Author: greggdrinnan

Welcome back, Jack! . . . Are you ready for Riders Trivia? . . . Fortier finds work in Texas

Good news is great for the soul.

Right?

OK, here’s some good news.

Jack Redlick, the Alberta Midget Hockey League’s coach of the year for 2018-19, has returned to the St. Albert Raiders as their head coach.

Redlick, a former WHLer (Kamloops, Vancouver, Regina, 2000-03), sat out the 2019-20 season after being seriously injured in an accident on June 29. Redlick, 36, was riding his motorcycle near Idaho Falls, Idaho, when another motorcycle driver crossed the centre line and struck him head-on.

In March, Redlick posted this on Facebook:

Redlick
Jack Redlick is fit and ready to get back into the coaching game. (Photo: Jack Redlick/Facebook)

“On my birthday eight months ago I got a birthday gift that forever changed my life. When a man crossed the centre line and hit me head on. After almost three months in the hospital, eight surgeries, an amputation and 55 pounds later, today I took my first running steps. I’ve figured out how to skate again and although neither running nor skating is pretty. I’m back, and it will only get better.

“I’ve had so many people say they are sorry this happened to me. My response is always the same: ‘Don’t be, you should be happy for me, I shouldn’t be here.’

“As coaches we always teach our players that in both hockey and life there are only two things you can truly control — your work ethic and your attitude. Might as well make what you can control positive in nature. Things happen for a reason. No sense bitching about it. Just OORAH up, and accept the challenge no matter the obstacles. Don’t waste your time with the negativity. Focus on the process and not the result. Live in those 10-second evolutions. Lol.

“All those hockey cliches that I preached to my players over the years, I’ve had to live by for the last eight months. Sport truly does reflect life.”

With all that Redlick has been through since the end of March, it’s great to see him back and eager to get started. So here’s hoping that the next hockey season gets started on time.

Here is some more good news; well, it is if you’re a fan of the Saskatchewan Roughriders or even just looking for something to do on a nightly basis. . . . Rob Vanstone of the Regina Leader-Post holds a Riders Trivia gathering every night at 9 o’clock CT. . . . You will find him on Twitter at @robvanstone and that will get you started.

Northland Properties, which is huge in the hospitality industry, has laid off thousands of workers, according to Bob Mackin of thebreaker.news. . . . Tom Gaglardi, who owns the NHL’s Dallas Stars and is the majority owner of the WHL’s Kamloops Blazers, is Northland’s president. His father, Bob, is the organization’s founder. . . . The company, which is based in Vancouver, had about 12,000 employees before all of this hit. Taj Kassam, the senior vice-president of corporate affairs, wouldn’t tell Mackin how many had been laid off. . . . Mackin’s story is right here.

The government of the province of Quebec wants sporting events cancelled through Aug. 31. The ban also will apply to cultural events and festivals. . . . However, the Montreal Impact of the MLS has said that it was told none of this will apply to professional sports teams. . . .

The Rogers Cup women’s tennis tournament, which had been scheduled for Montreal from Aug. 7-16, has been postponed to Aug. 6-15, 2021. . . . Chances are that the men’s tournament, set for Toronto at the same time, also will be postponed. . . .

The XFL appears to have left us, without being able to complete its first season. The spring football league suspended its inaugural season on March 12. It now has laid off all employees and is refunding money to those who purchased 2021 season tickets. . . . Kevin Seifert and Field Yates of ESPN reported that the XFL “currently has no plans to return in 2021.” . . . Headline at fark.com: EXFL. . . .

Earlier this week, the 13-team National Lacrosse League cancelled the remainder of its regular season. It had suspended play on March 12. In a statement, the league said “officials are looking at any number of scenarios to return to play when all stakeholders and health officials deem that possible. There is no timeline on when decisions will be made.” . . . The NLL includes franchises in Calgary, Halifax, Saskatchewan, Toronto and Vancouver. . . .

With Japan now struggling to contain COVID-19, Toshiro Muto, the CEO of the organizing committee for the Tokyo Olympic Summer Games, has cast some doubt on whether they will be held in 2021. “I don’t think anyone would be able to say if it is going to be possible to get it under control by next July or not,” he said on Friday. “We certainly are not in a position to give you a clear answer.” . . . The Games were to have been held in July. They have been postponed to July 23, 2021, with the Paralympics to start on Aug. 24. . . .

Los Angeles County has extended what it calls its “safer-at-home” order through May 15. It was first set in place at midnight on March 20. . . .

The 2020 Cloverdale, B.C., Rodeo and Country Fair has been cancelled. It had been scheduled to run from May 15-18. . . . The Falkland, B.C., Stampede that is a May long weekend tradition has been postponed until Aug. 28-30. The Stampede was first held in 1919.

The Thought for the Day from Jack Finarelli, aka The Sports Curmudgeon, this one from Will Rogers: “There are men running governments who shouldn’t be allowed to play with matches.”

Stephanie Apstein of Sports Illustrated has taken a look at some of the ideas that have been floated regarding the potential return of pro sports to our entertainment landscape. . . . Word of warning: There isn’t any false hope in her story. All you will find here is reality. . . . Like this from Zach Binney, who has a PhD in epidemiology and teaches at Emory U in Atlanta:

“If people just decide to let it burn in most areas and we do lose a couple million people it’d probably be over by the fall. You’d have football. You’d also have two million dead people. And let’s talk about that number. We’re really bad at dealing with big numbers. That is a Super Bowl blown up by terrorists, killing every single person in the building, 24 times in six months. It’s 9/11 every day for 18 months. What freedoms have we given up, what wars have we fought, what blood have we shed, what money have we spent in the interest of stopping one more 9/11? This is 9/11 every day for 18 months.”

Think about that for a bit as we await decisions by the NHL, NBA, MLB, NFL and so many others.

Conspiracy

Jason Fortier is the new head coach of the Odessa Jackalopes of the junior North American Hockey League. They play out of Odessa, Texas. . . . Fortier signed on as general manager of hockey operations and head coach. . . . Fortier is the BCHL’s reigning coach of the year after guiding the Coquitlam Express to the league’s best regular-season record. . . . Fortier left the Express late in March. Long-time BCHL observer Brian Wiebe reported at the time that Fortier wasn’t able to reach agreement on a contract with Express owner Fayaz Manji.

