Weekend Mailbag

After doing what any good writer does - ignoring my readers - I figured it was finally time to answer some of your questions in a patented mailbag (which to this day I swear I started writing as a kid for the amusement of family members... and may or may not be patended):

Kurtis Macdonald of Edmonton, AB writes:
Who's more likely go to 16-0, the Indianapolis Colts or the New Orleans Saints? Do you think either of them will go 16-0? Will either of them make it to the Super Bowl, and/or win? What's the meaning of life?

Thanks for the (numerous) questions, Kurtis. Let me answer one question at a time. If I had to bet, I would say New Orleans is more likely to go 16-0. Unlike Indy, they rarely eek out games (last Sunday's Redskins miracle proving to be the exception to the rule), and have had a relatively easy road the rest of the way.

This weekend its @ Atlanta vs. Chris Redman (which more or less ensures victory), vs. Dallas (a tough game, especially considering Dallas may need to win this game), vs. Tampa Bay (win), and @ Carolina, which could pose a threat if the Saints choose to sit a few players, or Carolina pounds the ball like they did in their first matchup in New Orleans.

But even then, the Saints have a team-of-destiny feel.

Indy's road is, debatably, harder. They play Denver at home, go to Jacksonville on a Thursday night (this could be a tough game, as Jacksonville is in a playoff race and Thursday nights do weird things to teams... just ask Pittsburgh), followed by the Jets (who may be in a playoff race of their own), and then they head to Buffalo to end the season.

But the biggest thing working against them Indy is their stated belief that it's best to rest their stars. It's kind of surprising considering the same logic has blown up in their face so many times before, but its what they believe and they've earned the right to do that.

I think New Orleans will end 16-0, and I bet Indy gives away a game along the way (quite possibly in Week 17 vs. Buffalo, when Jim Sorgi goes 9/28 for 124 yards and 2 INTs).

As for the Super Bowl, I like New Orleans to make it (what team has a legitimate shot of actually winning in New Orleans? I say no one), and Indy to fall short. In November, they won games by 1, 2, 3, 4, and 8 points - eventually their run of luck (and inate ability to comeback) will end.

And as for the meaning of life... I don't have enough time to explain it now, remind me to answer that question in another blog.

Keith Kroker, of Edmonton, AB writes:
Tell me the Red Wings are going to be okay.

Up until a week ago, I could have done just that. But now...

I think Detroit has hit the point where they've lost too much. Before, they were so good and deep that injures didn't seriously affect them, poor goaltending left them unphased, and they could usually turn it on if they were trailing.

But if you think about it, everything has gone wrong. They've suffered a number of huge injuries (Nik Kronwall, Dan Cleary, Johan Franzen, Valtteri Filppula), Chris Osgood still sucks, their ageless defense has aged (Nicklas Lidstrom and Brian Rafalski) and their additions have been massively disappointing (Todd Bertuzzi) or un-Redwinglike (Brad May, Drew Miller). Their trademark depth has been replaced by a team that has two players with more than 16 points, and one of them, Pavel Datsyuk, is on pace for a paltry 60 points.

To compound things, Detroit has always had the ability to call up players who should be top-six forwards with other NHL teams, but this year hasn't worked out that way. Ville Leino, a pool sleeper for many of us, has five points in 27 games, as does Justin Abdelkader.

It's a strange thing to consider, but the Wings could end up as an eighth seed, and take on the Blackhawks or Sharks in the first round. Wouldn't that be exciting?

Tom Lundeen, of Edmonton, AB writes:
Say something nice about the Oilers. Just once.

Okay.

Quietly, I think Ladislav Smid has become the Oilers most positive story this season. He is a legitimately good defenseman, who may be their most reliable player in their own zone. To boot, he adds an edge that pretty well every other Oiler is missing. Plus/minus can be a deceiving stat, but any time one young defenseman has a plus/minus so much better than some of his teammates (Smid is a +12, compared to -2 and -7 for Tom Gilbert and Denis Grebeshkhov) it warrants attention.

Nathan Panciroli of Edmonton, AB writes:
How much do you miss Ales Hemsky?
So... very... much. But not for the obvious reason (he makes the team better, or at least competitive), but rather the chance of him doing something fantastic would spice up some otherwise depressing Oilers games. The only person who misses him more is Shawn Horcoff, who has amassed the following stats since Hemsky's injury:

7 GP, 1 G, 0 A, 1 PT, -6

And don't forget - the goal he scored went in off his chest. I'd tell Horcoff supporters to put this in their pipe and smoke it... but I don't think there are any Horcoff supporters anymore... and most people don't own a pipe.

