Jets fans roar as team soars; Vegas is gold
Gruesome week for Raptors, meanwhile, with ex-coach Casey looking for work
BULLS OF THE WEEK
Canadian James Paxton of Ladner pumped up the volume on his “Big Maple” moniker and tattoo by throwing a no-hitter at the Toronto Blue Jays on Tuesday at the Rogers Centre.
The third no-hitter of the 2018 season was by far the most talked about, partly because of the backstory — a Canadian doing the deed in Canada against a Canadian-based team — and partly because of the breadth of the national television rights Rogers holds for the Jays. It was those rights that allowed his family and friends living in B.C. to actually see him get all 27 outs live; something that wouldn’t have happened if the game was held anywhere else, even at Safeco Field in Seattle.
In the NBA playoffs, LeBron James gave the Cleveland Cavaliers what the Toronto Raptors do not have: A proven superstar who can carry his team on his back whenever he needs to, especially when it matters most.
Yet the biggest bull of the week is the matchup that’s been set for the Western Conference final in the NHL’s Stanley Cup playoffs. On one side, the Winnipeg Jets are causing a commotion at Portage and Main and other parts of Canada after eliminating the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Nashville Predators. The Jets are the 12th Canadian-based team to make the conference finals in 25 years and are vying to become the sixth to make the Stanley Cup finals since 1993. That list: The Vancouver Canucks (1994 and 2011), Calgary Flames (2004), Edmonton Oilers (2006) and Ottawa Senators (2007). In order to do so, the Jets will need to outshine the other half of the dynamic conference final pairing in the remarkable Vegas Golden Knights. All that Vegas has done is clearly establish itself as the best inaugural season major-league expansion team in the history of North American sport. With apologies to football’s Baltimore Stallions, who won the back half of two consecutive Grey Cup appearances in their second year of play in 1995, no one comes close to the unfathomable story that is the Knights.
Not the 1966-67 Chicago Bulls of the NBA. Not the 1995 Carolina Panthers of the NFL. Win or lose against Canada’s Jets, it’s a safe bet to say that Vegas has made a golden mark on the NHL.
BEARS OF THE WEEK
For the second straight week, no team has seen its stock plummet more than that of the Toronto Raptors, swept out of the second round of the NBA playoffs by Cleveland. It wasn’t just that they lost after a dazzling 59-win regular season. It was how they lost. How their best players folded against James and the Cavaliers. How they essentially quit in two of the four games, including the finale.
And being the business of sport, that collapse led to the firing of widely respected coach Dwane Casey on Friday.
Casey is not the first head coach to serve as a sacrificial lamb for underperforming players, but he’s among the rare ones to receive his pink slip while being a leading coach-of-the-year candidate The Sport Market on TSN 1040 rates and debates the bulls and bears of sport business. Join Tom Mayenknecht Saturday from 7 to 11 a.m. for a behind-the-scenes look at the sport business stories that matter most to fans. Follow Tom Mayenknecht at: Twitter.com/TheSportMarket