Rants from a raging Lions fan

The CFL season is already two weeks old and there's fans who want to paint the town rouge.


For starters, can someone please test the eyes of BC Lions pivot Buck Pierce? He apparently has developed Benedict Arnold Syndrome, completing more key passes to players on opposite teams than his own. White is not the new orange, unless the team boarded a plane to get to the game.

Other quick hits:

• Can someone please inform CNN, and more specifically Larry King, that Michael Jackson is dead? And that the rest of us have moved on to other matters? If we wanted to watch TMZ, we'd watch TMZ. News Flash: Other things are happening in the world.

• Surely we all saw the possible trade of Roy Halladay coming. And if the Jays can get a trade that helps them build for a better future, why shouldn't they become the new Montreal Expos? The Washington Nationals don't even have the talent to deal for prospects.

• Stephen Harper apologized, so why can't Barry Bonds?

• If someone had told me six months ago both the Calgary Stampeders and BC Lions would be 0-2, I would have checked them into a hospital. Now it makes sense. In BC's case, there were simply too many changes. What's Calgary's excuse?

• Today is free slurpee day at Manitoba 7-11s, thanks to the province's title of Slurpee Capital of the world. While Winnipeg gets most of the credit, Brandon actually consumes more of the beverage on a per capita basis. Does that make us more cool, or more likely to get a brain freeze?

• While Winnipeg is a warehouse town, where everyone loves a bargain, they also loved their Jets and would pay to see them again. When Winnipeg was in the NHL they had the loudest building in the league during the playoffs. Yes. Even louder than the old Chicago Stadium.

• Most popular phrase at the Bell Centre in 2009-10: "Programs! Get your programs!" Although with Bills 101 and 178, the hawkers may have to say the same thing in French at a decibel level two-thirds louder than English to comply with provincial law.

• As for those changes, the Canadiens may be on the right track. Kovalev could play like an all-star one day and skate like a no-star the next. Few can deny they've added scoring. Let's just hope the defence — the REAL problem with the club — also got dealt with.

• Do all-star games really serve a purpose? They may have at one point. Now, I'm not so sure. Outside of the home run contest, I don't watch it anymore.

• You know times are bad in newspapers when a Canwest chief executive looks at jumping to the Canadian Football League. Though if you paid for a stadium hot dog with stock options and still needed change, you may consider the jump a good deal.

• Do people curl in the summer? Why yes. They do in Bismarck, N.D.

• For those who thought Luke Schenn was pretty good, and he is, wait until Brayden Schenn gets to The Show.

• Anyone can call a good game when the Yankees and Red Sox are locked in a 1-1 pitcher's duel. Vin Scully can make a 16-2 game between the LA Dodgers and the Milwaukee Brewers sound like Shakespeare. And Dan Schulman is a ever closing second as far as I'm concerned.

• Now that I have watched Major League Baseball games in two domed stadiums, Olympic Stadium and the Metrodome, I think I'm ready to take on the challenge of watching one outdoors. Sadly the closest ones to me are more than 15 hours away or so in Chicago, 15 hours to Kansas City or 17 hours to Denver. St. Louis is 18 hours away.

He's hung out the gone drinkin' sign, sir ...

Note to our users: Sager is travelling to the Ontario University Athletics' sports information directors' meeting, so posting might be light(er than usual) today.

Meantime, read Stephen Brunt's take on Jim Balsillie losing the court fight for the Phoenix Coyotes and wonder whether the NHL can get a Popemobile for Gary Bettman to use when he next visits Canada ... ponder how in the hell a labour union can support Quebecor's bid for the Montreal Canadiens when that company has locked out its employees at Montreal's biggest French-language paper ... cheer for Canada's junior men's basketball team, coached by Greg Francis of Toronto, winning a tournament in France last weekend even though Canadian hoops hostshots Tristan Thompson and Cory Joseph were playing for the U.S. side (which everyone seems cool with) ... last but not least, you heard right, Brett Favre used the term "we" when talking about his potential role in the Minnesota Vikings: "They do have a great running back, a great running game. If I go there, there are no guarantees. We all know that. I went through that last year with New York. I think every player should think that he is a difference-maker. I think you have to believe that. But in that situation, understanding what is expected of you, knowing your team, knowing that as long as we can run the ball and complete passes when needed, we should be pretty good." May God have mercy on us all.

Saturdays with Mr. Canoehead

It's all raisins off an Oldsmobile ...

... Vernon Wells being rewarded for his sucktacular hitting by being moved up in the lineup.

... The BBC reporting that the Pittsburgh Steelers won the Stanley Cup. Everyone knows the complexion of the series changed when Mike Tomlin switched up his lines and put out Mewelde Moore with Hines Ward and Santonio Holmes.

... Wondering how Steelers Penguins' Hal Gill managed to get only one minor penalty in a seven-game series vs. the Detroit Red Wings. There were more than a few rumblings throughout the final that the NHL had reverted to the "one set of rules for the first three rounds, another for the finals" officiating.

