Tag Archives: the Score

Drolet Confirms Morvan’s Post. Likely to Fight Delorme at CFC 4

Posted on January 18, 2010 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

Roland Delorme, the Metis MMA star who was terrific at CFC 3, has agreed to fight Remi Morvan at CFC 4 on Feb. 26.

At least, he’s going to fight Morvan if you believe Morvan’s website.

Morvan has posted that he will get the re-match he’s been after ever since Delorme whipped him at WRECK MMA last December. Late last week, Marc-Andre Drolet, matchmaker for CFC 4, confirmed that Morvan’s post “had merit.” Drolet is not allowed to begin advertising the event yet because of Manitoba Boxing Association regulations.

In their first fight, Delorme upset Morvan right in his hometown of Ottawa, Ont., with what appeared to be a rather dominant arm bar submission late in the first round.

Morvan, wrote the following on his website: “I didn’t fight to my full potential (the first time he met Delorme) and I am a much better fighter than what I displayed that night. That is the reason for me wanting this rematch right away. I want to go out there and fight hard and leave it all on the line win or lose.”

It should be a great fight.

Of course, after an outstanding show in November with Delorme and three other aboriginal champions — Chris Stranger, Eric Perez and Jim Christison – fighting so well, promoter Giuseppe DeNatale’s next card will be held on Feb. 26, at the Winnipeg Convention Centre.

Here is a tentative lineup, courtesy of some of the fighters:

Dan Christison vs Mike Wessel

Lindsey Hawkes vs John Makdessi

Remi Morvan vs Roland Delorme

TBA vs Chris Stranger

Adam Graybill vs Lance Cartwright*

Meanwhile, DeNatale is close to signing a contract with The Score to have the card televised after the network’s weekly MMA show and a brand new circular “cage” is on order from the manufacturer.

“I’ve been using a ring but clearly, MMA should be in a cage,” DeNatale said. “We can’t have an octagon because it’s been trademarked by UFC, but we can have a circle and it’s going to be a terrific cage.

“The contract with The Score is not quite done, but we’re down to dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s. With Marc-Andre (Drolet) making the matches, this could be the greatest MMA show in Canadian history.”

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Seven Turnovers? Now that’s the CFL.

Posted on August 2, 2009 by Scott Taylor| 1 Comment

I’ve long contended that unlike the NFL, where big plays on both sides of the football tend to lead to victories, in the CFL, it’s all about mistakes.

Saturday, depending entirely on your point of view, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers forced seven turnovers (the Argos pissed away the football seven times) and beat the Toronto Argonauts 13-12 (the Argos picked up a delay of game penalty with 30 seconds left to push Jason Medlock out of field goal range and lose 13-12).

I was at Minnesota Vikings training camp during the game, but the guy who invented the PVR should be knighted. This morning I was able to watch the game and, let’s not lie, that was as bad as professional football can be. That, me hearties, was the “beauty” of the Canadian Football League — just one screw up after another.

For Winnipeg fans the outcome was much more important than the way in which the victory was achieved (the Bombers still don’t have much offence, even with Michael Bishop at quarterback) and for Blue Bombers’ head coach Mike Kelly, it was the most important win of his young head coaching career (Michael Bishop was certainly an improvement over Stefan Lefors). In Winnipeg, where the Bombers are now 2-3, all is well. At least, this week.

But in Toronto, that loss was so ugly, so horrible, that somebody needs to fired. Not sure who, but somebody should lose his job over that (By the way, you can announce any attendance figure you like, but were there actually 15,000 people inside Rogers Centre to watch that thing?).

It might have been one of the worst football games ever played. And yet it very well could have turned around the struggling Blue Bombers’ season.

* * *

FRIENDS GET THE AX

It’s been suggested (right here) that old media is dying. Frankly, there is little need for journalism courses anymore if the professors are teaching skills that will get graduates jobs on TV stations, radio stations or in big daily newspapers.

This past week, two friends got the pink slip: morning show host Bryn Griffiths at The TEAM 1260 in Edmonton and reporter Tony Ambrogio at The Score in Toronto.

The TEAM didn’t have great numbers (not bad, but not great), but that could probably be chalked up to the fact the Edmonton Oilers didn’t have a great year. When there isn’t a lot to talk about it, it’s pretty hard to just make it up.

Meanwhile, I haven’t watched The Score in so long that I couldn’t provide an intelligent, critical opinion of the network’s problems.

Apparently no one else has watched it either, but somehow, I don’t think it was Tony Ambrogio’s fault. Owner John Levy has very little idea about what makes for compelling television. Never did. It’s just too bad that good people have to suffer from Levy’s inability to run a half-assed TV sports network.

