Hoserdome: Picking the Olympic hockey team, while chewing on a Fellate of Fish

Mike Fisher is to Canada in 2010 as Ron Paul was to American politics in 2008. A few people really, really like him. Most people don't know who he is, let alone his qualifications.

Like a kid who swigged down a large Coke before a long car trip, it's impossible to hold this in any longer. The Fisher-for-Canada campaign has bordered on being a maple syrup-drenched Canadiana porn. The weak argument, which has had the most sway in Ottawa, won't die despite being stuck in Hockey Clichés 101 (Senators winger Chris Neil on The FAN 590 today: "Every game, he shows up, he plays hard. He does it at both ends of the ice. He'd be on my team."). It almost makes you wonder where we are as a sporting nation when people gleefully go along with such shallow jockism.

Fisher is a solid two-way player on an Ottawa Senators club which is getting on decentlypost-Dany Heatley (as prognosticated last June). He is the nice down-to-earth hockey player, truer to his roots than his VBF is on her visits to the salon. Even guys with an unblemished record of staunch heterosexuality will note he is totally man-pretty.

With all that, it is understandable why some fans want to see Fisher in Vancouver. What harm could he do as the 13th forward? It is understandable why some members of the hockey writers' tribe and CBC Sports clown Don Cherry, have played to the crowd, treating Fisher the way a public relations person treats a client.

This is not quite on a shame-on-them. You have seen Cherry's suits. You know he has no shame.

It's more of a comment on the divide between the Fish mongerers and those who would like to see sports debate in Canada -- i.e., hockey debate -- dragged out of some bygone era. It's just amusing when you have Fisher getting serious consideration in some circles, while other outside-of-Ottawa sources such as Tim Wharnsby at CBC Sports, Puck Daddy, the Kurtenblog guys don't even take the idea of Fisher seriously.

Three of five Globe & Mail writers had Fisher on their team. Two of four Hockey Night in Canada personalities, Cherry and Glenn Healy, also picked the Senator last Saturday. Oddly enough, in a Canwest News Service poll where editors, columnists and reporters made their picks anonymously, only 7% selected Fisher.

That is as it should be, since there are probably 18-20 Canadian forwards who are more eminently qualified. A cursory scan of Behind The Net shows Fisher has not exactly dominated opponents. He's benefited from playing with strong wingers, Nick Foligno, Alex Kovalev (yes, really) and the aforementioned Neil. He has averaged only 50 points per season in the post-lockout NHL. He doesn't offer much as a faceoff man, unlike other bubble players such as the Boston Bruins' Patrice Bergeron and the Chicago Blackhawks' Jonathan Toews.

Fisher being in the mix just attests to the paralysis by analysis that has gripped Canada every four years since the NHL began shutting down for the Olympics in 1998. People believe Canada needs a few role players -- cue Chris Neil, he does it at both ends of the ice! -- to play on the fourth line. Talk about a march to folly, where smart people pursue an end contrary to their self-interest (assist: Barbara Tuchman). Canada believes it can't match the offensive creativity and firepower of Russia, so its solution is to take fewer players with some serious snipe. As William Houston notes with the 2010 squad:

"Canada? An excellent team led by Sidney Crosby, but, like virtually every Canadian entry in an elite international competition, it will struggle to put the puck in the net. That's why Canadian general manager Steve Yzerman should be putting a priority on offensive talent rather than checkers. You have to assume the scorers will care enough to back check and pay attention in their own end. If it’s a choice between Martin St. Louis and Mike Richards, you go with St. Louis."

That hints at why Canada's only men's hockey medal since 1998 was aided by an all-time fluke goal, thanks again, Tommy Salo.

Who knows. Perhaps Team Canada GM Steve Yzerman will nail this and avoid the same pitfalls his predecessors did in '98 and 2006. Meantime, God only knows what is says when smart people wish to believe the No. 2 centre on a mid-pack Senators team should be one of Team Canada's 13 forwards. Ron Paul was a more legit candidate.

Enjoy the selection show on Wednesday at noon ET, presuming you can figure out which of 13 channels to watch it on.

In the interest of trying to be constructive, here is a potential 23-man roster:

• Forwards: Sidney Crosby, Jarome Iginla, Vincent Lecavalier, Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau, Dany Heatley, Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry, Rick Nash, Jonathan Toews, Eric Staal, Brenden Morrow, Martin St-Louis.
  
  (Or Brad Richards, or Mike Richards, or Patrice Bergeron, or Shane Doan, or Patrick Sharp ... well, you get the point.)
  
  
• Defencemen: Dan Boyle, Jay Bouwmeester, Duncan Keith, Scott Niedermayer, Chris Pronger, Brent Seabrook, Shea Weber. (Niedermayer and/or Pronger should be left off in favour of Drew Doughty, but this is Canada. It won't happen. Whatever happened to Mike Green?)
  
  
• Goaltenders: Martin Brodeur, Roberto Luongo, Marc-André Fleury
  

Honestly, writing this called to mind the old This Hour Has 22 Minutes bit, "The Right Answer." Rick Mercer (funny in small doses) and Greg Thomey (the actually funny one) played two wingnut talking heads who would start off arguing but were really in agreement. They would shake hands and says, "And that's the right answer."

So, if Steve Yzerman actually selected Mike Fisher, and if Canada did not win gold, and if you take smug glee in that like you did when Canada with Todd Bertuzzi lost in Turin in 2006, what would that make me? An asshole. And that's the right answer.

Rage against the machine, in a sardonic way

Jon Lajoie really sums up the frustration a lot of us feel about today's media culture.

In the same vein, Kurtenblogger Jason Brough had the killer line for all the hockey hoopla from the Canadian Olympic team camp in Calgary: "... too many reporters chasing too few stories."

Yes, it is a little bit frustrating these days.

He's a Dowbboy who lives in a bubble

You sort of have to admire what Bruce Dowbiggin has done with the place since he moved into William Houston's former digs as sports media critic.

Dowbboy has done a reno. The place has been converted to one part bully pulpit to use on people who didn't graduate from his school of journalism. The other half is an echo chamber for people who want reassurance they are not living through a media revolution.

• Erin Andrews calling 911 because a couple paparazzi were skulking around her home after dark "demonstrates that the ESPN star ... clearly has no idea how people in her business chase a story." (July 31)


• The Score tweaking its format to focus on "the chatter, the personalities" means that the network "has in mind what TMZ and Deadspin and a raft of social websites have done to redefine the relationship between those being covered and those doing the covering," (Aug. 5) since those sites are so, so evil for giving people what they want to see. Plus there are all those stupid young people who want to know whom Reggie Bush is dating.
  


• Most recently, Chicago Blackhawks hockey star Patrick Kane being arrested and charged with assault last weekend "was not exactly a shining moment for the integrity of bloggers" (Aug. 12) because people joked, passed judgment and gossiped about it on blogs, Twitter, Facebook and the like, just like they have always joked, passed judgment and gossiped.

