Pro sports Black Lives Matter boycotts should be supported

A Fred VanVleet card.

    Black Lives Matter and it is a good thing boycotts are happening in the professional sports world in North America to support this movement.

    If you watch television news channels or check out social media lines over this past week, it is unfortunately apparent that racism is alive and well most noticeably when it comes to African-Americans in the United States.

    At times, it feels like things are so bad on this front one wonders if society in North America has advanced since the 1960s and the days Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X were leading civil rights movement rallies. On another sad note, history records both men were assassinated with Malcolm X and King Jr. dying in 1965 and 1968 respectively.

    In the current day, the unjust deaths of Breonna Taylor in March and George Floyd in May at the hands of police in the states of Kentucky and Minnesota respectively ultimate caused the creation of the Black Lives Matter movement. Taylor and Floyd are both of African-American decent.

    On Sunday in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Jacob Blake, who is also of African-American decent, took seven bullets in the back from police in an incident that was captured on video and circulated by various media agencies. Three of Blake’s sons witnessed the incident as Blake was shot leaning into the driver’s door of his SUV.

    Blake had warrants out of his arrest based on charges of third-degree sexual assault, trespassing and disorderly conduct in connection with domestic abuse, but it is unclear if police were aware of those warrants at the time of the shooting. Those warrants were vacated on Friday.
    On Tuesday, Blake’s father, Jacob Blake Sr., announced that Blake Jr. was paralyzed from the waist down and that doctors do not yet know if it would be permanent.

    Also on that same day, the United States Department of Justice announced there would be an investigation into that shooting and the investigation will look into whether Blake’s civil rights were violated.
    Rusten Sheskey was identified as the police officer as the shooter. He along with Vincent Arenas and Brittany Meronek were all by Friday placed on administrative leave by the Kenosha Police Department because of their involvement in the shooting of Blake.

A Norman Powell card.

    The Blake shooting led to the professional athletes protesting systemic racism and police brutality by boycotting games. The boycotts in the NBA started on Wednesday and were slated to run through to Sunday. Action in the NBA playoffs is set to resume Saturday.

    The WNBA postponed all its games on Wednesday and Thursday.

    A number of MLB games were postponed from Wednesday through Friday. A total of five out of six MLS games were postponed on Wednesday.

    The NHL postponed all its games on Thursday and Friday. The NHL Playoffs are slated to resume on Saturday.

    In the NFL, a number of teams have cancelled practices starting with the Detroit Lions on Tuesday. A total of nine teams cancelled practices on Thursday.

    Tennis star Naomi Osaka pulled out of her Western and Southern Open semifinal match on Thursday in Mason, Ohio, to take a stand for the Black Lives Matter movement.

    Following Osaka’s decision to walk out, the U.S. Tennis Association, Women’s Tennis Association and the men’s ATP Tour announced all semifinal matches set to take place on Thursday would be postponed.

    While those that don’t like the Black Lives Matter movement have argued Blake’s arrest warrants were reason to side with the arresting officers, they totally miss the point.

    The overall bottom line is that in the United States there has been a problem where police services in general in that country have harassed African-Americans who haven’t done anything wrong.

    Over the last three days, numerous stories have been told by African-American professional athletes about the racism they’ve faced in their lives and unjust encounters they have had with the police mostly in the United States.

    Unfortunately, sharing these experiences has brought out some of the worst in the general public. On Thursday, Claire Hanna of CTV Regina produced a story about Jordan Reaves, who is a Canadian, and Chad Geter of the CFL’s Saskatchewan Roughriders navigating racism for supporting the professional sports boycotts.

    On Friday, Roughriders receiver Shaq Evans voiced his disappointment on Twitter about how some in Saskatchewan have put down the Black Lives Matter moment and the professional sports boycotts. He said he wondered if he still wanted to play in the province.

    About three hours after that Twitter stream, Evans put out an apology for potentially offending all the good people in Saskatchewan.

    All three are African-Americans.

Jordan Reaves in action with the Roughriders in 2018.

    Back on Tuesday, guards Fred VanVleet and Norman Powell, who are both African-Americans, of the defending NBA champion Toronto Raptors talked about their frustration with continuing systemic racism and police brutality and talked about boycotting games.