I’m convinced Griffiths and Ambrogio will do well. Both have talent. Trouble is, I worry that they will have no place to go. Or at least no place that pays the way old media paid.

Of course, that’s the problem, isn’t it? The old media’s business model doesn’t work. It pays huge amounts of money to people who don’t deliver the news any better than most bloggers. Especially here in Canada where dull is rewarded.

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Thompson says, “…there will be some dramatic events this week.”

Posted on June 29, 2009 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

On Wednesday, the National Hockey League’s free agent season will begin and according to Tom Thompson, the assistant general manager of the Minnesota Wild, “I’m sure there will be some dramatic events this week.”

Assuming they aren’t signed between now and Wednesday morning, the Sedin Twins, Marian Gaborik, Mattias Ohlund, Dwayne Roloson, Ales Kotalik, Marian Hossa, Chris Neil, Mike Comrie, Mike Cammalleri, Todd Bertuzzi, Mike Komisarek, Mathieu Schneider, Alex Kovalev, Alex Tanguay, Saku Koivu, Mark Recchi, Maxim Afinogenov, Ryan Bayda, Erik Cole, Patrice Brisebois, Tom Kostopoulos, Brian Gionta, John Madden, Johnny Oduya, Brendan Shanahan, Derek Morris, Nik Antropov, Martin Biron, Antero Nittymaki, Viktor Kozlov, Miroslav Satan, Petr Sykora, Rob Scuderi, Hal Gill, Todd Marchant, Jay Bouwmeester, Martin Havlat, Sami Pahlsson, Ian Laperriere, Joe Sakic, Jere Lehtinen, Jordan Leopold, Mikael Samuelsson, Marc-Andre Bergeron, Martin Skoula, Vernon Fiddler, Greg de Vries, Stephane Veilleux, Rob Blake, Mike Grier, Claude Lemieux, Travis Moen, Nolan Baumgartner, Jason Jaffray, Jason Krog and Mats Sundin, along with more than a hundred others will be unrestricted free agents..

Even some of our old friends — Shane Hnidy, Teppo Numminen, Tyler Arnason, Nikolai Khabibulin, Colton Orr and Phillipe Boucher — will be free on Wednesday. It’s going to hit the fan this week and you can bet as many teams as possible will be involved.

In fact, during the draft, Brian Burke made it clear he’ll be a buyer: “We’ll be involved on July 1,” Burke told reporters in Montreal. “The door is open for business at noon and that’s when we will start to get involved.”

He’s not alone.

“There will be moves that will get a lot of people talking,” said Thompson. “There is going to be a lot of interest in the hockey world all over North America that’s for sure.”

But why? Why so many UFAs?

“It’s partly because of the cap,” said Thompson, via telephone from his office in St. Paul. “The thing about the salary cap system is that it forces people to make choices. Because you’re restricted by how much you can spend, if you decide to do one thing, you can’t do another. It’s what makes great organizations or not-so-great organizations. You can’t have everything anymore.

“If there is one thing the cap has done, it’s put every team on an equal playing field and the smartest hockey people will be successful.”

The other thing it does, is forces team’s into last-minute decisions. It forces them to meet deadlines. It allows players to know exactly how much they’re worth. And it makes people like the Sedin Twins, who want long term deals worth at least $62 million each, worry about their decisions just as long and hard as Shane Hnidy or Jason Krog, who just might be out there looking for work.

I’d hate to suggest anything specific will happen on Wednesday. Nobody knows. But here are five things that might happen…

1) The Sedins don’t get the money they’re after in Vancouver. Mike Gillis re-signs Mattias Ohlund and signs Marian Gaborik.

2) The Sedins end up in Toronto with Brian Burke, the man who drafted them in the first place, and who will dump a pile of dull, old contracts to make sure he has the dough to sign them.

3) The Flames will sign Bouwmeester, let Cammalleri ($3.6 million) and Bertuzzi ($1.95 million) go and have plenty of money to sign the roll players he needs (he’s already dumped Jim Vandermeer and his $2.3 million deal).

4) Bob Gainey will go on an unprecedented signing frenzy and get Komisarek, Brisebois, Kostopoulos, Schneider and Tanguay signed. Saku Koivu will end up with his brother, Mikko, in Minnesota.

5) At least 50 players will change teams.

Unlike the dull-as-dishwater trade deadline television snooze, TSN, Rogers SportsNet and the Score will have an actual reason to telecast Free Agent Frenzy Shows. This should be nuts.

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