Access Communications and SaskTelMax have aired the Saskatchewan-Edmonton game, which has solved two problems: people have seen the entire Thunder Bowl, and we also get our Roughrider fix during a bye week.
Granted, if I were in CBC Sports, I wouldn't have wanted to see the replay of the game. First of all, the rebroadcasted version on Max hurt my ears -- the audio must have been remixed before the feed was sent to the cable companies (they probably did it in a steel grainary). The game sounded as if it were recorded in a tin garden shed. And we got another opportunity to watch Mark Lee in all his glory ... not. The CBC had three big clangers by the time the Riders scored their first touchdown, five minutes into the broadcast.
"The Roughriders haven't had a 5-2 season since 1976, the days of Lancaster and Reed ..." (Reed retired after the 1975 season ...)
A feature on Rider receiver DJ Flick showed in him a Rider uniform wearing number 82 (that was his number in Hamilton: in Saskatchewan he wears number 3)
The cameraman missed Joseph's throw to Flick for the opening touchdown (More of a style point than anything else. Why do most sports broadcasts -- soccer, hockey, football, whatever -- take the main shot from the stands, even if it isn't the best angle? The best angle was the cameraman who caught the play from the north end zone, high above the family section).
The shoddy end result, plus the fact that someone in CBC Toronto thought Nick Nolte was a more important component of the Canadian cultural fabric than two teams with many Canadian players who were playing in a Canadian city, was something that should have embarrassed everybody at the network. Yet the game still attracted 650,000 viewers -- and the game kicked off at 10 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time.
Then again, the incident has given ammunition for every yahoo that wants the CBC dismantled because its expensive, too left wing, gives David Suzuki a platform, etc. Is that fair, or balanced? Nope.
The CBC's contract to broadcast CFL games -- by purchasing games from TSN -- expired at the end of this season. The CFL broadcasts are a pretty profitable franchise for TSN, not only in advertising and sponsorship, but also in selling the games to CBC.
Now, next year, will TSN sell some of those CFL games to another private network? Probably not, for two reasons.
First of all, Selling the games to CTV or the CHUM/A Channel network won't generate any new money for Bell GlobeMedia, the owners of the three networks. It will be like shifting money from one ledge of the internal book keeping to another, and not generating any new income overall.
Secondly, CanWest Global is too cheap to buy any games. They did in the days of the Canadian Football Network in the later 80s and early 90s, but that was at a time when the CFL was at the nadir of its television popularity, and no cable sports networks were up and running.
Thirdly, and most importantly, there's the issue of simulcasting. My friend who works at ACTRA considers it to be the worst thing to happen in the history of Canadian television. When an American network shows a television show at the same time, the cable companies MUST, by law, insert the Canadian feed of the same show, complete with Canadian commercials, for the length of the program. It's the same whether it's Ugly Betty, Grey's Anatomy, or the NFL on Sunday.
The private networks buy these shows from the U.S. for a fraction -- less than one per cent -- of what it costs to make the show. When they're aired on Canadian television, they charge more in advertising because their feed is broadcast on two networks. This is why the lowest-rated Hollywood sitcom can generate more money for CTV's or Global's bottom line than the most successful Canadian-made television show.
And the private television networks will never give that up. That's why the NHL, in a rare moment of wisdom, took one look at Bell GlobeMedia's billion dollar, 10 year offer for Hockey Night in Canada, and said, uh-uh. Come playoff time, CTV's plan was to hive off the games to the CHUM/A Channel network, not to broadcast them on CTV, which would have forced them to re-schedule the Made-in-Hollywood simulcasts.
And that's why today's CTV and Global have no interest at all in televising the CFL in 2008. If TSN doesn't sell its games next year to CBC, you will never see the CFL on non-cable stations again. That's a first.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Monday, August 20, 2007
Saskatchewan 39 Edmonton 32 And the Rain Came Down
Men here of the secret
they pass in upholstered silence
they only exist in crisis
they only exist in silence
past territorial piss-posts
past whispers in the closets
past screamin' from the rooftops
we live to survive our paradoxes
we'll live to survive our paradoxes
Tragically Hip, 'Springtime in Vienna'
'We're through the looking glass, folks,' -- JFK
Nearly a day and a half after this game, and I still have problems thinking coherently about it. Not because I was drunk (I wasn't) or I was there (I wasn't) but because it's almost like writing about the personal experiences of a World War Two battle. You only saw fragments. And how did those fragments form ... this?
Here's what we do know.
1. The Saskatchewan Roughriders are sporting a six-win, two loss record. The last time they had this record after 8 games was 1976 (I'm so glad that Tony Gabriel has retired ...). You read the CFL chat boards (except for riderfans.com, where even the biggest Tillman haters have either seen the error of their ways or have disappeared), and they all think it's been done with mirrors. It hasn't. It's been done with good coaching and a good organization. Since 'good coaching' and 'Saskatchewan Roughriders' have traditionally been antonyms, it's understandable that many outside Gang Green haven't wrapped their heads around the concept (then again, there's a few in this province who can't believe the Riders have a winning record, even with all the empirical evidence).
2. The seeds for this victory were planted a long time ago, long before the Eskimos came to Regina. At the pre-game press conference, Edmonton head coach Danny Machoccia lamented all the injuries the the injuries the Eskimos had suffered. When asked about the subject, Kent Austin said, in effect, pshaw, we've got more injuries than they do, but what's the point of talking about it? Everybody who suits up is expected to play: that's why you're on the payroll.
