Game Day

Upon Further Review ...

2007-08-26T12:05:00.000-06:00

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.

Saskatchewan 39 Edmonton 32 And the Rain Came Down

2007-08-20T06:46:00.000-06:00

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.

Barry Bonds: Every Irrelevance

2007-08-07T06:18:00.000-06:00

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.

What have you done with my Saskatchewan Roughriders?

2007-08-06T09:02:00.000-06:00

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 ...'

Worse than giving a girl herpes, that's for sure.

2007-07-19T08:07:00.000-06:00

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.

The hooror, the horror

2007-07-13T07:13:00.000-06:00

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.

Saskatchewan 49 Calgary 8

2007-07-05T07:11:00.000-06:00

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.

Chile 3 Canada 0 The End of the Good Times

2007-07-03T06:54:00.000-06:00

All the speculation about game fixing aside, it's once again pretty obvious that Canada's chances to do anything at the world junior men's soccer championship rank up there with the Brooklyn Brawler's chances at Wrestlemania.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. Team Canada would play to a mostly friendly audience on Canada Day. Wasn't that supposed to mean something? Except Canada lost 3-0 and looked really bad doing it. It's not like there's tiis big soccer rivalry between Chile and Canada ... but Canada looked woefully unprepared to play at this level. Now they're really behind the 8-ball as they have to play Austria and a tough Congo team. Getting into the playoffs isn't likely to happen now.

A lot of that lack of preparation must come from Dale Mitchell, the Canadian Soccer Association's choice not only to coach this team but also to coach the men's national team after this tournament. Judging from what I saw, Mitchell's selection as men's head coach is living proof that the Peter Principle is alive and well.

The Canadian soccer program seems to be in the same shape as when Canada hosted the 1976 Olympics and became the first country to host the games without winning a medal. It didn't seem to faze Canadians at the time, because few who were working in Canada's Olympic movement seemed to think that winning was important. Getting little Johnny and Janey on the track, or in the swimming pool, and having their moms and dads pay their fees, a cut of which went to the national organization, is the more important thing. And Canadians get so caught up in hosting the spectacle that we don't understand how the rest of the world has passed us by.

Canada's little infatuation with soccer -- thanks to this tournament and the Toronto FC -- is over. Are we going to get serious about it? Nahhhh ...

Oh well. There's always 2014.

Ten Things I'm supposed to be thinking about as the Riders wear down the Als 16-7

2007-06-30T06:46:00.000-06:00

1. Said it before, say it again ... there isn't a color commentator on a CFL broadcast who's worse at his job or more negative towards the team he's supposed to be covering (and with less reason to be negative), or more inaccurate with his color commentary. In the pre-game show, he made it sound as if the Riders should have conceded the two points and saved the air fare. Big difference between being a pessimist and a realist.

If Eric Tillman can tear a new body orfice in Darrell Davis for his in-print inference that Tillman is lazy, he should be able to test Rona's new table saws with Carteri's body -- live and on the air.

In the immortal words of those great philosophers: Carmello Carteril, just ... shut ... up.

2. Glen Suitor needs Dave Ridgway to kick him in the head. Now. During the telecast, Suitor kept going on about how that Als were always through the out patters. Earth to Glen suitor: did you not notice WHO'S THE ALS' OFFENSIVE CO-ORDINATOR? WHO IS ALSO CALLING THE OFFENSIVE PLAYS? Doesn't that look like the Saskatchewan Roughriders' offense of the past few years to you? Lord, give me strength ...

3. Unfortunately, DJ Flick looks like one of those players who looks good in practices but doesn't deliver at game time.

4. Nice touchdown, Henri Childs. Now learn to block so your quarterback doesn't get killed.

5. If someone had told me that Anthony Cavillo would be sacked eight times, picked off three times, and wouldn't score a touchdown, against an inexperienced secondary and a defensive line with some new faces, I would have thought it was because he was dead.

6. All those people bemoaning playing in that high humidity and where the bright lights of Rue Ste. Catherine would distract the players should understand what happens when people get focused on the job at hand.

7. The Rider offense didn't look good mostly because that o-line is still a work in progress.

8. Kerry Joseph did nothing in the game to either halt or flare up the starting quarterback debate.

9. Montreal's offensive star? Jamie Boreham.

10> We're tied for first? Give John Lynch some sedatives.

Five reasons why I think the Saskatchewan Roughriders will finish 12-6

2007-06-28T07:25:00.000-06:00

1. Matt Dominguez says that better coaching will give the Riders three more victories, and he's right. Under Danny Barrett, the Riders appeared to sleepwalk through games, without the faintest resemblance to a game plan. The Roughriders will probably lose games this season, but under Kent Austin the Riders won't be out-coached or out-prepared, and well begun is half done. No more leaving an injured quarterback in the game or not bringing in another punter to replace a rookie with the worst gross punting average in the league.

As well, I think Austin's commitment to game preparation is also going to mean players are going to catch on to the playbook faster than they otherwise would have.

2. There were a lot of fears that half the players would leave if Roy Shivers and Danny Barrett were let go. Instead most have stayed, and those who have been let go or traded were either nearing the end of their careers (Nate Davis, Jackie Mitchell, Andrew Greene) or weren't going to contribute anything anyway (Jason French, Rocky Butler). The talent level is probably about the same as it was lat year: it's just that the coaching staff is probably going to get more out of them.

3. The Roughriders are going to clobber eastern division team. Which is fine because all western division teams will do that. The Montreal Alouettes are coached by Jim Popp, who has displayed a fatal case of Lou Lamoriello Syndrome (well, fatal to his career). And any team that has Marcel Bellefeuille and Tim Kearse as coaches is in trouble. The Argos are like the little kid in Old Yeller that can't shoot the dying dog (in this case, the dog is being played by an ineffectual Damon Allen). That's going to cost them a lot of games while the Argos (a) will wait a few games in the hope that an old Damon Allen becomes the Damon Allen of old and (b) they give up, probably seven or eight games into the season, and Mike McMahon tries to learn on the job.

The Hamilton Tiger Cats are what the Roughriders were in 2000: rebuilding from a catastrophic mess, and it's going to take a long time for them to get the pieces back in place. And the Winnipeg Blue Bombers? Kevin Glenn hasn't gone through a season without getting hurt, and there's no quarterback there to back him up. And some of their big off-season signings (hello Greene and Davis) aren't likely to play the whole season, either, due to injuries.

I would be more than a little surprised if the Riders don't win at least five out of eight games against the eastern conference. Then again, the entire western division (with the possible exception of the Edmonton Eskimos) should beat on the east as if those clubs were baby seals on a Newfoundland ice floe.

