Sports
Third-generation bronc rider Logan Hay charges out of the gate on Day 1 of Canadian Finals Rodeo
Strong First Night for Logan Hay
Logan Hay got the monkey off his back on night one of the Canadian Finals Rodeo. The third-generation bronc rider marked an impressive 85.75 points on Vold Rodeo’s 52 Elvira to top the field in a performance that saw the competitors take on the eliminator pen.
“I’ve never got a score in the first round at CFR in the three years I’ve been here,” the Wildwood, Alberta cowboy said. “The first time was first year jitters, then some bad luck honestly the next two. This year I knew I had one of the harder horses in there; she’s not easy. You have to go all or nothing as she bucks off a lot of people. All the guys had their hands full tonight. There wasn’t an easy one in there. A lot of guys stubbed their toes who don’t normally do that. I got by a tough one and I’m glad it worked out.”
Tonight’s performance was a re-match for the young athlete as he earned top honours on the same horse at the Strathmore Stampede earlier in the season. “It’s always good to get the first one under your belt. It’s good for your confidence.” Hay added.
Among the casualties on the night was three time and reigning World and Canadian Champion Zeke Thurston who bucked off Calgary Stampede’s Cloudy Skies.
In the ladies barrel racing event it was 17 year old rookie, Blake Molle from Chauvin, Alberta who turned in the winning time – a 13.78 second run on her gelding Mercy. The tough roster of barrel racers enjoyed a strong first out with half the runs under 14 seconds.
The first performance steer wrestling lead was shared by three men: North Dakota cowboy Riley Reiss and Albertans Ryan Shuckburgh and Ty Miller, all in at a solid 3.9 seconds.
In the bareback riding, 2019 Canadian Champion Orin Larsen teamed with Duane Kesler Championship Rodeo’s Knockout for 86 points and the $9335 cheque. The round win moved the Inglis, Manitoba cowboy into the early lead overall.
On a night when the team ropers as a group struggled, the combination of Tee Mcleod and Brady Chappel – both Saskatchewan athletes – took the round win with a 4.3 second run. The victory was doubly productive for Mcleod who moved to the lead in the All Around race.
Tie down roping saw Wimborne, Alta. cowboy Jason Smith earn top money with an 8.3 second run on Moon, Canadian Tie-Down Horse of the Year.
And 2019 Canadian Champion bull rider Edgar Durazo was flawless in covering last year’s Bull of the Year, Duane Kesler’s Alberta Prime Devils Advocate. Durazo marked 89 points to move closer to season leader Coy Robbins who bucked off in the round.
In the novice bareback, season leader Chase Siemens won first with a 77.5 effort while defending novice Saddle Bronc Champion Colten Powell was 72.5 to win his event in the first performance.
Brodi Beasley was awarded 82.5 points to claim the junior steer riding win in performance one.
And 2006 Canadian Bull Riding Champion and youth rodeo coach Tanner Girletz was presented with the prestigious Cowboy of the Year award sponsored by Legend Rodeo. Congratulations Tanner!
Go to rodeocanada.com for Canadian Finals Rodeo results. Check out www.cfrreddeer.ca/ for additional event details.
CFR ’49 performance two kicks off at 6:00 pm Nov 2 at the Peavey Mart Centrium, Westerner Park in Red Deer, Alta. If you cannot attend the event, sign up to follow the action on The Cowboy Channel.
Bruce Dowbiggin
Hat Trick: Nick Bosa’s Photo Bomb Re-Ignites The Colin Kaepernick Fury
For many this U.S. election can’t be over soon enough. The epidemic of the stupids still rages. (Anyone expecting resolution on Tuesday night better be in for a wait.)
Example: On last week’s Sunday Night football, San Francisco star Nick Bosa photo-bombed a postgame interview wearing a MAGA hat. (For some reason it was not the telltale red). He then quickly departed leaving his teammates and NBC reporter Melissa Stark to continue the usual bromides about team and character.
Predictably in this insane election season, Bosa’s drive-by political statement sent social media into an Elon Musk orbit. First were the demands that Bosa be fined by the NFL for political activity. Indeed the NFL can impose a $11,255 fine for “wearing, displaying, or otherwise conveying personal messages… which relate to political activities or causes.” (As of this writing, the NFL has yet to impose any sanctions against Bosa.)
Then there were butt-hurt Democrats. “I hope (49ers CEO) @JedYork trades Nick Bosa to Mar-A-Lago,” wrote Robert Rivas, Democratic speaker of the 29th District of the California State Assembly. “As a lifelong @49ers fan, I can say I’ve seen enough of Bosa in California.” And so on.
More telling were the Colin Kaepernick flashbacks to when he sat in 2016 during the national anthem to highlight his conversion to #BLM orthodoxy. “I better hear all the angry white people who told Colin Kaepernick to “shut up and play ball” or go “keep politics out of the NFL” outraged by this too. Like come on keep your energy or does it only count when you’re able to be racist?
