Category Archives: general sports

A Huge Weekend Coming Up: What Does it Mean?

Posted on November 11, 2011 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment
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Josh Freeman

TAMPA, Fla. — There is nothing better than a long weekend. You don’t have to go to bed early, you don’t have to get up early and there is usually enough sports on the tube that there isn’t one dull moment.

This weekend here in sunny Florida, the Houston Texans take on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday afternoon, but don’t worry, there’s more. Lots more.

In fact, there’s a load of NFL games on TV, more than enough college football to fill your boots, plus hockey and fighting — both boxing and MMA. The CFL playoffs begin, Tiger is hot in Australia while John Daly is off in Oz playing Kevin Costner’s character in Tin Cup.

While we remember our fathers and grandfathers and all the people who fought to keep Canada free, we can also take comfort in the fact they left us a nation that loves sports — and really loves to argue about it.

So with that in mind, here are five outstanding sporting events taking place this Remembrance Day weekend.

Let’s have an argument.

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Tiger Woods

1. Tiger Woods Heats Up in Australia:

I know, the world is full of Tiger haters, but I’m afraid I’m not one of them. I hope Tiger shoots 62 every time he tees it up just to piss off the people who hate his guts. I also can’t watch golf on TV unless Tiger is in contention. Televised golf these days would put hyperactive children to sleep if Tiger isn’t playing.

So heading into the weekend, Tiger has gone 68-67 at the Lakes Country Club in Sydney and at nine under, he holds a one-shot lead over Peter O’Malley.

He talked after Round 2 as if he was ready to win again.

“I think experience comes with managing myself and my game,” Woods told reporters at the post-round news conference. “I’ve been there a few times and I understand how to do it. All the things that can happen, I’ve experienced a lot of it.”

Go get ‘em Tiger.

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Anthony Calvillo

2. The CFL Playoffs Start:

The Winnipeg Bombers don’t play again until Sunday, Nov. 20 when they play host to the CFL’s Eastern final at Canad Inns Stadium. More than 27,000 tickets have already been sold for that game and no doubt, it will be a sellout. Bomber fans have waited since 20o1 to cheer for a first place and this year they’ll be at the stadium screaming themselves horse.

Buck Pierce says he’ll be ready to start at quarterback when the Bombers face the winner of this Sunday’s Eastern Conference semifinal between the Montreal Alouettes and the Hamilton Tiger-Cats at Olympic Stadium in Montreal. The Alouettes are favored by 5.5 points. Game time is 12 Noon. Meanwhile, in the Western semifinal Calgary will play at Edmonton at 3:30. The Eskimos are favored by 2.5.

It says here that Montreal and Edmonton will emerge victorious this weekend, but both teams will lose in the Conference finals. That means we’re looking at a Winnipeg-B.C. Grey Cup on Nov. 27 at B.C. Place Stadium.

You heard it here first.

3. Two Gigantic Saturday Night Fights:

This Saturday night, Manny Pacquiao of the Philippines returns to the ring for a re-match against Mexico’s Juan Manuel Marquez and it will be a dandy. It’s being billed as Pacquiao-Marquez III at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas and it’s the rubber match at 144 pounds for Pacquiao and Marquez.

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Manny Pacquiao

The first time Pacquiao fought Marquez in 2004, he knocked him down three times and settled for a draw. The second time, in 2008, Pacquiao won by split decision. There are some who think Marquez is a better fighter. Both Big Will Prince and I picked Pacquaio to win by a unanimous decision. This will be a long, hard, wonderful fight by two of the best pound-for-pound warriors on the planet.

Meanwhile, on the MMA side of the ledger, the UFC heavyweight title will be up for grabs on Saturday night in the first UFC on Fox main event with champion Cain Velasquez taking on top contender Junior Dos Santos. There will be nine preliminary bouts but only one main event – that’s for Velasquez’s UFC heavyweight title and on Streetz 104.7 this week both Big Will and I picked the veteran warrior, Cain Velasquez, to defend his belt,

However, our fight expert, Marc-Andre Drolet from The Fight Network, said he was ready to place a bet on Dos Santos in an upset.

The fight is free on Fox on Saturday, live from the Honda Centre in Anaheim, Cal.

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Claude Noel

4. The Jets Play in Columbus:

The 5-8-3 Winnipeg Jets, coming off a heartbreaking 6-5 overtime loss in Buffalo on Tuesday night and a dud — a 5-2 loss to Florida — at home on Thursday, take to the road to face the struggling Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday night.

The Jets can’t afford to sleep walk through this one like they did against Florida on Thursday.

After all, they get one game on the road and then return to Winnipeg to face Tampa on Monday, Washington on Thursday and Philly next Saturday. The road game will be the easiest of the next four.

After Thursday’s loss head coach Claude Noel said: “We were not good from the goaltender out, what do you want me to say?”

Thank you, coach, for the thoughtful, candid, honest response. I watched the game at Buffalo Wild Wings in Orlando on Thursday night and the locals laughed at my favorite hockey team. They had better be better on Saturday or a desperate Columbus team will rip them.

Meanwhile, there is still talk in Jets circles about moving Dustin Byfuglien from defense to forward, but head coach Claude Noel doesn’t want to make the move because Byfuglien “Doesn’t want to play forward,” and GM Kevin Cheveldayoff doesn’t want to make the move because he likes Byfuglien on the ice 22-24 minutes a night on defense while he’d only play 15-17 minutes at forward. Which, of course, didn’t matter much in Buffalo after two of Byfuglien’s mistakes cost the Jets a pair of goals.

This debate will continue for awhile.

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Aaron Rodgers and Greg Jennings

5. Indy to 0-10, Green Bay to 9-0:

I’m not convinced the Jacksonville Jaguars are any good, but I am convinced they’re better than the 0-9 Indianapolis Colts. However, the Colts aren’t going to go 0-16 this season (my Lions have already EARNED that notoriety) and if they’re going to win a game this year, this is it. It goes Sunday at Noon (CST) and yet if they were playing it in my back yard, I wouldn’t open the drapes to watch it. This might be one of the worst NFL games this season.

Meanwhile, on Monday night, the Green Bay Packers play host to the Minnesota Vikings. Green Bay will win because Aaron Rodgers will throw a pantload of TD passes against that dreadful Vikings defensive secondary. How about 48-36 Green Bay?

The Packers will improve to 9-0 and will only have two semi-difficult games in their final seven. We could be witnessing another 16-0 season.