4. Calgary and Edmonton. The Eskimos this season have more holes in their personnel than I can recall, and it looks as though coaching is very suspect. And given how Tom Higgins failed to control the locker room last season, when their receiving corps looked more interested in trying out for the Temptations than they were in playing good football, I doubt Ned Flander's going to do much when Henry Burris does a China Syndrome after the inevitable bad interceptions and the fans start chanting for Akili Smith.

5. I have brain damage.

The last of the exhibitionists Saskatchewan 23 Calgary 21

2007-06-24T07:10:00.000-06:00

1. The Roughriders were up 16-0 in the third quarter, but didn't score a touchdown after being in Calgary's 'red zone' five or six times. No wonder Kent Austin was angry at half time. Don't imagine that Willie Cole's dumb question (You've got to be happy with the offense, right?) made him feel any better.

My advice to Kent: don't be afraid to let your feelings show. If you walked into that locker room at half time with blood all over your shirt, and a necktie made from Cole's guts, you'd have that locker room's attention. Especially the offense's. And it's about time Perry Nyhuus deserves the morning snow.

2. When the Riders finally scored a touchdown, thanks to a drive assisted by some Calgary penalties, CKRM's Carm Carteri was blasting Kerry Joseph for scoring a weak touchdown. Imagine Carm on his wedding night ... 'yeah, it was a orgasm, but it was a weak one. I mean, there were the bridesmaids, your sisters, and Lynda Carter is in town making a movie ..."

I don't know why RM can't find someone else to do the color commentary, since Carm really doesn't do much to illuminate how and why a play has turned out the way it does, his grunting and groaning during broken plays excepted. If you want to listen to what a real good and informative color guy does in the booth, listen to Fan590's broadcasts of Toronto Argonaut games and listen to Pete Martin. But Carm is one of the Old Regina Families, and that seems to count more in Regina's incestuous business world than the things people need to get real jobs. Like talent, for example.

3. Well, we have two teams that are -- or are going to have -- QB controversies. That's nothing new in Regina, and for my mind Joseph and Crandell should be listed as 1 and 1A respectively on the depth chart. In Calgary, however, there's a potential for a real China Syndrome in that locker room. Henry Burris left Saskatchewan because he wouldn't be guaranteed that he would be the starter. In both preseason games, Burris looked somewhere between barely adequate and dreadful. Akili Smith engineered three touchdown drives against the Riders on Friday night. Sure, he was going against the Roughriders' second and third stringers in training camp (aka the future insureance salesmen and substitute school teachers of North America) but he was making good reads and delivering good balls. If Tom Higgins decided to bench Burris in favor of Smith, Smilin' Hank is going to turn into Bad Henry in a hurry.

4. This season, the Riders are going to throw over the middle a lot this year, and Matt Dominguez and Andy Fantuz are going to have big seasons. Just try to defend them both ... and what as DJ Flick or Yo Murphy then get uncovered.

5. 28,800 for a pre-season game in Taylor Field. Either there's not much doing on a Friday night in Regina or hope does spring eternal.

USA 2 Canada 1 The Last American Exit

2007-06-23T08:18:00.000-06:00

I've had to wait a day to post, partly because of this other thing I've got, called 'a life,' but also because for a little while after the game the words Mexican Referee would inspire me to rip telephone books in half. As you know by now, a blown offside call by a Mexican referee cost Canada a tying goal against the U.S. national team in Chicago Thursday night. The U.S plays Mexico for the final: Team Canada goes home.

Personally, I thought the call was bullexpletive. Atiba Hutchinson picked up an errant clearing pass by the weakest member of the USA's defence, and booted the ball past Kasey Keller. Life isn't fair, and neither is sport, and if a blown call can stand in a World Cup quarter-final (Diego Maradonna's 'Hand of God' goal in the 1986 World Cup in Mexico,) then all the jumping up and down and bouncing up and down on our springs that Canadian soccer fans can do isn't going to change anyone's minds.

Then again, as one person pointed out at the Globe and Mail's comments section, a blown call in a major European match -- Premier division, UEFA Cup, Champions League or international -- would mean the end of the referee's career. In CONCACAF, it's considered an honest mistake, mostly because the depth of qualify referees and other officials is even shallower than the depth of on-field player talent.

There are a few both at the BigSoccer.com board and at the Voyageurs who claim that the referee's decision was actually a fix. I find that hard to believe for two reasons. First of all, never attribute to malice what can best be explained by stupidity. Secondly, most of the Mexican fans were cheering for Canada in the Canada-U.S game at Soldier Field, probably in the belief that Canada would be an easier team to beat than the U.S. in such a final

Quite the delusion, gringos. Canada was up-and down during the whole tournament, but there were signs that they were steadily improving, such as the Guatemala game. Mexico has looked flat throughout the whole tournament. If Canada gave Landycakes and Co. all they could handle in Chicago, El Tri would have been in more trouble. But now, we'll never know ... at least until the next round of World Cup qualifiers.

Thirdly, Canada was tying to come back from a 2-0 deficit at Soldier Field. If you want to be sure of beating your opponent, you can't always rely on the kindness of strangers.

But now that I've calmed down and the feeling of unscrewing the head of every Mexican I can find to see where the wiring has shorted out has passed, let's look at Team Canada. The Canadian national team is the product of a disorganized mess in which there wasn't even a head coach for almost a year, few international friendlies since it was knocked out of World Cup qualifying in 2005, and an organization (Canadian Soccer Association) who is more interested in their own power struggles and making sure there's enough seven-year-olds whose parents are paying fees to their local soccer associations (and making sure the CSA) gets its cut) than getting their own national teams to a level where they're no longer a joke.

If you told me at the start of the Gold Cup tournament that Canada would finish a goal away from tying a team at the semi-final, I would have thought that at least one of us had flunked the drug test.

This Canadian team was much stronger than the one that won the Gold Cup in 2001. It qualified for the playoffs that year thanks to a coin flip, for the love of mud. The 2007 edition qualified in first place in its division, and beat teams whose players had played together for a longer period of time. Canadian soccer is at a crossroads right now: either the organization can fall apart in over-inflated self confidence and bitterness over this loss, or they can sit down, figure out what's working, what's not working, and use the relative success of the Gold Cup (and it WAS a success) to lay the foundation to get to South Africa in three year's time. No time to start like the present.

Canadian soccer, anyone? Anyone ... Beuhler?

2007-06-21T09:28:00.000-06:00

Over at the Voyageurs site (where some Canadian soccer fans have a chat room), there's a guy with the handle of john tv, who rails against the purported conpiracy against Canadian soccer. From reading his posts, there's theis vast international conspiracy out there in the Canadian sports journalism world that puts down soccer at every opportunity. They won't broadcast the games, they never have highlights, ... and it's all a conspiracy, I tell you.

