Saskatchewan — they don’t even know how to cheat right; and good riddance to Misses October

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/08/2016 (3630 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Paul Wiecek: Hey,

So I can definitely recommend being on holidays while the Olympics is on. This is the most immersed I’ve been in the Games since I was laid up for two weeks with chicken pox during the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, which I don’t recommend — chicken pox as an adult, not Barcelona, which is a great town. And because I’m at the lake, I’ve been watching the BBC Olympics feed online. There’s been a controversy in Britain this week because the BBC host at the swimming venue wore a skirt on Day 1 that was deemed too short for the British sensibility. Looked fine to me. And then the two former swimmers who are doing colour for the BBC were caught putting their hands on each other’s thighs during the broadcast. Scandal! It’s been like watching Coronation Street, only wetter. You just don’t get these kinds of subplots listening to Elliotte Friedman and Byron MacDonald drone on and on and on and on.

The butterfly stroke has to be the most inefficient way to travel through water ever invented. It’d be like making Usain Bolt run the 100 on one leg, which I’d totally watch, by the way.

Steve Lyons: Hey — good to hear from ya.

So, I have been to your cottage and sat on your dock looking at the lake… all I can say is GET AWAY FROM THE TV!!!!!!

Your mentioning of the British sensibility got me thinking about my recent trip to London last May. I totally expected it to be all stuffy, prim and proper. I was pleasantly surprised how ‘European’ it was. Guess, that might change now that they’re leaving, but let’s not get off on a politics tangent.

I haven’t watched much of the Olys, other than to keep track of the Manitobans. The Jays are on most nights, ya know. That relay race where Chantal Van Landeghem won bronze last Saturday night was pretty exciting. I know you spent more than a few hours at Pan Am watching your daughter do laps — you must have enjoyed that race?

Paul: Yeah, the Pan Am Pool was a second home for the Wieceks for a few years. The time commitment those Manta and Marlins kids make to swimming is extraordinary. And now they’ve got a new poster girl to look up to in Van Landeghem. I can’t overstate how big this will be for Manitoba swimming. How much you want to bet eight years from now we’re going to be interviewing some Manitoba swimmer at the 2024 Summer Olympics and she’s going to tell us about how she fell in love with swimming as a little girl watching Van Landeghem win a medal in Rio?

Speaking of the Jays, I see your hero Jose Bautista tripped on the turf and is hurt again. Tell me something new. Soft and whiny — a bad combination in a sport where they play 162 games a season. I thought all these turf problems were supposed to end once the Jays kicked the Argos out of Rogers Centre?

Steve: Joey Bats has been tripping over a lot of things this season — most notably his words. I like the team better without him. I agree with your ‘whiny’ assessment. I think his attitude, etc. have grated on even the most loyal of Jays fans this season. I know everyone tends to think Bautista and the offence drive this team, but it’s the pitching that has the Jays in contention and what I think will carry them to the post-season. Three of their starters are in the Top 5 of ERA in the AL (Sanchez, Estrada and Happ). And J.A. Happ is the only 16-game winner in the majors right now. David Price you ask? 9-8 with a 4.34 ERA.

And since we’re on the topic of baseball babies — you’re the Yankees fan, so it must have been a relief to you to finally see the exodus of Alex Rodriguez this week?

Paul Wiecek: A-Roid will not be missed. He was a liar and a cheat and, with the exception of 2009, the worst kind of playoff choker. If Reggie Jackson was Mister October, A-Rod was Misses October.

Back to the Olympics for a sec: I see while I was accusing CBC’s Byron MacDonald of being boring this morning, he’s suddenly in the headlines for saying on air last night — except he didn’t realize he was on air — that a 14-year-old Chinese swimmer “went out like stink, died like a pig.” So, a couple things: First, Byron MacDonald talks way too much, which made it inevitable that sooner or later he was going to say something really stupid. The late great Don Wittman told me years ago that the Olympics speak for themselves and the secret as a broadcaster was just to get out of the way. Witt — I miss that guy. But at the same time, I do feel a little sorry for MacDonald. There is a gallows humour and coarseness that runs deep in press boxes. Likening an athlete to a pig would be among the nicest things you’d hear in a press box most nights, especially at Investors Group Field. But it just comes across as outrageous and tone deaf when it gets overheard in the real world like this. Still, rookie mistake by a broadcast veteran: I learned in the second year of J-school — the hard way — to treat every microphone as though it is hot.