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Things We’ve Learned This Week. Already.

Posted on October 10, 2011 by Scott Taylor| 1 Comment

It’s only Monday and yet, since Saturday, we’ve either learned a whole load of new stuff or had a pile of things we already knew, confirmed.

Three days of football, hockey and baseball on TV and one NHL game in downtown Winnipeg will do that for us.

To review:

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Instant Mute Button: Ron Darling.

1) Instant mute button: Brian Anderson, Ron Darling and John Smoltz calling the playoffs on FOX. They aren’t as bad doing the Milwaukee-St. Louis series as they were doing the Yankees-Detroit series, but most of what they say is still nonsense.

Of course, nonsense beats the cheerleading that trio did for the Yankees in the ALDS. You know, I like the Yankees. I’ve interviewed Derek Jeter, Nick Swisher, C.C. Sabathia, Alex Rodriguez and Mariano Rivera on many occasions. They’re all decent guys and great ballplayers.

But the cheerleading from the national announcers is quite simply, sickening and that’s the biggest reason why I’m glad the Yankees were eliminated from the post-season. When you have to cheerlead on television for a $203 million payroll, something just isn’t right.

By the way, as a baseball broadcaster, Terry Francona makes a great manager.

2) The best part about the movie Moneyball is the reason so many American sportswriters hate it. It rips baseball scouts, the dumbest people in sports.

ESPN’s Keith Law, who once worked in the Blue Jays front office, wrote that the movie sucks because: ”The baseball stuff is not good. For starters, the lampooning of scouts, which draws from the book, isn’t any more welcome on screen than it was on the page; they are set up as dim-witted bowling pins for Beane and Brand to knock down with their spreadsheets.”

That’s exactly why I loved it. Moneyball is a great movie.

I have watched baseball scouts up close for 18 seasons. Not one of them would know a good ballplayer from a bad one. It’s why baseball spends so much money on so many failures. Only weather forecasters have a lower percentage of success than baseball scouts.

Of course, mainstream media people like baseball scouts because not one of them can keep a secret.

3) Sportsnet’s Nick Kypreos speaks no known language.

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Anthony Calvillo

4) I’m a huge fan of Anthony Calvillo. Interviewed him a dozen times and a piece I wrote about Anthony and his wife was just published in SEVEN Magazine.

Like most CFL fans, I was thrilled that he broke Damon Allen’s record of 72,381 career passing yards on Monday. However, TSN’s suggestion that Calvillo is among the five greatest professional quarterbacks of all time is nonsense (there’s that word again).

Sorry, you simply cannot compare the CFL to the NFL. They are two completely different games. If you want to call Anthony Calvillo the greatest CFL quarterback off all time, knock yourself out. But to compare Calvillo to any quarterback in the NFL is like comparing a baseball pitcher to a cricket bowler — two completely different games.

5) The picture below, from Sunday’s Titans-Steelers game, is a classic example of why I do not believe that anyone can referee anything properly, anywhere at anytime. They’re all guessing:

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Nice call gentlemen.

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Another Crazy Week in the Trenches

Posted on September 4, 2011 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

It’s sometimes hard to believe how dumb people can be, but then you watch the news media and you realize that, well, they are.

We were treated to a beauty this past week. Seems the Canadian Pediatric Society and the American Academy of Pediatrics believe that amateur boxing,  not professional boxing, but amateur boxing, is a major cause of head injuries in children and should be discouraged. They didn’t quite go so far as to say “banned,” but to them, “discouraged” seemed to be an appropriate stance.

At first, the report was simply thought to be “laughable,” by people who have worked so hard to make amateur boxing safe, enjoyable and socially important. After all, if you talk to boxers and MMA fighters who got into the gym and off the street, most will tell you: ”Boxing saved my life.”

“Knowing what we know about head injuries, I would hope that parents and the kids themselves would think long and hard about participating in a sport where blows to the head are rewarded,” Dr. Claire LeBlanc told the Canadian Press last Monday afternoon.

LeBlanc is co-author of the Pediatric physicians’ statement on boxing and one certainly understands where the good doctor is coming from — a world of rich, white, entitled people.

“The CPS and AAP are calling on pediatricians and other health professionals to strongly discourage boxing participation among their patients and guide them toward alternative sport and recreational activities that do not encourage intentional head injuries,” the report says.

“Canadian and American boxing agencies do not track injuries of participants, but the report says based on hospital reports, amateur boxers are at serious risk of face and brain injuries, including concussions.”

Huh? Are they at risk or have the hospitals been treating an inordinate number of amateur boxers? The answer is: neither.

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Kent Brown (left) Coaching Team Manitoba

It is those sorts of blanket statements without any definitive proof that have driven boxing coaches – especially aboriginal and African-American boxing coaches – around the bend.

“When I heard it, I was so angry I couldn’t speak,” said Team Manitoba boxing coach Kent Brown, who is about to open a new amateur boxing gym in Winnipeg.

“These people know nothing. They don’t know how safe amateur boxing is. They don’t know that amateur boxers get better medical attention than football or hockey players. The world knows that there is a greater risk of head injury in football and hockey than there is in amateur boxing. I wish these people would do some research.

“But I also wish that the national media would have ignored a statement that is so ridiculous. Amateur boxing and the gyms that serve the sport, save the lives of young men and women at risk.

The most frightening remark that LeBlanc made, however, had nothing to do with the alleged dangers of amateur boxing.

LeBlanc and her colleagues stated: “Other sports, like tennis, basketball and swimming, can build fitness and character without requiring anyone to be struck in the head.”

You can take basketball out of the argument because getting hit in the head under the basket, fighting for rebounds, is a right of passage for any player. But swimming and tennis? Tennis?

“Tennis is a great sport but do you know how much it costs to play tennis?” said Brown. “There aren’t many kids in my neighborhood buying memberships to tennis clubs. Of course, there aren’t ANY tennis clubs in my neighborhood.”

And that’s the problem with the report. Even though hockey and football are much more dangerous sports for young people to play, boxing has been scapegoated once again by wealthy white doctors who have no idea what the sport has done for inner-city youngsters and kids at risk. Boxing has been an important part of the social fabric of Aboriginal and Asian communities in Canada and African-American and Latino communities in the United States.