What disturbed me most about the Al Ford years is that the Riders seemed to go out of their way to find excuses for the team's sorry record. We can't scout. Nobody wants to play here. The refs are biased. It was raining. Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I'm going to the garden to eat worms ...
To me, this would give a team a psychological 'out,' a subconscious excuse for losing. Repeat that you're not good enough often enough, and soon will NOT be good enough. Saturday night, Edmonton wasn't good enough, the Roughriders were. The Riders have coaching to thank for that. And looking for that psychological crutch to eplain away a loss is one reason why the Eskimos are 1-7 in their last eight games at Mosaic.
3. The Lord God Almighty Himself couldn't quarterback the Roughriders without someone yelling, "You're doing it wrong, you bum!' Kerry Joseph will always have his detractors, just like Ron Lancaster and Kent Austin (and, to be fair, Kevin Mason and Danny Saunders and ... let's not go there). But Kerry Joseph had a game in which most of his critics are going to be silenced, and most of those on the fence will bust a lung trying to catch up to the bandwagon. What he did went far beyond what showed up on the score sheet or the stats sheet: he willed that team to win, and everyone rallied behind him.
There's still a few grumblers who want to see someone sling for 400 yards and three or four interceptions a game, even if he doesn't have the respect of the locker room. Fine. One of those guys is available, and I'm certain the other one will be looking for work come November.
4. I don't know what happened on defense during the first half, as Ricky Ray made the Eskimos look like the Alberta Crude days He was constantly throwing underneath, generating positive yardage, and the Riders couldn't stop them. The second half was a different story, as the Riders resisted the temptation to blitz, and forced Ray to go long (the Eskimos have no real running game to speak of). Somebody handling the Rider D should get a gold star.
5. That said, Lance Frazier was being beaten like a rented mule all night long.
6. Welcome back from the dead, Chris Szarka.
7. Anyone watching the game now knows shy Eric Tillman traded for Corey Holmes later Sunday afternoon. Jason Armstead wasn't The Man, as a returner or as a featured part of our offense.
8. First a digression. It's not a good career move for any journalist to bash the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. They pay pretty well, and unlike say the CanWest Global empire, they're polite to their critics. At one time, it was easy for CFL fans who were critics of Mothercorp to be shown the error of their ways. There was a time, in the 1990s, when the CBC was the only game in town for the CFL -- no other network wanted to broadcast the games. CTV was too busy with the Blue Jays, and once maintained that the Raptors and Vancouver Grizzlies (Les Grizerables) would be the next big thing on Canadian sports television (Three years later, CTV Sports was pretty much disolved as Raports and Grizzlies ratings fell through the floor, where, for the most part, they remain today for the Raptors when Steve Nash isn't playing.).
One could argue that the only thing keeping the CFL anywhere close to financial solvency was the dollars from the CBC, even when the CBC was broadcasting only half the season -- from Labour Day on.
That was then, this is now.
During the CBC lockout of 2005, many locked out employees were saying publicly what many had said privately, in the dinner table, after a few drinks at the press club, whatever -- that the CBC was a mess because of poor management decisions. While CBC employees brought their side of the story to the blogosphere -- blogs, podcasts, the like -- CBC management tried to explain their side of the story by buying full-page ads in the Globe and Mail (what? CBC management couldn't think of another media outlet? Perish the thought!) and returned to the bargaining table ONLY when it was time to milk the cash cow that's Hockey Night in Canada.
From what I've seen, the CBC is not only the living example of the Peter Principle, it's exactly what German soldiers regarded the British Army in the First World War: lions led by donkeys.
Just after the fourth quarter began, with the Riders down by four, the skies over Mosaic opened up. Curtains of rain fell, along with a light show that looked like The Creator emulating the last few moments of The Who's Won't Get Fooled Again during their mid 70s touring prime (anyone with the Kids Are Alright DVD will know what I'm talking about). Power was knocked out at the stadium, and the backup generator didn't come on, at least right away. The stadium was plunged into darkness, and no one knew whether the game would continue.
Someone in CBC management apparently forgot the lessons of the Heidi Bowl: STAY WITH THE GAME. An hour after the rain and lightning drove the teams to the locker rooms, referees ordered play to be resumed. The CBC did NOT come back. No on-screen crawling text, telling viewers about the power outages or inclement weather that forced the network to suspend coverage. Instead of 13 and a half minutes of the wildest football this side of a Hollywood scriptwriter's fantasy, we got ... Nick Nolte.
When the game returned, the network didn't. The president of CBC Sports had just moved to a new home, and, apparently, didn't have a land line installed yet. And he turned his cell phone off when he went to bed. So when CBC sports officials wanted to resume coverage, they were over-ruled by somebody at Fort Dork (as the Globe and Mail's John Doyle calls the CBC head office).
Imagine, for me: what would have happened if the power had gone out for an hour at the Air Canada Centre during a Leafs game, and this same mid-level management person said, 'screw it, let's show a cheap Hollywood movie instead.' Would that person have a job the next morning? Would the president of CBC Sports have a job if he was similarly out of the loop as he was early Sunday morning? It would have been a bigger challenge for them to get to work to get their pink slip -- officials from the advertising world, corporate Canada, and Leafs fans would be chasing them just like the poor schmucks in the street gang in the last reel of The Warriors.
