Tag: Greg Cote

Scattershooting on a Sunday night while wondering if the Christmas lights will work or if I’ll need more extension cords . . .

Scattershooting

If you haven’t already seen this, take a few minutes out of your day to give it a listen/watch. This one will make you think about what not to do if you ever end up with a stinky, rotting whale on your beach. . . .

How did I spend my Sunday? Thanks for asking. The two rather large trees in our front yard got their haircuts on Friday, So on Sunday most of the outdoor Christmas lights and decorations are up and ready to shine. Another hour, hopefully on Monday, and it’ll be all done for another year. . . . Temperature on Sunday afternoon reached 11 C, so it was quite enjoyable out there. . . . Oh yes, we also had our first taste of this festive season’s fruitcake. Merry Christmas!

After the Boston Red Sox brought back Alex Cora as manager, Greg Cote of the Miami Herald wrote: “Adjusted bromide: ‘Cheaters Almost Never Prosper.’ ” . . . Cora served a one-year suspension after being manager of the Houston Astros during their cheating scandal.

Closed

Headline at TheOnion.com: Cora gets another kick at the can in Boston.

The USHL has been having its issues with COVID-19, and has had to postpone/reschedule a number of games. The Waterloo Black Hawks and Tri-City Storm both played on Saturday night and were supposed to face each other on Sunday. But the game, according to the league, “has been declared a No Contest. Per league safety protocols, minimum standards were not met to play (Sunday’s) game.”

A news flash from Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times: Dateline Washington, D.C.: Donald Trump finally concedes he lost — to the Baltimore Stars in the 1985 USFL playoffs.

——

Perry’s Tweet of the Week came from @Southampton FC, which, upon finding itself atop the Premier League standings for the the first time tweeted: “Stop the count.”

Come April 6, it will be three years since 16 people were killed in a crash HumboldtBroncosinvolving the bus belonging to the SJHL’s Humboldt Broncos. Michelle Straschnitzki and her husband, Tom, are two Broncos parents who aren’t prepared to give up on wanting to have seatbelts declared mandatory on medium and large highway buses and school buses. Bill Graveland of The Canadian Press reports that these parents “are angry at what they see as inaction from the federal and provincial governments on measures that could prevent another tragedy.” . . . Michelle told Graveland: “It’s just disgusting that nothing has changed. It should be legislated as of yesterday. It should be across the board, across Canada. It makes me nuts. This is not OK. We should not be fighting for this 2 1/2 years after the bus crash. It’s not right.” . . . Graveland’s story is right here.

ICYMI, St. Mary’s, Remsen beat Montezuma, 108-94, in an Iowa eight-man football state semifinal the other day. Interestingly, St. Mary’s had only 144 yards through the air, while Montezuma QB Eddie Burgess threw for 744 yards and nine TDs, then told the Cedar Rapids Gazette: “Credit to them. They kept us contained for some of the game.” . . . Blaine Harpeneau, the winning QB, was named player of the game after running for 354 yards on 40 carries. He scored four TDs and threw for four more. The teams combined for 1,497 yards of offence.

RJ Currie at sportsdeke.com: “Vasek Pospisil’s three-set loss in the Sofia Open final made Canadians 0-6 in ATP finals in 2020. You might call it Mission Im-Pospisil.”

A few years ago — actually more years ago than I care to remember — I took a whllook at the first 25 years of the WHL in four lengthy stories. The other day, someone who stops by this space on a regular basis wondered if I might post those pieces again. . . . So I have dug them up and they will appear here over the next while. Keep in mind that they were written more than 20 years ago, and I will post them as they were written. Also please keep in mind that they don’t pretend to be all-inclusive; they include some highlights and some lowlights and hopefully will help keep the past alive.

This is an all-time favourite hockey photo. Never mind the great stuff on the ice, take a look at the faces in the crowd . . .

Burger

COVID-19 CHRONICLES . . .

CBC North: 10 new cases of COVID-19 found in Nunavut, with signs of community spread in Arviat.

Ana Cabrera, CNN: US surpasses 11 million coronavirus cases. It took just 6 days to go from 10 million to 11 million.

Seattle Times: Gov. Inslee orders sweeping restrictions on indoor gatherings, restaurants, bars, gyms as COVID-19 cases surge in Washington state.

CBC News: 2 new cases of COVID-19 have been reported in Newfoundland and Labrador. Both are travel-related. The province has 10 known active cases, including 1 person who is in hospital.

CBC News: New Brunswick is reporting 3 new cases of COVID-19 for a total of 22 known active cases in the province. The new cases are in the Moncton, Saint John and Fredericton regions. 1 is travel-related and the other 2 are being investigated. All 3 new cases are self-isolating.