Right. As the Dead Milkmen once sang ... "They control the state, they control the church, they control who wins on Star Search ..."

As a working journalist, and probably the only fan of Canadian soccer in southern Saskatchewan, I have to say this. It's impolite to say what what john tv's arguments are made up of, but I used to spread its materials with one of these back when Dad had the farm.

I also get unhappy when the Canadian soccer program does succeed and do you don't read about it in the newspapers or see it on the sports highlights. The state of affairs, where the Canadian national men's soccer team is playing a big game tonight in Chicago against the United States, and you can't see it on basic cable or find it on the specialty channels, is also disturbing. Today's Leader-Post's sports section doesn't have a story about tonight's game. I would bet even O'Hanlon's the Irish-style pub on Scarth Street which is also home to the South Saskatchewan Celtic Supports Association, probably wouldn't have it on tv.

But if there's a real conspiracy, then the loudmouth yobs on the World Soccer Daily show on Sirius Radio (available through podcast on ITunes) would also have to be part of it. Part of their business is to talk about the sport -- and I have yet to hear them talk about Canada's successes at the Gold Cup, or even the success of Toronto FC (at least, in the way they're attracting fans) except in the most cursory fashion.

One could also wonder that the Canadian public is also part of this vast conspiracy ... Canadian television ratings for Toronto FC broadcasts have bounced around everywhere, from 150,000 for their first game against Chivas USA to 20,000 when The Score broadcasts the games. On CBC, Toronto FC games average about 110,000 viewers on Saturday afternoons, which is nice, but it's nowhere near a good return on investment, especially in comparison to Hockey Night in Canada and Canadian Football League broadcasts.

Part of the CFL's rebirth came in the form of television ratings. Just after new ownership took over for the Toronto Argonauts showed corporate advertisers that their television ratings were pretty good, in fact, in the range of Hockey Night in Canada numbers. If Toronto FC or men's national team numbers start going up that high (and maybe it could get there, with a little luck, MLS expansion, and the Canadian Soccer Association getting a brain), coporate Canada could discover the game the same way they rediscovered the CFL.

That's my point. THERE IS NO CONSPIRACY. Get six sportswriters with an open flame and a hand-turned rotisserie, and you could probably have three on the spit and the other three turning in 15 minutes. To get them to agree on anything -- especially on putting down a sport just for the hell of it -- would require a massive degree of co-operation from a group that would be more difficult to herd than tomcats.

But their editors, for the most part, know who butters their bread: corporate Canada. And as long as television networks get a better return on investment for broadcasting hockey and the CFL, and the NFL, and the NBA, and whatever, than they do for broadcasting soccer, Canadian soccer fans are still going to be the poor cousins on the sports coverage desk.
Canadian soccer, on the international scale, has had a reputation that goes beyond sucking -- it's more like the vacuum of space. Any time we did succeed, it was playing soccer about as interesting as New Jersey's neutral zone trap was to hockey: good goaltending, great defense, and not even bother trying to score, trying to get through every match with a 0-0 draw.

That's the irony of today's situation: after everything the Canadian soccer program has gone through in the past year, the Canadian team is actually winning games through offense,while its defense has been suspect. They've won by being exciting (like they were against Guatemala): and the worst you can say about the Canadian soccer team today is that, well, if they want to win, they've got to start somewhere. I would defy anyone who thinks soccer, or at least the way Canadians play soccer, as boring to sit through the Canada Guatemala game and repeat that statement. And with two teams with pretty good offenses, the Canada-USA matchup looks to be a pretty good one.

It doesn't mean soccer is going to be the poor cousin forever (check out what Stephen Brunt says in today's Globe and Mail) and it doesn't mean that people who don't like soccer or MLS (hell0 Bob McCown and Steve Simmons) are going to get transferred to the city desk or get fired in the morning.

Hell, I'd love to see a soccer team play in Regina. Could we fill a soccer stadium? Probably. We could fill Taylor Field during the bleakest days of the Al Ford regime, and I swear to God that nobody recognized what was going on as Canadian football. If they could sit through that, they could sit through anything. But it's not going to happen tomorrow.

It's not going to happen in five years. And if something happened such as Canada hosting the World Cup, the only thing most people in Regina would be thing about would be (a) when are the soccer riots? (b) how many hotel rooms are we going to need and (c) are we going to rebuild Mosaic Stadium, or build a whole new stadium for the Roughriders to use after the tournament?

Canadian soccer's recent success reminds me of what The Economist wrote of Gorbachev in 1987: the most noteworthy thing isn't how far the program has progressed, it's from how far back it has had to come.

Tip of the lynch lid to Mistake by the Lake.

Canada 3 Guatemala 0: The greatest game you've never seen

2007-06-17T09:04:00.000-06:00

Recently, the British so-called 'reality TV' instant-star show, Britain's Got Talent, ran an interesting feature (it's the Anglicized version of America's Got Talent, produced by the same people who have given us that show and the Idol franchise, though without Paula Abdul and Jerry Springer).

This YouTube clip shows Paul Potts, a South Wales cell phone salesman who physically resembles Brett Butt had the pride of Tisdale possessed no confidence, no sense of the absurd, no dental care, and subsisted on the standard unhealthy British diet. Even the woman who pressed the 'play' button to start the recorded selection doesn't appear to be too interested in the man's talent or fate.

Fifteen seconds later, Potts has the crowd eating out of his hand. His rendition of Puccini's Nessum Dorma brought chills up my spine. There's about a thousand people in the audience, most of whom probably think a soprano is a mobster. Many are in tears and cheering. And the three judges -- including Simon Cowell, who generally doesn't like anything or anybody -- are visibly moved.

Replace the 90 seconds of Puccini's music with the 90 minutes of international soccer, replace the opera singer with the Canadian men's soccer team, and you have what happened at Foxborough on Saturday afternoon (yesterday) -- if you also appreciate the rapturous studio and televison audience with a few thousand disinterested Guatemalan soccer fans in the massive bowl better suited for the New England Patriots. Team Canada clobbered Guatemala 3-0 in the Gold Cup quarterfinal.

By almost all accounts, Team Canada did things that nobody expects from the men's national team. Like score. And win. And play with a flair and domination that even had the Guatemala coach crying 'uncle.' Ali Gerba's first goal (or not) was either a deflection off the Guatemalian defender trying to cover Dwayne DeRosario, or off DeRosario. Ali G's second goal was a thing of beauty -- the result of an intricate one-touch passing play that left Guatemalan defenders standing around like broken bumpers in a pinball machine. When the score became 3-0, a lot of Canadian soccer fans had that feeling that they had rarely had before: a feeling that this was in the bag, that nothing the Guatemalans could do could ever get them back into contention. Don't believe me? See for yourself here and here.