Tom Webster, a former NHL coach who played in the NHL and WHA, died on Friday morning. He was 71. . . . Webster was a brother to Barry Webster, a long-time member of the Moose Jaw Warriors’ board of directors. . . . Helene Elliott of the Los Angeles Times has more on Tom Webster right here.

Condolences to old friend Daryl Lubiniecki on the death of Lolamae, his wife of 53 years. She left us on Thursday after battling cancer. . . . There is a complete obituary right here. . . . Daryl served the Saskatoon Blades as general manager, head coach and advisor and also worked with the Prince George Cougars over a long career in the WHL. He also supplied us with more laughs than should have been legally allowed.

Hey, travellers, enough with the lack of respect . . .

Let me tell you why I am feeling frustrated, dejected, ashamed, embarrassed, pissed off and a whole lot more.

I had been sailing, sailing, sailing through this COVID-19 mess — at least, I thought I was doing pretty well. Until now. Good Friday, 6:30 p.m.

Dorothy and I went for a walk in mid-afternoon. We live in Campbell Creek, just east of Kamloops, and walk along a road on the south side of the South Thompson River.

I always walk further than she does, and halfway through I will take a break, sit for a few minutes on a retaining wall and watch the traffic on the Trans-Canada Highway. Hey, every boy loves to watch the big rigs. Right?

On this day, considering all of the politicians and health officials who had been pleading with people to stay home, recommending that they not travel, asking them to avoid family gatherings, I was rather surprised to see how much small vehicle traffic there was going in both directions.

I mean, smaller communities throughout the province were begging non-residents to stay away, petrified that someone from outside would bring the virus into areas that don’t have the medical necessities with which to deal with it.

So, sheesh, I wondered, where is everyone going?

When we returned home, social media, as it had been on Thursday evening, was full of stories of people travelling throughout B.C.

Then, after dinner, I came across a tweet, featuring a few seconds of video, from Tina Lovgreen of CBC Vancouver.

The gent being interviewed — yeah, the one with the smug look on his face — was headed somewhere in the Gulf Islands. Apparently, he also is tone deaf; why else would he agree to be interviewed on camera on this subject?

Anyway . . . asked what might happen if he got ill while there, he looked at the young girl beside him, presumably his daughter, and said: “Not too worried. We’ll bring in a helicopter to bring us out. Right?”

Well, sir, you got to me. Oh, did you ever!

I’m sorry, but I am sick and tired of people like you and the lack of respect that you and others like you are showing to people like my wife.

Dorothy-040719
Dorothy Drinnan: Hugger extraordinaire!

Dorothy is one of thousands of people who live in B.C., and have compromised immune systems. As I have written before, if you passed her on a sidewalk or in a small cafe, you would never know that she is in that situation.

You would never know that she had a kidney transplant more than six years ago, and that she takes anti-rejection drugs twice a day. You would never know that she spent almost four years doing peritoneal dialysis, hooking up to a machine called a cycler every night — EVERY SINGLE DAMN NIGHT — just to stay alive.

And there are all kinds of people with various health problems in the same predicament. In the case of transplant patients, they take drugs in order to keep their bodies from rejecting their new organs, which really are foreign to their systems. In the process of doing that, these drugs suppress the immune systems. These people will take these drugs for the rest of their lives.

That is why the virus that has us in this predicament is so dangerous to them. There isn’t a vaccine for it; there isn’t even a treatment. You can’t imagine anything worse if you don’t have much of an immune system.

While you thumb your nose at all these people with your weekend jaunt, let me tell you a bit about Dorothy.

She is everything I’m not.

OK. Let me tell you a bit about me first. I’m cynical, skeptical, pessimistic, grouchy, miserable and all of that, which is what comes with having worked in the newspaper business for more than 40 years.

Dorothy is a positive person. She loves nothing more than to hug people, something she hasn’t been able to do for a few weeks now, and you have no idea how hard that is on her.

We have been in self-isolation for four weeks now. She hasn’t been in a grocery store in all that time. We order online; if we need something between orders, I go in the store. We have ordered takeout food a couple of times; I’ve gone into the restaurant to get the food.

It was her birthday on Thursday. We went to a favourite restaurant to get some takeout — ate it in their parking lot. She couldn’t even go in to say hi to some of her favourite people.

Shortly after Dorothy found out that she had kidney disease — she was found to have only one kidney and it already had started the downhill slide — she volunteered in the dialysis ward of a Regina hospital. She wanted to help others, while getting a look at what she might be faced with somewhere down the road.

After her transplant, she co-founded the Kamloops Kidney Support Group, and she is one of the organizers of Kidney Walk Kamloops. In each of the six years she has taken part, she has been the Walk’s leading individual fund-raiser. She helps put together an annual Christmas dinner for the kidney community.

She also volunteers at Overlander Residential Care, an assisted living facility in Kamloops. Whenever she gets a text or a phone call asking her if she could come by and play the piano — she plays by ear — her face lights up like a full moon. She often joins in taking residents shopping or to medical appointments. It has pained her not to be able to go there for the past few weeks.

Sir, while you and others of your ilk are ignoring all the pleas and the recommendations, Dorothy has been stuck here with me. No, she can’t travel to Burnaby to see our son, his pregnant wife and Kara, our only grandchild.

Oh, we could arrange to meet somewhere in a parking lot in Abbotsford or Chilliwack and try to keep our distance for an hour or two. But how do you keep a granddaughter, who is soon to turn four, from running to her grandmother for a hug?

Of course, you can’t. So because of a weakened immune system, we will continue to stay home, not travel, and try to do our best to help, you know, flatten the curve while we await the arrival of a miracle or a vaccine, whichever comes first.

In the meantime, don’t concern yourself with any of the people in the medical community who are fighting this from the front lines, or the good folks who continue to keep the shelves stocked in the grocery stores.

Don’t bother yourself with any of this talk about a curve or dead people or intensive care or hospitalizations. Hey, you know that it’ll never happen to you and yours, so you just go right ahead and enjoy your weekend.

