News you need to get through the day …
A few thoughts for a Saturday morning with only 106 shopping days remaining until Christmas …
ABOVE THE CROWD
McMaster hosts Western on Saturday afternoon for the OUA’s annual battle of the titans. In the past 20 years, only two Yates Cup finals have been played without one or both of those schools in the game (1999 and 2006). In those two decades, the two schools have combined for 12 championships. All the other schools in Ontario combined have won eight.
THE RULING ON THE FIELD …
The University of Southern California had a completely blind player snap the ball for an extra point last weekend. It was the first time Jake Olson had played in a live game.
This could never happen in the CFL. In our league, the only blind participants work in the replay command centre.
The University of Waterloo’s football team has scored 106 points in two games this season. That’s just 37 points fewer than it scored in all of 2015 and 2016 combined. And in winning those two games, it now has as many victories as it did in 2013, ’14, ’15 and ’16 combined.
What’s changed? Well, former McMaster offensive co-ordinator Jon Behie is in his first year playing the same role there, for one.
THE TRACTOR EFFECT?
Many people in the basketball world credit Vince Carter’s arrival in Toronto as the catalyst for the growth of basketball in Canada and the development of so many great players in the NBA, NCAA and Canadian national programs. Without Carter, there may be no Andrew Wiggins, no Tristan Thompson, no Jamal Murray and on and on.
But what if Carter had been drafted by someone else in 1998 before the Raptors were able to get their paws on him (via a trade with Golden State)? Who was the backup plan?
“I don’t recall exactly,” former Raptors general manager Glen Grunwald said on my radio show this week. “But I know our coach at the time, Butch Carter, really wanted us to draft Robert (Tractor) Traylor.”
For the record, the hulking 6-foot-8, nearly 300-pound Traylor played 438 NBA games with four franchises, averaging 4.8 points per game. While managing to not inspire a country to take up the game.
“So I hope we wouldn’t have drafted Robert (Tractor) Traylor,” Grunwald laughed.
SHOULDA BEEN HAMILTON
The Ottawa Senators are removing 1,500 seats from their arena in an attempt to create more demand for season’s tickets. Which is pretty darn embarrassing for a Canadian market.
Not to mention further proof of how royally the NHL messed up back in 1990 when it awarded an expansion franchise to this country’s worst hockey city instead of Hamilton.
BEST COLLEGE NAMES V3.0
Over the past two weeks we’ve shared some of the best names in U.S. college football this season. There are so many that one final — honest, this is it — list is needed. Here goes … 1. Johnathan Boring, Troy 2. Gentle Williams, California 3. My-King Johnson, Arizona 4. Sincere David, Ole Miss 5. Bull Barge, South Alabama 6. Ja’Sir Taylor, Wake Forest 7. Dicaprio Bootle, Nebraska 8. Boobie Hobbs, Utah 9. Riley Lovingood, Tennessee 10. Shy Tuttle, Tennessee
OOPS
The Atlanta Braves played the Miami Marlins on Thursday. The same Miami Marlins whose hometown is at risk of a devastating, crippling direct hit from hurricane Irma this weekend.
So you can understand why the Braves had to issue an apology after playing Rock You Like A
between innings.
Hurricane BEEN A WHILE
The Buffalo Bills open their 2017 season on Sunday which will inevitably end with them missing the playoffs. Once again, they are terrible.
The Bills have the longest active playoff drought in North American pro sports, having not tasted the post-season since 1999. Their last playoff win? That came back in 1995.
As a reminder of how long that’s really been, consider that was the year the DVD was introduced, the Grateful Dead broke up, Windows 95 was cutting-edge technology, the Baltimore Stallions won the Grey Cup, Cal Ripken Jr. hadn’t yet broken Lou Gehrig’s ironman streak, and the big fight card that year was UFC 5.
The DVD is now approaching obsolescence, two original members of the Grateful Dead are deceased, Windows 95 is nine operating systems in the rear-view mirror, the Stallions are in Montreal as the Alouettes, Ripken is in the hall of fame. And Saturday night in Edmonton is UFC 215.