The problem is, however, that we're not able to see what's going on in the soccer world. Gold Cup games are on GoalTV, which is on the high end of Canadian cable packages (they're also broadcast on Sportsnet''s digital feed, while their regular broadcast schedule shows the Jays, or poker, or something like that). The game day life of a Canadian soccer fan usually involves trying to pick up streaming video from Chinese internet broadcasters, or listening to Spanish-language radio broadcasts from Central America and trying to decipher the foreign language.

And we won't even mention the soccer snobs who regard the Gold Cup as a lesser tournament, as both Mexico and the US are preparing for the Copa America next month in Venezuela. It may be a lesser tournament for some other teams, but Canada doesn't have much international experience, and a tournament such as this give it all the help it needs. One should also note that the Canadian team has played pretty well -- and it's gotten better in the last two games. If they had two or three tuneup games for the Gold Cup instead of one, sportswriters would be talking about a Canadian powerhouse. That is, if they ever covered the sport.

But we should play nice. After all, CKCK did something unheard of Saturday night: they showed highlights of the game in the late night sports package.

Canada plays the United States Thursday in Chicago. The States have looked good and bad during the same tournament. Sometimes during the same game. They have looked beatable. And Canada is one of those teams nobody really wants to face right now: not enough information to design a counter-strategy, too unpredictable to know what to do, and playing with all the confidence of Warner Brothers' roadrunner speeding though every trap Wile E. Coyote could dream up.

Paul Potts? Well, he's going up against a cute six-year-old girl for the big prize at Britain's got talent. And the Canadians will have to go through two more highly regarded teams -- The U.S. and either Mexico or Guadeloupe -- to win the Gold Cup. But Paul Potts has talent. And so does the Canadian men's national soccer team.

Roughriders 24 Lions 15: this is a test ...

2007-06-16T20:34:00.000-06:00

After two days where my computer hard drive rang down the curtain and joined the choir invisible, fighting a pack of rabid penguins would have been considered relaxation. And I don't think I was the only one to fall asleep wile listening to CKRM's broadcast of the game.

For the most part, I liked what I heard. I expected a pretty sloppy game, but while the Riders did committ a few penalties, they didn't do stupid things like that two consecurtive 13 men in the huddle penalties that drove the Riders to the BC goal line. Dumb penalties are a sign of an ill-disciplined team whose players don't listen to or respect their coaches, and the Riders didn't take many dumb penalties.

Apart from Fred Russell letting punts drop in front of him, I don't remember too much in the way of dumb plays by individuals which could lead to someone having Dinner on Delta (Don Matthews' term for getting cut). The biggest sign of hope, for me, was that the Riders played with a high level of intelligence and intensity, despite shifting through the second and third-stringers during the game.

And you know about this post? Something tells me that I'm going to feel a little bit more stupid in six or eight weeks than I do now. And I feel kind of stupid already.

Throughout much of the Shivers/Barrett era, the Riders appeared to be a team with all the tools to win, but not enough sense to check the toolbox. Things are going to be a little different at Mosaic Stadium at Taylor Field from now on. The Riders are going to lose games, to be sure, but they won't be out-coached any more. I feared what the Roughriders were going to look like for the first six or seven games, as players adjusted to new teammates on the field and a new offensive and defensive system. I don't feel that fear as much now ...

The flames become a soap opera

2007-06-14T10:41:00.000-06:00

Great Lion of God, has Sutter lost his mind?

Anybody who would trade Roberto Luongo for Todd Bertuzzi and a couple of spare parts doesn't deserve a job in hockey.

The beautiful game, Canada's ugly duckling

2007-06-13T07:41:00.000-06:00

Following Canadian soccer is the exclusive province of masochists and those who think Canada should upgrade its place in the world without Stephen Harper's help. So the news that Canada has bounced up -- way up -- FIFA standings from 94th from 56th in rankings -- is a rare moment to celebrate.

The men's national team's performance at the Gold Cup in Miami has been pretty up and down: the team finished round robin play with a two-win, one loss record. Victories over Costa Rica and Haiti mean more to FIFA standings than a 2-1 loss to Guadeloupe, a French protectorate which isn't a FIFA member. Canada will play Guatemala at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro on Saturday.

The Canadian soccer program has been the victim of its management's stupidity for years. Thy took almost a year to replace the men's national team's head coach after Frank Yallop, and after playing footsie with a Brazilian, announced that the major factor in hiring a new head coach would be the fact that he's Canadian. Which is horse bleep for two reasons: the women's national team coach is Norwegian, and foreign-born coaches such as Holger Osieck, wouldn't tolerate the boardroom antics the CSA is famous for. The CSA is much more interested in its own internal games than they are in fielding a decent team, and the men's national team success at the Gold Cup has come in spite -- not because -- of anything the CSA has done in the past decade.

CSI: Hockey

2007-06-12T13:30:00.000-06:00

Jerry Bruckheimer wants to put an NHL team in Las Vegas. After reading what the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star have to say on that, I have instructions for the movie mogul.

To spare you from ridicule and scorn, not to mention five years of your time, here's what you should do.

1. Get in no particular order, the following:
-- $80 million US, preferably in $10 bills
-- 1 gallon of unleaded premium gasoline
-- a box of wooden matches

2. Invite your neighbors over for a bonfire.

3. At the end of your bonfire, announce that you're looking for an expansion franchise to Winnipeg.

You're welcome.

Beckham: the man, the myth ...

2007-06-11T14:21:00.000-06:00

Sometime this summer, David Beckham and his family will board a plane, either in Madrid or London, and fly to Los Angeles. We knew four or five months ago he was going to play for the Los Angeles Galaxy in Major League Soccer: and he's going to. That's about the only prediction made four or five months ago regarding Beckham that's come true.

When Beckham signed the contract to play in L.A., it appeared as if he had checked into the sports version of the Hotel California: a place of decadence and ennui, where he would run out the clock on his career in glorious, profitable obscurity. Real Madrid's president blasted him as a selfish lout and the coach said Beckham would never play for the club again. The previous summer, the new coach of England's national soccer team, Steve McClaren, kicked Beckham to the curb in a move that displayed all the class of one of Newt Gingrich's divorces: Beckham announced his retirement as England captain just after World Cup 2006: McClaren cut him entirely, in a move that was politically popular at the time.