It's one thing to put your genitalia in the anvil: it's another thing to whack at them yourself. Whatever the CBC does in its last four months of broadcasting CFL games (at least, under this contract, I can't see CTV picking up games next season so TSN might, just might, resell games again), its management can NEVER make things right. Not even if they got Nick Nolte in the booth for the next game. In a Corey Holmes replica jersey.
To be sure, they're sorry, and they're trying to make amends. They replayed the quarter in question Saturday night and Sunday morning (Spoiler: the Riders won). But if I were the producer of the broadcast, I would be ashamed to have let the game go to air in this fashion. You're going to have technical snafus: electronic broadcasting and thunderstorms have never mixed well. But who does Mark Lee have pictures of, in order to keep his job? When Val St. Germain got injured, Lee says ... "Another player went down on him ..." Four times in the last quarter, Lee refers to the Regina Roughriders (they changed their name to the Saskatchewan Roughriders in 1949. Somebody didn't get the memo). He got real, real excited when Jamie Boreham kicked off and the ball went through the end zone (no points -- actually a blown play on Boreham's part).
And Walby ... Lord give me strength ...
9. Confession number two. I wasn't sure that hiring Kent Austin as head coach was a smart move. The Roughriders haven't had, shall we say, good experiences with rookie head coaches who were quarterbacks (Glenn Dobbs, Ron Lancaster, Danny Barrett). My father was also unconvinced because he thought Austin was a jerk. "He was on the last flight into Regina before training camp opened, and was on the first flight out when the season ended," he said.
Dad's not talking like that now. Neither am I. And neither is anyone else in Riderland. Nobody mentions the hard feelings created when he split in the spring of 1994. Nobody's Nelson-style 'ha-ha!'ing at his dismissal last year from the Toronto Argonauts' offensive co-ordinator's position, unless people are laughing at the Argos. It's a bit early to jump on Rob Vanstone's bandwagon and anoint Austin as the coach of the year in the CFL, but after eight games of the season, who else would you select? Mac-Can't-Coach-Ya? Screaming Doug Berry? Wally 'Quarterback Killer' Buono? Guys like my father and me keep waiting for the Riders to fail ... now, it's becoming apparent that the Riders have a lot of fight in them. They don't give up, they find a way to win. And we're stuck trying to find new superlatives.
10. While we've raked the CBC over the coals, let's spare a thought for how well the City of Regina, the Regina Police Service, the private security company the Riders hired for the night, and the Riders handled the situation. Not well. At riderfans.com, there are a lot of posters who say they were told that the game was called off, that they should get home, and if they didn't they would be arrested. It may not be great idea to have 28,000 people, in varying stages of drunkenness, roaming around North Central at 11 o'clock at night, but the police ended up chasing away a lot of people who would have otherwise stuck around for the end of the game. And doesn't anybody with the City check to see whether the backup equipment works?
11. The front page of Monday's Leader Post shows a slightly out-of-focus Eric Tillman, sans jacket, towel around his neck, waving a flagpole. It may not be the wisest move to wave a metal flag pole during an electrical storm in front of 15,000 people (those who remained when the game restarted) but Rider fans will regard that scene the way the US Marines will regard Mount Suribachi. The Rider organization has been down for so long that any direction looked like up ... and there were fears that Roy Shivers' firing and Tillman's overhaul of the team would mean a return to the Same Old Riders ... those lovable losers ... and that didn't happen. Instead, he augmented what Shivers and Barrett left behind and turned a good team into a potentially great team.
But it goes beyond the Roughriders. We have a new mood in Saskatchewan. Save the whining for the cranky old types -- let's get it done, in a philosophy that's equal parts Nellie McClung (Never complain, never explain, get the thing done and let them howl) and Larry the Cable Guy. The Riders always seem to capture the zeitgeist of this province, and looking at the mirror and liking what we're seeing is a new and welcome experience for Saskatchewan residents.
And in a sports year that's given us Micheal Vick, gambling referees in the NBA, Chris Benoit, and misconduct by many players in almost every sport -- there's still room for an old-style, stand-up-and-cheer moment in sport. A time when life resembles something out of We Are Marshall or Rocky ... where the good guys finally win. There may be some Lions or Eskimos fans who disagree, and that's fine. But this is our day in the sun. We could get used to it. No sense in getting cocky about it -- that would make Kent Austin mad at us.
There's only club seating left for Labour Day. Tickets are moving at a pretty good clip for the next home game after, against the Lions. And there will be third jerseys for Labour Day -- the vintage ones that resemble what the Riders wore prior to 1985. This means the Riders will be pretty financially healthy this year. But it also means that the soul of the franchise -- at least right now -- is healthier than ever. While the players need all the rest they can get -- and the injury list is very long -- nobody here can wait for Labour Day. We feel like kids waiting for Christmas ... we've gone from whispering this feeling to screaming it from the rooftops.
they pass in upholstered silence
they only exist in crisis
they only exist in silence
past territorial piss-posts
past whispers in the closets
past screamin' from the rooftops
we live to survive our paradoxes
we'll live to survive our paradoxes
Tragically Hip, 'Springtime in Vienna'
'We're through the looking glass, folks,' -- JFK
Nearly a day and a half after this game, and I still have problems thinking coherently about it. Not because I was drunk (I wasn't) or I was there (I wasn't) but because it's almost like writing about the personal experiences of a World War Two battle. You only saw fragments. And how did those fragments form ... this?