It's pretty clear: Dowbiggin's generation has a monopoly on good taste and substance. We get it.

Sorry to pop that secure little bubble of boomer conceit, but that is hogwash. Next to no one is prattling on about the "blogosphere" in 2009, really. The two sides came together. They locked swords. No one really got anywhere. They called a truce. Eventually, they realized they actually had a lot in common, kind of like Canada and the U.S. since the end of the War of 1812.

One should be grateful for the good sports journalists who share the experience extends to their audience. It might have been best to let this slide for that reason alone. Besides, who knows what if any overlap there is between who reads this and who reads a sports media column on globesports.com. Nevertheless, batter up:

"While Usual Suspects commiserates with Andrews' fragile state of mind after being spied upon, the tape demonstrates that the ESPN star, who has struggled to overcome the reputation as a sideline cupcake, clearly has no idea how people in her business chase a story. Gated community or not, reporters are supposed to go and knock on doors of celebrities, relatives of car-crash victims, defrauded investors, fraud artists and, yes, people who’ve had their privacy violated. It’s called getting the other side of the story."

Erin Andrews calling 911 to get rid of some paparazzi could have had more to do with only wanting the good stuff which comes with being famous during a period when she was also feeling vulnerable.

"Levy has in mind what TMZ and Deadspin and a raft of social websites have done to redefine the relationship between those being covered and those doing the covering. With Twitter and camera phones, fans can engage their heroes in new and - sometimes - frightening ways for traditionalists ... It also means putting younger people on the air who may not have experience but do connect with the target audience.

"... And having both Cabbie (Cabral Richards) and Al Strachan working in the same format is often too jarring a concept to contemplate for Usual Suspects."

Frightening for traditionalists? Too jarring? That's not an M.P., that's a Y.P, your problem. There also seems to be an assumption that everyone in that 18-34 demographic is interested in whom is dating whom and what Chris Bosh Tweeted. Personal experience suggests the contrary.

There are many sports writers born after 1970 who can go in depth about a topic with humour and wit, and without putting themselves above the audience. Just to a name a few, there are Jeff Pearlman, Jonah Keri, Kurtenblog, Jerry Brewer at the Seattle Times , and so on. The same goes for the writers in their 20s, like those at cisblog.ca (present company excluded).

Then there's those bad, bad bloggers unleashing a "torrent of abuse" on poor Patrick Kane:

"The question of whether independent bloggers should have equal status with mainstream media is a hot topic in the industry. But the alleged Patrick Kane robbery and battery of a cabby was not exactly a shining moment for the integrity of bloggers. The release of the police charges Monday morning (actually, it was Sunday) brought an immediate torrent of abuse in the blogosphere for Kane, who was accused of beating a hapless Buffalo cabby for a 20-cent tip. Before Kane could explain his side, sites were saying 'How could Kane be this stupid?...

"Patrick Kane is a stuck-up, rich, spoiled, bratty punk... this punk kid needs a ass beating... The best possible light for Kane is that he is a mean drunk, a guy who is not above physically abusing a 62 year old man after a stupid prank went awry.' You get the flavour."

That is what people do when hit with bits of uncomfortable news. They make jokes. The cracks people post on Twitter are in the same ballpark with the sick jokes people told after the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded in 1986, when I was nine. It is the culture, for good or ill.

With respect to sports discussion, what Dowbiggin seems unwilling to reconcile is that the barriers have come down. That's TS for anyone who feels threatened (note that the good ones do not).

With regard to only bloggers looking bad on the Kane story, please. Some would say the thrust of the headlines on James Mirtle's post on Monday and Steve Simmons' Sun Media column on Tuesday were virtually identical: "Patrick Kane: A reputation ruined in an instant" and "No doubt Kane will pay; In court of public opinion, young star's reputation is tarnished by cabbie incident."

That is not to disagree with either Mr. Mirtle or Mr. Simmons. The younger cross-platformer and the older columnist (who does some TV) each said his piece very well and anyone is free to agree or disagree. It's simply that there is no us and them, and it's tiresome to have the "blogosphere" being treated as a bogeyman.

Mirtle also linked to a piece from Second City Hockey which cut to the heart of how "the Kane story ... could be useful in shattering some stories and myths we tell ourselves":

"The big one is 'hockey players are different.' No, they're not. Sorry. You know why you don't see as many athlete/criminal stories about hockey? Because there's less attention. There's less people following them to clubs, recognizing them, flashing pictures on their phones. The gossip pages tend to stay away, because no one cares about hockey players. But to suggest these guys are a different breed, that's asinine. They're rich, young kids, and those can add up to be bad combinations ... These guys are not angels, they're just people. People with freakish DNA and more money than you or I. Sure, maybe there are less of these stories in the NHL than other sports, but it's percentage points, not a wide chasm."

That might come closer to the truth than anything else published on the subjuct of "20 Cent." Hey, guess what? It was on a blog. If anyone had that kind of nuanced take in a newspaper, it passed by like a warm summer day.

Perhaps Kane and the Senators' situation with Dany Heatley each belie the culture of exceptionalism that is part of Canada's Hockey Reflex.

One would think Dowbiggin, having written a really well-received book called The Meaning of Puck, might take this into account instead of playing shoot-the-messenger. It's like what a film critic (this came across the ol' Google Reader during the process of putting this together) said about the tendency of veteran film critics, even Roger Ebert, to indulge in get-off-my-lawn techniques: "Often, the old guard sees the new guard as suspect, their tastes as lacking, and culture waning, no matter what the reality is. In the end, the thing that disappoints me most is that Roger used this moment to take what I consider a profoundly cheap shot."

Meantime, it is understood that perhaps a younger writer should not worry about Dowbiggin. The people on the blogs should just forget what's in the paper. The excellent Toronto Sun Family recently stated "aging baby boomers who grew up with print newspapers in their hands should be considered the demographics of choice ... Canada's 10 million or so baby boomers should be sufficient to carry print newspapers that are adequately staffed and focused on community affairs."

That reasoning is not entirely off. One might wonder about the argument that you should only be paid for your work if you pander to a certain demographic. What happens to anyone who wants to stay current and with it? Do they just get left with the scraps?

Point being, if Bruce Dowbiggin wants to pander to the older audience which still gets the paper, fine. He can do it without cheap shots and condescension. It would be a riot.

A Jay a Day: Chad 'Stephen' Jenkins, the difference is pitchability

Hopefully for Chad Jenkins, it's not a bad omen that MLB.com's draft tracker displayed his name incorrectly for several minutes.

The Blue Jays seem to have said "yes" to the several-million-dollar question about going over slot to sign a draft choice; baseball nerds everywhere, rejoice! There was interest in that than who they were actually going to draft. Jenkins, a Roy Halladay-idolizing right-hander from obscure Kennesaw (Ga.) State, was described as a "a cheap option who could rise quickly to the major leagues." However, they used the compensatory pick they got when A.J. Burnett flew the coop to take a Canadian left-handed pitcher, James Paxton.