Then Becks, glamor boy and all, did something remarkable. He could have taken his lumps, sat on the beach for the time being, and drifted off to Hollywood. He didn't. He could have called a press conference and publicly demanded to be bought out of his Real Madrid contract, or let a sympathetic journalist drop anonymous sources stories about how discontented he was riding the bench in Spain. That's what players in English, European, and South American football do all the time. Players in major league baseball, the NFL, and the NBA do this all the time, too.

Beckham did not. He shut up. He went back to work. He continued to train hard. No badmouthing management or complaining about factors out of his control: he did what he felt he had to do in order to remain a high-caliber player in a pretty demanding sport.

Personally, I don't think Beckham was as good as the hype machine made him to be (then again, who is? Pele? George Best? Maradonna?) But he wasn't the washed-up has-been or never was his detractors made him to be.

Beckham's exile from Real Madrid's team lasted about eight games (where the team lost seven of them). By the time the coach broke down and brought him back, it was too late to salvage the Champions League season for the team, but they managed to make some noise in La Ligua.

It was the same way for the English national team. The English national team looked bad without him. So bad that they were in danger of not qualifying for Euro 2008.

Beckham was brought back for a friendly against Brazil at England's answer to Montreal's Olympic Stadium. He set up one goal in a 1-1 draw, and a few days later set up all three goals in England's 3-0 victory over Estonia at Tallinn. In retrospect, I don't think Steve McLaren had much of a choice, and Beckham's performance seems to indicate more about Beckham's quality and mental toughness as a soccer player than it does about whatever management acumen McLaren possesses.

That's why you have Real Madrid officials uttering absolute nonsense about bringing back a player they figured they didn't need five months ago.

I would imagine Beckham is having the last laugh at those who wanted him put out to pasture too soon. In all likelihood, he's doing what Prince Phillip is supposed to do at formal Royal events when the tabloids are out -- displays a big smile and curses them under his breath. Beckham is taking his life to Hollywood: Beckham's last six months of his life would shame any Hollywood scriptwriter.

Monday Morning QB Canadian style

2007-06-11T10:58:00.000-06:00

Ten things I think I'm supposed to be thinking about when I'm supposed to be writing about the Saskatchewan Roughriders for an upcoming prairie dog:

1. The hump at the middle of Taylor Field is less pronounced but still there. Supposedly it's there for drainage. To me, it just doesn't look right -- never has, never will. Having said that, the new Field Turf looks great. The only advertising, as of now, is the giant Mosaic corporate banner at mid-field.

2. For all the discussion about Kent Austin running a tight training camp, Monday morming's 8:15 session never got under way until 8:35. Yeah, they may not have wanted to train in the showers that pelted the area earlier in the morning, but the CFL isn't going to delay games on account of rain.

3. A fan sitting next to me; "You know what's going to be the weirdest thing? Seeing Andy Fantuz in a retro Rider jersey." He was born after the Riders changed their logo and jersey styling. But the retro jerseys (rumoured to be coming out for Labour Day) will be a big hit at the Rider Store and Jersey City.

4. Anything Kerry Joseph did at this practice, Marcus Crandell could do better. During a scrimmage, Crandell made a perfect read on an uncovered Andy Fantuz coming over the middle, hit him in the numbers, and Fantuz was away to the races. A big-gainer or possibly a touchdown if it were game conditions.

5. If Joseph isn't the starting quarterback, how much sense, economically, does it make to keep him on the roster? The Riders may need that extra salary room to sign some help, most likely on the defensive line and/or secondary.

6. Drew Tate is to Kent Austin what Number One is to Dr. Evil. He is going to be Number Two on the QB depth chart this time next year.

7a. Another fan: "Maybe they should put a sign outside Moasic -- receivers wanted!'" Not those kind of receivers: the Riders will do better financially this year. But four -- Corey Grant (dislocated shoulder), Thyron Anderson (thigh), Kalill Hill (thigh), Yo Murphy (calf) and DJ Flick (hamstring) are injured, Richard Flowers III went home to resume his acting career, and a couple others have been cut. When Matt Dominguez walked off the field briefly during the warm-ups, everybody I was sitting with -- including me -- thought, 'here we go again ...' he wasn't hurt, fortunately.

7b. When you think of the injuries, you have to wonder: why? Is t the Field Turf, which is supposed to be better than the garbage they played on last year: a substance created by Satan in collusion with otherwise idle knee surgeons? Is the training staff not up to snuff? Or are these the result of poor conditioning in the off-season? Or is it because Kent Austin runs such tough camps?

7c. Same fan: "Jason French has looked all right. It's training camp, but he looks good. Note to said fan: Jason French ALWAYS looks good in training camp.

8. Sheri Trapp, from the Roughriders' Ministry of Truth, is already in mid-season form (Not that way. She's married. And for thinking that, her brother will beat you up . Or me. Or both of us). She came out with the day's roster sheet. No number 84. Who's number 84? I asked. 'There's no number 84,' she said. In all likelihood, Number 84 was Jason Mitchell, the biggest name from USC the Riders have signed since Kareem Kelly, a speedster with the work ethic of a slacker.

9. This time last year, Rider Nation regarded Eric Tillman as Beeker from the Muppet Show, or a model displaying Chia Pet hair. He was also regarded as a mercenary who possessed no love for the Riders, or for any team that wasn't a guaranteed winner. And Kent Austin was thought of by those in Riderland kind to him as an incompetent, pass-first offensive co-ordinator, while the majority would have regarded him as the Anti-Christ on artificial turf because of his acrimonious departure in 1994. If someone went into the Wayback Machine in order to tell fans at last year's training camp that Austin and Tillman would be coach and GM of the Riders within 12 months, there would have been mass suicides.

10. To be honest, this isn't going to be the Riders' year -- especially in the first few games of the season. The Riders start June 29 in Montreal, where they never win (the Rue St. Catherine strip joints, according to legend, act as the the Als' 13th man). The home opener is against the Stampeders, a week later, then another at home against BC, then a home-at-home against Edmonton, then they play B.C. again. And if you take off the green goggles, you would have to think a team with a rookie head coach, three new faces on the offensive line, a rebuilt secondary and minus last year's major offensive threat would be an easy mark. Carmello Carteri, the Riders' color guy on CKRM broadcasts, often groans like a narwhal in a peep show when the Riders make mistakes during the game. He's probably going to sound like a narwhal viewing Cheerleaders in Chains during the early season broadcasts.

The Riders will do a lot better in the second half of the season than they will in the first half. The question is: if they don't do well early this season, will fans be happy with another .500 season and third-place finish.? Kind of doubt it ....