Here's what we do know.
1. The Saskatchewan Roughriders are sporting a six-win, two loss record. The last time they had this record after 8 games was 1976 (I'm so glad that Tony Gabriel has retired ...). You read the CFL chat boards (except for riderfans.com, where even the biggest Tillman haters have either seen the error of their ways or have disappeared), and they all think it's been done with mirrors. It hasn't. It's been done with good coaching and a good organization. Since 'good coaching' and 'Saskatchewan Roughriders' have traditionally been antonyms, it's understandable that many outside Gang Green haven't wrapped their heads around the concept (then again, there's a few in this province who can't believe the Riders have a winning record, even with all the empirical evidence).
2. The seeds for this victory were planted a long time ago, long before the Eskimos came to Regina. At the pre-game press conference, Edmonton head coach Danny Machoccia lamented all the injuries the the injuries the Eskimos had suffered. When asked about the subject, Kent Austin said, in effect, pshaw, we've got more injuries than they do, but what's the point of talking about it? Everybody who suits up is expected to play: that's why you're on the payroll.
What disturbed me most about the Al Ford years is that the Riders seemed to go out of their way to find excuses for the team's sorry record. We can't scout. Nobody wants to play here. The refs are biased. It was raining. Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I'm going to the garden to eat worms ...
To me, this would give a team a psychological 'out,' a subconscious excuse for losing. Repeat that you're not good enough often enough, and soon will NOT be good enough. Saturday night, Edmonton wasn't good enough, the Roughriders were. The Riders have coaching to thank for that. And looking for that psychological crutch to eplain away a loss is one reason why the Eskimos are 1-7 in their last eight games at Mosaic.
3. The Lord God Almighty Himself couldn't quarterback the Roughriders without someone yelling, "You're doing it wrong, you bum!' Kerry Joseph will always have his detractors, just like Ron Lancaster and Kent Austin (and, to be fair, Kevin Mason and Danny Saunders and ... let's not go there). But Kerry Joseph had a game in which most of his critics are going to be silenced, and most of those on the fence will bust a lung trying to catch up to the bandwagon. What he did went far beyond what showed up on the score sheet or the stats sheet: he willed that team to win, and everyone rallied behind him.
There's still a few grumblers who want to see someone sling for 400 yards and three or four interceptions a game, even if he doesn't have the respect of the locker room. Fine. One of those guys is available, and I'm certain the other one will be looking for work come November.
4. I don't know what happened on defense during the first half, as Ricky Ray made the Eskimos look like the Alberta Crude days He was constantly throwing underneath, generating positive yardage, and the Riders couldn't stop them. The second half was a different story, as the Riders resisted the temptation to blitz, and forced Ray to go long (the Eskimos have no real running game to speak of). Somebody handling the Rider D should get a gold star.
5. That said, Lance Frazier was being beaten like a rented mule all night long.
6. Welcome back from the dead, Chris Szarka.
7. Anyone watching the game now knows shy Eric Tillman traded for Corey Holmes later Sunday afternoon. Jason Armstead wasn't The Man, as a returner or as a featured part of our offense.
8. First a digression. It's not a good career move for any journalist to bash the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. They pay pretty well, and unlike say the CanWest Global empire, they're polite to their critics. At one time, it was easy for CFL fans who were critics of Mothercorp to be shown the error of their ways. There was a time, in the 1990s, when the CBC was the only game in town for the CFL -- no other network wanted to broadcast the games. CTV was too busy with the Blue Jays, and once maintained that the Raptors and Vancouver Grizzlies (Les Grizerables) would be the next big thing on Canadian sports television (Three years later, CTV Sports was pretty much disolved as Raports and Grizzlies ratings fell through the floor, where, for the most part, they remain today for the Raptors when Steve Nash isn't playing.).
One could argue that the only thing keeping the CFL anywhere close to financial solvency was the dollars from the CBC, even when the CBC was broadcasting only half the season -- from Labour Day on.
That was then, this is now.
During the CBC lockout of 2005, many locked out employees were saying publicly what many had said privately, in the dinner table, after a few drinks at the press club, whatever -- that the CBC was a mess because of poor management decisions. While CBC employees brought their side of the story to the blogosphere -- blogs, podcasts, the like -- CBC management tried to explain their side of the story by buying full-page ads in the Globe and Mail (what? CBC management couldn't think of another media outlet? Perish the thought!) and returned to the bargaining table ONLY when it was time to milk the cash cow that's Hockey Night in Canada.
From what I've seen, the CBC is not only the living example of the Peter Principle, it's exactly what German soldiers regarded the British Army in the First World War: lions led by donkeys.
Just after the fourth quarter began, with the Riders down by four, the skies over Mosaic opened up. Curtains of rain fell, along with a light show that looked like The Creator emulating the last few moments of The Who's Won't Get Fooled Again during their mid 70s touring prime (anyone with the Kids Are Alright DVD will know what I'm talking about). Power was knocked out at the stadium, and the backup generator didn't come on, at least right away. The stadium was plunged into darkness, and no one knew whether the game would continue.
Someone in CBC management apparently forgot the lessons of the Heidi Bowl: STAY WITH THE GAME. An hour after the rain and lightning drove the teams to the locker rooms, referees ordered play to be resumed. The CBC did NOT come back. No on-screen crawling text, telling viewers about the power outages or inclement weather that forced the network to suspend coverage. Instead of 13 and a half minutes of the wildest football this side of a Hollywood scriptwriter's fantasy, we got ... Nick Nolte.