CBC News: Quebec is reporting 1,211 new cases of COVID-19. The province also added 15 deaths to its total, 2 of which occurred in the past 24 hours. The province has seen a total of 123,854 cases, including 6,626 deaths and 104,848 recoveries, since the pandemic began.

CBC News: Ontario is reporting 1,248 new cases of COVID-19, including 364 in Toronto, 308 in Peel and 125 in York Region. Provincial Health Minister Christine Elliott says an additional 1,062 cases have been resolved and more than 42,200 tests were completed.

Global News: Person in 20s dies from COVID-19 as Saskatchewan reports 2 deaths, 181 new cases.

CBC News: Calgary’s emergency management chief says Alberta needs a 28-day lockdown to battle COVID-19 — now.

CTV Edmonton: With 991 new cases, there are more than 9,600 active cases of COVID-19 in Alberta.

Global News: 10 more COVID-19 deaths in Manitoba Sunday, 494 new cases. There are 220 people in hospital with 41 in intensive care, and the number of deaths due to COVID-19 is 162.

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The eight-team South Coast Women’s Hockey League has cancelled its 2020-21 season. The league, which features teams from Kamloops to Vancouver Island, had hoped to open in January, but ended up cancelling. . . .

The U of Vermont has delayed the start of its men’s and women’s basketball and hockey seasons until Dec. 18. “Our state is obviously seeing a significant increase in COVID-19 cases and it’s important that our programs are operating in a manner that is consistent with guidance from state officials,” Jeff Schulman, the director of athletics, said in a statement. . . . If you are wondering what former NHL head coach Mike Babcock is doing these days, he’s a volunteer advisor to the coaching staff with Vermont’s men’s hockey team. The Catamounts play in Hockey East, which is scheduled to start up next weekend. . . .

Jim Boeheim, the longtime men’s basketball coach at Syracuse, has tested positive. Boeheim, 75, is asymptomatic and is self-isolating at home. One other person in the program also tested positive, although it’s not known if it’s a player, coach or somebody else. The school also has stopped all basketball-related activities. . . .

The University of Massachusetts-Lowell paused men’s basketball activities last week after two positive tests. Practices are expected to resume on Wednesday.

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

——

Vancouver General Hospital Living Donor Program – Kidney 

Gordon and Leslie Diamond Health Care Centre

Level 5, 2775 Laurel Street

Vancouver, BC V5Z 1M9

604-875-5182 or 1-855-875-5182

kidneydonornurse@vch.ca

——

Or, for more information, visit right here.

Remote

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Scattershooting on a Sunday night while wondering if QMJHL really is going to play without fans . . .

Scattershooting

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The St. Louis Cardinals left for Chicago on Friday, but they weren’t in an airplane or even two or three chartered buses. Instead, the team used 41 rental cars to get them to the site of Saturday’s doubleheader with the White Sox. . . . St. Louis, which had played only five games this season and hadn’t played since July 29, went on to sweep the White Sox, 5-1 and 6-3, to improve its record to 4-3. . . . Remember that in these pandemic times doubleheaders feature two seven-inning games. . . . The Cardinals, who slipped to 4-4 with a 7-2 loss on Sunday, don’t have C Yadier Molina or SS Paul DeJong, who were among the 10 players on the roster who tested positive. . . . They also don’t have assistant coach Willie McGee with them. McGee, 61, who has high blood pressure, has opted out of the remainder of the season. . . .

Meanwhile, an unidentified player with the Cincinnati Reds has tested positive, resulting in the postponement of two weekend games against the visiting Pittsburgh Pirates. The teams had split the first two games of the series before Saturday and Sunday games were called off. . . . The Reds are awaiting news on their latest test results, which are due sometime today, before figuring out where to go now. They had been scheduled to open a series with the Royals in Kansas City on Tuesday. . . .

The 18 players off the Miami Marlins’ roster who tested positive during their outbreak have reported to Jupiter, Fla., the site of the NL team’s spring-training site. . . .

Steve Simmons, in the Toronto Sun: “A number of NHL general managers are expecting to play next season without fans in the stands and that will create some kind of chaos at the ownership level.” . . . The NHL has plans to open its 2020-21 season on Dec. 1.

Turkeys

Dwight Perry, in the Seattle Times: “Michael Jordan, after becoming president of the Wizards, traded Laron Profit in retaliation for Profit trash-talking Jordan in practice during their days as Washington teammates. In a related story, rumor has it that Jordan’s TV set still has rabbit ears.”

Another report from Perry: “Seattle cut Kemah Siverand after the rookie cornerback was caught on video trying to sneak a woman — dressed in Seahawks players’ gear — into the NFL team’s hotel. That’s what you call disguising your coverage.”