“Two 49er NFL players. Two political statements. Black Lives Matter v. MAGA. Only one is allowed by the NFL.”
“Anyone remember when Nick Bosa called Kaepernick a clown for taking a political stance? Imagine being this much of a hypocrite,” another fan added.
Well now… we could make the point that photo bombing a political preference during an election is somewhat different from a high-profile convert to radical racial reparations disrespecting the national anthem in a non-election season. Here’s how we covered it in August of 2018.
For those who don’t remember the grievance, Kaepernick (who was raised by white parents) suddenly had a fit of conscience over the alleged slaughter of unarmed blacks by police. “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”
Which is his right, except unarmed black men in 2016, unarmed black men in 2024, are not being killed by police in the hundreds. (Most years it’s in single digits to 20 range in a population of 41 million blacks.) While tut-tutting about the gesture made on his employer’s time, the NFL declined to sanction Kaepernick. Which sparked copy-cat kneel downs and protests around sports, accompanied by the racial divisiveness typical of the Obama years.
His protest also coincided with his decline as a starting QB in the NFL (the 49ers won just two games in 2016). By 2018 Kaepernick was out of work in the NFL (after opting out of a contract from San Fran) and a full-blown BLM martyr. Nike gave him $ 3 million a year to spearhead their Woke campaigns. Netflix did a series on the ex-QB. Newly minted president Donald Trump decried the whole situation. Then Cowboys owner Jerry Jones— who’d knelt with players in Week One of the anthem controversy— threatened to bench any players who upstaged the anthem.
The NFL then passed a rule saying any players who wanted to protest the national anthem could do so in the locker room. That limp policy lasted just a few weeks. Protests during the anthem petered out as they lost their ability to shock. For the next years Kaepernick would claim he was blackballed (he reached a settlement with the NFL in 2019) and express his desire to play.
The 2020 George Floyd riots— after he died of a drug-induced heart attack while in police custody— pushed Kaepernick’s story to the side. He’s now done as a possible QB and the financial problems of BLM have made them a lesser player in the grievance cause. But it is fair to say Kaepernick made a choice to be a symbol for all multi-million dollar oppressed athletes and the radical Left has moved on without him.
So Bosa acting like a college sophomore to express a voting preference after a game compared to Kaepernick wanting a race-based social revolution in America? Mmm. These things are not like the other. It’s like accusing Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce of political interference for appearing with his girlfriend Taylor Swift, a vocal Kamala Harris supporter.
What is inarguable is the toxic Trump effect in pro sports such as football or basketball which have over seventy percent black players. It’s not just black players. Prominent white coaches such as Golden State’s Steve Kerr and San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich go off about Donald Trump. Here’s Pop during a press conference: “He’s pathetic. He’s small. He’s a whiner… He’s a damaged man.”
As we’ve said many times, the left-leaning sports media piled on Trump as well. Former ESPN NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski F-bombed Trump, TNT analyst and HoF player Charles Barkley said anyone voting for Trump was an “idiot” and award-winning host Bob Costas called him the “most disgraceful figure in modern presidential history” and his voters “a toxic cult”. So the messaging on Bosa vs. Kaepernick is supect at best.
We will update this column after we learn the results of the election (likely later this week). But for now let’s all be grateful that candidate Trump as political football is at an end. And the hysteria from Kamala Harris’ crowd can be re-directed to the border.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. His new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.
Sports
Priming The NHL Coaching Carousel For Another Spin
“The world will ask you who you are, and if you do not know, the world will tell you.” Carl Jung
We are about a month into the endless 2024-25 NHL schedule. There are good surprises. Winnipeg and Calgary are better than thought. There are bad surprises. Cup finalists in spring, Edmonton is 3-4-1. Vexing Toronto is at a mediocre 4-4-1.
It’s early. But not so early that several coaches are not feeling the heat already. We can expect that heads will soon roll if certain teams don’t find their mojo. It’s a sad but predictable result of a salary cap league where the most disposable item is a coach. As we wrote in May, don’t shed too many tears for the deposed coaches. Salvation is just a turn of the wheel away.
As long as you’re willing to re-locate frequently the job of NHL head coach has a fair degree of job security. Even when you get fired it seems there’s a ready appetite in some other town for a skill set you have just failed at.
Latest evidence that failure has an I and U in it: Having canned Sheldon Keefe after a lengthy (note: sarcasm) five years at the helm of the Toronto Maple Leafs, club management scoured the bushes to find former player Craig “Chief” Berube, who has previously hung his coaching shingle in Philadelphia and St. Louis, where he won a Stanley Cup as an interim coach.
