TrueBlue4ever

This was their attempt today.

If things play out perfectly, the Jets could eliminate the Flames on Wednesday, and could clinch as early as Thursday.

So my wife knows one of the Bomber team doctors from her professional work with him. We ran into him last night at the hockey game, and in the course of chatting he mentioned that Zach Collaros has still not recovered from his ankle sprain, in fact there has been a regression. Doctors were hoping it would progress on its own, but they are all but certain now that he actually tore some ligaments and it will require a surgical intervention. The club is keeping things hush hush for now because they don’t want to submarine season ticket sales, especially because they are going to throw in an “early bird” Grey Cup multi-season ticket package deal, and they don’t want sales to fall off a cliff. Bottom line, they are likely to announce a surgery in the coming weeks, and he will be out of commission for at least the first two months of the season at best. April fools!

Canucks ahead 4-3 with 4 and a half minutes left when Elias Peterson was called for a high stick against the Flames’ Walker Duehr. Huberdaeu ties it up on the PP a minute later. Only thing was Duehr lifted Petterson’s stick into his own face to create the penalty.

Funny how some “fans” who were absent the first half of the year on the chat and surfaced full of gripes when the losing started have once again fallen silent tonight. Almost like they would rather have us be bad and be happier complaining than see us win.

Full house in the barn tonight. You can hear the big communal exhale.

This outpouring of grief from Fox is so sad. Allow me to offer up my most empathetic remark: “Thoughts and prayers.”

https://www.cnn.com/ ALL CAPS HEADLINE. ENJOY.

Anyone else think she’s sliding in now to throw her hat in the ring for party leader when Stefanson inevitably gets turfed after losing the fall election?

Wednesday’s key game: MIN @ COL 4-2 Thursday’s key games: NAS @Pit Ana @ SEA

Is anyone prepared to admit that his race and that alone has a lot to do with it for many Manitobans? Not that I am advocating that this is at all a valid reason, but the truth is there are a lot of “I am not a racist, but…..” folks out there that don’t want an indigenous person as Premier and use the “well he has a criminal past” angle, when they were happy to ignore the white collar shenanigans of Pallister or more notably Sam Katz because their wealth could help them avoid criminal sanctions, or the moral quandaries of say a Vic Toews, but hold an Aboriginal person to a different moral standard to disguise their flat out bigotry.

Ouch. Elsewhere, Montreal has been eliminated from playoff contention.

Tuesday’s key games: WPG @ SJ NAS @ Bos DAL @ Chi LA @ CAL Vegas could clinch a playoff spot tonight.

And in the East, Toronto and New York clinch playoff spots.

The division leaders are 1 and 2. The second place team in the Pacific will play the third place team in the Pacific, even if they have the second best record overall in the West. We will play either the top team in the Pacific or the top team in the Central.

Tonight’s key games: SEA @ MIN COL @ Ana

And in the annual NHLPA player poll, and whenever agents are asked, Edmonton ranks just behind Winnipeg and ahead of 30 other cities for “most listed destination on my no-trade list”

The precedent was set two days earlier when Boston’s AJ Greg got one game for a cross check to the face on Montreal’s Mike Hoffman, leaving him with a nasty 18 stitch cut across his chin. Department of player safety is a joke - but with former goon George Parros in charge, the repeat offender thugs get protected and the good players who go over the line once get hammered. And all the post-whistle cheap shots and skirmishes get ignored.

People seem to conveniently forget that CTV and CBC did not want to keep the CFL, unless it was the Grey Cup game. TSN was the only real option.

Sad reality is Winnipeg is a place very few want to play, so draft and develop (and overpay early if you want to lock in long term) is the only way to build the team. On that end Cheveldayoff and the scouts have actually done a good job. Good drafts and got Scheifele, Hellebuyck, Ehlers and Connor on team-friendly contracts compared to their performance. Even Wheeler’s current deal, as a “we owe him a veteran overpay after so many years of value” contract, has not been a bad overpay until the second half of this season, and the salary cap freeze due to the pandemic helped make it worse than it would have been. But think of how many players did not want to sign long term here. Kane, Trouba, Laine, Copp, Hayes, Stastny, now Stanley and Dubois. This team will always play with one hand tied behind its back compared to the Tampa’s, Vegas’s, New York’s, LA’s, Toronto’s and Montreal’s of the world. A shake-up is absolutely needed, but those who want to blow it up and sell all the stars think it will be a quick fix - it won’t. And those same fans will be the first to gripe next year and the year after when we are a bottom feeder (and will be for about 5 years if we go full re-build) and will want to dump their season tickets. In a 32 team league, you don’t go from also-ran to Cup favourite in one summer. As I said before, first move is to figure out a long term extension for Hellebuyck. Everything else flows from what that contract size will be and what else it allows us to do. Second step is to figure out definitively what is happening with Dubois. Figure out your line on the sand on a long term deal dollar value, and if he says no matter what he wants to go to free agency, move him this summer. If he signs here, move Scheifele. If Dubois is gone, you are kind of forced to keep Scheifele, as you will have no top line centre otherwise (barring a centre-for-centre trade). From there, figure out the locker room culture and repair it (if Wheeler is disliked because he’s a hard ass on other players, frankly I say the entitled young’uns are the problem and not a taskmaster captain who sacrificed both testicles blocking shots and expects the same commitment from others - but I am not in the locker room so I don’t know more than any other armchair critic what the real story is).

Winnipeg……where the back-up QB and the 3rd line 8 goals a year centre are more popular than the stars.