“That report was laughable,” said Winnipeg-based Marc-Andre Drolet, columnist and editorial director with fightnetwork.com. “For one thing, amateur boxing – and remember, we’re talking about amateur boxing, not professional boxing — is a lot safer than football or hockey. For another thing, boxing has virtually saved the lives of at-risk, inner-city kids. These people have no idea what they’re talking about. They’re trying to blame boxing because they don’t have the guts to blame hockey or football.”

While the boxing report from otherwise very intelligent people was the dumbest thing we saw all week, there were others…

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Miguel Cabrera Hits Walk-Off Winner

1) I love it when sports announcers get it so wrong you have to laugh just so you don’t cry.

Matt Vasgersian and Mitch Williams were going off about how sensational Chicago White Sox closer Sergio Santos had been since the all-star break. Williams went so far as to suggest that the Detroit Tigers would be lucky to get a sniff against him. After all, said Williams, “Nobody hits this guy. Right now, he’s the best closer in baseball.”

Of course, when Santos struck out lead off man Wilson Betemit in the ninth, his legend grew exponentially.

Funny isn’t it, how legends die so quickly on the ball field?

Austin Jackson doubled, Ryan Raburn homered and then, on the next pitch, Miguel Cabrera homered. In just two pitches from Sergio Santos, the Tigers went from a 5.5-game lead in the AL Central to a 7.5-game lead in the AL Central.

The White Sox had an 8-1 lead over Detroit and blew it. The unhittable Sergio Santos gave up three runs in the ninth to take the loss.

Meanwhile, Vasgersian and Williams  are national broadcasters. They should know by now that in Major League Baseball, nobody is unhittable and when you suggest that someone is, you’ll probably get burned.

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Blue suit on a blue field.

2) Let us assume that the NCAA is correct in its decision to ban the Boise State Broncos from wearing their blue uniforms on their blue football field.

Let us assume that the uniform color is too close to the field color and therefore it’s hard to see the Boise State players at home.

Let us assume that it’s a good decision.

In that case, why does the NCAA allow Oregon to wear their green uniforms on their green field? The Ducks’ dark uniforms are exactly the same color as the field on which they play.

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Green suits on a green field.

One of the biggest problems facing the NCAA and all their football scandals is that the rules appear to be different for everybody. In the case of the Boise State uniform controversy (one created by the NCAA, by the way), it’s wrong to penalize Boise and let Oregon get away with it.

I’m not sure that the original decision to ban Boise’s blues on Boise’s field is a good one, but if it is, then the same rule should apply to Oregon.

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B.C. Runs Over the Argos

3) It’s Sunday, two days after the B.C. Lions went into Toronto and whipped the Argos 29-16.

Toronto is now 2-7 on the season. They’ve lost to a team that was 2-6 — in their own building, no less — and only 19,593 people bought tickets (they might have purchased tickets but they weren’t in the building) to watch it.

Barker, the team’s head coach, has already scapegoated his defensive co-ordinator, Chip Garber, and replaced him with Orlondo Steinauer, who was a great player, but is obviously not much of a defensive coordinator. It’s a mess and it’s pretty obvious that Barker has to go (yeah, just nine games after he was named coach of the year for 2010).

The Argos are awful at a time when the CFL needs a good team in Toronto. Sadly, the only thing the Argos are doing is making people in Ontario pine for an NFL team of the their own. That’s not good.

(We’ll be back later to talk Bombers-Riders)

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Another Week of Crazy

Posted on August 21, 2011 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

It’s sure fun what happens in the wild, unpredictable world of sport. Especially when one considers that almost all of it is completely meaningless and ends up being forgotten only hours — sometimes just moments — after it all took place.

There are times, it seems, when the only thing that makes this outrageous stuff interesting is when the mainstream media turns nothing into something. More often than not, the media creates its own alternate universe and some innocent bystander is beaten to a pulp. That’s what happened in a number of cases this past week. In a few others, it was just people being post-hole dumb.

In all, it’s been another wacky week here in the trenches — watching, observing and wallowing in it like a pig in mud.

Let’s look at this week’s Top 5 in the World of Sports Crazy for the week of August 15-22.

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A-Rod

1) Another example of the mainstream media’s love of complete unadulterated bullshit were the allegations that New York Yankees’ third baseman Alex Rodriguez was involved in an illegal high stakes poker game in California on the night he was playing in a World Series game in 2009.

Now, two weeks after those initial reports surfaced, A-Rod has responded, saying “I look forward to meeting with the league.”

His feelings about the reports suggested he was angry, but muted.

“The only thing I have to say about that is it was extremely inaccurate and unfair,” Rodriguez told ESPN New York.

Two days after the report came out, Rodriguez’s publicist refuted the allegations, claiming that the accusation contained, “numerous factual inaccuracies,” but, of course, the mainstream media, which believes it should have been alerted by Rodriguez himself, didn’t accept that response as a denial. If there is one thing about the media mob’s gigantic ego, it’s that it gets real scratchy when some big star doesn’t call them first. And, of course, when it comes to baseball writers, that can ultimately mean keeping someone out of the Hall of Fame as revenge.

It certainly appears that if they can’t destroy a career, the American mainstream media just isn’t happy.

2) The death of Winnipeg Jets forward Rick Rypien, a former member of the Vancouver Canucks, was a shock to a lot of people and when about 1,000 showed up for Rypien’s funeral, it was obvious that the young hockey player had an affect on a lot of folks.

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Rick Rypien

That’s part of the reason why the Canucks are seething at the Toronto Star right now.

The day after Rypien’s body was found in his home, the Star wrote a story that made reference to how Canucks general manager Mike Gillis treated Rypien’s depression. The Star wrote: “But general manager Mike Gillis told the Vancouver Sun at the time, ‘When you come to know somebody and realize they’re a really good person … but crazy… You don’t only support them when they’re at the top of their game … you support them when they’re not feeling good about things or have other issues they have to deal with.’”

Crazy???!!!

The Canucks were shocked. Gillis did not use the word “crazy,” in any context at any time when discussing Rypien. Still, the “but crazy” remark was printed  in the Star and the Canucks, as one would expect, went off.

Here was the team’s response to that little bit of newspaper insanity: “A quote used in an article today in the Toronto Star sports section attributed to Mike Gillis is not accurate, not factual and does not reflect in anyway the feelings or level of commitment both Gillis and the organization had for Rick Rypien. Our organization is tremendously saddened by the passing of Rick and the newspaper’s choice of words in this article is unfair.”

The Star apologized the next day: “An Aug. 16 article about the death of former Vancouver Canuck Rick Rypien misquoted Canucks general manager Mike Gillis as having referred to Rypien as “crazy” in an interview with the Vancouver Sun last November when Rypien took a personal leave from the Canucks. In fact, Gillis never said that.”