The 18-team QMJHL says it will return to play on Oct. 1 but that there won’t be any fans qmjhlnewin attendance, at least at games in Quebec. . . . “Following our conversations with both the Provincial Governments and Public Health Agencies, it has been determined that the 2020-21 season will be played behind closed doors in Quebec, while details are currently still being discussed for the Maritimes,” the league said in a news release. . . . Training camps are to open on Aug. 30 with teams allowed to bring in 34 players. . . . With the league split into three divisions, each team will play 60 games without leaving its own division. . . . The league said it will release its playoff format in December. . . . Interestingly, the QMJHL operates under the CHL umbrella with the OHL and WHL. The OHL is aiming to start its regular season on Dec. 1, while the WHL is hoping to open on Dec. 4. . . . The WHL, however, is adamant that it won’t be playing without fans in the pews. . . . Keep in mind that the QMJHL season, including the dates of its open trading sessions, has close ties to the province’s education system. . . . The QMJHL’s news release is right here.

Here’s Jack Finarelli, aka The Sports Curmudgeon, with his Thought for the Day, this one from Will Rogers: “Always drink upstream from the herd.”

The AJHL, which had hoped to begin its regular season on Sept. 18, announced Friday ajhlthat it is postponing things. But it didn’t announce another proposed opening date. . . . Instead, it says it will “commence the 2020-21 campaign with a development season beginning Aug. 31.” . . . From the AJHL’s news release: “Within the current boundaries of Hockey Alberta’s Return to Hockey Plan and Stage 2 of Alberta’s Relaunch, the AJHL is unable to enter regular season competition at this time.” . . . More from the news release: “The Development Season will meet the needs of both the League and its athletes by allowing teams to actively prepare for the upcoming season while providing players an opportunity for high-calibre training and development.  Training Camps will be permitted to begin as early as August 31st in all 15 AJHL communities and will run until the AJHL embarks on regular season play.” . . . The complete release is right here.

Aliens

With the Big 12 continuing to plan to play football this fall, nine players at the U of Oklahoma were revealed to have tested positive. Lincoln Riley, the Sooners’ head coach, made the revelation on Saturday. Riley said a couple of others players are in quarantine “due to contract tracing.” . . . The players had been tested after returning following a one-week break. . . . “We’ve done such a tremendous job this entire time,” Riley told reporters during a video conference call. “You know when (you) give players time, there is risk in that. This isn’t the NBA, we don’t have a bubble. We all have to continue to work to do a better job by all accounts. We’re still confident in the plan that we have.” . . . The Sooners are scheduled to open against visiting Missouri State on Sept. 12. . . .

Eli Johnson, Ole Miss’s starting centre, has opted out of the 2020 college football season. His father, David, contracted the virus in March and ended up on a ventilator before recovering. . . . The Rebels are to begin practising today as they aim for a Sept. 26 opener.

From Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle: “Hey, Lou Holtz: I’m no historian, but I’m pretty sure that when our brave soldiers stormed the beach at Normandy, they didn’t do it so you could have a job on TV spouting nonsense.”

The Buffalo News reported on Friday that Seth Appert will be the next head coach of the AHL’s Rochester Americans. Appert, 46, was the head coach of the RPI Engineers for 11 seasons before being fired in 2017. Since then, he has been USA Hockey’s National Team Development Program head coach. . . . In Rochester, Appert replaces Chris Taylor, who was 116-65-33 in three seasons with Rochester. Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reported that Buffalo Sabres general manager Jason Botterill was negotiating a new contract with Taylor earlier this summer. However, Botterill was fired in June and Taylor was among 22 employees who were swept out of the organization shortly thereafter.

Zach16

 

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

——

Vancouver General Hospital Living Donor Program – Kidney 

Gordon and Leslie Diamond Health Care Centre

Level 5, 2775 Laurel Street

Vancouver, BC V5Z 1M9

604.875.5182 or 1.855.875.5182

kidneydonornurse@vch.ca

——

Or, for more information, click right here.

If you’re a CFL fan, you will want to check out the work being turned in by Ed Tait, a veteran football writer, at bluebombers.com. . . . Tait, a longtime keyboard warrior with the Winnipeg Free Press, works for the Blue Bombers now and provides their website with a lot of great reads. Don’t believe me? Check out First & 10: The CFL’s U.S. Expansion right here.

With the Cleveland Indians thinking about changing their nickname, Greg Cote of the Miami Herald offered this tip: “I hear ‘Cleveland Baseball Team’ is still available.”

Avocado

‘Just why are we doing this?’ . . . ‘If we don’t deal with it, it will deal with us.’

The MLS is Back tournament in Orlando, Fla., continues to stagger along, having lost two teams because of players testing positive, and having to postpone a Sunday morning game for the same reason.

Major League Baseball teams are trying to hold something resembling training camps between positive tests and teams having to cancel workouts for reasons that include delays in receiving results.

The NBA has its teams in bubbles in Orlando, practising and preparing to restart their season. There have been positive tests — CBS Sports has reported “dozens” of them — since late June when players returned to practice facilities.

