Dis N’ Dat On The WHL, CFL, Riders And More

CFL Football Hockey Riders Saskatoon Blades Top Stories WHL

Dave’s Dis N Dat on a Friday Morning…

Well we get our first look at the 2013 Saskatchewan Roughriders tonight. I like the fact that Darian Durant is going to get some playing time and work on the new George Cortez offence. It will also be interesting to see if the Rider O-Line can handle the pass rush of the Eskimos and if the Green and White in turn can generate a rush of their own.

Interesting how the excitement of a new stadium in Winnipeg was quickly quieted due to some parking problems and issues getting to the field. Firstly, it was the opening night, hiccups were to be expected. Secondly I hope the stadium and civic planners in Regina are taking note.

The Ottawa RedBlacks are officially here. The team made it official last weekend. There seems to be some actual excitement in the nation’s capital with the CFL returning for a third time. Now, am I the only one who doesn’t think the expansion is good? Don’t get me wrong the more teams the merrier in the league. However, I truly believe expansion had to happen with two teams. Remember the old schedule where teams would play twice in four or five days? Football is a game of preparation. Teams were basically throwing that second game away which is a real shot at the integrity of the league.

One last CFL one for you and polling a number of the league’s play-by-play broadcasters the majority believe that the power has shifted in the East with Toronto now being the team to beat, ahead of Montreal. In the west most are going with BC.

To hockey, the Saskatoon Blades dealt another pair of veterans this week. The one intriguing thing about the releases from the Bridge City Bunch after they dealt Jesse Astles, and Lukas Sutter was that there was no comment from General Manager and Head Coach Lorne Molleken. That typically is the norm with any transaction that the Blades make, however to me it was glaringly absent. Molleken obviously was the architect of the transactions. I’m just not sure if there is any more to read into the situation than that.

Staying with the WHL and the biggest thing that came out of the League’s AGM this past week was the report that concussions were down 20% last season. Not for a second am I questioning the league’s integrity, however, in not reporting the number of incidents, which the league doesn’t do, there can be huge misconceptions. For example, there is a big difference if concussions dropped from 10-to-8, as opposed to 100-to-80.

In the NHL, good thing that there were two days off between game one and two of the Stanley Cup Final! The triple-overtime was a killer to a lot of players who logged extrodinary ice time. However, with the NHL Final not cracking the Top 10 programs or even beating out reruns in the weekly ratings one may have thought that the momentum and buzz created by the long game may have translated into some additional viewers if there wasn’t such a delay.

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