    On Wednesday, The Milwaukee Bucks were the first team to take action when they elected to not take the floor in the NBA bubble at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at the Walt Disney World Resort near Orlando, Florida, for Game 5 of their first round NBA playoff series against the Orlando Magic. The rest of the sports boycotts followed.

    The NHL took criticism for not boycotting it playoff games on Wednesday. On Thursday, the NHL players lead the charge in joining the other professional leagues in North America in boycotting games.

    All the players from the four remaining teams in the Western Conference post-season bracket appeared at a press conference in the Edmonton bubble on Thursday. Veteran Vegas Golden Knights right-winger Ryan Reaves, who is Jordan’s older brother, spoke about the importance of including all allies in the Black Lives Matter movement hinting people make realizations at different times depending on their backgrounds.

    “There’s a lot of white athletes in here,” said Reaves. “I think that’s the statement that’s being made now.

    “It’s great that the NBA did this and MLB and the WNBA – they have a lot of black players in those leagues. But for all these athletes in here to take a stand and say, ‘You know what? We see the problem, too, and we stand behind you.’ I hate their guts on the ice, but I couldn’t be more proud of these guys.

    “The statement they’ve made today is something that’s gonna last. These two days isn’t gonna fix anything, but the conversation and the statement that’s been made is very powerful, especially coming from this league.”

Ryan Reaves speaks up for change. pic.twitter.com/xr81Xd9s4c

— Vegas Golden Knights (@GoldenKnights) August 28, 2020

    On the ice, Reaves is one of those tough and hard to play against agitators. He is a player you hate to play against, but he has developed a lot of respect in the NHL with how hard he plays the game.

    That respect was shown early Thursday by reach outs from Tampa Bay Lightning defenceman Kevin Shattenkirk and Vancouver Canucks players asking how Reaves was doing with regards to the racial turmoil. That started the road to the NHL game postponements on Thursday and Friday.

    Besides the athletes speaking out, I remember finding a spoof video on YouTube of the fictional world of Transformers about two or three years ago that had a moment that tried to make comedy of the friction between African-Americans and the police. It wasn’t comfortable to watch.

    In the video, an African-American man happens to show up out of nowhere and stand beside Megatron, who is the leader of the bad guy Transformers, the Decepticons. At this point, there is no battle going on.

Shaq Evans turns after making a catch for the Roughriders in 2019.

    Prowl, who is with the good guy Transformers, the Autobots, and has the ability to change into a police cruiser, immediately blows the African-American man away in an unprovoked attack. All the Autobots look horrified at Prowl, who transforms gets out of Dodge as fast as he can.

    While that video was jarring, it underlines the tension between African-Americans and the police.

    No matter how you cut it, systemic racism and police brutality in the United States is real. Canada also has its faults to with systemic racism.

    While some may disagree, the police in Canada have the reputation of being way more professional than their counterparts in the United States.

    Over the last few days, professional athletes in North America did shake up society with their boycotts. They should be applauded and supported for compelling us to have difficult conversations that need to be had.

Huskies, SMF create options for displaced high school players

Huskies RB Adam Machart (#20) follow at Mattland Riley block.

    One of the recent local feel good stories in Saskatoon goes to the University of Saskatchewan Huskies football team and Saskatoon Minor Football.

    Both programs are doing their best to create opportunities for high school aged players in Saskatoon to continue to improve their skills in the game.

    On August 19, the Saskatoon Secondary Schools Athletic Directorate cancelled high school football for the fall along with cancelling play in high school cross-country running, soccer and volleyball due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

    After the high school football cancellation, the Huskies and Saskatoon Minor Football worked to plan out complementary programming for the displaced high school players that can be conducted under Saskatchewan’s COVID-19 guidelines.

    The Huskies, who play in the U Sports ranks, are running an elite camp that starts this coming Monday and will run through to Thursday. The camp will run on Field #11 north of the Education Building on the U of Saskatchewan campus.

    The players will be divided into offensive and defensive positional groups for the sessions.

    On top of the Huskies camp, Saskatoon Minor Football is opening its North Saskatchewan Academy up to high school students in Grade 10 to 12. Grade 9 students are eligible to play in the Kinsmen Football League, which is run by Saskatoon Minor Football.