Too little, too late.

The Canucks are now considering a libel suit. They should do more than just consider it. Newspapers have editors. Editors control what is printed. Even if the quote had been accurate, an editor with a brain larger than a walnut would have pulled the quote at the time of a person’s death. Even if it had been a proper quote and not a fabrication, it was still an offensive statement at the time of a young man’s passing.

Trouble is, most daily newspaper editors exist for no other reason but to find ways to make people’s lives miserable. Just consider the current ugliness of The News of the World/News Corp. scandal; the Duke lacrosse fiasco when a group of young athletes were railroaded by a hooker and the American media; and the trial by media of Richard Jewell, the unfortunate security guard whose life was destroyed by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that claimed, without any evidence, that he was the Atlanta Olympic Bomber. There are many more examples and, sadly, there will be many more to come.

The Star‘s gaffe was just another day in the mainstream media.

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Charles Barkley

3) The great Charles Barkley recently spoke with Scott Kaplan and Vencie Glenn on XX Sports Radio in San Diego. He didn’t have much good to say about the “upcoming” NBA season.

“I don’t think they’re gonna play at all this year,” said Barkley. “I feel bad to be honest with you, I feel bad for the people who work for the teams and the people who work for the arenas. The players and the owners are going to be fine because it’s gonna get settled at some point. The NBA has already laid off 100 people so it’s gonna get ugly, real ugly.”

The NBA is a mess and if David Stern can fix this thing, he’s a genius.

However, Barkley is right. It’s not the millionaire players and the billionaire owners who will miss a season. It’s the little guys who sell beer and programs and work in the teams’ front offices. The NBA has put itself in a position in which it over-spent and didn’t care and now it’s up-to-its collective ass in debt.

This is a league that probably needs to be shut down for a year just to get a handle on perspective. Sadly, the ticket and beer sellers might have to try hockey and that’s certainly no gold mine in the United States.

4) The Saskatchewan Roughriders fired head coach Greg Marshall and offensive coordinator Doug Berry this week. After losing to the Toronto Argonauts 24-18 on Thursday night in a game in which the Argos did everything humanly possible to choke late and hand it to the Riders, Saskatchewan refused to accept the gift and fell to 1-7 on the season.

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Brendan Taman

When a team is 1-7, one year after it has gone to two straight Grey Cup games, one can understand the angst. The Riders will now be coached by Ken Miller, the man who took the team to both of those championship games.

“It was tough. It was really tough,” said general manager Brendan Taman. “He (Marshall) took it like a pro, like he is, and he understands this is the business, but it’s disappointing to everybody in this organization that we didn’t succeed with Greg and it surprises all of us that we didn’t.”

Brendan Taman, the guy who writes scouting reports on restaurant napkins, speaks “Footballease.” We will translate.

“Boy we screwed up this team and I released a bunch of guys in the off-season that maybe I shouldn’t have,” said general manager Brendan Taman. “Throw in the fact that Andy Fantuz went to the NFL and Rob Bagg was hurt and our offense went all to hell, and the players I gave Marshall, Berry and (QB Darian) Durant to work with still aren’t up to snuff and here’s the deal.Either I fired those guys now, or the board of directors was going to fire me. Maybe Kenny can bail out my sorry ass.”

That about sums it up.

5) There is a sense that most Winnipeg hockey fans (not all Winnipeg hockey fans but quite a large majority) want Curt Keilback to call the play-by-play of Jets hockey this season.

He won’t.

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Curt Keilback

It’s more likely that the guys who call the games on TSN, will call the games on radio, too (simulcast when both games are on, straight radio when the games are on CBC). and that won’t sit well with most hockey fan. However, when the building is sold out for five years, you aren’t beholding to anybody. You hire the people you feel you have to hire and popularity isn’t an issue.

Well, for those who do want to listen to Curt this winter, you’ll get him 20 times from October-March on NCI 105.5 FM in Winnipeg as Keilback calls the play-by-play of the Manitoba Junior Hockey League for the second straight year.

Tentatively, the 2011-12 MJHL season on NCI will open on Oct. 19 with the Blues at Steinbach. It’s the only place you’ll hear the legendary Curt Keilback this season.

(P.S.: Watching the Vikings-Seattle pre-season game. The Vikings led 13-0 on an interception return for a touchdown by Marcus Sherels, but it really doesn’t matter what the Vikings do this year, they don’t have a chance. That offensive line could not block a nine-year-old girl.)

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It’s a Sports Renaissance in the ‘Peg.

Posted on August 6, 2011 by Scott Taylor| 1 Comment
mcnabb donovan487 381 300x210 Its a Sports Renaissance in the Peg.

Donovan McNabb at Mankato, Minn.

MINNEAPOLIS — Every day I’m in the Twin Cities, sports people come up and ask me why I’m in Minnesota watching football and baseball. I tell then that my readership at www.fantrax.com demands inside knowledge of Major League Baseball and the National Football League, therefore, I’ve spent a long weekend in Minneapolis and Mankato, taking a first hand look at the Vikings, Twins and Chicago White Sox.

However, I have to admit, I understand their questions. With the return of the Winnipeg Jets, folks down here immediately assume that the only thing anyone is talking about in Winnipeg is the National Hockey League. I tell them it’s certainly at the top of every conversation, but there are still plenty of NFL, MLB, NBA and UFC fans in the ‘Peg and because I write far too many on-line columns that can be read all over the world, holding myself to the NHL in August is a tad narrow.

Of course, it is more difficult to leave Winnipeg, even for a weekend of MLB and NFL. It’s something that few people outside of Winnipeg think about: Winnipeg is in the midst of a Sports Renaissance (if you ask Mayor Sam Katz, the city is in a renaissance in a lot of other ways, as well, so check out http://www.newentertainment.ca/newmagazine/home.html and read my piece on what the mayor has brought to the ‘Peg).

As an example, when Winnipeg sports fans woke up on Saturday they had a professional football team in first place and a professional baseball team in first place.

The Bombers had just beaten the Edmonton Eskimos 28-16 thanks to a courageous effort by Buck Pierce and a defense that is as good as anything I’ve seen in Winnipeg since 1993. Even without Doug Brown, the Bombers shut down the heretofore best offence in the CFL and came back from an 11-1 first quarter deficit to outscore Edmonton 27-5 in the final three quarters. At 5-1, the Bombers are first in the East and tied with Edmonton for the best record overall.