Finding out that your heroes on the '85 Blue Jays might have played a game while hammered drunk. Well, at least according to to the self-effacing spin the old knuckleballer, Phil Niekro, put on it:

"Finally, did you know Niekro, then donning Yankees pinstripes, won his 300th without throwing his patented knuckler until the final batter he faced? He was 46 years old at the time. And he fanned the guy.

"(Toronto) beat us and clinched the (division) pennant, and I think they were so 'champagned-out', I don't think they knew who was pitching, who they were playing against or what I was throwing up there," he said with a laugh."

Careful, Phil, you don't want Geoff Baker after you for making reckless allegations about players using performance-diminishing drugs. That's a real damning innuendo to be making.

Roy Halladay coming out of the Blue Jays' loss vs. the Florida Marlins with an injured groin. It renders all the talk about the lineup academic since without Doc, the Jays are done.

The Jays play more than half their remaining schedule (51 of 99) vs. the Rays, Yankees and Red Sox, who are first, second and fourth in the majors in runs scored. In the words of Robin Scherbatsky, "Life's gonna be rough, boys."

Who ends up owning the NFL's St. Louis Rams. The Rams have owners? It was assumed all along their arrangement was something like PBS. No defence, no mercy!

New England Hockey Journal calling the Kingston Frontenacs "one of the OHL's most storied franchises." They're definitely in the top 20.

Quebecor trying to launch a cable sports network when some of their newspaper offices no longer have water coolers, or even reporters.

(Late) morning with Mr. Canoehead...

Stuff that should bounce off you like raisins off an Oldsmobile ...

Wondering how new Montreal Canadiens coach Jacques Martin will handle the insatiable Quebec media after being in a southern U.S. city and big-small-town Ottawa for so many years. Roy Mlakar won't be there to ride herd.

Hockey fans who complain "superstars get all the calls" in the NBA when the NHL did not suspend Penguins star Evgeni Malkin for starting a fight in the last five minutes of the game. Jeff Blair's suggested title for Colin Campbell: "NHL Vice-President and Director Of Figuring Out What’s A Cheap Shot." The greasiness was compounded by the fact the NHL announced Malkin was off the hook via a press release at 11:48 p.m. (literally, the 11th hour.)

Michael Vick being a contentious issue, while there is a barely a peep about current Atlanta Falcons player Quinn Ojinnaka being allowed to play in the NFL after he allegedly "spat at his bride, tossed her down some stairs and then threw her out of their Georgia home in the wee hours."

What Vick did was carried out over a number of years, but it's not as if striking a woman is completely random. Take it away, Bud Poliquin:

"What Vick, Ojinnaka's former Atlanta teammate, did to become a pariah will forever and properly be considered heinous. Training dogs to fight, and then executing those who don't win, is certainly reprehensible . . . and Vick has the shattered life, career and finances to prove it.

"But at the end of the day, shouldn't battering people be more prominently placed in the great photo of disgraces than any act of abusing (and, yes, killing) dogs? And isn't battering people made even more abominable when the alleged batterer is a 6-foot-5, 305-pound man, and the identified batteree is a woman of significantly less height and ballast?

The knowledge that HBO, which passed on Mad Men and Breaking Bad, has given Joe Buck his own show.



Conan O'Brien debuting tonight as host of The Tonight Show. The commitment NBC has made to Conan is truly amazing. They've given him the best lead-in that petty jealousies can buy.

(Lord, please forgive anyone whose reaction to seeing Jay Leno sign off last Friday night was to scream at the TV, "The show should have gone to Letterman in the first place!" The line of succession should have gone Carson-Letterman-Conan. It's a pain that never ends.

It's a sin to say that about Leno. Like Stewie Griffin once said, the fact is the man is out there every night with fresh material and he's charming.

Last but not least, having to be the guy who makes this joke: "Kingston Frontenacs defenceman Erik Gudbranson was taken in the Continental Hockey League draft today. Playing in Russia would be an easy switch since he's already in junior hockey's Siberia." So much for trying to quit making Frontenacs jokes.

(Kingston's own Taylor Hall was taken too. Three OHLers were taken and two had Kingston ties. Crazy.)

Guy Lafleur: Two minutes for piling on...

It is tough to be the parent of someone who is an adult in the eyes of the legal system and a child in seemingly every other sense.

Please keep that in mind when you read about Quebec hockey legend Guy Lafleur being convicted of giving contradictory evidence during his troubled son's bail hearing. It's the difference between showing sympathy and showing compassion. It is the easy way out for anyone who's in the media (which is all of us) to just to do a drive-by on him. It is a valid news story, but there are lines that should not be crossed and frankly, this is one of them.