Richard Tougas, of Edmonton, AB writes:
Did you see the crowds in Florida and Tampa Bay this week? There weren't more than 1000 people to celebrate Radek Dvorak's 1000th NHL game.

The attendance in both buildings was shocking. It's no secret that hockey in Florida isn't a big draw, but the Panthers had around 2500 fans, and Tampa Bay had no more than 3,000-4,000 (comically announced as 13,744).

Watching hockey games is a lot like watching the old indoor-soccer Edmonton Drillers (back when they played at Rexall Place, not this haphazard reincarnation they've created now). The Drillers games were always filled with kids, attended by 3,000-5,000 people, and there were no die-hard fans. The Oilers games this week were eerily like that.

I can't help but to think it must be weird for young players, who go from playing in front of crowds twice the size in junior, only to graduate to the cavernous Southern arenas of the NHL.

Weekend Mailbag

Midweek Musings

It's been a busy week, so I only have a few moments to weigh in on the world of sport.

Edmonton Oilers: Road Warriors. You must hand it to the Oilers, they've had a surprising start to what seemed to be a daunting road-trip. A few things about this road trip (so far) that have stood out:

- It's their first three-game road winning streak in three years. Considering the NHL removed ties because fans just wouldn't stand for it... that's pretty unbelievable.
- Edmonton Oilers fans were just a bit down on the team before their current run. When asked, on the Oilers website, how many games the team would win this road trip... the most popular answer was "zero." I'm shocked they didn't doctor the numbers.
- The most surprising/interesting thing about these three wins were not so much the wins themselves, but how they occured. Edmonton won in Detroit (they never, ever, win there), won in Dallas in the afternoon (not only do they never win in Dallas, the Oilers afternoon record is something like 2-312-4), and won a vintage trap game against a crappy Florida Panthers team.

I was pleased to see Shawn Horcoff's ugly mug come out for a few shootouts this road trip. He can't really shoot or lift the puck, but he has the inate ability to find the five-hole. He's a modern-day Fernando Pisani (a perfect comparison), and strangely gives me a lot more hope than Sam Gagner... who no longer tries fancy moves, and ends up hitting most goalies right in the logo.

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After Matt Cooke's recent run of cheap-shotting half the league, I was thrilled to see Duncan Keith rock Cooke with a flagrant head-shot away from the play. Should Keith have been suspended? Absolutely... but this is the NHL... and a star player needs to do something special to get suspended.



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I was recently asked who is the most detestable players in the NHL. After some serious thought, I came up with a top 10 list. The list runs from 10 (I wish this player ill-will and serious injury), to 1 (I wish this player immediate death, ideally in the most painful way possible... perhaps involving a lawnmower mishap):