The NHL has teams opening training camps today (Monday) and later will head for the two bubble cities — Edmonton and Toronto — in hopes of resuming their season. In its last weekly report, the NHL said 35 players have tested positive in the past month, with 23 of those coming since workouts began at team facilities on June 8.

The NHL has placed a gag order on its teams, with the league office taking over the reporting of player absences. The NHL won’t provide illness or injury specifics.

On Sunday, Arpon Basu of The Athletic reported that at least three players with the Montreal Canadiens have tested positive “in recent days.” Neither the NHL nor the Canadiens would comment.

As of Sunday evening, seven players had opted out of returning to play — D Karl Alzner, Montreal; F Sven Baertschi, Vancouver; D Mike Green, Edmonton; D Travis Hamonic, Calgary; D Steven Kampfer, Boston; D Roman Polak, Dallas; and D Zach Trotman, Pittsburgh. I believe all of them made the decision to put their health and that of their families ahead of playing in what is truly a bogus season.

(I admit to having stole ‘bogus season’ from Ann Killion, a columnist with the San Francisco Chronicle.

(After C Buster Posey of the Giants opted not to play in this MLB season, Killion wrote: “Every single one of the roughly 2,500 or so individuals being asked to participate in a bogus, truncated baseball season have their own personal decisions to make.”)

The deadline for NHL players to opt out without penalty is today (Monday) at 5 p.m. ET.

The Canadiens have given F Max Domi an extra seven to 10 days to make a decision on reporting to camp. Domi has Type 1 diabetes and celiac disease.

Keeping the previous paragraphs in mind, I have to ask: Am I the only person wondering what is going here?

Have we as a society gotten to the point where we sit idly by, in some instances applauding and cheering, as billionaire owners march their athletes like so much chattel into what they all seem to be calling a return to play but in which there are so many unknowns?

How is it that we are in a place where a young man like Domi has to make this kind of decision?

With the U.S. government calling for a return to school next month, Canyons School District in Utah is making plans to re-open. Part of its return-to-school protocol includes this, after it touches on things like exposure letter and distance learning plan information:

“Template letter for the death of a student, teacher.”

It’s enough to make one wonder if various leagues and teams have such a thing in their return-to-play protocols.

Bee

In a brilliant piece in The New York Times, John Branch writes:

“On Wednesday, the day that the Ivy League canceled fall sports, nearly 60,000 new cases were reported in the United States, a new high.

“Some of those were college athletes. Through Wednesday, at least 426  had tested positive for the coronavirus among roughly 50 Division I programs, but the number of cases is likely much higher. About half of American universities either did not respond to requests for testing results from The New York Times, or declined to provide numbers, under the auspices of protecting the privacy of student-athletes.

“Ohio State, in suspending its off-season workout programs this week, did not reveal how many students tested positive. It only said that the shutdown impacted seven sports, including football.

“Such news accelerates as the fall sports calendar approaches. And if reasonable people at some of the world’s great universities had not seriously pondered this question before, they are now:

“Just why are we doing this?”

Branch’s piece is right here.

Look, I’m sorry, but COVID-19 is here and it isn’t going anywhere, at least not for the foreseeable future. I want to see live sporting events on my TV set with fans hooting and hollering in the background. I want to see a  return to some kind of normalcy just as badly as anyone, but I have come to realize that in the months ahead we are going to have to get used to a new normal, whatever that might be.

As Dr. Jeff Duchin, the health officer for Public Health in Seattle and King County, told a news conference on Friday:

“It’s just critical that, as a community, we understand the long-term nature of COVID-19. None of us asked for this, none of us wanted this. But it’s with us and we have to deal with it. And if we don’t deal with it, it will deal with us.”

Kevan Smith, a catcher in camp with the Tampa Bay Rays in St. Petersburg, Fla., spent the early part of summer working out at home in Pittsburgh.

It seems that he has found Florida to be a bit different.

“Felt like you couldn’t even walk outside without a mask on (at home),” Smith told Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. “I feel like here you go out with a mask, we have guys getting called names and all the above. Just a totally different feel.

“I heard a story, one of the (guys), I don’t know if I can use this word, he was in a store shopping for food and I guess it was a resident called the player a pansy for wearing his mask.

“I went out briefly to just pick up some takeout food, and I swear I got like a dozen eyeballs on me, looking at me like I’m like the weirdo walking in with a mask. Little do they know what is at stake for my life and for my livelihood. It’s just very immature and just whatever you want to call it. It’s comical. It’s going on all over the world, but we’re seeing it firsthand here.”

Early last week, 2B Scott Kingery of the Philadelphia Phillies, who is back on the field after being out with COVID-19, told Jim Salisbury of NBC Sports Philadelphia: The virus “can creep up on you and get you pretty bad like it did with me.

