by mike in boston — hatemailaccount [ a t ] gmail [d o t] com
photo credit Calgary Sun
Richard Peddie misses the spotlight
Peddie always drove me crazy. Whenever there was some controversy or firing or hiring or trade he was front and centre talking about the move and giving his thoughts. This must have been what it was like to be a Yankees fan during the Steinbrenner era, except that Peddie didn’t own the team — he just acted as if he did.
As Peddie’s tenure was winding down he moved out of the spotlight and I forgot about him, but he’s back with a tell-all book. Sean Fitzgerald met with Peddie to discuss the new book. This is an odd piece – he cites many of the controversial parts of the book but offers no opinion or critique. Why no analysis from Fitzgerald? It reads basically as a promo for the book. This is the first time I have clicked on a Fitzgerald link. I don’t think I’ll bother again if this is what he does with his column.
More NHL cheap shot violence
Cox has an interesting take on the mess that is the Buffalo Sabres. MacGregor takes a strong stance. As i said last week – GMs are addicted to goons. Suspensions alone can’t solve the problem. Start penalizing the GMs who give these morons contracts.
And in a surprise to no one, Our National Embarrassment came to the defense of Scott and blamed the coach for not playing him enough. Go away Don Cherry.
Raps season preview
I’m not really a basketball fan but I watched the Raps during the Vince era. This is a nice recap of the off-season moves and some players to watch for as the season gets under way. I take it Rachel Brady is new to the beat because one of the Globe’s commenters went off on her for this piece.
World Series Game 3 recap
Really enjoying Griff’s work here.
MLSE to hang Bon Jovi championship banner at ACC
PPP … fuck yeah! One of the best blogs on the internet.
I may be in the minority but there's little worse than sports radio talking nfl betting
— jonah (@yyzsportsmedia) October 24, 2013
When I was a teenager I had a sunday morning job where the FAN was on in the background. Betting guys just come across as such scum bags. TSM is right. But is there any difference between betting and fantasy football? Neither one is really about the actual outcome of the game?
I don’t hate the betting talk, but I do tend to tune out, probably like most non-gamblers. That recent Broncos-Jags game and some being convinced the Broncos were somehow not trying to cover the spread was idiotic — as though the team would actually care about not covering the spread instead of comfortably winning the game.
Mark Fainaru-Wada will be on the Daily Show October 31. I would have thought it would be a better fit for The Colbert Report to accuse him of attempting to destroy America.
The only Sean Fitz-Gerald thing I remember recently reading happened because I was looking for articles on the Rogers Centre grass situation. It was about David Braley saying he intended to sell the Argos in the next three years. The article repeated the bizarre yet apparently increasingly popular myth among some in Toronto sports media (McCown, Brunt, Perkins) that the Argos were “squeezed out” of BMO Field, to use Fitz-Gerald’s phrase; Brunt said they were “outmanoeuvred”. The only manoeuvre involved the Argos turning their backs on a deal a few months after they had signed it. You can ignore this if you’ve already seen my past posts on the subject, but I’ll point out real articles to again show that the Argo owners at the time, Cynamon and Sokolowski, walked away from the stadium project in May 2005, after having agreed to be part of it in October 2004, completely of their own volition, electing to stay at Rogers Centre despite promising everyone they would build a new smaller stadium for their team and being offered the chance to get one for only $20 million of their own money. Given what happened then and what we later learned about these guys, and in the absence of any other reasonable explanation, it sure looks like they never had any honest intention of spending any of their own money on a new stadium. The Star claimed some at York University wanted to sue the Argos for backing out of their agreement. The Canadian Soccer Association stadium project was only revived a few months later, after MLSE had stepped in to replace the Argos, and the city of Toronto replaced York U. And by then it had become a smaller cheaper soccer-only stadium that had to be quickly finished by the April 2007 deadline, with no involvement from the CFL or Argos because they had completely walked away from the project a few months before the new plan was finalized.
http://www.yorku.ca/yfile/archive/index.asp?Article=3464
http://yfile.news.yorku.ca/2005/05/04/argonauts-confirm-theyll-stay-in-rogers-centre/
http://yfile.news.yorku.ca/2005/05/05/york-not-suing-argos-over-stadium-deal/
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/council-approves-soccer-stadium-deal-1.526986
Quote from the Oct.2005 CBC article:
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The stadium deal appeared dead in May when the CFL’s Toronto Argonauts announced they were staying at the Rogers Centre, a move that jeopardized the Canadian Soccer Association’s plans to build a new outdoor stadium at York University.
In deciding not to relocate to York for the 2007 season, the Argos also withdrew $20 million originally pledged to the building of the new stadium. After the Argos pulled out, the university followed suit and took off the table the $15 million it committed towards the project.
The Canadian Soccer Association’s stadium deal was revived, however, when negotiations between Major League Soccer and MLSE escalated over the past few months.
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@yyzsportsmedia You mentioned in a tweet that changes were coming to Sportsnet care to elaborate?