I just hope the helicopter isn’t busy if you need it.

One hockey academy on outside looking in . . . Time to think about Christmas shopping? . . . TRU v-ball team adds hockey bloodlines

With all that has happened over the past few weeks, and the way things seem likely to continue for the next while, you really have to wonder how much trepidation there is in the business of hockey academies.

With unemployment rates skyrocketing, many small businesses struggling, with more of them shuttering every day, and with some borders closed and a lot of other travel not recommended, you really wonder what our world is going to look like six months from now, a year from now . . .

Whenever we are able to come out the other end of this situation are families going to have the money necessary, in most cases more than $20,000 a year, to have children attend hockey academies?

Meanwhile, the West Vancouver Hockey Academy, which started in 2015 and operated out of Sentinel Secondary and the Hollyburn Country Club, is done, at least for one season. That decision didn’t have anything to do with the finances of parents.

In January, the West Vancouver School District told the academy’s owner, the Spartan Sport Group (SSG), that it wasn’t renewing its agreement for 2020-21. After getting that news, SSG had hoped to cut a deal with Seycove Secondary in North Vancouver, but that isn’t going to happen.

Earlier this week, Jane Seyd of the North Shore News reported that a letter to Seycove parents from North Vancouver school superintendent Mark Pearmain informed them that a decision on an agreement has been suspended.

The West Van Warriors were part of the Canadian Sport School Hockey League, with teams at the midget prep, elite 15, bantam prep and bantam varsity levels.

One of West Van’s student/athletes was Connor Bedard, a 15-year-old from North Vancouver who has been granted exceptional status by Hockey Canada and is expected to be selected first overall by the Regina Pats in the WHL’s 2020 bantam draft.

Seyd and Andy Prest reported in February that money didn’t have anything to do with the West Vancouver School District’s decision on West Van.

A letter to parents stated that the decision was due to “concerns about academic success, and other challenges such as student programming and scheduling as well as the increased enrolment at Sentinel.”

Seyd and Prest reported that “fewer than half the players” attending the academy were from North or West Vancouver, “with several coming from across the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley and others from more distant locales such as Vancouver Island, Kelowna, Saskatoon, Denver and Beijing.”

In the end, though, it could be that West Van was done in, at least in part, by COVID-19. At least one meeting that was to have been held involving Seycove parents was postponed because of the physical distancing restraints now in place. According to Seyd, Pearmain told parents that things have been suspended because officials haven’t been able to have a proper consultation process.

Seyd’s complete story is right here.

Dense

I am here to tell you that Jack Finarelli, aka The Sports Curmudgeon, was at his best in his Thursday rant. He wrote a lot about changes he would like to see come to his favourite sports once they are back in our lives. . . . Changes like:

“In MLB — and even in some minor league games — players come to bat with walk-up music.  It is stupid and not part of the game.  Any player who allows walk-up music to be played for him should also expect to hear Chopin’s Funeral March played for him every time he makes an out. . . .

“Any golf writer who focuses on anything Tiger Woods says or does in a tournament where Woods is 15 shots off the lead should be banned from covering golf and made to cover camel racing in Saudi Arabia.”

He was on his game and it’s all right here.

——

The curmudgeonly one’s Thought for the Day comes from Will Rogers: “Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people that they don’t like.”

ICYMI, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in his daily address, told us Thursday morning:

“Normality as it was before will not come back full-on until we get a vaccine for this. . . . That will be a very long way off.”

Then, in French, he added: “We will have to remain vigilant for at least a year.”

Might be a good time to think about starting your Christmas shopping because delivery times may be about to get lengthier than they already are.

Bass

Santa Clara County in California is home to the San Francisco 49ers (NFL), San Jose Sharks (NHL) and the San Jose Earthquakes (MSL), as well as three major universities. . . . On Tuesday, Jeff Smith, the SCC executive officer, told his board of supervisors that “I don’t expect we’ll have any sports games until at least Thanksgiving, and we’ll be lucky to have them by Thanksgiving. This is not going to be something that is easy to do.”

FYI, American Thanksgiving will arrive on Nov. 28.

According to the San Jose Mercury News, Smith added:

““When the orders are weakened, it’s pretty much guaranteed there will be new infections because, at least at this point, there’s no herd immunity for those who are uninfected.

“There will definitely be individuals who will get sick. And because there are individuals who get sick, there will be individuals who die after the order is released, unless we come up with a foolproof immunization, which is highly unlikely.”

One of these days, the NHL will get around to cancelling what is left of its 2019-20 season, including the playoffs. Around that same time, perhaps even on the same day, the NBA will follow suit.

After that, it will be Major League Baseball’s turn, although the boys of summer likely will hold out a lot longer just in case Agent Orange was right when he said the virus will die off in the heat.

Then it will be the turn of the big dog — football.

The college football season is about 140 days away. Mike Gundy, the head coach at Oklahoma State, shot holes in both his feet this week when suggesting he wanted to get his program up and rolling on May 1. Uhh, that’s not going to happen, as Pat Forde of Sports Illustrated points out right here.

In another SI piece, this one by Forde and Ross Dellenger, it becomes evident that athletic directors throughout the NCAA are beginning to face up to the fact that football, the engine that drives everything in their world, may well be about to go away for at least part of a season and maybe for the whole thing.

But no matter how you look at it, the numbers in this piece right here are mind-boggling and you have to wonder if college football — indeed, college sports — will ever get back to such a level again.

Here is Pete Blackburn of CBS Sports with one of the decisions many of us are faced with on a daily basis in these strange times:

“If you’re working from home, when do you prefer to brush your teeth? I feel like that’s the most difficult decision I have to make each day. I could brush them first thing in the morning but I know I’m going to be drinking coffee right after that so, like, what’s the point? But sometimes I drink coffee right up until lunch, and by the time lunch rolls around I’m not thinking about brushing my teeth. So basically what I’m saying here is that I keep forgetting to brush my teeth lately. I am a disgusting troll.”