Kingery now is symptom-free, but he continues to deal with shortness of breath, a month after being diagnosed. . . .

On Saturday, the New York Yankees revealed that Aroldis Chapman, one of MLB’s best relievers, had tested positive. He has some symptoms and is out indefinitely. . . .

Kenley Jansen, the Los Angeles Dodgers’ closer, was late reporting to their camp because he had tested positive. He said he is “doing great and better now.” He told reporters that he had family members who also tested positive, but they have recovered. . . .

C Cam Gallagher of the Kansas City Royals played in an intrasquad game on Friday and tested positive on Saturday. The Royals now have had at least four players test positive. . . .

P Luis Perdomo and SS Luis Urias of the Milwaukee Brewers have tested positive, but are asymptomatic. The Brewers also are without P Eric Lauer, who didn’t get to camp until Friday. He hasn’t tested positive, but was in contact with someone who did.

TV

Jockey Flavien Prat tested positive after riding in Kentucky on Saturday. He was tested in La Jolla, Calif., on Sunday. He had eight rides at Del Mar on Sunday, but had to give them up. . . . Victor Espinoza, a jockey who is in horse racing’s hall of fame, tested positive in La Jolla on Friday. . . . Two other prominent jockeys — Martin Garcia and Luis Saez — also have tested positive.

From Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times . . .

What a difference four months makes:

March 9: Jazz center Rudy Gobert mockingly touches every microphone at a news conference, contracts COVID-19 and shuts down the NBA season.

July 9: 76ers center Joel Embiid, headed to the Disney World bubble for the season restart, shows up in a hazmat suit.

In my world, Tony Kubek is perhaps the most under-rated analyst in MLB broadcast history. How I used to look forward to Saturday afternoons with Kubek and Curt Gowdy . . .

Headline at fark.com: MLB releases 60-day COVID-19 spreading schedule.

Hartley Miller attacks Redundant Rhetoric in his latest Hartley’s Hart Attack blog entry that is right here. Oh my, there are a lot of pet peeves in here, starting with this point about game times: “How about this traditional one-liner — And tonight’s game will start at 7 ‘PM.’ Thanks for the notice; I would have waited until seven the next morning to watch ‘tonight’s’ game.”

An NFL prediction from Tim Hunter of KRKO Radio: “Patrick Mahomes has signed a contract with the Kansas City Chiefs that will definitely last longer than the team’s name.”

On that subject, the Washington NFL team reportedly will announce today that it is changing its nickname. But it won’t yet announce that nickname as it proceeds through the legalities of a change.

Greg Cote, in the Miami Herald: “Cubs pitcher Jose Quintana lacerated a thumb while washing dishes. Jose, you make big-league money. Look into this really neat invention. It’s called a dishwasher!”

Chimes

No large gatherings in Alberta through August . . . Calgary and Edmonton lose major events . . . WHL planning to open on schedule

Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta’s chief medical officer, has said that restrictions on large gatherings in that province will run through the end of August.

Since Thursday, a number of events scheduled for Edmonton, including K-Days, and the city’s folk and jazz festivals, have been cancelled.

On Thursday, the Calgary Stampede and that city’s folk music festival were cancelled. On Friday, the City of Calgary extended its ban on large public gatherings and events through Aug. 31.

“The virus that causes COVID-19 will be with us for many months to come, and the relatively low case numbers we’re seeing in many parts of the province are the result of our collective efforts and sacrifices,” Hinshaw said in her daily briefing. “COVID-19 is still with us, and it spreads rapidly through social interactions.

“We have had several instances in the province of social gatherings where one person passed the virus on to many others at a single event before the individual knew they had COVID.”

She mentioned a bonspiel in Edmonton that included 73 attendees, 40 of whom later tested positive for COVID-19.

“Unfortunately,” she added, “this virus does not respect our feelings. I am keenly aware of the depth to which these measures are affecting everyone. I do not take them lightly. I ask you to do the same.”

Meanwhile, according to a tweet from Rod Pedersen, Ron Robison, the WHL commissioner, told him that the league plans “to open the 2020-21 season on schedule and the June 27 import draft is unchanged.”

That, of course, is what Robison would be expected to say.

The WHL hasn’t yet released its 2020-21 regular-season schedules, but chances are it would begin the weekend of Sept. 25, about five weeks after teams will want to open training camps.

However, you would hope that the WHL has Plan B, Plan C, Plan D and maybe a few others . . . you know, just in case.

The Kootenay International Junior Hockey League, with 19 teams in B.C. and one — the Spokane Braves — in Washington, normally would open its regular season in mid-September. Steve Hogg, the general manager of the Summerland Steam, has told John Arendt of Black Press that “we have full plans on having a league,” but that it might not get rolling until mid-October.