When the game returned, the network didn't. The president of CBC Sports had just moved to a new home, and, apparently, didn't have a land line installed yet. And he turned his cell phone off when he went to bed. So when CBC sports officials wanted to resume coverage, they were over-ruled by somebody at Fort Dork (as the Globe and Mail's John Doyle calls the CBC head office).
Imagine, for me: what would have happened if the power had gone out for an hour at the Air Canada Centre during a Leafs game, and this same mid-level management person said, 'screw it, let's show a cheap Hollywood movie instead.' Would that person have a job the next morning? Would the president of CBC Sports have a job if he was similarly out of the loop as he was early Sunday morning? It would have been a bigger challenge for them to get to work to get their pink slip -- officials from the advertising world, corporate Canada, and Leafs fans would be chasing them just like the poor schmucks in the street gang in the last reel of The Warriors.
It's one thing to put your genitalia in the anvil: it's another thing to whack at them yourself. Whatever the CBC does in its last four months of broadcasting CFL games (at least, under this contract, I can't see CTV picking up games next season so TSN might, just might, resell games again), its management can NEVER make things right. Not even if they got Nick Nolte in the booth for the next game. In a Corey Holmes replica jersey.
To be sure, they're sorry, and they're trying to make amends. They replayed the quarter in question Saturday night and Sunday morning (Spoiler: the Riders won). But if I were the producer of the broadcast, I would be ashamed to have let the game go to air in this fashion. You're going to have technical snafus: electronic broadcasting and thunderstorms have never mixed well. But who does Mark Lee have pictures of, in order to keep his job? When Val St. Germain got injured, Lee says ... "Another player went down on him ..." Four times in the last quarter, Lee refers to the Regina Roughriders (they changed their name to the Saskatchewan Roughriders in 1949. Somebody didn't get the memo). He got real, real excited when Jamie Boreham kicked off and the ball went through the end zone (no points -- actually a blown play on Boreham's part).
And Walby ... Lord give me strength ...
9. Confession number two. I wasn't sure that hiring Kent Austin as head coach was a smart move. The Roughriders haven't had, shall we say, good experiences with rookie head coaches who were quarterbacks (Glenn Dobbs, Ron Lancaster, Danny Barrett). My father was also unconvinced because he thought Austin was a jerk. "He was on the last flight into Regina before training camp opened, and was on the first flight out when the season ended," he said.
Dad's not talking like that now. Neither am I. And neither is anyone else in Riderland. Nobody mentions the hard feelings created when he split in the spring of 1994. Nobody's Nelson-style 'ha-ha!'ing at his dismissal last year from the Toronto Argonauts' offensive co-ordinator's position, unless people are laughing at the Argos. It's a bit early to jump on Rob Vanstone's bandwagon and anoint Austin as the coach of the year in the CFL, but after eight games of the season, who else would you select? Mac-Can't-Coach-Ya? Screaming Doug Berry? Wally 'Quarterback Killer' Buono? Guys like my father and me keep waiting for the Riders to fail ... now, it's becoming apparent that the Riders have a lot of fight in them. They don't give up, they find a way to win. And we're stuck trying to find new superlatives.
10. While we've raked the CBC over the coals, let's spare a thought for how well the City of Regina, the Regina Police Service, the private security company the Riders hired for the night, and the Riders handled the situation. Not well. At riderfans.com, there are a lot of posters who say they were told that the game was called off, that they should get home, and if they didn't they would be arrested. It may not be great idea to have 28,000 people, in varying stages of drunkenness, roaming around North Central at 11 o'clock at night, but the police ended up chasing away a lot of people who would have otherwise stuck around for the end of the game. And doesn't anybody with the City check to see whether the backup equipment works?
11. The front page of Monday's Leader Post shows a slightly out-of-focus Eric Tillman, sans jacket, towel around his neck, waving a flagpole. It may not be the wisest move to wave a metal flag pole during an electrical storm in front of 15,000 people (those who remained when the game restarted) but Rider fans will regard that scene the way the US Marines will regard Mount Suribachi. The Rider organization has been down for so long that any direction looked like up ... and there were fears that Roy Shivers' firing and Tillman's overhaul of the team would mean a return to the Same Old Riders ... those lovable losers ... and that didn't happen. Instead, he augmented what Shivers and Barrett left behind and turned a good team into a potentially great team.
But it goes beyond the Roughriders. We have a new mood in Saskatchewan. Save the whining for the cranky old types -- let's get it done, in a philosophy that's equal parts Nellie McClung (Never complain, never explain, get the thing done and let them howl) and Larry the Cable Guy. The Riders always seem to capture the zeitgeist of this province, and looking at the mirror and liking what we're seeing is a new and welcome experience for Saskatchewan residents.
And in a sports year that's given us Micheal Vick, gambling referees in the NBA, Chris Benoit, and misconduct by many players in almost every sport -- there's still room for an old-style, stand-up-and-cheer moment in sport. A time when life resembles something out of We Are Marshall or Rocky ... where the good guys finally win. There may be some Lions or Eskimos fans who disagree, and that's fine. But this is our day in the sun. We could get used to it. No sense in getting cocky about it -- that would make Kent Austin mad at us.