The Last Roundup for Hockey

2007-06-11T06:23:00.000-06:00

The sight of the Anaheim Ducks wandering around with the Stanley Cup doesn't do much for me, nor did it for television ratings (to be fair, TV ratings for the NBA finals also appear to be in free-fall). There are a few of us Winnipeg Jets fans who may get misty eyed over Teemu Sellane and Randy Carlyle getting their mitts on the trophy, but for the most part, who cares?

We're not going to see a Ducks dynasty. Free agency is one reason why. Player turnover is a constant today. But it's also worth noting that two teams which finished in the Stanely Cup finals last year -- Carolina and Edmonton -- didn't make it into the playoffs.

Stands to reason. There's only so far one can push the human body and human mind. to reach the Stanley Cup Finals, players have to go through at least 110 games -- pre-season, regular season, post season. Then there's practices, travel, all those other things. And the longer you go in the post-season, the less time the body has to recover. Players on a Stanely Cup finalist team have six weeks, tops, to recover from the season: that's not enough time.

If recent history holds, we won't see the Ducks in the playoffs next year, and we probably won't see the Senators either (Celebrate, Maple Leaf Nation! Even though your team will still suck!). The days of the dynasty -- the Canadiens, Islanders, or Oilers winning those consecutive Stanely Cups -- are also over.

Things looking up in that other football

2007-06-07T06:55:00.001-06:00

It's an illustration of Canada's pathetic soccer history to note that the last week of May saw the most sucessful week in this sport in a generation when Toronto FC defeated Major League Soccer's best team the Colorado Rapids, and the men's national team tied the weak sister in South American soccer, Venezuela.

Wednesday night (yesterday) was a a time when things got a little better. Enough to take my mind off the sight of the Stanley Cup residing in Disneyland, anyway. Canada (ranked 94th in the world by FIFA) defeated Costa Rica (54) 2-1 at the Orange Bowl in the first game of the Gold Cup tournament. Canada won this tournament in a thorough upset in 2000 -- I was stunned to watch the Nats upset a Mexican team playing, for all intents at home (Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego) before winning the final.

CBC's John Molinaro doesn't give Canada much of a chance at this tournament, for reasons he outlines quite well in his article. I can't argue with him, though after seeing the highlights of the dismembering of the Ticos and DeGuzman's two goals you can't help but get a little more excited.

Meanwhile the under 20 team whacked the U.S 4-0 in Kingston, Ont. in a tuneup for the U-20 championships later this month. And the women's team defeated New Zealand, in a warm-up for the Women's World Cup this fall in China. Toronto FC lost to a very good Red Bull New York club 2-1 last night, but by most accounts they looked good in defeat.

There's a couple of very good articles, one from The Independent and another from the Toronto Star, about the flip side of soccer life. Not everyone who everyone who plays has a Manchester United or Real Madrid payroll. In many ways, soccer players are worse off than hockey or football players, in that there's less regard for their post-game career in soccer. I hope that soccer players whose last name isn't Beckham know what they're getting themselves into.

J-E-T-S! JUST END THE SEASON! Or Bettman's credibility ...

2007-06-06T09:36:00.000-06:00

Ever think it's strange to see Gary Bettman talk about the NHL moving back to Winnipeg now? Ten years ago, he was instrumental in moving the Jets to Phoenix, in an attempt to re-arrange the NHL to make it more television market-friendly in the United States. Even as little as a year ago, he wasn't interested.

So, why is he talking about this now? I mean, it's not as if he's deliberately trying to make a fool out of Hugh McFayden. He's perfectly capable of doing that himself. (It's behind the Western Producer's pay firewall, but the paper's election coverage features a Neepawa MLA -- a Tory, of course -- tearing a strip off Dear Leader with his campaign promise fiasco. It didn't do anything in Winnipeg, where the NDP are traditionally strong, and alienated the Cons' rural base.

There's a few reasons why Winnipeg looks better to Bettman. First of all, the Canadian dollar was about 64 cents in 1996, the year the Jets moved south. Today, it's at 94 cents, and in the opinion of many economists, it's going to be at par by New Year's Day. Canadian teams take in revenue in Canadian dollars, but have to pay their expenses in American dollars: narrowing that gap makes the Canadian teams' operating budget that much healthier.

Secondly, the dream of a big TV contract in the U.S. is dead. Stanley Cup ratings in the States have gone through the floor. The NHL can't even give away its own product in the U.S.

Stephen Brunt of the Globe and Mail outlines why Gary Bettman is doing what he's doing (I can't find his original story, which was cut-and-pasted onto this Nashville Predators fan board.

That's one of the reasons Balsillie was willing to pay $220-million (U.S.) for the team - conservatively $100-million more than it's worth in Nashville. Portability considerably upped the value. But the other factor in the price was what it meant to the other NHL owners. Now they could claim their teams were worth at least as much, since that's what the Preds commanded in the open market. Sports ownership has always been primarily an equity play, and on that note, Balsillie instantly made everyone in the league just a little bit richer.

And just perhaps, he won a few of them over to his side when the time comes to approve both his purchase of the team and any plan for relocation.

There are other reasons the governors might want to support him. The CBC, the NHL's most significant broadcast partner, would be delighted with a second team in Southern Ontario. At least that's what the executive director of CBC Sports, Scott Moore, said on Toronto's all-sport radio station The Fan 590 the other night. It would represent another option for tapping into the deepest hockey fan base on the continent.

Consider the possibilities, especially if the Hamilton Preds remained in the Western Conference: a Saturday night Maple Leafs home game, followed by a Predators road game a couple of time zones distant would make for quite the ratings bonanza doubleheader.

The team would be financially secure, backed by a deep-pocketed owner. It would enjoy a healthy gate. It would likely wind up paying into the revenue sharing pool (as all of the Canadian teams will this year) rather than drawing from it, as Nashville did, to the tune of many millions of dollars. For 28 of the 29 other franchises, another Ontario team would represent a net gain any way you slice it.

Then, consider the political optics at home.

Bringing more NHL hockey back to Canada? A motherhood issue. Helping to redevelop the struggling centre of downtown Hamilton (note that Balsillie also hopes to run the city's convention and theatre facilities)? A motherhood issue.

Not hard to imagine a few members of Parliament jumping on this bandwagon.

And didn't commissioner Gary Bettman, in the month leading up to the lockout, talk over and over again about how important he considered hockey in Canada, about how he understood its cultural value and about how the new economic system he was fighting for would make Canadian teams more viable?

What a golden opportunity to make good on his words.

There you have it. (Found his column through Google's archives)

All the teams are worth more (can't find the on-line reference but when Ted Turner divested himself of his sports empire about four years ago, the Atlanta Thrashers were thrown in at no cost to the sale of the Hawks and the Phillips Center -- the team was worth nothing) thanks to Blackberry Man. Now, the list price has shot up for millionaires tired of their latest toy.