Steve Lyons: Witt was a great guy. Remind me to tell you the story of the time he and Dan Kepley took me to a riverboat casino in Shreveport, Louisiana. We were there covering a Bombers game vs the Glieberman-owned Shreveport Pirates. That was a crazy time in the CFL, with the U.S. expansion, the Gliebermans et al. Fun though.

So, the Bombers play a more traditional opponent Friday night — the Argos. A win would give them a 4-4 record heading into their bye week. That would be rather surprising given what transpired in the first five weeks of the season.

By the way, did you see the Bombers Report video Jeff Hamilton and I did on Wednesday? Check out our FP uniforms!

Paul: Man, wouldn’t you like to be young and handsome again like Jeff Hamilton? I used to be young.

I think I’m less surprised with what the Bombers have done the last couple weeks than most people. I’ve thought from Day 1 that this team had all the talent necessary to be something special this season. The problem was the head coach and the starting quarterback and the very weird bromance Mike O’Shea and Drew Willy had going on. With that now behind us — or at least up on the shelf for the foreseeable future — this team under Matt Nichols is finally living up to the high expectations fans quite rightly had for the Bombers in 2016. Nice to see. Nobody deserves a little joy in their lives more than the legion of Bombers fans who have known almost exclusively suffering for a quarter century and counting.

I see the Saskatchewan Roughriders are in trouble this week for allegedly operating an illegal “pre-practice roster.” Two things: the Riders have been cheating on the salary cap since Jeff Hamilton was a gleam in his Daddy’s eye. And second, how can a team be cheating and still be as lousy as the Riders?

Saskatchewan — they don’t even know how to cheat right.

Steve: Sorry for not getting back to ya right away — left the office and went and grabbed some lunch. Falafel pita from Baraka Bakery on Main Street — yum.

I get the feeling we’ll see Willy again this season at some point.

Lots of pressure on Chris Jones in Regina this season — hailed as the saviour. Still, the league needs to come down hard on this kinda stuff. The CFL’s reputation is tenuous at best and it’s this kind of stuff that that makes it look silly. Not that cheating is confined to the CFL: Hello Tom Brady and the St. Louis Cardinals.

Was making plans with the Jets today to have someone from our staff attend their YoungStars tourney in Penticton in a few weeks. And you’ll be off to the World Cup of Hockey in a little over a month as well.

Summer is short around here pal — go sit on the dock.

Thanks for checking in, and not mentioning overtime again this week ha.

Paul Wiecek: Caught a five-pound smallmouth out here this morning. Biggest bass I ever saw come out of this lake. Took 15 minutes to land. It will be a 20-pounder that dragged me around the lake for two days by the time I’m interviewing that swimmer at the 2024 Games.

Fish stories, unlike sportswriters, get better with age.

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Later.

Steve Lyons: Sure ya did.

Oh, forgot to mention: That guy who sent me the email telling me what a great decision it was to make you the lead sports columnist — you know, the one who doubled your fan club? Well, turns out he also believes the Cubs are finally going to win the World Series this season. Perhaps it’s the heat.

Also, Tim Campbell popped into the office today. He wrote his final story for the Free Press on Wednesday. It was a yarn from the Manitoba Summer Games, and in the words of our editor Paul Samyn, the fact that his last story came from the Summer Games in Steinbach says a lot about Tim’s character, his sense of teamwork and his commitment to our readership. It wasn’t about the gloss of a Stanley Cup game. It wasn’t going to win an NNA. But it mattered to those he interviewed and those who read it.