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Ace Walker

But that wasn’t the only big win on Friday night. Here in St. Paul, Minn., the Winnipeg Goldeyes came back from a 5-3 deficit by scoring three runs in the top of the seventh. After that its bullpen — Ian Thomas, Aaron Hartsock and Jamie Vermilyea — shut the St. Paul Saints right down en route to a 6-5 victory. With the win, the Goldeyes improved to 45-32 and pulled a full game ahead of second-place St. Paul in the race for first in the American Association’s North Division.

For the first time since 2001, the Bombers and Goldeyes are in first place at the same time. For the first time in history they’re both in first place while the Winnipeg Jets wait to start a new season.

I was over at River City Sports last Wednesday and had a nice chat with the young guys working on the sales floor. They knew that Jets gear would be popular, but even they were blown away by the rate at which the hats, T-shirts and memorabilia were flying off the shelves. There is no question that the Jets are the hottest thing to hit Winnipeg since the advent of indoor plumbing.

However, the return of the Jets has also coincided with two other professional success stories, the start of the Prairie Junior Football Conference season, the incredible improvement in the level of play in the Manitoba Junior Hockey League, top-notch university sports, the return of the Canadian Fighting Championship in September and more local amateur success than Winnipeg has had in decades.

There is a Sports Renaissance going on in this town and it just might last a while. All you have do is go to the games — or try to go to the games — to see what’s happening. After all, it’s hard to get a ticket to a Bomber game and the Goldeyes are drawing a younger crowd than they have in years. The city’s sports scene is exciting.

And to think, the Jets haven’t even played a game yet.

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A Couple of Mornings at Streetz

Posted on July 22, 2011 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment
583802 300x193 A Couple of Mornings at Streetz

Manuel Osborne-Paradis

Every morning at Streetz 104.7 in Winnipeg, Big Will, Miss Melissa and I discuss the most important news stories from around the World of Sports (that sounds so media-like, “The World of Sports.”).

We have discussed, for example, the fact Rory McIlroy and Caroline Wozniacki are an item, the drug issues of Lance Armstrong, the NBA and NFL lockouts, the fact nobody can score in the CFL anymore (except Montreal) and that the quarterbacks are generally horrible (except for that 38-year-old guy who had cancer last fall),  the on-air retirement (the guy with big balls quit right on the air) of the play-by-play announcer of the Lake County Fielders, the fact the Winnipeg Jets are the very best AHL team in the NHL and that they should get a really high draft pick next spring and Melissa’s lust for professional baseball players (it’s a healthy lust).

This week, however, we had a number of very lively discussions. After talking about Marc Tyler, the running back with the USC Trojans who made a very bad decision and decided to make drunken remarks to a hand-held camera while drinking with his pals in L.A. — a decision that got him on TMZ and then suspended from the team for the season opener and maybe longer — we learned of the public drunken screw-up perpetatred on himself by national ski team member Manuel Osborne-Paradis.

Seems Manny, while still recovering from a broken leg suffered on the World Cup circuit in January, was shit-faced at the Calgary Stampede and decided that it was a good idea to bounce around the bed of a pickup truck, fall off, get hooked to the trailer hitch and be dragged “some distance,” according to the police report. Evidently, he suffered road rash so severe that he underwent “multiple operations,” to repair the damage.

But get this: the Calgary gendarmes charged him with a traffic summons for “riding or being towed outside a vehicle.”

We don’t like to laugh at other people’s misfortune, but 27-year-old athletes should be able to handle their liquor better than that.

Good thing he can ski, because neither drinking nor thinking appears to be among his stronger traits.

Then we talked about Reggie Bush. More specifically, Reggie Bush’s ex-girlfriend and new girlfriend.

470 melissa molinaro 110721 300x168 A Couple of Mornings at Streetz

Melissa Molinaro

Of course we all know the New Orleans Saints RB and kick returner was once the fiance of Kim Kardashian. Seems Kardashian is pissed because a young Canadian model named Melissa Molinaro is now featured in Old Navy ads. Kardashian, who because of her stunning ability as a thespian in an  internet sex video, has sued Old Navy for $20 million claiming that Molinaro looks to much like her. Huh?

Called “a reality show starlet and model” by the mainstream media (sure, why not?) Kardashian sued Old Navy and its parent company, The Gap Inc., in a Los Angeles federal court alleging “the advertisements violated Miss Kardashian’s publicity rights with a woman who looks like her.”

Well, that’s certainly true and yes, the ads have been viewed more than two million times at Old Navy’s YouTube channel so people certainly do like looking at Miss Molinaro — even when she’s not engaged in some sort of, you know, internet-style chuck-and-grind.

Molinaro’s response on Twitter to the lawsuit was freakin’ priceless: ”We’re still talking about this?” she posted, adding that the ad started running five months ago. “Some people have too much time on (their) hands.”

Kardashian’s lawsuit claims, “Miss Kardashian has invested substantial time, energy, finances and entrepreneurial effort in developing her considerable professional and commercial achievements and success, as well as in developing her popularity, fame, and prominence in the public eye,” the lawsuit states.”

Achievements?

Here’s what’s really pissing her off: Melissa Molinaro is Reggie Bush’s new squeeze. As my colleague Big Will suggested: “He really likes curvy brunettes, doesn’t he?”

Don’t we all, young Will? Don’t we all?

Finally, we talked a lot this week about the never-ending bull-pucky that Winnipeggers were subjected to over Bomber quarterback Buck Pierce.

Day in and day out, all we got was, “Buck might not play this week. It might be Alex Brink.” Bull-pucky. There was never any doubt Buck was going to play this week.  There was a better chance you or I could start at quarterback than Alex Brink.

By the way, just to be clear, Buck Pierce IS starting at quarterback when the Bombers face Toronto at Rogers Centre at 3 p.m. CDT on Saturday. The bull-pucky has stopped. At least for the rest of this week.

For more fun, tune into Streetz 104.7 every morning at 7:15, 7:45, 8:15 and 8:45. It’s the place where sport is only taken seriously when the co-hosts got eight hours sleep the night before — and I can guarantee that’s not going to happen.

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A Week In the Trenches

Posted on July 19, 2011 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

It’s been quite a week — and it’s only Tuesday.