The Thompson Rivers University WolfPack men’s volleyball announced an interesting signing on Thursday in the person of Maxim Turgeon, a 6-foot-6 outside hitter/middle from Calgary. . . . His father is former NHLer Sylvain Turgeon, an an uncle is another former NHLer, Pierre Turgeon. . . . Two of Maxim’s former teammates with the Canuck club in Calgary also are playing at TRU.

Fish

Western kidney walks cancelled, go online . . . Transplants in B.C. on case-by-case basis for now

Kidney walks that were scheduled to be held in B.C., the Yukon, the Territories, Alberta and Saskatchewan in 2020 have been cancelled.

That includes the annual Kamloops Kidney Walk, which was to have been held at McDonald Park on Sept. 20. Most other walks had been scheduled for June 7.

The Kidney Foundation of Canada, BC & Yukon Branch now has partnered with foundations in Alberta and Saskatchewan, and all will be holding virtual walks on June 7, leading up to them with a Walk the Block campaign.

“Our kidney community needs our support more than ever,” reads a release from the foundation. “With growing economic and health-related uncertainties impacting kidney patients, we know the need for assistance will grow in the coming months. Kidney Walk is a significant source of revenue, which allows us to provide our vital support programs to patients.”

For more information, feel free to visit kidneywalk.ca or the Walk the Block page that is right here.

Dorothy, my wife of more than a few years, was preparing to take part in her seventh straight Kidney Walk. Despite the Kamloops Walk having been cancelled, she still is fund-raising, which is her way of giving back because she has been there and knows how many kidney patients this money helps support.

If you like, you may donate to Dorothy’s team right here.

Organ transplants in B.C. are pretty much on hold these days, with everything being looked at on a case-by-case basis. . . . Maria Weisgarber of CTV News Vancouver writes:

“BC Transplant told CTV News Vancouver ‘urgent and life-saving’ donations and transplants are moving forward on a case-by-case basis right now, if deemed safe and appropriate by care providers. The organization said the decision to take the case by case approach is ‘not one health care professionals take lightly, because we know how important these surgeries are for people who are waiting for a transplant.’ ” . . . As Weisgarber explains, this means that the process of screening donors also is on held. . . . Her story is right here.

If you are interested in being a living kidney donor, more information is available here:

Living Kidney Donor Program

St. Paul’s Hospital

6A Providence Building

1081 Burrard Street

Vancouver, BC V6Z 1Y6

Tel: 604-806-9027

Toll free: 1-877-922-9822

Fax: 604-806-9873

Email: donornurse@providencehealth.bc.ca

CFL delays start until at least July . . . MLB’s Arizona option gets panned . . . Heartfelt tribute to Jack Bowkus

The CFL’s regular season was to have started on June 11. The training season was to have opened in mid-May with rookie camps; main camps were set to start on May 13.

The CFL now says it won’t get started until sometime in July at the earliest.

With the cities of Calgary and Ottawa having locked down all facilities through June 30, the CFL really wasn’t left with much choice.

The league still hopes to play a full season, meaning 18 regular-season games for each team. But that doesn’t seem likely with the Grey Cup game scheduled for Regina on Nov. 22.

Here’s what Pat Neufeld, an offensive lineman with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, told Ed Tait of bluebombers.com:

“It’s tough. I’m still hopeful, but nobody knows how any of this is going to play out. It’s going to evolve over time, but now it’s a matter of keeping people safe.

“This is bigger than sports and entertainment right now. People have to stay patient and stay hopeful and understand this. We’ll get through this and eventually we’ll have football.”

In the meantime, Major League Baseball apparently has been discussing options, one of which would involve taking all of its 30 teams to Arizona, holding mini-training camps of some sort, and then playing regular-season games in empty facilities throughout the state.

Joel Sherman of the New York Post has taken a look at MLB, this particular option and the logistical nightmare that would be involved in making it work. That’s all right here.

——

Here’s Larry Stone of the Seattle Times:

“But this possible plan floated by MLB — which likes to send out more trial balloons than the United States Weather Service — is rife with holes, wishful thinking, dangerous assumptions and unsolvable quandaries.

“Beyond that, is it really wise to be putting so aggressive a timeline on baseball’s return at a time when the full scope of coronavirus’ devastation is still being felt?

“As much as we all covet the return of live sports in general, public health is still paramount, and I have a hard time wrapping my brain around how this advances that cause. COVID-19 is not an illness that adheres to the calendar. We’ve already learned in painful fashion, as the reopening of various elements of society keep getting pushed back. To think we can control the timeline borders on recklessness.”

Stone’s entire column is right here.

——

I have to think MLB would have a hard time selling that plan to players and their wives. Here are three tweets from Eireann Dolan, the wife of Washington Nationals’ reliever Sean Doolittle:

“Ok now what about the non-millionaire hotel workers, security staff, grounds crews, media members, team traveling staffs, clubhouse attendants, janitorial workers, food service workers, and the billion other people required to make that 3.5 hour game happen every night?”

“Y’all asking them to stay at their current salaries but also stay locked inside Baseball Biodome for an indefinite amount of time away from their families during a GD pandemic? This is a reckless and irresponsible kernel of an idea. Shut it down.”

“Let me clarify that I really want baseball back. But not if it’s not done safely, not if it requires sacrifices like this from people who make minimum wage, and not if it means redirecting badly needed medical and testing supplies away from the public and to a sports league.”

——

When looking at this one MLB option, the naysayers are forgetting one thing. It was just last month when Agent Orange told some state governors: “The virus that we’re talking about having to do, a lot of people think that goes away in April, with the heat, as the heat comes in, typically that will go away in April.” . . . Well, it gets real hot — REAL HOT! — in Arizona in the heart of the summer. So, if we are to believe Agent Orange, as millions seem to do, well, maybe MLB is on to something here.

Gaugin

The NFL’s 32 teams are to hold their 2020 draft April 23-25. It will be a virtual draft with everyone involved operating from the safety of their own homes.

So how might all of this work out. Here’s Pete Blackburn of CBS Sports:

“It’ll be interesting to see how the NFL approaches a fully virtual draft from a technical standpoint, not to mention how it’ll be covered on TV. I feel like there’s a good chance of chaos here. Are we going to see pets/toddlers/shirtless dads interrupt draft interviews on Skype? What if technology fails? What if Bill Belichick manages to hack the mainframe and rig the whole thing?