10. Todd Bertuzzi - A formerly entertaining player with an edge, Bertuzzi is nothing but an lazy hasbeen, who happened to end a player's career with a gutless cheap shot. Inexplicably, Bertuzzi has fallen into three lucrative contracts after the Steve Moore attack, and compiled disappointing numbers ever since.
9. Darcy Tucker - Tucker would likely be #1 if he still played with the Leafs and Don Cherry spent half his time telling us what a great guy he is. To this day, his cheap shot on Michael Peca in 2001 was one of the all-time weasel plays in league history. I have Tucker on this list as sort of a lifetime achievement award. (Fun Fact: The Leafs are still paying Tucker buyout money.)
8. Dion Phaneuf - Outside making $6 million per season, Phaneuf is a neanderthal in every way - from the way he speaks to his ridiculous brow. His brother recently body-checked a female hockey player in a non-contact game. 'Nuff said.
7. Chris Pronger - Chris Pronger is a bad person... and has found a perfect home in Philadelphia, which has put together a comical roster of ne'er-do-wells and malcontents.
6. Sean Avery - Avery is hated by all (including, I assume, his own family), but unlike everyone else on this list he can be slightly amusing at times (his comments about Elisha Cuthbert were funny, if not mean-spirited and uncalled for).
5. Steve Ott - Pure evil. Much like most players on this list... I hate his face. No matter what Ott does, he cannot be suspended for more than two games. We can only assume he had this written into his contract.
4. Patrik Kaleta - The instigator rule was created to protect people like Kaleta. He was recently suspended for intentionally ramming a Flyer defenseman into the boards from behind, after which he promptly skated away and turtled when the Flyers approached him.
3. Jarkko Ruutu - It's pretty bad when biting someone is not one of the top-five worst things you've done, but Ruutu falls into this category. Every time he smiles, I die a little inside.
2. Jordin Tootoo - While most of those listed above often hurt players, Tootoo is one of the few who seems keen to intentionally hurt players badly. I remember when he was on Team Canada's Junior team, and I disliked him back then (and it's pretty hard to dislike anyone on Team Canada's Junior team).
1. Matt Cooke - Cooke only recently moved to the top of my list after his antics this year. Inexplicably he is granted more leniency than any other player of his ilk. Only in the NHL could he cheapshot one of the game's superstars (Ilya Kovalchuk), get away with it, and Kovalchuk gets kicked out of the game for standing up for himself. Incredible. To boot, he plays for the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Honourable Mention: Alex Burrows, Steve Downie (I have a feeling I would hate Downie a lot more if he played in a bigger market than Tampa), Daniel Briere, Scott Hartnell, Jason Blake, Derek Boogaard, Dany Heatley (for lack of character), Evgeni Malkin (for lack of teeth).

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Since the Oilers recently played the Panthers (in front of about 3000 people, I may add... which was depressing on many levels, especially considering all tickets and food at Panthers games are 50% off on Mondays), here's an interesting clip to leave you with, courtesy of my loser brother:



For the record, Stanley C. Panther really shouldn't be walking around without a shirt on... he lacks definition.

Midweek Musings

The Oilers: What to do, when to do it, and God help us

Mid-October was a long time ago in the hockey world, and most Oilers fans must furrow their brows to remember what happened back then. After opening the season 1-1-1, Edmonton reeled off a home win over Montreal, a dominant performance in Nashville, a one-goal road loss in Chicago, a solid home win over Minnesota, an ugly win over Vancouver (yet the Oilers winning ugly was beautiful, in a sense), and an impressive comeback from 4-1 down against Columbus. The Oilers were 6-2-1. Sadly, Oilers fans don't believe in cautious optimism – they only believe in blind and unwavering optimism.

Since then has been nothing short of a disaster. The Oilers were shutout in three of the next five games to close out October, with their lone win coming against Detroit – a game where they led 5-1 but needed a shootout to register two undeserved points. November has been worse; three wins in 13 attempts, including two beatdowns on Hockey Night In Canada. The HNIC games are only worth mentioning because they were the two most notable losses. Chicago came in on November 21^st, won 5-2, and schooled the Oilers in every sense of the word. Last Saturday, Edmonton went to Vancouver (another comically tough visit to Vancouver after playing in Edmonton the night before… this has happened twice already) and were humiliated – Edmonton lost 7-3 but the game was over within eight minutes.

The early optimism is now biting cynicism, and fans have splintered into a few (predictable) camps. Part of the fan base is calling for a major rebuild or trade – usually demanding Steve Tambellini package Tom Gilbert and Shawn Horcoff for Ilya Kovalchuk, then signing the Russian to a 10-year contract. Other fans seem to pity the Oilers, as the team has been decimated by injuries – including the latest and greatest of them all - Ales Hemsky will miss the season (which officially kills my interest in watching Oilers games on TV). Sidenote: If you think the Oilers are somehow better off without Hemsky, you probably think Horcoff belongs on the Canadian Olympic team as well. And please don't tell me Hemsky's soft, considering he was playing at a point-per-game pace all year despite a shoulder injury. Poor Ales, he just can't get any respect.

I think I'm in both camps (I really love the sound of that Kovalchuk for Horcoff deal). While everyone I talk to has a solution, there's no right or wrong solution but here's what I'd do.

Be patient. After three years of abject failure, you think I'd be writing "storm Kevin Lowe's office and drag him into the streets." And, to be fair, in a week I may be writing just that. Or even trying to do so. But the Oilers should wait before doing anything drastic for two reasons.

Players are like stocks, you can sell high or you can sell low. With the exceptions of Dustin Penner and Lubo Visnovsky, what player's stock isn't low right now?

