Around the League: 2019 Off Season

[SpeedFlex27]

If labour piece isn't reached before a strike I think you can consider Randy Ambrosie's term as Commissioner a huge failure & I would hope he is asked to leave when his contract expires.  The league withholding bonuses due in the off season as well as the frustrating delay of 3 weeks in bargaining this month has hurt Ambrosie's  credibility with fans & players. I really don't know of many who either like him or think he is doing a great job.  It's one thing to hate Gary Bettman but the NHL is 50 times bigger than the CFL.  Fans will boo Bettman but still attend games. With the CFL, the league is much smaller. If fans are angry at Ambrosie, it's because he isn't doing a good job, they don't feel a connection to him any longer & he's messing with something we feel belongs to us. That is ours. A part of our own.  That's a pretty sleep slope to maneuver if the CFL chooses to go down it.

The other thing I find frustrating is Ambrosie & the CFL bargaining committee should have said to the Players Association to roll up their sleeves as we're going to keep meeting until we get a deal instead of just Monday & Tuesday.  It's like they're not taking any of this seriously.

[Colin Unger]

Over dramatic aren't we?  

Fans are mostly angry with Ambroise do to Xenophobia and change resistance. The league needs to be proactive and look for new opportunities to grow the game. Better than any commish in memory he is doing that. Let him follow through on the CFL 2.0 and then judge him based on that.  

[JCon]

4 minutes ago, Colin Unger said:

Over dramatic aren't we?  

Fans are mostly angry with Ambroise do to Xenophobia and change resistance. The league needs to be proactive and look for new opportunities to grow the game. Better than any commish in memory he is doing that. Let him follow through on the CFL 2.0 and then judge him based on that.  

Say whaaaaaaa????

[Colin Unger]

32 minutes ago, JCon said:

Say whaaaaaaa????

That may have been a bit strong.  I would imagine the majority of what I'm referring to here would be in the change resistance category and only a minor element of it is in the xenophobia category. 

[JCon]

44 minutes ago, Colin Unger said:

That may have been a bit strong.  I would imagine the majority of what I'm referring to here would be in the change resistance category and only a minor element of it is in the xenophobia category. 

Yeah, I think that's a bit of a stretch. 

Edited April 26, 2019 by JCon

[Rod Black]

2 hours ago, SpeedFlex27 said:

If labour piece isn't reached before a strike I think you can consider Randy Ambrosie's term as Commissioner a huge failure & I would hope he is asked to leave when his contract expires.  The league withholding bonuses due in the off season as well as the frustrating delay of 3 weeks in bargaining this month has hurt Ambrosie's  credibility with fans & players. I really don't know of many who either like him or think he is doing a great job.  It's one thing to hate Gary Bettman but the NHL is 50 times bigger than the CFL.  Fans will boo Bettman but still attend games. With the CFL, the league is much smaller. If fans are angry at Ambrosie, it's because he isn't doing a good job, they don't feel a connection to him any longer & he's messing with something we feel belongs to us. That is ours. A part of our own.  That's a pretty sleep slope to maneuver if the CFL chooses to go down it.

The other thing I find frustrating is Ambrosie & the CFL bargaining committee should have said to the Players Association to roll up their sleeves as we're going to keep meeting until we get a deal instead of just Monday & Tuesday.  It's like they're not taking any of this seriously.

For the most part I can’t say that CFL football fans put much thought into what the Commish does or doesn’t do. His performance in the role is far down the list of fan priorities way behind, exciting players, controversial coaches, great stadiums, excessive price of refreshments, crappy weather/schedules and the list goes on. 

And anyone here can identify any concern they may have...so no ctiticism intended. 

Edited April 26, 2019 by Rod Black

[MC]

Xenophobia??  CFL fans are scared of white Canadian males?  Is that why many CFL fans have beards? - because they are too scared to look in the mirror.

What am I missing?

[MC]

I generally refrain from making critical comments about quantum physics. I have never studied it or had any personal experience with it.

Then why do so many people make critical statements about collective bargaining?  

Better to be quiet and be thought of as stupid than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

[Colin Unger]

6 minutes ago, MC said:

Xenophobia??  CFL fans are scared of white Canadian males?  Is that why many CFL fans have beards? - because they are too scared to look in the mirror.

What am I missing?

I'm suggesting there has been more a reaction to Ambrosie's Diversity is strength and CFL Global initiatives and in some part there is an element of xenophobia that's coming out in complaints about the commish as a result of these initiatives. Not the majority of people who are against these initiatives are xenophobic not by a long shot.  But I would imagine that there would be a percentage who are. 