The new Winnipeg Jets have signed a load of players, most destined for St. John’s of the American Hockey League. The Winnipeg Blue Bombers still aren’t certain if Buck Pierce will be ready to go in Toronto on Saturday. The first-place Winnipeg Goldeyes open a three-game series with the Sioux City Explorers tonight. And at some point this week, the newly-minted Jets will announce their radio and TV rights holders.

Time for a closer look at all the stuff:

1) The Jets got an important player under contract on Monday. Right winger Blake Wheeler agreed to a two-year $5.1 million deal. Like most of the players on this team, he’s a bit of a grinder, Wheeler had 18 goals in 81 games last season with the Bruins and then, after a trade at the deadline, with the Thrashers. He’s a good player and will only get better the longer he’s in Winnipeg.

Meanwhile, the Jets continue on their way to being the best American Hockey League team in the NHL. After signing centre Ben Maxwell (one goal in 32 NHL games over three seasons) on Monday, the club signed AHL defensemen Arturs Kulda (0) and Brett Festerling (1) and forwards Spencer Machacek (10), Riley Holzapfel (0), Kenndal McArdle (11) and Jason Jaffray (0) yesterday.

The numbers in brackets refer to the number of NHL games this group of six played last season — a grand total of 22. They are all, nice hard-working hockey players who will make St. John’s an outstanding team.

2) Since arriving in Winnipeg before the start of the 2010 season — after he was released by B.C. who admitted he had some physical issues — quarterback Buck Pierce has played parts of eight games with the Bombers. The team, meanwhile has played 21 games in that time.

This week, Pierce is expected to play against Toronto at Rogers Centre on Saturday, but as head coach Paul LaPolice has admitted, there is still no guarantee. Without Pierce, Alex Brink is the backup because Joey Elliott (who has looked pretty good in his few opportunities on the field) tore up a knee making a tackle (a freakin’ tackle). That’s one of the many skills quarterbacks need in Winnipeg. They must be able to make tackles after interceptions and fumbles.

The Bombers defense has carried this team to a 2-1 record and one could easily argue that with any offence at all, the Big Blue would be 3-0. Trouble is, quarterbacks are starting to get hurt and there are reasons to believe this offence won’t snap out of it.

The big problem, of course, is that there just aren’t enough quarterbacks to go around. As former GM Paul Robson once said, “There aren’t enough quarterbacks in the NFL. How can there possibly be enough decent quarterbacks in the CFL if there aren’t enough quarterbacks in NFL?” As usual, Robson was right.

Week 4 begins in the Canadian Football League this Friday night with 1-2 Hamilton at 0-3 B.C. It’s a doubleheader on Saturday with 2-1 Winnipeg at 1-2 Toronto at 3 and 3-0 Edmonton at 2-1 Calgary at 6 and then on Sunday, 0-3 Saskatchewan is at 3-0 Montreal. Winnipeg won’t be the only team with questions at quarterback. In fact, Montreal and Edmonton are the only two teams that don’t have questions.

3) Saturday night, after the Winnipeg Goldeyes beat Sioux Falls 19-5, one of Winnipeg’s hottest hitters said that fans shouldn’t expect the club’s offensive explosion to last forever.

It didn’t, of course. The Goldeyes lost 4-1 on Sunday. Still, it’s painfully obvious that this team’s early-season slump is long gone. Brian Myrow and Jon Weber both said, “don’t worry, this team will hit,” and they were right.

“Right now this is a little ridiculous,” Myrow said on Saturday night. “Don’t expect 18, 19, 20 hits to happen every night. But it is fun to play well.”

The Goldeyes have won 22 of their last 30 games and are 11-5 in the month of July. They are 7-2 since last Sunday’s win in Fargo. At 38-23, they are in first place in the American Association’s North Division, a game and a half ahead of St. Paul.

“We hit the ball very well when we force the opposing pitcher to throw strikes,” said Myrow. “We’re hitting better now because guys are having better at bats. They’re not swinging at the first ball that moves or the first fastball they see. They’re being patient at the plate and forcing the opposing pitcher to throw more pitches.

“They say hitting is contagious, but I think it’s more a matter of hitting well because people around you are hitting well. When there is a runner at third and one out there is less pressure to get a hit. You can hit a sacrifice fly and drive in a run and how many times, with no pressure, does that turn into a double?

“We’re just more comfortable hitting with one or two strikes. And it’s getting warmer. The ball is carrying real well. But don’t expect 15 and 18 hits to be a regular occurrence.”

Saturday night was a great night to pad statistics. The only Goldeyes’ starter not to get an RBI was No. 9 hitter Brian Joynt, who did score two runs. Meanhwile, it was a hit-fest for Winnipeg:

1) Leadoff man Prince Kendall went one-for-five with two RBI.

2) Kody Kaiser went two-for-four with three runs scored and two RBI.

3) Wes Long went two-for-five with three runs scored, five RBI and a grand slam home run. He now leads the Goldeyes with 53 runs batted in.

4) Myrow went three-for-five with a run scored and three RBI. He now leads the Goldeyes with a .326 batting average.

5) Jon Weber went two-for-five with three runs scored and two RBI, including his seventh homer of the year and his second in as many nights.

6) Luis Alen went three-for-five with four runs scored and an RBI. In the last month, he has raised his batting average from .244 to .309.

7) Justin Bass went three-for-four with two runs scored and three runs batted in. All three RBI came on a three-run homer in the second inning, his team-leading 12th of the season.

icon cool A Week In the Trenches Louis Ott went three-for-five with a run scored and an RBI.

This year’s edition of the Goldeyes is the best team Rick Forney has managed. It’s even better than the 2009 team that was one error away from reaching the final.

The pitching is solid, the defense is sound and if the hitting continues to improve, this team will have a very enjoyable August. In fact, when the Fish return from the six-game road that starts Friday, they’ll play 20 of their last 30 games at Shaw Park.

4) The Winnipeg Jets are said to be preparing to announce their radio and TV rights holders this week. If I were a betting man, I’d put my money on CJOB and TSN.

 

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Things That Make Me Smile

Posted on July 16, 2011 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

James Reimer came up to the Shaw TV booth on Friday night during our telecast of the Goldeyes and Sioux Falls.

The Toronto Maple Leafs netminder is one of those terrific young men you just cheer for. Even if you hate the damn Leafs, you can’t help but want the best for a happy, respectful, intelligent Christian young man like Reimer.

He’s one of the people, places and things that made me smile this week. In fact, without getting too gushy, it’s really been a great week here in Winnipeg and a week that reminded me that life in the summer in this town is pretty darn nice.