In a twisted way, patience is what the fans deserve, even if they demand the opposite. I can't envision a situation where the Oilers shouldn't blow the team up, but giving up on the season 27 games in sends a terrible message to your fan base – especially with the Oilers cultivating this folksy, fan-friendly organization. Give the team another 15-20 games, and hope that someone steps up. It's probably not going to happen, but still.

Get rid of the old guard. By any means necessary. I know this is contrary to my first point, but while the team as a whole shouldn't be gutted yet, some immediate moves need to be made. Ethan Moreau, Steve Staios, and Fernando Pisani were once useful players. They aren't anymore. Trade, release, waive them (or in Staios' case, buy him out, or take him out behind Rexall Place and shoot him). Replacing them with minor leaguers couldn't possibly hurt the team. The same could be said for Jason Strudwick.

Stop the short-term fixes. The worst thing Edmonton could do would trade for another middling forward with the hope that a new player is going to resuscitate his career on a team. Bringing in another Patrick O'Sullivan/Mike Comrie type isn't going to help. They aren't necessarily bad players, but bringing in more players of their ilk isn't going to turn around the franchise.

So, let's operate on the presumption that the Oilers continue to struggle, fall 10+ points out of a playoff spot, and all hope is loss.

Consider the Chicago/Pittsburgh/ Washington model.

What did all these teams have in common? They all bottomed out. Big time. If you are an undesirable city or a moribund franchise, the easiest way to rebuild is thorough the draft (sidenote: when looking at past draft picks, I usually ignore 2008 and 2009 because it's too soon to see if a player pans out… but I will mention a player if he's made an immediate impact). First, consider the Capitals.

Between 2002-2007, the Capitals had 12 first round draft picks. By bottoming out and receiving the first overall pick in 2004 and the fourth overall pick in 2006, the Caps drafted Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom – arguably the best duo in the NHL. They didn't need to be drafting experts to do this – these were consensus picks. From 2002-2007, the Caps also drafted Simeon Varlamov, Mike Green, Karl Alzner, and Alex Semin in the first round. A few first round picks haven't been huge successes – Jeff Schultz and Eric Fehr, for example – but still log regular NHL minutes.

The Pittsburgh Penguins are much of the same. From 2003-2006, they completely bottomed out (worse than pretty well any team, ever). The Penguins are the luckiest franchise in modern NHL history, and managed to get the first or second overall pick for four consecutive years, and they just happened to have these picks for some of the biggest "can't miss" prospects ever. The Pens selected Marc-Andre Fleury, Evgeni Malkin, Sidney Crosby, and Jordan Staal in consecutive drafts, adding some nice depth players like Tyler Kennedy, Kris Letang, Alex Goligoski (not to mention Daniel Carcillo and Matt Moulson) deeper in drafts. Presto – a few high picks, franchise rebuilt.

The Blackhawks are a bit different, because some of their success was built on pursuing top-end free agents, but drafting obvious players like Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane, 3^rd and 1^st overall in 2006 and 2007 respectively, would turn around any team.

Even the Islanders – the Islanders!! – have been resurrected, with John Tavares playing an important role. Tampa Bay has seen an immediate impact from Steve Stamkos (1^st overall, 2008) and Victor Hedman (2^nd overall, 2009). If you look at teams routinely drafting in the low-teens or even the 7-10 area, the results aren't immediate, or guaranteed to happen at all.

This is probably the biggest reason a Canadian team has not won a Cup since 1993. With rabid fan bases refusing to accept awful teams and general managers pressured into short-term fixes to a) save their jobs or b) silence the critics… teams never make the choice to get worse to eventually get better. The Toronto Maple Leafs finally made this decision last year, bringing in a fall-guy GM (Cliff Fletcher) to make the necessary moves to set things up for the Brian Burke era. Burke, though, ruined things by signing a bunch of short-term fixes, thus repeating the cycle.