“If my experience with fully virtual fantasy football drafts is any indication, most GMs will be way too drunk by the middle rounds and at least two players will be auto picked after the front office loses wifi connection.”

When Pro Football Focus asked “Best defence in sports history?”, the response from @SportsPickle was “O.J. Simpson’s.” . . . Hey, hard to argue with that.

Gator

The plan was for NBC to provide 7,500 hours of content on various platforms from the 2020 Olympic Summer Games in Tokyo in July. Of course, those Games now are scheduled for 2021. . . . Jack Finarelli, aka The Sports Curmudgeon, had a couple of ideas on how NBC will fill the time now:

“NBC has a cache of Law and Order SUV episodes that date back about 20 years.  If they play them sequentially as reruns, we can watch Marissa Hargitay’s career progression from Detective through Captain.

“NBC has available reruns of Chicago Fire, Chicago P.D and Chicago Med.  Maybe they will have time to produce a few episodes of a new series — Chicago Veterinarian — to augment that line of broadcasting.”

The curmudgeonly one’s Tuesday offering is right here.

——

And here is his Thought of the Day, this one from H.L. Mencken: “A judge is a law student who grades his own examination papers.”

The Canadian Grand Prix that was to have been held in Montreal, June 12-14, has been postponed. Formula One’s first eight races have either been cancelled (two) or postponed (six). The Canadian race is No. 8 on the calendar. . . . A further decision is expected this month. . . .

Former NHLer Craig Ramsay is the head coach of the Slovakian national men’s hockey team. He said Tuesday that he is forsaking his salary while he, like so many others, is unemployed and waiting to go back to work. . . . Ramsay is believed to be earning €140,000 a season, which is about Cdn$213,000. . . .

Hills

Trudeau: Today, we remember . . .

Michael McCann is the legal analyst for Sports Illustrated and writes regularly for SI’s website.

In his latest piece, he writes about the legal implications involved in a return to play by professional sports leagues.

It really isn’t as simple as bringing players back to a central location, holding some sort of training camp, and then playing games. Oh no! There’s a whole lot more to it than that in these bizarre times.

You can give him a read right here.

——

And what if Major League Baseball ends up opening its season by having teams play in facilities without any fans.

Well, there is precedent from 2015 . . .

As Bruce Jenkins wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle, Tim Kurkjian, the longtime baseball writer/analyst with ESPN, was in Baltimore when baseball got a taste of the no-fans experience. It was the spring of 2015 and the city was in chaos over the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who suffered severe spinal-cord damage while in police custody. Violent protests raged over the issues of race, justice and police brutality, and it was determined that if the April 29 game between the Orioles and Chicago White Sox were to be played at Camden Yards, the public could not be allowed inside.

“Strangest day I’ve ever known in sports,” Kurkjian said in a telephone interview this week. “Chris Davis hit a three-run homer in the first inning, and you could hear the sound of it landing. He rounded the bases in total silence in his home ballpark. (Manager) Buck Showalter told me he could hear every word the TV guys (Mid-Atlantic Sports Network’s Gary Thorne and Jim Palmer) were saying. And Buck didn’t need the bullpen phone. He just yelled down there, ‘Get (Zack) Britton up!’”

Kurkjian admitted it was “pretty cool, for that day. But if it happens several times in a week, it’s no longer a novelty. After that, I think we should all be pretty careful.”

Survival

While we don’t have any idea when professional golf will return, the British Open officially was cancelled on Monday. It had been scheduled for Royal St. George’s from July 16-19, and now is set for July 15-18, 2021. The 2022 Open Championship, the 150th, is to be played at St. Andrews. . . .

The Masters, which was to have been played this week, has been rescheduled for Nov. 12-15 at Augusta. . . . The U.S. Open is to be played at Harding Park in San Francisco, Aug. 6-9, with the U.S. Open at Winged Foot, Sept. 17-20. . . .

If you’re wondering about the Canadian Open, it remains on the PGA schedule at St. George’s Golf and Country Club in Toronto, June 11-14.

Scott Ostler, in the San Francisco Chronicle: “I agree with my esteemed (and sometimes steamed) fellow columnist, Bruce Jenkins, that it will be weird if the NBA plays games without fans, because of the lack of crowd noise. But there would be two benefits. We’d get to hear the game — the squeaks, the growls, the talking, the swearing. And we would be spared the incessant PA sound effects during play, which add nothing to the experience for fans in the arena or watching on TV.”

Jack Finarelli, aka The Sports Curmudgeon, brings us his Thought of the Day, this one from Mark Twain: “Truth is might and will prevail. There is nothing wrong with this, except that it ain’t so.”

——

BTW, The Sports Curmudgeon was at his best in Monday’s rant, where he speculates about what we will see when we emerge from this tunnel.

He points out that even with all that we are missing — from March Madness to the NHL to the NBA and on and on — “the world goes on; and as time passes without the presence of these pleasant activities, people may very well come to a point where sports reside on a lower tier of their life-importance construct. If — I said IF — that comes to pass in a significant number of people, that may mean a much smaller demand for high priced tix and a much diminished willingness to approve spending large blocks of taxpayer money to build sporting venues. If interest diminishes, TV ratings would likely drop too and that will make ever-increasing TV rights deals a bad revenue projection for leagues and owners.”

He’s got more to say on the subject and it’s all right here.

Shower

Veteran junior coach Mike Vandekamp has left the BCHL’s Cowichan Capitals to join the AJHL’s Grande Prairie Storm, signing a three-year deal as general manager and head coach. . . . Vandekamp spent two seasons as the Capitals’ GM and head coach. . . . Whenever the next season begins, it will be Vandekamp’s 26th as a junior hockey coach. . . . Vandekamp is returning to Grande Storm, where he coached the Storm for four seasons (2007-11), going 154-72-19 and winning the AJHL title in 2009. He has spent the past nine seasons in the BCHL. . . . In Grande Prairie, he takes over from Ryan Aasman, who stepped in as interim head coach on Dec. 17 after the firing of Matt Keillor.

The boys grab some sticks and win a game

I wrote this two years ago. . . . Here it is once again as we remember . . .