Here’s a list of the things that made me smile this week. Visit me on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001559147071) and tell me the things that made you smile:

1) The Winnipeg Goldeyes were outstanding this week. It all started with a complete-game, two-hour-and-24-minute, eight-hit grinder by Ace Walker and finished with a complete-game, two-hour-and 39 minute, six-hit grinder by Ace Walker.

The Goldeyes won 7-2 in Fargo this past Sunday as Walker was terrific, and then they went into St. Paul and emerged as the No. 1 team in the American Association’s North Division. They won a doubleheader, 5-4 and 3-2 on Monday, won 6-1 on Tuesday and 10-4 on Wednesday to take a three-game lead in the race for first.

After losing 17-7 in their return to Winnipeg on Thursday, the Goldeyes rode Walker’s right arm — and the bats of Jon Weber and Brian Myrow — to an 18-1 shlellacking of a good hitting team from Sioux Falls. The Fish almost scored as many runs on Friday as the Bombers scored points on Thursday.

Sunday afternoon, Chris Salamida (7-1, 2.71 ERA) will face former Goldeyes starter Ben Moore (8-2, 2.40 ERA) of Sioux Falls in what should be one of the best pitching match-ups of the year. I’m smiling just thinking about it.

2) The Winnipeg Blue Bombers defense. They’re fast, aggressive, angry, swarming and opportunistic. The best in the CFL. This group reminds me of the late 80s-early 90s Bomber defenses with James West, Tyrone Jones, Paul Randolph, Mike Gray, Rod Hill, and the great Greg Battle.

Too bad the offense has to come out on the field, I could watch that defense all night.

3) Anthony Calvillo makes me smile. It’s amazing, but the guy had cancer last fall. He might be a better quarterback now than he was before the cancer was removed.

Friday night, he completed 29-of-43 passes for 307 yards and two touchdowns as he became the career leader in touchdown passes in the CFL with 395.

Meanwhile, he led the Alouettes to a 40-17 drubbing of the Toronto Argonauts as Montreal improved to 3-0. We’re three games into the 2011 season and a guy who has come back from cancer surgery is already on pace to be the CFL’s player of the year.

4) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 2 in IMAX 3D at Silver City Polo Park made me happy.

5) The end of the NFL lockout.

The news just gets better every day for NFL fans. My insiders tell me that an agreement between the owners and players is done and will be ratified this week. Free agency will start the Week of the 25th and training camps should open in early August. The Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, is preparing for its Hall of Fame Game on Aug. 7 as if there is no glitch in the schedule. The NFL itself has confirmed that no games — pre-season or otherwise have been cancelled.

I can’t wait. In the meantime, the more I learn about the deal, the wider my smile.

 

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In a Crazy Summer, 10 Things That are Pretty Goofy.

Posted on July 7, 2011 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

Ever wonder why the United States Justice Department is even bothering to bring Roger Clemens to trial. Who really cares?

The guy is out of baseball; based on statistics alone, it’s obvious that steroids are out of baseball (can anybody hit anymore?); it’s an incredible waste of taxpayers’ money (just like the Barry Bonds trial was an incredible waste of time, money and effort); and when lying to Congress is all you have on a guy, then the Justice System is suspect. Congressmen lie to Congress every single day.

Here was AP’s lead on the jury selection process for the trial: “Prospective jurors screened Thursday for the Roger Clemens perjury trial were more critical of Congress for spending time investigating drugs in baseball than they were of the star pitcher on trial for lying to lawmakers about ever using them.

“The sports legend watched intently but didn’t speak as members of the jury pool faced intense questioning from the judge and lawyers from both sides for a second day. Nearly as many have been turned away as qualified to be considered for the panel that will eventually be seated, including two who were excused after they said they weren’t sure they could be fair because of their feelings about Congress.”

“‘Even members of Congress have lied to Congress and they have not been prosecuted,’ said one of the panelists who was excused.”

It’s a crazy summer. Here are 10 more things that are absolutely nuts…

10. Detroit Tigers manager  Jim Leyland sid this week that players, managers and umpires needed a big league summit meeting because the tension between the participants in Major League Baseball and the people who call the games are “at an all-time high.”

Leyland had just been tossed out twice in two straight games at Angels Stadium which prompted a Minnesota Twins broadcaster to suggest that the problem isn’t tension between umpires and players/managers throughout baseball, it’s a problem with the California umpiring crews.

“There aren’t tensions in games when Detroit plays Cleveland or Minnesota or even the Yankees,” he said. “There are problems with everybody when they have to go west. Those west coast crews, well, they just don’t seem right to me.”

When people here in Winnipeg rip the umpiring in the independent American Association games as being “minor league,” they obviously don’t watch major league baseball. MLB umpires are horrendous (see Armando Galarraga’s umpire-destroyed perfect game) and as one observer has pointed out, the ones in California are even worse.

Baseball desperately needs instant replay.

9. The New Jersey Nets Deron Williams has decided that the NBA lockout just might go on forever, so he’s negotiating a contract with Besiktas in the Turkish League.

Don’t be surprised if Williams is just the first of many NBA players to consider moving to Europe while the billionaire owners fight with the millionaire players.

8. Dallas Cowboys wideout Roy Williams Jr. lived with former Miss Texas, Brooke Daniels (a legitimate hottie) for about a year. In February, he bought her a $76,000 ring. Then he proposed to her by recording his proposal and sending it to her via e-mail. With that he called himself “an old fashioned romantic.”

The two are no longer together (surprise, surprise) Daniels did not return the ring and Williams is suing her. Yep, that’s pretty romantic.

7. We see that Paige Duke, one of NASCAR’s three Miss Sprint Cups, has lost her sash. Nude photos of her showed up on the Internet. Ah, yes, the dreaded morality clause. She’s apparently upset about it — losing her job, I mean, not the fact the photos of her stark nekkid are showing up the e-mail in-boxes of high school boys.

6. Detroit Red Wings defenseman Mike Commodore is considering wearing No. 64 this year. Really, Seriously.

That would make him Commodore 64. Jersey sales would be through the roof.

5. Here’s an excerpt from Curt Schilling’s interview on 97.5 The Fanatic in Philadelphia on Wednesday. Schilling, always outspoken, was asked if he thought teammates on his 1993 Phillies club (the team that lost the World Series to Toronto) were using steroids.

