Random thoughts on not so random topics:
*It’s no secret that I’m a B.C. Lions fan. When Rider fans ask me who I cheer for after 19 years in Saskatchewan, I tell them “I cheer for the Riders. When the Lions aren’t playing.”
And I might get punched out for saying this, but there’s a part of me that was cheering for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers to win this year, because I wanted to see former Lions Andrew Harris and Adam Bighill get another ring. (I was also hoping to see former Rider Weston Dressler get another championship when he was with the Bombers).
It might not be cool to cheer for Harris, after his two-game suspension for performance enhancing drugs this season. It cost him not only the top Canadian award, but the league MVP award. But in the biggest game of the year, the Grey Cup, he was the best player on the field.
His legacy was tarnished with his positive test. But I was happy to see him redeem himself.
*Next year’s Grey Cup is in Regina. Rider fans don’t have to worry about the Bombers ending their drought in Regina, although Winnipeg should still be pretty good, especially with their contingent of Canadian talent.
Rider fans will be hoping for a repeat of 2013, when the Riders won the Grey Cup at home. And given their performance in 2019, when the Riders exceeded the projections of most, a championship at home is a reasonable expectation.
But remember the Riders were the last team to win the Grey Cup at home. And only three teams have done it in the last 25 years. It’s a lot harder than some think.
*The mayor of Asbestos, Que., wants to see the community change its name. You have to wonder what took them so long.
*I hope that the day never comes in which the rural municipality of Coalfields, or any other municipality whose name pays tribute to oil and coal, feels the need to do the same, although there are some goofballs out there who are waiting for that day.
*Premier Scott Moe says his meeting with deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland was more productive than his recent session with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. That shouldn’t be a surprise. He was meeting with a better and more capable leader and politician when he met with Freeland.
*During one of my Fridays off, I tried watch the impeachment hearings involving U.S. President Donald Trump. It’s not like there’s anything else to watch during the day. All I can stomach is cable news and sports highlights. But all cable news networks were showing the Trump impeachment hearings. I didn’t have enough downtime to start something on Netflix and I definitely wasn’t going to waste my time by watching The Social, or any other brain cell-destroying program on daytime TV.
The hearings were unwatchable. Not because I want to see Trump keep his job. I don’t. Not because of the lack of credibility of the witnesses. They’re credible, especially former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.
But it was the grandstanding of the politicians that drove me nuts. Often their questions lasted longer than the answers from the people on the stand. Ask the question and shut up.
*As for the impeachment hearings themselves, this will hopefully the only time I address them before we find out whether the president is punted with an election right around the corner. Republicans in the senate won’t vote to give Trump the heave-ho, unless some shocking revelation comes forward.
*I’m not a fan of holding comments made 10 years ago against somebody. If you asked me about things I said and believed in 2009, there’d be some difference versus what I’d say and believe now.
The comments that Calgary Flames head coach Bill Peters made towards Akim Aliu when Peters coached Aliu in the American Hockey League in 2009 were appalling. If a coach makes those comments then he deserves to be fired. And beat up.
The question now is whether Peters should be axed by the Calgary Flames for what he did 10 years ago, when he was in a different organization. Since then, he has been accused of physical and verbal abuse of players when he was coaching the Carolina Hurricanes.
This is clearly a person who should not have been in a position of leadership. Yelling and screaming is one thing. Racial slurs and striking a player are another.
When these allegations came out, and were corroborated, Peters should have quit. All he did was create a distraction that the players on the Flames didn’t deserve.
A few years ago, the NHL had its “If you can play, you can play” campaign. It’s a message that should resonate, not just in the NHL, but all sports and all walks of life. If you can do the job, you belong, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, appearance religion or any other illegitimate factor that some people think is worthy of discrimination.
Hockey has come a long ways in the past 10-20 years. But Peters comments are a reminder it still has a long ways to go.