There's only club seating left for Labour Day. Tickets are moving at a pretty good clip for the next home game after, against the Lions. And there will be third jerseys for Labour Day -- the vintage ones that resemble what the Riders wore prior to 1985. This means the Riders will be pretty financially healthy this year. But it also means that the soul of the franchise -- at least right now -- is healthier than ever. While the players need all the rest they can get -- and the injury list is very long -- nobody here can wait for Labour Day. We feel like kids waiting for Christmas ... we've gone from whispering this feeling to screaming it from the rooftops.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Barry Bonds: Every Irrelevance
Three reasons why no one should get their knickers in a twist over Barry Bonds hitting 755:
1. The measure of a record doesn't totally indicate a measure of the man. No matter what Bonds has done, he's not going to be regarded as one of baseball's all-time greats. Hank Aaron went through worse, and he never had a needle stuck into him unless it was for an inoculation.
2. In six to eight years, Barry Bonds will be in a lot of medical trouble, as his body falls apart from steroid use like a 25-year-old Pontiac driven too hard on the highway (I did a story for prairie dog on steroid use in professional wrestling and how the spate of deaths in wrestling could be seen as a sign of things to come for other sports where steroid use is prevalent, such as football and baseball. Canadian Dimensions was crazy or kind enough to reprint the story here). He'll be selling his story to Barbara Walters or Larry King or some kind of ilk, for millions of dollars, and he will name names from his deathbed. It will be grisly, sick, and more entertaining than his home run derby.
3. In six or eight years, as well, A-Rod will pass whatever mark Bonds sets. And Bud Selig's heir will make sure there will be no asterisk beside it. And Hammerin' Hank will be on hand to give the event his blessing. Bonds will be as forgotten as Ben Johnson was the day Donovan Bailey became the fastest man in the world.
1. The measure of a record doesn't totally indicate a measure of the man. No matter what Bonds has done, he's not going to be regarded as one of baseball's all-time greats. Hank Aaron went through worse, and he never had a needle stuck into him unless it was for an inoculation.
2. In six to eight years, Barry Bonds will be in a lot of medical trouble, as his body falls apart from steroid use like a 25-year-old Pontiac driven too hard on the highway (I did a story for prairie dog on steroid use in professional wrestling and how the spate of deaths in wrestling could be seen as a sign of things to come for other sports where steroid use is prevalent, such as football and baseball. Canadian Dimensions was crazy or kind enough to reprint the story here). He'll be selling his story to Barbara Walters or Larry King or some kind of ilk, for millions of dollars, and he will name names from his deathbed. It will be grisly, sick, and more entertaining than his home run derby.
3. In six or eight years, as well, A-Rod will pass whatever mark Bonds sets. And Bud Selig's heir will make sure there will be no asterisk beside it. And Hammerin' Hank will be on hand to give the event his blessing. Bonds will be as forgotten as Ben Johnson was the day Donovan Bailey became the fastest man in the world.
Monday, August 6, 2007
What have you done with my Saskatchewan Roughriders?
You go away for a couple of weeks, and everything goes to a place that's almost unrecognizeable. First of all, the Saskatchewan Roughriders are 4-2, its last win coming in a 21-9 victory over the Lions at BC Place. Yeah, yeah, Jarious Jackson is the third string quarterback who started for the Lions ... but he did a good job carving up the Stampeder defense the previous week.
All in all, it seems to me that the Riders have absorbed not only the coaching philosophy of Kent Austin, but also his psychology. Like Austin, they seem to act like like automatons, clinically carving you up and leaving opponents exposed, vulnerable, and defeated before they even know what hit them. If this keeps up, by the end of the season, Rider fans will be talking about Austin the way Saturday Night Live's 'SuperFans' talked about Ditka ... 'If Ditka were in the Indianapolis 500, do you think he could win? 'Yeah. Driving the team bus ...'
All in all, it seems to me that the Riders have absorbed not only the coaching philosophy of Kent Austin, but also his psychology. Like Austin, they seem to act like like automatons, clinically carving you up and leaving opponents exposed, vulnerable, and defeated before they even know what hit them. If this keeps up, by the end of the season, Rider fans will be talking about Austin the way Saturday Night Live's 'SuperFans' talked about Ditka ... 'If Ditka were in the Indianapolis 500, do you think he could win? 'Yeah. Driving the team bus ...'
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Worse than giving a girl herpes, that's for sure.
Sports Illustrated has covered the Micheal Vick situation the way the Washington press corp should be (but isn't covering) The Madness of King George. Lot's of good stuff by George Dohrmann here and here, Peter King, Dr. Z, and CNN has a copy of the indictment here.
I'm not somebody who likes PETA. I wear leather occasionally, I eat meat, and when I grew up on the farm I knew that the 1200-pound cows that I would feed or occasionally play with would end up on someone's barbecue. Or our own. But there's a big difference between raising animals for food or sustenance -- or hunting animals for the same -- and deliberately torturing them and forcing them to become both predator and prey for your profit. People in the dogfighting business are sadistic (expletives), and it wouldn't surprise me if some of these major players in the ummmm, 'sport' got NFL or NBA players in hock to them, then forced the to make good on their losses by shaving points or face getting their loved ones killed. People who are sick enough to make puppies into killers -- and kill those puppies if they're not aggressive enough -- probably wouldn't know a thing about human decency.
The Rumours and Rants blog gives its own fearless predictions. Short form: Vick will roll on his friends, who'll do the time, then Vick will provide for them after their time in the crowbar hotel. just like Tony Soprano did to ... wait, bad example.