Paxton's agent is Scott Boras, so yippie-ki-yay, it looks like they're finally going over slot, finally. Expect that A.J. Burnett angle to become a big part of Paxton's backstory.

Anyway, this is about the slotting thingamajig. Former Jays assistant GM Bart Given wrote Monday night at sportsnet.ca wrote that the Jays pretty much had to do it this time around, if not in the first roundt: "After a while, what's the point of playing the game with one hand tied behind you back?"

For the time being, this looks like a win-win. Leave aside that it is is lily-gilding to say Jenkins was seen as a potential 10th overall pick. The Washington Nationals were seemed mostly interested in using that pick on someone who would "agree to a pre-draft slot deal." Meantime, Paxton, who can touch 98 mph and who played for the University of Kentucky with Ottawa native Chris Bisson, the Wildcats' second baseman, ended up falling to the Jays at 37th overall.

There was some more CanCon. The Jays' second-rounder is another Canadian lefty, Jake Eliopoulos from Walkerton, Ontario. (A pitcher from Walkerton? It must be something in the water. What, too soon?) Hell, if you want to localize even farther, the third-rounder, high school righty Jake Barrett, played for Team USA when it won the silver medal at the world junior championship in Edmonton last summer. Barrett, who was on the cover of ESPN Rise, is apparently supposed to be going to Arizona State.

Anyway, ours is not to say how those four pitchers will develop for the Jays. It would be a minor miracle if two of them have a substantial major-league career. Jenkins, for one, is a very intelligent pitcher, with a three-pitch mix. Oddly enough, if you poke around on Google, "three-pitch mix" comes up a fair bit with Barrett and Eliopoulos. They all have pitchability.

In a sense, it seems like the Jays worked around the broken draft system. As Given explained:

"The MLB draft is broken; the lack of enforceable slotting allows the best players to set a bonus price so high, they essentially place themselves with the teams employing the largest budgets. Not surprisingly these teams have commonly been the Red Sox and Yankees, although the Tigers and a couple of others have joined the superpowers in recent years.

"Toronto's organizational policy of not going over slot has effectively reduced the number of players available for director Jon Lalonde's scouting department to draft. If an amateur player's representative set a high price tag, the Blue Jays have placed him on the 'unsignable due to price' board. In recent years, this board has increased in size to contain hundreds of names.

"In a way, it's been commendable that Toronto has been the only team to play by the rules in recent years. But after a while, what's the point of playing the game with one hand tied behind your back?"

That dynamic came into play with Mike Trout, a high school outfielder from New Jersey who is seen as a five-tool player and who was available. Trout, who is said to be demanding a $2.5-million US signing bonus, went appropriately enough 25th overall to the L.A. Angels (by the way, Bud Selig's pronunciation of "Los Angeles Angels" has to be heard to be believed).

Trout, at least according to MLB Network (like the The Tao of Stieb says, can we get this in Canada, please?), provided the feel-good moment of the first round since he was in the TV studio in Secaucus, N.J. However, it's really kind of twisted. You have a plaer who's elated to be taken 25th instead of 17th since the Angels have a bigger budget than clubs which were drafting earlier. Only in Bud Selig's world could that be treated as positive news.

Anyway, it's nice to see one's favourite team in any sport come around. Imagine the fallout if an owner came out and said he would pay his players the lowest salaries in the major leagues. It would be bloody scandalous. The refusal to go over slot is on a smaller scale. It does not get much attention outside of Seamheads. There's enough trouble in Canada getting people to understand that draft choices cannot be traded in baseball. However, people have to understand, it's not about the payroll with the Jays. It's about what they put into player development at the front end, going over slot in the amateur draft and international scouting. They weren't doing that for several years. There's a little glimmer of promise, although it looked shaky there when Chad Jenkins' name was called tonight. It's probably too naive by half to hope playing the Canada card would help in negotiations with Paxton, but one can always dream.

Jenkins seems like he could be a good buy-low. Two writers at Baseball America who did a mock draft saw him ending up with the Jays:

"We have other options for power lefties in this draft though. Two, Andy Oliver and Canada native James Paxton, are attractive at 20 but also have Scott Boras Corp. advising them. ... In the end, Kennesaw State righthander Chad Jenkins is too attractive. Yes, there are college closers we could convert (and we've had success doing it), but why do that when Jenkins is on the board? He has stuff, he has pitchability and he has relatively low mileage on his arm because the Owls were never postseason-eligible while Jenkins was in college. Make it so." (Emphasis mine.)

For those wondering, Kurtenblog did a riff on "pitchability" right before the 2007 World Series.

Mike Wilner said on Jays Talk tonight that Jenkins expected ETA in the majors would be late 2011. Coming from an off-the-beaten-path school such as Kennesaw State, which plays in something called the Atlantic Sun conference, isn't a mark against him. He didn't put a lot of extra miles on his 21-year-old arm by pitching in the post-season, when college coaches run up ginormous pitch counts.

Plus, you have to like that Jenkins described being scouted as "hot and heavy." He must be a Seinfeld fan.

Bottom line, the Jays took three youngsters with pitch, wait for it, ability.

Besides, it was another part of a good sports night. We're getting a Game 7 in the Stanley Cup final. The Orlando Magic ensured the NBA Finals will not be a sweep for Kobe Bryant and the L.A. Lakers. Meantime, at Fenway Park, the Boston Red Sox lit A.J. Burnett up like the Coconut Grove fire in a 7-0 rout.

(Incidentally, someone in the Tampa Bay Rays front office obviously was a big fan of The Band, judging by the given name of their first-rounder, LeVon Washington.)

Where were you in '93? (And some Zezel memories)

Down Goes Brown has a reminder: Kerry Fraser still owes Leaf Nation one Stanley Cup.

It is 16 years to the day of Wendel Clark's greatest game and Wayne Gretzky's quote, unquote accidental high stick on Doug Gilmour. OK, so as injustices go, it's pretty small-scale, but it was as close as the Leafs have got to the Cup since you-know-when.



The amusing part is it only became a big deal after the fact, when the Leafs lost Game 7 on home ice two nights later. What everyone forgets is that fateful Game 6 started at 10 p.m. (it might have been 10:30). It was after 1 a.m. in Ontario when Gretzky high-sticked Gilmour, then scored the overtime winner a few seconds later (the L.A. Kings had started OT on the power play, but there's no need to look up the fact the Leafs had six more power plays in the series, 33-27). The way it's remembered is the next day, almost no one in school (I was in Grade 10 in the spring of 1993, but was able to grow a reasonable facsimile of a playoff beard) knew what had gone down.