Sidenote: There's a funny phenomenon in Oilerville – after the disastrous 1990's, fans think the Oilers have done a better job of drafting. While it may be marginally better, it's still awful. If you look at the drafts from 2002-2007 when the Caps built their roster, the Oilers have struggled. 2002 was their best year despite the inexcusably awful first round selection of Jesse Niinimaki. In the second round the Oilers nabbed Jarret Stoll and Matt Greene, who they have since turned into a 32-year old defenseman. In 2003, Edmonton drafted five players still in the NHL – the problem is those five are Marc Pouliot, J-F Jacques, Zach Stortini, Kyle Brodziak, and Mathieu Roy. 2004 was such a debacle that it appears that fourth-round pick Liam Reddox will be the only one with a NHL career. 2005 was marginal, as the Oilers picked Andrew Cogliano (decent value, but only decent), and Taylor Chorney in the top 36 picks (verdict still out on Chorney). 2006 has been a write-off, and 2007 looks to be an alright draft class and Sam Gagner has been an NHL regular (with that said, as a sixth overall pick, I think Oilers fans were hoping for a player with fewer holes in his game). And while the Oilers drafting can't be excused, it's worth pointing out that Sam Gagner was their first top-10 pick since 1996, and the franchise has only had one top-five pick ever (used, for what I assume was some sort of inside joke, on Jason Bonsignore).

ANYWAY, the Oilers problems aren't as simple as receiving top end draft picks, but that's definitely a start. The team has the second largest cap hit in the league ($61.69 million), and spends more on defenseman than every team except the Toronto Maple Leafs (who, for whatever reason, have about 10 NHL defensemen signed). Unloading bad contracts is very difficult in the modern NHL, and unloading awful contracts is impossible.

With all that acknowledged, I think it's essential the Oilers gut the team once the season starts slipping away (but only after it slips away). Needing to overpay for free agents (Sheldon Souray, Nikolai Khabibulin… even though I like both of them), bring in whoever's available regardless of need (Lubomir Visnovsky, Mike Comrie) and signing players based on expectations rather than results (Horcoff, Tom Gilbert, Robert Nilsson, Fernando Pisani, and Dustin Penner) has put the Oilers in a terrible state that will require years to remedy. I could be wrong, but I think Oilers fans would be more accepting of years of failure if they had a feeling they were building towards something, rather than making moves to strive for short-term mediocrity.

Then again, after watching this year… short-term mediocrity doesn't sound so bad.

The Oilers: What to do, when to do it, and God help us

Grey Cup Observations

The 97th Grey Cup was far from the best Grey Cup in history, but it did have (arguably) the most memorable end. For my last CFL blog of the year, I want to delve into the game that was last night:

Kudos to TSN for devoting approximately 36 hours to the game, proving that they do, indeed, cover something beside hockey. But the actual broadcast of the game was surprisingly amateur at some points. These jump to mind:

• It really was The Saskatchewan Network on Sunday, as 95% of the pre-game and 95% of the in-game was focused on the Riders. I understand the crowd was overwhelmingly pro-Riders, but after the first quarter TSN repeated the same script after every play. Play – crowd shot of rowdy Saskatchewan fans – cut to player who just made the play – cut back to shot of rowdy Saskatchewan fans. That was it. No player reaction, no bench reaction… no variety. Nothing but drunken idiots celebrating an eight-yard gain.
  
• If you install an overhead camera, why not use it?
  
• Grey Cup on the line, :20 to go in a two point game, and there's a debated catch that goes upstairs for review. TSN – incomprehensibly – had all of two cameras on the play, and neither provided super slow-motion (because TSN does not have this technology yet… seriously, it's been out for 10 years and they do not have it). A play that very well could have decided the Grey Cup was left to grainy footage of a play that was probably a catch but couldn't be ruled one in part because the cameras were so crappy.
  
• Glen Suitor is wrong about pretty well everything, and – as if that wasn't bad enough – has to yell his stupid opinion at us all the time. He comes from the Pierre McGuire "support your argument by saying it louder" school of commentary. They also both have the innate ability to get their point across in as many words as possible.
  
• I hate to agree with everyone else, but Blue Rodeo… really? I like some Blue Rodeo, but when you're trying to draw in young viewers etc., get someone somewhat young. There are tons of big-name Canadian acts… I'm sure one of them would be available for a game viewed by nearly five million Canadians.
  

But on to the game:

• The 97^th Grey Cup is going to suffer from a bad case of revisionist's history. Post-game, Jock Climie decreed it "one of the three greatest Grey Cups ever." Um, Jock, did you watch the first half? Through three quarters, the game was almost without a big play and featured stunning incompetence from the always-competent Alouettes. I'm always surprised how often commentators like to forget the beginning of sporting events.
  