The boys played a hockey game last night. Yes, they shook off the rust and away they went.

They did pretty well, too, getting 37 saves from goaltender Parker Tobin in posting an 8-0 victory before a world-wide audience.

Tobin was making his first appearance with his new team, having been acquired from the junior A Humboldt Broncos in exchange for defenceman Xavier Labelle earlier in the day.

“We were fortunate we got a great performance from Tobin and our top scorers scored,” said general manager/head coach Darcy Haugan.

The boys were led by the line of Jaxon Joseph, Logan Schatz and Evan Thomas, who combined for 12 points, including six goals.

There was a scary moment early in the second period when Schatz appeared to catch an edge as he cut behind Tobin’s net. Schatz crumpled to the ice and for a moment it looked as though he had suffered a knee injury. Athletic therapist Dayna Brons, the only girl on the boys team, was quick to the scene. She helped Schatz to the dressing room and was able to get him back to the bench before too much time had elapsed.

“She’s got magic fingers and she’s great with tape,” said Schatz, who also is the team captain. “If there’s an MVP on this team, she’s it. I don’t know where we’d be without her.”

Haugan was thrilled when Schatz returned to the bench and Brons signalled that the captain was OK to go.

“That allowed us to keep our lines intact and to execute our game plan to a T,” Haugan said. “We wanted our power play to obviously be big. We didn’t expect it to be that big so we’re very fortunate. You need your top guys to be your best guys and they were.”

The boys counted five times on eight power-play opportunities and that really was huge.

Joseph finished with three goals and an assist, with Schatz chipping in two of each, and Thomas putting up a goal and three helpers.

Defenceman Adam Herold, the youngest player on the team, and forward Conner Lukan also scored. Lukan was skating alongside Jacob Leicht and Logan Hunter, and that threesome easily could have had four or five more goals. Hunter recorded two assists, with Leicht getting one. Defenceman Stephen Wack also had one assist.

As for the opposition, Haugan said, they “stepped up all night, they were relentless. Obviously our guys did a good job of keeping everything to the outside and didn’t allow them to penetrate to the middle of the ice. We did get a couple of breaks so we did get lucky but all-in-all to escape with a 1-0 lead after one, we’ll gladly take it.”

Defenceman Logan Boulet showed a lot of heart and leadership in earning six assists for the boys.

“I felt great out there,” Boulet said. “I was using a Brad McCrimmon model stick and, man, I really was able to throw some great saucer passes out there. And I don’t know that the stick had anything to do with it, but I never wanted to leave the ice.”

Haugan added: “(Boulet) was a beast out there.”

Ahh, yes, the sticks.

Haugan said one of the toughest tasks he and assistant coach Mark Cross faced was getting the players to pick out the sticks they wanted to use.

“I have never seen or heard of a team having such a wide selection to choose from,” Haugan said. “There were sticks everywhere. We may have to build some kind of stick warehouse to house them all.”

After the game, the boys admitted to being quite excited about having been able to replace one of their travelling staples.

“One of the boys picked up a copy of Slap Shot,” Haugan said. “He got it from somewhere in Portland, I think. You can’t be on the road without Reggie Dunlop and Slap Shot, but our original DVD got broken somehow and, let me tell you, there were some broken hearts when that happened.

“But all’s well that ends well.”

It’s worth pointing out that the boys led 1-0 after the first period, which was played in Chicago Stadium. They were up 4-0 after the second, which was played in Maple Leaf Gardens. The teams played the final period in the Montreal Forum. The travel arrangements were all under the control of Glen Doerksen, the team’s travelling secretary.

So . . . what’s next for the boys?

Well, Haugan said, the coaches are well aware that focusing on one sport isn’t the way to go.

“The guys are talking about wanting to play some baseball,” Haugan said. “Apparently, some guy in Iowa built a ball diamond in a cornfield. So I think we’re wanting to give that a try.

“But we’ll have to scrounge some bats, balls and gloves first.”

JUST NOTES: There was a third man behind the bench with Haugan and Cross and Haugan later revealed that he has added Brock Hirsche to his coaching staff. Hirsche played in the WHL with the Prince George Cougars, then returned to his hometown to play with the U of Lethbridge Pronghorns. . . .

Also joining the boys is Jonathan Pitre, who is incredibly popular with the media and will handle public and media relations. . . .

Tyler Bieber, an up-and-coming play-by-play voice, called last night’s game on 107.5 FM (aka The Prayer), with sports fanatic Brody Hinz handling the analysis and statistics, including zone entries and Corsi. . . .

(Christopher Lee of the Humboldt Journal may recognize some of the quotes here. Thanks for loaning them to me.)

Scattershooting on a Sunday night while wondering if we need more bananas . . .

Scattershooting

Let me tell you a little about where we’re at in our household right now, and I have a feeling there are others in the same boat.

If you’re not aware, Dorothy and I are both considered at risk these days; she has a compromised immune system from a kidney transplant; I have heart disease.

So we are trying hard to limit exposure to other people, which is why we ordered groceries online for the first time a few days ago. She had the list; I was at the keyboard. Bananas were on her list.

I found them on the store menu. Hmm, how many did we want? The first option was 1. Well, I thought, when you’re in the store you see some singles, some pairs, three together, even four in a bunch. Yeah, four bananas will do for a while, I thought. So I clicked on 4.

When we got home after picking up the groceries a few days later, we discovered that 4 meant 4 bunches with about 10 bananas in each bunch.

So . . . Dorothy quickly drove over to a friend’s home and left half of the bananas outside her door. (Yes, she phoned first.)

I got up the next morning and looked out a window that overlooks our driveway. Hmm, I didn’t park our Tucson that way. I had backed in; now it was parked looking at me. What happened? I had a brief thought that someone had stolen it and brought it back. Hey, c’mon, these are bizarre times.

Finally, it struck me that Dorothy had driven it after I did. And heaven forbid that she would park the same way that I did. Right?

A couple of days later I was lolling in my recliner late in the afternoon when Dorothy asked: “Are you going to shower today after you didn’t yesterday?”

Upon further reflection, I couldn’t remember whether I had showered the previous day. Eventually, I gave up trying to remember. But I can say that I absolutely cannot remember the last time I went one day without showering.