Meantime, and there is no easy way to segue, it is hard to fathom the sad news about Peter Zezel, who was the second-line centre on that 1992-93 Leafs team. Kurtenblog had a very nice post about Zezel, touching on the fact he had potential to play pro soccer. Who knows, maybe if he had been born 20 years later, he would have ended playing pro soccer in Europe.

He was a memorable player, cool last name, solid two-way game, and by most accounts, was a good person. (A personal favourite bit of Zezel trivia is that he was an extra in the Rob Lowe hockey movie, Youngblood. Zezel was the Hamilton Mustangs played whom Dean Youngblood takes off before the final faceoff, so he can fight the other team's enforcer. Only in Hollywood do hockey enforcers play centre instead of on the wing.)

Zezel cut his playing career short to support a niece who was dying of blastoma. How many people would do that? Not to be preachy, but is noteworthy that as Sun Media reported, Zezel donated his organs, which more people in Canada should do.

Related:
Hockey loses Zezel (Lance Hornby, Sun Media)
Zezel's little niece gave mom the last tulip; Player knows he did right thing by leaving season for dying girl (Tony Gallagher, Vancouver Province, May 19, 1999)

The money pit in Phoenix

As a follow-up to a recent post on the Phoenix Coyotes, it's only necessary to point out the number-crunching From The Rink did about Glendale:

"... it's all but impossible for Phoenix to turn a profit, even under ideal conditions. The team's expenses are too high and its potential for generating revenues too low barring a long playoff run and a massive price hike." — James Mirtle

The great mc79hockey also looked at the team's expenses and wondered how in hell they think they can make money settling cut-rate tickets to some of the NHL's smallest crowds.

That doesn't necessarily give people in Canada license to bash people in Phoenix who did actually support the Coyotes. The fans weren't responsible for profligate spending and the NHL's broken economic model — or for the birdbrained decision to build a hockey arena in Glendale, Arizona, so far from Phoenix's downtown core. There is also the more macro concern that Arizona "was one of the most severely affected states" for foreclosure filings last month (Phoenix Business Journal, May 13). When people are losing their homes, it's little tough to fork out more money for hockey tickets. Businesses probably have less latitude to gobble up tickets which can lavished on clients. As Mirtle notes, though, the dream scenario for preserving the NHL in Phoenix involves a massive price hike:

"To hit those ticket revenue figures, prices would have to increase significantly from the average $37 current average price, however. My rough math tells me that, even if the team sold an extra 3,000 seats a game at current rates, they'd be $12-million shy of the "potential" ticket revenue figure here, meaning tickets would have to cost roughly $15 to $17 more on average to hit that mark."

Meantime, the one irony of all the Balsillie-boosting, as others have noted, is you'd move a team from one economically devastated area to another, Hamilton.

As a sidenote, it seems like a lot of us up in Canada are throwing stones from a glass arena. It's a bit of a collective conceit that Canada has some monopoly on supporting major league hockey. Kurtenblog noted earlier this week there was one season during the pre-lockout era when the Nashville Predators had a higher average attendance than Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver. (Granted, hockey was a novelty in Nashville, and who knows what the difference were in average ticket price and comped tickets.) We're not so perfect.

A recession hockey broadcast ...

This site was on about this earlier ... now Jason Botchford has coined the term "going amateur" to describe CBC not airing playoff games in HD. It's not as sexy as it sounds for the beleaguered people's network.

"The CBC has chosen not to show Games 3 and 4 (of the Canucks-Blues series) from St. Louis in HD. 'They should be made to pay a price,' said Tony Gallagher on the TEAM 1040 pre-game show. Damn straight. The CBC pays the NHL $100-million a year for broadcast rights and they can't find the money to rent a HD truck? The decision should be viewed as unacceptable by any fan, let alone those in Vancouver."

It is unacceptable if it reinforces the notion that CBC is fighting a losing battle to keep TSN from usurping its position as the broadcaster of record in Canada, assuming that has not happened already. I'm not an expert, but it looks like Game 1 of the Canadiens-Bruins series which is being played in Boston is not in HD (the ice looks much brighter when games are aired in HD, even if one's television is not so equipped). One can only wonder what CBC Sports staffers think, especially knowing about those 553 middle managers who got through the recent cutbacks unscatched.

Perception is reality. It looks bad if people get the impression CBC can't afford to air games in HD, even though in the wake of the layoffs and cutbacks at the People's Network, they might be sensitive to a backlash. What would Ralph Mellanby think?

The thing is, sports viewers probably don't give a damn about labour pains; they want to see a healthy baby. In 2009, a standard-def broadcast is an ugly baby, especially since hockey broadcasts so well in HD. Hockey Night in Canada not having it for playoff games involving a Canadian team looks pretty podunk, in the parlance of our times.

As a hockey fan, the current arrangment is a pretty good deal. CBC offers a sense of permanency ("The Tradition Continues") and a sense the game is part of the national character, but it's just a game ... don't take it too seriously and we'll see you next Saturday. TSN comes across like overkill is next to godliness, but it does have a better broadcast. The production values are higher, their Smarm Team in the studio is a lot more lively and relevant and it has the best analyst by far, Pierre McGuire (who's even been in a lower key this season).

A steady diet of TSN, though, which has been feared since the summer of 2006, would be a little too much. Their broadcast is better, but strange as it might sound, it would just feel wrong if the Stanley Cup final was not on the Ceeb (speaking personally, it's great to flick the TV on 7 p.m. on a spring night and not have to flip around to the game, because it was on CBC when you turned it off after the West Coast game the previous night).

It's is discouraging, as a fan, when CBC scrimps on production values. There was a time not so long ago when one* pulled in playoff games off a set of rabbit ears, but that is ancient history.

Enjoy the games tonight!

(* More to the point, me, during the spring of 2002 as a broke student in Halifax.)

Well, as long as it's for charity...

Perhaps it's pretty benign, but maybe it's a sign of the NHL's desperation to make a dollar that it's gone all in with a gambling website as part of its awards extravaganza in Las Vegas.

"NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman also announced the League will be staging a celebrity/pro athlete charity poker tournament June 17.

" ... 'I am pleased to announce today that the NHL will team with Pokerstars.net and the NHL Players' Association to present (the poker tournament) in connection with the 2009 NHL Awards."

Perhaps it's a step forward for a big ball-and-stick league to be open about the symbiotic relationship between sports and gambling.

The thing is, the magnificent bastards behind as Kurtenblog noted six weeks ago, the NHL is a bit hypocritical (and you could argue that in another world, they wouldn't have to be). NHL deputy commish Bill Daly said, "We do not allow endorsement or sponsorship relationships with 'for money' gaming websites of any kind," in reference to the Vancouver Canucks' Mats Sundin appearing in TV ads for Pokerstars.net.

The Kurtenbloggers, though, saw through that. The dot-net website ...


... looks nothing like PokerStars.com, where you can play for money:



This is really more of a chattering class issue than anything. The NHL has to go where it can get the eyeballs online. There are probably a disproportionately high number of poker players (although the understanding any serious cardsharp gets sick of playing Texas Hold'em pretty quickly) in the all-important 18-to-34 demo.

