Monday Headlines (on Tuesday)

I know you've been waiting patiently - but hey, it was a holiday yesterday...

DON'T LOOK NOW...

... but the (University of) Regina Rams are 4-1 and ranked 10th in the country. It may not seem like much but for a team with a proud history it's good to see the team having some success again. Teale Orban appears to be the second coming of Darryl Leason (now there's a name from the past). Orban is in the Top 5 of most of the major quarterbacking statistical categories in the country (wow, there's got to be a better way to say that) - including leading the nation in touchdown passes with 16. The Rams have 3 games left in their regular season schedule: the University of Alberta at home this weekend and then two monster games on the road - October 20th against 3rd ranked Manitoba and then October 27th against 5th ranked Saskatchewan. It would be great to see them get at least one of those road games. Nuts to a Roughrider home playoff game, how about a Rams home playoff game?

IS IT JUST ME...

...or was anyone else not even a little bit impressed by the Roughrider's win yesterday. It's probably just me. If Calgary had somehow managed to get more than 2 first downs in the first half that game might have been a totally different story. That game should have been about 45-7 for Saskatchewan at halftime and over. In a somewhat related story, how glorious was it for the first 20 minutes of the game when CBC was having audio trouble? I was loving life until the ever-insightful Mark Lee and Chris Walby came on the broadcast. I know that it's sort of eerie just watching a game with only crowd noise but in my opinion it's 100% better than suffering through that broadcast team especially. And while I'm on the subject of the CBC - was it really necessary to show those last, ever-important, Montreal kneel-downs before switching over to the Rider game? As soon as it was apparent that Hamilton couldn't stop the clock and Montreal did not have to run another play, CBC should have switched over to the Calgary/Saskatchewan game. I realize that it was only a couple of minutes but when one game is foregone and the other is just getting going it should have been a no-brainer.

AND WHILE I'M AT IT...

... how about that Sportsnet? I've got a question for you, did you happen to see the Indians/Yankees game last night? Well, if you've only got Sportsnet West - you didn't see it. This was a playoff elimination game mind you and we got the Oilers 3rd game of the year. I understand that hockey takes precedence over everything in this country but this is just ridiculous. How can the channel that bought the rights to the MLB playoffs not even show the games? I'm sure that Sportsnet East or Ontario had the baseball game on but c'mon. It's becoming increasingly clear that sports broadcasters in this country either don't have any common sense or they just don't care. To show that I actually can walk the walk from time to time, this is a copy of an email I sent to Sportsnet this morning:

"I have a question for you, does Sportsnet have sole rights to broadcasting the first round of the MLB playoffs in Canada? If the answer is yes, next time could you actually broadcast the games? As someone who gets Sporstnet West I was unable to watch Cleveland eliminate the Yankees last night. Was the baseball game shown on SN East or Ontario? I realize that baseball is not as popular as hockey in this country but I think an MLB playoff game, especially a potential elimination game, would be more important than the Oilers 3rd game of 82. I can assure you that it was a very frustrating situation - I felt like a hockey fan in the U.S trying to find a game."

I don't want perfection, because that's an impossibility, I'd just like some quality broadcasting and some accountability from time to time - and I don't think that's too much to ask for.

AND SPEAKING OF THOSE OILERS...

... how about those totally white road jerseys they were wearing in Detroit last night? I thought they were wearing their practice jerseys when I first flipped over in hopes of watching the baseball game. I didn't mind most of the new jerseys when they were first released but now seeing them in action I think I'm slowly changing my mind about a lot of them.