You also are free to wonder if the annual CHL import draft really will be held on June 27. It normally is held a day or two after the NHL draft, which, this year, is scheduled for June 26 and 27 in Montreal.

But . . . hold on . . . there are rumblings that the NHL may postpone its draft because there will be a whole lot to sort out if it is to be held prior to the end of the regular season. And you will recall that the NHL’s regular season remains in a holding pattern.

The Bellingham Bells of baseball’s West Coast League have cancelled their 2020 season, but the league says its remaining 11 teams are preparing to open on June 5. . . . The league includes two Canadian teams — the Kelowna Falcons and Victoria HarbourCats. . . . The Bells’ hand was forced when the city shut down all activities in its facilities through Aug. 31. . . .

The 10-team Cape Cod Baseball League, perhaps the top summer league for college players, has cancelled its 2020 season. The league has been around since 1885 and has played every season since 1945. . . . Its season was to have opened on June 13, with playoffs starting on Aug. 4. . . .

The 12-team Western Canadian Baseball League is expected to cancel its 2020 season after officials meet on Wednesday. The 12-team league features teams in Melville, Moose Jaw, Regina, Swift Current, Weyburn and Yorkton, all in Saskatchewan, and the Alberta communities of Brooks, Edmonton, Fort McMurray, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat and Okotoks. . . .

Organizers have cancelled the World Triathlon event that was scheduled to be held in Edmonton. The Grand Final of the ITU World Triathlon group was set for Aug. 17-23. . . . Reid Wilkins of Global News has more right here, including news that the Prairie Football Conference, which is scheduled to begin play in mid-August, is looking at a delayed start.

A nondescript wooden cudgel discovered in a Vermont home in 1980 — and just sitting in an umbrella stand ever since — turned out to be a circa-1850s hockey stick now up for auction online. It’s been appraised at $3.5 million,” reports Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times. “Proving once again that it pays to forecheck.”

Pizza

Greg Cote, in the Miami Herald: “The PGA Tour is planning a mid-June return with no fans, assuring the look and ambiance of it will have all the excitement of a Tuesday practice round. Meantime, GolfTV reported exclusively that the gum Tiger Woods chews on a golf course is orange-flavored Trident. Run to the store and start hoarding!”

Here’s Jack Finarelli, aka The Sports Curmudgeon, with the Thought of the Day, this one from A.J. Liebling: “Khrushchev, too, looks like the kind of man his physicians must continually try to diet, and historians will someday correlate these sporadic deprivations, to which he submits ‘for his own good,’ with his public tantrums. If there is to be a world cataclysm, it will probably be set off by skim milk, Melba toast, and mineral oil on the salad.”

Wasps

Nick Deschenes has signed on as the head coach and director of player personnel with the junior B Summerland Steam of the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League. . . . He has spent the past four seasons working with minor hockey programs and academies near his home in West Kelowna. . . . Prior to that he spent one season (2012-13) as the GM/head coach of the KIJHL’s Grand Forks Border Bruins and the next two as the GM/head coach of the BCHL’s Trail Smoke Eaters. . . . Deschenes takes over the Steam from Ken Karpuk, who departed after one season. . . . Tim Hogg, the play-by-play voice of the Steam has more right here.

Barry Petrachenko spent 20 years running BC Hockey. On Monday, the province’s hockey CEO lost his job. . . . If you’re wondering what happened, Marty Hastings of Kamloops This Week has the story right here.

StayAway

Scattershooting on a Thursday night while wondering what it is about Regina drivers and their phones . . .

Scattershooting

The New York Yankees and host Houston Astros combined to use 14 pitchers — seven apiece — in Game 6 of the ALCS. The game, won 6-4 by the Astros as they won the series, took four hours nine minutes.

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On Oct. 13, 1960, Pittsburgh’s Bill Mazeroski hit a ninth-inning home run to give the Pirates a 10-9 victory over the Yankees in Game 7 of the World Series. That game featured nine pitchers, five by the Yankees, and took two hours 36 minutes.

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Yes, Major League Baseball has a problem.

Messages

I really don’t know what was more fun — social media in the two weeks before the Canadian election or social media on Tuesday, the day after said election.

With the NBA regular season opening this week, Jack Finarelli, aka The Sports Curmudgeon, writes: “I would like to pose a rhetorical question to the players on the team that wins the NBA Championship next June. I am sure that many — if not most — of those players would choose not to accept an invitation to go to the White House as part of their championship celebration — and I have no problem at all with that. Here is my question: If President Xi Jinping of China invites the NBA champions to come to his office for an honorary visit, would you go, or would you stiff the President of the PRC? . . . Oh, while I am at it, let me ask Commissioner Silver what his position might be in this circumstance?”

Hey, Regina, this police officer wrote 1,134 distracted driving tickets all of last year. . . .

