said Yogi, the Yankees catcher. “What I don’t understand is how he lost five.”

It’s the same with Rafa Nadal. He’s won the title at Roland Garros 10 times, collecting 79 victories against two losses. How in the name of Philippe Chatrier did he lose twice?

Robin Soderling (2009) and Novak Djokovic (2015) are the only foes to vanquish Rafa on the red clay of Roland Garros, and I have to assume French Open officials demanded that both men pee in a bottle immediately after their matches. I mean, you don’t beat Nadal in Paris unless there’s something funny in your drinking water.

Most people go to Paris for the food, the wine, the art, the culture and the romance. Nadal goes to search and destroy. He’s relentless, ruthless and has the steely-eyed focus of an assassin.

Wawrinka mentioned something about playing Rafa on a clay court being the stiffest challenge in tennis, and evidence supports that notion. Nadal has lost only twice at Roland Garros. In 13 years. He’s 102-2 in best-of-five matches on clay.

But Wawrinka is also selling the Spaniard short. It isn’t just tennis. Playing Rafael Nadal on clay is the greatest challenge in the entirety of sports.

Jelena Ostapenko

There’s hope for the future of women’s tennis, and her name is Jelena Ostapenko, the Latvian lass whose dashing and daring ruled the day at Roland Garros. The winners and unforced errors come in equal number from Ostapenko, but if she brings her service game up to the level of her groundstrokes (she hits her forehead harder than world No. 1 Andy Murray) the 20-year-old could become the face of the ladies’ game the moment Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova take their permanent leave. If Serena ever stands down, that is.

While watching the French Open this past fortnight, I found myself wondering this: How did Steffi Graf, Chrissie Evert, Martina Navratilova, Billie Jean King and other legendary ladies’ champions win all those Grand Slam titles without the orgasmic shrieking and grunting that we hear today?

I heard a rumor that the National Hockey League season is over. If that’s true, someone give Kevin Cheveldayoff a nudge and tell the Winnipeg Jets general manager to “wakey, wakey.” It’s time for him to go to work.

I note that Paul Wiecek of the Winnipeg Free Press has been tabbed for induction into the Manitoba Sportswriters & Sportscasters Roll of Honour in October. Good choice. Wiecek is the best sports columnist the Drab Slab has featured since Hal Sigurdson signed off in 1996, even when he’s writing about rock climbing.

Steve Simmons has become the Jose Bautista of sports writing: Tedious, tiresome and time to move on. I mean, it’s one thing for a columnist to be opinionated and rub the rabble the wrong way. That’s a large part of the gig. And Simmons surely has mastered the art of getting up noses with his alphabet farts that appear on sports pages of Postmedia sheets from one flank of the True North to the other. But…the Toronto Sun scribe has grown increasingly nasty and mean-spirited, if not cruel, in his commentary. He is Grandpa Simmons, shaking his fists at clouds and screaming at kids to get the hell off his lawn. A case in point is Simmons’ take on mixed doubles competition in Grand Slam tennis. When our girl Gabriela Dabrowski advanced to the mixed doubles final of the French Open last week, Mark Masters of TSN delivered this tweet: “No Canadian woman has won a mixed doubles grand slam title. Ottawa’s @GabyDabrowski has a chance to change that on Thursday.” To which Simmons responded: “Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.” I’m not sure if that was supposed to be funny, witty or clever, but it was none of the above. It was classless, tacky and totally unnecessary, as were a series of insensitive follow-up tweets belittling Dabrowski’s and partner Rohan Bopanna’s achievement.

I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that Simmons is pooh-poohing yet another event in sports. It’s become his shtick. Last year he was “bothered” by the selection of Rosie MacLennan as Canada’s flag-bearer for the Olympic Games in Rio, because trampoline is “a marginal pursuit” that “seems more backyard and gimmicky that it does Olympian.” He’s also advocated the elimination of women’s hockey at the Olympics, writing: “Women’s hockey is the least competitive, least interesting, least Olympic of all sports in the Winter Games. There should be a cry to end this Olympic charade of imbalance.” And he once told the Ryerson Review of Journalism that “I don’t believe there’s a demand from the public for women’s sports.” I’ll remind you that he writes for a newspaper that’s best known for the tits and ass it displays on Page 3 and, to this day, continues to objectify women with its Sunshine Girl.

Thanks to a study by neuroscientist Tara Swart, we now know what we’ve suspected all along: Journalists’ brains function at a sub-par level. For evidence, see: Simmons, Steve. (See, I can stoop to gratuitous, mean-spirited and nasty comments, too. You know, just like a real sports columnist at a real big-city newspaper.)

Patti Dawn Swansson has been scribbling about Winnipeg sports for 47 years, which means she’s old and probably should think about getting a life.

About a Hall pass for “hell-ya!” girl Hayley Wickenheiser…keeping it behind closed doors for the Winnipeg Jets…fickle fans…and a new turn for the CFL quarterback carousel

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

I suppose the manner in which Hayley Wickenheiser walked away from hockey says something about the women’s game, if not her: Under-stated. Under the radar.