It's just amusing that the league has to say one thing when it's so clearly doing the other, the same way you'll never hear anyone on ESPN on Sunday morning during football season mention the point spreads. C'est la vie. Let's just to do the press-rewrite journalism:

"... the poker tournament promises to be fun for all involved — and the mind does wander with possibilities of which NHL stars will bluff or fold. It will raise money for the Ronald McDonald House in Las Vegas and the NHL Players Association's 'Goals and Dreams' charity. Players will also make donations to the charities of their choice.

(Joke about Joe Thornton folding goes here.)

Related:
NHL, NHLPA, Pokerstars.net to hold tourney in Vegas (NHL.com)
Previous:
Sundin comes up aces with poker link(Jason Brough and Mike Halford, Vancouver Province, Feb. 17)

How to save the newspaper ...

Something similiar to Mark Cuban's crazy idea to save the newspaper industry is being put into action, and it's topical with the San Fran Chronicle in trouble and the Rocky Mountain News having gone nips-up.

"NEW YORK (Reuters) – Cablevision Systems Corp plans to charge online readers of its Newsday newspaper, a move that would make it one of the first large U.S. papers to reverse a trend toward free Web readership.

The paper said in a statement late on Thursday that it is in the process of transforming the site into a locally focused cable service."

The debate really is about saving reporting as a profession, or at least as a vocation. Whether people get news from a dead tree-derived product which is dated within a day is secondary.

That might explain why there is some appeal to Cuban's notion that newspapers should be partnering up with Big Cable (a whole different can of worms). Presumably, in his model, a BellExpressVu subscribers in Canada, for a few cents a month, would get exclusive access to what on the Globe & Mail's website. It beats the hell out what seems to be prevailing in the newspaper industry of late, not that anyone reading this needs any reminder.

As Cuban puts it:

" ... newspapers ... should be knocking on the doors of cable and satellite providers offering their subscribers exclusive access to the online versions of their newspapers. That's right, the New York Times should be going to CableVision, Time Warner, Comcast, Charter, Directv, Verizon, ATT, Echostar et al, and offer to each that for 25 cents per month for those subscribers in the New York area, and for 5 cents per month for those outside the immediate NYC area, their subscribers will get exclusive access to the NY Times Online. Non-subscribers will get what Wall Street Journal non-subscribers get today, access to some content, but not the most timely or valuable content.

"If the Times can convince these operators that their subscribers will find value in exclusive access to the content, particularly if they can become part of their basic or near basic service, then all of a sudden, the NY Times and any other newspaper finds themselves with a recurring source of revenue that can turn into real money, while at the same time offering differentiated value for the video distributors.

"On a macro basis, I don't think its inconceivable that within a few years more than a material percentage of subscribers would support an additional $2 per month for unlimited access on all platforms, to all newspapers across the country. If it's 50pct (of the approximate 100 million U.S. cable subscribers) at $2, that's $100 million per month in new revenue for the industry. That's a billion dollars that matters. Plus advertising."

Yours truly has no special expertise in how this could all be matched up. Hear me out on account of livelihoods hanging in the balance, although frankly, many people working at newspapers will not be missed (and there's always one more than everyone thinks, Sager).

Cuban had mixed feedback, as you would expect with an idea which stands to work for the benefit of Big Cable. (Adrian Dater, the Denver Post and ESPN.com hockey writer who's suddenly got less competition on the Colorado Avalanche beat thanks to the Rocky Mountain News' demise, left a very positive comment, by the way. No scribe worth her/his notepad wants less competition. You want more. It means more people to lift the good stuff from.)

At least Cuban is talking about a new business model and how to get cash coming in. It beats the continual, numbing slash-and-burn which has been a huge downer for hundred of journos across Ontario over the past few months. It also beats the arterioschlerosis which has been taking place in the media in Canada, where embracing technology hasn't come with an accompanying attitude adjustment, namely that we don't have all the answers.

I never had any status to begin with, so it wasn't hard to give that up. I realized it was better to ask Pete Toms about anything in Ottawa that encompassed the economy, sports and municipal politics than open a newspaper or turn on a 6 p.m. newscast. Sorry, but Pete just knows it cold.

People still want to be informed and want to read quality stuff. The challenge is bringing in money so it's affordable to produce. It is better when someone is being compensated for their work. The most expensive thing in the world is cheap labour, or at least that's why my dad probably mused whenever he had me with him on a job site.

Having news content synched up with a cable company, provided there was still competition in the marketplace, has a lot of potential. Cuban noted the local paper's website needs to becomea kind of content aggregator, something a writer named Morgan Warstler pointed out recently (it was linked in Cuban's comments section).

"Here’s the plan:

1. Google will license all US newswires with (the Associated Press wire service's) explicit support (they'll help cajole the other newswires), and will alter Google News to display only the headlines, not the abstracts. They will do this for a song, but they will have NO rights to publish any of the articles.
2. Current syndication contracts will be abandoned by newspapers.
3. Readers and bloggers will now have via Google News ALL the headlines and a 'proxied local link' to all the stories.
4. Here’s the rub. Every single paper in America at their website will have (granted to them via Google's master license) every single article carried on the wires. (Ed.'s note: Which means the editors at your local former fishwrap aren't just cutting-and-pasting stuff from Reuters and The Canadian Press. Instead, they're helping make that local story sing.)
   

A localization proxy server will ensure that every link you click at Google News, or from your favorite blogger… you’ll read the article at your local paper's web site. Newspaper sites themselves will enforce this 'read local' policy by automatically re-directing non-local IPs back to the proxy."

Any talk about going hyperlocal segues right into sports coverage. A big reason this site has carved out its tiny little niche is that it is Canadian in focus without saturation hockey coverage, which is well beyond self-parody in this country. All hockey, all the time, works in the short run since it brings in the most eyeballs, which serves the needs of advertisers, but at some point it just becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Meantime, there are only so many people who want to hear about the high school basketball playoffs, the local CIS football team or the an analysis of Roy Halladay's last five starts, based on Pitch FX data. It is a bit chicken-and-egg. Do people not care or is the problem that not enough people are out there trying to make it interesting and easily relatable?

The university sports example is a convenient one, since it's a niche audience. Rogers Community in Ottawa does a good job with Gee-Gees football and the university basketball team, along with junior hockey's 67's, but it is labour intensive and they can only do so many games. They can also only show one game at a time. Webcasters such as Streaming Sports Network Canada have the advantage of being able to host numerous webcasts at once; three people and a camera at centre court or centre ice is all it takes to air a game. The equipment is getting better all the time.

Rogers has 2.3 million cable subscribers in Canada. Using Cuban's $2/month model, an extra toonie is $4.6 million a month, more than $50 million per year. That would represent a huge windfall in the fourth-largest market in the country. Imagine what could be done to make news and sports coverage more hyperlocal.