    The SMF program will be similar to its annual spring academy with skills and development followed by a league draft and mini games or controlled scrimmages. The SMF camp will run at Saskatoon Minor Football Field.

    If games are played, it will depend on how Saskatchewan’s COVID-19 protocols evolve. There are hopes that games can be played in six-man format.

    The six-man game of tackle football is commonly played by Saskatchewan’s high schools in rural areas.

    Both Huskies and SMF programming are filling up fast.

    Registration for the Huskies camp can be found by clicking right here, and the SMF academy can be found by clicking right here.

Sask Five Giants claim SPBL title

The Sask Five Giants were snagged a league title.

    The Sask Five Giants were able to do what most sports teams haven’t this year – claim a provincial league championship.

    Last Sunday, the Giants, who are based out of Martensville, traveled to Regina and blanked the host Athletics 2-0 in the Under-18 AAA Saskatchewan Premier Baseball League championship game at Optimist Park.

    The Giants scored one run in the top of the second inning and added a key insurance run in the top of the sixth inning.

    Cooper Price went the distance on the mound for the Giants striking out five batters and giving up only three hits. Jesse Lubiniecki took the loss on the hill for the Athletics striking out six batters in six innings of work.

    The Giants advanced to the SPBL final after downing the Diamondbacks in Saskatoon 12-2 in the North Division title game on Aug. 21. The Athletics took the South Division championship game 10-1 over the Regina White Sox on Aug. 21 in Regina.

    If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.

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Tournament, interprovincial travel ban clamps down Sask. summer sports season

There is no interprovincial travel for minors sports teams in Saskatchewan.

    It will be all about house leagues and city leagues, if competitive sports are played in any form this summer in Saskatchewan.

    After Saskatchewan entered Phase 3 of its reopening plan on Monday, minor sports organizations and teams waited to hear announcements for dates of when the first and second parts of Phase 4 would occur.

    The reopening plan was created to start returning Saskatchewan to action in a world that is in the grip of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

    In the first part of Phase 4, sports and recreational activities for children and adults may resume including activities taking place on soccer fields, volleyball and basketball courts, baseball diamonds, lawn bowling greens and football fields.

    The second part of Phase 4 will see indoor pools, indoor rinks, libraries, museums, galleries, movie theatres and casinos and bingo halls open to the public.

    Full contact sports like tackle football, rugby, wrestling, boxing, martial arts and ice, ball and field hockey with checking will not be allowed during any part of Phase 4. Athletes can do conditioning and skills training in those sports, but won’t be able to engage in competitions with the way these plans unfold at the moment.

    During a press conference on Thursday, the Government of Saskatchewan said it plans to announce a date for the first part of Phase 4 early next week.

    At that same press conference, deputy premier and minister of education Gord Wyant said kids’ sports and activities will go ahead this summer. He proceeded to add there would be no tournaments or interprovincial travel for sports teams and no handshakes.

    The big bomb there was the fact tournaments and interprovincial travel for sports teams was nixed. It would be safe to say most sports organizations likely weren’t expecting that to come down the pipe.

    It is safe to say minor sports bodies were hoping to conduct competitions within the province including provincial championships.

    The Government of Saskatchewan did not define the length of this tournament and interprovincial travel ban for sports teams. One has to wonder if it will extend into September, October, November or December, when the weather turns cold and the winter sports season usually starts up.

    On Tuesday, Baseball Sask announced it was cancelling all of its provincial championship tournaments citing it couldn’t wait any longer for a date to be announced for the first part of Phase 4.

    Softball Saskatchewan and the Saskatchewan Soccer Association haven’t announced what the fate will be of the provincial championship tournaments each of those bodies run.

    The tournament and interprovincial travel ban will likely end the hopes of Saskatchewan Rugby hosting provincial championships as well.

    Golf Saskatchewan annually hosts a pile of provincial championship tournaments in junior, men’s and women’s amateur, men’s and women’s mid-amateur and men’s and women’s senior amateur play. All of those have sizable followings, and all of those events have to be thrown into doubt.

    Since golf is an individual sport, it might be able to get around the tournament and interprovincial travel ban, because groups of players traveling together wouldn’t be considered teams. Still, the Government of Saskatchewan didn’t provide any clarity on this front.