Chief wasn’t the glamour name (we were praying for Bruce Boudreau.). If the idea is how do the Leafs motivate their four mega-millionaires, he’s more like Mike Babcock than Sheldon Keefe. He won’t look at players’ cell phones, but he will give them that old-time religion. Knowing Chief from his Calgary days we’d say he can probably take the Toronto fishbowl.
(For those with long Leafs’ memories Berube was part of a famous trade in 1992 to which we devote an entire chapter in our new book Deal With It. He went west to Calgary while Doug Gilmour headed east to Toronto in the massive 10-man trade. While the Leafs “won” the trade, only the maligned Gary Leeman and journeyman Jamie Macoun won Cups– for teams other than Calgary and Toronto.)
But we digress. Sometimes it seems that NHL teams would rather lose with a known commodity than win with someone bold and unconventional behind the bench. While almost 30 percent of NHL players are European there have only been two European heads coaches, none in the past 20 years. Why? NHL owners are risk averse. And the league is a fraternity of forgiveness for guys you played junior with.
A brief ramble through the 2023-24 coaching roster shows several peripatetic bench bosses, led by the inimitable John Tortorella, who wore out his welcome in Vancouver, Tampa Bay, NY Rangers and Columbus before Philly curiously decided he had something left to offer. Let’s also not forget Lindy Ruff, who was pink slipped in Buffalo, Dallas, New Jersey and the NY Rangers— and now has been resurrected in Buffalo as a “fresh voice”.
Some retreads are getting results. Peter Laviolette got the Rangers into the third-round of the 2024 postseason, after gigs in Carolina, Philadelphia, Nashville, Washington (pause for breath) and the NY Islanders. Paul Maurice, who guided Florida to the Cup, has had two stints with Carolina, plus Toronto and Winnipeg. Peter DeBoer, whose Dallas Stars were odd-on faves to with the 2024 Cup, has also coached Florida, San Jose, New Jersey and Vegas.
You want more? Rick Tocchet was head coach in Arizona and Tampa Bay before getting the perch in Vancouver. Travis Green, newly hired in Ottawa, has previously been found wanting in Vancouver and New Jersey. We could go on.
The king of the coach-for-life carousel is the just-retired Rick Bowness who finally called it a day in Winnipeg after the Jets were eliminated this spring. How long has Bones been knocking around? He was the coach of the expansion Ottawa Senators in 1992, one the worst five teams ever by NHL standards. Wonderful man who also spent stints as an assistant in cities in 30-plus years around the continent.
There are more. Sitting in the green room, polishing their pregame speeches are the well- travelled Boudreau, Dallas Eakins, Gerard Gallant, Todd McLellan, Claude Julien and Mike Yeo. Heaven forbid someone might still ask one of the Sutters to saddle up again. Brian (St. Louis, Chicago, Boston, Calgary), Darryl (Calgary, L.A., Anaheim, San Jose and Calgary again) and Brent (Calgary, New Jersey) have been perennial NHL coaching prospects for decades.
So take, heart, Sheldon Keefe. Joining Keefe in looking for a rebound job are Scott Arniel, Jeff Blashill, Jeremy Colliton, Kevin Dineen, Phil Housley, Kirk Muller, Davis Payne, Todd Reirden, Joe Sacco, Brad Shaw, Geoff Ward and Trent Yawney. Good company. [UPDATE: Sheldon didn’t have to wait long. The NJ Devils signed him as their new coach.]
Don’t cry too hard for these coaching candidates. Unless they have years left on contract (Keefe had two) most wait out the time between head-coaching stints by accepting assistant-coach positions. The ranks of assistants contain a second tier of talent, also ready to go at a moment’s notice.
There are a scant few who’ve hung on in one town. Jon Cooper has been in Tampa since 2013, a Methuselah stint in today’s terms. Rod Brind’Amour has managed to avoid the chop in Carolina since 2018. But the reality is that, since the start off the 2023-24 season alone, there have been 13 head-coaching changes in the NHL. Go back to January of 2023, and 19 of the league’s 32 teams have changed coaches.
Which brings us back to the original idea: “Is there no one in international hockey who knows anything?” We won’t profess to be coaching talent scouts, but the idea that no one working outside North America can meet the job description better than some— if not most—of the coaches mentioned above beggars the imagination.
One final note: If you’re looking for an explanation of the coaching carousel and its recent frequency, look no further than Gary Bettman and his salary cap obsession. By forcing a hard cap on teams he’s concentrated the money— and the power— on a few players per team. When a coach is pitted against his stars it’s a no-win proposition.
The Leafs stars used their power to get Babcock fired. And it’s been repeated on other teams. While Keefe didn’t lose his Core Four he also couldn’t get them to win in the postseason. For that he got the chop— and a premium place in the next coaching carousel.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. His new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.
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