Imagine if all of that was synched up and available on a newspaper's website. The game report, the informed analysis, video of the post-game press conference, an archive of the broadcast. The colour commentator might end up writing the game story. It's multitasking. It's modern.

In the sports example, the emphasis would be on what the best journalism does, which is telling people what it was like, not just what happened. The by-the-numbers gamers with the vanilla coach and player quotes everyone has read 1,000 times before no longer serves this end. The gamer, as it's called in the newsroom, has been dying probably since about 1960, especially when there's Nate Silver to do the vivisection in real time and Kissing Suzy Kolber (or KurtenBlog) to do it in a humourous, jocular way. It beats reading about someone changing his daughter's diaper, that's for sure.

Understandably, there are questions questions about media concentration, checks and balances; that won't go away. This is about good storytelling and a younger generation, guys in their early 20s such as Bucholtz and Kinger, or people slightly older such as Duane who realize the old model is dead, having the chance to be rewarded for the ability to tell a story well, instead of being blocked by Boomer hubris.

Cuban's idea might be pie-in-the-sky. It is not perfect. But it beats accepting that we should all chase after the same nickel, which used to be a quarter.

Related:
Cablevision planning to shake up newspaper industry? (Neil Best, Newsday)

Snark break ...

First things first: Our own Duane Rollins will be on ThatChannel.com's It's Called Football, today at noon Eastern. The rumour is that they might talk about soccer.

Mats Sundin has been likened to a "slow-moving mountain." The Vancouver Canucks wanted the Sundin the way he played in Toronto and got Eric Lindros, the way he played in Toronto.

Did Bill Romanowski really think he had a chance of coaching the Denver Broncos? He has to the dumbest NFL player who attended Boston College, but that's only because Mark Chmura knows assault has two S's.

Here's a prop bet: The Ottawa transit strike will be over before the Kingston Frontenacs get their next win.

(The Detroit News referred to the Plymouth Whalers "winning at Frontenac, 2-0." Apparently the team no longer merits being attached to Kingston.)

It honestly wasn't clear if this was from The Onion or the New York Post.

Strange as it sounds, it's disappointing that Corky Simpson recanted and said he was sorry for not voting for Rickey Henderson for the Baseball Hall of Fame. Damn him for having grace and backing down.

Gerry Dee on the inspiration for those bits he does on The Score, as told to Kurtenblog: "“We decided that my character would become the worst sports reporter in the world that actually thinks he’s the best. I wanted the character to be different and have lots of imperfections. It also irks me to see people like Steve Simmons who has probably never bounced a ball or skated around a rink have so much to say about sports."

Last and certainly least, that is Kingston's own Brett Angel running the goalie to start this minor-league hockey brawl (via Puck Daddy)



This post is worth nothing, but this is worth noting:

• TV Feeds My Family is asking readers to vote for the best show on TV. It is dirty pool to demand all you click through and vote for a certain drama that revolves around a high school football team in Dillon, Texas and returns to NBC next Friday?
  
  (Mad Men is also in the mix, but it has enough votes already.)
• The World of Junior Hockey sees the Kingston Frontenacs' Nathan Moon and Ethan Werek as possibilities for Team Canada at the 2010 World Juniors. Werek, maybe.
• No one asked, but for the NFL playoffs this weekend: Baltimore, Carolina, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.
• There is no cynicism about Steve Sullivan's comeback with the Nashville Predators. He's been out of the NHL since the Senators were last Stanley Cup contenders. That's how long it's been.

A Sundin symposium; the chatter about Captain Indecisive

Everyone, give yourselves a round of applause for helping turn Mats Sundin's career into one brain-bashingly repetitive free-agency rumour.

Leafs fans had plenty of time to get ready for this and it was just a business decision. Anyway, some people do have strong opinions about it, and here's a just a few.

"This whole process has revealed Sundin to be the exact entity he insisted he wasn't 10 months ago — a hired gun. Nothing more. Nothing less.

"His decision to come back makes a mockery of his stand last season, when he refused to waive his no-trade clause so the Toronto Maple Leafs could move him to a Stanley Cup contender. Sundin insisted his heart was in Toronto and that joining a team just for a playoff run would somehow cheapen the moment.

"Funny how all that went out the window as he makes plans to descend on Vancouver in late December, having played his last serious hockey on March 29 and having decided (we assume) the Canucks' dough looked more appealing than whatever the New York Rangers could come up with."
— Scott Burnside

"It's going to be pretty interesting to see when Roberto Luongo comes back from what is reportedly a pretty serious groin issue. Sundin may provide more offence, but they need their No. 1 goaltender to have a chance in the Western Conference."
— James Mirtle

"Hold on...did we just sign Toronto's sloppy seconds?"
— Orland Kurtenblog

"And it's not hard to see a lot of ways this could end badly. You could get hurt (you're 38, and who knows what kind of shape you're in). You may not have the competitive fire anymore (after all, it took you this long to decide you still wanted to play). The Canucks could fall short when it mattered (since they're, you know, the Canucks).

"You could be headed towards your Jerry-Rice-as-a-Seahawks stage, your Michael-Jordan-as-a-Wizard days.

"And if that happens, everyone will line up to bury you. And that's not what I want, because right or wrong you're a Leaf for life."
— Down Goes Brown


"We're not totally sold on this being a good move for Vancouver or any team really. Obviously on paper, Sundin helps any team. He's a world class player. But he hasn't played a game since April. How long will it take for him to get into game shape and how long will it take for him to mesh into a squad which has been together since September?
— Empty Netters

"Mats is buggered no matter what he says now:

• All about the journey - he signs half-way through the season
• Not about the money — took more to play in Vancouver
• About winning the cup — signed with the 'Nucks who have a long-term injury to (Roberto) Luongo."

— Pension Plan Puppets

"I didn't want the old guy but now he's here for a million more than Luongo and for basically half the season. Cute. Pressure’s on. You’re MY old guy now so I get to bitch to no end.

"This isn’t some sort of odd vacation Mats. We have a team that’s doing better then expected, a GM willing to take a risk and a nation of fans who were just reminded last night of how close we once were and how badly we want to be back there.

"So help me God if you let us down…"
— Yankee Canuck

"I know it's not rational, but if it were about that I wouldn't be a Leafs fan at all. All I know is, a few days or weeks from now I'll be walking around and I'll see someone in a Canucks jersey. As they pass by, I'll notice it reads SUNDIN 13. And that'll just feel wrong as all hell.

"So thanks for the memories, Mats. It'll be great seeing you honoured at the ACC in a few years. In the meantime I hope your new team tanks, Luongo's groin explodes, and you miss the playoffs."
-- Cox Bloc

"For now Mats, you are dead to me."
— PPP

Snark break...

As you were wondering what happened to 10 years' worth of issues of Word Up magazine....