    On the summer hockey front, it is considered a contact sport and there is a tournament and interprovincial travel ban, so it is likely the rinks won’t see any sort of games this summer.

    The announcement of the tournament and interprovincial travel ban was skillfully tucked in with announcements regarding grad ceremonies and places of worship on Thursday.

    Outdoor grad ceremonies can have 30 graduates for class and 150 in attendance overall.

    Places of worship will be allowed to have one-third of the seating capacity of a building or a maximum of 150 people whichever is less.

    Those two announcements drew the bulk of the attention on Thursday. Concerns about graduations or attending places of worship actually far exceed concerns people have about returning to the world of sports.

    As for the provincial sports scene, it is possible that the Government of Saskatchewan and the medical officials could make new decisions making a return to play more of a possibility for even contact sports.

    Still, there are a tonne of questions about the tournament and interprovincial travel ban for sports teams. Hopefully, more details about the travel ban will emerge sooner than later.

Third Saskatoon Black Lives Matter rally draws 1,000

Protesters take a knee at Saturday’s Black Lives Matter rally in Saskatoon.

    Saskatoon seems to have the magic touch when it comes to hosting peaceful anti-racism rallies which have been held across the world to support the Black Live Matter movement.

    The third such rally occurred in downtown Saskatoon on Saturday and around 1,000 people turned out. The rally ran from noon to about 4 p.m.

    The march started at Kiwanis Memorial Park, moved to the police station, cycled down to city hall and finished up back at Kiwanis Memorial Park. The protesters in the march filled the air with chants and a number of people carried signs.

    There were speakers who took centre stage addressing the crowd at each stop of the march. At the police station, the protesters at the rally took a knee for eight minutes and 46 seconds to remember George Floyd and other minorities who lost their lives unjustly at the hands of police.

    These demonstrations were triggered due to the death of Floyd, who is African-American, on May 25 after he was arrested by police in Minneapolis, Minn.

    Video of the arrest showed Floyd being pinned on the ground with a police officer identified as Derek Chauvin driving his knee into the back of Floyd’s neck.

    Four officers were fired over the incident including Chauvin, and at first, Chauvin, who is Caucasian, was charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter over Floyd’s death. The charges against Chauvin were increased to second-degree murder on June 3.

    The three other officers - Thomas Lane, J. Kueng and Tou Thao – were charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder.
    The crowd at the Saturday rally in Saskatoon was about 60 per cent between the ages of 18 to 24. The rest of the crowd encompassed various age backgrounds.

    The rally seemed to attract a number of families too. A wide variety of cultures were present as well.

    The rally wasn’t as big as the one held in Saskatoon on June 4, which was called the “Justice for George Rally.”

    It is now estimated the crowd at the June 4 rally contained around 4,000 people. About 95 per cent of the people at that rally were age 18 to 24.

    The one noticeable difference was the presence of the Saskatoon Police Service. At the June 4 rally, members of the Saskatoon Police Service mingled with those at the rally, which include posing for pictures.

    The Saskatoon Police members did a great job of blocking off streets to allow the June 4 march to happen without any hiccups.

    Since that time, a number of other stories have come out in the mainstream media regarding police clashes with minorities and a couple of high profile cases in Canada involving interactions with police and people of First Nations decent.

    Some of the stories include clashes between those attending Black Lives Matter rallies in Montreal and the police service in that centre, where protesters were tear-gassed and pepper-sprayed.

    The organizers of Saturday’s rally asked for the Saskatoon Police Service to not have a presence at that rally. The Saskatoon Police members kept their distance and efficiently blocked off streets to allow Saturday’s march to take place.

    There were calls at the Saturday rally to defund the police in order to transfer money into social programs to deal with issues of racism and mental health. The “defund the police” line originated in the United States due to the continuing racial turmoil in that country.

    The people in the Saturday rally in Saskatoon made their voices heard, and everything went off in a peaceful way.

    If the rallies continue to happen in a peaceful way, it will help those organizing the rallies to get their anti-racism message out.

New heights for COVID-19 frustration, other thoughts

People in the COVID-19 pandemic want to get after each other like this.

    One has to wonder if frustration over the COVID-19 pandemic is reaching new heights at least in Saskatchewan.