• Speaking of revisionist history, Matt Dunigan (sidenote: I love the CFL crew, they're always amusing and pretty knowledgeable, but they weren't their best yesterday) discussed how brilliant Anthony Calvillo was, and how this will silence all his critics. Calvillo was not great, in fact he played his worst game of the year. He was awful in the first half (accounting for three points and fumbling away six) and only started to get going in the third quarter. Outside the final eight minutes, he was somewhere between "awful" and "very poor." I could be wrong, but it felt like the Als changed their gameplan to keep things simpler for him (this is a Montreal team that went downfield regularly during the regular season, but shied away from that last night).
  
• Damon Duval will be remembered as they guy who kicked the game-winning field goal to give Montreal the Grey Cup and sported one of the worst beards in football history. People are likely to forget he had back-to-back punts of 24 and 7 (seven!) yards, averaged 39.8 yards per punt (for perspective, Louis Sakoda, in his first CFL game, averaged 48.2), and shanked what would-have-been the game-deciding kick only to get another chance.
  
• The league got it right in naming Avon Cobourne the MVP. When Montreal was down 16 in the fourth quarter and the game looked completely over, he put Montreal on his back. It was the type of performance needed when their usual best player was misfiring, and more than a few Alouettes appeared to have their doubts.
  
• When Saskatchewan went up 27-11 with under 11 minutes to go, I could not conceive a way in which Montreal would win. It flew in the face of all logic, as Montreal has never been great coming back (0-3 trailing at halftime this year) and never performed well in Grey Cups. Saskatchewan, on the other hand, were something like 12-1 when leading at half, had a quarterback who had the brains to throw it away instead of forcing it into coverage like so many of his counterparts, and proved they could run on the Alouettes (the touchdown drive to go up 27-11 was based on one pass and something like seven runs). All you can say is sometimes goofy things happen in championship games – look at last year's Super Bowl. Pittsburgh had one of the greatest defenses of all time, but were helpless to stop Arizona in the fourth quarter of the final game.
  
• Poor Rob Bagg. A devastating loss, and no doubt a serious shoulder separation.
  

And regarding the final play:

• As much as I dislike Riders fans, I don't think I'd wish a defeat like that on my worst enemy. On second thought, I'm okay with it. Am I the only one who appreciates the irony of all the fans holding the signs that decree themselves the "13th man"? Turns out the 13th man wasn't in the stands... he was in the endzone.
  
• It's surprising that things like this don't happen more often in pro-sports. Emotions running as high as they can run, 50,000 fans screaming, no timeouts, players are shuffling on and off the field… it just seems to me that errors like this are bound to happen slightly more often.
  
• There's not much to add. It is reassuring to know the world has been righted, and the Riders are back to being the team that finds a way to lose.
  

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Anyhoo, two blogs to come this week. I have to talk about the NFL – and why I think both the Indianapolis Colts and the New Orleans Saints won't make it to the Super Bowl – and what to do with the seemingly unfixable mess that is the Edmonton Oilers (spoiler alert: they're screwed).

Grey Cup Observations

The Grey Cup Pick/Latest From Brian Burke

The Regina Rugby Club was formed in 1910, morphing into the Regina Roughriders in 1924. From 1924-1947, the 'Riders toiled in obscurity, winning and accomplishing nothing of note (they did lose six Grey Cup finals in seven years… I thought that was kind of cool). After winning their first Grey Cup (under their current name, the Saskatchewan Roughriders) in 1966, it took another 23 years to win a second. After that second victory, the Saskatchewan franchise seemed pleased with what they had accomplished, returning to the mediocrity that soon became their trademark. This was a relief, because little did we know but Canada had approximately five million Riders fans who were just laying dormant for the 1990's and early 2000's.

Then, in 2007, Saskatchewan made their first Grey Cup appearance in 10 years (much more pathetic when you consider an average CFL team appears in one of every four Grey Cups), and won a relatively dull game against a hobbled Winnipeg Blue Bombers team (sidenote: when does Ryan Dinwiddie officially become an answer to a trivia question?). Saskatchewan fans officially had something to become proud of, and have started invading CFL stadiums – especially in Alberta – proudly bragging about their banjo-playing and wheat-cropping abilities. The Riders have become such a sensation that a few jarring things have happened:

• Saskatchewan accounts for over half of all CFL merchandise sold.
  