It's acceptable that it's real journalistic dynamite whenever a big sports star is found to have feet of clay. Guy Lafleur was the last transcendent Montreal Canadiens goal scorer who radiated that Gallic élan, and he certainly has lived his life in the public spotlight. Despite all that, a gut feeling is that regaling oneself over this crosses the line. Having a troubled adult son to deal with is the ultimate Catch-22; do you try to rescue her or him, do you show tough love, do you cut 'em loose?

One can only assume what has gone through Guy Lafleur's mind during this ordeal. He isn't the first big sports star whose progeny had trouble sticking to the straight and narrow, or secreting their own identity. Mark Lafleur isn't the first person to have trouble after being given everything by his parents, especially since he has Tourette's Syndrome.

Honestly, though, this is for them to sort out, not for some cheap yucks. Hey, you know the saying: As long as they spell your name right.

Related:
Guy Lefleur's Idiot Son Gets His Old Man In Trouble With The Law (Dashiell Bennett, Deadspin)
Guy-lty (Four Habs Fans)

The real loser in potential Habs sale? Montreal soccer fans

Huge news today that Montreal Canadiens owner George Gillett is officially trying to offload at least a portion of the team [Sean Gordon, The Globe and Mail]. The timing's certainly unfortunate for the Canadiens, given their recent struggles and coaching turnover in the midst of what was supposed to be a glorious centennial season. It's likely that the sale won't matter all that much for Montreal hockey in the end, though; this is the league's most storied franchise and one that successfully dominates not just its local market, but its entire province. The idea of moving the team can't be in the cards, unless the dealer is an absolute moron.

The real potential losers here are Montreal soccer fans. Keep in mind that Gillett was responsible for much of the money backstopping the Montreal Impact's bid for MLS status. Given that the Globe story mentions that Gillett may also be looking to offload his interests in Liverpool FC and NASCAR, it's hard to see him having an interest in supplying the financing for Montreal to make another run at one of the 2012 expansion slots.

That's too bad, as the Impact will need all the money they can get. As the Canadian Guys pointed out on the weekend, Stade Saputo is not an acceptable MLS stadium in its current 13,000 seat incarnation. Renovations to make it a 20,000-seater were discussed this fall, but they're going to be expensive. Although Joey Saputo stated firmly after Montreal's withdrawal that the partnership "never, at any point, had any trouble whatsoever financing its bid," it's looking more and more like that may not have been the case; Gillett's troubles with Liverpool were in full swing by that point, and the economy was already in the tank. Of course, Saputo's words may well be technically correct; they may not have ever had trouble financing their proposal of $43 million Canadian (as reported by Ben Knight back in his Globe days), including construction costs, but it seems that they were unwilling or unable to come up with the $40 million U.S. franchise fee. You have to wonder if part of that was perhaps due to Gillett becoming uneasy about investing more in sports at a time when he was already facing a cash crunch at Liverpool.

This is not meant to paint Gillett as a villain. In fact, as portrayed in Stephen Brunt's columns, he comes off as the sort of man you'd want as an owner; not stingy with the wages or the stadium expansions and respectful of cherished traditions. His Liverpool counterpart Tom Hicks is quite a different story, but Gillett seems to care about sports and to do so for the right reasons. Obviously I can't know his motivation for trying to sell his sports interests now, but given the global economic turmoil, the possibility exists that it might not have been his choice under better circumstances. He was a great owner for the Canadiens, and he should be remembered as such; he also supported the idea of MLS soccer in Montreal and he deserves praise for that.

The question for any future Montreal bid for MLS status is if they can find someone willing to take Gillett's place, and they'll have to do it soon. As Ives reported, MLS wants to add two more teams in 2012. If we presume the same two-year gap between expansion announcements and starting play, that would mean that the next two cities would be decided about a year from now. That's not a lot of time for Montreal to find an investor willing to pony up the cash for stadium renovations and the full franchise fee. Plus, it may even be more expensive this time. Yes, Vancouver got in for $35 million in the end, but they had significant leverage on their side; there weren't a lot of promising bids left at that point, and as Marc Weber of the Vancouver Province pointed out, there's quite a difference between his estimate of the $24 million that Montreal offered (which may even be generous considering construction costs in Montreal) as a franchise fee and the $35 million the Whitecaps paid. Montreal has no such leverage, and they may even be starting from less than zero given the ugly public ending to their last MLS bid.

Meanwhile, the USL is looking less and less attractive for Montreal. Seattle's already left, and Vancouver and Portland are soon to follow suit; there go three of the marquee teams. Plus, Vancouver in MLS means there will be less Canadian media coverage of Montreal and the USL; they'll probably still get local write-ups, but the national soccer narrative is likely to focus on the MLS teams (especially if they get a good national TV deal). That doesn't mean that the USL won't still be viable, but it's going to look more and more small-time down the road. If I was a Montreal soccer fan, I would be hoping like hell that the Impact find a wealthy investor to replace Gillett and get a solid bid together for the 2012 round of expansion. If they don't, soccer in Canada may pass them by.