Hayley Wickenheiser

There was no ballyhoo. No emotion-charged, tear-jerker live press gathering on TV or streaming across the Internet. Just a simple tweet from Wickenheiser at 4:02 in the afternoon on a Friday the 13^th , stating, “Dear Canada. It has been the great honour of my life to play for you. Time to hang ’em up!! Thank you!”

In the world’s greatest hockey nation, that’s how the greatest of all our female players bid adieu. A 22-word tweet, almost one for each of the 23 years the product of Shaunavon, Sask., wore the Maple Leaf with Canada’s national women’s team. As farewells go, you can’t do it at a lower volume than that, unless you say nothing at all.

That’s the nature of the beast, though.

I don’t believe I’d be off the mark were I to submit that female hockey operates under the radar three out of every four winters. We get geeked up about the girls’ game only when the Olympics arrive. Then it roars into our consciousness, like a hell-bent Hayley Wickenheiser dropping a shoulder and driving to the net against those always troublesome American girls.

Think Sochi 2014. Anything at those Games more dramatic, breath-halting and inspiring than the finish to the women’s gold-medal game? Nope. At least not for us. Our neighbors to the south, no doubt, don’t share such romantic sentiments.

The point is, we genuflect in the direction of the women’s game during the five-ring circus that is the Winter Olympics, otherwise it’s an out-of-sight, out-of-mind venture.

The two main organizations in North America—the Canadian Women’s Hockey League and the National Women’s Hockey League that operates in the northeastern U.S.—basically function in anonymity. I mean, until the Wickenheiser tweet on Friday, the only headlines in female shinny this season were the coming out of Harrison Browne, a transgender forward with the Buffalo Beauts, and the Edward Scissorhands-like slashing of NWHL salaries.

Not many people were shocked to read about a transgender hockey player or a 50-per cent cut in wages—they were gobsmacked to learn that something called the NWHL actually existed.

I doubt many are aware that the CWHL, in which players are not paid, is enjoying its 10^th season.

All hail Hayley.

So, Wickenheiser doing her thing on the down low was rather in lockstep with the women’s game, but no doubt any and all tributes that accompany her into retirement won’t be so muffled.

Wickenheiser is deserving of fanfare, not merely because of the unprecedented numbers (168 goals, 379 points in 276 games with the national side) or the gold trinkets she collected at the Olympics (four) and world hockey championships (seven). Most significant, it’s about what she has done for girls and women who wish to play hockey without being viewed as freakish or not quite right.

It wasn’t so long ago when boys wore the black skates and girls wore the white skates with the toe picks. It was considered the natural order of things. Any deviation was viewed with cynicism, if not open ridicule and bullying. Indeed, Wickenheiser speaks of her early days on the frozen ponds of Western Canada, when she felt obliged to conceal her identity in order to play hockey.

“I remember when I was a kid, I hid in the bathroom and tucked my hair up so no one would know I was a girl,” the 38-year-old told Donna Spencer of The Canadian Press. “I just went through hell really, to play. Girls don’t have to go through hell anymore to play hockey.”

No they don’t. And much of that is Hayley Wickenheiser’s doing.

Does she belong in the Hockey Hall of Fame. Hell ya, girl! And that will be worth more than a 22-word tweet.

I’m not sure what’s worse, being paddywhacked 7-4 by the Montreal Canadiens or surrendering four first-period goals to the Arizona Coyotes. I mean, the Desert Dogs are the only National Hockey League outfit that has yet to reach double digits in wins this season. They’ve collected nine Ws in 41 assignments. But here’s the deal: The Winnipeg Jets, in dropping a 4-3 verdict to the ‘Yotes on Friday night, now have 22 losses for their 2016-17 crusade. Only one club, the Colorado Avalanche, has more Ls. Grim.

So, the Jets were late in allowing news snoops to enter their inner sanctum at Gila River Arena on Friday, because they thought it would be a swell idea to discuss their misgivings amongst themselves before captain Blake Wheeler surfaced to share a terse bon mot with the media. Next up was a chin-wag with head coach Paul Maurice on Saturday morning in Tinseltown. It’s official, then: The Jets have had more emergency meetings than wins this week.

It has come to my attention that there are those among us in Jets Nation who believe much-maligned goaltender Ondrej Pavelec is the remedy for what ails the local hockey heroes. Yes, oh ye fickle fans, and Donald Trump will fix the great racial divide in the U.S.

Oops newspaper headline of the week comes from the Winnipeg Sun: “Jets catching Canadiens at right time.” D’oh. I’m guessing Paul Maurice would disagree, since coach Potty-Mo has expressed nothing but four-letter displeasure in the wake of the 7-4 wedgie the Habs gave the Jets at the Little Hockey House on the Prairie on Wednesday night.

I note there might be a starting quarterback vacancy in Saskatchewan, where Roughriders’ chief cook and bottle washer Chris Jones parted company with Darian Durant by dispatching him to the Montreal Alouettes for a song. One line of logic suggests this is an opening for Matt Nichols, potential free agent QB. That might make sense if not for the fact Jones tossed Nichols into the dumpster when they were both with the Edmonton Eskimos. Once the Canadian Football League QB carousel stops spinning, I believe you’ll find Nichols where he was last year—behind centre with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

Patti Dawn Swansson has been scribbling about Winnipeg sports for 47 years, which means she is old and probably should think about getting a life.