Patti Dawn Swansson, the River City Renegade, writes: “Tiger Woods has taken up the quill and will write a memoir to tell the ‘definitive story’ of his life as a golf prodigy and icon. So we’ll finally get the answer to that burning question: ‘When Elin found out about all the blonde cocktail waitresses and escorts that Tiger was shagging, did she attack him with a nine-iron or a pitching wedge?’ ” . . . There is a lot more Swansson gold right here.

AirportSecurity

“Some 310 birds crashed into the windows of the NASCAR Hall of Fame building in Charlotte, N.C.,” reports Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times. “Even more stunning, the birds were chimney swifts, not racing pigeons.”

Here’s a memory from Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle: “Welterweight boxing champ Errol Spence spectacularly flipped his Ferrari, but he apparently got off easy with fairly minor injuries. Spence, unbelted, was ejected from his chariot. Flash back decades. A flight attendant asks then-heavyweight champ Muhammad Ali to fasten his seatbelt. Ali: ‘Superman don’t need no seat belt.’ Flight attendant: ‘Superman don’t need no airplane.’ ”

Alexander Gulyavtsev is the head coach of the KHL team Amur Khabarovsk. He is from the Russian city of Perm, as is Victor Gashilov, a referee in a game on Monday. During that game, an unhappy Gulyavtsev told Gashilov: “I’m going to set fire to your car in Perm.” . . . The KHL has fined the coach 300,000 rubles, or about US$4,700. . . . Gulyavtsev later said it was a joke. As he put it: “I just said car; it’s not as if I said apartment.” . . . The score in the game? Dynamo Moscow won, 5-1.

In all of hockey, there may be nothing more over-rated than the game-day morning skate. In an era when the importance of rest finally is being recognized, more and more teams are doing away with something that has been there seemingly forever. Here is Mike Sullivan, the head coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins, explaining why he has done away with them to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Jason Mackey: “It’s like, ‘Why does the whole league have morning skates?’ It reminds me of why my mother cut the side of the hams off before she cooked ‘em. I asked her, ‘Why do you cut the sides of the hams off?’ She said, ‘I don’t know. Because that’s how my mother taught me.’ So I asked my grandmother. I said, ‘Why do you cut the side of the hams off before you put ’em in the oven?’ She said, ‘That was easy. I didn’t have a pan that was big enough.’ That’s my analogy.”

Here’s Greg Cote of the Miami Herald: “Kenyan superstar runner Eliud Kipchoge broke the 2-hour marathon barrier in 1:59.40.2, a once unfathomable feat. I once covered 26.2 miles even quicker, but didn’t get credit because I was in a car.”

ICYMI . . . the WHL returned to Cranbrook on Thursday . . .

Scattershooting after dozing through Stupor Bowl . . . Brodsky family gets Hall call . . . Seattle’s O’Dette voices some displeasure

Scattershooting

Greg Cote, in the Miami Herald: “Tiger opens season at Torrey Pines: Justin Rose carries a three-shot lead into Sunday’s final round of the Farmers Open at Torrey Pines in San Diego. Tiger Woods, in his first event of the new season, made the cut but is 13 off the lead. Except on the attention leaderboard, where he remains on top.”

Prior to this season, the WHL cut its regular-season from 72 to 68 games, and there still are far too many instances of teams having to play three games in fewer than 48 hours. Maybe it’s time to cut back to 64 games, or even 60, and get rid of even more of those dastardly mid-week games.

Itch

How excited was Jack Finarelli, aka The Sports Curmudgeon, to see the Super Bowl halftime show? “This year’s performance will feature Maroon 5 as the headliner,” he wrote, “In the event that Maroon 5 were to pull out of the performance at the last minute and be replaced by Chartreuse 7.5, I would not know the difference.”

Dwight Perry, in the Seattle Times: “There’s rumblings out of L.A. that the Lakers are itching to swing a three-city trade to land Pelicans big man Anthony Davis. In return, the Lakers would send Lonzo Ball to New Orleans, and LaVar Ball to Flin Flon.”

——

Perry, again: “Whacky ex-slugger Jose Canseco tweeted that aliens have been trying to teach mankind the fine art of time travel but, alas, our species has just been too reluctant ‘to change our body composition.’ Which raises the question: Is there a concussion-protocol statute of limitations for home-run balls off the top of the noggin?

chicken

The group that owns the Victoria HarbourCats of baseball’s West Coast League has announced that if all goes well it will field a team in Nanaimo’s Serauxmen Stadium in time for the 2020 or 2021 season. It would be the third Canadian team in a league that also includes the Kelowna Falcons. The 12-team WCL has expressed interest in Kamloops and NorBrock Stadium in the past but hasn’t been able to find anyone interested in bankrolling the project.