I'm not somebody who likes PETA. I wear leather occasionally, I eat meat, and when I grew up on the farm I knew that the 1200-pound cows that I would feed or occasionally play with would end up on someone's barbecue. Or our own. But there's a big difference between raising animals for food or sustenance -- or hunting animals for the same -- and deliberately torturing them and forcing them to become both predator and prey for your profit. People in the dogfighting business are sadistic (expletives), and it wouldn't surprise me if some of these major players in the ummmm, 'sport' got NFL or NBA players in hock to them, then forced the to make good on their losses by shaving points or face getting their loved ones killed. People who are sick enough to make puppies into killers -- and kill those puppies if they're not aggressive enough -- probably wouldn't know a thing about human decency.
The Rumours and Rants blog gives its own fearless predictions. Short form: Vick will roll on his friends, who'll do the time, then Vick will provide for them after their time in the crowbar hotel. just like Tony Soprano did to ... wait, bad example.
Friday, July 13, 2007
The hooror, the horror
I've deliberately tried to keep from commenting on the Rider/BC game for a reason, and it has nothing to do with the Craven Jamboree. If I wanted to get drunk and nail redneck women, I'd have attended a lot more high school reunions. Maybe even my own.
Suffice to say that nobody knows whether it's a return to form for the Riders, who always seem to come up with a way to mess the bed when The Big Game approaches, or whether this is just an early season blip. We'll find out more when the Riders play the Eskimos in Edmonton.
Oh yeah, Fred Perry ... his hit on Dave Dickenson was ruled legal, despite the protestations of the Lions who called it a dirty hit. If the CFL were to fine Fred Perry for this hit, shouldn't they have also fined the Lions for an incompetent medical staff giving Dave Dickenson clearance to play? Dickenson attracts concussions the way a starlet attracts paparazzi, and he's one good hit from eating his supper through a straw for the rest of his life. Dave: retire now. Before you have to learn how to dress yourself all over. Brain injuries are no fun.
Suffice to say that nobody knows whether it's a return to form for the Riders, who always seem to come up with a way to mess the bed when The Big Game approaches, or whether this is just an early season blip. We'll find out more when the Riders play the Eskimos in Edmonton.
Oh yeah, Fred Perry ... his hit on Dave Dickenson was ruled legal, despite the protestations of the Lions who called it a dirty hit. If the CFL were to fine Fred Perry for this hit, shouldn't they have also fined the Lions for an incompetent medical staff giving Dave Dickenson clearance to play? Dickenson attracts concussions the way a starlet attracts paparazzi, and he's one good hit from eating his supper through a straw for the rest of his life. Dave: retire now. Before you have to learn how to dress yourself all over. Brain injuries are no fun.
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Saskatchewan 49 Calgary 8
Two days after kickoff, and Rider fans are still in a grinning state of disbelief: somewhere in between Jon Stewart reporting on Dick Cheney shooting someone in the face and a university freshman male nerd being locked locked in a lingerie shop over a holiday weekend with Pamela Anderson, who made him breakfast after the 'ordeal' ended.
But first, a diversion. Most of the good books I've read about the Battle of Berlin, when more than two million Soveit troops roared across the eastern European plains towards the Greater German Reich's capital., talk about the apocalyptic ending the Nazis sought not only for themselves but for their nation. As Gobbels said in one of his last press conferences: 'Now your little throats are going to be cut! But when exit the stage, the world will tremble!" The Nazi propaganda screamed that an Allied victory would mean the end of German civilization: men would be shot or sent to Siberia as slaves, wives, mothers and daughters would become barracks-room whores, and children would be murdered in their beds.
Berliners, who always treated the Nazis the way Manhattanites treat Texas Republicans -- as inbred hillbillies -- responded in their own way, often singing to themselves a popular song of the day ... 'it's not the end of the world ...'
And that's what I was thinking about in the days leading up to Sunday's game against the Stamps. There are -- were -- a few Rider fans with a residual fear about Eric Tillman's takeover of the Saskatchewan Roughriders. How would we win anything without Nate Davis? Or Omar Morgan? Or Davin Bush. For the love of God KK's not coming back! We're screwed!
They weren't alone. As Eric Tillman disclosed in an interview with the L-P's Darrell Davis, Danny Barrett ordered 100 stickers to be printed, bearing deposed general manager Roy Shivers' initials, and to be put on the helmets, as a silent protest. It's a wonder Tillman let Barrett finish the year: it's not a wonder that Barrett never found a job in the CFL
And while the rest of the Rider organization has moved on, there's a couple who haven't, or can't. Henry Burris still talks like a car salesman who's still making the pitch long after the customer has left for another dealership, and Rob Vanstone's obsession with Smilin' Hank is somewhere between a stalker and being downright creepy.There's nothing particularliy interesting asny more about Burris: overpriced quarterbacks are common in the CFL this year, and so are ones who are color blind.
The only interesting thing left about Burris is this: in games where he's been asked to move the team to the next level -- the western semi-fimal last year, and Sunday's game, he's messed the bed. How long is it going to be before the Stampeders realize that he's never going to get them over the hump, and what's going to happen to that locker room in the meantime. Burris threw the rest of the team under the bus in the post-game scrum, so the dissention has already begun.