And then when I awoke Saturday morning, I thought it was Friday. But not knowing what day it is . . . well, that is happening with more and more regularity.

Hey, welcome to our new normal and I don’t mean Normal, Ill.

Clown

Dwight Perry, in the Seattle Times: “The Tokyo Olympics have been rescheduled for 2021 but will still be known as the 2020 Games, organizers say. ‘We couldn’t agree more,’ said 12 of the Big Ten’s 14 athletic directors.”

——

Perry, again: “Triple-double … Double-double … Solo-double? Former standout soccer goalkeeper Hope Solo announced she is pregnant with twins.”

ICYMI, Agent Orange met with sports leaders on Saturday and told them that he would like to see games being played in August and September. (Agent Orange? Saw that in a column by Ed Willes of Postmedia on Saturday.)

The conference call included folks from the NBA, NFL, MLB, MLS, WNBA, LPGA, PGA, IndyCar, Breeders’ Cup and yes, WWE and UFC. For whatever reason, there was no one included from, among others, the NCAA, NASCAR or the WHL.

It wasn’t long after word got out about the orange one wanting games in August and September that Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, said: “I’m not anticipating that happening in this state.”

And that should take care of that.

Thank you, Governor.

——

There has been talk about the NBA perhaps taking teams into Las Vegas and playing some kind of neutral-site games.

Yeah, I’m sure NBA players are going to want to leave their families to go into self-isolation in Las Vegas and be tested and tested and tested just to play a few games. What if one of them tested positive? What then? And how on earth would the NBA be able to keep players in self-isolation without even one of them going rogue?

So let’s scratch that idea.

——

BTW, the logistics of pulling off even one NFL game under the circumstances in which we now live — and in which we still could be living in August and September — are mind-boggling.

It’s a big enough production under normal circumstances. Now throw in all that goes into testing more than 50,000 people, in one way or another, and it becomes all but impossible.

And what of the support staff? To give you some idea of how many people work a pro game, there are more than 1,300 workers at a New York Mets’ home game just to deal with food service.

And it only would take one person in the facility to test positive and, well, it would be: HERE WE GO AGAIN!

So let’s scratch that idea, too.

Crayons

No one knows when this is going to end, or what it’s going to look like at the other end.

But I would be curious to know how many schedules the WHL is going to prepare.

Under normal circumstances, the WHL’s 2020-21 regular season, with each team scheduled to play 68 games, would begin on or around Sept. 25. But if teams aren’t able to open training camps in late August, a bit more than four months away, and they start pushing things back, does the WHL also prepare a schedule that would open in late October and would have teams playing, say, 54 or 56 games? And on and on it would go . . . Keep in mind that the WHL has teams in two states and four provinces, each of which operates independently in these bizarre times.

Headline at TheOnion.com: Kawhi Leonard misses second consecutive family game night, citing load management.

Bruce Jenkins, in the San Francisco Chronicle: “MLB has canceled its scheduled games in Mexico City, Puerto Rico and London, but hopes remain for the Aug. 13 game between the Yankees and White Sox in Dyersville, Iowa, where ‘Field of Dreams’ was filmed. The site adjoins a cornfield and has long been a tourist attraction; an 8,000-seat stadium was built for this and future MLB visits.”

The 12-team Western Canada Baseball League announced Sunday that it has “established a timeline that will guide our decisions this spring.” . . . For starters, the league will decide by May 2 if it will be able to get in a complete 2020 season. . . . “There are also provisions for shortened seasons that would start either on or about Father’s Day or on or about Canada Day,” a news release stated. “Similar dates exist for three or four weeks prior for these shortened seasons for logistics to be put in place.” . . . The league also announced that “governors have agreed that if by early June 2020 health and travel restrictions are still such that the league cannon confirm a start date that the season would be cancelled.” . . . The WCBL has teams in Brooks, Edmonton, Fort McMurray, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, Melville, Moose Jaw, Okotoks, Regina, Swift Current, Weyburn and Yorkton. . . .

——

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the PGA Championship will be held at that city’s Harding Park course from Aug. 6-9. It had been scheduled to run from May 14-17 at Harding Park. . . . Of course, keep in mind that California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Saturday that he doesn’t anticipate seeing pro football in his state in August or September. . . .

Former NFL kicker Tom Dempsey died late Saturday in a New Orleans care home. His daughter, Ashley, said he had tested positive for the coronavirus a week previous. . . . He was 73. Dempsey was born without toes on his kicking foot and held the NFL record for longest field goal (63 yards) for 43 years. . . . He had been in assisted living for a number of years as he dealt with dementia. . . .

Aleksandar Prijovic, a Serbian soccer player, was given three months of home detention for violating a curfew that is in place because of COVID-19. He an 19 others were arrested in a hotel lobby bar in Belgrade on Friday. . . . Meanwhile, Kyle Walker, a defender with Manchester City, is in trouble after breaking lockdown conditions in England. He has apologized after holding a party involving two sex workers at this home.

Dinosaur

Here’s the Thought for the Day, from Jack Finarelli, aka The Sports Curmudgeon, via Will Rogers: “If stupidity got us in this mess, how come it can’t get us out?”

A few thoughts from Patti Dawn Swansson: “Most of us follow our personal doctors’ advice. I mean, if told to take two aspirin and call ol’ sawbones in the morning, I take two aspirin and make that call. Yet when the finest medical minds in our country advise us what to do (stay the frig home) during the COVID-19 crisis, they are ignored by many among the rabble. I find that to be a most curious bit of business. Even more curious: Why would it take a celebrity athlete, singer or movie star doing a PSA to convince some that the safest place to be right now is behind our own closed doors? Seriously, you’ll listen to, say, Connor McDavid instead of Dr. Theresa Tam? The mind boggles.”

For more, click right here.

Jaynes: Only game being played will be the waiting game . . . No Flames or Stampeders in Calgary through June 30

If the NHL and NBA cancelled the remainder of their 2019-20 seasons, you likely wouldn’t be surprised.

If Major League Baseball cancelled its 2020 season, you might nod and say something like “OK, that gets us into early November.”

