Yep It’s Friday! Time For More Of Dis ‘N Dat: Riders/Blades/Politics/CFL and More

Baseball CFL Football Hockey MLB Riders Saskatoon Blades Top Stories WHL

Time to wrap up the week with a little more of Dis N’ Dat…

From the CFL, to the sale of the Saskatoon Blades, to Bowling and of course MLB we’ll cover it all as we wind down the week!

OK starting with the CFL and what do the Montreal Alouettes and the 1991 Saskatchewan Provincial election have in common?  Both are going to see a Devine run out of town! The Als Noel Devine fumbled the ball three times against Toronto last night. The Als are a completely dysfunctional team. We will see if they can turn things around in Regina next week.

Staying with the CFL, how often do you hear a player or coach praise the organization that they are a part of? You won’t hear that in Winnipeg! According to the Winnipeg Free Press, Bombers CEO Garth Buchko has made a recommendation to the team’s board of directors to fire General Manager, Joe Mack. The report goes on to say that it is expected the Bombers will promote assistant GM Kyle Walters on an interim basis if the board approves the recommendation. The board is reportedly scheduled to meet Tuesday, but an emergency meeting could be convened in the interim.

So how would you like to be Mack. Obviously a lame duck who should be trying to find a way to strengthen the team during their bye week not fighting for his job. Yikes!

Reading the CFL team’s message board, which I rarely do, an interesting name was brought up to replace Mack permanently. Eric Tillman’s name has been rumoured with the Blue and Gold along with current TSN analyst Duane Ford as well as Rider Assistant General Manager Jeremy O’Day. The new name is none other than Roy Shivers. The former Rider G-M is currently the Director of Player Personnel for the B-C Lions and love him or hate him he did turn around the Rider organization. (albeit in a little longer time frame than some would have liked)

Speaking of television analysts, the hate is on for TSN’s Matt Dunigan. The former quarterback is great in the studio where he is managed by the production team but as far as a colour analyst, a lot of tweeters and message boards are filling up with criticism of his work. Citing a lack of analysis, over bearing personality and some crude behavior in their criticism. At the end of the day we still are tuning in to see it, right!

One last football note on analysts and I’m excited to catch up with Michael Ball on the Rider pre-game show this afternoon. I truly have a blast with him any time we get to work together, primarily on the Rider sidelines. He does a great job of hosting the Rider Round Table and it will be fun catching up with him on our pre-game show tomorrow. Tune in at 5pm on CJWW for our conversation.

To hockey and no concrete news on the sale of the Saskatoon Blades, however, I have heard that the sale is close to being done and could be announced early next week.

Staying with hockey, one name surprisingly absent from WHL coaching vacancies this off season was that of Kris Knoblauch. Knoblauch only lead the Kootenay Ice to a WHL championship before relieved of his duties in Cranbrook for seeking the Head Coaching position at the University of Alberta. Has he been black listed by the league? Time will tell but I thought there was definitely a team or two that would have been a great fit for him.

To the majors and it was great to see the debut of Andrew Albers with the Minnesota Twins this week. Albers is expected to start for the Twins at home on Monday. It’s been a long journey for the North Battleford native but here’s hoping he makes the most of his opportunity.

Lastly, did you catch the story of professional bowler Troy Walker? He was a strike away from the perfect game. As he delivered what appeared to be a strike for some unknown reason the gate on the alley closed and blocked his shot! He did get a second chance to go for it but left 3 pins standing. So there you go if there ever was an argument for Rene Parades consecutive field-goal streak here it is. He too got a second chance after a block, unlike Walker, he was able to convert. Ok so maybe that wasn’t the best argument!!!!!

 

Have a great weekend enjoy the Riders and Stamps and we will chat with you soon!

 

DT

 

 

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