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Monday Musings – October 4

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If Mike Cammalleri is indeed suspended for his actions against Nino Niederreiter, it will be well deserved. I’m not going to play the homer card here. It’s simply indefensible for a player of Cammalleri’s status and importance to go around wildly swinging sticks and jabbing sticks in faces, it’s reckless and dangerous. He HAS to know better. For anyone to say that Cammalleri doesn’t deserve any supplemental discipline is fooling themselves. While we can debate whether or not Niederreiter wanted to connect with Cammalleri’s head, we know for certain what Cammalleri was doing. It was a premeditated retaliation, and the NHL, for all of its illogical inconsistence when it comes to discipline will clearly see that, and probably hand Cammalleri a suspension of 1 or 2 games.

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Well it looks like life is back to normal in the CFL. The East division, which got off to a nice start in matchups against the Western division is back to their usual incompetent selves. The West was a perfect 4-0 this week, and the Alouettes, the East’s best team was positively hammered by the best in the West in Calgary by a 46-21 score. Ouch.

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It would be a double-whammy if you’re a fan of the East division AND a fan of an NFC team. In this week’s only cross-conference match-up, the Chargers smashed the Cardinals 41-10. The AFC is now 11-6 vs the NFC this year, but the NFC needed wins against the mighty Bills, Browns and Raiders just to keep the score somewhat respectable.

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Maybe there’s a light at the end of the tunnel for the NFC, as the reign of the Colts may be coming to an end. They’re 2-2 in a tight division and were beaten by a very weak Jacksonville team yesterday on a last-second field goal of 59 yards. The Colts will probably still win the division, but normally by this point of the year they haven’t even broken a sweat.

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Congrats to Donovan McNabb for a successful return to Philly, and kudos to the Eagles faithful for giving him a well-deserved ovation.

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Most eye-popping stat of the weekend: The Chicago Bears allowing NINE (9) sacks on QB Jay Cutler in a single half of football last night. I didn’t even think that was possible. Cutler shares in the responsibility as well (ahem, throw the damn ball away!), but who signed a bunch of human turnstiles?

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More props to be given out:

To the Tampa Bay Rays for edging out the Yankees for the division title on the last day of the season, and a date with the Texas Rangers (Tampa in 4)

To the Atlanta Braves for living with the loss of Chipper Jones and securing the National League Wildcard spot on the final day of the season. They’ve giving about-to-retire manager Bobby Cox the send off he deserves with a playoff berth.

I’m excited for this year’s MLB post-season, and am rooting for a Twins-Phillies World Series. But it would be nice to see Tampa also fulfill their potential before the roster is picked apart.

Monday Musings – September 27

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I’m calling it now: Lars Eller’s new nickname: Montreeller. Get it? Montrealer…Montreeller?
 
I’m not sure how many of you still read the Montreal Gazette, but in Saturday’s sports section, there was a story about a recently conducted poll about Canadian NHL teams and “domestic” talent. Needless to say, there were some head-scratching, yet unsurprising results. The survey found that:
Nationally, 53% of respondents support a quota for Canadian-born talent for the 6 Canadian NHL teams. Not surprisingly, Quebec buoys that majority with 69% of respondents supporting a quota of local-born talent. Atlantic Canada checks in with 54%, then Alberta with 51%. When that question was pushed a little further, and asked respondants if quotas should be enforced even if it meant losing more games, Quebec again led the pack, with 49% agreeing. Contrast that with Ontario, B.C., and Alberta, the other places where NHL hockey resides in Canada, and now the support of quotas plummets to 26%, 26% and 25% respectively. What this says is that Quebecers are twice as tolerant to losing so long as the team is populated by “les gars de chez nous”, while the rest of Canada would prefer to win. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am. We’ve long spoken about how politics trumps winning in Quebec, and this survey would seem to support that, even if the 49% isn’t even a majority.
 
Preaching to the choir: Habs fans on twitter have rallied around each other and to Price’s defense. Wonderful. Now how does that message get across to the thick-skulled buffoons who will continue to jeer his every mistake? We’ve got to step out of the echochamber on this one, folks. Speaking of stepping out, when is Pierre Gauthier or someone else in the Habs brass going to send a message to the idiotic fans? Are the Habs brass that afraid of pissing off the people that pay for the tickets? Get a backbone! Or are they going to get Jean Beliveau to record some sort of message imploring fans to support the team and its players? That would be the height of pathetic on the organization’s part, but I sooner see that happening before I see Pierre Boivin, Pierre Gauthier or Jacques Martin standing up to the bullies in the stands and in the media.
 
Speaking of idiotic fans booing their teams, it seems the Leafs aren’t without troubles of their own. They were booed off the ice after being skunked 5-0 by the Senators. As stupid as it is to boo players, or your team, maybe teams would be well served not to charge full prices for games that mean nothing. As useless as the games are in the standings, people’s money is all too meaningful.
 
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The Texas Rangers in the playoffs? Really? As unreal as that sounds, it will be nice to see former Expos outfielder Vlad Guerrero play some meaningful October baseball. I’m still rooting for the Twins to take it all.
 
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The Alouettes are full value for their Eastern Division leading 9-3 record, but anyone who tells you they didn’t get lucky on Friday in Winnipeg is kidding themselves. Twice on the game-winning drive the Blue Bombers were hosed on bad, or questionable calls. The first was an illegal contact on a receiver which was the questionable call. The second was a fumble that was ruled incomplete. If the correct call had been made either time, the Als would be 8-4 today. Still good enough for first place, and would have kept the heat on in a seemingly rare year when they’re actually being pushed by the Argonauts and Tiger Cats.
 
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I used to not care so much for the CFL, but have come around over the last several years. But I’m confused…in a league that has trouble keeping 8 teams in the league (one guy actually owns TWO teams in the eight-team league), what is with all this talk of potentially expanding to 10, or even 12 teams? Sure it would be wonderful, but the CFL also has quotas for Canadian talent that each team has to meet, and has some trouble doing at times. How would the league deal with this if they mandated themselves to add 80+ more Canadians to the league without watering down talent? CFL fans are passionate about the Canadian content of their teams, and would, in my uninformed opinion, be very unwilling to let that number drop very far. Perhaps they should run the same poll as above on CFL fans.
 
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I thought this was one of the most boring weekends for NFL football in recent memory. In fact, through 3 weeks of the 2010 season, things have been mostly ho-hum in the NFL. That is, until my Dolphins took on the Jets last night on Sunday Night Football. What an exciting game. Sadly, Miami was not able to overcome the 14-0 hole they dug for themselves, and blew their chances at taking the lead with missed opportunities and untimely penalties.
 
 

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