Construction is being delayed on a NFL stadium in the Los Angeles area, which might help Rogers Communications' chances of stealing liberating the Buffalo Bills. Or not.

In case you weren't feeling old enough already, there is talk of the Boston Red Sox drafting Carl Yastrzemski's grandson. Mike Yastrzemski is an outfielder, too.

Shame on Citigroup -- they keep their name on the New York Mets' stadium, but can't come with the $240,000 to sponsor a holiday toy train exhibit. Today's youth need to learn about riding the rails.

And you wonder why Canadians are smug toward the U.S. ... it's a little hard not to be when someone who's a "Philadelphia lawyer" believes that winning "143 seats in Canada's 278-seat Parliament" does not make a majority (it would, if not for those 30 additional seats) and that there's a province of Ottawa.

So the Sens gave up the lead three times last night against a Florida Panthers team which was missing five regulars to injury? That's a shame (really).

From the National Lampoon Sports Minute: "The chairman of the Chicago Cubs said he expects the team to be sold by spring training. And that will fix everything."

This post is worth nothing, but this is worth noting:

• It probably has no chance of succeeding, but a fan group is planning to sue the Bowl Championship Series.
  
• The Kurtenblog guys pretty well nailed it in regard to Boots Del Biaggio and Gary Bettman. Hockey's a great sport to survive the people who are supposedly in charge.
  
• People in Chicago ain't happy about Ron Santo not getting into the Hall of Fame.
  
• You really should read this interview with Outliers author Malcolm Gladwell. (Seriously, though, do Americans not know about hockey players having early birthdays? The assumption here was everyone knew.)
• Erik Bedard is likely safe with the Seattle Mariners, as much as that's possible.
  

Snark break ...

As you were down at the free clinic, getting shots for Nerd Flu...

A strip club is opening in Seattle just 400 feet away from Safeco Field, the Mariners' stadium. The cab drivers in Seattle must be ticked -- now a trip to the rippers is walking distance for the ballplayers.

Former Nashville Predators owner Boots Del Biaggio, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman's buddy, was slapped with federal charges in the U.S. on the same day Sean Avery was on the carpet in New York City for "conduct detrimental to hockey." That's irony on a base level.

If Del Biaggio ends up in white-collar resort prison, please don't refer his spouse, Kristen, as "sloppy seconds." You wouldn't like Gary Bettman when he's angry!

(How about, as Kurtenblog noted, what about Avery being the front-page story on NHL.com, using a to drive traffic? Hypocritical, much?)

"Unlike before the internet when the only publication professional sports clubs controlled was the game program (unless they owned a newspaper writer or two), teams today have a powerful and wide-reaching outlet — their website — that they can dress up as an objective journalism operation, which can be subsequently employed to boost revenue.

"In a somewhat related story, it's interesting that despite the NHL deeming Sean Avery's infamous remarks on Tuesday in Calgary "detrimental to the league and the game of hockey," the league's website - which the NHL is relying on to create buckets of cash in the near future — seems to be taking full advantage of the publicity that the incident has created."

The San Francisco Giants gave Edgar Renteria a two-year contract for $18.5 million yesterday. They had to waive their age requirement for a starting middle infielder — Renteria only turned thirty-three last summer.

More great headlines that cannot be written: "Another J.P. to boo at Rogers Centre."

From Demetri Martin: "I think statues are wonderful. They show what great people would look like if pigeons shit all over them."

Former Saskatchewan Roughriders QB Steve Sarkisian might be the new coach of the Washington Huskies. Washington was 0-11 this season, so wouldn't a former Ottawa Rough Riders QB be better equipped to take over that team?

This has nothing to do with sports, but it might be the all-time greatest Kids In The Hall sketch:



This post is worth nothing, but this is worth noting:

• Former Dallas Cowboy quarterback Quincy Carter's new team is, wait for it, the Rio Grande Valley Dorados.
• Minor League Ball has a look at the Blue Jays farm system, good reading for everyone who thinks J.P. Ricciardi should just be out signing some free agents, any free agents.
• Kurtenblog has a how-to for the Teddy Bear Toss event that many junior hockey teams hold. Alas, the Ottawa 67's already had theirs, while Kingston Frontenacs fans should be throwing lumps of coal.
  
  This actually happened ... a group of us, which included a couple people who had never been to a hockey game, had Halifax Mooseheads tickets. We showed up about five minutes into the first period, not knowing the Teddy Bear Toss was on, and entered the concourse at the Metro Centre right at the moment the Mooseheads scored. As the teddy bears rained down, we had to assure one person that this was not a regular thing.
• This one's for faithful commenter, OttawaFan: An update on what CFL legend Hal Patterson, now 77,as been up to lately.

Snark break ...

Type your summary here

Kyle Turris, available for the World Juniors? Some would say Wayne Gretzky owes Hockey Canada one for the Todd Bertuzzi debacle.

Apparently everyone has forgotten the NFL's long, proud history of the Vikings getting hosed on the calls against the Packers.

Hockey on Remembrance Day is wonderful. It reminds us that so many made the ultimate sacrifice to keep Jason Spezza from having to make the smallest ones. (Did you see that lazy penalty Spezz took last night?)

The Giller Prize went to a novel that is set in a small town. No one saw that coming, except everybody.

Kevin Garnett taunting Jose Calderon, for both of you who haven't seen it.



The above was worth nothing, this is worth noting

• Yours is not to question why you get a great, comprehensive feature about NHLer Raffi Torres' family in a U.S. daily, not in his own country.
• Vancouver Canucks fans, all things considered, really have not suffered, so sayeth the Kurtenblog.

(The World of Junior Hockey gets the glove-tap for the Turris link.)

Snark Break ...

Getting cranked up, in a matter of speaking ...

Did anyone else notice that the Boston Red Sox were awfully quick to ditch Manny Ramirez, a Dominician player, just like they weren't too upset about letting Pedro Martinez go a few years back? Just sayin'.

For what ESPN is paying him, shouldn't Rick Reilly be able to do a lot better than mocking the anthems of other countries that aren't American? Like a young Phil Esposito once yelled at Gordie Howe after getting catching an elbow in the mouth, "You used to be my idol, you a--hole."

(Update: Duane points out in the comments that Reilly has just been writing the same column for 10 years and just changing the names, but apparently he's not the only one. Quoth Kurtenblog, If you're going to plagiarize your sports writing, don't rip off Rick Reilly. People know his work. You will get caught."

It's too bad reports that Eric Lindros and Kate Hudson are an item have been debunked. They seem perfect for each other. No one today can believe he was captain of the Canadian Olympic team and no one can believe she was once nominated for an Oscar. You really had to be there.

Question for Ozzie Guillen: If anyone at a baseball game Minnesota could throw a ballcap far enough and accurately enough to harm a visiting ballplayer, don't you think the Vikings would have signed them to give Tarvaris Jackson a push during training camp?