Nothing Bettman can say or do can convince Blackberry Man to move somewhere else besides Southern Ontario and spark a war with The Evil Empire. Backfill markets that lost their teams? Come on, that means the NHL is contemplating moving back to Nashville ...

And Winnipeg itself? If you want to soak up about 10 minutes of dead air during Game Day on CJTR, get Sideshow going about the sale of the Jets to Phoenix (don't mention to him the Coyotes lost more money in their first three years in Phoenix than they did in their last three years in Winnipeg, and don't mention that the Coyotes lost $35 million in the last two seasons.). And while the Canadian economy has become healthier than it was in 1996, Winnipeg's economy has stayed stagnant. Does Winnipeg have the head offices and corporate support to keep an NHL team? It didn't in 1996. What's changed?

As well, the NHL salary cap is going up next season. (If the NHL is on such shaky ground, then why is the salary cap going up? Just wondering ...)

If the Asper and Richardson families got together on an NHL bit, there would be a team in Winnipeg, guaranteed. (And given David's temper tantrums at Bomber games, the Jets would be entertaining off the ice ...) Since they're not, the NHL returning to Manitoba is just a pipe dream. No matter what Gary Bettman says.

Game 4

2007-06-06T09:23:00.000-06:00

Well, if you can't beat Anaheim without Chris Pronger, you're dead. Have fun at Disneyland, Ottawa Senators.

Senators 5, Ducks 3

2007-06-04T08:05:00.000-06:00

Somewhere out there, an American thinks we're talking about Dick Cheney going hunting again.

Marc Cohon, you're making me very angry ...

2007-06-03T07:20:00.000-06:00

Go to the quick hits section at the bottom of the interview ...

Q: Best thing you ever saw in the CFL?

A: Probably that Tony Gabriel catch in 1976.

Quebec City a possible expansion site?

2007-06-02T13:03:00.000-06:00

The National Post says there's a group in Quebec City that's considering a CFL franchise for an expanded PEYPS Stadium at Universitie Laval. There's a longer story in today's Regina Leader-Post sports section, but I haven't been able to find it on line as of yet. Hmmm...

Suddenly, Marc Cohon's job isn't that safe ...

2007-06-02T12:46:00.000-06:00

The Renegades may have folded, but the real renegades live on with the CFL board of governors. The Lions and Als' owners won't allow the CFL to go over their books in 07, checking to see whether or not they're following the salary management system.

Goodbye SMS, we hardly knew ye.

In the footsteps of Randy Mattingly?

2007-06-02T07:21:00.000-06:00

The section of cyberspace devoted to the Saskatchewan Roughriders fan world is eagerly awaiting, buttocks all a-quiver, for the first day of training camp (today it's physicals, sessions start Sunday).

And one of the things they're going to get excited about is Drew Tate, a former Iowa star who had a cup of coffee with the St. Louis Rams rookie camp before heading to the CFL. Which is fine. The backup quarterback is often the most popular player, and I can remember going to games, and fans would SCREAM for the backup quarterback, be it Randy Mattingly (Don's brother), Larry Dyck, Bubba Wyche, Danny Saunders, Homer Jordan, Kevin Mason, Jeff Bentrim, Rocky Butler ... and on and on and on.

About 10 years ago, My father and I went to a game against Montreal, and we sat on the east side (Dad helped a neighbor finish combining, and he gave us his tickets for the game in thanks). We sat beside this guy who brought his and his neighbor's kids from Saskatoon to watch this dad mutter and swear at Reggie Slack the whole freaking game. He screamed at the top of his lungs for Kevin Mason the whole time, until The Next Great Rider Quarterback (I'm being sarcastic here ...) came in halfway through the third quarter.

(Just how bad were the Roughriders in 1996, during the Al Ford/Jim Daley era? Just how bad does a football team have to be when Kevin Mason is regarded at your next big hope? The mind boggles ...)

Mason was famous for taking the ball from centre, running around 20, 30 yards behind the line of scrimmage, running around like a chicken with his head cut off, before throwing a long bomb in the general direction of ... somebody. That passed for 'excitement' in those dark, dismal days of Rider Pride.

On the second series of downs, Mason threw the worst pass that I had ever seen. Twenty-five yards behind the line of scrimmage, Mason throws ... off the back foot ... across his body ... into a 30 mile an hour wind ... into double coverage ... the ball hung up like a kite ... the nearest to the ball were two Als defensive backs who, I fervently hoped, were going to play a little Alphonse-and-Gaston ('You get it.' 'No, it's yours. I insist ...') ... they didn't. The Als picked off the ball and returned it for a touchdown.

As the Als' DB streaked down the sidelines to the end zone, I instinctively popped up like a spring loaded toilet seat and shouted, 'MASON! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?' This inspired the guy next to me to swing his fist towards my face. He missed and knocked off my father's glasses. (And the Riders said the university section was too rowdy ...)

The lesson from this: don't let the gallery gods decide who's quarterback. Ron Lancaster was booed in his last Taylor Field appearance (he had to go to Edmonton to get the honors he so richly deserved), and there's this guy Austin. And yet they pin their fragile hopes on some guy who isn't good enough to start, and displays his inadequacies the moment he takes to the field.

The Kent Austin comparisons also come to mind when you read The Sporting News chat board regarding is Iowa career. In many ways -- including temperament -- he sounds like Austin as a Rider player, half a generation ago (which isn't necessarily a good thing: Austin had to learn to keep his emotions in check).

It's early, but I think the Riders want Tate to be on the payroll this year, as the third string. By the end of the season, either Crandell or Joseph will be gone, which means Tate should be number two. Darian Durant and Omar Connor will probably be the odd men out by the end of training camp (Connor probably won't make it out of rookie camp). Then again, I don't know. That's what training camp is for.

Lucky for the Regina Red Sox

2007-06-02T07:10:00.000-06:00

Mother Nature is trying to tell you that it's not a good marketing idea to play your home opener on the first day of Mosaic.

Yoo hoo, Mr. Cuban ...

2007-06-02T06:19:00.000-06:00

The Dallas Mavericks owner who thought his team could live without a future two-time NBA most valuable player (and Steve Nash got jobbed this year) is stroking his ego again, He's proposing a second-division, eight team football league in the United States.

Nothing burns a hole in a millionaire's wallet faster than a minor league pro sports franchise (baseball excepted). To aid the process, the sports blog Kissing Suzy Kolbert has some suggestions for cities and names of the project. (WARNING: some of the names, like much of the KSK blog postings, aren't kid or work friendly.) Yeah, the Canadian Football League home office is quaking in their boots as we speak ....

