Dis N’ Dat

Baseball Football Hockey MLB Riders Saskatoon Blades Top Stories

Its Friday

Here’s A Little of Dis N’ some of Dat to wind up the week that was in sports…

Let’s start with a little puck… Round three in the WHL play-offs are set thanks to Calgary’s game five win over Red Deer. That means a grand total of 17 of a possible 28 games were played. The WHL prides itself on parity and that anyone can beat anyone else on any given night. I guess that’s true except in the second round of the play-offs.

Speaking of parity my investigation into whether or not there was some form of bigger issue leading to the 20 year drought for the East Division in the WHL Championship has gone cold. The obvious reasons are that the division features some of the smallest markets in the WHL and therefore may have fewer resources financially and otherwise. My search will continue!

Staying with the WHL and the Saskatoon Blades are set to return to the Bridge City this weekend after a pair of weeks off following their four game ouster from the play-offs at the hands of the Medicine Hat Tigers. While the team has had some down time not so for the coaching staff. Lorne Molleken has been devising a plan to optimize the team’s preparation time from now until the Mastercard Memorial Cup opens. From conditioning, to game planning the coaching staff vows to leave no stone unturned.

Closer to home the Canalta Cup continues to be a homer series thanks to the Terriers win in Yorkton last night. Their SJHL championship series with Humboldt is now tied a 2-wins-a-piece. Game five is tomorrow night in Humboldt. A number of eyes in this series are on the Broncos General Manager and Head Coach Dean Brockman.  Brockman has been sensational in that role and the success that he has brought to the franchise on and off the ice. The question around Dean is will he take the next step and make a move to the WHL? Many teams have watched him and the job that he has done. BUT Dean has strong ties to the area and it would take a big offer to move him out of Humboldt.

And let’s not forget that the jump from the SJHL hasn’t been exactly smooth for some. Hello, Norm Johnston, and Kevin Dickie. However, with the success of Dave Hunchak, Steve Young and Marc Habscheid the hiring from the SJHL definitely has merit.

To the grid iron and it will be Friday Night Lights again this season for the University of Saskatchewan Huskies. All home games will be played Friday Nights at Griffiths Stadium despite some recent frigid late season evenings.

The one thing that stuck out to me about the Canada West Schedule that was released this week was the Vanier Cup which will be played in Laval. For the last few seasons the Vanier Cup and Grey Cup weekend have been played in the same city. Unfortunately due to accommodation concerns the event will not be held with the Grey Cup in Regina this November. It’s truly a shame that the University of Saskatchewan didn’t want to host the event here in Saskatoon that weekend. Nor did anyone from the Gordie Howe Bowl upgrade committee step up to take ownership of the event. The improvements that could have been made to the Bowl for the event would have been tremendous. (Field Turf, Dressing Rooms, Maybe even concessions!)

To baseball and I can’t wait to check out the movie ‘42’ the Jackie Robinson story. I’ve read that Chadwick Boseman is outstanding in the lead role!

Meanwhile it’s been anything but Hollywood for the Blue Jays. The Jays dropped their third straight series to open the season (which hasn’t happened since the late 70’s) when they were pasted 11-1 by Detroit. This team seems to lack some character there are some starting pitching concerns and a real challenge with Adam Lind and Edwin Encarnacion struggling in the middle of the order.

Lastly, here’s hoping the snow goes soon from Saskatchewan so that we can think about playing some ball on our diamonds. Last check still about 3 feet of snow on them! Speaking of local ball not sure that it’s a good thing but I haven’t heard a thing from the Saskatoon Yellow Jackets or the Western Major Baseball League… The league and the Yellow Jacket experience are great for the family (despite the horrible facility in Saskatoon) but a quick check of the WMBL website and there is no 2013 schedule and the link to the Yellow Jackets page doesn’t work. One has to wonder if there will be high level baseball in Saskatoon or the province this summer????

That’s it for this week! Thanks for Reading.

Dave

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.