And as of now, the moves Tillman made have paid off in a big way. The Riders are better coached, better prepared, and make better strategic and tactical decisions than they did during the Shivers/Barrett era. And they were freaking geniuses in comparison to anyone after Don Matthews.
You know what happened by now. Kerry Joseph threw for four touchdowns, including a highlight-reel reception by DJ Flick that should be burned onto the DVD The Great Scorer makes about the the all-time great reception of the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Wes Cates, obtained in a trade with the Stamps, rushed for two more touchdowns, while the man who was traded for Cates, Rob Lazeo, sat anchored to the bench.
The Saskatchewan defense has allowed one touchdown in two games. (Guess that's what Tom Higgins meant by the 'One' concept.) Interceptions, sacks .... hey, wasn't this the defense that would go into a prevent defense in the last minutes of the game? That would hold on for 58 minutes and blow it in the last two? What have you done with Ritchie Hall? Didn't they get the damn memo? That they were going to suck without Nate Davis, and Davin Bush?
You stupid jackasses, you Rider players! Don't you know that if Shivers and Barrett departed the scene the world would end, just as the world was supposed to end without Adolf Hitler?
(Oh, yeah, I'm being sarcastic).
Frankly, Sunday's game was what I was expecting in week 13 or 14, after the Riders spent the first half of the season figuring out who could play and who couldn't, who were the pilots and who were the passengers, and players reintroduced themselves to concepts like blocking and tackling and reading the playbook. Apparently, they're ahead of schedule, and we shoudl all be thankful for it. One thing less for Saskatchewan people to complain about, but God knows, the grouchy old farmers who used to rule the social and political roost out here will find something else.
But first, a diversion. Most of the good books I've read about the Battle of Berlin, when more than two million Soveit troops roared across the eastern European plains towards the Greater German Reich's capital., talk about the apocalyptic ending the Nazis sought not only for themselves but for their nation. As Gobbels said in one of his last press conferences: 'Now your little throats are going to be cut! But when exit the stage, the world will tremble!" The Nazi propaganda screamed that an Allied victory would mean the end of German civilization: men would be shot or sent to Siberia as slaves, wives, mothers and daughters would become barracks-room whores, and children would be murdered in their beds.
Berliners, who always treated the Nazis the way Manhattanites treat Texas Republicans -- as inbred hillbillies -- responded in their own way, often singing to themselves a popular song of the day ... 'it's not the end of the world ...'
And that's what I was thinking about in the days leading up to Sunday's game against the Stamps. There are -- were -- a few Rider fans with a residual fear about Eric Tillman's takeover of the Saskatchewan Roughriders. How would we win anything without Nate Davis? Or Omar Morgan? Or Davin Bush. For the love of God KK's not coming back! We're screwed!
They weren't alone. As Eric Tillman disclosed in an interview with the L-P's Darrell Davis, Danny Barrett ordered 100 stickers to be printed, bearing deposed general manager Roy Shivers' initials, and to be put on the helmets, as a silent protest. It's a wonder Tillman let Barrett finish the year: it's not a wonder that Barrett never found a job in the CFL
And while the rest of the Rider organization has moved on, there's a couple who haven't, or can't. Henry Burris still talks like a car salesman who's still making the pitch long after the customer has left for another dealership, and Rob Vanstone's obsession with Smilin' Hank is somewhere between a stalker and being downright creepy.There's nothing particularliy interesting asny more about Burris: overpriced quarterbacks are common in the CFL this year, and so are ones who are color blind.
The only interesting thing left about Burris is this: in games where he's been asked to move the team to the next level -- the western semi-fimal last year, and Sunday's game, he's messed the bed. How long is it going to be before the Stampeders realize that he's never going to get them over the hump, and what's going to happen to that locker room in the meantime. Burris threw the rest of the team under the bus in the post-game scrum, so the dissention has already begun.
And as of now, the moves Tillman made have paid off in a big way. The Riders are better coached, better prepared, and make better strategic and tactical decisions than they did during the Shivers/Barrett era. And they were freaking geniuses in comparison to anyone after Don Matthews.
You know what happened by now. Kerry Joseph threw for four touchdowns, including a highlight-reel reception by DJ Flick that should be burned onto the DVD The Great Scorer makes about the the all-time great reception of the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Wes Cates, obtained in a trade with the Stamps, rushed for two more touchdowns, while the man who was traded for Cates, Rob Lazeo, sat anchored to the bench.
The Saskatchewan defense has allowed one touchdown in two games. (Guess that's what Tom Higgins meant by the 'One' concept.) Interceptions, sacks .... hey, wasn't this the defense that would go into a prevent defense in the last minutes of the game? That would hold on for 58 minutes and blow it in the last two? What have you done with Ritchie Hall? Didn't they get the damn memo? That they were going to suck without Nate Davis, and Davin Bush?
You stupid jackasses, you Rider players! Don't you know that if Shivers and Barrett departed the scene the world would end, just as the world was supposed to end without Adolf Hitler?
(Oh, yeah, I'm being sarcastic).
Frankly, Sunday's game was what I was expecting in week 13 or 14, after the Riders spent the first half of the season figuring out who could play and who couldn't, who were the pilots and who were the passengers, and players reintroduced themselves to concepts like blocking and tackling and reading the playbook. Apparently, they're ahead of schedule, and we shoudl all be thankful for it. One thing less for Saskatchewan people to complain about, but God knows, the grouchy old farmers who used to rule the social and political roost out here will find something else.
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