Wall tackles retirement of former Rider Makowsky

REGINA — Premier Brad Wall shared some observations about Gene Makowsky as both a football player and a politician, the day the veteran Roughrider and recently elected MLA announced his departure from his life in the sport.

As a fan of football, Wall was disappointed, he said.

“I think he was one of our best O-lineman last year and I think he could still play. He never got hurt last year and standing beside him, it sure seems he could still play,” Wall said in a media scrum, joking about the relative size of the man. “I know he was still working out.”

Wall also said the celebrity of being a Rider didn’t hurt on the campaign trail in the fall.

“I door knocked a little bit with Gene. It was good perspective for me. There was one door in particular that was sort of symbolic of most of the reactions. We went to this one house and there’s Gene and then there’s Brad,” the premier said, gesturing to indicate a height difference.

“The guy comes to the door and looks right and Gene Makowsky and says, ‘I’ve been waiting for you to come and waiting to get a chance to meet you’ — and he kind of reaches outs and shakes — ‘And yeah, hello to you’ he says to me,” Wall says, imitating a rather curt tone of voice.

“Obviously he was more interested in talking to Gene Makowsky and he asked him for one of his playing cards, which Gene had, so he signed. There’s not a lot of people running for office that have their own playing cards, so there were some advantages. But you know why he won? He won because he worked hard in that constituency.”

Wall also recalled his favourite on-the-field moment from Makowsky last season, remembering a rare penalty called against the lineman for a late hit on a Montreal Alouette who seemed to be getting a little bit rough with quarterback Darian Durant.

“Gene saw something because he came from nowhere running down the field and knocked the guy off of Durant,” Wall said. “It was one of those penalties where I think the Rider Nation was going, ‘Yeah, but he was protecting the QB.’

“If you looked at Gene’s eyes right after the flag, you saw something that you don’t see very often — and that was a bit of anger,” Wall continued. “He’s a pretty easygoing, very well-tempered man for being a football player, an O lineman, but in that moment, when I think he thought they were piling on his quarterback, he looked a little bit miffed.”

“So as his new quarterback, does that reassure you a little?” a reporter asked Wall.

“Well if you do need anyone to block for you, it might as well be Gene Makowsky,” Wall answered, with a laugh.

Wall also commented this week on the upcoming 500th episode of The Simpsons, a show the premier has been known to watch and enjoy.

“You know the last few seasons have kind of been disappointing to me, but yes, I am,” he said of being a fan. “I think seasons four, five and six — those are outstanding. My favourite one is the baseball episode, which Simpsons fans will know, when they had all those pro ball players in there. It’s interesting. Talk about longevity. That’s quite a run for any show.”

An unrelated oddity this week came in relation to Dwain Lingenfelter’s 2009 campaign for leadership of the provincial NDP and the scandal over party memberships revealed to have been sold without the knowledge or consent of those said to be buying them.

A campaign volunteer was charged soon after the situation came to light and the situation was sent to Manitoba’s Justice Department to handle due to the potential political implications.

After years of legal wrangling and not much happening publicly, Crown prosecutor Neil Cutler was in Regina this week for a case-management meeting in advance of a five-week trial that had been set for between April 23 and May 25 in Meadow Lake, and could have involved up to potential 42 witnesses, the lawyer said.

But when he arrived at the courthouse, Cutler was approached by the man at the centre of the issue, Ernest Morin. The prosecutor had earlier unsuccessfully offered a plea bargain, but now, Morin indicated he was ready to make a deal.

Not only that, he wanted to plead and have it all over and done with that morning. And so, a situation that took more than two years to come to fruition was resolved in less than two hours.