[MC]

2 minutes ago, Colin Unger said:

I'm suggesting there has been more a reaction to Ambrosie's Diversity is strength and CFL Global initiatives and in some part there is an element of xenophobia that's coming out in complaints about the commish as a result of these initiatives. Not the majority of people who are against these initiatives are xenophobic not by a long shot.  But I would imagine that there would be a percentage who are.  



This really surprises me.  That is very disappointing. 

[Floyd]

Does Xenophobia mean fear of letting your eastern franchises go bankrupt and the entire league shut down due to strike action...?

[Noeller]

I get what Colin's saying and actually agree with him, in that there's angry old white men who don't want any kind of change ever (it's an Alberta thing that I'm discovering exists outside these borders...).......

.....Having said that, I really think all this is a moo point and we'll everything will proceed as normal this season...

[Bigblue204]

23 minutes ago, Noeller said:

I get what Colin's saying and actually agree with him, in that there's angry old white men who don't want any kind of change ever (it's an Alberta thing that I'm discovering exists outside these borders...).......

.....Having said that, I really think all this is a moo point and we'll everything will proceed as normal this season...

Can you put this comment in video form for me?

[Colin Unger]

 

1 hour ago, Floyd said:

Does Xenophobia mean fear of letting your eastern franchises go bankrupt and the entire league shut down due to strike action...?

Well yeah... if a strike lasted long enough to make that happen then he'd be fired I guess with a long with everyone else.  Obviously, a one day or one week strike would have next to zero impact on the league.  Many of the CFL fans who are highly critical of his handling of the labor negotiations have kept tying that into his Global initiative even though the two are completely unrelated. You see comments on facebook all the time of people saying "he's too busy spending time in Mexico to negotiate" and other similar red herring comments. These are people who are clearly irked by the whole Global Initiative. He didn't delay the negotiations because he was too busy it was obviously a pressure creating tactic.  Just like not paying bonuses and just like the players threatening to strike. These are all tactics used to create pressure. With no pressure, there is typically no movement in negotiations.   I have no doubt there will be an agreement with no games having to be rescheduled but it wouldn't surprise me if we ended up missing a day or two of camp. 

[Mark H.]

2 hours ago, Noeller said:

I get what Colin's saying and actually agree with him, in that there's angry old white men who don't want any kind of change ever (it's an Alberta thing that I'm discovering exists outside these borders...).......

.....Having said that, I really think all this is a moo point and we'll everything will proceed as normal this season...

 

2 hours ago, Bigblue204 said:

Can you put this comment in video form for me?

I'm sure he'd even throw a couple of Alberta steers on the video...

[SpeedFlex27]

4 hours ago, Colin Unger said:

That may have been a bit strong.  I would imagine the majority of what I'm referring to here would be in the change resistance category and only a minor element of it is in the xenophobia category. 

And you say I'm overly dramatic? Take a look at you take before you criticize me. 

[SpeedFlex27]

2 hours ago, Noeller said:

I get what Colin's saying and actually agree with him, in that there's angry old white men who don't want any kind of change ever (it's an Alberta thing that I'm discovering exists outside these borders...).......

.....Having said that, I really think all this is a moo point and we'll everything will proceed as normal this season...

Says the man who ******* because he would rather read than watch a video & rants about it here? Like we care. Must be an Alberta thing.  You're fitting in quite nicely as you age. 

[SpeedFlex27]

3 hours ago, Colin Unger said:

I'm suggesting there has been more a reaction to Ambrosie's Diversity is strength and CFL Global initiatives and in some part there is an element of xenophobia that's coming out in complaints about the commish as a result of these initiatives. Not the majority of people who are against these initiatives are xenophobic not by a long shot.  But I would imagine that there would be a percentage who are. 

Colin, you're full of ****.  Actually bullshit. Left wing progressives will find racism wherever they look whenever they have nothing else to talk about. It must be a gift. 

Edited April 26, 2019 by SpeedFlex27

[Colin Unger]

1 hour ago, SpeedFlex27 said:

And you say I'm overly dramatic? Take a look at you take before you criticize me. 

You were being overdramatic.    I just didn't choose my words carefully enough.  I didn't mean to suggest that you were being xenophobic but I can see how people would have taken it that way based on what I had typed. I should have been more clear in terms of who I was specifically referring to rather than the way I wrote it.  The way I wrote it clumped everyone who didn't like Ambrosie as being at least partially Xenophobic which was my mistake. 

 

The part where i think you were being overly dramatic is to suggest that if there's a strike then he should be fired.  I would say that if there's a strike and it ends up costing the CFL games that's when his decisions may be negatively impacting the CFL.

[SpeedFlex27]

1 minute ago, Colin Unger said:

You were being overdramatic.    I just didn't choose my words carefully enough.  I didn't mean to suggest that you were being xenophobic but I can see how people would have taken it that way based on what I had typed. I should have been more clear in terms of who I was specifically referring to rather than the way I wrote it.  The way I wrote it clumped everyone who didn't like Ambrosie as being at least partially Xenophobic which was my mistake. 