The NBA has fined Anthony Davis of the New Orleans Pelicans the grand sum of $50,000 because his agent went public with a trade request. As RJ Currie of SportsDeke.com points out: “Tsk. There’s seven minutes salary he’ll never get back.”

When it came to watching the NFL Pro Bowl on TV, Hampton Roads, Va., was third in the ratings, behind only Kansas City and Pittsburgh. “Hey, neighbors,” wrote Bob Molinaro of the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, “maybe it’s time we got out of the house more often.”

olddays

The best part of that Super Bowl game is that it’s over, which means it’s now baseball season. . . . Although I have to admit that the NFL’s showcase game did one thing good — it put me to sleep. Not once, but twice.

“Perhaps the highlight of the Super Bowl for most average Americans,” notes Janice Hough of leftcoastsportsbabe.com, “was the realization that 70,000 members of 1% paid thousands of dollars to be inside where they couldn’t change the channel.”

Former UCLA star Bill Walton, now a TV analyst, has suggested that Barack Obama should replace the fired Steve Alford as the men’s basketball coach at UCLA. To which Brad Rock of Salt Lake City’s Desert News asked: “What? Gene Hackman was busy?”

ThisThat

The Brodsky family, a major contributor to the WHL over the years, is among the Saskatchewan Hockey Hall of Fame’s 2019 inductees. The announcement was made on Saturday, with the saskhallinduction ceremony scheduled for July 6 at Saskatoon’s Prairieland Park.

“As probably everybody in the room will tell you, you come into these things and you just go to work every day and you do the things you want to be doing and enjoy doing,” Jack Brodsky said. “To be recognized, I’m especially appreciative of the fact that it’s the entire family going in. My dad (Nate) and my brothers (Rick and Bob) and sister (Debbie) were so supportive. To be here, for us to be recognized for this, is a wonderful thing. It’s humbling.”

Nate was a long-time owner of the Saskatoon Blades, which stayed in the Brodsky family until the franchise was sold to Mike Priestner of Edmonton after the 2012-13 season. . . . Rick Brodsky purchased the Victoria Cougars, moved them to Prince George in 1994 and and was involved until selling the franchise to local interests after the 2013-14 season. . . . Jack and Rick Brodsky both were heavily involved in the WHL at the administrative level, as well.

Also in the class of 2019 — Players: Bert Olmstead, Fernie Flaman, Keith Magnuson, Curtis Leschyshyn, Brian Skrudland and Ed Van Impe; Grassroots: Jim McIntyre and Joe Bloski; Builders: Murray Armstrong, Max McNab, Bill Thon and the Brodsky family; Official: Brad Watson; Teams: 2004-05 Saskatoon Contacts and 1966-67 Saskatoon Centennials. . . . The SHHOF is located at the Credit Union I-Plex, the Swift Current Broncos’ home arena.

Darren Zary of the SaskatoonStarPhoenix has more right here.

Officials of WHL teams and the folks who run their home arenas need to read this piece right here from CBS News. It details how the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons cut their concession prices, some by as much as 50 per cent, and had revenues rise by 16 per cent. Other teams have since followed suit and have experienced similar results. . . . “We talk about lifetime value of customers … and the lifetime value of the customer, for the Atlanta sports fan is, I think, quite higher now because people want to go there,” Scott Rosner, director of Columbia University’s sports management program, told CBS. “They don’t feel like they’re being taken advantage of. It’s an affordable experience.”

You are free to wonder if Matt O’Dette, the head coach of the Seattle Thunderbirds, will Seattlebe hearing from Kevin Acheson, the WHL’s sheriff, after expressing some disgruntlement after a 7-2 loss to the host Everett Silvertips on Saturday night.

For starters, O’Dette wasn’t happy with the fact that Everett F Connor Dewar, who finished with four goals and two assists, wasn’t given a kneeing penalty for a hit on Seattle F Matthew Wedman.

“They saw everything that we did obviously,” O’Dette told Andy Eide, who covers the Thunderbirds of 710 ESPN in Seattle. “We know what knees can do and we’re pretty sensitive about that. They continue not to call them. I don’t know why, but they continue to not call them.”

The Thunderbirds are sensitive because F Dillon Hamaliuk had his season ended by a knee-on-knee hit agains the visiting Portland Winterhawks on Dec. 29. D Matthew Quigley was suspended for four games after that hit.

On Saturday, Everett finished with nine power-play opportunities, while Seattle had two, none after the early part of the second period.

O’Dette was so frustrated that when referees Tyler Adair and Fraser Lawrence awarded Seattle a PP at 19:56 of the third period, he ended up with an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.

“A typical referee move to give us a call with two seconds left,” O’Dette said. “No, no, no, no, we’re not taking that. We’re not making it look good on the boxscore. Typical cowardly ref move to do that. We didn’t want that power play.”

Eide’s complete story is right here.

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