• Taylor Field has an American college atmosphere to it. If you watched the West Final, you saw what I'm talking about. No crowd in the CFL even resembles the madness that occurs in Regina.
  
• In part due to their attendance, support, merchandising, and general financial success, Saskatchewan is planning on building a new football stadium… meaning it will be the first new football stadium built in Canada since 1942.
  
• The franchise has become good, populating its team with likeable, homegrown talent.
  

Even with everything turning up Riders, it seemed like it would be a bad year for Saskatchewan. Their general manager has been charged with sexual assault (which has both been forgotten and swept under the rug), they lost their entire linebacking corps (which was the lynch-pin of their team last season), trotted out an all-Canadian receiving corps, and went with an unheralded quarterback, Darian Durant. I thought this season had 6-12 written all over it. Once again, I was wrong.

Saskatchewan was the best team in the West this season, going 10-7-1, and easily beating the Stampeders to advance to the Grey Cup in Calgary, which will serve as a home game for the Riders.

On the other side of the ball are the Montreal Alouettes. The Alouettes are always good, and seemingly always make the Grey Cup. The problem is, of course, that they always lose – since the Anthony Calvillo era began, Montreal is 1-5 in Grey Cups, including four consecutive defeats. But this year is different. You could make an argument in three of the last four losses (and all four if you thought the 2005 Edmonton Eskimos were that good), Montreal was an inferior team that capitalized on a weak division, only to be exposed against a superior West Division team in the final. However, this season Montreal is stacked at every position (and like Saskatchewan, boast great local talent), and seemed to make a point of beating West Division teams – going 6-2, only losing to B.C. thanks to a suspicious officiating decision and to Edmonton for reasons unknown.

I think even the most diehard Riders fan would agree that Montreal is the better team, but the playing field should be level considering it's a quasi-home game for the Riders. Worst case, it should be a competitive final that really could go either way.

My Pick: Montreal 31 Saskatchewan 29

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But, let's move on to more important sporting news – the above is, after all, just the final of a sports league.

I must – I need – to discuss a hard-hitting, tear-jerking, mind-blowing, hyphen-inducing segment produced by TSN a few days ago.

The segment, titled "Breaking Down Walls," was a seven-minute feature on their hockey program, which also received four minutes of coverage on SportsCenter. The topic was Brendan Burke, son of the omnipotent general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Brian Burke. Brendan, as it turns out, is…

Gay.

Oh, no. Oh, yes!

Now, let's look past the fact that TSN decided to devote considerable time to a story about the son of a general manager who has no affiliation with the NHL. There's plenty to talk to besides that, like:

• A clearly uncomfortable James Duthie conducted the interview (I'm not sure if he was uncomfortable because of the subject matter or because he had Brian Burke sitting directly to his left). Yes, that's right, the interview. Brian was in-studio, while Brendan was available via video feed.
  
• Duthie started asking questions, including my favourite, which went something like this. "Now, Brendan… when you… decided to come out…. It must have been… a very difficult time. We understand you told Brian last – telling the rest of your family ahead of time." *Dramatic Pause* "Why? Why did you tell Brian last?" To which Brendan responds "Oh, I just saw everyone else beforehand." Whoops!
  
• This wasn't even a new story – this had been published two years ago. It was just mentioned on ESPN.com, meaning TSN felt it needed an in-depth segment.
  
• Duthie inquires what this means for professional sports and its ability to accept a gay athlete. Perhaps he should have asked a professional athlete instead of a student manager of a team.
  
• Senior Burke, in his delightfully crusty way, declared his boy is a "wonderful kid" and "it doesn't change anything." He also announced the Leafs are ready/have been ready to hire a gay employee any time, which both opened the door for him to award his son a job and outdated the Leafs hiring process that prominently featured a "NO GAYS ALLOWED" rule on their hiring questionnaire.
  
• This segment accomplished the seemingly impossible. A general manager of a team who ran a franchise into the ground and has won five of his first 23 games in charge managed to sit down for an interview in TSN's hockey studio… without ever having to discuss his team or even mention their name.
  
• Darryl Sutter has a son who is a known serial killer… not even a mention.
  

A month ago, when TSN did a lengthy segment of a Toronto resident who had painted a mural of famous Maple Leafs in his house, I thought that was "bottoming out." Looks like I was wrong about this, too.

The Grey Cup Pick/Latest From Brian Burke