Yes, and it also would mean the NFL must have postponed the start of its season.

All of these decisions would seem to hinge on when health officials will allow the return of large gatherings. And that, it seems, might not happen for months and months.

Here’s Dr. Allen Sills, who is the NFL’s chief medical officer:

“As long as we’re still in a place where when a single individual tests positive for the virus that you have to quarantine every single person who was in contact with them in any shape, form or fashion, then I don’t think you can begin to think about reopening a team sport. Because we’re going to have positive cases for a very long time.”

When I see experts in this field talking like this I start to wonder about junior hockey at all levels. Because if health officials won’t allow gatherings of 50 or more people by summer’s end, there won’t be junior hockey in August or September or . . .

Dwight Jaynes, who works out of Portland for NBC Sports Northwest, has summed up the situation involving pro sports by writing, in part, that the leagues “are going to have to accept the reality the the only game being played for months will be the waiting game.” . . . Jaynes makes a number of bang-on observations in that piece that is right here.

Rick Westhead of TSN tweeted on Saturday: “With eight US states still refusing to impose stay at home legislation, one NHL player agent tells me he’s advised clients to expect the US-Canada border to remain closed until well after Canadian Thanksgiving.” . . . In Canada, we’ll celebrate Thanksgiving this year on Oct. 12. . . .

FBI

The City of Calgary has cancelled all public events and all permits for city parks or facilities through June 30. . . . The CFL’s Calgary Stampeders are scheduled to play a home exhibition game on May 30 and to open the regular season at home on June 12. They also are to play at home on June 18. . . . Naheed Nenshi, Calgary’s mayor, said Friday that neither the Stampeders nor the NHL’s Calgary Flames would be permitted to play games during this period. . . . There hasn’t been any official word on the status of the Calgary Stampede that is scheduled to open on July 3, but you would have to think it is in jeopardy. . . .

Here’s Jack Finarelli, aka The Sports Curmudgeon, with the Thought of the Day, this one from Mark Twain: “The world owes you nothing. It was here first.”

Organizers have cancelled the Manitoba Summer Fair that had been scheduled for Brandon, from June 3-7. . . .

In Montreal, the Just For Laughs comedy festival has been postponed from July 15-26 and now will be held form Sept. 29 through Oct. 11. . . . Montreal’s 2020 Jazz Festival has been cancelled. It was to have begun on June 25 and run through July 4. . . .

The 2020 Vancouver Scotiabank half-marathon and 5K have been cancelled. The event had been scheduled for June 28. . . .

The WNBA has postponed training camps and the start of its regular season that was to have opened on May 15. . . .

The Preakness, which had been scheduled to run on May 16, has been postponed with organizers saying they are searching for a new date. And when the race is held, there won’t be an infield party, which has always been a huge attraction and attracts upwards of 100,000. . . . Earlier, the Kentucky Derby was moved from May 2 to Sept. 15. . . .

All the best to Kerry Eggers, who has written about the Portland Winterhawks for more years than he would care to remember. He was laid off from his job with the Portland Tribune on Thursday. He had been there for, he tweeted, “19-plus years and 45 years in the sportswriting biz.” Eggers also tweeted that he “was planning a July 31 retirement but, as Ralph Miller used to say, that’s the way the pickle squirts.” . . .

Cat

The BCHL’s Powell River Kings have signed Chad van Diemen as their general manager. He will work with Brock Sawyer, the team’s new director of hockey operations and head coach. . . . Van Diemen played for the Kings 20 years ago and also was an assistant coach (2009-15). . . . From Kamloops, he also spent two seasons (2015-17) as head coach of the BCHL’s Prince George Spruce Kings. . . . He and his family moved back to Powell River in 2017 and he has been on the team’s board of directors. . . .

——

The NAHL’s St. Cloud Blizzard has hired Tom Chorske as general manager and Corey Miller as its new head coach. Both are former NHLers and both are Minnesota natives. They also were roommates in college and in the NHL with the New Jersey Devils. . . .

KPD transplants remain on hold . . . Waitt! He was going to donate to ex-wife’s husband, but . . .

According to Canadian Blood Services (CBS), all kidney donations through the Kidney Paired Donation (KPD) program have been on hold since March 16, and will continue that way for an indefinite period.

CBS provided some information regarding the COVID-19 situation on Wednesday in a news release headlined: A statement from the Canadian Organ and Tissue Donation and Transplantation Community . . .

The statement begins:

“In the evolving COVID-19 pandemic, administrative and medical leads of the organ donation and transplantation community across Canada are meeting regularly to collaboratively develop recommendations that can be used by provincial organ donation organizations and regional transplant and donation programs to guide the administration of organ and tissue donation and transplantation services.”

It continues with:

“The pressure COVID-19 is putting on Canadian hospitals is affecting organ and tissue donation and transplantation. While non-essential surgeries are paused, urgent and lifesaving organ and tissue donation and transplantation is proceeding on a case-by-case basis, and in collaboration with provincial and hospital administrators. It is expected that decisions about whether to proceed with donation or transplantation may differ from one jurisdiction to another.

“All living donation and transplant surgeries related to the Kidney Paired Donation program have been postponed for a minimum of six weeks, effective Monday, March 16. Surgeries will be rescheduled once there is consensus that it is safe to do so for both donors and recipients. In a number of jurisdictions eye and tissue donation has also been reduced or suspended. Measures are in place to ensure patients who need tissue grafts for emergency surgery will receive them.”

If you would like to see the complete statement, it’s right here.

Barry Waitt of Whitehorse was going to donate a kidney to his ex-wife’s husband. But then hisC ex-wife was declared healthy enough to donate herself, so that’s the way it went. Barry had gone through the entire process so he then decided to go ahead and donate a kidney anyway. That’s what happened on Nov. 13. . . . But there’s a whole lot more to his story and he writes about it all right here. After reading Barry’s story, I have to wonder if there isn’t a TV sitcom in there somewhere.

Scott Kidd is the West Coast scouting supervisor for the Oakland A’s. On Dec. 19, he thought he had the flu. A few days later, he was on life support, in need of a heart and one kidney. On Jan. 15, he got both. . . . Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle has his story right here.