    Over social media lines, it seems there are a large number of people that want the province to start returning more to normal due to the low number of COVID-19 cases in the province. As of Saturday, there were 23 active cases in Saskatchewan including one person in intensive care in Saskatoon and one receiving in patient care in the northern part of the province.

    Between the four western Canadian provinces in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, there are a total of 67 hospitalizations as of today due to COVID-19 with nine of those cases needing intensive care.

    There are a lot of people on social media lines who want restrictions to be relaxed, and they do not want society to be held down by those low hospital rates. These people want to be out and about and live their lives like normal.

    There are still others who view the COVID-19 pandemic as a serious crisis and believe restrictions are being relaxed too quickly and everything should be locked down. Those people fear leaving their homes.

    There are a handful of people who look at the Worldometer statistics to try and determine how dangerous COVID-19 is. Worldometer seems to be extremely accurate in counting deaths in real time.

    At the time this post went live, Worldometer stated 432,475 deaths due to COVID-19 this year. Worldometer also stated so far this year there have been 3,711,624 deaths by cancer, 2,259,154 deaths caused by smoking, 1,130,291 deaths caused by alcohol, 759,706 deaths by HIV/AIDS, 484,615 deaths by suicide, 443,281 deaths by malaria, 220,187 deaths by seasonal flu and 139,684 deaths from mothers giving birth.

    It should be noted that HIV/AIDS has been a pandemic for decades.

    The Worldometer also stated at the time this post went live there was over $180,792,000,000 spent on illegal in the world so far this year.

    No matter where you sit in belief on how dangerous COVID-19 actually is, it does seem people only look at the situation from their own person perspective. There doesn’t seem to be much empathy for those who see things differently.

    If you have a job in an industry that is keeping you financially sound at the moment, it seems some in that situation don’t care if others slip to poverty due to the fact those others work in an industry that could totally collapse due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

    It is almost, “I’m glad that is not me, and tough luck to the other person.”

    It is safe to say chronic stress regarding this situation that has no end date is affecting a lot of people.

    If everyone could find a way to a touch more kind and empathic, that would help.

• Blake Nill, who is the head coach of the University of British Columbia Thunderbirds football team, agrees with the cancellations of the fall sports seasons announced by U Sports, the Canada West Conference, Atlantic University Sport and Ontario University Athletics that were announced on Monday. Nill told J.J. Adams of Postmedia for a Tuesday article, “Ultimately, universities have to provide leadership. They have to set an example. And this is absolutely about that.” Adams’s story can be found by clicking right here.
• On Thursday, multiple media reports out of Regina stated late University of Saskatchewan Huskies football team running back Samwel Uko tried to seek help for mental health issues from a Regina hospital twice on May 21, which was the day he died. The 20-year-old died of an apparent suicide by walking into Wascana Lake. Overall, this is just a horrible thing to hear about.
• Gregg Drinnan, who was the best ever when it came to covering the WHL, posted a lengthy column on his Taking Note blog on Friday about the various difficulties the sports world is encountering with the COVID-19 pandemic. That piece can be found by clicking right here.
• A year ago today on June 13, 2019, the Toronto Raptors downed the Golden State Warriors 114-110 in Game 6 of the NBA Finals at the Oracle Arena in Oakland, Calif. With the win, the Raptors took the best-of-seven series 4-2 to capture the first NBA title. There were huge watch parties across Canada including in downtown Saskatoon to view that win. Right now, there are likely a lot of people in the country who would want to go back to that moment.
• On the uplifting front, big congratulations go out to Muenster, Sask., product Logan Hofmann. On Thursday, the 20-year-old right-handed pitcher was selected in the fifth round and 138^th overall by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the MLB Draft. Hofmann played this past season with the Northwestern State University Demons baseball team in the NCAA Division I ranks. With the Demons in a shortened season, Hofmann pitched 28 innings without allowing an earned run. He won all four of his starts striking out 38 batters earning second-team all-American honours. Hofmann will turn up from time to time to train at the Gordie Howe Sports Complex here in Saskatoon.

    If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.

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    If you like what you see here, you might want to donate to the cause to keep independent media like this blog going. Should you choose to help out, feel free to click on the DONATE button in the upper right corner. Thank you for stopping in.