“Oh, absolutely. Sure, sure. We all thought to some degree, some people did and didn’t here and there. But again, it wasn’t something you’d walk up to someone and talk about or ask them. So you had your ideas. I mean, when guys showed up with 25 extra pounds on them after three months and you’d seen them kind of during the winter time, you had an idea. And there were a lot of guys on a lot of teams. I would tell you, any fan of any team that goes ‘ohh, no..’ Because I hear a lot from the 2004 team with Ortiz and Manny and blah blah blah, and it’s usually from Yankees fans who had a roster full of them. There isn’t a team in the last 20 years that’s won clean.”

Thank you, Curt.

4. The Women’s World Cup Soccer Championship recorded a 0.01 television rating on two separate occasions last week. Nobody watched it. Apparently, not even the referees.

On a scoring chance by Australia in a round-robin match, the ball hit the post and was caught by an Equatorial Guinea defender, who took two or three steps with the ball in her hands and then casually dropped it on the pitch. While the Australians screamed at Hungarian referee Gyeongyi Gaal to call a penalty kick, she did nothing. Later Ms. Gaal apologized for missing the play. If a tree falls in the forest…

3. Former Montreal Alouettes president Larry Smith, now a Canadian Senator, has denied that the CFL team falsely announced sold-out games in order to guarantee the government funding that was used to expand Montreal’s Molson Stadium to 25,000 seats for the beginning of the 2010 season.

LaPresse reported that the sellouts were bogus and that the team wasn’t close to its claim of 105 consecutive sold out games. That streak ended this past week, in Week 1 of the 2011 season, when 2,700 seats went unsold.

That story is a classic case of turning mile hills into mountains. LaPresse couldn’t prove that games weren’t sold out if it wanted to. Another classic example of the media just making it up.

2. Gil Brandt reports at nfl.com that Brett Favre is getting the itch to return to the NFL if the lockout is somehow, someday negotiated away.

Why not? He’s better than anybody else the Vikings have right now.

1. The Nashville Predators are now offering a five-game mini-pack exclusively to Atlanta hockey fans. But it’s an even juicier deal than it sounds: An Atlanta fan picks five of eight offered games on the schedule — including a preseason game against the Winnipeg Jets — and they receive a March 24, Predators game against the Jets “free,” with tickets in the lower bowl, no less. What a terrific opprtunity to cheer on Andrew Ladd and Dustin Byfuglien one more time.

Atlanta is about four hours from Nashville.

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Things That Make You Go “Hmmmmm…”

Posted on June 28, 2011 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment
More things that make you wonder what people are thinking.

1) The Winnipeg Jets have done what they needed to do. General manager Kevin Cheveldayoff tendered offer sheets to restricted free agents Andrew Ladd, Eric Bogosian and Blake Wheeler.
And one guesses he absolutely had to do it because he really doesn’t have much else on his roster. The draft was weak and Cheveldayoff got a player, Mark Schiefele with the No. 7 overall pick, who might be a decent player in a couple of years. But not now.

In the meantime, the new Jets have very few scorers.
While the 2010-11 Atlanta Thrashers scored more goals than the Montreal Canadiens, Los Angeles Kings and Ottawa Senators, they were still stuck at 20th overall in goal scoring with just 218 on the season. They were also remarkably weak defensively, allowing the second most goals in the NHL at 262 (only Colorado at 287 was worse).
Of course, this was a Thrashers’ team that was 12th in the East and 25th overall in the NHL. At 34-36-12, they were one of only seven teams that failed to reach the .500 mark. 

Still, in fairness, the Thrashers were a YOUNG team that didn’t score much and so at least there is some upside. And what the heck, an inability to score is pretty indicative of where the NHL is in 2010. Fact is, most teams don’t score much.

As an example, there were only 29 30-goal scorers in 2010-11 and only 24 in 2009-10. Compare that to the year before the lockout (2003-04) when fans complained that there was a dearth of scoring in the NHL – there were 30 30-goal scores in 2003-04 and most hockey observers thought that was weak.

Despite the NHL’s big talk, scoring is at an all-time low. Remember when the league said that after the 2004-05 lockout it was going to open up the game for goal scorers? Well, there’s a big fail.

There really aren’t all that many goal scorers anymore, period. While Atlanta’s Andrew Ladd, with 29 goals, led the Thrashers last year and while it might look strange that the Thrashers didn’t have a 30-goal scorer all of last season, the fact is, there were only 29 30-goal scorers in the entire league last year.

The new Winnipeg Jets aren’t a very good team, but they are indeed young and Claude Noel proved last year, at the helm of the Moose,  that he can make a lot out of very little.

While no one should expect the Thrasher-Jets to win the Stanley Cup, there is certainly a decent chance they could make the playoffs.

And in Winnipeg, that would be a very big deal, indeed.

2) It seems a lot of people want to beat up on Adam Dunn this season and I can certainly see why. The one-time formidable ball striker with the Cincinnati Reds has become a complete bust with the Chicago White Sox. Dunn is currently hitting .173 and has struck out 100 times in 221 at bats. That’s frightening.

He reminds me of Dave Kingman, the big bomber, near the end of his career. In fact, in 1984, Sports Illustrated wrote this scouting report of Kingman: “Hits the ball high, wide and seldom. Catches it occasionally. Has developed an iron glove to go with his lead bat.”

Dunn never had much of a glove, but in the American League, he got to be a designated hitter. Or, in this case, a designated misser.

3) Vegas oddsmakers have made the Calgary Stampeders, at 11-4, the favorites to win the Grey Cup. No doubt Calgary has a good team, but are they better than Montreal? Are they even better than Hamilton?

Montreal is next on the Futures line at Vegas at 3-1. Saskatchewan is third at 11-2 followed by B.C. at 6-1, Edmonton and Hamilton at 7-1, Toronto at 8-1 and Winnipeg at 10-1.

All that stuff is fun, but it really doesn’t mean much.

The only thing that really matters is how well these eight teams play on the field and if there is one thing about football that guarantees the old adage, “…on any given Sunday,” it’s the fact the game is as much about emotion and brute strength as it is about speed and skill.

Having said that, here in Winnipeg, if quarterback Buck Pierce doesn’t stay vertical, this Blue Bomber team could have serious stress. In other words, for Bomber fans, brute strength is most important inasmuch as it will allow the speed and skill to be able to do what they do.

In fact, if there is one team in the Canadian Football League that needs a great year from its offensive line, it’s the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

Thursday, we’ll have our 2011 CFL Preview.

 

 

 

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