(Seriously, though, Tarvaris is going to light it up, unless he has Artis Hicks as his left tackle. And Brett Favre won't be wearing purple, unless that becomes the hip new colour to wear while deer hunting. You betcha.)

One more baseball/football crossover ... it's surprising Reds slugger Adam Dunn didn't get traded to Tampa Bay .... Buccaneers coach Jon Gruden is always looking for another quarterback. (Dunn was one at the University of Texas -- do you know the guy doesn't really like baseball that much?)

Speaking of lighting up ... Seth Rogen getting thrown out of a party for smoking marijuana is like Hugh Hefner getting ejected from the Playboy Mansion for showing up with two blondes.

(S.R. and Steve Carell in a Ghostbusters sequel? Hollywood really is out of ideas.)

This Dino Ciccarelli Minnesota North Stars T-shirt is the perfect ironic fashion accessory to wear to your next bottomless party. What, too soon?

Untangling Boots' and Gary's web...

Anything that Kurtenblog or Puck Daddy has said already about that latest vis-a-vis Boots Del Biaggio and Gary Bettman, we're down with it.

Is the "Cooking the Books" label appropriate when it comes to Del Biaggio, or would that just be confusing? Please don't look down on the NHL for not doing enough due diligence on Boots Del Biaggio. They did ask for two pieces of ID.

Related:
NHL owners' loans helped buy Predators; Commissioner says he was unaware of 'Boots' backing (Brad Schrade, The Tennessean)

AIN'T NO PARTY LIKE A GREY CUP PARTY: CAN LIONS TAME THE ALS?

OK, so we're not actually in Winnipeg -- that would be the magnificent bastards behind BoatmenBlog -- or write have a take as inspired as the one at Orland Kurtenblog. Yet, the Grey Cup is here, and it's the biggest truly Canadian sports event there is, so here is a preview of tomorrow's B.C. Lions-Montréal Alouettes showdown presented in our "Eight Questions" format. Why 8? Well, five isn't enough, but 10 would require a real effort. And oh, yes, there will be a live blog tomorrow.

1. First things first. Did the standard provincial premiers' wager -- British Columbia's Gordon Campbell put up a case of B.C. win against Quebec's Jean Charest's case of apple cider -- seem a little lame?
   
   To someone born and bred in "Presbytario," yes. Campbell could have put up ski passes to Whistler and the unlisted phone numbers of Ross Rebagliati's, uh, "best pals." Charest could have offered a smoked-meat sandwich from Schwartz's Delicatessen and a lap dance at Club Super Sexe. Given Gordo's drunk driving conviction, alcohol probably shouldn't have been involved in such a wager.


2. American reader here... so can the Als move the ball against that B.C. defence? By the way, it's so cute how you Canadians put the C in offense and defense... eh?
   
   So much depends on their offensive line, with tackles Uzooma Okeke and Dave Mudge likely matched up against B.C.'s defensive ends, Kingston-born Brent Johnson and Aaron Hunt.
   
   B.C.'s defensive front is good enough to pressure Als QB Anthony Calvillo without bringing a lot of pressure, meaning it's more likely passes will get thrown into double coverage. Calvillo's going to have to have a great day throwing to tough spots -- deep corners, intermediate crossing routes -- to pull this off.
   
3. What about the Lions' O vs. Montreal's D?
   
   With such a good offensive line, it's as if B.C.'s brilliantly brittle QB, Dave Dickenson, is throwing passes from the Popemobile. He's also learned to get the ball out quickly so he's almost never hit. The Lions are really a ball-control team -- short passes, mix in running back Joe Smith. They don't really get aggressively until they're down to around the 30-yard line, where they can get Geroy Simon in a jump ball against a shorter defensive back.
   
   Can Montreal stop it? Dickenson is in the shotgun more often than not, which negates blitzing. But if they lay back and play a vanilla defence, he'll complete almost everything.
   
   For Montreal, it probably comes down to DBs such as Davis Sanchez and Richard Karikari playing over their heads, and the Als coming up with a couple fumble recoveries.
   
4. How likely are we to see a kick returned for a touchdown?
   
   Very unlikely. Would you believe only three kicks were run back all the way this season, compared to 18 in 2005? Besides, Montreal's Ezra Landry is injured. The Winnipeg Sun's Paul Friesen, pointed out the other day that increasing the dress roster from 40 to 42 players probably has limited the impact a return man can have on the game.
   
5. Please make this relevant to the people in the centre of the universe… which of the players on the field Sunday will good in Argonauts' double blue next season?
   
   Nautyn McKay-Loesher of the Lions, who's from the GTA, has expressed a desire to be back in southern Ontario, and one of his linemates, Tyrone Williams, has hit a roadblock in his contract negotiations. Cahoon is a potential free agent.
   
6. Sentimental choice for the game's Outstanding Canadian?
   
   For the Lions, Ryan Thelwell, who's already been told he won't be re-signed in the off-season. Johnson, though, is a more likely candidate, as is slotback Jason Clermont or wideout Paris Jackson. No telling what folks in Saskatchewan will do if ex-Rider Paul McCallum, B.C.'s kicker, wins it. As my friend Keith Borkowsky (a Manitoba-based B.C. fan) put it earlier in the week, for a Riders fan the thought of McCallum earning a Grey Cup ring is like a Southern Baptist minister finding out his 16-year-old daughter has been dating Borat for six months.
   
   For the Als, Ben Cahoon is the obvious pick.
   
   Personally, I'm rooting for Paris Jackson, since a lot of fans will likely go, "Huh, he's Canadian?" (Thelwell told the Globe and Mail, "In one game, a player asked Paris Jackson where he was from in the States. He's from Vancouver.")
   
   Call it polite Canadian prejudice -- people see a guy who's good, from a major D-1 school (Utah) and, uh, black -- assume he's American.
   
7. By the way, Sager, you and the aforementioned Brent Johnson are both from the Kingston, Ont., area, you're both 1996 graduates of high schools that are 20 minutes apart on Hwy. 2, yet on Friday you didn't didn't acknowledge him being named the CFL's top defensive player and top Canadian. What gives?
   
   Short answer: Personal crisis (which has passed) and the nature of the Ernestown Eagles-Holy Cross Crusaders non-rivalry rivalry. The schools compete for students -- and Holy Cross, the shiny, new, Catholic school with that faux private school sheen, takes away a lot of students from ESS, the much-maligned "rural school." Still, the rivalry doesn't extend to sports. ESS doesn't have a football team, and in my day at least, the two schools weren't strong in any of the same sports; we did well in basketball and volleyball, and Holy Cross (it had to do with being a Catholic school with a lot of Portugeuse and Italian kids) dominated in soccer.
   
   Not that I'll never send some shouts out to a former Crusader -- I've mentioned the Argos' Jon Landon here and there, but of course's he's also a Queen's Golden Gael.
   
8. Well, how about a prediction?
   
   Sure. Lions 30, Als 17.

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.