Here’s what’s rattling around in my cranium this weekend:
1) According to nhl.com, The Calgary Flames claimed Winnipeg’s Nigel Dawes, a restricted free agent, off waivers from the Phoenix Coyotes. Another great off-season move by the Flames and a tremendous break for Dawes.
Nigel can score and grind, depending on what a team needs. He also comes cheap and for a club like the Flames with all that high-priced talent — Phaneuf, Iginla, Kiprusoff, Regehr and Bouwmeester — a good player like Dawes, who isn’t expensive, fits right under the Calgary cap quite nicely.
It’s a great move by the Flames and another loss for Phoenix, one of the worst franchises — on and off the playing surface — in any sport.
2) The loudest message sent by anyone playing in the Canadian Football League on Thursday night was sent by B.C. Lions quarterback Jarious Jackson. After an injury to Buck Pierce, Jackson took over the offence of the 0-2 Lions and essentially told head coach Wally Buono he, not Pierce, was the No. 1 QB in B.C.
Jackson went 19-for-28 for 362 yards and four touchdowns in a 40-22 shellacking of the Eskimos in Edmonton. It’s probably time for a change on the West Coast.
3) Even the Hamilton Tiger-Cats are now saying that the alleged Blue Bombers’ “spy” Ron Trentini, was about as useless as oil on a duck.
This past week’s nonsensical “spygate” was a media-manufactured scandal designed to feed the beast. It had nothing to do with cheating, football or even good reading. It was a waste of time and Bomber head coach Mike Kelly knew that from Day 1.
The mainstream media, meanwhile, just made up a story where one didn’t exist, proving once again that most of them have never played on a slo-pitch team, let alone a football team.
Meanwhile, if the CFL is going to send out missives chiding people for perceived wrongdoing, the note they should send to Mike Kelly is the one that warns the Bomber coach about scooping good players from Edmonton and B.C. Kelly probably owes the dog-ass Eskimos and Lions more compensation for literally stealing Sideeq Shabazz, Stefan Lefors, Fred Perry, Tyrone Williams and Kelly Bates.
4) It’s the mid-season mark of the 2009 NASCAR campaign and, my two NASCAR buddies, Camshaft Pierce and Tirehead Campbell, have made their choices for biggest disappointment and biggest surprise of the first half of the season.
The biggest disappointments? No question about it, the consistently poor showing of Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the failure of Carl Edwards, David Ragan and the Haas Racing team. The most pleasant surprises? Again, no doubt. Tony Stewart, winning and leading the point standings as an owner-driver and Mark Martin winning four times as a 50-year-old
5) Our Headline of the Week:
Tom McGouran pointed this one out at 7:10 a.m. on Friday, during another lively moment on 92-CITI-FM radio’s Tom and Joe Show.
McNair Murder Not Likely To Deter Player Infidelities: Winnipeg Sun.
Now that one doesn’t even pass the “no-shit” test. Wonder which crack AP editor assigned that in-depth, tell-me-something-I-don’t-already-know story?
No wonder young people have stopped reading newspapers.
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