 

The part where i think you were being overly dramatic is to suggest that if there's a strike then he should be fired.  I would say that if there's a strike and it ends up costing the CFL games that's when his decisions may be negatively impacting the CFL.

Yet, somehow in your response you found xenophobia & racism?  Now you're just over the top. 

[SpeedFlex27]

4 hours ago, Rod Black said:

For the most part I can’t say that CFL football fans put much thought into what the Commish does or doesn’t do. His performance in the role is far down the list of fan priorities way behind, exciting players, controversial coaches, great stadiums, excessive price of refreshments, crappy weather/schedules and the list goes on. 

And anyone here can identify any concern they may have...so no ctiticism intended. 

Fair point but I think  fans are starting to wonder what is going on & are  concerned that training camps won't get started on time. I know that I am. As a fan, I want to see the players get treated fairly. I don't like the fact that Ambrosie doubled down the previous Commissioner's directive not to pay off season bonuses due to players. I think a lot of fans see that as money owed contractually & therefore should have been paid. I think most fans don't want to see the ratio reduced to 5 Canadian starters. I believe fans don't understand this CFL 2.0  initiative nor has it been explained very well. The Players should have come to the table in January instead of delaying it to mid February & the CFL shouldn't have delayed talks 3 weeks this month for reasons no one understands. This has been a very convoluted off season. Hopefully, things get back on track bargaining wise.

[Colin Unger]

1 hour ago, SpeedFlex27 said:

Yet, somehow in your response you found xenophobia & racism?  Now you're just over the top. 

What I did was react to what you had said in my first sentence and then after that, I transitioned into a larger conversation about why some people don't like Ambrosie.   I believe the vast majority of people who don't like him are simply scared of the change he's bringing.  I'm scared of it to especially in terms of affecting the Canadian Ratio.  However, there's definitely people out there who are both CFL fans and are Xenophobic.  Believe me.  Where I live there's a still a lot of Xenophobia and a lot of CFL fans and sometimes it crosses over. Just ask Andrew Harris what it was like growing up in Steinbach.  Most of the people are great but there's still too many people who have old fashioned views.   And when I used to live in Calgary it was the same thing.

[Colin Unger]

1 hour ago, SpeedFlex27 said:

Fair point but I think  fans are starting to wonder what is going on & are  concerned that training camps won't get started on time. I know that I am. As a fan, I want to see the players get treated fairly. I don't like the fact that Ambrosie doubled down the previous Commissioner's directive not to pay off season bonuses due to players. I think a lot of fans see that as money owed contractually & therefore should have been paid. I think most fans don't want to see the ratio reduced to 5 Canadian starters. I believe fans don't understand this CFL 2.0  initiative nor has it been explained very well. The Players should have come to the table in January instead of delaying it to mid February & the CFL shouldn't have delayed talks 3 weeks this month for reasons no one understands. This has been a very convoluted off season. Hopefully, things get back on track bargaining wise.

I agree with you on how things haven't been explained very well.  But I must that this has been a great offseason for CFL attention.  I feel like every day there has been something newsworthy happening in the CFL.  The global stuff has been great for publicity, you had the Bo Levi Mitchell NFL Saga, then you had huge contracts going to several top QBs, more global stuff, the CFLPA negotiations. All this without even mentioning Duron Carter and his twitter battles or discussions on how the AAF would affect the CFL.  It's been an offseason where the CFL has been able to consistently keep people's attention. Not a bad thing at all. 

[SpeedFlex27]

8 minutes ago, Colin Unger said:

What I did was react to what you had said in my first sentence and then after that, I transitioned into a larger conversation about why some people don't like Ambrosie.   I believe the vast majority of people who don't like him are simply scared of the change he's bringing.  I'm scared of it to especially in terms of affecting the Canadian Ratio.  However, there's definitely people out there who are both CFL fans and are Xenophobic.  Believe me.  Where I live there's a still a lot of Xenophobia and a lot of CFL fans and sometimes it crosses over. Just ask Andrew Harris what it was like growing up in Steinbach.  Most of the people are great but there's still too many people who have old fashioned views.   And when I used to live in Calgary it was the same thing.

Why are you still in this Xenophobic kick? There are NHL fans that are Xenophobic. NFL fans that are. MLB & NBA fans.... People who don't like sports that are Xenophobic. I bet more than a few Xenophobes are going to watch the Avengers: End Game tonight all over the world. So folks in Calgary are Xenophobes but not Winnipeg. Can we just can this conversation now???

Edited April 26, 2019 by SpeedFlex27

[Noeller]