Another reason to cheer for Ottawa ...

2007-05-31T09:17:00.000-06:00

Fiddlesticks. And worse.

There's another reason why I want Ottawa to win. When I attended high school in rural Saskatchewan, one of my tormentors was a hockey player who wrangled a tryout to the Regina Pats. He was one of the first cuts from the Pats' rookie camp, and when a teacher asked him what had happened, he yelled, 'The coach is an asshole.' Last I heard, the high school jock was driving a bread truck in town. Which is fine. Bread doesn't deliver itself.

But if I were good enough a hockey player to be invited to a WHL training camp, the coach could Number two on my dinner plate and I'd ask for seconds.

And the coach of that Pats team so many years ago is in a bit of trouble too.

No Yankee offense, but A-Rod still scores

2007-05-30T14:01:00.000-06:00

It's fortunate for the exotic dance industry that not everyone who enters the clubs garners press coverage such as this. Of course, it wouldn't mean much except that the Yankees suck right now. Anyone who's read Jim Bouton's Ball Four or Bill Lee's The Wrong Stuff knows that major league baseball players live a life that's equal parts pampered like a sultan and the exhibit of a circus freak.

Then again, A-Rod and his agent have always wanted The Big Bucks, and to play on the Big Stage. Page Six and the papparazi have been around a lot longer than his career, and they'll be there long after A-Rod has retired and become forgotten. If he doesn't like his private life to be displayed for all to see, then he should trade jobs, and paycheques, with somebody else.

Harry Jerome biography

2007-05-30T10:43:00.000-06:00

I have GOT to get this book.

Television ratings take a hit for the Stanley Cup

2007-05-30T09:55:00.000-06:00

You know what I was saying about how the Ottawa Senators had been kept off the air by Maple Leaf Nation? And how that would come back to bite the behinds of those in the Canadian television industry because people would be unfamiliar with the Senators come playoff time?

Hate to be an I told you so, but ...

The Ancient Mariner

2007-05-30T09:33:00.000-06:00

Toronto sports writers have been writing the same thing for years, and they may for a couple more. The problem is though, that no quarterback is going to be groomed to be the starter behind Damon Allen because Allen's not going to take sitting on the bench too well. It's Ron Lancaster and Brett Farve all over again. And I don't think the Argonauts have anybody else there to challenge Allen for the starter's position.

As the NHLPA Turns ...

2007-05-30T09:17:00.000-06:00

Like sands through an hourglass ...

Somewhere, Alan Eagleson is laughing. The players he took to the cleaners may have retired, but the players' mindset that created ogres such as him still exists.

Things that make you go hmmm ...

2007-05-30T08:58:00.000-06:00

The Roughriders traded their first round draft pick in the 2008 Canadian college draft, a pick in the 07 draft, and a negotiation list player for ... two guys who the Riders could have signed without giving up a thing -- one they could have drafted earlier and another who was a free agent until January.

Hmmm ... apart from the optics, this trade tells me (a) the Riders don't expect Kenton Keith to come back from the Colts, and the Riders are not too thrilled with the players coming into camp in the backfield.

Dunno if the trade was a good idea, but Eric Tillman is the Riders' GM (then again, so was John Herrera) and I'm just a schmuck behind a desk somewhere in cyberspace. But a first rounder is a LOT to give up, especially when quality young Canadian players are going to be at a premium.

Welcome to Gary Bettman's Nightmare

2007-05-29T07:30:00.000-06:00

Gary Bettman, this is reality calling. The National Hockey League has an American television deal on a network that the CIA couldn't find, let alone the average viewer, and a sweetheart deal on NBC. American franchises are playing to empty seats -- even in New Jersey, one of the teams with the best records overall -- and many U.S. clubs are bleeding red ink like harpooned whales. Ten years ago, Bettman oversaw the moving of franchises from smaller markets in hockey areas to southern U.S. markets. How has that turned out?

Right ...

To add insult to injury, the Stanley Cup finals began on a Monday night, instead of a Saturday night, which not only hurt Canadian television ratings but also gave the Ottawa Senators nine day's rest, getting them out of their routine. No wonder they looked tired in the first period.

If you wanted to look at the NHL as a business model, the Ottawa Senators should be seen as one of the Cinderella stories. It began as an under-financed entity with poor management and went into bankruptcy, and is now not only successful on the ice, the NHL's salary cap system makes it competitive with teams in larger markets. So, why isn't it? Why do television ratings for the NHL comparatively suck, even with a Canadian team in the hunt for the The Big Prize?

Part of it has to do with the Black Hole of Canadian television viewing, Maple Leaf Nation. To placate advertisers, the CBC and TSN show Toronto games almost every opportunity they get, especially the early game on Hockey Night in Canada. When the Leafs crash and burn, either early in the playoffs or not making the post-season, the casual hockey fan is left wondering something like, 'Calgary/Vancouver/Edmonton/Ottawa? Who are these guys?' That's too bad, because in catering for Maple Leafs Nation, the NHL and the networks are shooting themselves in the foot.

Oh, the game? Oh yeah ...

I should be cheering for the Ducks. After all, they have more Canadian-born players on their team than Ottawa, and when I edited the Fort Qu'Appelle Times, I had the privelege of interviewing Scott and Rod Niedermayer's maternal grandparents. During the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, Scott flew his extended family to Utah, rented a house, and managed to procure tickets for several events, including the men's and women's hockey finals.

But I'm more partial to the Senators. First of all, I want to see Lord Stanley's donation to Canadian culture reside somewhere it will be appreciated, not next door to Disneyland. Secondly, I have a friend in Ottawa, and Ray has already gone through a rough time. His favorite soccer club, Liverpool, lost the UEFA Champions League final, and it wouldn't be fair for him to experience more disappointment.

Oveture, kill the lights ...

2007-05-28T19:18:00.000-06:00

Well, I can't link to the theme from the Bugs Bunny Road Runner Hour right now, but I think I'll be able to learn how. Eventually.

For the record, my name is Stephen LaRose, I write for prairie dog in Regina and Planet S in Saskatoon, and for anybody who wants to cut me a cheque. Occasionally, I can be heard on Game Day, a sports radio show on Regina, which airs Tuesdays at noon and repeats Wednesday at 9 a.m. CJTR can be found on line right about here. Sideshow is the main host, but he's working on getting more potential co-hosts, and he, I expect, is going to be contributing to this blog as well.

Since the third period of the Ottawa/Anaheim Stanley Cup playoffs' first game is about to start, I'd better get back to business. More later.